The DWmegawad Club plays: Alien Vendetta

MAP24 - “Clandestine Complex” by Lee Szymanski, Anthony Soto

a techbase in the mountains, partially flooded by green slime (which hurts this time). the red gate is closed, but there's a narrow path and access through the sewers. a bit labyrinthine architecture and confusing progression, as capellan notes. took me some time because of this. i switched off the light in that room, couldn't switch it back on, and found nothing. some cool secrets that can be reached with some jumping, like the armors or the soulsphere, and from there the jump back in the base. all with a rather joyful music.

Capellan said:

Is there any way to legitimately access the “Hell of Fame”?

I never tried this, but looks like you can reach the teleporter with a little help from the arch-vile.

Map 24: Clandestine Complex

Now this is an oddball map to have in the hell episode. Seems like something that would fit right in with all the nuketech maps in episode 2. It's a nice looking map though with a complex layout and some more freedom for adventuring through the slimy base. Midi's pretty good too. Can't think of much to say about the combat but it's solid all around with a few cheeky traps here and there. Lots of running through damaging slime too but the radsuits are plentiful so you should be fine unless you get lost or have to backtrack or something. Not sure what the purpose of that panel that turns off the lights in the warehouse is though.

MAP24 C.C.

A good question to ask is, is this particular map any better than Valley of Echoes (MAP25 of the original release where Demonic Hordes was MAP24)? Since I won't actually play the first release here, I'll say that for the one time I played Valley of Echoes I never particularly enjoyed it, especially the actual valley itself and the grand scale of things. This one is a bit more friendly, and although its gameplay and theme differ from the last three levels, it's still a nice one to burn through. Plus, it even has a random easter egg area that I'd love to know about.

The snipers at the beginning are quite nosy, as are the methods to reach the secrets. Make sure to grab the radsuit in the corner before dropping in the sewer, the next few areas are filled with that nukage theme we've seen quite a few times already. Following that area is a big nukage-filled one with several radsuits, thankfully, and a mini-puzzle to open the door starting with trying to open it directly. Inside is a cargo room, and for a while when I first played this, I didn't realize where to go, so I missed the cue to use the crates to jump the window. That's for the red doors after getting the red key later, which will involve more nukage wading.

Alright, speaking of the red key, an arch-vile shows up, the only one in the entire map. According to the wiki, by luring the fucker out of the tunnel and performing a very hard arch-vile jump, it's possible to reach the rocks east of where the plasma gun is found, and going through the dark canal to another room, where the floor lowers and the teleporter leads into, surprise! a completely non-secret area which is known as the "HELL OF FLAME". I guess these are monuments of speedrunners from the past, one of which has a Dead Simple arena, also don't fall since there's no way to escape.

Apart from all that, moving on to what I was saying earlier after the red key, there's not much else, really. It's all straightforward, although I like how it's possible to reach the blue key room from a secret window as well.

I enjoy Valley of Echoes, but I don't play it that often. I personally think it's a lot of fun, but I can see why Anders Johnsen dumped it for the final version of AV - it's crazy sprawling and it looks like kind of a mess a lot of the time. (especially compared to Demonic Hordes and Dark Dome, both of which were quite well polished looking even in the first release) It's been a minute though, i'll probably have some more thoughts on it at the end of the month.

Funnily enough, that "HELL OF FLAME" area actually is a nod to Valley of Echoes - that big, high sprawling rock part and the SSG room full of corpses is a small part of the earlier map.

MAP23: Man, I cannot see that gray brick texture combined with battlements and not think of Eternal Doom and shudder. Here we have Malde trying his hand at a castle map, and while it fares better than MAP08 it doesn’t quite reach the heights of MAP11. The overall design is pretty cool and I like the unfolding revenant traps, but since I didn’t find the secret plasma gun my experience was kinda soured, running around with 600 cell but only 20 shells. This, combined with the kind of aimless direction the map took pre and post castle definitely puts it was below MAP20 in my eyes, but I still appreciate stuff like the attention to lighting here—plus, bonus points for mapping the castle at an unconventional angle!

