The DWmegawad Club plays: Alien Vendetta

[Steve D]

Map09 – Castle Gardens by Kim Andre Malde

This map struck me as very dull.

I can understand making an exploratory map. I didn't really catch on to that until too late. I have this idea in my head that Alien Vendetta is a super-hard megawad loaded with maps like Hillside Siege, but so far, the first episode isn't like that. I was literally at the blue door thinking, "Okay, this is where you have to face the music. You've been lulled to sleep but now you face the Cyberdemon." But it was just an exit.

There was an interesting part earlier when you see a Revvie and it's like an homage to The Gantlet, with distant Chaingunners firing away and starting infights. This was also the first area where it became obvious that monster-block lines were a thing in this map. This is a primary reason for the gameplay being so dull.

It's not like I hate the map -- although it's a guarantee that I'll never play it again – but I did hate the encounters. It might have been better to have either fewer encounters or to use weaker monsters that die faster. Instead, you're forced to bludgeon your way through piles of helpless Noble meat. ZZZZzzzzzzzz.

I enjoyed the wall-climbing to get the Blue Armor secret, though it looked like there was a missing texture on the other side of the door.

I also liked the Archie room with its jagged metal columns, and the library with bookshelves arranged like turbine blades. Unfortunately, I didn't figure out the Blursphere secret until after the Chaingunner warp-in, though I didn't suffer as a result. I didn't have to worry about the Blursphere's spider guard, either, since I faded it earlier with the single-shotty.

There were various tasty architectural details throughout where Malde plays with ceiling heights, for example at the mini-Stonehenge surrounding the Rocket Launcher. So this is something of an art map, reminiscent in tone of Map01 in Enter Night, by Rob Berkowitz, which featured, among other things, a beautiful skylight over a fountain. It was also at least 10 times harder than Castle Gardens.

The best and the worst of this map is summed-up in its lower cavern section. The custom midtexture gave us glowing veins of nukage on the wall, an extremely cool effect. There was also rubble on the floor from a collapsed ceiling, a nice detail. The cavern itself was serpentine in shape and very nicely lit, and all to give us Dead Hell Knights Walking, the poor Nobles trapped behind monster-block lines, the designated victims in a boring ritual slaughter. Perhaps this is why we seldom hear anyone shout, "Give us more art maps!"

[gaspe]

Map09: There are quite many hallways and a more straghtforward combat but I enjoyed it nonetheless. Like the previous map it doesn't go for a majestic scale and style but it has a good lightning and it's plenty of cute stuff here and there. In particular the library room, the garden entrance with the torches and the ship. Those nukefalls in the final dungeon are a very nice touch. The midi kinda fits but but the place doesn't look so ominous like the midi suggests.

[antares031]

MAP10 - Toxic Touch
ZDoom, UV - Pistol Start, KIS(%): 100/100/100

An underground dungeon with lots of toxic sewage, and a little bit of completely safe green goo. Seriously, if you're designing a level, please be strict to damaging floor effect to those toxic flats (especially your level consists lots of damaging floor flats), and use different floor textures for harmless sectors. This inconsistency is really annoying to me so far, to be honest. But just ignore this flaw, and let's talk about the level. While the progression is linear, the author did a nice job to decorate the sectors with exquisite architectural & lighting details for this vanilla doom level. To me, a well-designed architectural detail is one of the best compensators for a linear level progression, and this level is a good example. The downside of highly-detailed sectors is the lack of variation of the size. Most of combats take place in small rooms, and this repetitive combat experience may be boring to some players. But then again, there are some monster closets to spice the combat, including lots of shotgun zombies. The secret placement is a little bit disappointing, since I was expecting some lots of secret places, just like the previous level. But it's not a big deal, actually. To me, despite of some issues I've mentioned, it's one of the most memorable levels of this megawad.

[mouldy]

MAP08 - “Beast Island” by Jan Endre Jansen, Anders Johnsen

Quite the journey this one takes you on. Does a good job of keeping things interesting on the way, with a variety of settings and melancholy atmosphere. Nothing super deadly, although i did die a couple of times, one of them doesn't count because i dropped down from the battlements onto what looked like a shelf but was in fact an inescapable pit of lava. Bit cheeky that. Favourite part was exploring the fortress, but its all good.

