The DWmegawad Club plays: Speed of Doom

[Paul977]

Map 29 The Ruins of Kalnik

 

Damn was challenging! Just completed the map so this is a 'hot' comment. Visually is my favorite Joshy map of SoD hands down, I both liked the hellish caves and the marble ruins particularly the 'bronze marble' building, very well designed and well inter-connected with the surrounding areas. The main 'ruin' is also nice designed with all the small holes in the walls. Remarkable use of brightness levels in this map also.

Gameplay was good and not insane difficult as I expected; a bit harder then map 27 not much for the encounters present, but for the ammo management that is needed to max the level, in fact, happened to me two times to reach the final fight against the cyber without any ammo. In the succesful attempt I conserved enough cell bulks to dispath the final enemies.

The hardest part was the fight with the dual cybers at the beginning, there, some infight and relative fast movements are needed to gain access to the main area where most of the ammo is located. The rest of the encounters weren't particularly difficult: just try to stay high with cells and rockets and nothing stop you. There are also two invuln, one of them in an easy to spot secret, which I found useful for the yellow key area.

Overall a very solid map, satisfying to complete, good work!

Edited April 28, 2017 by Paul977

[Grain of Salt]

My map29 review: I like the "putting keys on pedestals" effect.

[NecrumWarrior]

MAP28: Twilight Massacre

Kills: 99%

Items: 100%

Secret: 0%

Time: 27:49

 

Fun map. Would kill again.

[DAZZER]

MAP28: Twilight Massacre
Time - 41:19

 

A very Gigantic Slaughtermap with Impressive Level Design and over 2000 Enemies in it ! The Goal is to get all six Keys to exit. Every Key has its own area with hundreds of demons around it. Thankfully in every corner in this Map you find Megaspheres and tons and tons of Cell Packs. There's literally no freakin way to run out of Munition or Health ^^ Even on UV ! So I think the creator really just wanted you to have Fun killing Hordes of Enemies :) Needless to say that the only Weapon you spam in this Map is the BFG... But I think this is exactly how Slaughtermaps should be. There was always enough Room to move cause this Map really is big and open ! So a pretty good Map and it's one of the few Slaughtermaps I could enjoy but I need some time after I could play it again :)

[Nine Inch Heels]

SOD m28 "Twilight yawn*"

UV 100% casual kills in 16 : 55

PrBoom-plus demo, played very sloppy : SOD28casual1655.zip

 

Contrary to popular belief, I don't think this map actually qualifies as slaughter map, at least not in this day and age. In spite of its seemingly huge monstercount, I think it's a breather map, which is too long for its own good. You can have really good frantic slaughter maps with less than half of this map's monstercount, in my opinion.

 

Let's not get ahead of ourselves, and instead talk about some of the interesting aspects. Visually it's very solid, eventhough a higher degree of detailing is usually only found near keys. It works, aesthetically. The insta-pop monsters here are a lot less painful than in many other maps this set has to offer, so it's a bit more on the welcoming side of things, which does make a lot of sense, since 15-20 minutes are valuable time. Powerups, or rather megaspheres are placed liberally, and if you're anything like me, you're gonna need one every now and then, because either you let the map lull you into a false sense of untouchability because of how huge it is, or because you wake up all the things, so the map takes less time to clear. I did both, if you wonder... Hitscanners are limited to Archviles, which are easy to kill for the most part, and two SMMs, for whatever reason.

 

What could possibly go wrong, after you had a first look around, and memorized the most important bits and pieces?

 

You start falling asleep... After starting the map somewhat energized, holding down the trigger, and cirlce strafing pretty much all the things, your mind starts paying attention to something else. Annoyed that I didn't play my recently started WIPdubstep-mix, I had to make do with the MIDI, which isn't too bad, but it didn't keep me awake as much as I needed it, so I started playing a very sloppy "style", if you can even call it that to begin with.

 

So, why is this map not really a slaughter map? I mean, it does have the monster count, but it doesn't have the rest that makes slaughter maps interesting. It lacks the tactical aspects of slaughter. No crowdshaping, no area denial by archviles, barely any ammo management aside of "oh, I can see my pistol, time to grab more cells". Personally I think resurgence's "twi-lite massacre" is a vastly superior map.