MAP24: Really awesome map, this one. Winding layout, excellent verticality, lots of pain sector use, and it's tough as nails thanks to Szymanski/Soto’s adoration of snipers (both revs and mancs). I think personally the only thing that’s a bummer is that it clearly feels like a late E2 map instead of hell proper, which is (I'm assuming) due to being added post-release. Luckily it’s a thrill ride from start to finish, so that is the only complaint (well, there’s also the lack of an exit sign). The level overall has a good pace to it, it feels complex but you’re always directed towards where to go, enemies are often threatening and interesting (yet more berserk PE punching!), and there’s plenty of health to balance out the vicious traps. Out of all the maps thus far, this one definitely feels the most modern. I also dig the super snazzy optional exit jump. Good work!

map23

This map was a blast precisely because in my first playthrough I didn't find the plasma rifle secret. There isn't quite enough ammo to kill everything, especially if you use ammo a bit inefficiently early, so you have to do a lot of Tysoning and a decent amount of evasion to get through. One of the cybers just has to be skipped. I prefer the first one, since he can't really bother you too much, beyond sniping at you if you linger around the jump to the soulsphere secret too much (which is realllyy cool, I think). Sometimes maps just throw monsters at you that you aren't equipped to handle at all, which I find very amusing (and refreshing, and scary as hell -- how's that for a cocktail of emotions?). This was why I loved the first cyber in map13; I ended up wandering into the crate room VERY early, and it was like, "WTF? is the mapper serious?" but in a good way.

The layout design is quite cool. It seems like there are three distinct buildings: a fortress made out of beige brick, similar to some of the structures in early AV; a living quarters (with a bitching pool); and a castle proper decorated with metal beams. The warped and skewed angles are sweet, and the layout loops very nicely around itself at multiple points. All in all, a strong map, one that I'd happen to prefer NOT give out the plasma rifle at all early on in a secret (to make the SSG and berserk action more organic!). I personally don't enjoy plasma rifle spam so much in low pressure situations (or situations that become low pressure because of it, as in this map), and would generally prefer a free BFG along with a careful rationing of cells.

Hey, a video.

dobu gabu maru said:

bonus points for mapping the castle at an unconventional angle!

Yeah I love this. I think the main castle was built orthogonally and then rotated, which seems to be an early-00s or so "thing" -- afaik there was an entire map the DWMC played a couple years ago that was rotated by 15 degrees or so.

map24

Good map again! What jumps out immediately is the commitment to quirky forms of progression. Early on, you have to find a little nook in the rocks, and then later on, you have to climb the crates. It's a three-key map, but only two of them are mandatory, if you can find a certain secret, which again is nicely done. There is also a switch that serves NO purpose whatsoever but to turn the lights off, and it's quite a funny troll, because it's basically the only texture on the wall that is different, and it looks like it might be a secret or something, but no, that's what you get for being such a dirty slut and humping everything you see.

Yeah, thematically, it's kind of an outlier, I guess, but whatever, lovely stuff.

Map24: It feels quite weird to have suddenly a pure techbase level in an episode of hellish stuff, but it has to do with the replacement of Valley of Echoes I think. Though I didn't mind so much the change, the level is cool and with a very good action. Gameplay seemed a bit faster than the previous maps, and there are some nice traps along the way. Interesting the trigger that changes the light (you rarely see them), and when the room was dark I didn't notice the tiny crates to jump the windows and I was stuck for a while because of that. The final area lacked of something imo, but this is a awesome level overall.

rdwpa said:

Yeah I love this. I think the main castle was built orthogonally and then rotated, which seems to be an early-00s or so "thing" -- afaik there was an entire map the DWMC played a couple years ago that was rotated by 15 degrees or so.

I don't think any tools of the time could rotate more than 1 sector at a time. Or even if they did exist, I dont think Kim used them... the off-angle stuff he did was manual

MAP25 - Demonic Hordes
ZDoom, UV - Pistol Start, KIS(%): 100/88/100

*AGITATION INTENSIFIES*

Ah, yes. This level. This slaughtermap... If I recall correctly, this is the very first level that I played with more than a thousand demons in my life. The first time I played this one back in early 2000s, this level gave me an unforgettable experience of this gigantic bloodbath. Countless demons coming from all over the place, slaughtering scenes, another demonic hordes room by room... when I was young, this level was like one of the best levels I played. But now I'm a grown up person, and I realized that this is nothing, but just a monster infighting simulator. Having trouble with mowing down those monsters? Let other monsters, like Cyberdemons, do your job and be careful with their projectiles. Except some monster infighting simulators, other combats are generic or even outrageous. The worst combat is the final hellish lava cave with arch-viles on top of each corner, and that ****ing pop-up Cyberdemon trio. Seriously? Three Cyberdemons, instantly popping-up, right in front of me from the lava, while arch-viles are threatening my life? That was just insane. One more thing I want to point out is the music. Of course, this music from Rise of the Triad is great. But the length of music doesn't work pretty good with this nearly one-hour long slaughterfest. After tens of minutes, I used IDMUS cheat to refresh the gameplay. I have no idea why I liked this level in the past. Sure, this level is still memorable. But, now, in a bad way.

+++ I might not participate the next session, so I'll give up my vote.

