[Tetanus] MAP10: Engorge (UV-Max Demo)
6well we've reached the final level of tetanus. i remember having a really hard time with this the first time i played it, and if we're being honest i had a pretty hard time this time around too. i think a lot of the challenge here comes from a limited selection of weapons - there's no shotguns at all, no BFG, and limited chaingun ammo - and several very high-pressure, close quarters combat scenarios. and when a large chunk of your offensive output comes in the form of rockets that gets very uncomfortable very quickly.
things are tough right from the start; this is one of those levels where you're going to need to know how to beat it before you can beat it. my first few runs i tried to get a little too clever by grabbing the plasma and immediately heading for the rocket launcher. this gives the three pain elementals over by the plasma way too much time to do their thing. instead, i found it easier to take care of everything there right away, even if there's no armor and making the push needed to get more cells feels a little suicidal. it's a delicate balance of cutting through the pain elementals, not getting killed by the revenants, and ending in a favorable position to not also get killed by the archvile.
fortunately the middle section of the level is relatively quiet, and not too long. you get actual armor, a soul sphere, and interrupt a kind of strange chaingunner convention. the blue key encounter with the three archviles can go pretty sideways - stand close to the middle one to let autoaim do its thing, then switch to the plasma and hope for a clean exit. but even if you catch a zap or two, you're getting a refill here soon anyway.
and then... the finale. i spent a decent amount of time practicing this and still didn't feel particularly confident about it. there's a roaming cyberdemon in the middle, cacodemons and pain elementals pouring in from one end, and the far end completely stuffed with imps, a handful of specters, and four archviles. what i found to be effective is forcing the cyberdemon to follow me through the central area several times until started infighting, then switch to the other side and try to push in to the imp area. you're on a very short clock with the rockets here as the cacodemons will quickly surround you, but push too fast and there'll be no way to avoid getting zapped. i managed to do this part pretty cleanly, but the cleanup of the pain elementals, especially, went pretty badly. but regardless a clear is a clear, and on this level i'll take it.
i still wanted that super shotgun though.
tetanus: https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/lev...
get the demo: https://s3.yrriban.net/doom/ttns_map1...
source port used: dsda-doom 0.27.5
sound font used: arachno.sf2
flags: -complevel 2