The DWmegawad Club plays: 2002: A Doom Odyssey (My God... it's full of imps!)

[Capellan]

cannonball said:
closing you off battling 80 cacos which teleport slowly doue to their large size and small space to teleport into, add to that the fact the cacos have to fly up about 100 feet to escape the well. Oh and as the area is closed off you can't possibly kill all the cacos

I think there a couple of seimple changes that would make this an awesome encounter, rather than a crappy one:

1. move the exit to be inside the well itself, make it shallower, and put four cacos down there to start with
2. don't seal the area
3. (optional) keep the four switches, but have them open a cache with a plasma gun and cells (or RL and rockets)

Those changes would force you to wait until the cacos stopped coming (since you wouldn't be able to get into the well until they did), but would let you have a long, running battle with them across the level - which would be you know, actually fun.


Personally, I think that E3M3 through E3M6 are the worst consecutive batch of levels in the WAD to date.

[Kristian Ronge]

E3M1 -- Gatehouse
Okay, well, Adam and dobugabumaru didn't care much for this, while cannonball, DotW, Magnus and CorSair thought it was at least okay. I liked it okay, it's a tiny hellish castle with lots of monsters thrown in. Agreed, on UV it is very easy going (OTOH, which episode opener shouldn't be?) but played with -fast as cannonball suggested, or, better yet, -respawn, this would probably be very intense. It's also too short to ever become boring. The insane amount of ammo I can see could pose a "problem" if episode running but that's not an issue for me.

The map looks very good, though the steep stairs mentioned by Adam did cause me to completely miss the chaingun/saw until everything was dead and, although fitting the overall theme of cramped fighting, was unfortunate.

The RL secret was super easy to find when playing without music... :-) See guys, this is why you should just turn the music off. You hear missing monsters and audial cues!

All in all, a pleasant start to the episode. Too small, short, and easy to be memorable, though. --3/5

[SyntherAugustus]

I've been following the posts here daily, but haven't been able to think of a writeup (Bullet form doesn't seem to work for me anymore). I've started Episode 3 yesterday so I'm still keeping up. Probably going to end up making a full "review" when the month is over.

[cannonball]

Capellan said:

I think there a couple of seimple changes that would make this an awesome encounter, rather than a crappy one:

1. move the exit to be inside the well itself, make it shallower, and put four cacos down there to start with
2. don't seal the area
3. (optional) keep the four switches, but have them open a cache with a plasma gun and cells (or RL and rockets)

Those changes would force you to wait until the cacos stopped coming (since you wouldn't be able to get into the well until they did), but would let you have a long, running battle with them across the level - which would be you know, actually fun.


Personally, I think that E3M3 through E3M6 are the worst consecutive batch of levels in the WAD to date.

E3M3 was the only change I and many wanted in this wad. Us speedrunners got left out in the cold by the new version :(
Just a heads up my ragemode shall end for a while, I don't have the hatred you have for E3M5 and E3M6, though numerous deaths on both of these will probably change my mind ;)
Oh I look forward to baronofstuff's review of E3M3 :D, probably make my rant look like a transcript written by Buddah

[Capellan]

Kristian Ronge said:
Okay, well, Adam and dobugabumaru didn't care much for this

I actually thought it was OK, but re-reading my comments, I can see why you got the impression I didn't like it :)

So for the record: I liked E3M1 OK. I just would have made a few changes to it, myself.

[cannonball]

E3M4 Halls of Ebola by Rory Habich
This map falls into the meh category. It looks nice, but the map is too flat and just piles lots of monsters into the confined spaces without any real strategy. Simply put this map was an absolute breeze to get through without much effort. I guess the tonnes of monsters can be nice to mow down but the sheer density pretty much guarantees infighting half the time.
Least it was better than the previous map haha.

[mouldy]

Episode 3 ahoy!

E3M1 Gatehouse by Sam Woodman

A short and fairly easy entrance to hell. The visuals do a great job of setting the scene, though the corridors are very confined - not that much fighting goes on in them, but in a map this linear it does tend to underline the feeling of being funnelled through a preordained route when your elbows are always grazing the walls. Also there is the issue of having items that you cant avoid picking up which will annoy certain persons here, though it isn't such an issue in this map since there is an abundance of health and ammo around. It was over quite fast, no bad thing for a starter map, but never felt particularly testing. The most damage came from the shotgunner ambush at the red key.

E3M2 Caves of Bosnia by Paul Corfiatis

This is a bit more like it. Proper running around in hell-caverns scraping for health and ammo, dodging lost souls and damaging floors. There is nice use of teleporting monster traps to cut off your exit, though it is fairly easy to escape and leave monsters behind in places. The bit where the pinkies teleport right behind you killed me a couple of times as i was wedged between them and a caco and got munched. The final battle with imps and cacos was rendered a bit simple by being able to go outside and mow them all down through the doorway. A nice hell map though, some monsters got away (from missing a secret I guess).

E3M3 Stronghold of Damnation by Rory Habich

A nice open start here, with monsters trickling in from all directions and lots of choice for where to go, which made a nice change. Ammo is in abundance and there is plenty of hellspawn to soak it up. Some surprises along the way, some nice and some nasty - cyberdemon was a bit weird, not sure if you are meant to fight him awkwardly or just attempt to leg it out of there. I went for the less time and ammo consuming option and said goodbye, thinking I might come back for him later. But this map had different ideas about that. Namely, a finale involving a locked room and endless tidalwave of cacodemons. Now I very quickly flicked all the switches to escape before many of them had emerged, so for fun I stuck around with the idea of killing them all, but as my ammo ran out and they kept coming I figured that wasn't the general idea. Out of interest I played through the map again, making sure to conserve all the rockets and plasma ammo and went in that final room again to see if it was possible to kill them all. 50 rockets, 300 cells, 50 shells and over 100 bullets later there were still over 30 of them left, which leads me to believe it isn't possible. I did my best..