Map25
I don’t remember this at all from the first time I played AV. I’m not a fan of this map as I don’t much care for slaughterishness in general (I don’t expect to like the next one, either, and I think that putting them back to back was a mistake).

My favourite parts of this level were the first and last major set pieces, because they are eminently skippable. It gives me a happy to skip large clots of pointless monsters.

In between those two it’s a lot of heavy duty monster slobberknocker, very straightforward in design, albeit not always straightforward to survive. It’s rather a grind, frankly.

Map 25 - Demonic Hordes

Misri Halek is the map that's common held up as AV's finest and leading light. While i've sung the praises of that map before, this map is the crown jewel of Alien Vendetta. This one combines the atmospheric, detail heavy proclivities - in this case, it leans heavily on texture assets from Heretic and Eternal Doom - with full fledged slaughter gameplay. 1000+ monsters on UV before you get into Arch-vile & Pain Elemental fuckery. The gloves come off and stay off for the rest of the set, even as it reverts back to AV's signature adventure style. If the first trap in the second room doesn't tell you that - a Plutonia-styled one wherein the player is bracketed by chaingunners - I dunno what else is going to do so.

"B-b-but that sounds like a slog!" I mentioned this when I talked about Map 32, but again: the strength of Alien Vendetta's slaughter maps is that they're flexible and amenable to different playing styles. So yes, you can bang away at a methodical crawl; you can also play it very aggressive thanks to the layout - the areas around both of the churches and the courtyard that makes up most of the last segment of the map encourage this via wide open spaces for you and the hordes of hellspawn to engage, not to mention this map isn't exactly light on ammo OR health power ups. The Hell Revealed influence is obvious, yet this map offers FAR more flexibility for combat, even at its bloodiest and most ferocious pitch. Even during the more cramped parts of the map, like the mineshaft encounter linking both churches and their courtyards together, this map gives you a lot of options & flexibility to handle these encounters. As ferociously difficult as this map is in terms of combat - running the gamut from huge, bloody set pieces to more intimate, close-up fights and insanely vicious trap work sprung upon the unsuspecting player - at no point is it unfair. Insanely dickish at times, yes - that triple Cyber trap in the second to last room, when you're already being peppered by snipers above is one of the most savagely mean-spirted traps that a Doom mapset can offer - but never openly unfair.

More than anything else, the strength of the combat in this map is that it's essentially a blend of big set pieces - see the one triggered in the first portal room by firing and how it essentially forces you to fight or flee into it to be teleported inside of a pitch black tunnel (I think this part was reference in Deus Vult 1, but it's been a minute since I played through that) - and also incidental combat; due to the variability of the layout on here, monsters can freely wander around the joint with only a few obviously blocked off areas. More than anything, the combat remains engaging thanks to a surprising amount of variability in both encounters and types thereof.

What allows this to shine is the map's overall layout, which is triumph of both variety - again, running the gamut from wide-open courtyards to closed in, aesthetically ancient churches & side areas. It's a map that is not only conducive to these big, blood-soaked fights but also one that does a terrific job of communicating a sense of a journey being undertaken here. AV is a mapset that's been heavily praised for the amount of detail put into the bulk of the maps, yet this one stands out on another level for its inspired texture work and sheer amount of detail placed into everywhere accessible to the player. More than anything else, the quality of detail encourages the player to explore every nook & cranny that's accessible (and you're probably going to need to do so, just to soak up as much ammo & health as you can).

There are only two small things I take issue with the map: the blue key area is basically hell nobles exclusively and there's probably a few too many stuff up there for their own sake, particularly since they cannot leave that room anyway, and the Revenant trap that can be triggered after grabbing a bunch of rockets in one of the side passages is irritating - not because it's hard, mostly because it doesn't really work without more variety of monster type spliced in. (though i'd bet Erik Alm paid attention, because Scythe 1's Map 30 had a similarly irritating trap that was sprung)

Aside for them - and they're really relatively mild complaints - this is the best map in AV and one of the finest of any PWAD out there. It accomplishes the task of combining the virtues of a long, sprawling adventure map with vicious combat, and it does so in a manner that only a few maps before or since have matched. Sublime stuff.

25: This felt more like a set of cinematic battles with lots of
monsters rather than being really difficult (I died a lot though, but
IMO it was mostly for casual errors instead of challenging
situations). It was fun for the mostly first half the level (I took
over 1 hour to finish it), but in the end I was quite bored, so I just
ignored the last battles (RK one and the exit), collected the ammo and
ran to the exit. 6/10

MAP25 - “Demonic Hordes” by Vincent Catalaá, Sam Woodman

slaughtermap, this and the next map almost scared me away from AV when i played it for the first time. now it's rather simple, compared to newer maps of this kind, based on massive infighting. i didn't have to fire many rockets at the blue key castle, the cybs took care of that. also, it has blocking lines in parts, like at the gate of said building, that keeps the mob out, which else would storm the building in no time. or the mass of nobles at the blue key. fortunately there's a bfg right there, and you'll use it relentlessly throughout the map, fueled by masses of cells. style is heretic / hexen-like mostly rectangular castle courtyards with textures from the games. also, the dark corridor with red stripes stands out.