 

Darkwave made this too easy, by repeating what made SOD map 31 entry-level slaughter, and overdoing it. Not enough pressure on the player, too much real estate, not enough viles, and nowhere near enough revenants. To add to that, there's lots of cacos and PEs here at times, which will more than merrily drift off to the edge of the map when given enough "encouragement". Did I mention that I'm not a fan of floaty rubbish in wide-open areas?

 

Anyways, I'm not a huge fan of this map, because at some point it starts dragging on more than it should. If I were to make up a subgenre of maps, this one would be a "relaxing-supersized-spectacle-breather", because that's what it feels like for me.

 

I was totally dumbfounded when I saw that this map even had a secret for whatever purpose. Why? What for? I don't know, and honestly I don't actually care too much about that.

 

*^{(Played this map while being a little tired, and the map didn't do much to keep me awake)}

Edited April 29, 2017 by Nine Inch Heels

[NuMetalManiak]

MAP29 The Ruins of Kalnik

 

Jimmy does church organs. An interesting music track for a penultimate, and another mostly slaughtermap, except since Joshy does it, it's certainly a lot harder than the previous due to less space. But again, it's not so bad, especially if you clear the demons and mancubi. Yes, those are actually more annoying enemies for this map, along with a few sniper viles and whoever is in the main ruins here. It's another three-key hub map, done a bit differently than giving us a standard three or six-key door.

 

Above all else though, it seems you constantly need a radsuit on at all times, there's damaging lava everywhere and the combat will take minutes to plow through. So the security blankets are worthwhile. Infighting was much harder to create here too. What also confuses me was the fact you had to enter the ruins through a decrepit corner to hit a switch just to get two of the keys. It's pretty easy to miss while fighting. At least the blue key doesn't end up this way, although it is still hard. The invulnerability there was pretty much necessary. Yellow key was straightforward enough, but I wanted some cover from arch-viles. Red key I got last and there was a secret invulnerability that helped out there. After that's done, let's put these keys on the pedestals (told you it was different). It would help to indicate that, at least past the cyber that shows up, we had to step on those two teleport pads, because I stood there for quite a bit wondering if something was gonna happen next. Though the candles that come in as the exit reveals pretty much forbodes MAP30's grand scheme.

[gaspe]

MAP29: Tough position to be after Twilight Massacre, but anyway this map would be disappointing on its own. Some generic red caves and a few symmetrical and orthogonal marble areas. The secret with the invuln. orb is pretty stupid with that timed door nearby. I think this is the only map in the set to have some more obscure elements of progression, I liked it. Also the next map isn't really good, Speed of Doom ends at MAP28.

[Demtor]

 

 

MAP28 - “Twilight Massacre” by Darkwave0000

gzDoom - UV – pistol start

 

BFG SPAMMING!!

 

This map is insane. Grab the BFG and solve problems with green balls of death.

 

@Spectre01, @NuMetalManiak and @Nine Inch Heels all did a great job talking about this map already so I’ll spare everyone more of the same detailing.

 

I had the most fun with the giant Caco tower as it was the first area I stumbled into. Coming off of the last map, it was refreshing to kill everything while laughing and lapping circles around everything.

 

Later on, it became clearer to me what kind of map this really was. Hahaha. Wow. Getting all six keys was a fun goal and once you opened up the door… AV’s! I knew there was something missing in this map. > _ <

[Demtor]

 

MAP29 - “The Ruins of Kalnik” by Joshy

gzDoom - UV – pistol start

 

Jeezus. Another lovely start…

 

It isn’t too often in this wad that damage floors become an issue and I’ve appreciated it so far. However, this one uses them a lot. At least they are on a lower pain setting and there are quite a few suits lying around for use. They are really useful when shit get’s crazy (I see you back there!) and the last thing you want to worry about is dripping your health away needlessly. Especially when dealing with the SMM.

 

In any case, kind of a fun map. Can be a bit painful at times but there was a lot of health laying around. Armor was short on supply though so that’s kind of a built in punishment for doing poorly. You’ll live and continue on but it will be without armor. Not sure if that was by design or happy accident but I thought it worked nicely.

