The DWmegawad Club plays: No End in Sight

[TheOrganGrinder]

E1M3: Logistics Centre

Now this one is really clever, mazelike and spooky in the classic E1M3 vein, but going above and beyond the expectations of its map slot to provide a truly memorable playground for the inquisitive marine. Mostly this is due to the map's 10 secret areas and the significant real estate they contain, in combination with the puzzle-like arrangement of colour-coded STAR* barriers throughout the map, opened by key switches and revealing a suit of blue armour at the heart of a delightfully elaborate as well as a variety of secret rooms and passages to explore elsewhere. It feels wonderfully involved and intricate, and the route to the secret exit - involving, as others have mentioned, not gunning down a particular group of monsters when first encountered but waiting instead until they can be approached from another angle through a hidden teleporter - may be unintuitive by doom standards, but the sheer number of rapidly-triggered moving sectors in that area ought to be a hint that the gaggle of imps on guard are more than decoration or just another threat; the player is invited to look at the situation analytically rather than through blood-drenched goggles, but not compelled to.

[joe-ilya]

E1M1

Eh, rather bland, just a bunch of hallways and rooms with not much going on.

2/5

[Demtor]

E1M3 - “Logistics Center” by Emil "NaturalTvventy" Brundage
gzDoom - UV – pistol start/no saves


A very fun secret hunt that really had me scratching my head until I realized you were supposed to keep the Imps alive. Boooooo!! This is Doom. If it moves, it dies. IDCLIP'ed that nonsense. Other than that, I really enjoyed exploring all of the nooks and crannies in this one. Tons of great tech base style and design with a bent toward a mazelike appearance along with a nice open ceilings tucked in now and again. Some of the secrets were a visual treat as well. Which is nice, since Doom E1 sometimes gets a bad rap for being a bit dull in that department.

Gameplay wise, nothing too difficult yet. It's too early to complain but I hope things really ramp up later.




They sure did here!

E1M9 - “Quarantine Silos” by Emil "NaturalTvventy" Brundage
gzDoom - UV – pistol start/no saves


Yeeeeessss. Loved it. Keep those mixed hordes coming! Every time I came up from grabbing a key below there was a new wave wading in to get blasted and the long reveal from the lowering silo walls was very clever. Timed release devices like that are fantastic. I had a blast running in and out of the silos, finger on the trigger.

The start is a real scramble for a weapon, then find some cover followed by ammo and by then, health. Also, what a great example of how to use the invisibility sphere.

I accidentally fell down one of the holes right after I picked up the first shotgun! Whoa. Talk about fighting for your life. I squeezed past the pack of baddies in the toxic waste while I'm taking damage, end up sitting on the lift waiting for it to go back up but it keeps coming down thanks to all of the enemies blocking it's ascent. 0_o Hahaha! Can't believe I made it out alive from that mis step.

[Salt-Man Z]

As far as pistol-starting goes: as a continuous player, E3M4 is obviously intended for pistol start, since you get a BFG (and nothing else) right off the bat, and are given hordes of zombies (no shotgunners!) to pound through with it. I'm sorely tempted to attempt pistol-starting that level, if nothing else. (Though even playing on continuous last time, once I realized the author's intent, I tried to restrict my weapon usage strictly to what was given.)

Lies. All of it. Never mind me. :)

[NaturalTvventy]

Salt-Man Z said:

As far as pistol-starting goes: as a continuous player, E3M4 is obviously intended for pistol start, since you get a BFG (and nothing else) right off the bat, and are given hordes of zombies (no shotgunners!) to pound through with it. I'm sorely tempted to attempt pistol-starting that level, if nothing else. (Though even playing on continuous last time, once I realized the author's intent, I tried to restrict my weapon usage strictly to what was given.)

You're playing on a mighty old version there. That was a joke placement of things by me because Xaser provided an empty level at the time.

[NuclearPotato]

E1M3: Logistics Center
MAX'D???? (68% kills, 60% secrets on exit)

Let's just explain the question marks up above before I continue. To get to E1M9, you have to get the red key card. The issue here is, the card is tucked away behind a set of doors that can only be opened by monsters, something I was unaware of when clearing out the level. So, I ended up restarting and reclearing most of the level. One of the secrets I didn't bother getting to the second time around was the hidden rocket launcher; I suspect not picking it up is going to bite me in the ass down the road, but hell with it, I'm playing continuous. I'm already starting out the levels with an advantage.

