[Alien Vendetta] MAP11: Nemesis (UV-Max Demo)
5ah, nemesis. this was not exactly a level i was looking forward to playing. i remember having a tremendously difficult time just figuring out how to finish it the first time around. upon revisiting it, i actually found myself enjoying it quite a bit more... except for a few parts which were just as bad as i remember. there's actually a lot of good stuff in this level - i really like the verticality as you climb up through the caves and work your way around the cliffside into the main area of the castle. you even get a view of the castle from the first cave, and enemies up there can attack you which mostly forces you to run for cover. once you get up there you're forced to advance carefully, ducking hitscanners and a archvile placed on high while trying to clear out mancubi and other monsters placed under and along the path. the big central area is visually impressive, but definitely has a very strange sense of progression, in that you ignore everything there, loop around the back, unlocking a shortcut to the room with the rocket launcher, and then cross the room going in the other direction to start some infighting. i do really like the silhouetted imps here though - that's a really nice visual effect. the west wing in particular is a little awkward - you can't go west to east in that room, and there's an awkwardly placed monster-blocking linedef that heavily limits the impact of the planned encounter for that room. the area behind there is tricky as well, as the central courtyard is placed very low relative to the rest of the area. but if you pick and choose your angles, it's perfectly manageable.
then... we get to the more unfortunate part of the level. i don't totally love the maze with the red key, although with a little bit of practice it's less confusing than it seems initially. but then... we get to the dirt caves. these have two major problems - the very tight corridors lead to unexpected elastic collision and getting stuck where you shouldn't, and the usage of the same texture for floor, ceiling, and walls is immensely disorienting, especially with paths that ascend and descend in a twisty fashion. i suffer from a moderate degree of simulator sickness and actually had to stop playing the level for a bit until my head stopped spinning, due to the combination of uncontrolled movement and inability to keep up and down straight. this part definitely takes it from "good but flawed" to "i want to get off mr. hunsager's wild ride". by the time i reached the exit, which took a while, i was more than ready to be done with the level. of course i had to go back and kill two enemies i missed, but what can you do.
alien vendetta: https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/lev...
av midi pack: https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/mus...
get the demo: https://s3.yrriban.net/doom/av_map11.lmp
source port used: dsda-doom 0.27.5
sound font used: arachno.sf2
flags: -complevel 2