The DWmegawad Club plays: Alien Vendetta

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. Remember to add a “+++” before your vote to make it easier to count.

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>>>DOWNLOAD ALIEN VENDETTA HERE<<<

It’s about damn time! 2002’s Alien Vendetta is one of the most famous and beloved megawads the Dooming scene has seen—you’ve either played it or heard about it already. Starting as the solo project of Anders Johnsen but evolving into so much more, prepare yourself for a trip through one of the classics!

Author & maplist for Alien Vendetta:

Quote

MAP01 - “Sunset” by Martin Aalen Hunsager
MAP02 - “Rusty Rage” by Anders Johnsen
MAP03 - “Cargo Depot” by Mattias Berggren
MAP04 - “Seclusion” by Mattias Berggren
MAP05 - “Crimson Tide” by Anders Johnsen
MAP06 - “Hillside Siege” by Lee Szymanski, Anthony Soto
MAP07 - “Showdown” by Anders Johnsen
MAP08 - “Beast Island” by Jan Endre Jansen, Anders Johnsen
MAP09 - “Castle Gardens” by Kim André Malde
MAP10 - “Toxic Touch” by Kim André Malde
MAP11 - “Nemesis” by Martin Aalen Hunsager
MAP12 - “Entropy” by Adam Windsor, Brad Spencer
MAP13 - “Suicidal Tendencies” by Brad Spencer
MAP14 - “Overwhelming Odds” by Brad Spencer
MAP15 - “Bulls on Parade” by Madani el Hariri, Yashar Garibzadeh, Anthony Soto, Anders Johnsen

MAP31 - “Killer Colours” by Yashar Garibzadeh, Kristian Käll
MAP32 - “No Guts No Glory” by Anders Johnsen

MAP16 - “Mutual Destruction” by Brad Spencer
MAP17 - “Nukefall” by Anders Johnsen
MAP18 - “Lake Poison” by Anders Johnsen
MAP19 - “Alien Resurrection” by Madani el Hariri
MAP20 - “Misri Halek” by Kim André Malde
MAP21 - “One Flew Over the Caco’s Nest” by Pablo Dictter
MAP22 - “Rubicon” by Brad Spencer
MAP23 - “Blood Sacrifice” by Kim André Malde
MAP24 - “Clandestine Complex” by Lee Szymanski, Anthony Soto
MAP25 - “Demonic Hordes” by Vincent Catalaá, Sam Woodman
MAP26 - “Dark Dome” by Anders Johnsen”
MAP27 - “Stench of Evil” by Anders Johnsen, Jan Endre Jansen
MAP28 - “Whispering Shadows” by Anders Johnsen
MAP29 - “Fire Walk With Me” by Anders Johnsen
MAP30 - “Point Dreadful” by Anders Johnsen

BONUS CONTENT
Doomwiki
DSDA
kmxexii’s review
Suitepee plays: 1 2 3 4
Lingyan203's playthrough
an_mutt's playthrough: 1 2
Preliatus's playthrough
Alien Vendetta’s First Release (contains a new MAP25)
"AV Black Label"
----------
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
• Plutonia 2
• Revolution!

2016

• 50 Shades of Graytall & Erkattäññe
• Hell Revealed
• Vanguard, Hell Ground, Bloody Steel
• Eternal Doom
• Japanese Community Project
• Ancient Aliens
• Bloodstain
• Estranged

 

Edited May 9, 2023 by dobu gabu maru

PrBoom+, HMP, continuous, no music, infinitely tall things are on, finishing the level is all that matters. Edit to add: not ashamed to use frequent saves/reloads.


Map01
My, what a lot of bricks you have, Map. They're competently assembled and the look of the map is pretty solid as a whole, but it is a tad monotonous in places.

Gameplay is solid on the whole, though there were one or two moments where doomguy's inability to bend at the waist made for problems in targeting enemies. There's also at least one trap that's very easy to skip triggering.

Not a fan of the looks-like-a-secret way of exiting the map, nor of the fact that the map is not consistent with whether or not nukage harms you, but all in all this is a decent if not especially memorable opener.

There appears to be an error where multiple sectors have been tagged for one secret.

https://www.twitch.tv/johnsuitepee/v/45049602 = part 1.
https://www.twitch.tv/johnsuitepee/v/45028831 = part 2.
https://www.twitch.tv/johnsuitepee/v/44961432 = part 3.
https://www.twitch.tv/johnsuitepee/v/44930718 = part 4 of my playthrough.