As for the level itself, the non-linear layout of E1M1 meets E1M2's "secrets in secrets" approach, and meshes together quite nicely. Something about how the level sprawls out reminds me more of Sandy Peterson's maps, but the way some of the hidden switches merely hint at secret areas you can get to is very Romero-esq. The level opening wastes no time in reacquainting you with Pinkies and Spectors, and is probably one of the more ferocious firefights in the level, with the other two contenders being the mass of baddies blocking you from the normal exit, and the chaos that ensures should you go for the red key without alerting the occupants of that room beforehand. Shoutouts to the mass of doors in the blue key room for being the most out of place, Peterson-ass piece of archetecture in the level (not that that's a bad thing, mind you)!

E1M9: Quarantine Silos
100% kills, 0% secrets

YEAH, I PROBABLY SHOULD'VE PICKED THAT ROCKET LAUNCHER UP.

If you were thinking this was going to remain as a DTWID-style romp, this level will wake you the fuck up. Certainly the titular silos are a league above anything in the original IWAD. We seem to be taking a detour into what passes for slaughter-light in an E1 style Doom 1 episode; which is to say, a shit-ton of low-level monsters to waste with your chaingun (or shotgun in my case; I was perilously low on bullets entering the level). This is also one of the few times you want to get the blursphere, since dealing with the curving imp shots is much preferable to getting caught in hitscanner hell. Getting the keys in this episode requires making leaps of faith into slimepits, and with only two radsuits in this level, you'd better be fast, or prepared to take some heavy damage.

I noticed after exiting the level that this may or may not lead to the super-secret level, E1M0, so I'll be taking a quick backtrack to check before the next reviews pop up.

[joe-ilya]

E1M2

This one is a lot more fun, you have barrels, nukage, catwalks, traps and everything memorable. Additionally the combat was more enticing.

My favorite part is the exit trap.

5/5

[Salt-Man Z]

NaturalTvventy said:

You're playing on a mighty old version there. That was a joke placement of things by me because Xaser provided an empty level at the time.

Hunh. That was pretty fun, though!

[floatRand]

E1M3: Logistics Center - 96% kills, 90% secrets

Bit of bummer not getting 100% on this one, but I got tired and just went with the regular exit. Couldn't brain how to open the doors to red key. They got opened by imps earlier on, so perhaps I should have left them alive?

Oh well. I don't particularly like this map. Sprawling, but gets bit samey. Plenty of secrets to find, but some I don't know how I opened, and some are annoying.
At least we are cooking with demons, now. Too bad the RL and chaingun are still secret weapons, couldn't get the chaingun until late in the map.

[Xaser]

Getsu Fune said:

The three keys are all in nukage damaging zones and it looked like there wasn't a radsuit in sight for me to use.

I believe a "No Radsuits in Sight" joke was made at least once during testing. :P

[joe-ilya]

E1M3

I really enjoyed finding the secret exit, there were subtle clues to each secret and I felt like Sherlock Holmes every time I found one.
A truly satisfying map to go through, good job to whoever made this map, although I felt that the path to the red key was unfair, because if you kill all the imps there you won't be able to get the red key.

5/5

[grommile]

E1M3 "Logistics Center (100%)

Clever and well-executed. I'm just not sure I actually liked it, and if I hadn't seen a comment about its mechanics in a thread on here, I would never have got the red key.

E1M9 "Quarantine Silos (100% kills, 75% items, 0% secrets)

This was a slog. My HUD told me there was a secret on this level; after finally managing to wade through the last of the mooks at something like the sixth attempt, I could not be bothered finding it.

[Salt-Man Z]

Xaser said:

I believe a "No Radsuits in Sight" joke was made at least once during testing. :P

I had to exit (the otherwise-awesome) E3M7 early on account of "NRIS". That was a couple versions ago, though, so hopefully it was modified.

[joe-ilya]

E1M9

This isn't that hard, actually fun at first, but when the time comes to pick up the keys it suddenly becomes a chore, you do the same thing three forsaken times untill the map finally lets you go. Ugh.