[Capellan]

According to ws.exe, the monster HP count on E3M3 is about 92% of the total damage value of all ammo and weapons on the map.

For comparison, it seems like "scrounging for ammo" maps usually sit around the 55-60% mark.

[Kristian Ronge]

E3M2 -- Caves of Bosnia
We've relocated from Switzerland (E1M9) to Bosnia. Never been to Bosnia but I doubt it looks like this. Is Bosnia Paul Corfiatis' vision of hell? ;-)

Anyways, this was a nice hellish cavern level. As has been noted, the design is primitive, crude almost (The YK section looks pretty nice), but the map is about the gameplay and it serves up some sweet, challenging fights and traps. The cavernous settings allow the hitscanners to put you in a bad spot healthwise very quickly so you need to swiftly concentrate on taking out the shotgunners before dealing with any other monsters. Progression is very linear but the environment gives off an exploratory air so that is not an irritant. Health and ammo are tight and makes the first two-thirds of the map difficult; there's a pretty obvious soulsphere secret near the start which helps you survive until you reach the medikits past the BK door, and a chainsaw which helps you conserve ammo until you get the red key.

The gameplay will frustrate some but I enjoyed most of it immensely, especially the blue key trap, where, as Adam mentioned, monsters teleport in at several locations meaning you cannot easily grab the key and just leg it out of there. That pretty much goes for almost the whole map: monsters are used well, particularly lost souls, to hinder you from just zooming past the non-hitscanning monsters which make up most of the monster fauna in the spacious surroundings. While the souls are annoying the shit out of you, and you have to pause to clear a path, the other monsters get a chance to corner you. Lovely stuff!

By the red key trap, my ammo supply was nearly completely exhausted so I was happy to see a bunch of shotgunners beam in to give me more shotgun ammo. After the red key door, you get enough ammo to last the rest of the map, but I left the map with only 20 or so shells and no bullets left, and I didn't find the RL secret nor the plasma rifle secret until I went secret hunting. Then again I'm not impartial to punching out Barons and chainsawing Cacos if I get the chance, and this map certainly gave me the chance. :-) The finale, the yellow key trap was very violent and super fun.

Some stupid things though: As far as I can tell, the lava next to the red key ledges is inescapable. Big no-no, especially since you can build up some speed coming around that bend, and you're dodging lost souls too. The trap where demons teleport in behind you and a Caco in front of you felt like somewhat of a bullshit trap like dobugabumaru notes (if you're short on health and not vigilant, you may easily die there), the Baron guarding the YK switch was, well, pointless. The Caco at the chaingun makes for a very awkward fight -- I'm not standing around in hurtful blood killing it, which means I'm confined to the small chaingun platform.

At my first playthrough I noticed I missed 6 monsters and ran around looking for them to no avail. Turns out they were imps which were supposed to beam in if you pass a linedef just behind the switch lowering the YK. Uhhh... yeah, thanks, I love making a semi-awkward jump over an inescapable lava pit just so I can run around the long way back to the key instead of just running back up the stairway and grabbing it. ;-) EDIT: Maybe these were the monsters mouldy missed?

All in all, an enjoyable map with some flaws. --4/5

[cannonball]

Ah yes the imps at the yellow key switch. Poor design here as most will simply turn around and grab the key that way. Paul I guess wanted you to drop down onto that ledge and off course they teleport on both sides.
Speedrunnig is fun as you get out your chainsaw, turn it on and get very close to the edge of the ledge to trigger the linedef :P It's the only bad point of the map which I completely missed from my review yesterday.

[dobu gabu maru]

Wow didn't think everyone preferred E3M1 so much. I still think it was one of the worst maps based on principle alone.

E3M5 10th ed.: Well this feels unfair. Right from the stunning, atmospheric intro I felt that this couldn't have been created back in '02, especially when traveling through the rest of the complex. Corfiatis flexes some of his new design knowledge by incorporating more asymmetry, a interesting and twisting layout, along with enemies assaulting the player from multiple positions. The area with the boxes is the best example of this, spilling out legions of demons so that when you think you've finally cleared one section, you find a pinkie chomping down on your ass.

Topping it off is a gimmicky cyberdemon battle that works for the most part, although it can be quite frustrating. It forces you to keep an eye on the beast at all times, only giving you a chance to strike him when he's firing at you. Luckily I had plenty of cell from the levels prior so it wasn't as lethal as trading rockets with him. I enjoyed this a lot, lot more than the anticlimactic E2M8.

I found this map quite pleasing overall, much more than anything in E3 so far (it's visually a knockout too with a whole variety of textures but still staying rooted in the hellish E3 theme), but I feel like it's a given considering how much Corfiatis has learned (especially after Whispers of Satan). So it doesn't really surprise me, but I'd be damned if I didn't have a good time.

So what about the other map?

E3M5 old ed.: Tried playing this instead of waiting until I got to E4M9 but I can't do it from pistol start... I got up to the part where the cacos are released in the red key building and I have no ammo to force my way through there, and they seem unable to escape. It looks nice, and has a very distinct theme, but doesn't feel like an E3 map. Maybe if by luck I find the secret exit in E4, I can give it another shot.

