MKLIGHT

Shocking.

It's good (haven't played).

Danny Bubinga, better known by his nickname "daddybubinga," is the Doomworld community's top Pain Elemental dealer. If you need your fix, meet him at the corner and he's got you 12 of them for one rack, or for $900 if you've referred a customer recently. While only real fiends will blow through that fix in one encounter, there are some real fiends among you lot, I know, so you should be happy to know that Daniel Badabubinga has left his stash available, where the flying meatballs appear in great number and are yours for the taking -- so long as you have a copy of Ultimate Doom Builder and know how to use the copy/paste shortcuts to yank them right out of Combat Shock 2.    Combat Shock 2 is a lot as if Vanguard (the harder parts) and Sunder (the old Sunder levels from back when Insane_Gazebo was a wee beach umbrella) had a baby. Sandwiched between a "microslaughter" intro and a not-slaughter-at-all bonus map, Combat Shock 2's middle five levels are large-scale, fairly open macroslaughter, but generally lighter and faster paced than what Sunder was doing a few years before it.   dannebubinga's design feels like it constantly caters more towards the type of player who wants to run around a lot and get plenty of mayhem going. This looseness crystalizes as an "attitude" that avoids pure punishment -- for example Combat Shock 2's platforming generally has escape lifts, even when the Sunder maps it is emulating does not. But it doesn't feel so much as Danne wanted to make something easy as it does he wanted to make something fun and forgiving for a "skilled player" using a looser, wilder playstyle. This means that while some parts are necessarily more accessible to a casual player, you'll then have spikes of difficulty that correspond with the parts that didn't really need much softening up to cater to that skilled player, like map02's tricky minimalist finale setpiece with a cyber and two pesky ledge sniper archviles and limited cover to dodge all three; or like the opening region of map06 that gives you surprisingly few spheres relative to similar combat in other parts of the wad. So rather than being an "intro-to-slaughter" wad, Combat Shock 2 kinda feels like a difficult slaughterwad but with many more easier pacer sections than usual, and I do think even regular players will find it accommodating so long as they are willing to play maps this size at all.   Of slaughter authors whose activity peaked in the early 2010s, I'd say dannebubinga has some of the most satisfying monster placement tendencies (maybe only Darkwave is even better). He just has a good feel for what enemy combinations or groups will lead to pure fun -- which he generally prioritizes over creating encounters that feel clever. (Even if, as many of his encounters show, like the aforementioned map02 finale, he's certainly capable of creating encounters that are quite clever.) You'll see a lot of imps, funny hordes of hitscanners that self-destruct or let you splatter them, well proportioned use of all the mid-tier enemies (beefy enough so that you can get feeling accomplished in taking them out, but not grindy), and yes...a good number of pain elementals once you get into map03. danne also mixes in more spider masterminds than most authors do, largely for the spectacle of them, rather than real fights. The open "run 'n' gun" nature of most of these maps paired with the satisfying enemy composition gives Combat Shock 2  a distinct character to it; it feels like difficult slaughter with more of a make-your-own-fun playground feel. The opening few minutes of map04 is something I keep returning to because of all those gibbable imps, all the mancubi hordes and their crossfire, all the potential wayward cyberdemon rockets, and the cacoswarm. It's really fun.   While the design and atmosphere is not quite at Sunder levels, I mean little else from that period is, and Combat Shock 2's is still pretty good. It's hard not to love the atmosphere, immersion, and overall grandeur of map05 -- which really feels like a journey, a characteristic also shared with map06. As more strong craft-oriented slaughter authors come into the scene, parts of this will look less remarkable than they did back in 2016 when I was first looking through it, but I think plenty has also aged well.   As for weaknesses, the assumption that the player would always be aggressive sometimes leads to periods of cleanup if you're not wired that way, such as in the second big area of map04. But that doesn't dominate the experience as a whole, and those scattered relaxing cooldowns might even feel like another form of pacing. Progression between levels could also be smoother, since you kinda abruptly go from jungle in the first three to metal furnace in the next two to hell in the last, with not much in the way of an implied narrative connecting them. I mean it's not a deal-breaker. Just download it and shoot stuff.          

It is a short map but there isn't really anything wrong with it for just normal play.

I think this megawad is an easy 5 stars.   I haven't played it in 5 years+ yet every other map had a memorable set piece or fight. While I do admit I don't really find the last 4 maps to be good I think most players will enjoy playing and ending the run on map20 or 25 without missing on much. If you think it is too easy in the first half just continue playing because it stops holding back after you reach map31.   It is hard to pick a favorite map as it has a few nice castles/catacomb maps. I guess beast island even though it shows its age and isn't the most complex map in the wad, it just has a different atmosphere from the other maps and that alone makes it fun to replay. (Followed by suffering for an hour in the pyramid adventure Mesri Halek which gives a similar feeling to the beast island, although I hate the puzzles at the end of that one especially the trollish exit switch)   Not so fun knowledge: Mesri Halek gets called egyptian slaughter in the doom community but it is actually مصري هالك and if you put it in google translate you'll get a confirmation that it means perished/doomed egyptian instead.