NuclearPotato

Catch-up time may take longer than anticipated. New Gothic Movement 2: MAP06 94% kills, 0/1 secrets I think this might be my favorite from the set thus far, but HOLY HELL did the difficulty get kicked up a notch. Things start off very tame, with a fight against an assorted hoard of mooks in a temple, which seems rough when it kicks in immediately on level start, but is super tame once the initial shock wears off. Once you get through the next encounter, a cramped fight in a boxy room with mid-tiers and a hoard of imps, and hit the switch to lower the temple walls, all bets are off. Once you've whittled the massed hoard outside down a bit, you'll find there are two main pathways to go, each guarding a key (plus a teleporter that opens up at some point in the temple that leads to the red key. More on this later). The blue key encounter is pretty rough, with hoards of imps, HKs, and cacos trying to box you in as a Cyberdemon camps the lift to the blue key, but ultimately, only took a few tries to clear. The yellow key, though. Ohhhhhh BOY, the yellow key. Progressing through the yellow key area is a feat in and of itself, a step up in difficulty in this wad only matched so far by the start of MAP02. Not only do you have a cyberdemon and a massed hoard of hitscanners to deal with, but the path to the yellow key AND the BFG are blocked by massed hoards of HKs, imps, and Revs. Under normal circumstances, you'd be hard pressed to deal with this, with very little room to maneuver overall. At least, until you remember the red key room. As it happens, the red key area has an invincibility inside it, theoretically there to help handle the absurdity of the teleporting cyberdemons in that area. But, if you're quick enough to grab the red key and hit the switch back, you can take that back to the yellow key area and drill out a foothold on the ledges, making that area SO much easier to deal with. It's a bit of design I really love, in all honesty. Pretty much all the remaining enemies on the map by the time I got all three keys were Masterminds and Cyberdemons, let loose after retrieving each key, so I ended up giving them a miss and exiting the level. Aesthetically, the map author captures the feeling of an ancient ruin well, although I appreciated the lower valleys surrounding the map, giving some much needed cover against the hoard of arachnotrons, in addition to looking neat. I'll try and knock out another map tonight, but I need a break right now; that was a real slobberknocker of a map before I managed to figure out its secrets (ignoring the actual, marked secret that I missed, of course).

Fell a bit behind, as seems to be per usual for when I play in the Megawad Club. I'll catch up fully on Friday, in the meantime: New Gothic Movement 2: MAP05 75% kills, 0/1 secrets Let's talk about pacing. Especially when you're dealing with slaughtermaps this large, it's pretty important to pace your battles well, and to have something suitably climactic for your final battle. The big problem this map has is that it has around 2-3 large scale setpieces that would make for a perfect final battle, only for the map to keep dragging onwards from there. It starts off well enough, with a fairly hectic close quarters battle through swarms of imps while trying to deal with revs and HKs. You have a small scale arena battle immediately afterward (hope you picked up both the rocket launcher and plasma rifle, cause you'll need both of those to take on the rest of the map, and there's no other chance to grab them). This leads into the big setpiece battle of the map, a frantic blast-a-thon through lava to get the BFG and red key from hoards of Cacos, two Cyberdemons, and an assortment of HKs, Arachnotrons, and Mancubi. Once you deal with that, you'll have to fight your way through another hoard of agitated skeletons, backed by another Cyberdemon camping the teleporter out of the lava. The major problem I have with this map is that I feel, with a couple of flow modifications, that this should've been the final battle. Trying to fight your way around nukage, keeping an eye on how many rad suits are left; it gives a real desperate feel to the whole battle that the encounters that follow just can't live up to. The battle following immediately is a rather grindy fight against a Cyber and a hoard of Arch-viles, which didn't particularly engage me, followed up by a long drop into the penultimate fight, which I probably would've received better had it been earlier in the map, and had there been a bit more health than just the Megasphere that you have to grab pretty early on into the fight to survive against the hoards surrounding you. This is the other fight that felt like a pretty good note to end on, but no, we've got one more! Once you've gotten the yellow key and have gotten back to the mini-arena this map is now obviously based around, you have to deal with a bunch of enemies teleporting in, including at least two(!) Spider Masterminds. Honestly, I was so exhausted at this point that after the first attempt, I decided to rush into the exit room, BFG'ing the hell out of the mass of Archies in the room, and managing to death exit my way into the next map. Honestly, that's the major fault I see with this map. It's got some good encounters in it, but the encounters feel a little out of order in placement, and the whole thing is just long enough to feel like a drag because of it.

