The DWmegawad Club plays: Alien Vendetta

Map 03 - Cargo Depot

As Demon of the Well noted, this map was pretty extensively overhauled for the second version of AV; there actually wasn't a city behind the start originally and in general the lighting was a lot more 'flat' (or even, if you want to be charitable toward it). The cave with the yellow key in it was quite different too, though it's been a minute since I played through the first release of AV. (I certainly intend to for "Valley of Echoes" once we're finished with the rest of this WAD)

Most of the fighting here is pretty much straight up monster globs choking up hallways, and it's hardly much of a challenge given the free access to the SSG and chaingun at the start for pistol starters. Still, as a map, it flows along relatively smoothly for the most part, and combat is relatively propulsive since we're mostly gunning down small fry, with the odd Revenant, Caco or Hell Knight to spice things up.


Map 04 - Seclusion

This is kind of like an 'upgraded' version of the previous map: it continues from the same railroad that the last map ended on. It is still a linear map inherently, but it succeeds more than the previous one on the basis of its combat - while still mostly frontal hordes, this one shows much more of a proclivity toward nasty ambushes & traps. That Red Key trap where you're bracketed by all those chaingunners is pure Plutonia Experiment, for instance. And while the bulk of the map is still low-end enemies, there's a greater degree of high-end enemies present here, and not just as walls of meat either: there's an opportunity for some really effective infighting to be had if you're inclined to go with that. (EG the Barons before the final door) It is definitely not a perfect map: the final hallway before the exit really is just a wall of monsters to take out, and it isn't particularly hard even on UV because they give you so much ammo & health to accomplish the task with. Still, a strong map/

Map 05 - Crimson Tide

This map's always given me something of a Plutonia Experiment vibe, albeit a fair bit more symmetrical than what the Casali brothers might have done. In particular it reminds me a lot of "Neurosphere", both in aesthetic (IE brown brick textured building surrounding by a sea of blood), but in particular the useage & placement of traps is meant to wear you down pretty quickly. ("Neurosphere", of course, owes a lot of its aesthetic choices to Doom II's "The Inmost Dens")

I actually didn't really like this map very much the first time I played AV, but nowadays i'd count it as one of my favourites of the set. It's certainly one of the shorter maps in the set, yeah, but much like a few others, it has a sense of atmosphere and placement that finds a way to stick to your memory. Not to mention, it has some of the most vicious fighting arrangements seen in the WAD up to this point, even though it fields a smaller monster count than the preceding three maps overall.

This isn't the last time AV explores this theme, but regardless: fantastic map. Not to mention it's a stark contrast next to the one coming up...

MAP06 - Hillside Siege
ZDoom, UV - Pistol Start, KIS(%): 100/100/100

Wow, a roar of Cyberdemon. How intimidating. Yes, this level is not playing around, throwing lots of mid-tier monsters like hell knights and mancubi. Unlike previous levels with a lot of shells to spare, you may suffer from the lack of ammunition if you play this level with pistol start and you don't rely on monster infighting. The layout is simple and straight-forward, and there is always a key near the locked door. About the Cyberdemon in this level, abusing monster infighting is advisable, but don't try to hunt the Cyberdemon with your SSG from the ground below. There's sometimes an alternative way to deal with unfair moments, so try to explore the room, pointed by an arrow on the automap. Overall, this challenging level is not a bad one, but some monster placements are a little bit uninspiring.

Map06
Now this is an adventure and no mistake. We’re dropped into a lovely looking stone and brick base with just enough flourishes of other textures - sladwall, marble, wood etc - to make each area distinctive. We’re also given a chance to run around outside for a little while, which nicely mixes things up a bit in the visual department..

There’s certainly plenty of meat to deal with here and I think either UV or pistol start would push things beyond my “having fun” threshold. I don’t share SteveD’s masochistic tendencies :-)

While I enjoyed the actual process of playing this map quite a lot, I do have two complaints about the gameplay. The first is that it’s a very linear map. I wish steps had been taken to open it up and give the player some choices about where to go from time to time. It feels rather like a modern shooter: it’s fun but a bit on rails.

The second issue is that monsters are overwhelmingly placed in front of you. On continuous, it’s pretty much always the best strategy to door camp. I suspect ammo pressures would make this less optimal in pistol starts, but failing to flank the player is still an oversight of map design (one that pretty much every map so far has tended to do, it must be said).

