What WAD are you playing now?

01. Ah, the ship sinking behind you, neat. One of the sectors didn't change to water unfortunately. Anyways, the place seemed to be a large fortress on an island. The midi felt appropriate throughout, like perfect when exploring a strange ominous place in the middle of nowhere. It didn't quite accompany the type of combat designed here, which was generally laid back without "spooks", but it was okay though. Plenty of chainsaw and shotgun grind (zerk included if you want it), green demons, gray imps, gunners (new nazi replacement included), and two HK trios, all classic Psyren tropes, just magnified for an atypical map 01. Lots of cool secrets too, including a very belated blue armor plus chaingun that I made no use of, as everything else was dead, meh. Well, I could have been crushed almost. If there was a standout, it was definitely not the combat (cleanup duty hardly ever registers as a highlight in doom, tbh), but the "new age vanilla" flavor in the layout's geometry, sharp angles and shit, which felt cute and "ahead of its time". Aside from that, repurposed space and mild platforming, with that exploration tag courtesy the setting, made the time well spent I think. One weird thing, depending on my position the chaingunner would never hit me, nor could I hit him.

02. An entire something, vaguely themed like a labyrinth inside a castle, except it was generally roofless. Samey texturing aside, I dug this setting, which again was thanks to the extremely varied geometry and great music. The cramped atmosphere reminded me of Perdition's Gate a little. Classic Psyren had me perforating loads of trash early on, not without often looking at my ammo stock in the status bar. Heh, most gun upgrades appeared in early secrets. Thanks to the computer that I could spot all of them, the super camouflaged SSG the most valuable. PR and rockets definitely played their part too. Thing revolved around unlocking few doors, not always in plain sight, and getting briefly lost in those intertwined hallways. It could still live without the arrows, but all good anyways. There were also some floating eyes that could be destroyed, keen replacements. Not sure if killing them all opened something somewhere. That chainsaw trap was the highlight of unexpected mean, lol. That lone HK too I guess. What was the deal with the block lines and useless green demons though...

03. Oof, that existed. After a shitty welcoming, things didn't get any better soon. Whoever is reading this, and has played the map before, knows what I mean: the lifts, or technically slow moving floors. Agonizingly slow, no matter what. And the midi added to a sense of psychological punishment for some reason. But rather than idclip every time I had to hop on them (in reality I can't), I took my phone to send messages in the meantime. Yup. Anyways, the level more of that hallway cleanup, booby traps here and there, slightly congested rooms. That one maze of imps and demons though, largely ineffective due to the angles, as they had it hard to path towards me. Some latter areas had generally poor mid-tier treatment, though the HKs/mancs/PEs room was fun to mop up with rockets. Lot of secrets again, gently telegraphed once I snagged the computer. Favorite bit was funneling rockets to a hapless horde of gunners. Two weird things: a broken teleport, and a potential softlock if using one of the doors before lowering it from elsewhere. Ugh, thank fuck for crispy's option to set infinite height off...

04. Okay thing. Guess I was in trapped in some catacombs, with Heretic-ish bgm. Kind of uneventful, yet not all that boring in places. Theme was gloomy dark thin hallways, not in a mazelike way, but the kind you take the low road first then bunny-jump on the higher road, giving a vague sense of faux 3D room-over-room. Reminded me of the Congestion 1024 maps. Not much to highlight though, as most implied frontal corridor shooting, generally chainsaw fodder and SSG double kills, the better part of the gameplay imo. Preferred that over those several HK trios, or the baron one, only effective at disrupting the flow midway, but that stuff never truly bothers me. The couple wider rooms were thick in pointless pit demon hordes and cacodemons. Early on I could have gotten a RL to abuse infinite tall splash, but the cacos intercepted too soon. Missed the secret backpack at the start, and almost died to some greenies in a small optional annex close to the exit. Oh, umm, what was up with the imps inside walls...

05. More dim lighting! Thought this played rather nice and sweet, for the set's context. The slightly limited mobility on ledges and thin corridors continued, but the openness in the cistern reduced any feel of claustrophobia. Lots of gunners/imps ambushes at different places, some that spawned in questionable places. Most every other bulky horde (greenies, nobles, cacos) served as the hard gum to chew that characterizes Psyren's tropes. I quite liked the RL and torture rooms aesthetically. As usual, the secrets felt clever and their requirements stood out for me. Even the random chainsaw at the start made me giggle. I exhausted it on lost souls, mostly. Reckon the last room was meh as a climax, though I had so many rockets/plasma that it went like a breeze. Nice music.

06. An interesting departure from the cramped interconnected catacombs to something more systematically hub-based. Not without its classic initial hitscan fest. That music spoke tension and suspense. Each shrine, as the mapper called them, had its own particularly shaped arena and selected bestiary, and secret gifts too. They looked cool, sharp angles, floor figures, and light contrast within each other. Some extra ambushes greeted me back into the hub, which I appreciated for the ammo. So, first shrine involved tight moves to herd barons and arachnotrons away from the outer ring, so they could kill each other. I rooted for spiders, they were doing great until they weren't anymore. It was fun, good crowd control. A few random intruders managed to tp with us. It amused me when I figured where they were coming from...