Here's my Alien Vendetta livestream playthrough from late 2014. Gave this a 4 out of 5 at the time, and I still fondly remember AV for its music and the Kim Andre Malde levels. (Toxic Touch being my favourite!)

As a side note it turns out you don't need speedrunning tricks to beat map 30 (as I thought you did in my playthrough), but I still don't like that map anyway because Icon of Sin.

+++ THT: Threnody for next month please!

Nice, we did it Doomworld! Finally it's time to hit up a highly ambitious and legendary classic wad. I initially approached AV with a rather cynical mindset, as the community tends to overhype older wads that I feel don't hold up at all these days. I was fooled once with Hell Revealed and wasn't in the mood for getting joshed a second time. Thankfully, I was pleasantly surprised by what I saw, especially later in the wad when the maps get huge and very creative. Played through AV once on continuous and clocked a good 16 hours so there's quite a bit of content here to explore. Gonna be doing UV Pistol Starts for a change and playing the usual Zandronum 3.0 with tons of visual and sound mods as well as free aim. Looking forward to this one after not having much fun with Estranged.

Cool, I'll possibly play the latest maps on pistol start, let's see if I have time

Sweeeeet. "Misri Halek" is one of my favorite maps. Only question is do I play on HMP (again) or UV? I know it's gonna get craaazy near the end.

May I suggest the 2-map "AV Black Label" as additional bonus content?

Salt-Man Z said:

Only question is do I play on HMP (again) or UV? I know it's gonna get craaazy near the end.

UV-Max or bust!

Map 01: Sunset

Oh hey, it's that Battletoads pause music sounding track again. Always found it to be a strange midi whenever it appeared. Anyways, this map's a bit of stinker in many ways and doesn't make for a good opening impression. First of all, there are a bunch of inconsistent damaging floors that look the same, as well as a mud pool which also hurts you for whatever reason. I remember when I first played I tried to stay off all the green crap, thinking it would be damaging, but most of it isn't. Also, there's an absolutely disgusting HOM in a "swimmable" slime river that's completely inexcusable for a high quality project. Some other peculiarities are the pointless green armour for anything but continuous play as well as the secret that's tagged twice. Really feels like something that was speedmapped and tested a few times to make sure it's "beatable" but doesn't show much care beyond that. Oh, and what's the setting supposed to be? Some kind of cramped stone temple with... metal supports and acid pits? Uh... Anyways, things do get better.

rileymartin said:

Also, there's an absolutely disgusting HOM in a "swimmable" slime river that's completely inexcusable for a high quality project.

A lot of oldschool visual tricks break with GL rendering. It looks fine in software.

This is one of the many well-known mapsets I haven't played.

prBoom+, UV, pistol starts, infrequent saving.

map01

Older mapsets typically led off with filler squat little buildings populated with harmless monsters, mostly of low tier, the sort of map that is rarely ever my thing. This one is cramped and awkward too, so I can't say I enjoyed it as a Doom map, but it was interesting to think about. In 2016, everyone and their mom has played a hundred maps with support trim highlights and borders, but I suppose that was a newer thing back around 2001. It also contains a few curiosities -- the swim-through (and suddenly damaging, for whatever reason) nukage, and the bold choice of a mandatory secret required for progression -- both of which hold up even today as being reasonably creative (or "quirky", or even "dubious", if you want two progressively more cynical adjectives). I get where the "speedmapped" impression comes from, but the design is streaked with a kind of hardworked sloppiness and irregularity found at the union of older, slower, clumsier editing tools and pre-Almian improvisation. That is to say, every single room has something unique and noteworthy going on, despite the surface-level sameyness. Even the trim patterns are occasionally inconsistent in ways we wouldn't see in the modern skillsaw-imitating four-hour speedmap we could easily superimpose over this one in our imaginations. But yes, not so impressive.

Oh yeah, that intermission music! Funny -- I can't even associate that one with a single map or mapset anymore (not even Heretic). It has just been used so often.

Finally, It's about time. I've been waiting for this one so long. As always, every level will be played with UV-Pistol Start.