MAP05 - “Crimson Tide” by Anders Johnsen

The old island fortress theme, for some reason I never remember much of this map. I like it though. I've seen a lot of other maps do more with this idea since, and its a shame there wasn't much reason to jump into the poison blood surrounding it, but its a decent map and adds a nice bit of variety.

Maps 05-06
Well im goin to resume the firsts 6 maps
Im just gonna say that my favorite of these is Map 05, is short, fun, good music and
well done. And it is based in "Neurosphere" of Plutonia, so any map well done inspired in plutonia have my favouritism
But the first i play these maps i liked much MAP 06. Cyberdemon appears and in a good and hard position to kill.
Here my video playing map05 100% kills in 4:18 min. Please any advice is well received or any tips to increase the quality of the video, now im using OBS

why are you recording your desktop with the game in windowed mode?

ok, another groundbreaking classic, i had let the others vote but i'm happy to play it again (gzdoom, uv, pistol starts)


MAP01 - “Sunset” by Martin Aalen Hunsager

a very brown map, apparently quake-inspired. compact, even cramped, but much vertical space, made mostly of brown brick and green slime which hurts in places and in others doesn't. populated by imps and hitscanners, mostly. the ssg is found behind a stream of green liquid, and when you dive through another (that one with the hom in gl rendering) you get a soulsphere. the exit is kind of a mandatory secret, press on a (pretty obvious, tbh) torch. ok, and now i know where that music is from.



MAP02 - “Rusty Rage” by Anders Johnsen

a techbase that gives you the shotgun from the start and a pack of imps, plus some shotgunners that disappear comically in barrel explosions. there's some strange stuff like the crate stacks with zombies standing on them, but also the fun part in the (not hurting) nukage pool with a sudden chaingunner invasion and an archvile at the lift.



MAP03 - “Cargo Depot” by Mattias Berggren

another base map with some tight quarters, and again former humans and imps on crates. a series of corridorts, pretty linear. the rocket launcher secret is important for playing this quick, otherwise you'll have to run circles sniping at the revenants in the corners of the courtyard. anyway, there are enough targets for your rockets, like rabble in tight groups. you exit by hopping onto a railway track.



MAP04 - “Seclusion” by Mattias Berggren

the railway ends in front of a standard techbase with concrete and green walls. linear affair, reminds a bit of hell revealed's first maps where you slaughter mobs of monsters stuffed in tight corridors, so line up those ssg shots well. not really threatening, except for the closet where a baron warps in your back, and perhaps the vile at the yellow door.



MAP05 - “Crimson Tide” by Anders Johnsen

obviously inspired by the inmost dens, a complex with low brown walls in a sea of blood, and it looks great under the orange e4 sky. resistance gets a bit harder and better placed, like revenants and chaingunners here and there. the archvile on the wall right at the start doesn't do much however, as he can't see the starting area (i got up on the wall later and knocked him off it). you have to collect the keys one after the other, and the map lets you do this in an adventure fashion. liked it.




went rip and tear on two revs and hilariously punched a bit of one right on the key



MAP06 - “Hillside Siege” by Lee Szymanski, Anthony Soto

i agree with the comment that monsters are often placed directly in front, making firing at a chokepoint (door) easy. after a rough start, you're pretty stacked with ammo, especially shells, and fire away at doors and hallways where hellspawn congregates. that's the case with pistol starts too. that the fun part of this: you can blow them sky high with ease. i had to snipe them a bit with rockets or wear them down with the ssg, havig forgotten where to get the bfg and the invulnerability. these make the game much faster of course.




something like this chokepoint

Map 04 -- Seclusion - 100% Kills / 100% Secrets
Of the maps in the final(?) version of Alien Vendetta, I'd say that "Seclusion" shows its age more than man most, being both one of the set's most aesthetically simple maps and also one of those where the project's initial design goal of creating HResque gameplay is most clearly evident. Indeed, were it not for the slightly more 'realistic' sense of physical scale, I reckon this map could've fit very easily into the original Hell Revealed somewhere around slot 04 or 05 so (it is arguably not abrasive enough to fit into Hell Revealed II, which first hit the scene not long after AV itself). The setting is essentially a Phobos-type military/research base perched on a rocky beachhead, just inside of a manmade breakwater. Comprised of mostly smallish orthogonal chambers connected by a panoply of doors and latches, with a barren yard or two for contrast, the layout here is practical 'make it fit' sort of fare (my impression is that Berggren drew the facility's basic outline first and then squeezed progression into the space thus created) that liberally uses locked doors and path forks to frame the action, not the sort of thing that's really conducive to a joyous feeling of motion or any kind of exploration (and now that I mention it it occurs to me that this is rather un-HResque in that there's no real challenge to tackle areas in the correct order). Because a lot of the interior chambers are little more than anonymous backdrops, I think the overall sense of place is less pronounced here than in many of the set's other maps, as well, though this aspect is not entirely unworked, as seen through the height changes between base sections which do help it develop a bit more sense of depth.