2/5

When am I supposed to play through E1M0?

[Deadwing]

E1M3: I think that was also a pretty good map, though it lacked some more strong identity, except for that silly door room and the RK area. There are 10 secrets, and no one is that easy to find. Still, I was able to find 9 in my second run (had to play again because of the dead Imps to acceess RK areas (I didn't like this lol). Anyway, I had lots of fun finding them, since there are lots of cool stuff inside (enemies, items and interesting layouts).

9/10

E1M9: Didn't really like that one, I think it lacked some health. It's a pretty unique one though and very action focused. I had to run into exit because my health was too low to try to kill all these hitscanners. 7,5/10

[bioshockfan90]

Happy March, everyone! Finally have some time this month, so let's give this a shot. GZDOOM with the settings cranked up, mouse+keyboard pistol starts on HMP.


E1M1: Terminal|4:34,100% kills 100% secrets|

A very standard E1M1, but it doesn't disappoint. Secrets are for the most part just found with a bit of patience, but are very hard to spot(namely 2 secrets in particular on this map, 1 which requires you to go in a previous secret, and the other incredibly well hidden). Baddies are restricted to low-tier hitscanners and the occasional imp or two, making this an easy, yet fun start to this great UltDoom megaWAD.

3/5

E1M2: Slime Trails|9:59,98% kills 100% secrets|

This map stays true to its name, with the primary focus of it being a platform that you have to raise out of nukage in order to exit. Some really well-designed secrets here, with one that I SWEAR was a timed secret, but just required a different approach to it. If you aren't careful enough, you can get swatted down by the hitscanners in this map, but for the most part, it's nothing too difficult. Fun map.

4/5

There! Only 1 day behind now. Gonna wait until shift ends, and then I'll fill in M3.

[floatRand]

E1M9: Quarantine Silos - UV - 100% kills 100% secrets

Oh boy, calling it a sort of slaughter-lite isn't called out for.
I actually like it, although it does drag bit on, and the limited amount of radsuits is bit of a pain. Otherwise, I had my fun.
Visuals-wise I find it rather pleasing. Layout is bit too symmetric, which can get annoying when trying to navigate around the arena. A good map, IMO.
Managed to find secret, too.

Spoiler

E1M0: Tom's Halls - UV - 100% kills 66% secrets

Didn't expect that one! A rather fun romp, with bit frantic start - at least you get invulnerability from get-go. Reminds me of a DM-map a lot with how it is laid out.
Not much else to say, frankly, other than that supercharge left unclaimed.

[Spectre01]

E1M0 is a bonus map that can probably be played any time before the start of E2.

[Salt-Man Z]

Spectre01 said:

E1M0 is a bonus map that can probably be played any time before the start of E2.

Is it accessible from another map, or do you just have to warp to it?

[Xaser]

E1M0 is a warp-only bonus map -- it was originally E1M9 before NT replaced it.

E4M0 can be reached in-game in either ZDoom or Eternity.

E2M0 and E3M0 are apocryphal entries that exist only in the project creators' heads. If you notice either of these in your copy of the wad, please consult a mental health professional.

[NaturalTvventy]

e1m3

This map's okay. There are parts I really like how they turned out, like the nukage room with the circular STONE stairs around it. Other areas not so much, like the rooms near the normal exit or the northwestern mazey area. The latter I tweaked all the way until release and still don't feel it quite feels right.

I've always believed that secret exits should require next-level puzzle solving, and hence the solution to getting to the red key.

Rating: 746/10.

e1m9

Xaser came on board NEIS while I was wrapping up episode 1. I made this map after seeing a few of his and feeling that mine would appear too old-school by comparison. Xaser sets a high, high bar. I wanted to make use of timed combat as best as the vanilla DOOM engine would allow. The 'Open after 5 minute' door can also be opened manually in most engines (but not in zdoom) if you don't want to wait around that long.

This map is a totally different kind of map than the rest of the episode, and feels a bit out of place to me due to the difficulty spike. Finishing this map and then starting e1m4 and only having to deal with a few troopers is a bit of a jarring transition. But as my and Xaser's and Chris' maps become more and more intertwined as the WAD progresses, these odd transitions become pretty routine.

I really broke some rules with this map, including using SUPPORT3 instead of SUPPORT2 in episode 1. I still feel bad about that.

