The DWmegawad Club plays: THT: Threnody & No Rest for the Living

[Spectre01]

Level 06: Inferno of Blood

Hey, cool title and describes the map quite well. Thematically following the previous level, we find ourselves in redbrick hellish ruins, redrock caverns and, of course, plenty of rivers of blood. I've never been a huge fan of the excessive Scythe Red™ type of hell and this map comes rather close to that. It's still quite a bit of fun with finding all 11 secrets, some being rather pointless like the +5 armour at the beginning to useful stuff like the Soulsphere and Blue Armour. Playing from a pistol start, the BFG is acquired very late and I got to spam it against the final wave for like 30 seconds out of the nearly 30 minute map. Plenty of cells though to make good use of the Plasma Rifle found a lot earlier. It's nice how the red torch was used to mark some of the secret walls but I found a few of the other secrets to be a bit too much on the "random wallhumping" side. The most intense part was the demonic hordes with the Archvile converging on me in that courtyard with the Yellow(?) Key. I had no armour and low health from eating a Revenant missile, as well as an SSG against the Vile and Revs + Nobles so it was quite fun getting out alive while being one shot away from death. I said before I'm not gonna complain about armour being given too late in the map, but the green one being a secret isn't particularly friendly for pistol start play.

[baja blast rd.]

Yeah that secret lol. Thanks for the helmets!

[baja blast rd.]

What I've seen of Hellbound has left me confused about its appeal. Some of the outdoor areas are wonderful -- the woods, the canyon, the city. But the predominant design style of indoor areas is flat walls full of cheap inset detail at regular intervals. You can see the places where the author thought, "This wall looks too bare," and decided to cram a bunch of computer panels into it. Looks very unimpressive. Gameplay isn't so good either. So for curiosity's sake, I'll vote for +++ Hellbound.

[Demtor]

MAP06 - “Inferno of Blood”
gzDoom - UV - Pistol Start

Love the opening shot in comparison to the last level.





We have quickly descended into hell here.

I wonder where the next map takes us.

It feels like the monster counter has steadily gone up from map to map so far, but it actually hasn't.

UV
1 - 134
2 - 108
3 - 102
4 - 93
5 - 242
6 - 169

Spoiler

7 - 122
8 - 102

9 - 149

Starts medium, dips down, rockets up then levels out before dropping again. I don't know if that says much of anything but it's interesting in any case.

This one has a pretty tough mix of enemies both on the ground and in the air. The 4 PE's in the lava area was quite a shock. I pistol started this one for kicks and appreciated all of the ammo. Definitely needed it. Still no backpack though!? I laughed when the BK elevated out of reach as you run for it. Nice touch but again, pointless as I pistol started and went straight for the SSG and not the BK. So that little trick was amusing but didn't bother me at all.

With that said, this seems to be another map that encourages continuous play for a number of reasons. The aforementioned BK tease but also the secret hunt for the BFG. Which happened for me after every single monster was dead. Even if you got this as soon as possible, it would only really be usable for the last fight. Also that secret green armor being the soonest you get real armor, was rough. I guess when you pistol start, you're maybe looking for an extra challenge anyways. Well I had it here!

Perhaps I'm thinking too much on the whole pistol start and monster counts aspect though. It was a map pack created and released originally for XBLA after all. It's just that in my mind, with a 9 map episode done by the two same authors, things would be planned out with more reason then say a 32 map community project would be.

Overall this map was a fun challenge. Varying layouts and smaller places with decent battles and fun secrets. (Chainsawing that surprise Caco was fun, lol!) Areas you previously cleared filled up again with more monsters who were hiding behind a dropped wall happened a few times here and there. Was enjoyable to see how the landscape changed just a bit in your absence when you make it back to use a new found key somewhere.

Liked the look of the end room too. Simple but effective. Especially after clawing your way through all of the hellspawn and demons, spitting blood through it all, to finally come to
this as welcome sight. Was amusing.

[rehelekretep]

map09 fda here

this was nicely layed out (if a little bland in the texturing) but it felt empty - like it could have had 20% more enemies and been more fun.

the spiderdemon was useless, being trapped inside those barriers even though i tried my best to be an idiot and run into its chaingun!

i was surprised to have only 1 archvile spawn, and he went straight for me instead of resurrecting enough enemies from the first few waves to cause any trouble.

