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| Hell Revealed
is a 32 level megawad created by Yonatan Donner and Haggay Niv. However,
this is not your ordinary, run-of-the-mill, bog standard, "let's slap 32
levels together" megawad...Oh no, no, no. Hell Revealed is possibly THE
most challenging megawad out there today.
Although Hell Revealed is designed as a single player wad, this review will attempt to focus on the co-op aspects of this megawad. First and foremost, UV difficulty in this megawad is like nothing you will have experienced before. If you thought some of the levels of this wad were close to impossible in UV single player, it is highly likely that these levels are actually impossible in UV co-op. Level 24, possibly the hardest level in the series, is a perfect example of this. However, if you play these levels on a lower difficulty setting you will appreciate them for more than their perceived difficulty. For the average player, Hurt Me Plenty (HMP) will provide a more than adequate challenge and should provide a fair amount of enjoyment as well. Co-op HMP is still quite a challenge, but the levels can be finished without losing too much hair due to sheer frustration. If HMP still provides too much challenge for you, the two easier difficulty settings should be more your cup of tea. According to Yonantan, the easiest difficulty actually makes the levels easier than the original Doom 2 levels !!! What all of this talk about difficulty settings actually means is that they have been implemented well enough to allow any player, from "Doom God" to total newby, to enjoy these levels. It's a good thing that these levels can be enjoyed by everyone, because some of the architecture is actually quite special. Although you may think some of the architecture is a bit dull at the start, it is worthwhile playing through these levels as their design only gets better as you progress. Most levels have some degree of open spaces, which makes fighting all the extra cyberdemons on co-op a lot easier. If there is one thing that brings these levels down in co-op it would probably have to be the extra monsters. However, this really only applies to UV. In UV there appears to be at least one cyberdemon on every level, which combined with hundreds of monsters, leads to frequent deaths and a lot of frustration. It is also possible in co-op UV that you can become trapped by monsters which will cause you to die as soon as you respawn. All this can be overcome, thankfully, by playing at an easier difficulty. Monster placement is good throughout, and thankfully, there is a discrete absence of millions of traps springing up wherever you walk. The monsters tend to increase in difficulty throughout the levels, usually with archviles or a few cybies guarding most exits. There are also a few addons that go with these levels. There is a demo pack containing about 40 lmp's, showing how to complete every level on ultra violence. Just when you think a level can't be done, watch the demo and prepare to be amazed. There is also an infopack available, which gives a brief run down on all the levels, and could prove useful for some. All in all, these levels will provide enjoyment for those new to doom and those who are think they have accomplished everything that doom has to offer. For those of you thinking of playing these levels co-op, make sure you try them on HMP first, or else you will end up pulling giant clumps of hair out of your head... |
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| Monster
placement: 8/10
Level design: 8/10 Playability: 8/10 Difficulty setting implementation : 9/10 Co-op enjoyment : 9/10 Overall: 8.5/10 |
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| Most of my
experience with Hell Revealed has come from co-operative games, nevertheless
it has been quite an experience.
Yonatan and Haggay have configured the difficulty levels is such a way, that no matter what your skill level, there will be one suited to your ability. Perhaps this is Hell Revealed's strongest point and deserves to be discussed in detail. On Ultra Violence Hell Revealed is
32 levels of pure Dooming chaos. Behind every corner there will be,
not one, but most likely 2-5 cyberdemons and archies waiting to pummel
you to the ground. Even the best doom players in the world will struggle
with this setting.
Once you get below HMP, Hell Revealed
starts to play like a normal megawad, and these difficulty levels are suited
to the average doomer. By playing Hell Revealed on Ultra Violence
first off, you may be scared away
from a great Megawad.