Rating: 45332.6/10

e1m0:

Don't play this map. It's garbage and just got stuck in the e1m0 slot after it got replaced by the current e1m9. I didn't even want it listed in the text file but Xaser put that together. I had clearly lost my motivation to make e1-style maps by the time I made this map. It was supposed to be a tribute to Tom Hall's vision of DOOM. I think I read a post or something about what he thought DOOM should be, but honestly I can't even remember the details any more. I tried hard to use some primitive alpha textures for this map but nothing wound up looking good. Somehow Xaser managed to make use of them with spectacular results in his spaceship map.

Rating: 9/10

[Salt-Man Z]

E1M9: Quarantine Silos
11:13 | 100% Everything

Y'know what? This one's not so bad the second time. (It doesn't hurt to play continuous and come in at 200% health, either.) Knowing what I was doing this time, I just grabbed the blursphere and ran around the yard clearing out the ledges, then as the various silos opened up, I scooted around picking all those dudes off. Only once that was mopped up did I venture into the nuke pits, and knowing what I was getting into (and readying my chaingun) the two radsuits were more than enough to get in, clear out, and escape the three nukepits. My impression of this level has been upgraded considerably. I mean, I dug the concept before, but this time it was actually fun. Good show!


E1M4: Abandoned Factory
36:09 | 100% Everything

Ah, this one. Like M3, it's a sprawling thing that's like half optional. I stumbled across the (oddly tucked away) exit after just under 10 minutes. This level featured my only death so far, in the eastern nuke tunnels where hitting the switch that raises the stairs lets out a bunch of monsters. I was already weakened from the nukage (NRIS!) and got clipped in the back by a hitscanner or three. Thank you, save game. The secrets in this one were pretty intense. A few were kinda wall-humpy, which I'm mostly fine with; a lot of those end up being the case where you look at the automap and think, "There really should be a door here," and lo there is. The southwestern slow lift/silo things drove me nuts, though; I spent soooo much time trying to suss that one out. But kudos to NT, I felt very clever/dumb when I did finally figure it. One thing I will say, is that this map drove me crazy in much the same way that Suspended In Dusk did: and that is that the map is highly interconnected, but only by windows, and so you end up having to take the long way around a lot to get to areas you can see right in front of you. SiD takes this to extremes, but this one did start to grate, especially when I found the secret to raise that central platform which ended up bisecting the east-west artery. Other than that, this one is pretty cool.


E1M0:Tom's Halls
12:58 | 100% Everything

No lie, it's pretty darn ugly. A fun romp though, after a bit of a slow start. I got down to maybe single-digit health or a little higher once baddies started pouring in from everywhere and I made a panicked dash from room to room. Eventually I nabbed the chaingun, found some more health, and was pretty much set for the rest of the map. Really the most memorable part here was the surprise at the exit door; that was pretty neat.

[baja blast rd.]

NaturalTvventy said:

e1m9

Xaser came on board NEIS while I was wrapping up episode 1. I made this map after seeing a few of his and feeling that mine would appear too old-school by comparison. Xaser sets a high, high bar. I wanted to make use of timed combat as best as the vanilla DOOM engine would allow. The 'Open after 5 minute' door can also be opened manually in most engines (but not in zdoom) if you don't want to wait around that long.

Ah, I missed this because you have to press use twice on a given door for it to open.

[Steve D]

E1M3 – Logistics Center
96% Kills, 70% Secrets, 2 Deaths

At last, I have successfully died, not once but twice!

First death was really dumb. Right at the start, I ran into the nukage to get some ammo and on my return attempt got paralyze-blocked by a Spectre. Not sure if I was bitten or burned to death. Second death was more honorable, as I got blasted by a roaming Sergeant that blindsided me from a completely unexpected direction. I was blindsided several times thanks to the high monster population and the interconnecting hallways, as I had predicted in my E1M2 commentary, so I'm surprised that this was my only fatality.

The map opens with a nice variation on the theme of Toxin Refinery. I had high hopes as a result, but those soon diminished as, once again, it gets all Tom Hall mazey and the representational Romero inspiration was mostly confined to computery areas which lacked the verticality and interesting architecture Romero is known for, and which IMO makes Knee Deep by far the best episode in Ultimate Doom. Sure, it's easy, but it's fun-easy, mainly because of the cool architecture and righteous secrets.