New Gothic Movement 2: MAP 04 91% kills, 0/2 secrets This particular map is pretty interesting, since at 159 monsters it only just barely feels like a slaughtermap. While overall probably easier than even MAP03, I noticed some difficulty spikes that brought MAP01 to mind, making me wonder if this is by the same author. Much of this map is dedicated to slaughter encounters in the micro sense; the map throws small enemy counts at you in an enclosed space, where the best method of survival is to use the skills honed in the 3 previous, much larger maps. The red key area's 2 encounters exemplifies this, particularly when the first of at least 5(!) cyberdemons in the map comes out to tangle with you. I was only just planning out the best place to take cover and plink away, when one of its rockets hit the Caco swarm that had just spawned in, unbeknownst to me! The second two(!) cybers are located in a particularly dickish switch trap, where you once again have to pull the old Tricks and Traps routine, but with a vastly reduced count in a much smaller area. In case you were wondering why a room had a megasphere AND a soulsphere, well, there you go. The switch opens the door to the outdoor fields, where the final battle takes place. Having blown most of my ammo on the first half of the fight, a tense fight where you have to use the caco and imp hoards to absorb a withering amount of Revenant fire, you can guess how displeased I was to see even MORE Revs, at least two Arch-viles, and of course, the final two Cyberdemons, located on opposite sides of the field. At that point, I decided to cut my losses, lured the hoard onto the other side of the field, dashed back, blasted the Arachnoturret on the exit, and sprinted to victory before the hoards could double back. Texture-wise, this map makes pretty liberal use of ye old Gothic texture pack, giving it a much darker look than the previous 3 maps. The old school texture pack kinda reinforces my opinion that this is the closest to an old school Doom level that NGM2 has gotten to thus far, at least in terms of encounter design. Everything up until the red key room was relatively small, and more reminiscent of a non-slaughter Skillsaw map (ok, maybe it's not THAT old school then). Very fun to play through overall.

And here is V2: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1bX8V5Yr798M01semRla2JCdFE/view?usp=sharing Build time: +30 minutes or so Tweaks: Basic lighting (I didn't want to add any extra linedefs, to keep the spirit of the speedmap intact, so it's just a few gradients), somewhat more interesting encounters on the trip back to the fountain and red key door. Oh yeah, and added some purposely dickish co-op starts. I'll try not to muck with it from here on unless there's some really weird bug that needs fixing. vvv Hush you.

Played through the whole thing in GLBoom+ on pistol start; some random thoughts on each map: MAP01: Really nice architecture for a speedmap. MAP02: Really cramped and claustrophobic. Crazy short, too. MAP03: Oops I forgot the lighting :P In all seriousness, my main objective going into this was to make a short 3 minute level that people could complete without issue, and I think I succeeded at that part. The moved plasma cells were supposed to be concealed like that, to make the player look around a little more, but I have no particular issue with their new placement. Think I need to tweak that final encounter though; the overall difficulty is kinda front-loaded as it stands, and the Archie doesn't really have too much to do where he is now. MAP04: FOR THE LOVE OF GOD MAN, GIVE US SOME HEALTH. Especially if you're going to throw the player into a Gotcha! type situation like you did with the teleporter. The fight in the building just before that teleporter was pretty good, though. MAP05: I have no idea why a country-fied version of Big Blue works on this map, but it does. Good shit. MAP06: Another really short map, one that felt like it was going to be longer going in to it. Liked how you made the player have to squeeze past the Mancubus to get the plasma rifle. MAP07: Also really good architecture for a speedmap. The yellow keys threw me off for a bit at first; I was convinced the key on the center platform would trigger a fast crusher for a couple minutes there. MAP08: Really nice lighting overall, and a relatively complex final fight for a speedmap. Ammo during the first part of the map was a bit tight, though. Overall; I'm gonna have to agree with rdwpa that the standouts were 5, 7, and 8. Good stuff, y'all. I'll throw up a quick edit to my map so that the last fight isn't so 'meh' in an hour or so.

