WHY a map from 1994?

To be honest, I find the maps from the 1990's to be infinitely more interesting for a variety of reasons.

First - there are the tools that were available back then. He used: Due 5.21 and BSP 1.1

Secondly, especially in 1994, mapping for Doom was still super difficult and was done with archaic tools. I actuall encourage you to play this map not only because of it's vintage but, despite some of it's obvious flaws, it was still pretty good.

My Review

GAMEPLAY: 5

The opening gambit

I would LOVE ( I mean it), LOVE to give this map a higher score but what really killed it for me was the hunt for keys (full disclosure - I finally fucking gave up).

The author thought he would be like "tricky" and hid shit in places where there was no clue that he was hiding shit and in the end, here I am with the yellow key and I could not, for the life of me, figure out how to progress.There are the switches, bad guys are going batshit and I got tons of ammo - and no place to go. I felt like the prom queen, all dressed up, and no date. I simply could not figure out what the fuck I was supposed to do to move forward in this map. Maybe I'm an idiot (I'd like to think I'm not) or maybe the author was simply trying to be too cute with how he hid his secrets (I'm going with that). IF - and that's a big IF, the author had not been so cutesy with hiding his shit, this could have been an awesome map but the fact that he chose to make shit so difficult to find that I finally gave up in exasperation took this from like an 8 to a 5.

DESIGN: 5

The author went to alot of trouble to make a map that was "tricky" but that included placing lindefs that lowered doors in places where it wasn't obvious exactly what it was that was happening but more importantly, the hunt for the keys was absolutely infuriating. I never did find the RED key and honestly just gave up after a while. Why? Because as the gameplay itself was when I had things to fight - I was spending way too much time trying to figure out how to get places and in the end, I just couldn't discover the path to the final destination. It made me really sad and I hope some of you have far better luck than I did in this regard. I have no problem with putting up a bit of a puzzle for the player to solve but when you spend inordinate amounts of time searching for a key that simply doesn't want to be found - you've gone over the top by a bit too much in the trickery department.

REPLAYABILITY: 1

I seriously doubt I'll take another shot at this map. I already tried (twice) to figure out how to move forward in this map and just got so frustrated that I simply gave up. It is definitely worth taking a single shot at and if you can figure out how to get to the end of this, please explain how you did it to us neanderthals who simply could not.

OVERALL: 9

Why would I recommend this map? Well, in 1994 mappers will still experimenting with what "could" be done as opposed to what "should" be done. I think the author over thought this map but he had some really good ideas that he implemented and if he had simply just not made it so infuriatingly difficult to progress through the map, it would have garnered much higher scores. I wish you luck in your journey. If you din the red key - please share with me (via the email link above) how you found the damn thing - and I'll share it here for everyone elses knowledge as well.