MAP01 - Sunset
ZDoom, UV - Pistol Start, KIS(%): 100/100/100

A nice, compact opener for a megawad with 32 levels. The combat is simple, and it won't take more than three minutes to clear the whole level if you find the SSG from the secret area. Speaking of secret area, it's a little bit weird that the author applied the numerous tags for the soulsphere area; four sectors are tagged as secret. So there are basically three secret areas, not six. Not to mention that the tag for SSG secret is so small that you have a chance to miss the tag. It could be better if sector 55 was tagged as a secret, not sector 54. Regardless of issues with secrets, it is a nice opener with well-detailed lighting effects. Keep in mind that the most of levels of Alien Vendetta are created with DOS level editor called DETH, unlike Doom Builder that we're using right now. So please, cherish the authors whenever you find some exquisite lighting details from this wad.

Hello everybody, i've been a longtime lurker of this forum and I thought i'd contribute to this thread. AV is about my favourite PWAD i've played - along with Eternal Doom and Sunlust - and I thought it would be a good time for myself to jump in.

GZDoom and UV on continuous.
Map 01 - Sunset

AV's opener is definitely a bit heavy on the brown brick & green slime combination to start with. The most striking thing about this map, both in look and how it plays at a couple spots is the verticality of it - despite the relatively compact size of the map, it does give the impression of being bigger than it is. For the most part it is a very clean looking level, albeit one that could've used a touch more colour differentiation. (and yes, the soulsphere secret does look ugly on a GL port - perhaps the only blemish on an otherwise solid looking map)

As for how it plays, the most dangerous part of the map is the snipers on the second level that opens the switch to the final area - they can definitely take a big chunk off your health if you aren't careful. Savvy players will have a relatively easy time of it, however, whether you acquired the SSG via secret or not.

The solution to opening the final door is a bit of an odd choice, admittedly. Minor quibbles aside, though, it's a solid opening level that does its job of setting the tone for the first episode to come.

antares031 said:

DOS level editor called DETH

I created CC4 map06 in DETH. It was a fine toolset given its age, and lighting effects were actually pretty easy to do with it because it had an 'insert line and split sectors' function.

There was a considerable overhead in the need to exit DETH, recompile the nodes, and then launch Doom every time you wanted to check something, though :)

Suitepee said:

+++ THT: Threnody for next month please!

You have to save your vote for at least the 25th in order for it to be counted like the rest of us :P

Capellan said:

PrBoom+, HMP, continuous, no music, infinitely tall things are on, finishing the level is all that matters.

Aww you gotta at least talk about your involvement with the project! Many of us have no clue how AV came together or how/when people signed up for it, so getting some "behind the scenes" tidbits are always welcome (its secretly what I look forward to the most in these threads).

Alright! Played AV originally waaaay back in college when I got back into Doom wads, but don’t remember much other than I liked it a lot (similar to Memento Mori). Doing pistol starts, UV, Zdoom, keyboard only, saves aplenty.

MAP01: A lot of enemies suspiciously keep their backs to the player in this level. Perhaps this is the first time Doomguy actually gets the drop on the hellspawn... or he's being shunned for some reason.

Anyway, I feel that AV makes a pretty good first impression here. Hunsager's map is small and orthogonal but never feels boxy, is consistently brown but never quite ugly, and has some fun enemy placement despite feeling very MAP01ish. It's nothing especially noteworthy nor is it the best map in the set (I'm confident MAP20 will retain that spot), but compared to the usual techbase & zombie-heavy opening of E1s today, it's a bit of a breath of fresh air.

Oh, and if anyone wants to know how badly I play, I died here.

BlondieMcFilthy said:

AV is about my favourite PWAD i've played - along with Eternal Doom and Sunlust - and I thought it would be a good time for myself to jump in.

Quite a triage there. Welcome aboard!—always glad when these threads can smoke you lurkers out (in a kind, non-lethal way of course).

dobu gabu maru said:

Aww you gotta at least talk about your involvement with the project!

Brad Spencer emailed me and said "Hey, you know those first 3 maps you and I did for (project that never happened)? Is it okay if I combine them into a single map and include them in a new project I'm involved in? I'll credit you, of course."
I said "Sure."

That's literally my entire involvement with AV :)

Capellan said:

Brad Spencer emailed me and said "Hey, you know those first 3 maps you and I did for (project that never happened)? Is it okay if I combine them into a single map and include them in a new project I'm involved in? I'll credit you, of course."
I said "Sure."

