What is your favorite episode1 level.

Damn tough call . . . I'd say E1M3 and E1M6. E1M5, E1M7, and E1M8 are all memorable, but not really my favorites.

I voted for poor, neglected E1M2.

NiGHTMARE said:

I voted for poor, neglected E1M2.

yeah i think it's sad it only got one vote. that's the map i usually think of when i hear ep1 style, although there's so many good options there it's hard to have a flat out favorite. what sold me on E1M4 was this... could he have made that any more aesthetically pleasing and intricate? :D (by comparison, suburbs from Doom II. ugh.)

Whenever I hear E1 style, I usually have several pics of all the E1 levels (and various E1 levels I've played) flash through my head all at once :)

Tough choice, seeing as how the overall feel and look of the episode was kickass.

I'll narrow it down to E1M4, E1M5, and E1M8.

sargebaldy said:

yeah i think it's sad it only got one vote. that's the map i usually think of when i hear ep1 style, although there's so many good options there it's hard to have a flat out favorite. what sold me on E1M4 was this... could he have made that any more aesthetically pleasing and intricate? :D (by comparison, suburbs from Doom II. ugh.)

Heh, I laughed when I saw the second screencapture.

I've always had this strange feeling inside of me that while the actual design capabilities of the 2 games was exactly the same, I can't help but notice that the first DOOM seems more "real" than DOOM 2. Why? DOOM is completely fictioinal, whereas DOOM 2 takes place on Earth and thus looks less "real". Seeing those 2 screen caps only further proves what I mean.

Neither of them seem very "real" to me. But then realistic games usually suck. And while Doom 2 seems to be the more ridiculed for crappy maps, the first Doom had its share too (E2M9 and E3M1, anyone?)

True, original Doom had some bad maps. E2M9, E3M8, E4M3. But Doom2's bad maps were MAP01-MAP32.

The suburbs' saving grace is the infamous 'blue key moment', brown pants time, heh.

Nanami said:

True, original Doom had some bad maps. E2M9, E3M8, E4M3. But Doom2's bad maps were MAP01-MAP32.

E4M3? i liked that one actually, it was certainly good for the fact it was the author (shawn green)'s first map. sure you didn't mean E4M4?

Heh, oh, right. E4M4, not E4M3. E4M3 is hard but cool.

Draconio said:

Neither of them seem very "real" to me. But then realistic games usually suck.

I don't mean "real" in terms of what DOOM 3 will be. It's actually quite difficult to explain. I guess what I meant to say is that it's easier to use your imagination in the first game since no actual base exists on Phbos or Deimos and Hell is depicted in a never-before-seen way; the best analogy I can use is the placedo effect, but that's a bit fallacious. I guess I'm only saying all of this considering that a vast majority of the first game's levels actually had some design to them, whereas DOOM 2 was just a mish-mash of linedefs, sectors, and puzzles with little of an actual look to them.

(by comparison, suburbs from Doom II. ugh.)

Heh, I will NEVER look at Suburbs the same way again. Now I know why there were so many monsters.

Doom 2 had some good maps, though. I thought 8, 9, 20, 24, 25, 26, 28, and 29 were pretty good. And I think 4, 6, 12, 14-16, 18, 19, 27, and 30 were at least alright.

Did anyone think Doom 2 was crap as soon as they got it? I know I was kinda young, so I was like "OMG Doom 2 new monsters super shotgun yeh", but, heh, I was wondering. What I don't understand is how people who made such good levels could come out with some crappy ones. Oh, well.

Shareware Doom never really excited me in the same way that Doom2 did, to be honest. If there had been no Doom2, I would have quickly moved on to other games. To me Doom2 was, and will remain, the *real* Doom.

Flame away, or whatever, but this is a very old and rather pointless discussion. Fairly old, anyway. Funny thing is, I don't recall many comments back in 1994/5 to the effect that some people didn't like Doom2 as much as Doom1.

Grimm said:

Did anyone think Doom 2 was crap as soon as they got it? I know I was kinda young, so I was like "OMG Doom 2 new monsters super shotgun yeh", but, heh, I was wondering.

That's exactly how I was, I was 14 when I first got the game, around '98 or '99.

Grazza said:

Shareware Doom never really excited me in the same way that Doom2 did, to be honest. If there had been no Doom2, I would have quickly moved on to other games. To me Doom2 was, and will remain, the *real* Doom.

heh, weird. i'm about opposite. without the first episode of doom i'd have given the game up doom long ago. i think of doom2 as an average FPS at the very most.

Heh, Doom is the real Doom to me, and it always will be. And like Baldy says, if it weren't for Episode 1, I'd have stopped playing Doom a long, long time ago. At any rate, Doom2 simply isn't as good as its predecessor, due in large part to ho-hum and downright bad level design. If only they had put as much time into the level design of Doom2 as they did into the new enemies and the SSG, it could have been just as good, if not better than, Doom.

E1M7 - terrific music, large map with many different sectors. Great outdoor place by the way.

Heh, w00t, I just realized why E1M6 stands out from the rest of E1. It has large areas that are outside which are not secrets. Now that I think about it, E1M5 and E1M9 had ouside ares, too. (Though they were small.) I guess F_SKY1 is used more than we tend to think in E1.

that's what i don't like about E1M6. too many non-secret outdoor areas. still a really good map but it hurts the E1 feel.