MAP09 - “Castle Gardens” by Kim André Malde

More castle storming. Very nice looking map, lots of interesting visual details. Enjoyed exploring all the corridors and caves. The most memorable bit for me is that damn green torch secret which is such a pain to drop down into, and then your reward is a point blank mancubus which took off most of the health I got back from the soul sphere. Quite a sudden unmarked exit, I guess the next map will follow on directly.

[Capellan]

Map10
Have some corridors! More corridors! More! Corridors for everyone!

When this level breaks out of its fascination for 64-128 wide spaces and expands into larger areas, it is often quite engaging. Not always - the tedious sniping of helpless chaingunners near the exit, or the toothless demon trap on the plasma gun come to mind as obvious missteps - but often.

Unfortunately, while those ‘larger scope’ encounters are generally a step above the ‘wall through corridors with fire button pressed’ sections of the map, they also feel very gated and static. This is the mapping equivalent of a term paper. You answer each question in turn and then move onto the next one. Definitely not my preferred kind of tempo.

I found one of the two marked secrets, as well as two unmarked ones (berserk and green armour).

Linearity remains an issue for the mapset; map05 remains one of the few which didn’t feel like they only ever had one way forward. Inconsistent damaging sectors is also a bugbear of mine. There’s a perfectly good slime flat that good have been used for all this non-damaging nukage, guys.

While I am complaining: unmarked key doors. Oy vey. The exit’s unmarked too, but at least that’s obvious in context.

Looks-wise, it’s well put together, with some lovely lighting. The alignment on the metal textures is sometimes a bit odd, but that’s not very noticeable while playing. If visplane explorer is to be believed, there are a couple of places where it is technically possible to VPO vanilla doom.

Overall, this was okay. Better than the last few maps, certainly, though well short of map05 or map06.

[baja blast rd.]

map10

The second map in a row by Kim Malde, and this was fun too. I was expecting a slog, honestly, when I glanced at the comments about hallways. The playspace is roughly 5500x5500, and most of it is corridors and small rooms. But progression was very intuitive and most of the opposition is of the low-tier sort, so the map went by a lot faster than I was expecting. Until the halfway point, ammo was surprisingly tight for a map mostly staffed with zombies, which also made it more exciting than it would otherwise have been.

The texturing and surface-level design scheme has much in common with map01's -- monotextured, braces -- but I loved the shapes, especially here, and the way the path interconnected at various points. A funny moment when I picked up the plasma rifle: I instantly left (because why not :D), and then a few seconds later I was greeted by a couple of ambush groups that couldn't leave their rooms. Climactic spider mastermind didn't outstay its welcome, averting the almost inevitable problem with climactic spider mastermind duels. Hooray for the BFG, instead of just a few cell packs. I liked the AV skirmish at the end (the earlier ones too), a nice minimalistic setup where the MM exerts a bit of arena denial pressure and the vile roams, with the pillar as cover for both.

Criticism? Eh, maybe too many rooms and hallways looked anonymous. Fun map overall.

[Deadwing]

10: This feels like a continuation from the previous levels, more corridors, cramped spaces, fortress setting and same MIDI style (but this one is much better haha). Enemies also are placed kinda the same way, but this time you'll deal with hitscanners, which are always dangerous and make this more fun. Still, there's way too much door/cover fights. 6,5/10

[Magnusblitz]

MAP09: Castle Gardens
100% kills, 4/7 secrets

This is an alright map, more notable for its aesthetics than its gameplay. Lots of nice work here with the lighting and some interesting detailing, and the non-linear layout is nice. Unfortunately the ending is really a bog (lone hell knights in small corridors, Zzzzz...) and minus points for the unmarked exit. Some fun secrets though.

[Spectre01]

Map 10: Toxic Touch

Yeah, I remember really hating this one when I first played it and while my opinion has improved somewhat, it's still not a great map. To start, here we have my least favourite setting in all of Doom, the underground nukage facility. This map is extremely linear but winding enough to make backtracking a major pain in the ass. And man did I have to backtrack all the way to the Berserk area because the author thought it was clever to put a bunch of enemies in an unmarked secret that requires you to run through damaging crap and phase through fake metal bars. On both sides. Yeah, naw man that's BS. Speaking of damaging, just like map01, the author can't decide whether to make his green slime hurt or not. Also, what's with the pain sector here? Super hot torch or something? The intermission screen area does look pretty cool though. Some other tomfoolery includes the late green armour hidden behind a non-secret secret fake wall. Also, the symmetrical closets with 10+ Shogunners are just ugh... why? Otherwise the gameplay is mostly chaingunning hordes of dudes in tight hallways with a few Viles here and there.