[Salt-Man Z]

LEVEL06: Inferno of Blood
36:14 | 100% Everything

Not a whole lot to say here beyond what I've said about previous levels. The architecture is very nicely and memorably done. The redrock/blood texturing is used very well. Combat is aggressive without being too challenging. (The most difficult moment was easily the ambush upon getting the BFG secret.) Lots of oldschool-style secrets that are fun to find. Just an all-around solid map.

[Spectre01]

Level 07: Baron’s Banquet

Another very red fortress type map with some optional content and a BFG locked behind the yellow doors. Amusingly, I visited the section near the lava but went to check on the other door after reaching the exit. What this means is that all the enemies were dead once I grabbed my BFG reward! And I was all like, "Hey, this fight after the blue door is pretty rough for an IWAD." Hardest encounter yet with a lot of meat, no cover and an Archvile in the middle behind a column. Maybe it's a good thing I missed the BFG as it was quite fun when there's some threat of dying. Another part is when you first climb the tower with the Baron and Plasma Rifle on top. There's a very sizeable Cacoswarm that emerges and attacks you through the metal bars. One of my favourite maps so far though.

Edit: Oh what the hell, the last map was so short I'll just post about it.

Level 08: Tomb of Malevolence

The Mastermind showed up in the secret map and since we haven't fought a Cyberdemon, him being the final boss is a surprise to no one. Well, except maybe one guy who held out hope for a new boss enemy. No such luck I'm afraid. After a cool little intro area with a Plasma Rifle secret, you're given a Rocket Launcher full of ammo and descend into the Tomb. There are 101 Imps there in addition to the Cyber in what's a rather cramped labyrinth that you can make into an arena by flipping various switches on the walls. The initial Imp count is 50+ and they like to pile up at the bottom of the elevator. From a Pistol Start, the biggest danger here is blowing yourself up with a rocket while getting swarmed so you gotta start the shootin' right away and make some space through the Imps. You have "infinite" rocket ammo there so there's no issue with just blasting away at everything. Hell, you could even kill the Cyber right away and I'm sure the UV-Max for this is very quick. I took 7 minutes because I felt like playing hide-and-seek with the Cyber while lowering all the walls, grabbing the secrets and killing all the Imps before taking the V-Sphere and holding down fire on my mouse while scratching myself with the other hand.

There is no BFG in this map so any continuous players rockin' one can quickly spam everything down. It's not as trivial as Dis was in the original game but also not on the level of, say Plutonia's more difficult Cyber fights. I dunno, this map feels very small, and speedmapped if you will, which leaves for a somewhat underwhelming finale. The map could and should have been made more interesting by using enemies other than Imps to make it more interesting. Throw in a few Archviles into the maze or have the Cyberdemon teleport to various spots for some more engaging gameplay.

[Capellan]

Map17
And we're done here.

Edit to add: had a hunch and checked, and yep - no difficulty settings implemented, despite the wad's text file claiming that they are.

[Demtor]

MAP07 - “Baron’s Banquet”
gzDoom - UV - Pistol Start

This one got the better of me exploration wise. I too made it to the exit before getting the BFG. Also missed out on any armor, the YK and consequentially the SSG. I failed in all that... but hey, found the RL and made due with PR and CG. So I guess there's that. Secret optional stuff can be a blessing and a curse, I suppose.

Highlights were the long walk up the tower with the Caco swarm at the top (hint: run back down when you hear them) and the final wall dropping encounter which was pretty easy thanks to all of the generous ammo given beforehand. If you missed the RL secret tho... yeesh. Hope you didn't waste all your plasma or at least found the SSG. Which in that case you probably have the BFG anyway.

[joe-ilya]

MAP09

Somewhat generic, somewhat unusual.
It's a symmetric arena, but it has a mastermind, some chaingunners and an AV, but they're easily skippable and most of the map too.

1/5

[rehelekretep]

map06 - fda here
love that opening shot! the menacing music, plus the general maze-like structure made me feel like the level was building to something that never really arrived.

map07 - fda here
got absolutely wrecked going up the tower once, and got scared shitless the 2nd time by a chaingunner. the cacoswarm was fun!

[rehelekretep]

rileymartin said:

Level 07: Baron’s Banquet

Another very red

that contrast makes my eyes go all funny!

[Spectre01]

rehelekretep said:

that contrast makes my eyes go all funny!

Haha, yeah. That GZDoom tonemap isn't making it any easier on the eyes. :P Plus the HD textures are generally sharper.