 

A smart player would grab this IV sphere and run around the spiders to reach the switch and kill those AV’s as fast as possible so there is just enough juice left to handle the four cyberdicks.

 

Clever use of the fire barrels to add an extra flair to that detailing.

 

The central building, once you manage to clear just about everything and get in, is kind of useless for cover with it being a crumbling pile of crap. Very fitting for the map title.

 

I didn’t quite understand the timing mechanic on the final exit. I ended up killing the last cyberbastard and fumbling around the two portals until it worked. * shrug * I did manage to find the secrets. Finally.

[DAZZER]

MAP29: The Ruins of Kalnik
Time - 23:17

 

This was actually a pretty good and cool Map for a 29th Map. The only thing that sometimes annoyed me were the lava areas. Yeah there were enough radiation Suits but I just don't like it when I can't step where I want. After the pretty hard and fast beginning the Map isn't near as hard as previous Maps. Of course you again get a good amount of Pain Elementals and Arch-viles but you also have a full Temple Ruin with Munition and Health :) You have to find 3 Keys in 3 different arenas and when you get them bring them to the Temple where you can place each one on pillars (very cool feature). The Gameplay is most of time BFG based cause there are again many hordes of enemies. I liked the Invulnerability sphere in the Red Key arena cause when you pick it up and rush the to arch-viles with the Cyber it was perfectly timed for me ^^ This Map wasn't something special or massive but it sure is Fun :D

[Grain of Salt]

16 minutes ago, DAZZER said:

I just don't like it when I can't step where I want.

Do walls annoy you? Damaging floors are just lenient walls. They say "you can walk here but don't make a habit of it".

[DAZZER]

7 minutes ago, Grain of Salt said:

Do walls annoy you?

If I fight a Cyber and circle around him but get stuck and he hits me walls annoy me yes :)

[dobu gabu maru]

MAP28: “Massacre” is putting it lightly—this map is a straight-up demon genocide, as Doomguy runs around like a maniac, relentlessly spewing plasma at any moving object that catches his fancy. Like with all of Darkwave’s maps, this one strikes a really comfortable balance between “easy” and “hard”, the munitions placed in such a way that you have to be cognizant of where the megaspheres are but you can go hog wild with your BFG usage (in most cases). It’s kind of a relaxing map in a way—just imagine that you’re on a sightseeing tour of hell’s largest resort, though Speed rules apply and you can’t stop sprinting. It’s a shame more archviles weren’t used—I had my fingers crossed that the central building would release a flood of them—but it’s nice to play something more “laid back” before jumping into Joshy’s final map. Delightful.

 

MAP29: I thought this map was going to be harder than it turned out to be! Knowing that Joshy can make a map with 80 enemies dangerous, I was bracing myself for some Poison Ivy-esque monster placement, but the first cavern is waaaay easier and manageable than that stupid central room from MAP27. The rest of the map has some tricky spots in it—most of it is about quickly reacting to the enemies that pop-up—but there’s enough radsuits, ammo, and health scattered about that the situation never gets dire. The worst part of the map is trying to figure out how to get into the crumbling GSTONE temple while there are enemies hot on your tail. Other than that it was fairly fun; the lava exists to apply pressure to the player, but the lack of cover to impede rev rockets throughout the level is the greater threat here IMO.

[NecrumWarrior]

Fucking... I am trying so hard here in MAP29 and I just can't seem to break through the beginning in a way that doesn't take forever. And even when I try the slow way I have a hard time. Meleeing Knights and Barons is not very fun. I might just skip on this fucking map. I don't know, man.

 

EDIT: Until a moment ago, I thought I only had the Chaingun and my fist at the start. You can't even see the SS in the pile. Might have been a good idea to space them out a bit. I can probably do this.

Edited April 29, 2017 by NecrumWarrior

[galileo31dos01]

MAP29: Time: 55:33

Oh wow, what a bastard map! I loved it, I hated it, it made me feel anxious, angry, a variety of adjectives. I think I died around 10 times, and reloaded like 15.