When these armies of monsters appear, doomers of my standard simply don't stand a chance. All you can do is try to use up most of your ammo before you respawn. In single player mode you don't have the luxury of respawing, so on UV you've pretty much had it. Some of the single player demos recorded in the Hell Revealed demo pack are unbelievable. Due to the amount of times I died per level, I acquired a state of 'learned helplessness'. For the uneducated, I just gave up and didn't worry about dieing since I knew I would anyway no matter what I did. Obviously I should stick to HMP for now. Yonatan and Haggay are quite generous in terms of weapons and ammo. Since there are more than the average amount of monsters to kill, obviously you will need a lot more ammo to stay alive. These ammo dumps are the calm before the storm, and when playing co-operative it's important to share everything and make sure nothing is wasted - I guess that makes me a hipocrite :-) Hell Revealed doesn't just consist of large rooms filled with monsters. In fact some of the architecture is top notch. I'll never forget one level which made great use of shadows giving a great 3D illusion. On the subject of 3D, there are a few 3D bridges in there too. There are no puzzles that aren't too hard to figure out, in fact the only puzzles are switch pressing and the like, fitting in well with the over all style of the wad. Hell Revealed is the only megawad that I have ever encountered that manages to have insanely difficult levels (on UV), and yet keep the playability high. You just never get sick of dieing. |
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| Monster
placement: 8/10
Level design: 7/10 Playability: 9/10 Difficulty setting implementation : 10/10 Co-op enjoyment : 9.5/10 Overall: 9/10 |
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INTERVIEW WITH YONATAN DONNER
Team Insanity went behind the scenes with Yonatan Donner and found out the answers to some questions that were really bugging us. Topics include, Doom Playing, Demo Making, Doom 2 Done Quick, Hell Revealed, and Yonatan's retirement.
TI: Team Insanity
YD: Yonatan Donner
TI: What advice would you give to any prospective doomers in terms of level designing and doom playing?
YD: For level designers, don't assume that either architecture or gameplay is more important than the other. I wouldn't play a fun level that looks bad and also not a beautiful level that plays bad. There are lots of sites that give detailed specific level designing advice, so I won't get to that (it's too long) but basically, if your level looks so good that it's fun to just walk through and look around even with -nomonsters, and if players of different skills find it fun to play, you're on the right track :)
For players, use the mouse and try to do things that you find hard, until you don't find them so hard anymore.
TI: How did you become such a competent doomer, and what do you think is the key to excelling at Doom?
YD: I kept trying to challenge myself, because one improves a lot more from doing something hard than something easy. Whether it's trying to optimize a time, deathmatching a good player or merely finishing a very hard level alive (I improved a lot from playing Hell Revealed before and after releasing it) - you can improve from it.
TI: What made you decide to do Doom2 Done Quick?
YD: We've done some Quake speedruns already (the first Quake done Quick was released exactly a year before Doom2 done Quick), and a lot of people asked us if we intended to make Doom runs (especially after we released the Hell Revealed speedrun)... also, I was always curious why connected Doom demos kept running out of sync, so when Carmack released the Doom source, I looked at it and found that it would be really simple to make a connected Doom run using only a minor source modification. I asked a lot of players that I knew if they wanted to be part of it, and most of them said yes, so it seemed like a fun project, and for the first time, it also seemed possible. And it turned out a lot better than any of us hoped for, too :)
TI: What doom source port did you use as the D2DQ base? You didn't port it from the linnux one did you, that'd be a waste of time given dosdoom and suchlike?
YD: We used DosDoom v0.46 as a base, since it was closest to original Doom but still offered many improvements.
TI: When making a demo, how do go about making it the best it can be. Do you memorise all the monster placements, or simply play it over and over?
YD: If I don't know the level at all, I
just play it a few times with savegames before starting to plan the route.
Memorizing levels is easier than it sounds, usually after playing them
with savegames I already remember them pretty well, and if I don't, I just
play again with savegames until I do (it rarely takes more than 3 times).
Memorizing every single monster isn't necessary (try to remember cyberdemons
though :), but it'll probably happen anyway after a few tries. It is necessary,
though, to remember all the
secrets if you're going for 100% kills/secrets.
Then it's simply trying and trying until getting a good time.
TI: Hell Revealed is probably the hardest quality Megawad in existence, why did you decide to make Hell Revealed so difficult on Ultra Violence compared to others?