MAP25 Demonic Hordes

Well here we go, probably the most slaughtery outing in the whole wad and yet when it comes down to it, it's really just a setpiece-oriented long map. The first few things are warmups, and then it's infighting simulator at the first open-aired location. The next zone, with the pulsating red tube, is honestly way more trouble than it's worth, some confined dodging and perhaps a rush or two. The main event happens in the Heretic-like castle/roadway area, and Heretic/Hexen levels were a main inspiration, which explains both the size and the design.

The moment we shoot, the moment the monsters attempt to score. I actually decide to take the quickest route by immediately reaching the building, killing the initial crew inside (this wakes up a fuckton of enemies outside), and also shooting a stained glass window for an invulnerability. I used this primarily in the library room, because I hate all those fucking shotgun guys in there so much. Afterwards, I quickly grab the key and open the blue door, pressing the switch at the top and taking the secret BFG before running all the way to the southeast. This strategy leaves a ton of monsters alive, but I know arch-viles show up in that area resurrecting anything that's been killed anyways, so I still do it.

The lost soul/pain elemental cauldron is a funny moment that I enjoy. The next cathedral though, is a washout. You really want to kill all the shit outside before going in, and the fact that you can enter through any door here helps, as the inside really is almost as worse as outside, except with hitscanners and imps polluting cramped spaces. Thankfully, the actual yellow key ambush is easy on my part.

Back to the hub, they're all clumped at the door, so a BFG plus invuln actually makes perfect meat out of everything. And yes, there's arch-viles even inside the library and blue key area, but after all that and the yellow switch, the spiders come out as well as a few cybers from the north, which leads to hub #2! Fuck.

Hub #2 has the entire left side optional as well as the berserk pack building and the stuff below it. There's quite some fights to be had in them, especially the dining room setup where I just shoot rockets straight ahead. I save the invulnerability by the way. Moving on to the important things, the one openable door on the right side leads to another yard with a cyber at the far end. That cyber ended up rather distracted though, which helped me kill it. A secret yard has a fuckload of chaingunners which might not be worth it. Heading back, the open closet has a shit-ton of revenants come in. They don't call this Demonic Hordes for nothing, they just keep giving! The next room in the hub is pretty basic, then after that is a Tricks-and-Traps ordeal where a cyber can infight with arch-viles, only it doesn't work as well since cybers can't ever target them anyways.

A lesson in invuln consumption. The flipper switch near the open invuln gives an invuln after about three seconds via voodoo doll trick. With that, haul ass to the north building and get the red key, as the next fight is a goddamn killer. After going nuts to the point where the invuln in exhausted, the one I saved earlier in that other room gets used. There's only a few left standing after both invulns are used.

Fuck the final canyon area. No I'm serious. This area can fuck off. So many snipers of the annoying kind, and why put archies in such a high place? Also moving towards the berserk causes more bigwigs to appear ah fuck. This one could have at least had an invuln (where the megasphere is in that region would be a nice spot), but it doesn't goddamnit all. I would have saved that other one but the previous fight is a harsh one too. One more monster guards the exit. Insane slaughter-setpiece setups in this map. It's most memorable for its combat.

Map 25: Demonic Hordes

Probably my favourite map in AV and what I usually think of as defining the megawad for me. This map is huge, excellently detailed using custom textures (Heretic from what I've heard) and features some really fun slaughter gameplay. It boasts the highest count in the entire set, sitting at 1.3k+ starting monsters and ending at 1.5k+ for me. This can definitely look intimidating for a player not accustomed to slaughtermaps, but the difficulty here is very manageable and not too punishing. In a way, it's similar to map26 in Scythe as an "introductory" sort of slaughtermap, where you're given tons of health and ammo as well as plenty of space to handle the opposition. Well, less space in Scythe 26.

Demonic Hordes is actually quite prone to cheesing in several places which I didn't pick up on during my first playthrough. Namely, non-flying monsters can't path through the door into the main building in the hub area. This means that you can trigger all the hordes to spawn outside and then troll around the door area to have hundreds die to infighting. The same can be done with the cage door leading into the tunnels.