By contrast, Logistics Center is a spaghetti maze of hallways with several push-panel secrets hidden in darkness – full disclosure, I play in GZDoom Dark with default gamma because I like the way it looks, so it's a self-inflicted wound when I fail to see clues which are bright as day in PrBoom. ;D

My main gripes are that the map is much more unattractive than it needs to be. It's mostly hallways with wide spots here and there, or high ceilings from time to time. Then there are oldschool problems like using ceiling-light textures in a whole toom with angled walls, and not cleaning them up with Ceil5_1 sectors to cover the cut-off lights. I suppose the goal was vanilla authenticity, but this, along with the frequent horizontal and sometimes vertical misalignments, just makes it look unpolished, moreso than Knee Deep itself. Second, the combat is very repetitive, dribs and drabs of roamers for the most part. Definitely keeps you guessing, but I found myself longing for at least one real setpiece that would dump a lot of enemies on me at once. I also thought there were too many Pinkies and Spectres. In common with other maps I've played featuring a similar approach, if you have to face Demons without a Zerk or Chainsaw, they drain your shotgun ammo and you might end up facing a fair number of enemies with just a pistol, as happened to me on 2 occasions. In short, the monster/ammo balance seemed a bit off.

The highlight of the map is the secret hunts, and in that regard I'd have to rate this map as perhaps the cleverest I've ever encountered. I found 7, thanks mainly to the easy Computer Map secret. I missed both Rocket Launchers and the Red Key, the latter for obvious reasons. I really should have gotten the RL right near it, but I got tired of wandering around in this maze and booked for the exit.

All in all, this map falls a bit flat for me. IMO, too much emphasis was placed on clever secrets vs. engaging combat and cool architecture.


E1M9 – Quarantine Silos
Maxed, 2 Deaths

Easily my favorite map so far. Action over adventure is what I'm after, and this map delivers. Died pretty quickly my first time out the door, but I had fun eating all that buckshot. Second try almost got me through the whole map, but I went into the wrong nukage room and faced a really big horde after I rode the lift back out. I thought I was doing pretty good, but a Sergeant faded me from long range as I was lining up a platoon of uglies for some nice rocket splatter. I was having so much fun that I didn’t keep an eye on my health. I could have survived if I'd taken a break and looked for stimpacks. Oh, well.

After saving at the wrong time, I used God Mode to figure out the key puzzle, then re-opened a save and got it all done on 1 radsuit.

Very few quibbles. The biggest is that the player fights mostly on one plane – there's no real verticality except looking up. And, uh, actually, that's my only complaint. ;D This map is fun arena combat from beginning to end. Moar!!!!!!

[Magnusblitz]

E1M3: Logistics Center
100% kills, 9/10 secrets

Another fun Tom Hall maze map, lots of interconnectivity that kept having me go around a corner, find another path, say "nah I should go back and finish that other path" only to get lost and find a third path... quite the little adventure. I agree the ammo balance is a bit off, I started finding myself almost out of shells near the end and never did figure out how to access the lone chaingun (I did find the one in the far southeast, paired with the rocket launcher, after everything was dead) so actually used the rockets on lone pinkies and imps, what a novelty. Lots of secrets (plenty of stuff that opens up for byzantine reasons), I was really glad to have the computer map to help me figure out where to go (back) to.

I'm a bit of two minds on the red key secret needing monster help... I had read the comments here beforehand, so I didn't miss it, made sure to leave the imps alive and beelined towards the red key when it was available. It's still possible to lock yourself out even if you don't kill the imps right away, though finding the other secret in the area makes the red key accessible (though you can still lock yourself out of that secret too...) Part of me wants to say it's fair game, after all, it's a secret... the other part of me says this game is 24 years old and there's so much content (and other games) that I rarely play a WAD more than once, so if I want to get the whole experience it better come the first time. Nothing stopping me from IDCLEVing I suppose though.

[Spectre01]

Some of the complaints about e1m9 are a bit strange. Especially the slog description. C'mon, it's a 5-10 minute map where you're constantly fighting something!