Updated my description with my MIDI of choice, separate from the WAD for compiling purposes.

Hey I made a thing for this: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B1bX8V5Yr798X2NmS3VuMkNnU2M Name: Life at the Outpost Build time: 2 hours Textures: Base Doom 2 MIDI: Death Mask by Lippeth, from the Plutonia MIDI pack: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B1bX8V5Yr798X2k3RmplQnRvMlU Themes: Plasma Gun only, under 70 monsters (41, to be precise) Aesthetically, it looks like baby's first Plutonia map. Not my finest work, but I got it done and UV-Max'able in 2 hours, so I'm proud of it.

The mindset I approached MAP02 in was to treat it like an arcade game. It might start off looking bullshit, but any game worth its salt has a method of 1cc'ing (1 credit clear; aka 1 quarter or what have you) it successfully. It's the same principle with these maps; you just need the right strat to make it through (which is why I ultimately went to YouTube; to see how other people approached it). New Gothic Movement: MAP03 Kills: 90%, Secrets 0/2 After the insanity that was MAP02, we cool things off here with a level that's much more blatantly Hell-inspired than the previous two maps. The castle motif is still in force here, but it's broken up by hellish canyons that gives things a much more open feel than the tight corridors of the last two maps. More than a few of the traps seem to have reduced spawns compared to the past two maps as well; compared to even the Spectre closet in the last map, the final battle seems downright tame in comparison (though that's probably because I decided to give the whole second half a miss after seeing just how many Archies had spawned in). The most devilish traps in this map involve using space against you; see the BFG trap, which traps you in a confined space while Arch-viles spawn in, trying to temp you to waste your cells on them before the hoard of Revs warps in; and the march to the final switch, which has you dueling Hell Knights and Cacos in the most confined space the WAD has thrown at you so far (imp corridor notwithstanding). Otherwise, the closest this map gets to the hoards seen in other maps comes right after you dispatch the initial enemies and open up the doors, with the mass of Revs and Imps separating you from the wide open canyon. It's a very nice change of pace from the last two maps; I hope there's more like them as we go on.

New Gothic Movement 2: MAP02 MAX'D (save count: ahahahahahahaahahahaahahahahaahaah) So believe it or not, the opening corridor is NOT the hardest part of the map by a long stretch. It's a bit difficult to get down consistently, but I could blast through the imp hoards without dying more often than not. No, the actual challenge of the map is finding a route to chop your way through to a foothold where you can work from to clear the map. I have no shame in admitting that I looked up the map on YouTube to learn a good route in getting through this map. Aesthetically, I don't think there's too much more to talk about that wasn't covered in the first map. It's very similar in visuals, if a bit more wide open compared to the first map; not that you'll notice that on your first play due to the sheer amount of enemies stuffed into every nook and cranny of the map (case in point: that one room literally stuffed to the brim with Specters). Challenge-wise, this feels like it would belong somewhere more in the back half of a WAD, though if that speaks for the difficulty level of the next few maps, then I swear the right to loading up Russian Overkill for the rest of my playthrough this month. That said, I had fun blowing through this map for the most part, with the major exception of the teleporter maze near the end, which was more an exercise in tedium than anything else. The final room might be a bit overstuffed though, with swarms of Barons in front of two Cyberdemons that you have to try and take care of Tricks and Traps style, with no benefit of an invincibility (unless you managed to drag the hidden one across the teleporter maze to the last room), only to unleash a swarm of Revs and Archviles into the room upon hitting the exit switch. A single one of those encounters would've sufficed for a good end to the map; both feels like overkill.