[Paul977]

Map 10 Toxic Touch:

Some eye candy here in the form of layout, architecture and brightness usage. A linear map set in the basement of a castle which flow very well accompanied by a beautiful midi. All these elements mixed together make you want to keep on going to discover new areas until the final where we return to see the sky (this is the effect I have playing this map).
Gameplay point of view this is a map based on the hitscanners, so, careful play pay here. Replaying I did not find it particularly difficult and also the first time I played it I remember I died only one time at the hitscanners/imps teleport ambush (was continuous tho).
A very well designed map, my favourite of e1.

[Aquanet]

MAP09: Castle Gardens

Ooh yeah, I was ready for a Malde double feature. Definitely enjoyed the kind of off-kilter doom 1 feeling of the bigger rooms. I liked the palatial flatness of these areas as a design constraint. On the down side, the evenly spaced nobles near the exit were dull, and there's a problem in this map and the next with lining up a bunch of the same enemies in a hallway and letting you grind through them.

MAP10: Toxic Touch

I died an embarrassing number of times to shotgun guys, but there's too many cool little rooms (I like small room maps like this) for me not to be entertained. The transition from this to the next map is pretty harsh as you're plopped down in front of a giant shard of ashwall, so take your time. Maybe noclip to the spooky deathmatch arena hidden in the middle of MAP10.

[Demon of the Well]

Map 10 -- Toxic Touch - 100% Kills / 100% Secrets
"Toxic Touch" was absolutely one of Alien Vendetta's must-see maps back in its own day, along with map 20 by the same author. A narrative continuation of the subterranean delve that began with the conclusion of "Castle Gardens", the setting here is an elaborate, vaguely Byzantine sewer/groundwater system, now coursing with a nameless toxic effluence like poison through the veins of a regicide. Unabashedly linear in flow and mostly claustrophobic in scale, this is the sort of level that hangs its hat on its sense of setting and aesthetic virtues, rather than on a highly dynamic/kinetic approach to combat/encounter design.

I spent about 30 minutes in the map this go-round, but it's really only around half that long in runtime in spite of fielding 350+ enemies--I just spent a while strolling around perusing the scenery, you see. Zombies of various sorts constitute a sizeable majority of the aforementioned bodycount, with imps and pinkies making regular appearances as well. Mid/upper-tier demons are rather rare, and are generally presented in a very 'what you see is what you get' sort of way, appearing mostly as cappers to the ends of the various subquests comprising the progression rather than as spoilers or lethal thrusts. Most of the danger present elides from a scrappy element of attrition of sorts: with all of the bullets and buckshot that will be caroming and ricocheting off of the sewer walls, regularly absorbing damage is all but assured unless you're playing at a snail's pace, and the somewhat headscratchingly late placement of the level's only armor vest (in a non-secret secret, at that!) underscores this. Yet, there's also quite a lot of medicine scattered about, and so provided you keep ripping and tearing at a brisk pace, it's not difficult to maintain forward momentum while healing on the run.

Actual encounter variety is pretty limited outside of a brief trap or two (including a couple of those quaintly malfunction-prone "monsters behind an illusory wall see you and then hopefully teleport out" setups that a lot of mappers seem to hit on early in their careers), and a couple of the placements fall a bit flat (spiderdemon would've been better as a cyberdemon, IMO, and shotgun squads inside the non-secret secret damage-taxing tunnel-runs off of the eastern room are a frankly baffling inclusion), but nevertheless there's a lot of character here for something as relatively guileless as this is. Again, I appeal to that ephemeral quality I call 'bloodiness': The cluster-style placement of mostly soft bodies represents a smorgasboard of satisfying SSG multi-kills, and there are a number of playfully idiosyncratic zombie-trail segments that you can tear through like a buzzsaw through pallid flesh-colored ganache with the berserk fist or chainsaw, provided you've found one of them. The key to a really stylish run, though, is rocket budgeting--many of the later zombie-posses and closet-squads are prime fodder for instant devastation via a well-placed explosive shell, but of course this requires not blowing your load on larger targets earlier on (which is not much to ask, given their simple placement). In that sense, I suppose this is again a level that most fully shines on a replay (of course, some would say that this is true for the vast majority of levels ever), although its atmosphere should more than carry the first date, I reckon.

