Game:

Doom II: Hell on Earth (1994)

Duration: 20:25

283 views

6

Hello again Doom fans. Hot off the presses of Doomworld, we have the newest A2Rob mapset to explore - a 10-level, MBF21-compatible WAD called Escape from Sunveil Starport. Rob worked on this wad during NaNoWadMo2023 and describes it as a prequel to their megawad Machete. Given my appreciation for the author's other works like the Running Late series plus a bunch of beautiful screenshots in the Doomworld thread, I got super excited and quickly made the decision to check it out. In terms of storyline we don't have much to go on since Rob keeps the intrigue short and...intriguing:

"I knew firing that nutjob was a bad omen. It started with the security systems going haywire, then the explosions outside, and finally there were those damned shrieks down the hallway. At some point one has to wonder whether the job's worth it or not. I made that decision a few hours ago."

It appears that our hero - perhaps in the role of security chief at some top secret military facility or something - once again needs to pick up his weapons and deal with trouble.

Basic info
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IWAD: doom2.wad
Difficulty: Ultra-Violence (aka Hard) (pistol start)
Map author: A2Rob
Music: "Moonblood Ritual Site" by Deadwing
Port: DSDA-Doom 0.27.5
Compatibility level: 21 (MBF21)
QoL mods: Colored Blood
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Additional notes
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A masterful, suspenseful, awe-inspiring end to the wad. It's finally time to escape Sunveil Starport, and this last leg of the journey involves a super intense, mostly quiet crawl through empty techbase corridors and open spaces alike. For anyone who's mildly familiar with Doom mapping, there's a direct line of inspiration from TNT Revilution's 'Transduction', in the sense that 'Sunveil' exploits negative space and silence to the utmost, raising the player's anxiety levels in the same the way that great horror games generate terror without actually showing you the monster. The subversion of genre expectations is tremendously impactful, as the player nervously anticipates nasty fights after hitting switches and yet...nothing happens. This of course also makes the action flare-ups all the more menacing and impactful when they do actually happen, not least due to a last-minute addition of the custom plasma-toting Evil Marine as a very serious threat which demands of you to adopt the kinds of reflexes and uber-vigilant behaviour that would be right at home in deathmatch. In the whole push-pull dynamic of silence versus concentrated, quick, and potentially fatal fights, the emasculating arch-vile ambushes in the yellow keycard room, adding up to a grand total of seven sorcerers, are probably the pivotal point in any run, though what follows is not far behind. The muscular battle for access to the escape ship is the only section where you'll feel like you're playing "regular" Doom, and it provides a decent final obstacle; one that's obviously made easier if you picked up the secret BFG. That being said, the star of the show remains the constant atmosphere of unease and foreboding which came before, and huge credit must be given to Deadwing's "Moonblood Ritual Site"; a composition whose eeriness, tritone-heavy bursts, and satanic bluesy licks merge into a most suitable soundtrack for expressing apprehension. Phenomenal stuff.

Secret 1: 1:00

Secret 2: 5:15

Secret 3: 9:09 (switch to open door at 8:33)

Links
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WAD:

https://www.doomworld.com/forum/topic/144155-escape-from-sunveil-starport-9ish-mbf21-compatible-maps-rc1/

QoL mods:

Colored Blood:

https://www.doomworld.com/forum/topic/118074-dsda-doom-source-port-v0243/?page=16

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