Second and third not as exciting as the former. They had a similar idea of (optional) infight management, except with poor area control from the monsters' part since they could only do so much in such ample spaces, HKs and cacos in particular, though the third shrine felt more cinematically satisfying to orchestrate in the darkness. Fourth did push me towards a blur sphere as fast as possible, before I was shredded by the undead assholes. A satisfying climax for the ears, gunners tearing each other in a massive arena. The archvile was a surprise, though it only spawned because I shot a HK. A couple monsters never spawned. Looking at the automap on IDDTx2, I'm inclined to guess the tp lines were W1. If so, big mistake!

07. Anomalous place. Not trying to interpret the setting this time, other than it reminded of Perdition's Gate middle stretch regarding the layout's complexity and monster pathing - on this subject I also thought of this set's map 02. Had a rough start, constantly cycling between very low and full health, yet survived those burst shots like a champ, heh. Got a bit disoriented after killing the initial wave, then I remembered in which map I was. Yeah, the mancubi may seem like you'd approach them on their level, but thankfully I found the rockets to snipe them all. As I expected, it was logically followed by ground arachnotrons, mixed with nobles for absolute pressure freedom. Not quite my thing when I have to search for the monsters I need to kill to progress because they are dormant somewhere else instead of tracking my position, but whatever. Suddenly random SMM noises. Something must have gone wrong with her platform as it didn't raise properly (I mean, it did, but only after killing the thing). In the end my memory betrayed me as I forgot where the RK was and I ran in circles for like five minutes, grr. 

08. Aha, keen eye time! Finally those objects got their own quest. The hallway with portals looked neat, as did the second and final ring, structurally Psyren showing again they knew their tricks with geometry. Great music as usual. Early on I woke up the HKs and demons by accident, which pressured me into taking the portals. Low pressure but it gave the fight a better purpose. Megasphere was tempting yet I missed the clue. Quite liked how the RL and CG were sitting casually on the lava. Next place, the ring, I believe would have been more exciting had I opened the eye-locked barriers while stuff was still around, for a change of pace, assisted chaos that'd make sense with foreknowledge. I didn't have to kill much anyways, just leftover barons and imps, and one last gunners ambush (casually lowered a blur sphere just in time). Just then found this secret with switches that locked or opened the heart of the ring, okay? lol.

09. Back to the thin corridors. Felt engaging in places, mostly due to using gaps to my advantage, and slightly dull in others. The chainsaw and SSG rooms for example, both requiring to sneak past ambushes quickly to snag the weapons. I assume if you don't think ahead almost every section can play like a slog, like the early pistol vs. imps. Regardless, a lot of slower grind in the darker areas though, because of spongy monsters. Cutting skulls to half is one of my pleasures so I was good there. The visor really destroyed the atmosphere there lol. Not a fan of the mancubi and revs clogging the BK door. It was compensated by that spicy hitscan sandwich halfway through, classic trope, because mixed gunners quads are visually amusing too. One of the secrets required SR40 (or 50?), that was new. Just had to find the right angle to get it. The highlight of everything was logically the final area, one of those "destroy the core of the invasion" concepts. Bit bland outdoors, lacking details around, though the central structure looked not bad. I was a bit confused at first but I figured things out eventually, not without having some many invaders on the ground (oddly no PEs or souls ever spawned, but a caco every now and then). They couldn't climb up to my spot, which I wasn't sure about. Interesting setup overall, effective barons HP wise imo. Forgot to look up for a missing secret :(

10. A familiar setting, first descending rocks to enter the final portion of the ancient city. The hitscan cavalry coming out of the door had me taking social distance for a bit. I had to laugh though, once inside they were clogging a hallway killing each other. And even more of them outside. Good stuff. Eh, also  lots and lots of sponges, goats mostly. Infight took care of some, while I went north inside, though I was immediately kicked out by an archvile waking up in a corner between barons (had no RL). Went back to the hallways and took the longest path. There was the RL, accompanied by a highly cinematic fight with greenies, spectres and HKs. Heard arachnotrons teleporting in the meantime. They were clogging the entrance outside the keys area along with more HKs. I found the tiny switches before and took advantage of them, thinking they'd do me a favor later. Yup. At that point I started to think of the power of foreknowledge, because I didn't know the outdoors area was going to repopulate each time I lowered a key. Tricked the caco horde to infight some leftover goats. An unusually fun spectacle, given that the goats couldn't reach the cacos up closer, so it was a fair fight for them. Still the goats claimed victory, not by much difference though. Lastly, as a sort of epilogue, the marine returned to the first map to find his boat had resurfaced. He was ready to escape the island, and so was I to finish this mapset :)