That's literally my entire involvement with AV :)

Yeah and I butchered them together very awkwardly, it's one of my many regrets regarding my av maps. We were racing to the finish trying to fill map slots, and I was both too proud to curate/pare-down my own content, and too scared to change a single Capellan linedef because I worshipped your work.

Vorpal's the guy to hound for backstage insight, dobu :)

I played AV when it first came out, and never since, so I'm pretty interested to see how it holds up to my faded memories (which was that it was tough but enjoyable, and looked great).

Here we go! I first played AV probably 8-9 years ago on HNTR, made it through the first 11 or 12 maps before Doomsday crapped out. I finally played the whole thing through maybe 4 years ago, this time on HMP. Tons of fun, though a couple of the later maps get a bit out of hand. (MAP25 in particular I remember forgetting max kills and just trying to get out alive.) I honestly don't remember anything past MAP26 barring the IoS, and I know for sure I never found the secret levels (at the time I didn't realize how secret exits worked, and didn't know that almost every MAP15 has one.) So this should be a lot of fun! As usual, GZDoom/continuous/keyboard-only/saves, and UV this time, sure why not?


MAP01: Sunset
6:41 | 100% Everything

I know this level almost like the back of my hand, as AV was long my go-to PWAD for testing out source port installs. That's because when I first played with Doomsday way back when, the first deep-water pool (with the imps in it) was glitchy, in addition to the secret pool/tunnel. So ever time I installed a new source port, or a new version, or on a new computer, AV was what I'd always test out.

Anyway, this is a fun one. I love the Battletoads music. The lighting is great, and even though everything's brown, it all looks good. The exit area in particular is gorgeous. Combat-wise, the opening is fairly dangerous with imps and hitscanners taking potshots at you from all around, but once you start to whittle their numbers down, it becomes a pretty simple affair. On the downside, you have inconsistently-damaging nukage, a mandatory secret-style switch to open the exit door (which had me positively stumped the first time I played) and that weird pair of imps staring at the wall with their back to you early on. And it'd be nice if that secret pool rendered properly in GL mode, but that's something I've learned to live with all these years. :)

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLgS1ZoidySwOkEqPdJIR4vaezACZtLErx

Here's my playthrough of Alien Vendetta if anybody wants to check it out! UV Max continuous.

I played the first handful of maps a month or two ago, while I was still very green as a Doomer, but I'd love to give it another go. AV is one that always shows up on everyone's "best megawads ever" list, so I think it'd be a great one to pop my MWC cherry. A question, though -- how does AV's difficulty compare to that of Hell Revealed? At the moment I'm nearly through HR. UV, pistol starts, max kills. That was biting off way more than I could chew, so to that formula I added "save liberally" and "shamelessly follow Megasonic023's playthrough."

In pure quantitative terms, is AV harder or easier than HR? How do they differ in the nature of the difficulty? i.e., HR is about dying a whole lot until you figure out an early-map strategy that lets you carve out a foothold from which to work. How would one characterize AV's difficulty?

For any of you gents kind enough to provide some insight, what difficulty did you play during your first AV run?

Apologies for cluttering up the topic with likely tiresome questions about difficulty, but I'd much appreciate some veteran Doomer opinions and I didn't think the questions merited their own topic. Many thanks in advance. Hopefully I'll be able to share some half-interesting thoughts on the maps, from the perspective of a first-time player without many PWADs under his belt.

In 2001/02 I finished AV on HMP, playing continuously, with frequent saves/reloads and using keyboard only. Even now as a keyboard+mouse player I am a deeply mediocre player. So it's certainly a mapset that you can grind your way through in time. I don't personally know how it compares to HR as I have never played that :)

There's some discussion of the difficulty in AV at the end of last month's thread (for Estranged).

Map01 – Sunset

Ah, Alien Vendetta at last! I've long felt like some kind of nitwit because I never played this, but I see that it was released in 2002, when I was on my long vacation from Doom that lasted mostly from 2000 to 2011.