Ok, the beginning, demons, demons, and more demons. Oh and I liked how flames were used here:

Spoiler

I didn't like so much that the lava was damaging, it's like there is no balance between the later maps, one has damaging fluids, the other doesn't, the next one has. The good thing is that there was plenty of radiation suits. Ok, moving on, when I was about to grab the RL and suddenly I was burning but I couldn't see any archvile, and I immediately died. They silently popped up inside the central room. Teleporting would have been less unpleasant... anyway, I also died a couple of times after opening the cave and releasing everybody. And it took a couple of tries to find what to do next. The BFG zone is (I believe) mandatory to keep progress, and that's fine. Then, I found myself reloading and reloading without success, with the following traps. However, it was fun. Well, for the most part, lost souls ugh... Cacodemons were also a pain in the ass and I usually love them but this time they made me curse a lot. At the end, I successfully grabbed the yellow skull, and went to the other side, to use the invulnerability for the revenant avalanche, and the archies but they instantly got busy with the cyber.

Spoiler

A lot of failed attempts there, yeah... anyway, with only one SMM (I don't know what happened to the other one, but I was happy that she was already dead), I proceeded to, die repeatedly... The successful way was: BFGed the spiders and cacos, BFGed the archviles, released the cybers, grabbed the sphere and BFGed them, and once the effect finnished I got the F out of there and shot the enemies through the windows. Well, I thought I've cleaned the room but, this quiet guy...

Spoiler

Anyway, some switch hunting and blue skull in my hands. Went to kill the new enemies, an archvile ambush, nice! Grabbed the red skull, and I loved how they are placed like on pedestals, very neat. The last cyber was like unnecessary, but yeah, bye bye map!

Found 2/2 secrets. Well, enough said.

[NecrumWarrior]

MAP30: Darkness Without End

Kills: 87%

Items: 100%

Secrets: 100%

Time: 3:38

 

Yeah I decided to skip MAP29 for now, maybe I'll come back to it. Looks like I'm the first review of MAP30. It's... an Icon of Sin map. Mind you, there's like 10 of them spewing more demons, but really it's just a circular arena with a lot of enemies to kill. Nothing fancy, nothing innovative, it's pretty bland and disappointing for how creative a lot of this WAD has been with its scenarios. The only interesting aspect about it is that you are on a timer for when the IoS actually becomes shootable.

 

My final thoughts about the WAD itself are that it's really unbalanced. The mappers are so different in their approach to difficulty that it often felt like being hit back and forth on a ping pong table. It was very hard to get used to either style for very long. Much as I hate Joshy's style here, I would have preferred having a whole set that felt more along those lines than having every other map lull me into a sense of security with more... well I guess I should lay out how I feel about their styles, huh? Joshy had a lot of very cheap tricks and nasty unpleasant setups in his maps that made me want to rip my fucking hair out. Darkwave on the other hand has a much more rounded approach to difficulty that makes even the biggest encounters feel like they're doable even after you die. I made the Ancient Aliens comparison a lot but DW really does have a lot of encounters that feel like they belong in that set (Then again I am playing it on HMP so maybe UV feels less fair). I wouldn't have been surprised if he made maps for it but I checked and no he did not. Joshy did though which kind of surprises me to see. He's come a long way from Speed of Doom.

 

Anyway, the new month will begin shortly and I'm excited to start Urania which I've wanted to play for like 2 months but knew it was probably going to end up here eventually so I held off. Not sure I'll hold off any more if I want to play something that's showing signs of votes. If I replay some stuff so what?

[gaspe]

MAP30: Never finished this map lol, always quitted after 2-3 minutes.

[DAZZER]

MAP30: Darkness without End
Time - 3:27

 

You could say this is a Icon of Sin Map. But not a normal one... This Map starts by giving you every Weapon and a Megasphere. After that you get teleported to a box with a switch you are forced to shoot. You get access to a pretty big circle area with a red pillar in the middle. From this Pillar many Icon of Sin's start firing to the outside of your circle area which is surrounded by darkness. So thousands of Monsters are coming to get you. In the middle pillar area is Munition, Health and one Invulnerability Sphere. The Goal is just to stay alive until the Pillar is lowered and you can shoot evil John Romero. I think it's kinda sad that the last Map is again nothing more then BFG Spamming in a pretty unspectacular setting. But on the other Hand it's a hard challenge to stay alive even with all the Megaspheres and Cell Packs.