Grabbing the early secret BFG is a must to having a good time, but thankfully it's not as obscure as some of the other completely unmarked secrets. There are 10 in total and after clearing most of the map I checked Doom Builder for the ones I've missed. There are a few unmarked wallhumping ones which I'm not a fan of. Also, it seems 2 Arachnotrons didn't spawn for me, but I could hear them in the tunnel area. The encounters themselves are mostly fair and balanced aside from the final REDROCK area that I didn't enjoy. Tons of high HP snipers, including like 4+ AV's on high ledges? Check. Damaging lava with only one radsuit given? Check. Oh hey, look a Berserk in the-rileymartin was splattered by a Cyberdemon. There is NO excuse for 3 bloody pop-in Cyberdemons that appear right in your face while you're potentially fighting other shit on ledges. Maximum caliber of terrible monster placement. Wasn't keen on those pop-in Mancs near the weapons on the west side either. The exit Cyber was fun though, especially in GZDoom where the torches and misc props there are prone to splash damage.

Fun map that took me well over an hour playing a second time.

+++Urania, Hellbound for next month.

Map 13 -- Suicidal Tendencies - 108% Kills / 100% Secrets
Quite fond of this map. I have it mentally pegged as my favorite of Vorpal's maps in AV, but considering how long it's been since I've seen/played maps 14/16 perhaps that will change down the line (clearly remember map 22 as being the runt of the litter, to whit).

Rdwpa described it as an 'audacious' map where the driving force behind the gameplay is in working out/deciding on an itinerary, with the implementation of secrets providing the major twist beyond that presented by its disarmingly high monstercount. And he was spot-on! AV's origin as an apostle of the Hell Revealed school of design is crystal clear in this map, and that design philosophy has here been ably executed by a mapper who clearly understood what it was under the hood that made several of HR's best and brightest tick, rather than relying on homage scenarios or monster density for the sake of it to carry the day. The pistol-start here is quite illustrative, since as soon as you make a peep the entire zombified roster of the UAC PD promptly pours out of the breakroom across the way to 'read you your rights.' While there are all manner of suitable chokepoints to use just a hop and skip away, acquiring the ammo you need to pull this strategy off comfortably requires a bit of short-term problem-solving and experimentation. The easiest/most conventional approach is probably to quickly and quietly make your way to the easterly chaingunner's window and camp out there (they will often devastate themselves with friendly fire this way), but the flashier strategy is to thumb your nose at the slackjawed troopers at the outset, ride on up to the SSG (and optionally the soulsphere), and suicidally storm the breakroom Hotline Miami style. A number of other approaches are workable as well (and I've toyed with many of them through the years), although this old-fashioned layout/placement style is not as amenable to running deeper and deeper and deeper in and hoping everything eventually sorts itself out, a recurring trope in more modern maps.

This problem-solving/experimentation element continues throughout, and meshes quite nicely with the 'generous' monster placement style for an experience that is visceral and almost comically bloody while remaining mostly softpawed, in the sense that the map's pace is fully under the player's control at nearly all times (though you might be surprised how far that cybie can wander if you let him!). Actual fights are generally very simplistic in terms of the motions and maneuvers they actually entail--IIRC, the sort of pincer trap in the grimy metal-plated room with the first plasma gun is the only bit resembling proper 'choreography' as it is currently understood--but the variety of different sequences and approaches available for an enterprising player to efficiently clear each zone keeps the game engaging and also allows for a surprisingly large amount of replayability, no easy feat in the context of this placement style (as many of the weaker/more embryonic HR and HR-alike maps attest). The large warehouse is a particular point of interest and diversion as far as possible routes go, as it contains both the blue and red security cards (either of which can be used without the other in order to eventually clear the map) and also bleeds most easily into a number of other combat zones. I feel that the southerly part of the map (beyond the red-locked door which you don't necessarily need to ever open) is a bit weaker on the whole, mainly because the spiderdemon yard never seems to clear out quite as smoothly as one might like (the geometry is rather obstructive for truly fruitful infighting, which seems to be the intended marquee strategy), although the YK-get snare is notable as an early example of a timed V-sphere clusterfuck scenario.

As is the case with all of Vorpal's AV maps, geometrically/architecturally this is decidedly utilitarian in cast, with a playspace that is noticeably boxy/orthogonal in flavor. This type of practical shaping is well in line with the HR design philosophy, though I think AV's overall stylistic slant towards more ostensibly realistic/representational settings perhaps doesn't wear it quite as comfortably (or quite as timelessly, perhaps) as HR proper's more unabashedly abstract/game-y environments. Nevertheless, I reckon the level's visually palatable on the whole, with a tasteful Deimos-in-Doom-II texture scheme and a steady supply of concourse/detail niceties for flavor, ala the implied sensor beam triggering the trap in the plasma gun room or the 3-piece shield-plate setup initially holding the gallery of imps off of the spider yard in check.

