Maximum Matt

So the question must be asked: what are GOOD examples of boss battles in mid '90's FPS games? The one in Duke Nukem 64?? That giant four armed guy in Serious Sam?

^^ Now THAT'S an unpopular opinion!!!

But how come such a 'simple' level has author credits from two people??

Say what??

Well, I like watching them. If they're cool, that is

I wanna know (and I guess we'll find out soon enough) whether ol' Mangini was "asked" to leave to make room for Portnoy, so they can do the epic "THE RETURN OF THE CLASSIC LINEUP!!!!!!!!!" thing. I thought that last album they did (A View From The Top Of The World) was wicked, their best one since Dramatic Turn Of Events, and was psyched for what they were gonna do next. I just hope they'll tell Portnoy he's not allowed to spit while performing anymore, that shit's nasty

A lot of the Doom music uses the tritone

Hell no, it's evil and should die with fire

There ya go, answered your own question. I'd just put Unruly Evil as the first map and shift every other map forward one slot. It's a crappy 'intro' style map, and at least it'll allow you to enter Hell Beneath with a rocket launcher.

I would seriously purchase a whole heap of player-made homebrew levels TNT-style and incorporate them into Doom II, because let's face it, there were loads of levels out there at that time way better than a lot of the IWAD maps - you'd probably even have enough good ones to make two whole full 32-level mapsets (which may have the unintended butterfly-effect consequence of the Casali brothers working themselves to death trying to create four megawads a few years later)

IDKFC - Colonel Sanders Mode IDFUCKNOCLIP - the void outside the levels become flooded with thousands of arch-viles to deter cheating - may not be recommended on map 18 or any map with missing textures where they can get into the level IDGETTOTHECHOPPA - all on-screen messages change to cringe Arnie quotes

IDARKNESS - fulldark IDSPECTORISE - every "thing" partially invisible IDSUCKIT - displays the super-secret picture of John Romero passed out drunk and naked on the ID office couch one night after an epic party, taken by Dave Taylor IDCASHMAN - money flies out of Doomguy everywhere when you press the spacebar

AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH THERE HE IS!!!! I thought he was tucked away somewhere inside a pillar or something in that main hall, thankyou!! Those sneaky Casalis, putting a damn monster closet on the other side of the map (shakes fist)

IDTWTGYMKMJR - plays a !!secret!! message IDSHITPANTS - all demons set to -fastmode, gain "ghost" properties (can run through walls) and all get alerted IDSHITPANTS2 - searches computer for any porn and randomly plays it IDTHEWAYROMERODID - changes all wall textures to STARTAN IDHYPERFIGHT - randomly changes barons/hellknights to the super-special BLUE-coloured one that can be killed with two bullets IDSKYFLOOR - removes all floor textures IDSONIC2 - pinball mode (elastic collision bug supercharged)

I would've allowed some of her mind-bending slaughtermaps into the game

^^Nah, they're collapsible skull-bars, bro!! Yeah, you start to notice these things more and more - check out the 'skylight' near the beginning of E2M1

Copernicus

Okay, was just watching a playthrough of this level (shoutout to MeatySpag and his shovelware playthroughs), and I was reminded of the tag connected to the Commander Keen 'enemies' - as we all know, when all the Keens in a level are killed, any sector with the 666 tag will open up. This was all created specifically for a one-note joke in the super-secret level of Doom II, but of course can be used in any D2 PWAD. And not just on map 32 either, like the other monster-specific tags, ANY level. Which leads me to think, why didn't the ID guys implement that for all the monsters, in any level, then? Wouldn't it be cool to have the ability to have a door open or a wall fall down at the end of a fight with a certain type of enemy? Why do the mancubus and aracnotron tags ONLY have to be on map 7? Why do the boss tags only have to work on the eighth map in Doom I? Am I missing something basic here? It seems like the type of mechanic that would open up a whole new dimension of level design and enemy encounters. Or were they anticipating the Pacifist speedrun category and didn't want to mess that up? If this is a dumb question, tell me, but it's been on my mind for a while now. *******************BONUS QUESTION!!!!!!1!!!********************** Aaaaaaaaaaaaaand this one's been on my mind for ages as well, it's kinda random but I still cannot work it out, so I may as well ask it here - on map31 of TNT (the Egypt one).... where do they keep the cyberdemon?? I've noclipped around that bastard a zillion times, I have no idea where they store that thing, or if/how it's connected to the self-referencing invisible floor thingy its on. It's one of the last level quirks I still don't understand. Again, I'm sure the answer is probably obvious, but I'm still a caveman in many ways. Thanks for putting up with my cringey crap

Which is all the more amazing when you consider it was created by the same dude who did Habitat. I'm picking Icarus purely for the novelty factor, because I blew through it once not long ago and loved it (apart from the occasional crap parts) and I've played the TNT levels a zillion times by now. Some of the spaceship levels feel like they inspired the space episode in Duke 3d, there's a level called Hydroponics, there's one level that's supposed to be upside-down, there's another level that ripped one area from an old Maximum Doom DM map, there's a map that uses the 'ghost monsters' glitch/mechanic, the music is absolutely awesome, there's that one level that's got tombstones with the developer's names on them (surely one of the first times that occured in a FPS), yeah fun for the whole family.

Yeah, me too Aw HELL no man c'mon I've heard that term before, what does it actually mean?

Naaah

Map 20 of Memento Mori (Mountain Depot). A chef's kiss of a level. Put it at number 4, please

So? It's an average level and takes seven hours to complete in Pacifist

That sentence is a contradiction - of course there would be TONS of kids worldwide who would've wanted to 100% every level and were wondering why you could only get 90% on map15 and so forth. Tallies actually WEREN'T tallies, they were a good way ensure the replayability of the game, and yeah, the carelessness of some of the secrets (plus the fact that some D2 levels don't even HAVE any secrets) would've been totally frustrating to any player who was trying to find them all.

That dude would haaaaate playing Maximum Doom then, what with all the doors that go up into ceilings that seem to be paper-thin against the sky :-)