The DWmegawad Club plays: Plutonia 2

What is the DWmegawad Club?
This is a place where we settle down, have a cup of tea (or drink of your choice) and take a month to play through a megawad on our own, together! Any keen observations, criticisms, or frustrated ranting about it goes here in the discussion. As long as you want to say something about what you've played, feel free to speak your mind.

Can I join?
Sure. The only rule is that you have to play at least some of the levels in our monthly megawad to contribute, but you're generally encouraged to finish the whole thing, even if you've played it before.

What levels am I allowed to post about?
Whatever day of the month it is, is the upper limit for the map you can post on. So if it's the 6th, you may discuss up to MAP06.

Do I have to post an entry every day?
Nope, not at all. This is only for our more enthusiastic members. As long as you play through it with us you’re part of the club.

When do we vote on the next month’s megawad?
Voting begins on the 25th of the current month.

----------

>>>DOWNLOAD PLUTONIA 2 HERE<<<

Plutonia 2 is the (unofficial) 2008 sequel to the Casili Brothers' original IWAD, The Plutonia Experiement. It focuses on "smaller" maps with challenging combat, and a somewhat consistent jungle & brick scheme. Let's see how the sequel fares, shall we?

Author and maplist for Plutonia 2:

Quote

MAP01 - ”Comeback” by Adolf Vojta
MAP02 - “Jungle Spirits” by Adolf Vojta
MAP03 - “Skull Island” by Adolf Vojta and Pavel Tvrzník
MAP04 - “Filth” by Fredrik Johansson
MAP05 - “Flooded Chapel” by Adolf Vojta
MAP06 - “Collider Complex” by Sam Woodman and Vincent Catalaá
MAP07 - "Enemy Caught" by Charly Goulois and Vincent Catalaá
MAP08 - "Harmany" by Tango
MAP09 - "Wormhole Zone" by Adolf Vojta
MAP10 - "Cosmodrome" by Thomas van der Velden
MAP11 - "Arch-Violence" by Adolf Vojta and Thomas van der Velden
MAP12 - "Imprisoned" by Kristian Käll, Thomas van der Velden, Sam Woodman and Pedro Arturo Gomez Blanco
MAP13 - "Hard Facility" by Fredrik Johansson, Adolf Vojta and Sam Woodman
MAP14 - "Charon Eclipse" by Alexander S.
MAP15 - "Where Hate Runs Red" by Charly Goulois

MAP31 - "Cybernation" by Alexander S.
MAP32 - "Go 4 It" by Charly Goulois and Thomas van der Velden

MAP16 - "Predatorium" by Adolf Vojta
MAP17 - "Nuclear Horror" by Adolf Vojta
MAP18 - "Buckets of Blood" by Adolf Vojta
MAP19 - "Hecknology" by Sam Woodman, Jakub Razák and Vincent Catalaá
MAP20 - "Lurking Fear" by Jochen Schneidau and Adolf Vojta
MAP21 - "Assassin" by Pavel Tvrzník
MAP22 - "Locus Perditus" by Erik Alm and Adolf Vojta
MAP23 - "Aztecorum" by Joe Pallai
MAP24 - "Outpost of the Evil Dead" by Erik Alm
MAP25 - "Black Ice" by Adolf Vojta
MAP26 - "Plutopia" by Thomas van der Velden
MAP27 - "Red Hot" by Sam Woodman, Vick Bobkov and Thomas van der Velden
MAP28 - "The Bloodwall" by Alexander S.
MAP29 - "Ticket to Eternity" by Adolf Vojta and Pavel Tvrzník
MAP30 - "The Gatewatcher" by Thomas van der Velden

MAP33 - "Chocolate" by Eric Baker

BONUS CONTENT
Doomwiki
DSDA
Lingyan203's playthrough
----------
OLD THREADS
2012

• BF_THUD!
• Community Chest 4
• Jenesis
• MAYhem 2012

2013

• Memento Mori
• Interception
• 2002: A Doom Odyssey
• Hadephobia
• Coffee Break & Fava Beans & Double Impact
• HYMN
• Stardate 20X6 & Monochrome Mapping Project
• Realm of Chaos
• Back to Saturn X E1 & Favillesco E1
• Kama Sutra
• Unholy Realms & Zone 300
• Vile Flesh
• Ultimate Doom

2014

• Whitemare & Sacrament
• Scythe
• Epic 2
• Whitemare 2
• Sunder & Countdown to Extinction
• Doom 2 the Way id Did
• MAYhem2048
• Stomper
• Back to Saturn X E2
• Going Down
• Rylayeh & Crimson Canyon & Azagthoth
• Serenity & Eternity & Infinity

2015

• Resurgence
• Requiem
• ConC.E.R.N.ed & Draft Excluder
• Doom 2 Reloaded
• Valiant
• Scythe 2
• NOVA II
• STRAIN
• Icarus: Alien Vanguard
• Sunlust

Ohh yeaahh, this one is niicee. It will be fun to play it again.
I'll try to play this with -solonet for extra challenge.

happy 40th megawad played in the club everyone!

