Difficulty:
please
father, can i have another? and another? come on you old bastard, hit me!!!!
At the beginning of this "adventure" I found myself wondering - um,
hey, am I playing in here all by myself with some target practice just for
fun? As the map continued on thinking, hey, this is finally getting kind of
interesting and then it passed to - ok, that wasn't TOO bad until I
hit the final section and I was like - WTF? Where did THIS come from? Even
then though, in all honesty - it COULD have been harder. Even with the
Cyberdemon at the end I was still looking for a bit more and the author
threw pretty much everything but the kitchen sink at you in this one
(including the Cyberdemon). I found myself face to face with Hell Knights,
Barons of Hell, Revenants (several in fact), a Mancubus, a few Archviles for
color and a fair splash of everything else. Plenty of Caco's and Imps
and soldiers and chaingunners to go around - even baby spiders just for fun.
It was designed in such a way though that I was able to allow the other
creatures to do alot of damage for me and not wanting to waste any ammo (why
would you?) I let them do just that. There was a room where there were like
4 baby spiders, a few chaingunners, some soldiers - you get the idea.... By
the time the baby spiders did THEIR damage and had damage done back at them,
it was easy pickings for me. :-)
Not to say that this is an easy map (forgettingt
he completely innocuous and irrelevant beginning), it wasn't. I got caught
out a few times and the final battle with the Cyberdemon wasn't bad
but there were other creatures afoot - he did take many of them out for me
though and Hell Knights aren't very dangerous when you can strafe and have
plenty of ammo - which I did for the majority of the map.
Design:
Um, what
happened there at the beginning?
I wasn't truly impressed at the beginning and in fact, I thought I was
going to be in for a truly disappointing map. It didn't seem very
challenging (I didn't realize how large and intricate it would evolve to
become) and I saw some horrific (yes - horrific) use of textures and there
was mis-alignment in many places. NOT a good start to a map. I warmed up to
it over time though. The design improved immensely (please don't quit at the
beginning - It DOES get better - I promise) as the map progressed but I did
still notice times when the alignment and use of textures just absolutely
drove me nuts. You'll see that in some of the pics. Especially at the
beginning I was having some "did he even look before he finished" moments
but after that it was much better. There were some very nice design elements
in the map and the use of textures DID improve but right up till
the end almost, I noticed some stuff that just didn't fit or was misaligned
- for instance, I'm in a tunnel (or set of tunnels) using rock textures and
the next thing I know there is this little alcove with a library setup (not
even a separate room - just a little hole in the wall). It's a little
jarring, especially when you're looking for that sort of thing - but the
worst was unquestionably in the beginning of the map where he was mixing
tech style with outdoor rock style and not doing it well. Again, some really
nice detail in the map though and if you can kind of turn a blind eye to
some of the ugliness, it is really a fairly well designed map. One last
note.This says it's a 2 map wad. It's a lie. The first map is a single room
with an exit switch (no, it doesn't look like an exit switch). ????
Playability:
One and
done - slap a bun on it - it's finished.
Playability means - would you do it again? Eh - probably not. I think I'm
one and done on this one. It was a fun map - especially in the 2nd half, and
I did find myself in some interesting battles but it wasn't interesting
enough to make me come back twice, unless it was on nightmare. The beginning
sort of played like HMP in the original Doom wads and finished up more like
UV in Doom 2. Not bad - a fun play but probably not a twofer.
Overall:
worth a
play - kind of like a band you're interested in checking out
I'd
play it once if I were you - ignore the bumpy beginning, settle in for a fun
ride then get off and let someone else on the lift. (Into metaphors today I
guess). Personally, I think this author has alot more in him and if he can
learn how to align his textures and be less erratic with them and work on
creature placement and maximum dispensation of pain without being unfair,
we've got a winner. So hang on, it's going to be a bumpy ride.
A couple of other notes. There was a transporter
in the blood below (near the beginning) which didn't work. Ok... I'll get
over it. There was also a BFG sitting inches from my grasping, um, fingers
that had a line which wasn't properly set in front of it and I couldn't get
the BFG. DAMMIT. Also, a cell type/see through texture (forget the exact
name) that extended out between two switches that looked COMPLETELY
out of place when you dropped the lift underneath it. Just sayin'