[Demon of the Well]

E3M2 -- Caves of Bosnia - ~96% kills / 100% secrets
Hmm, a little surprised by the mixed reaction this one seems to be getting.....I found it to be the most fun of all Paul's solo maps in the WAD thus far. It has plenty of enjoyable fights, beginning with the scramble to pick off a sergeant in order to take his shotgun in the opening cavern. I had an enjoyable melee-combat workout soon after, getting a lot of mileage out of the berserk pack and legitimately useful secret chainsaw in the blue skull area (didn't find the RL secret in the connecting tunnel until I was leaving the area)--always nice to punch out a Baron and julienne a few killer tomatoes. The teleporting sergeant squad in the red skull area was also well-conceived, as it makes very good use of the overlooks and low slit openings in the passageway approaching said key, which the player will likely have been using to his own advantage up until that moment. And what can I say about the final caco/imp rush? Mindless, bloody fun, and poses very little threat if you've found either the aforementioned secret RL or the secret plasma rifle, which is hidden in another of Corfiatis' trademark platform-operated-by-a-hidden-switch-concealed-by-another-platform contrivances. I don't feel compelled to cry foul over the much talked about caco/demon teleporter ambush near the marble slab-- having to deal with that kind of "Fuck You" trap from time to time builds character, after all!--but Cannonball's explanation of the missing imps is certainly what I'd call a suspect design choice (I had initially assumed they were more demons who couldn't teleport out due to use of W1 lines in the previously mentioned trap). Aesthetically it's about on par with Paul's other offerings thus far, and doesn't make effective use of darkness/shadow outside of the yellow key switch overlook, but it does have a greater degree of verisimilitude than his previous maps (though one naturally wonders "why Bosnia?"), which helps to establish a sense of place and puts the icing on the cake proposed by the map's consistently fun battles.

E3M3 -- Stronghold of Damnation - ~94% kills / 100% secrets
Playing this, I found myself wondering if Habich's entries in 2002:ADO might be appearing in more or less the same order that he created them. Over the course of E2M3-E2M6-E3M3, I feel like I've seen progressively more focused iterations of the same general gameplay concept (e.g. "lots of bad guys appear in previously empty or cleared areas to harry you whenever you pick up a key or hit an important switch"), with this spartan demonic garrison set in a valley of ashy rock seeming to be purpose-built to house the sizable teleporter waves that account for the lion's share of its action. I don't think it actually looks better than E2M6, as the lack of meaningful height/terrain variation that has characterized Habich's maps thus far tends to be more apparent in a largely outdoor setting like this one, but it has some nice little details here and there, like the painstakingly-rendered runnels of blood leaking from the marine corpse on the central altar. Apart from the general prevalence of teleporting hordes, the two major wrinkles liable to stick out in one's mind are the somewhat ruthless use of the cyberdemon and the effectively insurmountable trickle of cacodemons in the final room. The former point was a good nerve-testing exercise, as I play in a port where impaled corpses and similar prop objects do not block monster projectiles, and I didn't find the concealed plasma rifle until after the encounter--so no plinking him to death from behind an indestructible corpse-shield for me. Wasn't exactly the most fun one-on-one cyb fight I've ever had, but it made me sit up and pay attention, at least. To the latter point, well, as I said earlier, I went into the final room with nearly max ammo possible from a pistol start, and was still only able to attain under 95% kills. Maybe if I get a wild hair I'll replay it and try luring some barons in there with me, as I mentioned earlier, and see how much help they are. More than anything, though, I still say Rory should have just offered us a backpack at some point.

[CorSair]

E3M2
Lots of red, in walls and floors alike. But has some special setpieces, like that tunnel to blue key. Suffers from linearity, like the rest of the .wad. Fights felt quite entertaining, but that caco/Demon surprise was bit too harsh, especially with low health and possibly, caco blocking your way out. Plus, lost souls don't help much. More than decent map to play through.
96% kills (Did I miss a trigger line or what?), 100% items and secrets.

E3M3
That was stupid. I mean, circling around, grabbing ammo... Then getting surrounded by demons. And I didn't look the monster count. Whopping 315. Gonna be long day... And what surprised me even more? Mr. C. Demon. And what makes it even worse fight than normally with their kind? The fucking place you fight it. Not really any room, and the only viable way to kill it is to get behind the door and shoot from there. And probably most interesting trap... run to yellow teleporter... instead, jump right on caco's maw. And the rest of fights? Get good position and just hold your button to do the rest. No flanking, no back scratchers. Not really interesting. Oh, and the final confrontation with well of cacoes? FUCK THAT NOISE IMMA OUTTA HERE.
Rest of the level looks appealing, and I almost thought that it's not linear. Well, was wrong on that.
88% kills, 100% items and secrets.

[BaronOfStuff]

E3M1:
New episode, new rules. Hopefully. Now I don't want to see any crap like trapped melee monsters and finding myself oversaturated with enough weapons and ammo to clean out the map 10 times over. With that being said, let's go and at least try to find some difficulty... please?

NO. Apparently that's too much to ask for. I'm already handed a Shotgun and find my pockets being filled with Shells the moment I do anything. Now I don't have a problem with acquiring a Shotgun early on; anything's better than tapping away at a pack with that fucking pea-shooter. But the ammo for it is just everywhere. The few hellish minions so far get put away with ease, and the all-too familiar feeling of disappointment is starting to come back. Come on, this is supposed to be Hell! Am I really going to have to give myself a set of rules to make this challenging? Fine. I'm not picking this armour up until the end of the level.

That will make all the difference. To some numbers that won't even matter.

It then just gets ridiculous. What is the purpose of these Hellspawn? Why bother putting them there when they can be blasted away without any way of retaliating?

The objective here is to free the priso-... oh, too late.

There's an insultingly high amount of ammo on this map. I know it's only the first one of this episode, but throwing this much ammo at me so early on with barely anything to use it on is completely senseless and can only be the result of not testing things -- I'm already at the base limit for Bullets, there are plenty of Shells near the locked exit, and I'm also in possession of a Chainsaw too, just in case I need it for some reason. I can also afford to be incredibly lazy with dodging what few attacks come my way, such is the abundance of healing. So yes, as expected, everything that isn't me dies horribly, including this guy who is somehow trapped on the floor for whatever mysterious purpose. Eh, might as well slap it to death.

See? I told you this wasn't tested.

The secrets take the supply levels to a ridiculous level. So much so that the shock of just how much ammo I have is even giving the decorations problems. Look! This lion's had a stroke!

From stupidly obscure to painfully obvious, the secrets just can't seem to be implemented properly.