So, normally I'm not a huge slaughter guy, but hey, there's so many lying around (especially in Skillsaw maps, which I love) and since this won (I'm just gonna keep beating that UAC Ultra drum until it gets picked, fyi. Better that than my other, probably terrible idea to vote for ZPack) I might as well give it a try, right? Pistol starting this, since the maps only seem to give you just enough resources to actually get through, and not much more. New Gothic Movement 2: MAP01 330/350 kills, 0/1 secrets OUCH. The map actually starts out tame, rocket dueling Mancubi and Revenants in quick order (the shotgun guys are pretty easily bated into the Mancubi's fire arc, and didn't pose too much of a threat). That gives way to the first real arena battle, where you have to dispatch 3 (and later a 4th) archviles under withering HK and mancubi fire. Hope you didn't try to pick up the backpack mid-fight! The map calms down for a little bit after that; the barons and revs that spawn in after you open the door back up are pretty easily bated outside into the arena, where infighting takes care of the rest, at which point you can clear out the two new wings, so long as you keep an eye out for a rear ambush. Those teleporting rear ambushes were a pretty common trick in this map, actually, keeping the player from trying to camp things out in the entry room and such. It's when you hit the T-bone intersection in this map that things really start to heat up again. This part requires careful movement to clear out the chaingun snipers on the side (one of which holds the secret of the map, a BFG that would've really come in handy during the last fight had I found it); careful movement that will almost certainly be interrupted by the incoming cyberdemon and mancubi spawning in on all sides once you reach the middle of the intersection. Once you manage to clear all that out, you can open the door down the center hallway and discover the final battle, set up quite similarly to Gotcha! with the Mastermind and another Cyberdemon on opposing ends, only with a lot more Mancubi and Cacos, and much less cover. You can actually telefrag the Cyberdemon at this point, by jumping off into the lava and taking the teleporter back up, but I wouldn't recommend that particular strategy, considering the size of the Manc/Caco hoards in the two wings. It was at this point, incidentally, while running around in circles like a total fool, that I discovered I had let a really large imp swarm loose at some point; blowing them away with the Super Shotty was quite stress-relieving compared to the nightmare that the T-Bone had become, let me tell you. In the end, both boss monsters ended up getting blown away by infighting; I was actually on the other side of the map with 5% health or so when the Mastermind went down to Manc fighting, and I ended up making a mad dash back into what turned out to be the exit room. I just want to point out, so that this post isn't entirely about gameplay, that the map looks beautiful. Lots of color variation throughout the various arenas, albeit in very muted tones, and very nice detailing all over without being too excessive (or worse, being able to get caught on it trying to dodge the various hoards). Placement of ammo feels natural, rather than it sort of being vomited across every square inch of the map, something that's probably helped by the fact that the map only give you juuuust enough ammo and health to get by, and no more. Like I said, when I finally got to the exit, I only had about 5% health, and was critically low on rockets. (Probably could've MAX'D the kills though, I had plenty of shotgun ammo left). All and all, for as hard as this was, I had a lot of fun playing through everything, and didn't feel particularly frustrated trying to get through the map. Promising start so far, but seeing that the next map starts you under fire, we'll see how long I can keep up.

I'm seconding this, because regardless of the quality of the other two wads, I was always going to put a vote in for UAC Ultra, no matter what.

Finished up D2TWID on UV yesterday. 28 and 29 were pretty enjoyable, with 29 standing out as a good alternative take on The Living End, but goddamn was MAP30's gimmick annoying. Took me a while before I put two and two together on how to deal with the Icon. Later that night, I had an hour to kill, so I went ahead and blasted through Lunatic on HMP. The Final Countdown might just be the greatest gimmick slaughter(lite?)map to have ever existed, in my humble (and very limited) opinion.

D2twid on UV continuous, in Chocolate Doom. Even with the continuous resources, the Sandy-like levels in this are actually pretty brutal.