Ultimately a consistently fun map, done in a markedly old-fashioned style yet still holds up nicely. A fine example of something that is at once both incredibly crass (zombie hallway <3 <3) and yet uncannily nuanced and clever, in that special way Doom at its best is so given to.

Map15 – Bulls On Parade by Madani el Hariri, Yashar Garibzadeh, Anthony Soto and Anders Johnsen

Time to start catching up before DotW blazes right past me. I actually played this map a week ago, so let's see how my memory holds up.

I was fine with this map. A bit of a breather after the bludgeoning by Brad Spencer. As others have mentioned, there's a lot of cooks in the stew, and if it was my call, I would have expanded the standard corrupted techbase opening – and ditched that damned maze – saved the ending, and deleted everything in between.

The opening was a very nicely done starbase thingy with lava and that unusual blursphere trap. There wasn't much to it after that, and I failed to figure out the backpack secret, but the start was promising and I wish it could have kept going awhile.

The second stage was the most boring, with the phasing Revvies in that vast space.

Then came Version 475 of The Shaft. Gotta give Jeremy Statz major props for creating such an iconic and oft-copied encounter design. I suck at fighting in these shafts, so I was severely injured in this phase and soon died multiple times at the bottom. Classic PWAD dickery down there with that corridor which gets closed by a teleporting Archie who kept rezzing that damned Chaingunner. I eventually figured out when to charge ahead with BFG blazing to prevent that rez and kill the Archie. I had no health margin, so a rezzed Chaingunner meant certain death.

Then came the most fun part of the map, with the slowly descending tower and the hordes of hellspawn. I was handling it well when I bumped into a wall and was suddenly perforated by a Chaingunner. Damn, Chaingun Charlie has been having my ass for breakfast on this map! Once I figured out this trick, I managed to survive and prosper thanks to getting much-needed ammo, armor and health. I was also lucky with the Archie reveal because he didn't teleport away, so I chased him down and peeled his cap.

I found the rather obvious path to the secret exit, and was very pleased by the blue rooms. I don't care if they were basically empty squares, IMO they looked great and the lighting was excellent.

As luck would have it, after I sent the Cyb teleporting away, I followed and was immediately hit by a rocket up the tailpipe. Nice joke! :D I did better the next time.

This is not a standout map by any means, but it has its moments along with some beautiful blue spaces at the end. It might be considered either a breather or flat-out filler, but I had a decent time.

Map 14 -- Overwhelming Odds - 100% Kills / 100% Secrets
Ah yes, I remember this one more clearly now. "Overwhelming Odds" is more straightforward than map 13 in many ways, kitting you up with a strong starter arsenal and a ton of ammo from the get-go, and posing a series of fights that are designed more as specific self-contained encounters (including a bona fide timed warp-in/lock-in trap near the blue keycard) than as generalized zones of opposition that can be approached and picked apart in a number of ways. Indeed, a few of the engagements don't really flow quite right unless you attack them in a certain way: the huge throng of pinkies bathing in the outdoor nukage reservoir is a chore to clear out by any other means than acquiring one of the two BFGs and a radsuit and dropping down with them to vaporize them en mass, and the assortment of beasties who periodically appear in the sunken grassy plot where the game begins represent literally nothing but ill-spent time and ammo unless you know that a pair of cyberdemons will eventually appear there to burn all the rest down near the map's conclusion (none of the monsters are able to leave due to blocking lines, though flyers can apparently drift over the elevated rails to the sides).

The layout itself is again built on a rigidly north-south 'column' plan, and as was also the case in map 13 the player begins in the middle of the installation and has an initial choice of destinations. Actual homages to Hell Revealed are more obvious here, with HR23 being an obvious point of reference in decor and even in actual construction at one point. Essentially all of the content is mandatory this go-round, and the three 'official' secrets are virtual non-factors not only in the level's progression but also in its thing-balance (though if you enjoy punching pinkies you'll probably want the berserk pack if nothing else). The progression is not without its nuances, though--it's not immediately apparent, but you can actually approach the three keys in any order (said order potentially making a significant impact on your equipment/supplies), and there are a couple of non-official secrets which, while not necessary, can greatly expedite much of the action (esp. if you don't approach the blue key area and its BFG handout first). One amusing quirk of note to thing placement is that relatively 'minor' items are often more heavily guarded than anything but the keys themselves--the radsuits are protected by a nasty ambush, and the patently useless chainsaw has quite a retinue of defenders as well, while both BFGs are barely guarded. While ammo and supplies are numerically plentiful, however, maintaining strong momentum with your cell/rocket counts is not trivial here, and so routing and/or foreknowledge is probably more important to actually having a good time here than in the previous map, which was more flexible for the flexible and wily player. Misspending resources with unnecessarily conservative tactics can ultimately bog you down (likely somewhere on the RK leg, which is quite the to-do), and this more understatedly prescriptive approach to pacing arguably works against what elements of choice are present in some capacity.