E1M4 - “Abandoned Factory”

Hey, that's a great Painkiller map! We return from the silo-slaughter to more familiar E1 gameplay with more emphasis on finding the 8 secrets, some of which have interesting ways of reaching them. I particularly like the platform ones where you grab one by dashing quickly as it rises and the other by stepping over the floor as it lowers. There's also this damn ledge here that leads to a Rocket Launcher. Ugh, it's so damn easy to overshoot making it rather frustrating. Just jump if you're using a good sourceport to avoid the 10 elevator rides back up. ;) The computer map secret outside is kind of strange as it's placed right near the exit. I grabbed it last and had already maxed the map at that point. I forget if the all leading outside is marked or not but I randomly mashed it to get out there. Quite a few of the secrets involve humping misaligned walls, which I'm not a huge fan of. I think this map has some interesting aspects going for it but it doesn't particularly stand out too much.

E1M0 - “Tom’s Halls”

The bonus E1 map that you have to clev your way to. The visuals are pretty out there with some bizarre architecture and texture choice. Apparently there are a lot of alpha textures used here and some of them are more realistic looking than the usual stuff, like those shelves and lockers in the living quarters. There's really no unifying visual theme here, like the odd red room, which makes for a 'unique' experience. Oh, and of course we have some long halls. I like the starting gameplay as you fight off groups of enemies converging from multiple directions. You're armed decently well from the start with Shotguns and Chainguns some steps away. Feels like a rather experimental map which makes sense in the obscure m0 slot.

[joe-ilya]

I've decided to play E1M0 after E1M9 since they're both secret levels.

E1M0

I don't see much Tom Hall influences here, Tom Hall has a lite atmosphere in his maps, this map has no atmosphere at all, it's just incredibly goofy.
The starting ambush was kind of stupidly triggered and the invulnerability made this map too easy.

1/5

E1M4

Hey, this is really fun actually, the nukage made for a great hazard and I like the cross bridge action where you shoot demons while imps shoot you from the cages from above, shootception!
This reminded me of E1M7 from Udoom mixed with alpha elements and some originallity such as the blocks of cement floating in the nukage.
The traps were frantic and never got dull.
The exit rooms are empty for some reason, is that intentional? Because if so, that's filler content that I'm not happy about.

4.9/5

[Deadwing]

E1M4 - That's a cool level which has a distinct feel of the previous ones. The first is a bit too boxy, but I liked some visual gimmicks (with all these cages scattered around, where only a few of them has monsters). The floor the rises/lower is a nice gimmick too, and the level doesn't need a key to finish. Monster placement is also pretty good, with enemies coming from all directions (it's good to see monsters walking freely lol), some sort of indirect ambushes. Again lots of secrets, though I've only find 4 of them.

9/10

E1M5 - The visual is quite goofy in this one haha but I think this level has the best "story" told for now. The layout is very intricated and sections are interconnected, where some areas that you see in the beginning you only access after you grab a key. It's a little bit more linear due to progression, but I think it was a good thing giving this more uniquess.

9/10

[NuMetalManiak]

E1M4 Abandoned Factory

Opening looks like a differently textured Command Control, and then you look at the rest and realize just how different it is. Progressing through this, I realize just how wrappy this one can get. And that's for a level without any keys too. Features this one has are the corridors on the right side which have plenty of monsters to kill, but also the lift conglomeration in the southwest, which goes up and down at the players discretion, meaning going on it makes it go off while approaching from the bottom makes it go down. Better than the lifts that go up and down on their own though. Some tricks can be done to get two secrets here. There are also a couple of ones which require precise jumping too. I really don't like the blinking stairs at the exit though.

Will check out E1M0 at the end of this episode probably. Hi

[TheOrganGrinder]

E1M9: Quarantine Silos

This one's got a big monster population for its relatively short running time, and the action is intense from the minute you step out of the cover of the first silo. It's not complicated - aside from the central arena where most of the gameplay happens, there are just a few drops into nukage pits to retrieve keys in a fixed order - but it does a really good job of delivering the kind of frantic combat experience that can really only be achieved in a level that eschews heavy weapons and tough monsters in favour of the shotgun/chaingun combo and wave upon wave of cannon fodder. It's a welcome bout of straightforward carnage after the more puzzle/exploration-oriented gameplay of E1M3.