Cant wait to play this. Still gotta finish Sunlust's The God Machine. Hopefully my sanity will still be intact.

01 - It's a great opener. The Plutonia sign is a little genius and the music suits the entrance theme very well. Vines blocking the view in doorways is a neat touch, encouraging you to enter the next area so that you can actually see who you're fighting. Nitpicks: COMPBLUE and the adjacent blue flat feel out of place color-wise, also you can hear revenants in monster closets before they teleport in which feels lame.

The first pwad I have played. I guess it deserves another run. UV, pistol start, using saves.

MAP01 - Comeback

Kills: 100% | Items: 100% | Secrets: 100%

Good opener, the fights are a bit more tough of the usual stuff you find for a MAP01. The sign with the title at the entrance is a really nice touch, as well as keeping the teleport pad on each start and ending room like the original Plutonia. The only thing that doesn't have so much sense for me are the secrets; the last one for continuous play it's still useful but the other one seems just unnecessary.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLgS1ZoidySwOwGtypx19VwUIxYbkc-PNO

If anybody wants to check out my playthrough for reference if they get stuck on a particular map for Plutonia 2, here it is.

UV Max Continuous, some mid-level quicksaves. Saves at start of each map.

Getsu Fune said:

happy 40th megawad played in the club everyone!

Yeah crazy we've gotten this far, considering that at first it was just an offhand suggestion by GRB. And thanks to the mod that reorganized the wads played--looks much cleaner now!

Hey guys mind if I join in this month :)

MAP01 - Comeback
Kills: 100% | Items: 100% | Secrets: 100% | Time: 5:19 | -complevel 2
Demo

MAP01: Comeback

Very good opener, short and easy. That Plutonia 2 logo at the beginning adds a nice feeling to the map, we need more of this kind of openings in wads. My only complaint is the berserk trap - why is it tagged as a secret area?

MAP01. A "no" from me. I hate when you can't see anything because of vines. And, a bunch of minor things: linedef 712 produces infitite "door close" sounds which has a silly feel to me, plus the first key is obtainable through bumping (if I remember, the speedrunning community was super excited about this possibility, not sure why).

Replayed this one about a year ago and don't feel like doing it again so soon (and this is also the reason why I never posted during Scythe 2 playthrough). So I'll just say that this is a really good megawad of somewhat uneven but still high quality. Gusta is king, some great maps from him here.
Have fun playing through!

MAP01 Comeback:

Interesting opener. This one definitely has the Plutonia feel down as it is fast paced. Early higher tier monster action with some deadly chaingunner closets and placements. The map was pretty tight on ammo as I missed the switch to get the Supershotty and that pain elemental bastard made me waste all my ammo on him so I had to chainsaw one of the mancubi. Pretty difficult, and fun, next.

Zandronum, UV, continuous.

MAP01 - ”Comeback”

Awesome opener, well introducing the theme and design impressiveness of this wad, with simple but good and fun layout + progression + intro to weapons and basic game mechanics. Powerful monsters already appear, but difficulty isn't harsh yet (it's only MAP01), which I consider a perfect modern take on Plutonia gameplay. I also liked the texture variety, despite the prevailing theme being vines and bricks, that's all great.

As usual: playing this in ZDoom version whenever-I-last-bothered-to-update, Hurt Me Plenty unless I get overwhelmed and frustrated, continuous play.

MAP01: Comeback

Good name for this familiar and intimate little base-crawl map, dripping with vines and a melange of courtyards and chunky interiors in the finest Plutonia tradition. It's not shy about letting the bigger bads come out to play this early on, but fortunately the terrain mostly conspires to prevent them from showing as significant a threat as they might. The double layers of vines covering some of the doors are an interesting touch, blocking monster movement and inhibiting player vision in a way that makes doorway/corner camping less of an ideal solution and pushing the player to confront enemies head-on.

yay this is one of those megawads I did walkthroughs for.

MAP01 Comeback

Good starting map without too much incompetence in monster AI. sometimes I get turned around by level layout but since it's supposed to be short I eventually find my way. the SSG I often forget for some reason, also there's some monsters to trigger upon grabbing it. overall though this remains a fun map.

What a coincidence, I've actually been playing this. After watching a Plutonia LP by BigMacDavis, I really gained a lot of appreciation for this mapset, and by extension, 2. I used not to like Plutonia because of the overall bleakness of textures and little emphasis on realism in the level design, but damn do they play well. And right now I even think they look well too, so what the hell :P

Well, Sunlust proved to be too much for me (for now at least).
I have played through Plutonia 2 before, back when it was first released in 2008. I'll be doing UV continuous with no mid-level saves, using GZDoom.

