one Ultimate DooM WADs M2 really futzes with the engine and I spent 10 minutes yesterday trying to momentum to where I needed to go. This was on the switch release. Then I remember I had tried it before and I definitely used a jump button in that case. I eventually gave up and turned it off.
This is not refuting your point for 90% of cases.
It was TNT Evilution M2.
Anyway I looked through Tim Willitsâs contributions to Quake and theyâre actually pretty good, E1M2 is a real classic of level design, as is E1M5. I mean E1M5 is pretty much a platonic ideal of âQuake Mapâ
Physical traps, extreme verticality, great signposting, recursive routes, monster placement that precludes the cliche of moving in and out of doorways, etcâŚ
His contributions to the later episodes arenât nearly as good as the work he did on Quake E1, but I donât think he can be called a bad level designer even by 1996 standards
On the other hand, I donât get why American McGee is well regarded at all, his idea of level design in doom 2 days was âput 300 chaingunners in a roomâ
Always Obligatory http://www.oldmanmurray.com/longreviews/56.html
Yeah Tim Willits Quake levels are legit. He can at least take credit for that.
It is hilarious to me that American McGee got to make not one, but TWO, games with the premise of âwhat if Alice in Wonderland was grimdark and even more âtwistedâ than it already isâ.
I played and finished Final DOOM: The Plutonia Experiment. What did I think about it?
And what about TNT: Evilution.
Iâve a pretty low opinion of both Plutonia and TNT, theyâre just subpar fanwads
Like, the megawads people were making even in the mid-late 90s when final doom came out were more creative than final doom
Yeah I had to wonder while playing, why was this collection of maps the one chosen for a retail release? I liked them, but it was mostly a pretty average experience.
Too many chaingunners tho.
Would sooner just play through Memento Mori 1 and 2 again (not to mention Aliens TC, Mordeth, Dystopia 3, etc)
I finished my replay of Doom 64 just a few nights ago, and Pitfalls stood out for me as well. A real masterwork. I think Doom 64 has this advantage over both Doom 1 and Doom 2: the last third of Doom 64 is actually really well crafted, and it doesnât feel padded or filled with mediocrities
That and the colored lighting in doom 64 is so atmospheric, it gives the game such a different feel
Yeah I easily played through the last like 8 levels back-to-back (which is a lot for me) and was so pleased with the last third like you.
I have this strategy book for something called The Lost Episodes but I donât recall ever having them installed or playing them. Or even hearing about them for that matter. I think my dad picked them up along with the book back when and then we just kind of forgot about them. Did anyone ever play them? Theyâre 24 maps that were supposed to be harder than the regular game.
Itâs a cool book though. Itâs got layout plan views of each of the maps. I love looking at plans for Doom maps. I used to sketch my own on graph paper but I never made any. I need to do that at some point.
Also, @Tulpa, did you ever put together a list of recommended Quake maps? I recall you saying you werenât overly fond of the more popular ones like Arcane Dimension and would put together a recommendations list later on. Iâve played Quoth and Warpspasm and so on Iâm but Iâve been staring at my qbism super 8 exe for a while now and thinking I should play something new.
not that dude invented the idea of Twisted Adult Fairy Tales but he was ahead of the 21st century curve of Fables, and Once Upon a Time, and Grimm, and all those boring movies like Hansel and Gretel Witchhunters or whatever
I mean honestly the fact that he is just straightfowardly Hot Topic level is actually kind of charming to me 20 years on
Yeah donât get me wrong I have huge respect for the guy for being so true to himself and making it as far as he has despite his game ideas never quite panning out.
Like, Bad Day L.A. at least looked cool.
It sucks that the industry canât support people like him anymore, just throwing stuff at the wall to see if anything sticks.
Check out the Coagula maps by Tim Elek (and the subsequent coagula map packs other people made) for one of the most unique trends in quake map design
Zerstorer is great and almost overambitious
Underdark Overbright, the map pack included with Copper Quake, is worth checking out (but it needs copper to run)
Travail! I havenât finished this one but what I played of it was extremely good looking with uniquely labyrinthine outdoor environments
Neil Mankeâs early levels (especially Spaceship) are extremely cool
A Roman Wilderness of Pain is just an absolute joy to play
1000 Cuts is a really cool idea for a quake level, it has branching paths!
this is very preliminary, just thinking on memories
TNT has a handful of good levels (i like kinda like the middle part of the wad) but itâs mostly just kinda not that interesting to me. Plutonia is more consistent but also too much like the âhard romhack versionâ of the original Doom 2. better fanwads (i.e. the Memento Mori series, Requiem, and Eternal Doom) were being released around the same time.
yeah i might have been exaggerating a bit with Tim Willits but i think American McGee had better levels in Episode 3 of Quake 1, and his Doom 2 levels are pretty good to me overall (The Crusher is one of my favorite Doom maps). i think because heâs kind of recently outed himself as a trash human and also it was major diminishing returns for the games he directed on his own people are more likely to say he kinda sucks now than they would have before. but i still think thereâs more dimensions there with him than with Willits when weâre talking about Doom + Quake 1.
re: The Lost Episodes, iâve heard of it but donât know much about it. apparently it was the first commercial release of a fan wad (predating Final Doom and The Master Levels). i presume it was unofficial and didnât have idâs backing like the other two i mentioned. there were also other unofficial wads like Perditionâs Gate released commercially later, but not that widely. i think the unofficial/shovelware releases going out commercially after the initial success of Doom is what spurred id on to put their stamp on it and try to release something higher quality.
i think most of the levels in levels were also already available for free on the idgames archive at the time. most of the levels were done by Christian Klie who contributed a bunch of original maps to The Master Levels right after and later did level design for the Lucasarts games Outlaws and Jedi Knight: Mysteries of the Sith, among other things.
Iâll agree that of McGeeâs quake levels, E3M2 and E3M3 are good (though a bit anemic in terms of architecture, they have convoluted layouts full of the things quake does well) but yeah I wouldnât rate any of them above e1m5, nevermind the stuff romero did in e2 or peterson in e4
Crusher is one I have a lot of childhood nostalgia for but it feels like american mcgee trying to do a peterson style level. McGee also made map03, map14 and map22, which are all stereotypical âa million hitscanners in a roomâ levels, which seemed to be mcgeeâs forte. He had a tendency to make levels that felt longer than they were, which is impressive in a kind of tragic way
i like all of those maps! i guess the combat isnât amazing but all of those have interesting architectural themes. map 04 from McGee is the weakest one of his to me⌠it just feels like a shortened version of relatively standard techbase map. i guess the ending part is fine though. but there was a period where every fan wad (i.e. Alien Vendetta) was ripping off The Inmost Dens⌠that is easily one of the most influential maps from the original games on the Doom mapping community. of those three 22 is the most underwhelming to me but there are still some cool touches there that make it stand out.
I never got why every fan wad had to include a token âinmost densâ homage, tbh, because I have never liked it. Itâs just a bunch of boxes with hallways wrapped around the outside. Thereâs some nice ornamentation and I can see how that inspired people to make more visually ambitious maps, but every arena is a square box or a long rectangle