And it is brilliantly atmospheric--you can almost feel the cool, damp air and smell the wet stone once the game loads and the languid Duke3D 'Plasma' midi kicks in (this is the map that made said track a popular selection for PWADs, incidentally). Even taking the modern community's heightened allergy to cramped into account, I think this level still holds up extremely well even to this day from a style/structure standpoint. Texture/color selection and lighting choices make a consistently strong tandem, and the overall setting has an impressive sense of completeness and hinted-at internal logic for something that is at base a series of small rooms sausage-linked together. The twists and turns and gradual ascents and descents admirably convey a sense of wending one's way through a labyrinthine complex, and periodic surface details like grates suggesting further outflow tunnels or the cylindrical shafts in the ceiling of the pre-mastermind chamber shore up the illusion nicely. Structures suggesting the workings of the system are regularly worked into the playspace in a variety of interesting ways, elaborate enough to suggest some definite function but (necessarily) abstract/stylized enough to leave just what said function might be largely up to the player's imagination, in that distinctly Doom-y way. It all comes together quite nicely, and leaving aside a handful of interstitial passages each area is visually distinctive even as they all share a very uniform texture scheme. Impressive work, a good example of flavor communicated through shaping and architecture rather than decals and doodads.

In its own day, this map was a golden child. In this day and age, we are fortunate enough to have a breadth of perspective and the necessary grist for comparison to look at it in something of a more grounded context, where the relative lack of depth to its action element is more apparent. Nevertheless, for my part I still think it holds up quite well on the whole, something like one of those 80s/early 90s action blockbusters which maintains its capacity to entertain and enthrall even as its age becomes ever more apparent.

[Peckles]

07 - Showdown

Yep. Not bad by any means, just nothing particularly compelling. Looks fine, plays fine, but yeah, pretty forgettable.

08 - Beast Island

There's probably a lot more to be said for the atmosphere than the gameplay, but I did enjoy exploring this one. The map relies on that atmosphere, which I thought was strong enough to carry the bland-ish gameplay well enough to make it a fun experience (I feel like I'm putting one of these HMP disclaimers in every post, but yeah, it's probably a bit more tedious on UV). The effects of primacy and recency help 08 out a lot, too--for me, the middle section was the least remarkable, and the opening and closing bits were the strongest. I love the mood of the dilapidated village at the start, and though the castle was kind of underwhelming once I got inside it, the cyberdemon fight was fun. So far, as a Doomer, my favorite maps are atmospheric ones like this that pull you into an interesting locale, so I can forgive the gameplay being a little flat. One near-death experience with the archie that pops out when you snatch the soul sphere back at the village--I wasn't expecting a trap, least of all an AV spawning right on top of me, and I actually missed the sphere. He got a good blast in before I could dive behind cover. That said, it's not really a challenging map overall. The last rev (or 2? I forget) that open up with the exit do complicate the cybie fight, but hell, I had the BFG.

[gaspe]

Map10: I love the setting and the atmosphere in this one, but if you don't dig them I don't think you will enjoy so much this level. The lightning is really cool and while the map uses only few textures most of the rooms have something unique. Combats aren't exactly engaging and there are lots of corridors. I think it's interesting how pretty much all the ammo comes from the zombies that populate the level, and the few tougher monsters were a nice touch though there could have been some more of them I think.

[NuMetalManiak]

MAP10 Toxic Touch

And I said something about hitscanners in the last map. Here though, the cramped nature actually HELPS against those freaks, and one particular teleport ambush is of the TNT kind, where it's possible to shoot them before they teleport (and they can shoot too). Still linear, still excellent lighting. One will also wonder about those sections with cage textures that can be walked through for shotgun guys and some health, not to mention losing it just getting there. The yellow key has a hidden berserk nearby.

Yellow door has first potential bullshit moment right after it, the best way is to hit the wall at the very end and turn around and shoot, although you might have up to a hell knight to contend with. From then on, it's very straightforward, including the area where the intermission screen is as well as the blue key. Gunning down a ton of zombiemen in a corridor is what makes this memorable, although a later level is where it's REALLY memorable, and that's what I liked most about Alien Vendetta anyways.