YD: Most megawads provide challenge for only about 80% of the players - when I play a lot of these levels I never feel like doomguy is in any real danger, which takes some suspense from the game. So when Haggay and I decided to make a megawad, we wanted to take advantage of all the difficulty levels that Doom offers, and provide challenge for all players, even those who find most megawads too easy. Therefore, we made skills 1 and 2 of Hell Revealed very easy, much like most megawads on skills 1 and 2. Only beginners would find it hard (but still possible!) and all average or better players would find it easy. Skill 3 is like most wads on skill 4 - challenging for most players, and a lot of fun to play. Skill 4 is meant to challenge even the best players.
What we didn't take into account is that some
people never bother to use the skill level selections, and always play
on Ultra-Violence. These people see that Hell Revealed is too hard for
them on Ultra-Violence but instead of playing on skill 3 or even lower,
they just say "Hell Revealed is too hard" and switch to godmode or don't
play it at all. To me it seems really
stupid - after all, that's what difficulty levels
are for! Of course, I do admire people who find it hard on Ultra-Violence
but keep trying anyway.
I got mostly positive feedback on Hell Revealed, and the little negative feedback was only from players who didn't try to play on a lower skill, and they all changed their opinion after trying it.
So when thinking now whether or not it was worth it, I guess it was. Most players, even if not all of them, do try other skill levels after all, and for the few players that didn't play Hell Revealed because Ultra-Violence was too hard for them, I guess there are more players who would have never gotten to download it anyway unless they heard it was so hard :)
TI: I realise you are not invlolved with Hell Revealed 2, but if you were involved what improvements could Hell Revealed 2 have over the original?
YD: From what I understand, they intend to make it even harder than the original. Therefore, I'd recommend that they make it even MORE obvious that there's full skill level support implemented - something like big letters on the logo screen, maybe as writing on some walls :) Seriously, assuming they will have good gameplay for all skill levels and good architecture, they must still make sure that everyone will know that even if Ultra-Violence is too hard for them, there is a right skill for everyone...
Of course, Haggay and I always joked that if we'd ever make a sequel to Hell Revealed, we'd have to include a "Dead Perfect" level to end the trilogy :)
In any case, good luck to Chrozoron and the entire HR2 team...
TI: What made you decide to retire from Doom, considering your unique ability at Doom playing and Level Designing?
YD: First of all, thanks :)
For a long time before releasing Hell Revealed I considered to stop playing after the release - after all, I spent enough time on Doom anyway, and even though I never played computer games on the expense of something else, only in addition to doing other things, it still felt like enough. And I did stop playing regularly. But I didn't mind being part of new demo projects, so when there was a reason, I played some more. And of course Doom/Doom2 done Quick were things I've always dreamt of, and the new Hell Revealed lmp set was also something I always thought we should do, since a lot of the old demos were really slow. So I didn't mind playing some more.
In January there was a Quake speedrunning contest that I took part in, and won. The prize was a 3dfx card, which is something I wanted for a very long time. What happened after that is a long story, and it's detailed at http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/4704/voodoo2.html for anyone who's interested. To be brief, in June it became clear that those who ran the contest have no intentions to send the prizes anytime soon (not until they get funding for their new company, they say). That was very frustrating for me and afterwards, every time I played Doom or Quake I kept remembering this mess and that took a lot of the fun away. I guess that was the last straw for me - I don't want to keep playing a game that frustrates me, and I was pretty close to quitting Doom anyway.
It feels great that people liked the things I did - makes it seem like all the time spent on Doom was really worth it.
TI: Is there anything that could bring you out of retirement to make more Doom levels and record more demos?
YD: I guess if I ever got that voodoo2 card and there was something that justified playing again, I wouldn't mind playing a little more :) (Assuming I have the time)
TI: What are your plans for the future?
YD: I'm actually on my last holiday now. In September starts my last year at school, which is a short and busy one full of finals, and immediately afterwards I'm recruited to the army for several years... so I can't really make any plans for more than the next two months, and I have so many things to do in these two months anyway...
TI: Thanks, we really appreciate your time.
YD: Thanks for interviewing me, it was fun!