Of course, it's not like the setting is the map's most assertive element, anyway--that'd be that the damned thing is positively jam-packed full of doddering undead and ravening hellbeasts, nearly 300 strong, which is quite high density for something as short/compact as this level. The great majority of these are clusters or floods of weaker enemies who can be dispatched quickly and easily with the weaponry provided, though the layout itself generally requires that most engagements are primarily static and prosecuted through doors or other chokepoints. Monster placement like this in the context of surroundings like these is simply not done in most quarters these days (though Burabojunior's 'UAC Plant' map from the JPCP immediately jumps out at me as a recent example), and I suppose the use of so many doors in such quick succession is equally as frowned upon. For playability, I reckon the proceedings more or less break even. On the one hand there's a very palpable sense of bloodiness and intensity--sometimes it feels like you're firing the SSG so much that its barrels seem like they ought to be glowing hot--but on the other choreography or layered fight design is essentially and almost necessarily nonexistent, and there's not much room for playstyle variation. The proceedings are broken up at a couple of places by traps which are actually fairly visceral in the sense that it's difficult not to be damaged by them--there's the pincer in the ascending hallway in the north quarter, or the chaingunner 'gotcha' snare protecting the red card--but the level's thing-balance generally hard-counters these before the fact with generous supply placement, particularly pronounced if the powerful secrets are located, which is extremely easy to do in this case given that they're mostly concealed by obvious pushwalls.

Somewhat funny to note that the somewhat squidgy surroundings are apparently host to IWAD-style co-op monster placement, as seen in rdwpa's -solonet recording above. Sort of underscores the design philosophy of mostly mindless violence in evidence here. On that note, while it's definitely not highlight material and definitely not 'high art', I reckon this map has a definite function which it serves well enough (another strong point for AV, incidentally, is that it has rather little obvious conceptual filler, with only 1 or maybe 2 glaring exceptions), that being a mostly genial introduction to the really meaty monster density we'll be seeing more of further in.

rdwpa said:

Here is a -solonet UV-max of map04. Would've been irritated to lose this near the end to . . . that. Also thanks rehelekretep for the soundfont.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3bUhb49f7o

quite literally music to my ears :p

now all you need to do is turn off that disgusting texture filtering :p

Map05 – Crimson Tide by Anders Johnsen

About time I started putting the mapper's names on the commentaries.

This is a small island fortress map with some nasty close-up encounters. The theme is fairly gothic, so perhaps this is Elba, where they sent Napolean.

I'll confess that I wasn't an enormous fan of this map. Squinchy spaces, close-up fights and -20% blood – indeed, toxic blood of any kind – are bound to draw my ire to some degree. It's a good-looking map, though, with nice detailing for the most part. I do object to the metal inserts in the windows. I tend to view such structures as a step too far in detailing as they make for a sense of busyness rather than smooth functionality. Detail for the sake of detail, you might say.

My biggest fun came when I got out in the blood sea, oddly enough. I had the Rocket Launcher, so I grabbed the radsuit and terminated that aggravating Archie from the ocean. I then found the Zerk and some bullet boxes. Not a bad haul.

I was annoyed by the monster block lines at the RL battle and also by the switch that lowers a lift you have to run for – one of my least favorite Doom tropes. I liked leaping into the Stargate, though, as it gave me fond memories of the 1995 classic, Osiris.

Overall, I'd call this a decent map, and once again I UV-Maxed without dying, though only as the result of some fast savescumming. ;) I also had to clip to kill a Chaingunner who refused to teleport. Maybe a GZDoom problem?