Alright, one thing I don't like going further into the map, those bars you can just open. It's really not obvious that they can be opened just by pressing use, which can stump first-timers. The rest is again straightforward, with a dicing of symmetry at a point, with a spiderdemon guarding an outer walkway at the end. Great stuff, certainly memorable, and that big monster count goes down pretty quick.

[Pirx]

MAP08 - “Beast Island” by Jan Endre Jansen, Anders Johnsen

nice journey here. from ruins through caves through a ravine and finally to a castle. the ruins have a surprise archvile that spawns when you pick up the soulsphere. ah, but i would have needed the berserk pack earlier. the caves: the shotgunners can be the most dangerous enemy here. the mountains are a bit like a cardboard cut panorama. finally, the fortress is a plain square, one can ignore the rabble outside, shoot the cyber (who doesn't pose much of a threat thanks to how many cells we can pick up), and the final archvile at the gate also comes alone. very atmospheric, certainly helped by the music (thanks now i know where it's from), but a bit undeveloped in places for today's taste.




oops, i can't pass? there goes my illusion




what now???


MAP09 - “Castle Gardens” by Kim André Malde

shows it age, imo. an opening view of a castle. at least it's consistent with the previous map. the moat hurts and only exchanges some shells for bullets. on the right side you get an armor, however. the castle keep is just a series of corridors and often badly chosen monsters strewn along, the worst offender being the one where you waste shells on a series of pinkies. also, the room with the triple barons, one has to shoot them from the stairs. ok, the bfg surely comes nice for this part, but if you don't, the map is rather tedious.




viking ship?



MAP10 - “Toxic Touch” by Kim André Malde

i can understand that this map was a poster child for AV, see the title screen is from here. those sewers have a great atmosphere, again helped by a melancholic tune. howver there are frustrating parts, like the crampedness of some hallways, plus lots of hitscanners. or the zombies down in the pool at the archvile, wtf. there's no armor until you get the green one hidden in a wall, some medikits must suffice. well there are some medikits in nukage-filled canals, but also shotgunners, and no raduit, so there's not much to gain by entering here. even more shotgunners later, hidden behind walls. i remember the map mostly because of its slaughtering of former humans. the spider at the exit gets a bfg in its nose and is done. so, nice map, just the mass of shotgun guys wasn't my taste.




you can shoot through




intermission ;)

[antares031]

MAP11 - Nemesis
ZDoom, UV - Pistol Start, KIS(%): 100/100/100

Ah, this level. I have a mixed feeling about this one. Personally, the invisible border around the ocean is not my favorite level design. But I do like the overall design and layout of the fortress with green marble textures. The detail is a little bit underwhelming, compare to other levels with elaborate architectural decorations like Mutator's. I always wanted to put a rotunda in sector 48, right in the middle of the center hall. Most of monster placements are not bad, except some of them are questionable. I really hate the chaingunners above the cliff, forcing me to press the screen size - button. And while I didn't have many problems with fortress section, the last cave section had a different story. The detail of inside of the cave looks good with good lighting details for brick dungeon rooms. But it's too narrow to navigate your way inside the cave. And I must say that the entrance of cave is a little bit cryptic, almost like a secret area. Lastly, if you're designing a locked color-key door (or locked steel bars for this level), please make sure to place a color-key signs around the door or bars. It's a little bit frustrating for me to check the color of key for locked door by knocking on the door by myself.

[sgtcrispy]

Ah, this one made me laugh. I just played through AV a couple weeks ago.
Good luck on the rest of the wad doomers.

[Pirx]

just tried to have that dumbass vile in the same position as in the intermission screen (should be in front of the stimpacks, the shadow right in my view doesn't fit his fire). he didn't get it how my magic was suddenly such much better than his and kept running around, casting his spell in my face. the bloody door is from the imps who lacked respect for such a memorable scene. this screen stuck in my mind, obviously, and has a nice shadow effect from the torch and the columns. so here it is in hi res glory.

[Salt-Man Z]

MAP09: Castle Gardens
25:11 | 100% Everything

This one was fine, though the gameplay definitely flagged in a couple of spots, notably the pinkie tunnel and the HK tunnels. I liked the exploratory aspects, though, and hunting out the secrets was fun. That soulsphere drop was just a total pain, though. The nested blursphere secret(s) stumped me for ages (I never found them my two prior plays, either) but this time I figured it out by giving the library a second once-over. Speaking of which, the blue key ambush was hilariously telegraphed: I circled to the back of the room, then grabbed the key on the way back to the door, where I simply camped out the ridiculous number of chaingunners that teleported in. (I thought it was fun, at least.)