Yes, yes, it's aesthetically pleasing and does use a couple of neat tricks for visual purposes (the 'gate door'), but there is absolutely no energy to playing this level; you just look at things and they die. Far too easy, even for an episode-opener and especially for E3M1. I can only hope that all this shit I'm carrying around will be put to some very good use on the next map. And the one after.

BORING. Nice background pic though.

[cannonball]

E3M5 Blood and Guts by Paul Corfiatis
Yay lets play the new map
Well I feel rather underwhelmed to be honest. It was rather tight on ammo to start but a lot better later on ammo wise.
It looks good with some quite striking visuals adding some extra textures adds to the effect here.
Some areas did look a little bland though.
The teleport ambush after the blue key door is agonisingly slow, in fact I was almost killed by a demon who teleported about 2 minutes after the ambush started :O
The gameplay as a whole just felt slow and lethargic with not much threat on the whole. The final cyber fight is ok, though I stuck him quickly on the lift and gave him a sporting chance by pushing him to ground level, though he was only a couple of rockets from death.
sector 556 has a damaging floor even though it shouldn't have :/
only found 1 secret which is adds to the point really. I died twice, once at the start and once on the cyber. I didn't feel threatened at all much even pistol starting the map. De-Moonside is a beast and I shall cover that in it's new slot along with the secret wolfenstein level at the same time.
E3M6 later........

[Magnusblitz]

E3M4: HALLS OF EBOLA

Well... this map exists. Not that much to say about it. Looks nice except I don't like the new "metal demon face" textures, they look out of place. Oh, I suppose the blue key trap was pretty nice, since all the monsters in close proximity can make it somewhat difficult. Rest of the map is easy, though. And the secrets (if you find them) are ridiculously overstocked.

E3M5: BLOOD AND GUTS

Definitely feels like a new map given the amount of detail and striking visuals; I can tell a long time was spent on it. Like many of Paul's maps however, the actual gameplay is pretty meh. Nothing challenging, and more boring and slow teleporter traps. Cyberdemon fight wasn't too bad, and the teleporters can help challenge the "I can hit him, but Cyber can't hit me" strategy.

Is sector 556 the start of the bridge at the end? Yeah, I noticed that too (damages when it shouldn't).

[cannonball]

E3M6 Obituary Written by Chris Hansen
Yep just as I remembered this map is really nasty. The new version has a few radsuits scattered around which help a little.
Not sure what happened but only got 60% secrets (forgot how to get them, found the secret exit though)
This map is very challenging and set out to be a survival map. I started the map with 30% health and I don't think I got about 35% throughout. Put into perspective I found the mega armour secret and well i didn't need the green armour throughout but yet my health was still poor. Very little ammo or health here.
I don't mind this map but I'm sure some will rant about it :P

[Kristian Ronge]

E3M3 -- Stronghold of Damnation
People's comments so far are right on the money. It's a map that is very hampered by some poor design (deliberate and non-deliberate). The setting is awesome: some brick and marble ruins set in a charred landscape which you can explore to a certain extent (until you get the yellow key) in a nonlinear fashion. You get tons of ammo for disposing tons of monsters, and this is rather good fun. You fight your way inside one of the buildings, past some strangely placed Cacos, which are almost harmless and take a lot of time to kill (like cannonball said), as they tend to drift off/back. The surprise Cyberdemon showdown didn't aggravate me at all, although it would have been awkward fighting it at 100/0 (at that time) from inside the room. Have no clue what the author's intentions were. I ran back out the door and killed it with the plasma rifle, which I found through good secret-finding instincts. ;-) Don't know in what ports the corpses stop those rockets but in good old doom.exe you will get shot to pieces if you try to hide behind one of them. Of course, it would have taken three times as long at least to kill the Cyber with the shotgun (though there's more than enough ammo), and it's not that fun. And it's not really necessary to kill it once you've managed to exit the room... it's not like it's standing on a key or guarding a switch or teleporter. Perhaps that actually is an advantage for most people (except people who want to get 100% kills like myself).

Anywho, the yellow key teleporter surprise Caco trap was great, and after that you get the yellow key and the map gets very linear. The following sections look very good, the red key trap was intense but I ran out of there and when I tried to go back to kill everything monsters blocked my way (like I asked for Rory's E2M3, is this coop safe if you release the monsters but die down there at the red key? Maybe with enough rockets to clear a landing spot). Not the best design choice IMO. The blue key teleporter trap, as cannonball notes, is slow as hell. Fun, but sloooow. And then it ends with the infamous, ridiculous Caco teleporter trap which is basically a kick in the groin to people playing 100/100. The strangest thing about it, as has been hinted at by past reviews here, is that it's super easy to just ignore all the Cacos and head for the exit. If there was some sort of timer, say, a lowering pillar which took 4 minutes to allow you access to the exit I could maybe understand the design... "Let's trap the player and make them fight for their life while being swarmed by monsters until they can safely reach the exit". But no, it's just pointless.

The rest of the map is for the most part okay, like I said; some fun fights, a few silly moments but nothing enormously aggravating, two nice secrets, but the last trap is super stupid. I was going to be very generous with the grade because most of this is fun to play... it's fairly close to getting a 3, but.. --2/5

[Capellan]

cannonball said:
E3M6 Obituary Written by Chris Hansen
I don't mind this map but I'm sure some will rant about it :P

Try the version without radsuits and let me know how you get on :)

[cannonball]

Capellan said:

Try the version without radsuits and let me know how you get on :)

Probably would have been ok to be honest. 30% health and no armour was not a good start to this level even with radsuits :P
The map is deliberately designed to be as hard as possible using over a thin spread of enemies. When the floor damage is deliberately part of the danger in a map instead of randomly thrown at you for no apparent reason then it kind of gets away with it in my view.
Luckily despite puny health the secret level is hilariously easy so no worries on having 19% health :)

[Kristian Ronge]