Map 05 -- Crimson Tide - 98% Kills / 100% Secrets
Not to say that Alien Vendetta is only about bodycount, mind you--I doubt it would be remembered anywhere near as fondly were that the case. "Crimson Tide" is a small and tight map (physically and otherwise) with a sub-100 population whose action takes shape through placement of small numbers of foes in the context of a fairly complex playspace where angles of attack are often multifaceted (esp. if played aggressively) and where battles will occasionally take place on limited footing. Most of the arsenal is present, but ammo is judged fairly tightly, so there's no reason not to smoke 'em if you've got 'em here (as per usual and as is probably the case with many players, I think I used too many shells and too few cells for optimum flow, but hell, I've not played this in a while after all). Purely in terms of fight design, what's here works well enough, though the teleportation traps in a couple of places have always struck me as slightly understaffed (incidentally, my 98% kill score this time is because one of the revenants got stuck in his closet offmap), and I'd have liked to see more use of flyers around the exterior walkways, seeing as the bounding box containing the map is really not far away from the main playable area. The radsuit out in the blood comes off as a little odd at first seeing as how there's no actual secret stuff to be found by taking a sanguine swim, but once you know it's there you can use it right after mapstart to move all around the fort exterior, riling up its defenders and sowing internecine conflict to soften them up for your inevitable meeting later. I've always liked that--cool when even small maps offer you more than one way to play them.

That being said, I reckon this map's a nice complement to map 04 in that it's more about the setting than about the combat. This humble little early-game map has an established conceptual heritage, being clearly inspired by "Neurosphere" (which in turn was framed as a devilish take on "The Inmost Dens", of course), and seems to have left more of a footprint in its wake than one seeing it for the first time might initially imagine, arguably being one of the more commonly-referenced PWAD maps since its release. I believe the Club has most recently encountered its thematic scions in Valiant and Resurgence, and there are plenty of other examples as well, though I suppose in many of these cases it can be difficult to fully tell where "Neurosphere" begins and "Crimson Tide" ends, heh. So what makes it so appealing? Well, I reckon the other posters have got a good handle on it--it has a lot of structural depth and shortform explorability for something so small, gameplay aspects which tend to make it much more easy to fix a location in one's mind. In terms of pure presentation it obviously had a lot of love and care lavished on it, a smooth unity of unobtrusive sector-detailing, tasteful mood-lighting, and even prop use for a very coherent package (or maybe the blood and mortar just looks fundamentally striking under that blazing sunset sky). The use of a traditionally late-game BGM track in such an early map (here and elsewhere) always strikes me as having a strange psychological effect where it immediately sharpens perception and heightens receptiveness, and I think it also gains something in that regard by being a somewhat sudden thematic shift away from the techbase settings of maps 02-04 (though if you keep "Sunset" in mind it perhaps seems a bit less unheralded); AV generally doesn't concern itself too much with establishing a painstakingly unbroken narrative, and so there will occasionally be shifts like this, but in the context of the greater setting most of its levels fit in fairly neatly--"Crimson Tide" is the herald of a sort of 'nature/fortification' theme, as we'll soon see.

MAP06 Hillside Siege

The roar of the first cyberdemon in Alien Vendetta greets the players here, but it takes a while to get to him. Yellow key's easy enough, the huge hillside on the eastern half of the map is populated by mancubi and midtiers, and the slowgoing players will have a field day with the SSG there. The actual cyberdemon courtyard is pretty harsh, with quite a few enemies distracting you from about everywhere. Those ones in the window are more threatening than you'd think, and of course, a watchful eye on cybie is necessary. What I usually do is just rush for the switch to open the next wall and ram my way through. The cyberdemon himself can be killed either via telefrag if your lucky, or the BFG provided.

And then you wind up back at the starting point only to find a new area (where that stupid and annoying mancubus was firing from) is open. Not much to note except that there's a plasma gun and a switch which allows access through the yellow doors again, and you needed the red key to exit anyways. Well done. I wonder who "RIP ADAM" refers to? And is it me, or are there some really strange misalignments right on the exit switch?

06 - Hillside Siege

Great visuals and skillful use of space, both vertical and horizontal, throughout. At the start, the disquieting row of hanging corpses, along with the "layered" architecture, help establish that theme of how well the map will use space. For much of the early going, low walls partially obstruct the player's view of the surroundings. This obstruction is a brilliant touch that teases the player and builds suspense; we can see ledges and mancubi and the tops of buildings, but *not* what's waiting for us when we *get* to those areas. We can hear it, though--the sounds of archies laughing and spiders clink-clanking around get the player's hackles up. More broadly, the map is beautiful to look at, both in terms of architecture and detailing. Rooms comfortably accomodate many different textures. The slime falls flowing past withered trees so caught my attention that I had to stop to admire it for a moment. The secret soul sphere room, with the steps, looks great too, but I especially like the functionality of it as a secret area, with the exit window from which you can attack the baddies from a more advantageous angle. I can't immediately recall another instance of a map using a secret area that way--as a tactical advantage, not just a pile of goodies. I'm sure it's been done before, but in any case it's a very nice touch.