[rehelekretep]

map10 - 92% kills / 50% secrets - fda here

one of my favourite of the set so far. what a difference a midi makes - absolutely love the atmosphere in this map, which allows me to forgive an awful lot about the gameplay:

1) the ridiculous invisible room trap, no idea if that displays differently in software mode but its awful in GL.

2) the worst secret ever; a chainsaw, and an opportunity to slowly plink away at the enemies at the switch with your pistol- who are quicker and easier to take out when you get there via normal progression through the map. you cant even return to this secret with better weaponry as the trip is down a sewer shaft!

3) the revenant room after the RK really had me stumped as i didnt think to press on the thin bars covering the switch, which was a bit annoying.

the rest of the map is mostly straight up shooting gallery, but there are some nastier bits, like the soldier pit/archvile room (slightly comical as to why the soldiers are in there), the mancubi chamber with its inescapable pits, and the series of shotgunner traps near the end keep you on your toes.

luckily, the visuals on this map are just fantastic; the room rdwpa mentioned, the intermission screen room, the 2 big chaingunner stepped rooms, the RK room, the sinous corridor just after the RK are all quite beautiful in an understated way - interesting shapes, good lighting, detailing like the ventilation piping, slightly inset into the walls etc.

some of the shotgunner traps near the end are down-right nasty and i was very lucky that i escaped, ditto with the final AV that almost got me, leaving me vs the spiderdemon while on 13hp! this had the pleasant side-effect of making that fight quite tense.

[mouldy]

MAP10 - “Toxic Touch” by Kim André Malde

Nice looking map. Has a peculiar mix of gameplay choices, there are some devious little ambushes here and there but also a lot of rooms and corridors that have just been filled with as many monsters that will fit, which you then chew through pac-man style on a long wiggly journey through the sewers. Some great lighting and detail, but also some rather cramped and awkward geometry in places. Nothing I would cry about though. What I would cry about is the green slime, which is sometimes damaging and sometimes not, very annoying.

[Capellan]

Map11
I’m not very impressed with the opening visual of this map. The water just stopping at sky thing doesn’t look good at all. And the invisible impassable lines don’t help.

Once you’re through the opening cave sequence, though, things really pick up. There’s an optional cave to explore if you want, and lots of neat ways to navigate the second compulsory cave section of the map. Then you’re into the fortress, and things get much more freeform. I spent a lot of time desperately running around the place, trying to find the health and ammo to stay in control of things (with varied degrees of success). Visually the castle is perhaps a tiny bit bland - there’s a whole lot of marble3 here! - but the action is sufficient that you rarely have time to think about it while playing, and there are a few embellishments here and there to break things up.

Gameplay-wise, things take a turn for the worse once you have the yellow key. The remaining sections of the map feature a lot of narrow tunnels - can’t imagine this is much fun in co-op!) and switch-hunting. It’s a shame because some of these areas do look very nice.

In the final assessment, this is a solid map. It perhaps overstayed its welcome a little with the constricted switch-hunting at the end, but it was well worth the time to play.

[Spectre01]

Map 11: Nemesis

Now this is the first real adventure map in AV, with a large size, plenty of verticality and numerous paths to explore. Getting 100% on this bic boi took me a good 55 minutes. Let's get the negatives out of the way. The texture use and geometry outside is, frankly, atrocious. First of all, the ocean cuts off way too close, ruining any sort of island illusion the map is trying to create. Second, Ashwall3 looks terrible everywhere it's used and is spammed viciously, and with a vendetta, on absolutely everything inside and outside the "mountains". This not only makes the caves look awful, but also obscures stairs and passageways since every damn thing has the same texture, including the floors which are the asswall equivalent flat. Ugh. Speaking of mountains, they're giant geometric blocks sticking out of the water that look like crap. Also, this part looks like you can jump over but it's blocked.

Not done roasting the caves though. The final section before the exit is full of utterly obnoxious geometry that gets you stuck and caught on absolutely everything, assuming you can actually move around at all in those cramped hallways. There was one staircase where I ended up bumping my face into the wall while going down. Also, no amount of sector detailing will help when you spam Ashwall over it. If anything, it ends up looking messy and even worse. Now onto the castle. It's all green marble, metal and full of texture cutoffs and misalignments. There are also a few sections where you go up a metal staircase with the same texture as the metal walls which creates the same effect as the Ashwall where you can't see shit since the steps blend into the walls. This map also has a few deep water swims, one of which will HOM in GL ports like in map01. There's also very little in the way of lighting contrast in the green marble castle and it feels like the sector brightness is too darn high.