E3M4 -- Halls of Ebola
What is it with this WAD and geographical references? ;-)

I liked this map much better than Rory's last. This one, a hellish base map, reverts to the familiar theme of leading a player through side areas from a central hub, like Adam says. The teturing is again cool: the new textures I think add a nice touch and the map looks great! It also plays fairly well: the action is straightforward but delightfully violent. Other reviewers thought the fights were a bit lacklustre but I quite liked them. Yes, the teleporting traps are simple, and yes, you could run from them, but I chose to stay and fight throughout the map and was glad I did. Monsters are hurled at you at an enormous pace and you're kept very busy. Four easy-to-find secrets, one is the classic look-behind-you type found also in E2M4, and two of them are very helpful for cleaning out the blue key trap and beyond. What can I say? I am a man of simple tastes. I don't need much more than this to be happy. :-) --4/5

[Steve D]

Off to a late start this week.

E3M1 – Sam Woodman – Kills – 100, Items – 100, Secrets – 100. Time 11:43. End Health 100, Armor 38. Death Count – Zero

Sam Woodman’s first map in the megawad is, I think, the best first map for any episode thus far. It is good-looking, has lots of hitscanners, and causes the player a certain amount of pain. For me, a lot of the pain came from trying to avoid important power-ups – mainly Medikits and shell-boxes – placed unavoidably in the player’s path. This has been an enormous problem throughout the megawad, but this map might be the worst offender yet. I’m really tempted to go into full mega-profanity rant mode here, but after ranting and blowing off steam, I decided to cut it out. But I promise that I will go completely batshit crazy if I ever encounter an unavoidable Soulsphere/Blue Armor when I’m at 190%. Just the same, I was able to do a lot of shooting, kill a lot of enemies, grab the rocket launcher and chaingun, and enjoy some delightfully dark areas. I look forward to Woodman’s next map.

BTW, to Kristian, I was able to hear my way to the RL secret even with the music on. ;)

E3M2 – Paul Corfiatis – Kills – 95, Secrets – 50. Time 32:19. End Health 100, Armor 200. Death Count – Zero.

Paul delivers a mostly great-looking and cleverly-designed map with rocky underground areas featuring strong use of height-variation. The opening battlefield essentially surrounds you on all sides, leading to surprising attacks from varied directions. This leads to a somewhat similar area containing the blue key – and a significant multi-location teleport trap.

I had some trouble in the first battlefield because I spent too much time on toxic blood fighting a Caco and Lost Soul over a chaingun. This left me very battered by the time I triggered the blue key teleport trap. I decided to open a saved game to avoid being killed at the next trap, only to discover my last save had been at the exit of the previous level, so I started over again. Forewarned is forearmed, and I sliced through the first two battlefields with little trouble, especially taking care to avoid wasting rockets on Cacos and Lost Souls, who were shotgunned and chaingunned instead. Pcorf typically fails to provide enough bullets in his maps, so I conserved those as well.

As the map progressed, it became something of a slog. It was tedious to shotgun all the Cacos, which mostly appeared in areas not immediately threatening to the player. There were also a lot of Pinkies to shotgun (of course!). Too bad I missed the Plasma Gun! I missed the Rocket Launcher, too.

In regards to Capellan’s commentary, the yellow key area was to me the most boring part. I of course triggered the ambush where a Caco appears right in front of you while Pinkies teleport in behind you. I’m assuming that’s what he’s talking about, but I was able to run away from this, taking little damage, casually shotgun the Caco, and then shotgun all the Pinkies from above with absolutely nothing to worry about. Maybe I was just lucky to not get cornered. This, of course, eventually led to the massive attack where you can first shotgun the Baron in this outer area, and then shotgun a seeming army of Cacos and Imps. That could have been a nasty fight if I’d turned into the library, but instead I motored to the outside area again and it was shotgun city as I slowly but surely destroyed every last Caco and Imp. The way they jammed up at the doorway made this one of the easiest slaughters I’ve ever done of so many monsters. I didn’t even have to dodge much.

I thought the least attractive area was down by the red key, though there was a nice teleport trap with lots of shotgunners. I took a significant amount of hitscanner damage because I spent too long in the red key alcove and didn’t realize I was being shot from above and behind through a slit in the wall. Worth noting is that when I first entered this area, I took advantage of the first wall slit to allow a horde of Lost Souls and shotgunners to kill each other. This added a lot to my time, but it saved a ton of ammo. I only had to kill two of the Lost Souls!

Overall, I thought this was kind of a boring map that started strong and became dull towards the end.

[Demon of the Well]

About the cyberdemon fight in E3M3, Kristian, ZDooM-family ports are the main ones where corpse props/torches/etc. will block rockets and other projectiles. I was able to fight him at close range from one of the broad, low staircases inside the room itself because his rockets weren't impacting on the rows of such objects at the sides of said staircase, allowing me to avoid most splash damage with some disciplined sidestepping. Still wish I'd have found that plasma rifle beforehand, of course....

E3M4 -- Halls of Ebola - 100% kills / 100% secrets
Step 1: Sprint forward, nab shotgun.
Step 2: Hold down trigger for the next 10 minutes.
Step 3: Exit.

..and that's Habich's final map in 2002:ADO! It is a distillation of everything we've learned about his style from his previous three maps: Aesthetically, it's clean-looking but rather simplistic, and it has almost literally no relevant height variation at all, other than the red skull initially being just out of reach on top of an iron pillar. Progression is extremely linear, and combat is extremely straightforward, and once again the key battles tend to involve concentrated teleportation assaults, although pre-placed monsters do make the biggest showing that they have since Habich's "Lost Labs." Actually, it does occur to me that the one wrinkle here I kept experiencing was that I would open a door into a new room, and one of the denizens of that room would tend to open another door into the next connecting room, waking up all of its occupants, who would in turn funnel towards the chokepoint I'd been initially maintaining. By the time I was done here there were a lot of nice clean rooms (clean by the standards of Hell, anyway) with piles of carcasses right by their doorways, let me tell you. Generally speaking, the map tries to make up in intensity what it lacks in complexity; does it succeed? Well, again, and as with Habich's previous maps, it succeeds to some degree--crass slaughters are certainly not without their own sort of fun, after all--though not quite enough to blind me to some of its excesses, like the grossly overpowered secrets near the blue skull, which render what would otherwise be the map's highlight fight laughably easy, as if the combat armor at the start of the map hadn't defanged the proceedings enough already.