Final Thoughts

NRftL is a neat little official expansion, the best part of which is the secret hunting. I'm not going to compare it with modern PWADs since I'm sure the intent was to make it feel like an authentic Doom 2 expansion that could have been released around the time of Ultimate Doom. The maps are all polished and well-made but somewhat conservative in their design compared to other IWAD content and lack that memorable aspect that sticks with you after you're done playing. Compared to Doom 2, there's nothing as ambitious as Downtown or Industrial Zone. Also that ending text was cheesier than anything in the originals with all the bad puns.

Standout Maps: 01, 03, 05, 07

Overall Rating: 3/5

[Salt-Man Z]

LEVEL07: Baron's Banquet
25:45 | 100% Everything

It's funny how it seems half of this map is just winding your way around the spire at the beginning. Otherwise, there's not much of a footprint to it. You've mainly got three areas: the starting spire, the outdoor walk overlooking the lava lake, and the arena finale. This one rather took me by surprise because, as I said at the outset, I had most recently played a PSX-ified version of this, which removed much of the height variation to stay within PSX limits. Doing so alters the feel of the experience drastically, to the point where they're almost two completely different levels. The starting spire becomes a flat arena; the elevated walkway becomes a hallway where you can dash out the windows and across a "lawn" of lava. Not having to drop down into the lava really makes a world of difference throughout the entire map. I was shocked by how much. Anyway, the non-PSX version is still great. The spire climb is probably the highlight. Once again, the sheer volume of secrets stands out as well; I had found 7/11 by the time I reached the spire's top! Yet another rock-solid map—though it ended up being much shorter than I recalled. (I IDDQD/IDFAed through the PSX version immediately afterward, and that one's considerably shorter!)

[Spectre01]

Salt-Man Z said:

LEVEL08: Baron's Banquet
25:45 | 100% Everything

That's LEVEL07. I was confused for a second on how map08 could possibly take that long. :P

[Salt-Man Z]

Whoops! :D

[rehelekretep]

map08 - fda here

that boss music is always intimidating.

pretty inventive final arena, lowering the parts of the maze gives you a risk/reward between seeing the cyber but also releasing imps. i would like to have seen more of them in each section though.

doom's rudimentary sound gives the cyber hide-and-seek a bit of welcome tension.

waiting for the final few walls to exit the map is a little tedious if you do so after the cyber is dead, unfortunately.

NRFTL - final thoughts

really enjoyable short map set. it feels generally faithful to the IWAD template, but with some exiciting changes, like secrets that lead to extra game-content, rather than just always a benefit.

the detailing, design and texturing is all top-notch, dont remember ever seeing anything that looked bad or amateurish.

i am unconvinced by the continuous/pistol-start balance. some maps seem 100% continous balanced, but, for example, that final battle seems trivial and against developer wishes if you bring a BFG into it, rendering the Good At Doom risk null

anyway, i enjoyed it but would probably try Nightmare in future, as it was a little bit anti-climactic at times difficulty-wise.

full fda set here

[Demtor]

MAP08 - “Tomb of Malevolence”
gzDoom - UV - Pistol Start

This is it, boss fight! Hey look!! A backpack! Wait, really? With all of these rockets just laying around? NOW you give us one?! *head scratch* Decent Cyberdemon fight. Pretty simple once you get the idea of it. I really think playing through Sunlust recently has made me numb to stuff like this though. Like, this should be a normal part of a much larger map. I'm sure this was pretty cool though for the someone who got Doom 2 for Doom 2 and this was just a bonus.

All in all, NRFTL is a tightly wound map set that peaked halfway through and slipped a bit towards the end but still held up in quality. Most of it was a bit too easy and a little on the small side for my tastes, but I'm sure it worked well for most as an XBLA bonus offering with the original Doom 2. Though, I must say, The PC gaming elitist in me wants to look down my nose at console casuals who got Doom 2 for the first time and thought this was hot shit. I can't help it.

[joe-ilya]

MAP05

Muh, a cramped layout with monsters shoved in like an Indian train and a shitload of door-traps that happen in the same place, over and over again. You have to kill everything with an SSG unless you find the secret weapons and there are loads of mancs and barons blandly put in your face, what happened to the creativity of the crew? Was it all concentated on the lowering of the red skull?