Now, having said all of the above... this is still the best map in the first "episode" and a fitting closer to the Sunset Sky chapter. The sense of scale is what I expected going into AV, and the other 10 levels aren't exactly impressive in that regard. The monster placement is generally good and the count is lower than several prior maps which take 1/5th the time to clear. The Archvile in the tower was quite neat. There's some ammo management required in the first half and finding the Berserk on Pistol Start is necessary to not waste all your shells on Demons, Imps and Spectres. Eventually you grab the BFG with a bunch of cells which is nice for killing the Cyber, Mastermind and Viles that pop up frequently in the latter half of the map.

TL;DR: Rough aesthetics. Fun castle gameplay. Crappy cave sections, especially the part before the exit.

[gaspe]

Map11: From the start you can't see much of the castle, and the moment when you climb into the first cave and at the top you have a view of the building is really cool. The cliff outside looks very rough though, but I think that's to make the areas to fit in the vanilla limits. The castle is full of nice stuff in the architecture (windows, arches...) but it's a bit lacking in the lightning and the eccessive green in some spot makes it look a bit dull. The castle it's really spacious compared to cramped caves and the catacombs near the exit. The doors could have been marked though. The gameplay was quite good, and it was a nice change to fight many different kind of monsters compared to the previous map. A great map to conclude the first episode, it's probably on of the levels that I remembered better.

[Deadwing]

11: This level starts good but unfortunaly overstays its welcome with these caves and closed spaces. That section felt like filler: Cramped space after cramped space, shooting bulky enemies from cover and then being lost in this labyrinth even though progression was linear lol

I love that MIDI, though, and the first half concept is really cool (isolated island with a hell fortress on its top, very climatic.

8/10 for the first half, 5/10 for the second, so 6.5/10.

[Steve D]

Map10 – Toxic Touch by Kim Andre Malde

Toxic Touch has the distinction of being an extremely impressive map that I simply don't like. It's also becoming clear to me now that I did, in fact, play a lot of Alien Vendetta back in the day, because not only do I recognize the next map, but I remembered that Caco at the bottom of the stairs in this one – a strong contender for the most douchey moment in Toxic Touch – because I hated it just as much the first time. ;D

What I didn’t remember is how impressive the architecture is. I'd say that we once again have an art map from Malde. DotW did a superb job describing the sense of an actual, working nukage facility through details like pipes going through walls, nukage falls into pools -- some of which seem mechanistic in design -- and room shaping that serves the purpose of suggesting that this is a sewer, yet a very high-class one. There is also impressive use of the green sewer brick, one of the best textures in Doom 2, yet one used far less than its quality deserves. Malde uses it to create atmosphere through, as others have said, inherently interesting shapes as well as excellent lighting. The intricacy of the nukage falls and nukage wells made me think that here we see the beginnings of design elements that will lead one day to the masterpieces of Ribbiks.

But while we want attractive architecture in our maps, in Doom this architecture must also – and primarily – serve the purpose of creating interesting options for combat, and it is here where Toxic Touch stumbles. I suppose one could argue that Malde is quite obviously designing certain key combat scenarios to favor the monsters. You get lulled by the occasional platoon of SSG fodder, only to later find yourself at a door, with a room full of well-entrenched snipers ahead of you. The most horrid example of this was the multi-tiered Chaingunner-nest room just before the exit. The room is huge, but it's architecture is so involved that you are limited to small paths between nukage, which in this room is damaging, whereas elsewhere it was not. If Vorpal or Lee are reading this, I have to ask if there were discussions on this topic back in the day?

This room seeks to use a cork – a Spectre – who prevents you from entering and also blocks your shots at the Chaingunners. I've said it before and I'll say it again, I hate this meta-gamey tactic. I've seen it a million times by now and I hope that mappers will soon stop doing this because IMO it's boring. Aside from said Spectre, there are lines of unseen Sergeants hugging the wall. I was at 58% health with zero armor, so this was quite the pickle to be in. I was also concerned about my ammo and was reluctant to SSG the Spectre, but if I tried to punch it – I didn't find any secrets but I did find the Zerk! – even a brief burst from a Chaingunner could drop me by 20 – 30%. It was like being in a straitjacket. Not fun. So much for Doom being a game of speed and movement.