Getting to the red key includes some very light platforming; I like it when maps include platforming without getting silly with it.

Good, fun arena action in the cyberdemon area, though I made a total slopjob of the pack of HKs on the other side of the area, and ended up sub-20 in health and armor both. I was fretting about how I'd take out the cyberdemon, until I stumbled across the telefrag/BFG secret (huzzah). Though I guess the presence of the invuln sphere means the player is normally expected to BFG the cybie, so I probably just got really lucky with the telefrag. I was too cocky with the archie hanging around the yellow door (when you come back to it) and was lucky to survive him. That makes for two near-death experiences on this map, and the first two in the set for me (on HMP, granted). These two close calls owed mostly to my sloppiness, but this is definitely the most challenging map so far.

Spatially, the flow of the map is cyclical, bringing you back to the start where the map has repopulated the earlier areas. I thought it was neat that you have to lower bars to re-access the yellow door, which is basically gated twice in the map. The structure serves to wring as much extra gameplay out of the map as possible, which is nice to have given how fantastic this map is. I really can't say enough good things about it. Visually it's an A+, the gameplay is top-notch, the filler doesn't feel like filler. The atmosphere and sense of place is very strong, and when I finished the map, I had a palpable sense of having adventured through it. I get the feeling I like 06 a lot more than everyone else, and I guess I'd chalk that up to my relative inexperience with PWADs. But there have honestly been very few maps, IWADs or PWADs, that I've enjoyed as much as this one. It's probably in my top ten. This is the kind of map I'd want to make if I made maps.

Getsu Fune said:

I wonder who "RIP ADAM" refers to?

I believe it's a reference to Adam Windsor. According to the AV textfile, Hillside Siege was originally going to be part of an abandoned project that was between Lee, Anthony, and Adam. I assume it could be same project that Vorpal was in when he talked about Map12 of this wad, though it could be another thing altogether.

T-Rex said:

I believe it's a reference to Adam Windsor. According to the AV textfile, Hillside Siege was originally going to be part of an abandoned project that was between Lee, Anthony, and Adam. I assume it could be same project that Vorpal was in when he talked about Map12 of this wad, though it could be another thing altogether.

It's probably the same project, mostly because I don't remember any other project it could be.

Though since said project was basically D2INO-in-1999, I am now curious what map this was intended to be. :)

Map 06: Hillside Siege

This map kicks the difficulty up a notch and presents a large amount of meaty foes, mostly Mancs and Nobles, to kill. I think it plays alright from pistol start, but I'm not a fan of how late you get a basic crappy green armour when map 04, which was significantly easier, just threw blues at you left and right. That's some Estranged-level crap that I'm not at all fond of. There are also many infighting opportunities and running ahead to herd a group of Hell Knights back to fight the Mancs is rather common. The red key is slightly obscure to grab as it requires running up a ledge a bit further on. The visuals are alright but nothing really stands out like in the previous maps. Decent map, if not a bit grindy.

map06

This map is a blast. All of the combat is viscerally satisfying: the close-range scuffles with mid-tiers; the massacres of small fry; the central showdown in the yard, a series of fights that blend seamlessly together. I imagine it's a low-pressure map if camping is used as a primary tactic, but I had a lot more fun running into the heat of the action. The green armor is withheld for a while, but the health placements are generous, with a secret soulsphere that is hardly hidden.

The one major problem is the cyberdemon. Telefragging it is a dice roll. As Anders Johnsen himself says in the text file of his UV-Max:

"When I playtested this map prior to av releas I never played it the right way (in this case that woulda been following a sensible compet-N route). Admittedly I've experienced some really frustrating gameplay issues, the cyber teleporter kill being the main one. I wonder if I was the one who asked for it not to be a given frag, but it sure as hell shoulda been. That alone woulda improved the fun of playing this level alot."

rehelekretep said:

quite literally music to my ears :p

now all you need to do is turn off that ********** ******* ********* :p

What was that last part? I think your post was filtered or something.

Getsu Fune said:

MAP06 Hillside Siege
I wonder who "RIP ADAM" refers to?