1/5

MAP06

This one's a lot better because of the upper class arsenal given and all the crazy things going on with the gameplay and the layout, monsters are downwards, upwards, in front, behind and everywhere, that's what made this map work so well, and the fact that it's not as cramped as MAP05.

5/5

[Steve D]

THT:Threnody
Map07 – Fort Halderman by Gothic

Like a bad penny, I'm back. Jeez, the Mid-Month Scheduling Crisis really did a number on me this time.

This map was mostly a misfire for me. Fairly fun at the start when you had to pistol your way through zombieboys and Imps, but after that it became a nightmare of backtracking and confusion, with nothing much in the way of interesting combat. Taking out high Imp ledge snipers IMO fell into the category of what scifista42 calls "tedious shootage." I guess everyone has their own definition of what that would be, so now you've heard one of mine.

6 secrets in the map, of which I only found 2, so they're a bit more obtuse than usual.

The map looked pretty good for the most part with some nice wall detailing that wasn't always just a bunch of computer panel inserts.

Highlight was definitely the conveyor belt area, though I was perhaps most impressed by the box elevator. That was so cool, especially with the force-fieldy window which made me think of Quake 2 somehow. I died my first time on the conveyor belt fight, but after that it was as simple as running into the storeroom, turning around, and pumping rockets into the horde, along with allowing some infights to handle your light work.

My least favorite part was the exit. So much backtracking. There was no call for that since it was all just pointless busywork.

IMO, this map would be tons better if it was cut down by two-thirds and given a tight focus on the conveyor belt area, and if the exit was more straightforward without that "2 switches and tons of backtracking" gameplay, though I have to admit, that kind of thing does fall into the spirit of Evilution's sometimes wacky maps.

[joe-ilya]

MAP07

Actually feels like a continuation to MAP06, even the gameplay is intact, one thing I think could be done better in this map is the rise to the top of the tower, it felt like a bunch of corridors and that's it.
The slaughterfest near the exit is super satisfying to get through.

4.5/5

MAP08

This is the waiting gimmick done well, instead of just running aimlessly in a maze, you can open up the maze to make rockets easier to use and reveal useful items as health, the cyberdemon is kind of useless because it's contantly blocked by imps, so he's not much of an obstacle.
It's a breather when the final map of a wad isn't a okuplok-size journey.

5/5

[T-Rex]

joe-ilya said:

+++ Slaughter Until Death / The Evil Unleashed / Obituary

I have an idea now that you've mentioned those wads. I'd say for one month we tackle Slaughter Until Death and The Evil Unleashed as just a duo, cause Obituary has 17 maps while the two TiC episodes are 9 levels each. If we take on Obituary, it should be accompanied with The Trooper's Playground.

All the same, +++ SUDTIC and TEUTIC.

[Memfis]

+++ Slaughter Until Death / The Evil Unleashed / Obituary

[Jaws In Space]

I can get behind this

+++ Slaughter Until Death / The Evil Unleashed / Obituary

[gaspe]

+++ Slaughter Until Death / The Evil Unleashed / Obituary

[rehelekretep]

fair enough - i played them a while ago and i was not impressed to say the least, but willing to give them another go :)

[Capellan]

T-Rex said:

Obituary has 17 maps while the two TiC episodes are 9 levels each

It's only 32 non-secret maps. In a 30-day month like November, I'd suggest SUDTIC for days 1-8, TEUTIC for days 8-15 and OBTIC on days 15-30. So there's only the 8th and 15th where you have to play two non-secret maps, and each time one of them is a map 1.

[T-Rex]

Capellan said:

It's only 32 non-secret maps. In a 30-day month like November, I'd suggest SUDTIC for days 1-8, TEUTIC for days 8-15 and OBTIC on days 15-30. So there's only the 8th and 15th where you have to play two non-secret maps, and each time one of them is a map 1.

I understand that, though to me, while it makes sense to play the three TiC wads altogether, it would also make sense to play OBTIC and TTP as a pair since both make use of altered enemies through Dehacked, TTP was inspired by OBTIC in that sense, and the level design style and gameplay between the Moellers and Matthias Worch are pretty complementary to each other.

[Spectre01]

Four posts voting for the same thing in a row? Nope, no anti-Hellbound conspiracy here folks.

[VGA]

Obituary and Trooper's Playground please.

Speaking of Matthias Worch, he has made some retrospective videos of his Doom and Quake levels. Also, I saw him in one of the Mafia 3 trailers, he worked on that game.