E3M5 -- Blood and Guts - 100% kills / 85% secrets
The first brand new map to appear in the 10th Anniversary Edition of the WAD certainly shows the experience Corfiatis has gained since 2002:ADO was first released, at least most of the time. The earlier areas of the map are really cool-looking, an organic, corpse-covered mishmash of vinehell and flesh-hell encrusted around a fiery core of that anonymous iridescent glowing red stuff; marble, stone, cement, slime and many other elements are introduced as the map progresses, giving the whole a very colorful and eclectic overall nature, almost like a Shores of Hell take on the Inferno style. Structurally, it's also interconnected a lot more thoroughly than many of Paul's other maps in the set, though oddly it does have a few rather bland right-angled corridor sections that look like they come from a much older WAD (although at least one of these is just a device to contain a sudden-reveal courtyard battle). On the gameplay front, it's more classic Corfiatis, which actually played against my expectations somewhat, as the early part of the map led me to suspect it might be another ammo-drought map, and I had been expecting it to try and black my eye a little, considering the map it replaced. Neither was the case; ammo was tight up until I berserk-punched the teleporting monsters in the elevated marble cupola you teleport into and picked up the many resultant orphan shotguns (and by the end of the map I had far too much ammo in general), and the overall pitch of the action is about on par with what we saw in E2M7, though with less threatening Baron usage partially compensated for by that last phasing cyberdemon (who was rendered useless by the hidden invulnerability sphere I found halfway through the fight). I was not able to find my way to the ZDooM-only secret exit....it's plain to see, of course, and I think I know where a teleporter involved in the process of reaching it is--in one of those blood channels near the slow teleportation slab that others have mentioned--but alas, I couldn't figure out how to access it. Normally I would be pretty disappointed in myself here, but since this particular exit was going to lead to a crappy Wolf3D map anyway (which I shall still play later, in the spirit of the Club!), I don't feel so down. Incidentally, in order to UV-Max this, one must access but can't actually take this exit, as the last kill and the last secret are encompassed in the aforementioned cyberdemon arena, from which there is no return once you've entered. Overall, this was a solid map that, unusually for Paul, looks a little better than it actually plays. I do think it blended in pretty well with the style and tone of the much older maps around it, which probably wasn't easy to accomplish, so congrats to him for that.

[dobu gabu maru]

E3M6: Capellan was too kind on this map; it's a big steaming pile of bullshit. I can deal with forced damaging sectors. I can deal with teleport traps that warp a baron right in on your ass. I can deal with switch hunts. I can deal with extremely low health throughout a level. Put all four of those together and you have a nightmare for any player trying to get through it for the first time. I saved once I got into the courtyard, taking a beating from some sergeants which put me down to 28% health and 0 armor. Not thinking anything of it, I continued to push my way through this level, telling myself I wouldn't restart.

I was a fool.

I wasted my rad suits early on and found myself unable to maintain enough health to push ahead without saving-spamming as I skipped across to safe zones, constantly dying due to unlucky timing. I traversed across the map at 6% health, any medikits or stimpacks I found disintegrating through my feet as yet more sections of forced damaging sectors appeared. The only secret I found was the PG one; I have no idea if there were any more health pickups in the whole level.

And the biggest slap to the face is when you go to exit, Hansen generously hands the player some ammo to fight the easily-skipped baron trio at the end, but absolutely no health. Beautiful. I now enter into E3M7 at 4%.

This is the most egregious, vile, sadistic map I've played during my experience with the club. I don't even care that it looks somewhat decent--it's a huge stinker and really soured my view on the already subpar Episode 3. Goddamn.

E3M7: Corfiatis returns to heighten my spirits with a sprawling penultimate map filled with baddies and secrets. Unfortunately, it doesn't quite feel as cohesive as E2M7, and more issues stood out in my mind (maybe due to my bitter disposition). It's another linear affair that at least keeps the player moving forward, but one of the things that was nagging at me the most was the lack of any rockets or cell (barring secrets). Here I was at one of the final maps where cacodemons and barons were nearly commonplace, but Corfiatis still seems content on handing me shells to deal with most of the resistance, which tended to get grating especially because many of the monsters I was fighting could easily be darted from. And don't get me started on the myriad of trifling pinkies that are unleashed throughout the map (makes me wish I had the chainsaw from M1...)

The thematic elements of the map are probably the highlight, as it takes you from a hell-oriented outside, into a large E2-style complex and eventually to an unmistakably E1 centered area. I kind of like that twist of having the final levels revert back to E1, since it is something different (just as E1M8 became more hellish as you progressed). The cyberdemon sentinel could've been interesting, but 1) he's stuck in a single spot, meaning his rockets can be easily dodged and 2) there's an invul sphere in a corridor behind the player... so of course the map ends on a very tame note as I tore through the mechanized demon at close range. It was a fun level was some good ideas (like the main corridor of nukage that pushes the player headfirst into the new areas), but traps either felt too toothless or mean, and I grew tired of seeing two perpendicular gates/doors, one of which I could open that would eventually lead to a switch to open the other.