I believe it refers to Adam Heygi the speedrunner, that's a Fish edit concerning the lethality of the Archville and Barons (especially if you use the switch too early). I can't be 100% sure because I don't have the emails from that era.

MAP03: Cargo Depot
100% kills, 0/1 secret

Pretty straightforward map, here are some guns, here are some imps, go ahead. I like the first half of the map a lot... it's simple, but that's fine, and I'm a big fan of being able to massacre large groups of small fry. Didn't find the real secret but the lone rocket cubbyhole was cute. Unfortunately the end is kinda boring as killing the revenants is corner-camping chaingun sniping boredom (if you don't have an RL from earlier maps) and the spectre group is completely non-threatening. Yeah, it's linear and easy, but for MAP03 I'm not gonna judge it too harshly.

MAP04: Seclusion
100% kills, 2/4 secrets

I was ready to write this map off as a continuation of last map, and then I got to that wonderful 'Baron and friends' pincer ambush leading up to the red key. Really perfect baron usage there, as it uses his most dangerous attribute (melee damage and high hitpoints) to create a threat you don't want to run past, but you don't want to stay and fight everything in front of you either necessarily. Good stuff, and certainly better than the ones later on (which aren't too imposing). The last room is just gratuitous, but still mostly small fry so it isn't too much of a grind.

demo here
as close to popcorn-Doom as you're going to get :D

i dont think SSG vs imps/pinkies/shotgunners/chaingunners will ever get old, but even so this level does a good job mixing the mindless horde-clearance with some rather nasty traps (the two corridor-closets with the aforementioned baron usage, and the RK spring to mind).

very enjoyable map and MIDI all-round. the only thing i would change is that humpty-dumpty archvile placement (just awkward and non-threatening), and some of the lighting is a bit flat, especially noticeable since i switched my lightining mode from glboom to sector (which tries to emulate software modes style)

Map06 – Hillside Siege by Lee Szymanski and Anthony Soto

I know I've played some Lee Szymanski maps before, and Anthony Soto is one of my favorite mappers – come back, Anthony, come back! – but I didn't like this map as much as I thought I would. It combined too many features I find irritating – heavy snipers, Rocket Launcher auto-select trolling, right-angle wall detail along with trees and stalagmites to get stuck on – for me to be really enthusiastic. In some ways, the gameplay was like a revved-up version of Map04, with hordes of small fry replaced by hordes of mid-tiers. This inspired a fair amount of corner-camping, and I'm thankful that camping spots were thoughtfully provided for this. ;D Nonetheless, I Ramboed more battles than I camped, and as a result I suffered about 8 clean deaths and savescummed out of several more.

As Adam has noted, I'm a Doom Masochist. I accept a high death count in order to play maps that are actually above my skill level on UV. I like the action. I have no issues with pride because I don't do speedruns or videos or any of the things players with actual skill do, and for which they can be judged by a panel of their peers. However, dying is more fun in some ways than others, and getting wasted by a Revvie rocket coming from a sniper behind a Brnsmal texture counts as one of the least fun ways, IMO.

That's not to say I disliked the map. As I said, it was less fun than I expected, but it was still fun. I loved the fast, rough start, and I thought the architecture was outstanding. As others have noted, the layout was flowy, but the way the key doors were arranged prevented the map itself from being flowy, so again it was basically linear, but it maintained a non-linear illusion to some extent.

It was definitely tough, and there was enough ammo for this inaccurate keyboarder to blast his way through. More rockets would have made it less grindy, though at the cost of reducing the Nobles threat to even less than it was. It's just really hard to use Nobles well.

Most of the threat came from Revvies and Mancs, and it was Mancs that really gave me the toughest time. They are one of the great area-denial monsters when used strategically, as was done here. Add Arachnotrons to the mix and you have a tremendous area-denial team. A2/AD as the military types would say.

The hardest part of the map for me was the blue door dropoff. Would have been five times easier if I played continous so the Rocket Launcher wasn't auto-selected when Pinkies were closing on me and unseen Mancs were almost up in my grill. After several frustrating runs I finally made it, and grabbed a Soulsphere, too. That was another awakward moment owing to how the stairs and jump were designed. IMO, mappers need to be careful about letting too many minor irritations into their design, because minor irritations add up over the course of a map to become a memory of being irritated. ;D

The Cyberdemon courtyard was pretty cool. I played that one a few times and suffered 3 deaths in that area.