E2M3: Contagion Engine 97% kills, 50% secrets This map's theme seems to be "circles." The starting area surrounds you with circular pits open to the sky; the primary nukage area has a huge circular staircase as its centerpiece; the pathway to the ending teleporter runs in a circle (or a curved, double tiered line, rather) around the area; do I have to go on? Plenty of nukage and blood to run over on this map, and with only three rad suits around, you better be prepared to make the most of those. This map feels a little more ambush heavy than previous maps, between the room where you get the red key card and that Baron in a closet when you open up the teleporter that will eventually lead you to the exit (real dick move there, Xaser. Maybe it just feels more ambush heavy when I'm still sore over that encounter). E2M4: Derelict Vessel 100% kills, 16% secrets This is another map where I feel like Xaser is cribbing from mid-90's map tropes, and making them less sucky. In this map's case, the trope is "realistic spaces." (Or in this map's case, realistic spaces, in space). The map really does come off as this old, abandoned spaceship (and rings my continuity alarm bells, not that there's all that much of that in this particular WAD), slowly being corrupted by the influence of Hell. It certainly feels like one of those mid-90's adventure maps that people seem to think of when they think TNT (not that those were all that common in reality. I like to think people just had PTSD from running through Drake O' Brian maps to realize that). The ending takes the player on a demented switch hunt, as Hell asserts its influence over the surroundings, turning everything fleshy and wet, before culminating in an imp-filled upward climb towards the mother of all fleshy cylinders (at least in this WAD so far; methinks The Eye would have a say in the cylinder department). Also, for a map with 6 secrets to its name, there sure were a whole ton of pseudo-secrets lying around (the soulsphere comes to mind, in that regard). Fun map, if easy to get lost in at times.

E2M2: Providing Grounds 97% kills, 25% secrets So, after the missed reference yesterday regarding Receiving Station, I started playing through DWTiD, mostly because it was on my to-play list already, and I wanted to see how the original E2M1 came out. I mention this at the beginning here, because going from E2 of that, to Providing Grounds here completely and utterly mindfucked me. There is a complete and utter sense of wrongness that's pervaded throughout the level that nothing in DWTiD can touch. I had initially thought this was another Xaser joint from the wild, angular level design seen throughout here; I'm still not totally convinced that this isn't NatTvventy taking a raincheck and letting Xaser sneak another one in under a different name. Certainly the monster placement isn't fucking around anymore; hoards of monsters are just swarming around every abrupt corner now. Props to the apparent pushwall secrets that turn out to hide portraits hellish and wrong behind their portals.

I still haven't played through DTWiD, so I was unaware that this map is shared by that megaWAD. As such, this review is coming from my initial reactions before opening up the thread, fyi. E2M1: Receiving Station MAX'd Xaser opens up the second episode with a level more reminiscent of Hangar than Deimos Anomoly (though the blood pits scattered around the map certainly seems to be a callback to the latter). As an E2 opener, you have to have three tropes in tow; the Cacodemons, the Plasma Rifle, and the use of a red key card that doesn't go about helping you finish the level. The map doesn't disappoint in this regard, although the only point you'll want to use said Plasma Rifle in this section is the initial area where you pick it up (right after using said extraneous red card), a wide area with busted lights, and a ton of pinkies and Spectres roaming around imps and cacos. Picking up the red keycard involves an amusingly hidden in plain sight switch by the exit door, proving that less can be more when it comes to secrets.

I guess we're all just rushing to the end of this episode now (not a terrible idea, since there's almost 40 maps in this set!), so I'll go ahead and post my remaining E1 reviews now. E1M7: Biosphere 100% kills, 83% secrets Oh BOY. Just when I thought I had run out of things to say about an E1 mapset, here comes Xaser with one of the most bizarre Computer Station homages I have ever seen. Rather than the Romero/Peterson worship seen earlier in the episode, Xaser seems to have taken his inspiration from the countless amounts of narrow, angular mid 90's PWADs, and made one of the most claustrophobic, euclidean maps I have seen in a long time. As a result, the growing hoards that I was just complaining about feeling stale in E1M6 have had new life breathed into them, just from a abrupt change of scenary. Amazing what an author change can do to mix things up, eh? I'm still finding myself at a loss of words like last review, but that's more due to struggling to find a way to describe this level short of playing it. It's exactly as confusing and illogically layed out as something out of Maximum Doom, but Xaser found a way to make it all FUN. It all comes to a head with not one, but two of the largest groupings of enemies seen so far in the WAD, apparently specifically designed to part you from your rocket launcher ammo, and boy was I happy to part from them. Got nearly all the secrets (still not sure if the last one involves the blue armor back in the large nukage area, or a hidden room behind the teleporter near the yellow doors), killed the shit outta everything. Let's move on to E1M8, and wrap this episode up. E1M8: Enigma 100% kills(?), 0% secrets A moody and desolate E1M8 map. Does the empty atmosphere part well (Sign of Evil never fails to conjure that kind of atmosphere in a competant mapper's hands, however), pretty standard otherwise, with the only noted wrinkle in the formula coming from there being three Barons instead of two. The staircase leading up to the usual ambush was pretty cool, and the outro text was amusing. E1M0: Tom's Halls 99% kills (one stinking monster!), 66% secrets Well, I guess we know now why this map is accessable by warp only. Unremarkable gameplay-wise, hilarious texture-wise. Not very Tom Hall-ish at all. Decent key door usage, though. I liked how the doors wrapped around on themselves. E1 overall had some very strong maps at the beginning, with Xaser's map coming in at the episode's climax, just as one would start to tire of NaturalTvventy's style. Here's to E2 being better in every way, with the introduction of the rest of the regular roster.