 

Final Thoughts:
Total Time - 6:48:34

 

I fully understand now why "Speed of Doom" is People's favourite. The first Tech Maps were fast,challenging and you had a surprise in every corner. The Gameplay in this Megawad is really strong and surely one of the best I have ever seen. But I think the wad lost that in the wads progression :/ In later Hell Maps we don't get (much) Traps which surprise us. You could feel it were 2 Mappers who did this Set. I also want to give probs to stewboy for creating the good MIDI's. So... a really awesome Megawad and Im very happy I decided to play it.

[rehelekretep]

map25 fda

talk about front-loaded; i think i died about 10 times before 50% of the enemies were down, and then once(?) after that point?

this is a very Ribbik's-esque map (sorry i keep making that comparison because i played Sunlust way before i played anything by Joshy) with lots of evil scenarios making you get up-close and personal with demons, and putting you in horrible crossfire situations. i think my only complaint about this map is the use of the two boss monsters.

the spiderdemon is just pointless (although i did splat myself with a misplaced rocket - serves me right for not using the plasma gun D:) and an ammo and time sink; i guess you could sneak past her and then have her infight with the subsequent mob, although it seems a bit like a gamble.

the cyberdemon would be ok, but the AV's constantly teleporting mask noise from the cyber stomping around, and from your shots, so you end up randomly spamming the bfg, hoping he's in front of the steps so the tracers can get him; pretty awful.

i liked the AV set-up at the end, the sneaky teleporter got me good and i almost died. the final switches had me begging that it wouldnt be another cyberdemon, so the lone AV was a bit anti-climactic - almost like he forgot to join the teleporter party and turned up late!

Edited May 9, 2017 by rehelekretep

[NuMetalManiak]

MAP30 Darkness Without End

 

Hahahaha...

 

I used to think this was just outright impossible to do. 2010 monsters (how logical given when this was released). In truth this is actually not that hard to do, the only thing you need is a boatload of patience for Romero's head to come down. Most everyone else can be made to infight outside the confines of the supply depot or inside of it. It only gets rough when the barons start converging in, or the stray cybers have had enough of the infighting at that point. The idea then is to clean up by getting an invulnerability and ripping through what can be ripped through, and by about the three-minute mark Romero's head can be taken down. The lovely hellish track Baron's Province easily is one of my favorites.

 

Even that last text screen can be implemented incorrectly depending on how this one was played. I survived after I had blown up Romero's head (because I still had the invulnerability on) and it says that I died and took all the bastards with them. While that is technically true (SODguy already shot himself in MAP20), it can be interpreted differently. Oh whatever. Fuck the stupid story. I'm done with this. Or am I?

[Joshy]

22 minutes ago, NuMetalManiak said:

Even that last text screen can be implemented incorrectly depending on how this one was played. I survived after I had blown up Romero's head (because I still had the invulnerability on) and it says that I died and took all the bastards with them. While that is technically true (SODguy already shot himself in MAP20), it can be interpreted differently. Oh whatever. Fuck the stupid story. I'm done with this. Or am I?

Of course it's a stupid story, what did you expect? War and Peace? :P

[galileo31dos01]

There's a map33 if nobody knows, unless you're all skipping it for some reason ...

 

Also, idclev33 doesn't seem to work, is there another way?

 

EDIT: Nevermind, "-warp" rules

Edited April 30, 2017 by galileo31dos01

[galileo31dos01]

MAP30: Time: 3:10 

That's it? Wow how fast! And what an achievement, another Icon of Sin map that I had so much fun and didn't end up using iddqd! (the other one was Urania's cof cof...) 