E3M8: Boy am I tired of killing barons with a shotgun. Minor gripe aside, this was an interesting effort by Corfiatis, to turn a traditional boss map into more of a... uh, map. While the difficulty is quite low, there are some interesting sections and a lot of switch pressing, building up anticipation for the fight we all know is coming. Unfortunately there's an invul sphere right before it, and seeing as it's pretty late at night for me I decided not to be a man and I picked it up, pumping cell into the brainy bitch while the cybers tagged me with their futile rockets. And then it was all over; not that remarkable, but at least it tried something different.

Overall: Honestly, I felt like I had to endure most of Episode 3. It's not like I had to forbear quitting or anything, but it definitely strained me more than E1 and E2, that's for sure. M5 was the gold among the pyrite, probably being the only map where I really enjoyed it from start to end, but I still feel weird about it given that Corfiatis obviously knew how to make a good map over a decade after he started this. It did offer a variety of playstyles which kept it more lively than E1, but due to the lack of an Aro map, placing two Habich maps side by side, and Hansen's crime against humanity, it failed to do more than dismay me.

EDIT:

Luckily despite puny health the secret level is hilariously easy so no worries on having 19% health

HILARIOUSLY EASY YOU SAY?

DOUBLE EDIT: I forgot that De-Moon Side is E4M9, not E3M9. I tried the secret level and it's not too bad at all. How do you get to it from Hansen's level?

[Demon of the Well]

Heh, when K. R. (or whichever clubber it was) first suggested that we play 2002:ADO this month, it was the part of E3 that once began with De-Moon Side that immediately popped into my mind. This part of this episode--and none moreso than Hansen's Obituary Written--form my strongest memories of this WAD. Suffice to say, my foreknowledge of the map made it pretty easy for me to pass (especially considering that the old version was much crueler, having no radsuits). Once you know what you're doing it's one of the easiest maps in the episode, but on a first time, it surely can be a spirit-breaker, which, I reckon, was probably the intent. Whether that was an admirable intent or not is, of course, in the eye of the beholder. ;)

To get to 'The Lost Chord' from 'Obituary Written', look for a false wall in the narrow ashwall corridor in the southwest corner off of the central blood room. There's a switch here which raises a bridge to another hidden switch in the room with the two yellow doors. This switch, in turn, lowers a small barricade and makes it so you can walk into the enclosure behind the false wall from which some imps would have been throwing fireballs at you in the far western part of the map. The real secret exit switch is in there.

Edit:

Secret Bonus Map / E5M2 -- Secret Wolfenstein Level - 100% kills / 100% secrets
This is just what it says on the tin, which means it's pretty turgid, and also means that both of 2002:ADO's bonus maps are pretty lame. It is a very traditionally-styled Wolf3D-in-Doom map in terms of structure, although it's not based off of any commercial Wolf3D map that I recall. In terms of action it is slightly less traditional, as it uses quite a few members of the Doom bestiary as it moves along, to the point where it forgoes SS troopers almost entirely in its last third or so (although the architecture remains staunchly Wolf3D throughout, with the exception of the recessed area the red key sits in). Early on it could actually pose some kind of threat of killing you if you don't take it seriously, since health packs are in fairly short supply, and armor is hard to come by. Soon enough it becomes trite, though, especially if you find the many classic wall-hump secrets. The final cyberdemon behind the exit door might seem a bit cheap, but again, he's inconsequential if you've found at least a few of the secrets (probably a real dick move if you haven't found any, though). Summary: If you like Wolf3D-in-Doom maps, you'll like this. Everyone else can/probably should give it a pass.

[Capellan]

E3M7
This mostly E1-themed level seems an odd choice for the last 'normal' level of E3. It would have made more sense in the middle of E2, I think. That said, I found it to be a lot of fun. Of course, that too made it seem like a bad fit for this episode, as I've largely disliked the last three maps. It looks nice, with solid texturing and good architectural design. Height variations and windows are used well, making the combats feel dynamic and interesting.

I started the map with something like 20% health, having been hammered by the previous level, but managed to scrounge up a few stimpacks and medikits in the opening area, without losing too much from the hitscanners and imps that were dotted around.

Once inside the main complex, I was treated to a long and enjoyable tech base level. It's pretty much as linear as most of the other maps, but it doesn't feel as 'jump through the hoops'. I think this is due to a combination of factors: the pacing shifts from section to section, the map often loops back on itself within areas, and there's a variety of encounters available to you.

There are also some sections which are clearly meant to evoke memories of E1M1, which I liked :) But that's a side note.

I found the BFG secret – really liked that one - as well as three others. Looks like there were nine in all, which is a good number for a big level like this. I'm still not a fan of tucking the cell-based weapons into secrets (whether the sector is marked secret or not; I found the BFG on the last level too, and while it didn't register as a secret for me, it should be one).

Good use of demons and spectre traps on this level, which is a real departure for the wad. They're released in areas where they can pursue you for a long way, making for fun sequences. Thumbs up for that. The level did also have an encounter I chose to run from (the cacos released in the northern section, and the following barons) but even that I didn't mind. Slaloming between the cacos to race out was actually quite good fun.



E3M8
Unlike E2, this level requires a bit more than killing a handful of sergeants before unleashing the final encounter. Some of the steps feel like busy work for the sake of busy work – the four switches needed to lower the blue key being a prime example – but other parts are actually pretty good fun. Certainly more fun than the final encounter, which was BFG 1 Spiderdemon 0.

Speaking of the BFG, it's (yet again) in a (yet again) secret that's not tagged as a secret. I didn't find it, so it is just as well I carried one over from the previous levels. I also missed the plasma gun on this level, but that appears to be entirely my own fault, as it's behind an ordinary everyday door that I somehow managed to walk past. Oh well, it's not like it was necessary for the final fight. Invuln + BFG is far more than you need to deal with the boss monsters here.

This episode has a better conclusion than E2, and it includes the excellent E3M7, but overall this is my least favourite episode of the WAD (at least for now – E4 may change my mind!).