Anyway, it's great to see Adam back and also to have Brad on hand for some behind the scenes info. We also have some new faces here, and I expect the ranks to swell in that regard. ;)

And hey, kids, here's a rare SteveD keyboarding demo!

http://www.mediafire.com/download/u5js94944267fgd/avsd01a.lmp

SEE the Ancient Doomer, with his gnarled, arthritic fingers on the numeric keypad, as he staggers and stumbles his way to victory. And we won't mention the tragic industrial accident my family refuses to talk about, when my hand was pulped in an auto crusher, which further diminishes my skills. ;D

I played this map 3 times, twice on UV and once on HMP. Gotta wonder who was involved with play balancing, because on HMP, instead of a secret Soulsphere you get a secret Blursphere, a total ripoff after you tank all that damage jumping into the nukage. It's worth your life to get those 4 secrets for the price of 1. ;) That SNAFU is easily explained, because probably the secret room was made first and then the lighting sectors were added into the secret area, so they automatically became secret sectors as well. Many mappers, including myself, have made this mistake at least once, and it's embarrassing if the map gets released before the mistake is corrected. In my case, that happened on Map23 of Realm of Chaos – 17 secrets in the map, most of them stairs . . .

Given rileymartin's warning about the HOM and rdwpa's explanation, I made my first playthrough in PRBoom in my usual UV, keyboard-only savescumming way. I personally detest software rendering, so I played again in Risen3D and GZDoom and found the visual quirk acceptable, so unless there's some really major visual glitch in a future map, I'll be going with GZDoom from here on out. Risen3D is prettier but it doesn't have monster and secret counts, which mean more to me than sheer beauty.

The secrets in this map were weird. There was no secret credit for the Zerk, even though you had to find a secret teleport to get there. The Green Armor was uselessly placed for pistol-starters, and of course, you had to find a secret torch-switch to exit. The Spectres in the dark nukage pool were completely invisible, and for awhile I thought the Demons I heard were in a teleport closet! Only when I was attacked after jumping in did I realize my mistake. There's some weird things about PRBoom . . .

The map looked decent but nothing exceptional. The exit signs were cool. On UV, the Hell Knight usage is noteworthy since it dominates that one area when you're low on ammo and unwilling to attack it, but in the demo I attack it lustily because that's a fun way to Rambo this map. I really enjoyed the Battletoads music. BTW, until this thread, I had no idea Battletoads existed. ;)

All in all a decent starter.

right, let's try again shall we - hopefully i'll enjoy this a little more than the last 2 months offers. playing UV, pistol starts, no saves (unless i need them!)
--------------

fda here

pretty fun little opener. a touch too monochrome for my liking. i dont know what the green torch switch does so i exit without spending too much time wandering about. i also shot by accident as i started the map so got an unusual start which included a shotgunner trying to say hello to my crotch before i noticed him below me :D

i think the MIDI does a good introductory job. someone mentioned it on another month, but the first map and MIDI really set the scene for the wad as a whole, so even though i dont think its a particularly good MIDI it makes me instantly associate AV the moment i hear it.

does anyone know if there are any other particularly ugly openGL related glitches? and for bonus points what is the trickery going on in software mode that allows you to see through the slime pit but doesnt work in gl?

Peckles said:

A question, though -- how does AV's difficulty compare to that of Hell Revealed? At the moment I'm nearly through HR. UV, pistol starts, max kills. That was biting off way more than I could chew, so to that formula I added "save liberally" and "shamelessly follow Megasonic023's playthrough."

In pure quantitative terms, is AV harder or easier than HR? How do they differ in the nature of the difficulty? i.e., HR is about dying a whole lot until you figure out an early-map strategy that lets you carve out a foothold from which to work. How would one characterize AV's difficulty?

For any of you gents kind enough to provide some insight, what difficulty did you play during your first AV run?

Hey there, I guess I can do some comparison about the two megawads having played them 'recently'. Imo the hardest maps in HR surpass the hardest AV maps for example Post Mortem is more difficult to beat then Dark Dome, talking of similiar maps. For me one map that equals top HR difficulty is Stench of Evil followed (maybe, I have to try pistol start) Whispering Shadows.
Definitely Afterlife, Ascending to the Stars and Last Look at Eden make HR harder then AV.

I've always adored the first episode of AV. From there it goes full Hell Revealed and my smile sort of freezes on my face as the play-style diverges from what I want from Doom, but the level designs stay interesting nonetheless. the map 20 music is iconic too.

Sunset's weird layout, secrets and exit mechanics are stuck in my mind to the point where I can navigate it automatically, but working out its mechanics was fun back in the day!