This shift in the way encounters are staged is not necessarily to the action's detriment, though, and where the encounters work, they work well. The aforementioned nukage reservoir is easily the highlight (provided you don't stall out versus the sea of bouncing pink bodies, anyway), a three-stage affair that places you on both sides of a heated 'hold the stronghold' battle, first wresting the southeastern blast shelter from another pair of cyberdemons and assorted hangers-on, and then immediately having to defend it from a small tsunami of cacodemons. The rub is that not all of the encounters have anywhere near the flair that this one fields, to put it lightly, and the map ends up coming off as somewhat overlong as a result. We can perhaps overlook the ridiculous spiderdemon placement in a certain room as a bit of comedy, but the end of the RK path in particular stands out to me as needlessly padded, fielding the very simplest type of primordial slaughter in a largely unelaborated and relatively unadorned space before capping off with the pace-slowing HR23 homage and a cheeky little test of aggression that is a non-issue as soon as you see what you're meant to do. All told, I was still suitably entertained here, largely because I know the map, but it wouldn't surprise me to see others come away less than enthused. This was of course very much the case for the majority of the Club's HR playthrough, so Vorpal is still nailing that particular fount of inspiration at the very least!

+++ I still wanna see Endgame + Insertion + Slayer, cool episodes.

+++ THT: Threnody and No Rest for the Living

+++ ALT, Memfis suggestion, some PC/TC: Osiris + Temple of the Lizardmen 1 or 2 + something else

+++ THT: Threnody and No Rest for the Living

Sounds like a good combo.

+++ I've changed my mind to support rdwpa's suggestion. THT: Threnody + No Rest for the Living

Map 25 Demonic Hordes:

This is hands down my least favourite level of the set. First thematically: those Heretic textures doesn't fit with the kind of slaughter of this level, imo.
Second, gameplay: hordes over hordes of monsters teleport when we grab a key of press a switch. In the long run this type of play is boring for me.
The only part of the level which I actually like is the church with the yellow key, mainly for the layout/theme and for the fact that it is an area that I clean rather quickly.
About the midi I agree with antares031: not the right choice, imo, for a long map of this kind.
Anyway I finished the map in one shot in like 1 hour and some minutes saving two invulnerabilities for the final room (a good hellish cave I must say, with arch-viles difficult to hit): after that I took some days break from doom..
In conclusion, appreciating however the effort of the authors, I would have taken this map off the set instead of Valley of Echos which is in my opinion way better then this one.

Also since I've played it quite recently, from avold.wad

Map 25 Valley of Echoes:

The opening of this map is builded as a remake of The Twilight from Plutonia mostly and doom 2 map 26 but in a more large environment suitable to accommodate a large number of monsters. A very good remake: themes and layout similiar to the original maps but with author own twists like happens in map 18.
The first part of the map keep you on your toes thanks to the large number of commandos used which force us to take cover in various situations, like, for example, the open room with the thin The Chasm-like platform.
There are also a pair of well placed arch-viles in the this part of the map: the one on the yellow key room and the one blocking the path to the valleys.
Of this part of the map I liked the small valley that leads to the red key with the spidermastermind in the bottom of the canyon, a very well designed area.
The second part of the map is essentially composed of large canyons host a huge number of monsters some of them placed at various heights: this is the slaughter part of the map where the bfg and rl are the most effective means to get rid of them.
After that there is, imo, thematically the weakest part of the map ie the two final areas. Weakest because there is bit departure from the main theme of the map: water instead of blood and ashwall in the last arena, imo stay with The Abandoned Mines theme even for the last part of the map would have benefited more to the level.
I liked though the last fight involving monsters that teleport behind you forcing to quickly attack them before the arch-viles spoil the party.
I enjoyed this level which, differently from Demonic Hordes, has a discrete replay value and is more fast to play (at least for me) then the actual map 25; some graphic editing and some cuts would make this map a masterpiece imo.

Map31 – Killer Colours by Yashar Garibzadeh and Kristian Kall

This is one of those maps where probably the easiest thing to say is, "Looks great, plays terrible."

The first two-thirds of this map is an unbearable slog of "Press Switch, get mid-tier monsters." In the blue section, IMO the most beautiful, it's Cacos and Spectres. There's no Zerk, so if you're pistol-starting the only weapon is a Plasma Gun.