As often happens, I got frustrated and Ramboed the room a couple times, leading to quick deaths. Of course I promoted infighting among the Chaingunners, but there were so many of them that several were always disengaged and ready to perforate me. Fighting Sergeants at the door courted disaster from even a single hit.

It took several tries, but finally I killed everything from the doorway. I felt like the American Expeditionary Force storming the beaches at Normandy and encountering Fortress Europa up close and personal. Damn, those bunkers have thick walls! ;D I soon died again at a massive Sergeant trap that I heartily approve of. I'm surprised more mappers don’t use this type of mob-based trap. I think I'll do just that! ;)

I found myself suffering once again from middling health when I up against the final Archie. Much to my chagrin, this was another Invincible Archie loved by the RNG Gods, because he simply would not flinch. Huge SSG blasts right into the chest failed to restrain his attacks. He laughed as he killed me again and again. On one attempt, I crowded him into his little chamber and he started doing the Doom Monster Dance because the space was too small. At last, I've got 'im! Or so I thought. I crowded him a little too much and accidentally grabbed the BFG. The auto-select gave Archibald McJagoff just enough time to roast me in flames. After that, I found one weapon that did cause him to flinch – my Zerk fist. I think this is the only time I've ever killed an Archie with my fist alone. I have to admit it felt pretty damn good. ;)

I can see how this is an iconic map that influenced future Doom architects, and the choice of a relaxing, pretty MIDI has been enthusiastically taken up by the slaughtermappers. I can also see how it's the kind of linear map so many of us dislike, with one way in and one way out of a room, a veritable rail shooter. Linear doesn't have to be this linear.

Malde strikes me as a High Concept mapper. The good thing about that approach is the ability to create strikingly original and memorable maps. The bad thing is that high concepts are hit-and-miss, which can lead to memorably awful maps. There's only 2 Malde maps left in this set, and given what he's shown us thus far in pathing and encounter design, I fear that all he'll do is intensify the elements.

This map also ends E1. I wish I could be more enthusiastic, but apart from Seclusion and Hillside Siege, this has been a mediocre and in fact weak episode. The maps have been fairly unattractive with mostly dismal combat, although paradoxically, some of them had rough encounters, though usually in the form of awkward and irksome mechanics, at least to my way of looking at it. The only map I'd want to play again is Hillside Siege, because that serves as good practice for more modern, meat-heavy maps, and it would be interesting to see if I can make a successful demo on HNTR, maybe even HMP.

Here's hoping Episode 2 is way more fun!

Edit:Oops! I guess Map11 concludes E1. Oh, well. ;D

[NuMetalManiak]

doubleposted by accident, my bad

[NuMetalManiak]

Hah.

MAP11 Nemesis

Up another grotto first thing on this somewhat big map. The setting is wonderful, a fortress on the mountain, with tons of varying monsters. It actually feels a lot like Estranged monster placement at times but is still servicable. Getting into the fortress is a main course, of course, but the main hall feels rather empty, at least with the cyberdemon just being there and all. Upon finding the long way to the yellow key though, the spiderdemon heard from the start comes in too. I let them infight Gotcha! style here by saving the cyber till later.

Hey guess what, it's a super cramped area after the yellow bars! It's just so hard to move around in the tight caves, and also rather easy to kill enemies too. The red key takes some work, and the blue key takes even more. There's some watchful eyes to kill as I head around getting myself lost. This whole area can take up to five minutes. It's real nasty in it's own way, and easily the low point for me. I enjoyed the fact that we revisit the water though. Somehow, water just feels more refreshing than any other texture in Doom.

[Aquanet]

Getsu Fune said:

one thing I don't like going further into the map, those bars you can just open. It's really not obvious that they can be opened just by pressing use, which can stump first-timers.

That was me, /facepalm

MAP11: Nemesis

The cave sections really drag down the fine art of ashwalling. Like people are saying, it's a shame because the great green castle is pretty cool. The latter caves have perhaps the tightest, skinniest staircase I have ever seen, and at the bottom is a switch needed for progression. Even on the automap, these caverns look a jumble. The castle also seems weirdly empty in certain areas, but I'm not complaining. More tension with fewer enemies is good cricket.