E1M6: Power Core 100% kills, 80% secrets Not too much to say about this level proper. Lots of criss-crossing paths, lots of low level monster hoards, lotta nukage to cross without a radsuit (though some of the secrets do provide a radsuit for navigation, which is thoughtful of them). Don't get me wrong, I did enjoy this level, but it's pretty clear by now why the Doom II bestiary is such a critical addision to the mapmaker's toolkit. There's only so many ways you can throw the same 4 enemy types at a person, and even the chaingunner would spice things up considerably. Negative shout-outs to the soulsphere secret in the blue key room for being unobtainable if you jump in the pit without hitting the switch behind you; I don't really care much for secrets with only one chance to obtain them (the secret exit in E1M3 being a notable exception to this rule).

I dunno if you've gotten that far yet NecrumWarrior, or just playing one level a day, but I think you'll appreciate E1M7 a whole lot.

Count me into this. I'll try and put something short and sweet together, and try not to bloat the enemy count too much, which I've had a habit of doing in the past.

E1M5: Warehouse 93% kills, 25% secrets The usage of monster closet traps continue to creep upward the deeper we go into this episode. Fortunately, this particular level's barrel placement makes more than a few of these traps a literal blast to get through (specifically the circular areas surrounding the elevated crosswalk that takes up the center of the level). The level design seems to encourage clearing out every corner to avoid getting boxed in by a pinkie, or torn to shreds by the shotgun brigade, which I noticed the most on the eastern slime pit area. (Wasn't able to ever figure out what raised the walkway on the western slime pit; just grabbed the blue key and got out of there). That said, it felt like there were less roaming packs of shotgun guys, and more zombiemen brought into the mix this time around. Might just be me though. Not a huge ton of secret searching; I only found the hidden rocket launcher secret after doubling back to see what the other blue door did after taking on the exit room hoard. Never did figure out how to get outside, let alone the aforementioned western walkway.

A specific megawad; don't worry about it yet, of course; you've got until the 25th. There's also been plain old level sets that don't go the full 32/36 maps or whatever; I've actually got a couple in mind that I'll probably vote for come that time...

E1M4: Abandoned Factory 100% kills, 12% secrets The starting room is a pretty big Command Control shoutout, and the branching slime room in the northeast has a slight Central Processing vibe to it, but by and large we seem to have abandoned any of the original level designers styles; this really feels like NaturalTvventy through and through. Still feels pretty E1 in style, though. For whatever reason, I decided to skip figuring out most of the secrets this go around, with the exception of a measly backpack at the end of a radsuit-less slime trail. Then again, there's not as big a point in going secret hunting on continuous; pistol-starters will get more out of finding, say, the pathway to the rocket launcher in the crossroads room than me, the guy who's had it since the secret map (and potentially as early as E1M3). As far as enemy placement goes, it's pretty clear this far in that NaturalTvventy seems to like throwing massive hoards of the base 5 E1 enemies at the player, which makes up a bit for the lack of Cacos and Barons, much less the Doom 2 additions to the bestiary. Ignoring the secret level, this level makes use of hidden monster closets far more than the first few did, and having previously hidden shotgun guys rip away at my health while pinkies blocked me off meant I had to play a bit more carefully than the first 3 maps. (For the record, I'm only at 2 deaths thus far, and both of those were on E1M9). For the record, I'll be tackling E1M0 at the end of the E1 missions, since it's warp-based. I've also set Doom (strict) compatibility settings on for the rest of the set, just for shits and giggles.