The green section throws mostly Hell Knights at you. You finally get the SSG, so that helps, but the way the "action" is designed, it's a painfully slow process. If the idea was that killing the monsters is time-consuming and dull so as to encourage players to stop and gawk at the wonderful lighting, well, mission accomplished. It comes at a price, though. In my case, an angry, frustrated player.

If the goal of the monochromatic rooms was to achieve a colored lighting effect, as Adam said, it certainly works better in GL than software. The best effect was in the blue section where I felt practically underwater. Adam is right that the rooms are bare of detail, but it seems to me that lighting itself is the detail here, and it's pretty damn fabulous.

The red section is IMO the least attractive, mainly since less effort was expended on lighting, and it was as lacking in detail as the blue and green sections. But now the map goes all crazy on our ass with some vicious encounters, for example the infamous Revvie Sandwich. I actually did fairly well in that one, dying only twice before coming out in decent shape, but it was mean as hell.

Ah, but then came the Cyb room. It's been mentioned several times that foreknowledge helps, but it seems to me that foreknowledge is essential to properly play this room, since otherwise you need an accurate crystal ball to know that you need to keep Cybie alive to avoid unloading your entire ammo stash on a Revvie Storm. Now, I'm all for traps that seek to kill a player who lacks foreknowledge, but in this case, the bigger problem is how the rest of the map plays if you don't do the right thing. And given that the issue of foreknowledge has come up repeatedly in this mapset, it seems to me something of a conceit for mappers to design based on the notion that people will actually replay their maps. In this instance, because many of the mappers were speedrunners, and existed in a speedrunning community, that conceit turned out to be well-justified, but for most mappers, it's not. And for casual players who never speedrun – raises paw – it's an extra irritation.

So as you can guess, Savescummer Steve saved his game right after killing the Cyb and Baron. And then came the Revvie Storm! Ah, the thunder of homing rockets obliterating my pathetic little carcass! In my neck of the woods, they'd fire-up the tornado siren for this one. I eventually survived through a combo of charging the Revvies with BFG, then ducking into a blood pool where I backed up, shot rockets at the horde, then charged the wall so most of their fire passed overhead, then teleported out and shot rockets from their rear, then ducked into the other blood pool, rinse, repeat. And at the end of it all I had basically no ammo left for my heavy weapons, and on top of that, a Cyb was ahead of me guarding the red bars.

I thought about DNFing the map instead of dying a shitload of times trying to open the red bars and escape the room alive. After all, I couldn't wait for the bars to open. That would just give Cybie more shots at me. So, I had to press the bars and run back down the stairs and around the corner, often catching some splash damage or a rocket in the process. But in the end, I persevered. It wasn't fun, though.

The final room was crazy. Luckily, it had Megaspheres and an Invuln. I didn't have enough cell ammo to fight the horde, and I spent half my time airborne and out of control thanks to the Archies, or knocked around by Cyb rockets, so I just ran to the exit.

IMO this map sucks. Sucks hard, in fact. It starts with glacially-paced corridor fights against Meat. It ends in high intensity Box Battles. That's what I'm calling these things, since you're forced to fight large numbers of powerful monsters in a box. The only reason I'd ever want to play this again is to see how the Cybie/Revvie room works if you do it correctly. But to do that, I'd have to suffer through the rest of this painfully dull slogfest to get there, and frankly, I have a million better things to do with my time. At least the blue and green sections were pretty.

SteveD said:

The only reason I'd ever want to play this again is to see how the Cybie/Revvie room works if you do it correctly.

I'd just copy and paste that fight into its own map. :D

It's possible to use more cells and the hiding spots I guess, but that isn't quite as fun. (I honestly forgot the cyber was still shooting at the end, LOL.)

+ Hell Revealed 2, I'm having a feeling we won't play it for the longest time.

MAP26 - Dark Dome
ZDoom, UV - Pistol Start, KIS(%): 100/100/100

Inspired by Post Mortem from Hell Revealed, I guess? The concept of this level is simple; pouring lots and lots of monsters which are slightly less than a thousand. While this level actually has less monsters than the previous level, it feels like the density of monsters is larger since this level has lots of small-medium sized sectors & rooms, and narrow passages under the pit, compare to wide-opened outside areas of the MAP25. The monster placement is just harsh and brutal, as you might expect from difficult slaughtermaps. I really didn't like arch-viles and Cyberdemons of this level. For god's sake, boss monsters that popping up right in front of the player are really stressful. Not to mention that arch-viles on top of guard towers, or hiding behind the horde of revenants, are extremely annoying. Lots of monster infighting, BFG spamming, some ridiculous monster placements... this level is definitely not for me. At least now I can say that I beat this level with UV-PS, although there's no huge differences between continuous play and pistol start for this level. Strangely, I did like the original Post Mortem from Hell Revealed.