So here we are with the first edition of Doom Roulette. The idea is, we hit the “random file” button on the IDgames Database, and download the first singleplayer/coop map or (short) wad that comes up.
And then, of course, we suffer through every agonizing second of it and present it to you, our loyal readers.
Today’s wad: Landmine by Anthony Rocchio, December 21, 1994.
Honest first attempt?
Life was simpler back in 1994. Something like this was considered a benchmark of mapping technique in those days.
It looks like the first one we have is the aptly named “Landmine” from Anthony Rocchio, and I say “aptly named” because I can already tell that I will still be able to feel the shrapnel from this bomb when the weather is bad.
I knew this one would be a winner when I first laid eyes on the page on idgames. At first I didn’t notice the date, thus didn’t realize it was uploaded before the readme files were standardized. Which meant, once I downloaded it I had no idea if it was a Doom1 or Doom 2 map. I ended up having to open it up in SLumpEd to see what the map name was. At least he didn’t try to be clever with it; it turned out to be E1M1, so at least that mystery was solved.
After actually playing it, I kind of feel bad for making fun of it because either it was made by a six year old, or some poor basement dweller with aspberger’s syndrome. Considering the limited availability of the internet to six year olds back in ’94, I’m kind of inclined to believe Anthony is/was the latter. On the other hand, he made the conscious decision to make their map freely available to play, so (unfortunately) it’s fair game.
Architecturally, it is not much better or worse than anyone else’s first map. I’m glad everything isn’t completely square (even if it is misaligned), and I give Anthony kudos for having a fairly non-linear map and the doors and lifts work, but that’s about where the positive aspects end and the horror begins. The entire map is a misaligned texture. And somehow, every texture used is inappropriate except for a door right at the beginning. Monsters are stuck inside each other, which of course makes them easy as shooting fish in a barrel. Even the cacodemons actually looked confused whilst roaming around, which just made me feel bad for them.
Weapon placement is also quite silly. The one secret in the map gives a chaingun, but I didn’t find it until after I already found the plasma rifle that is sitting right out in the open during normal gameplay.
This room actually made me feel like I was in hell.
In one of the monster dens, there is a teleport line that I totally didn’t expect, and it ended up putting me back near the start when I hadn’t even gotten to the switch at the end of the horribly disfigured hallway I was initially slogging my way through. The switch, of course, opened a door god knows where, and I ended up backtracking and humping every wall until I found myself back in an area that I had already been in.
Out of a possible 10/10, I’m going to go ahead and give this map a 4/10. Not the worst map I’ve played, but certainly not the best. Everything seems to work as intended, so I don’t mind giving it a little slack.
I might actually play another map from Anthony, on the grounds that it couldn’t possibly be worse than this one. Could it?
Compelling. Progressive. Flawless.
These three words have nothing to do with the map examined in this first episode of Roulette. In 1994, apparently after fifteen minutes of dicking around with Edmap, a [young?] man guy called Anthony saw fit to unleash this beast upon idgames.
It is strikingly similar in aesthetics to my first map, but with one highly creative distinction: almost no texture is used for its actual intended purpose. Yes. Awesome.
The other distinction it possesses is that all of the doors and lifts actually work. On a scale of excellence (as far as Roulette is concerned) this is a full point detracted. Anthony saves these elements from utter disaster by completely mis-texturing them, but the point stands–doors work, lifts work, and even traps of teleporting monsters work.
Luckily, not only is everything mistextured, everything is horribly misaligned. This is to be expected from a first map, but to this degree, and for a published map, I applaud Anthony.
And as we know, in this modern day of gaming, graphics are everythi–oh wait, shit, nevermind. Gameplay. It’s boring. It’s not especially bad. It’s certainly not good. There are some traps, and a single locked door that opened with a switch all the way back across the map. What a waste of three minutes! The weapon placement was weak, health was abundant, and I didn’t find any secrets (though Nomad did; hard to tell, when every single texture is wrong). Whejo! Really, the gameplay was about on par with the early maps of Knee-Deep in the Dead, except with more stuck objects.
Judging by some standards, and compared to many maps still released today, Doom level design has not progressed in fifteen years. So what was Anthony? An over-eager greenhorn? Or a visionary?
Six and half out of ten.
-rusty
Ok so I cheated to get the rocket launcher. What? What? Oh, and take a guess whether those lost souls are stuck to each other or not.
Well, the good news is that the author of Landmine knew how linedefs and such work, and that he was also able to attach various kinds of textures to all walls. Of course all the textures are misaligned, since that was the mainstream artistic style at the time of this map’s creation. Despite looking a bit silly to today’s narrow minded wad enthusiasts, the wad has still way more and better content than can be expected in a typical ’94 wad. The bad news is that even though there’s nothing structurally wrong with the map, half the monsters are stuck to each other and the difficulty is about on the same level as the first few levels of doom with weapons cheat enabled. Again, this was nothing unexpected.
But the important thing is that you can actually play this from beginning to end without encountering any cyberdemons or plasma weapons. Well actually, there is plasma rifle in the second room in this map, but if we count that out, one could easily believe that this map was designed by John Romero.
Things got way easier as the level progressed, as when I ran out of shotgun shells, my hamstery nature had to give in and I began using the plasma rifle. That didn’t make the ending very rewarding, as you meet the toughest battles (where at least some of the enemies are mobile) somewhere around the middle.
I honestly don’t know how this was accomplished. Of course it could just be the source port I’m using, but I have this slight hunch that the author spent a lot of time trying to get the monsters stack up like that. Props for advanced mapping techniques.
However, I shortly realised that there was more than met to the eye in the map. Secrets: 0% glared at me straight in the eye. How could this happen? Seeing as the map challenged me even after I had beaten it, I had no other choice but to accept that challenge, restart the map and type IDDT. Indeed there was a room I had not found on my first playthrough. I entered and BOOM, I found 3 secrets all at once! A chaingun and a box of ammo waited for me, making my courageous secret hunting well worth the effort. Not that you’d need any of that stuff, as I’m fairly sure there are so many plasma pellets in the wads that I don’t think the player has to use any other weapons at all.
Rejoicing of my conquest, I gleefully ran to the exit again, only to find out that even this time I had missed some secrets, or more likely one secret marked as multiple ones. Despite spending day after day, searching for those elusive secret percentages, they remained hidden. I had no other option but to admit defeat. You won this round, Landmine.
3/10
-Fatal
landmine.wad overall score:
5/10
That’s all for this edition. Remember, The Abyss is your destination for honest wad reviews!