E1M3: Logistics Center MAX'D???? (68% kills, 60% secrets on exit) Let's just explain the question marks up above before I continue. To get to E1M9, you have to get the red key card. The issue here is, the card is tucked away behind a set of doors that can only be opened by monsters, something I was unaware of when clearing out the level. So, I ended up restarting and reclearing most of the level. One of the secrets I didn't bother getting to the second time around was the hidden rocket launcher; I suspect not picking it up is going to bite me in the ass down the road, but hell with it, I'm playing continuous. I'm already starting out the levels with an advantage. As for the level itself, the non-linear layout of E1M1 meets E1M2's "secrets in secrets" approach, and meshes together quite nicely. Something about how the level sprawls out reminds me more of Sandy Peterson's maps, but the way some of the hidden switches merely hint at secret areas you can get to is very Romero-esq. The level opening wastes no time in reacquainting you with Pinkies and Spectors, and is probably one of the more ferocious firefights in the level, with the other two contenders being the mass of baddies blocking you from the normal exit, and the chaos that ensures should you go for the red key without alerting the occupants of that room beforehand. Shoutouts to the mass of doors in the blue key room for being the most out of place, Peterson-ass piece of archetecture in the level (not that that's a bad thing, mind you)! E1M9: Quarantine Silos 100% kills, 0% secrets YEAH, I PROBABLY SHOULD'VE PICKED THAT ROCKET LAUNCHER UP. If you were thinking this was going to remain as a DTWID-style romp, this level will wake you the fuck up. Certainly the titular silos are a league above anything in the original IWAD. We seem to be taking a detour into what passes for slaughter-light in an E1 style Doom 1 episode; which is to say, a shit-ton of low-level monsters to waste with your chaingun (or shotgun in my case; I was perilously low on bullets entering the level). This is also one of the few times you want to get the blursphere, since dealing with the curving imp shots is much preferable to getting caught in hitscanner hell. Getting the keys in this episode requires making leaps of faith into slimepits, and with only two radsuits in this level, you'd better be fast, or prepared to take some heavy damage. I noticed after exiting the level that this may or may not lead to the super-secret level, E1M0, so I'll be taking a quick backtrack to check before the next reviews pop up.

GZDoom, UV Continuous. I'm going to try and build up a backlog of levels so I can review once a day; failing that, I'll just review by episode (and failing that, well, I fail :V). E1M1: Terminal 64% kills, 20% secrets We get eased in here with the familiar strains of At Doom's Gate, but the level here is miles away in complexity from what Hangar was. Lotta pistol combat until I blindsided a shotgun guy near one of the lifts. Design-wise, there's not a whole lot of shadows to be had; lighting is cranked up hard on this map. I think, incidentally, that playing through TNT, Plutonia, and now BTSX E1 has broken me in some way, because I was completely ready for ambushes around every little item and the exit, and was actually taken by surprise when I hit the exit switch, and actually exited the level. E1M2: Slime Trails MAX'D At some point on this map, I only just noticed the spiffy new HUD this wad has. Since I left the previous level prematurely, I made an extra effort to MAX this level (not that the elevated and tucked away into a little corner hitscanners made that any bit easy on me). I really like how 3 of the 4 secrets on this map were interconnected, with a switch in the first secret unlocking the room for the second one, and then going down a not-so-conspicuous slime trail for the third. Speaking of the map's title, BOY HOWDY is there a ton of wading through sewage in this map. Two of the secrets directly require it in order to advance; the aformentioned third secret, and the fourth; a switch puzzle that has you wind your way around the map in order to pass through the one linedef that won't close the hidden chaingun room immediately. Speaking of which, that chaingun is quite welcome, seeing as how this level is full of the aforementioned elevated hitscanners, which can be tricky to snipe off with the shotgun at times. The map, although mostly linear, is large enough that it was quite tricky to find the entrance to the raised platforms in the slime pit near the end of the level, though again, that could be because I broke off after that to hunt down the remaining enemies I had missed.