First of all, I like those "WEEE I'M FLYING" starts, I was presented with all the weapons which the only one I ended up using was the BFG, so yeah. I died many times until I figured the safest way, none! It was all BFGing everybody dodging as many projectiles as possible, grabbing megaspheres from time to time, and just trying no to be, destroyed... The invulnerability was very handy to off most of the mid-tier enemies and cyberdemons (I missed the SMM). But while doing that I wondered myself "How to off Romero's head in this wad?", because you know, each megawad has it's own process. By accident I figured it lol, I shot a revenant and the rays damage affected the central pole "OH YES YOU'RE DEAD NOW". Another BFG shot and KABOOM!! 

There was no secrets and that's perfect, I didn't quite payed attention to the midi so I don't have anything to say about it. Anyway, easier than I expected, but fun way to end this megawad! Oh and the characters background, creepy:

Spoiler

There's still one more (optional I guess) map to do and then I'll give my final thoughts.

[rehelekretep]

map26 fda

oh boy. this map bummed me all over the place; i mostly worked out a route to get to the 3-key switch, but whenever i got there i was destroyed pretty quickly.

i realised id be spending multiple hours on each attempt so switched up the route a little, as i realised (very late...) that the RSK area is self-contained so doesnt need to be dealt with at all:

 

- run to wood bridge, set off everything else

- run back to berserk (if under 50 health), and then pick-up RL guarded by the AV

- run over to the mancubi-steps and set off the pedestal-cyber up there to help with infighting (useless in actuality but oh well)

- run over to the YSK and bait the AVs to the central structure, kill a few then YOLO out

- run to the BFG column (avoid lost souls blocking the switch; assholes!)

- pick up invulvn

- run to RSK arena, YOLO up the lift taking out the AVs

- drop down into BSK area, try not to get swamped by imps

- clean up 200 lost souls with the SSG

- dance with the pedestal cyber :D

- YOLO off the mancubi-steps, hoping that infinite height doesnt get me

- flip all 3 switches

- pray!

 

i finally did the last arena by staying a bit calmer, going after the mancubi as their projectiles mask the cyber's shots which is the main danger.

that final AV horde absolutely scared the shit out of me, i was so glad when i realised they couldnt leave.

really fun map; when im not actually getting tired of or fed up of a map after multiple deaths then we know we have a good one :D

Edited May 9, 2017 by rehelekretep

[rehelekretep]

21 hours ago, Grain of Salt said:

Do walls annoy you? Damaging floors are just lenient walls. They say "you can walk here but don't make a habit of it".

so what youre saying is walls are solid and dependable and damage floors are flaky assholes?

[NecrumWarrior]

I actually forgot about MAP33. I'll give it a shot after work. 

[galileo31dos01]

Well so far I can't stand Map33, it's even worst (in difficulty, and unfairness) than 21 or 32, but probably this is just me totally furious and frustrated saying that. I'll continue later... 

[NuMetalManiak]

MAP33 Descent To Nowhere

 

A map that pays homage to an HR classic, although it gives it away at the end. Let me first say this is one of the most annoying music tracks ever. Sorry, stewboy et al., but I HATE the really loud part of it, very grating on my poor ears.

 

The majority of combat before descent is in a very much like the base combat Joshy provided in his maps before MAP13, except tougher due to more mid-tiers and other enemies being used in more confined halls. Look out for that red key trap, as well as the hitscanner teleports after the blue key, both of which are quite erratic. The actual descent part? It's a bit more interesting than the original, as enemies come in from more than one teleport destination. However, I kill the monsters so quickly that it quickly becomes a boring experience. This lift lasts WAY too long for my taste. About three fucking minutes of that lift was actually not as good here cause I'm way faster in this seek and destroy mission jumping in the fire, pulling teeth, hit the lights to kill 'em all, phantom lord w/ whiplash. I'm glad this is a bonus level after all.

[rehelekretep]

oh boy, m27 is making me lose my mind! why is it so dark? D:

[rehelekretep]

On 27/04/2017 at 3:18 AM, Spectre01 said:

Oh, and I forgot to complain about how shitty the mouse is during demo recording again. Why the hell do other complevels support -longtics while Boom, the most popular format for demo recording, has dog-shit quality controls. Yeah, let's fuck with player input! How is this acceptable?

sod27_S01_UVMax.zip

wait what? i thought -longtics worked on all complevels?!