I never figured out the telefrag secret. I thought the corpse wall was suspicious but I never looked out the Brnsmal grate at the right angle to see the shootable switch. I also never once looked at the automap because I was too busy trying to not die. ;D

The map seemed to lose a bit of steam after the Cyberdemon counrtyard. I never killed the Cyb, so I finished with 3 monsters still alive, and found 2 of the 3 secrets.

All in all this is a hardnosed, good-looking map;.

MAP06: Hillside Seige

Seige started out as a purely Tek/nukage base painted in brown and green. I wanted to keep the visible areas as large and unobstructed as possible, with windows between areas to allow fighting between rooms (and potentially limit camping but it's not entirely successful).

I hadn't appreciated at the time how difficult it would be to achieve those large areas without HOM or VPO. I spent a lot of time checking every corner of the map with doors closed and open to ensure nothing nasty would happen. The result is a level of detail somewhat below where I'd want it to be, but reasonable for the time and my understanding of segs and visplanes.

With an earlier armor and a less random Cyb the game play would be a lot smoother. However should every map be smooth? I think there's room for wrong every now and then. The random infighty nature of the map makes it difficult to spawn in additional enemies and predict the outcome (eg spawning anything slow behind the player may never be seen). The lack of cover limits revenant use in those open areas.

I can't speak for Anthony but 15 years on there's not a great deal I'd change, a bit more enemy variety in the last third maybe.

I couldn't find any early revisions with alternate layout and texturing but i'll have another look later. Here's a demo with commentary by Koren which nicely sums up the map:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xS2sEWlbtcY

Map06: I like the layout of this map. Visually it has quite a nice style of feeling like a techbase but with a more "abstract texturing", though I think that it lacks of something. Combats again step up in difficulty and I found to be interesting the usage of the mancubi here. The courtyard with the cyberdemon it's a quite memorable moment.

MAP07 - Showdown
ZDoom, UV - Pistol Start, KIS(%): 100/100/100

This level starts with conventional dead-simple-wannabe arena with, of course, mancubi. You can get some more useful weapons by entering the teleporter in the middle, but stay at the top stairs. Otherwise, you need to take the teleporter again unless you can jump. After that, you need to get those arachnotrons around the outside of the arena. The layout is way too symmetrical, and gameplay is just monotonous, to be honest. Not a great level, and it's just an intro level for the next one. Moving on.

demo here

not much to say about this; the theme/concept is cool, but the buildings come across a little squat and dull. the combat is mostly simple, with a few rather deadly revenant and chaingunner traps to spice things up. the lone archvile is, again, rather awkward and not much of a threat.

at least the lighting is improved over 04 :p

MAP06 - “Hillside Siege” by Lee Szymanski, Anthony Soto

For me, this is where the challenge starts to kick in. This map killed me to death when i first played it, this time I managed with only one death (thanks to a wall of manc fireballs and no armour) but I'd put a lot of my survival down to the knowledge you only get from previously crawling through it on bloodied knees. That lack of armour makes the first half quite deadly, but there is plenty of health around. Another thing I found on earlier attempts was that my ammo would always run out at some point, so I keep that in mind now and try to get stuff infighting if possible. I also left the cyber, looks like he was guarding a bfg but I'm not sure how to get up there. I'm guessing you telefrag him, which might explain why I was always so low on ammo after killing him. Anyway, memorable map.

Map07
It’s a nicer-looking Dead Simple with a couple extra switches to flick. The handful of non-manc/tron monsters doesn’t really do anything to stamp a different feel on it. Making the turret monsters into HKs might have been a good plan - that changes them from must-kills to non-essential harassers, which would at least present a tactical choice about resources.

map07: Yeah, this one really is a filler map imo. As someone else said, its basically just an intro map to the next one. Im going to place/rate this map among the bottom three or four maps in AV.

07: Well, I guess this is kinda what to expect for a map 07 slot. Kill the mancubus in an arena, then kill the arach. It has this plutonian vibe, which isn't really bad, but monster placement and level layout is symmetrical, so eeeh... 6/10.

darkreaver said:

map07: Yeah, this one really is a filler map imo. As someone else said, its basically just an intro map to the next one. Im going to place/rate this map among the bottom three or four maps in AV.

Which ones are even in contention with it for "worst in the wad"? Point Dreadful is the only thing that's even close to as weak. I'd take Caco's or Demonic Hordes over it any day, dry as they both are.