While there's some debate to whether AV is easier or harder than HR, I personally feel that AV is slightly harder, with some maps like Overwhelming Odds, Lake Poison, Demonic Hordes, Darkdome, and Stench of Evil surpassing HR in terms of body count. Fortunately, AV has more emphasis on adventure with intense run-n-gun action than fiendish tactical choices and resource managing as in most of its predecessor.

Gonna play some other wads that have the AV vibe in order to psyche me up for the time being before I start the main event (particularly Vorpal's Black Label).

rehelekretep said:

does anyone know if there are any other particularly ugly openGL related glitches?

As far as I can recall, that's the only one.

Map 01 "sunset"

Alright here we go, heavy doomworld assault on AV!

A nice little opener with some hight variation, interesting secrets, straight forward combat, and a SSG in the mix as well. Can you believe it folks? An SSG in map 01?! Dayum! ;-)

3/5: "A nice little opener is nice and little"

One of my favourites wads, and I'm also really fond of this mapset. It's one of the first pwads I played after I found it mentioned in a "good wads recommendations" thread here. It was really impressive with the quality of the level design, the cool adventurous vibe and the maps with very high monster counts. I never beat this on pistol starts, so let's try it now.

MAP01: Short map, very fitting to introduce the wad and its style. There ins't so much going on actually but nonetheless it's an interesting level and the secrets were fun.

I would have liked to hear at least some thoughts of Memfis on this wad but he's still losered D:

Hi folks, I streamed the first 14 maps of this wad a little under a year ago (and I'll be streaming the rest some time soon, seeing as it's this month's DWMC wad!) so I figured I'd share what I had. Also, thanks to AV Black Label (and some discussions on AV design with Alfonzo) I randomly decided to replay the entire wad (UV, pistol start, no saves) the other week, making it to Dark Dome before deciding to move onto something else. Anyway, I'm actually going to try and provide write-ups of the entire WAD this month! I've been exploring a lot of the wad's design philosophy recently, and it's the first custom mapset I ever played, so I figured why the hell not.

Map 01 - Sunset

As much as this map can be described as brown (and my goodness is it brown!) there's enough green and orange that pops through the visuals, thanks to generous blobs of nukage and sky respectively, that they remain stimulating. There is some questionable use of support bars, but for the most part they're kept away from areas where obstructing the player's movement can result in taking heavy damage. I'm not too hot on my historical doom trends, so I can't quite place when this mapping trait began its decline, but I strongly associate 8-16 unit wide metal support bars with this wad and I'm glad - for the most part - that the community has moved away from it.

Anyway, like others have said this map definitely evokes "Alien Vendetta" as a whole to me, from the murky opening notes of its midi to the brick/metal and E4 sky combo. It's probably the one opening map in the history of Doom modding that is most indicative of the mapset it precedes, perhaps excluding its tame monster placement. It's interesting that it feels like recent projects (particularly Back to Saturn X episodes 1 & 2) have moved towards a similar sensation from their own opening "shots", for lack of a better term, that you're given a strong idea of the entire mapset in the first couple seconds of getting started.

As to the gameplay itself, it's quite non-descript (and why I've not made mention to it until now). There's definitely some dubious monster placement, such as the two imps in the slime trough in the opening room. The final room bears some mention as, like rdwpa mentioned, there's the whole green torch thing. It's definitely noteworthy that we have what is effectively a mandatory secret in the opening map of a megawad, and I even remember spending a fair bit of time trying to figure out how to access the exit room the first time I played this wad. I don't find it a problem here, due to its being introduced in a room where conventional gameplay also takes place, but it does support my belief that puzzles have little to no place in Doom maps due to their relative lack of replay value.

Alien Vendetta is definitely one of my most played wads; for me it combined great lighting, great gameplay, and great design, and did what Hell Revealed ought to have done. HMP, continuous, no HUD:

MAP01 Sunset

Well the lighting here was one of the things that really got me into AV in the first place. It does its job well as an opener, easing the new players into the action while giving an atmospheric feel. Gotta say though, the deep water effect at the red key room looked hella ugly on my renderer. Plus the fact that multiple secrets were all in that one area. The red key did not have a door to go with it, but on the same ledge as the chaingun were a group of bars that opened upon grabbing the key in its room. Not to mention there's a second lift right next to the chaingun (for some clearly inexplicable reason, but I've never seen it before though).

I had a mix-up in my schedule recently, so I actually had more free time from classes than I expected.