MAP01 - Comeback by Gusta [https://youtu.be/_7aJdKfK7f0]

Kills: 100% | Items: 100% | Secrets: 100% | Time: 4:10 | Attempts: 1

Not a lot to say about this map, it (re)introduces the Plutonia theme quite nicely. There's nothing too tricky anywhere and you are never locked in a room with angry hellspawn. Took some dumb damage right at the start, but there's enough health scattered around to make up for it. Couldn't quite remember the progression here and ended up running in circles a little. Interestingly, I got one mancubus to target the other because of the barrel infight bug. First time I see it in action, didn't actually think it could happen in GZDoom...

By the way, when are we allowed to post about MAP33?

ArchvileHunter said:

Not a lot to say about this map, it (re)introduces the Plutonia theme quite nicely. There's nothing too tricky anywhere and you are never locked in a room with angry hellspawn. Took some dumb damage right at the start, but there's enough health scattered around to make up for it. Couldn't quite remember the progression here and ended up running in circles a little. Interestingly, I got one mancubus to target the other because of the barrel infight bug. First time I see it in action, didn't actually think it could happen in GZDoom...

By the way, when are we allowed to post about MAP33?

hm... halfway through, as with 31+32? that's going to create a backlog for some people again.

i like playing through map01 of both plutonia2 and prcp for warming up, and both megawads use the plutonia theme well. it's a bit often used with all those tribute / sequel wads, but still a favorite of mine with its wooden beams and clay walls. both have the 2 chaingunners in a closet and a berserk pack on map01.

the barrel bug happens in gzdoom, i get it every time and leave the 2 mancs with their spat alone. yeah the sergeants at the start are quite random, rush them with the chainsaw and sometimes they'll shoot up you badly, sometimes just walk around and get sliced.

ArchvileHunter said:

By the way, when are we allowed to post about MAP33?

Bonus/Additional maps are typically done at the end of the month, but if you guys want to post about it on the 15th that's fine.

02 - Well, a lot better than the previous map of course. Very organic geometry (except for the red key area which is tacked on) and juicy SSG action. The red switch trap is surprisingly harsh compared to everything else. Interesting how the soulsphere is casually placed on the ground, not put on a pedestal or anything remotely close to that. A semi-minor complaint is the overall darkness of the level (outdoors are 144 and there are virtually no bright elements), makes me a little uncomfortable. Invisible barriers also suck a bit but sometimes they are necessary.

MAP02 - Jungle Spirits
Kills: 97% | Items: 62% | Secrets: 100% | Time: 10:26 | -complevel 2
UV Pistol Start
Attempts: 2
Demo

MAP02. Introducing chaotic maps. They play so much better than ones with static monster placement, such as one (placement) present in many maps from another grand release from 2009, Whispers of Satan. The key trap can be easily escaped and the rest of the map has plenty of health, so if you survive the beginning, you should be fine. The map looks good, too.

MAP02 - Jungle Spirits

Kills: 100% | Items: 100% | Secrets: 100%

Quite an hectic start. The low ammo forces you to move forward so you have to wake more monsters. It's very easy to escape from the red key trap.

MAP01: Comeback
100% kills, 2/2 secrets

A nice starter map, nothing too tough but some decently dangerous traps for an unwary player. Definitely a cozier map than Plutonia MAP01, and I'd say easier on the whole, too. My only real complaint is the design of the vine-covered doorways; they've got green edges inside which blend in with the vines and can block the player, I got stuck on the doorjambs a few times and thought that they were blocked off before realizing that I could move through them.

MAP02 Jungle Spirits

hooray for a map that rushes you and warrants preknowledge if you want to perfectly play it without too many scratches. I often forget how numerous and sporadic the teleport traps are here. the key traps in particular can be quite brutal.

MAP02 Jungle Spirits:

Yep this one was tight on ammo right off the bat. I had to resort to my chainsaw at one point and made a very risky move, sawing a arachnotron in half. This was very reminiscent of Well of souls in design (in terms of textures). I liked it however some moments were made easier because of monster block lines. The music was also kind of annoying. I liked it now we're moving on.

MAP02: Jungle Spirits

This one starts you off right in the thick of it, with powerful enemies of various types scattered all around and an irregularly-shaped opening area that confounds attempts to pick a safe corner from which to systematically dissect the opposition; fun stuff indeed. The action doesn't really let up at any point as the player explores an environment that evokes feelings of some lost paleolithic temple or tomb, straddling the course of a river and now subverted in Hell's service. The player generally has a sense of where they're going, into an area that's visible but inaccessible from earlier points in the map - across a chasm, down a waterfall, atop a cliff - which really brings the multiple separate arena combats of the level together into a coherent whole with a strong sense of logical progression. A delight to play.

MAP02: Jungle Spirits

Beautiful map with underused midi. It has too much health and ammo on -solonet and cyberdemon placement makes him not dangerous at all. The only real threat are archviles at the end. Also, this map has another useless secret flag.

MAP02 - “Jungle Spirits”

Engaging one, with all the Chaingunners and other tough monsters, while reasonably challenging, neither too much nor too little. Great looking, stylish, compact, I liked it.