[CorSair]

E3M4
Level looks quite neat, if tad flat.
As for challenges... Ammo, if you fail to locate plasma/BFG, is quite low at the red key switch. And even before that in the blue key area, I had to turn my enemies into live punching bags just when waves of enemies were exhausted. And the enemy placement? You can't stay in those areas, so naturally, falling back to door and camping there is the best solution to handle the situations. And the red key switch area is just perfect. Tight doorway, one enemy at time, and they can't move out of the range of my rage. PERFECT.
In other words: Meh.

[cannonball]

E3M9 The Lost Chord by Sam Woodman
Easy, far too easy. But fun to rifle through. Didn't die once and left with 200 health. Not much more to say. The map is made even more easy on consecutive play as I nuked the cyber before he even had a chance to kill me.
Map looks nice, it's fun for a 2 minute romp but overall far too easy.

[Steve D]

E3M3 – Rory Habich – Kills – 62, Items – 100, Secrets – 50. Time 29:46. End Health 146, Armor 89. Death Count - 12

Before I started this, I decided to play one of the original Sandy Petersen maps from a UV pistol start. Why? Because I wanted to remind myself of how nasty the original maps are before I encountered these maps of Rory’s which have been a bit controversial. So, E3M5 was completely insane. Extremely confusing layout. Running around like crazy, with nothing more than a pistol, chased by Imps, Pinkies, Lost Souls and Barons. At low health, I encounter a bunch of Pinkies with their backs turned to me, and they’re blocking the doors and, thank God, a bunch of Medikits and a Berserk. Finally find a shotgun. It seems to have taken years. Telefragged two Barons, IMO, my major accomplishment on this map. Reduced to 1% health fighting another Baron. Battled back to 100%, finally started figuring out the teleport puzzle – I’m sure Capellan loved it back in the day. Ah, at last a chaingun! My kingdom for a chaingun! And a rocket launcher. And a blue key. Found the secret BFG area near the exit. Oh, shit, a zillion monsters are teleporting in from the secret area! Fuck that, go back to the exit. Escaped, but with only 43% kills. Now I’m ready for Habich!

This Habich map . . . is not pretty, in any way, shape or form. But damn, does it have some fights! Not necessarily sophisticated fights. This is Habich in pure blunt-force trauma mode. More of the same is better, seems to be his motto, and he throws huge battles at you again and again. I honestly wasn’t having much of a hard time, thanks to continuous play and generous – to say the least! – ammo, until I reached this one infamous section. First, I had to get through the sergeant trap which, for me, was the highlight of the map. I mean, all of a sudden doors were opening all around me and Sergeants were everywhere. Oh, fuck yeah! What a blast to try and survive when the only option open to me was charging and spinning with my finger stuck on the trigger of my chaingun, and then blasting into this green room with more Sergeants and a blood pool in the center. Killed them all, then mopped up all the Sergeants outside, then pressed a switch, and – holy shit, a Cyberdemon’s rising from the pool, and I’m stuck in this narrow corridor doing my deer in the headlights impression and here comes a rocket and I’m one dead mofo.

I knew I was not going to fight this battle, so I judged the distance to the door, turned on Always Run, and barely made it out alive, with blast damage reducing me to 35% from the 95% I started at. That 95% number is important, because didn’t I go into an abusive, profane rant about E3M1’s jagoffy placement of power-ups in the player’s path? Once I returned to sanity, I decided to eliminate that rant. But I’m tempted to do another one for this room, because placing Medikits in certain locations dissuaded me from checking the walls for secret doors. If those had been Stimpacks instead . . . And placing all those impaled humans on the stairs, in order to cut off dodging room, and having the Cyb in that small space, earns this room The Nobel Jagoff Prize as The Most Asinine Room In The Megawad (So Far).

And it’s not over yet. Because once I had escaped that room, I was not satisfied with 35%, and, in Complete Idiot Mode, I said, “Why not try it again? I can do better than this! Why, I can use strategy, open the door first, run to the switch, and then race through the open door and never get hit. It’s a perfect plan!” Uh-huh, it is, if you’re not a complete spazz. Instead of doing better, I got killed 10 times in a row! It’s not Rory’s fault that I’m semi-epileptic on the keyboard, but in the end, I gave up and did the only honorable cheat – yes, cheat – that I could. I turned on God Mode, went through the door, turned off God Mode, and served myself up to the Cacos behind the barred windows. Three Caco lightning balls took me to exactly 35% health. BTW, those Cacos were among the many monsters I chose not to kill in Rory’s, “Fuck you, you lousy 100-percenters!” map.

The rest of the map was lots more fighting, including a gnarly surprise at the yellow key teleport. I loved that! I got killed again, this time by a Sergeant, in some huge teleport battle. I saw the exit through bars and had no idea how to open them. I actually opened the map in DB2 to figure out where Tag 22 originated. Oh yeah, what a stupidass switcheroo that was. Like I’m supposed to remember some damned switch I saw a million years ago before fighting 890,000 monsters. Jeez, the ultimate cruelty! And then, the slow-mo Caco swarm I’d heard so much about. I’m outta here!

So this map is big and nasty and ugly and says, “Fuck you, player!” again and again, with wearying combat even though I only got 62% kills. But you know, I kinda liked it. I guess I’m on the Rory Habich wavelength. ;D

[cannonball]

E3M7 System Central by Paul Corfiatis
Aww you got rid of the crushable cyber.... you monster :P
Oh and an extra exit area with a cyber. Didn't even bother to look for the invulnerability, you die here, right now in 2 bfg shots. Game over mate.
It's a fast paced exhilarating romp through a mix of environments reminding you of episodes 1,2 and 3 from time to time. Almost like hell itself had started to experiment with human resources and textures. The secrets turn this map into a mass plasma spam and I for one love it for it. The map overall is a lot of fun, especially to speedrun as a small crowd of zombies and imps get spontaneously reduced to gibblets by a usually wasteful bfg shot. Not in this level ;)
Fun times, but miss the cyber you can crush :(