well, this is a very overdue post. when i finished ancient aliens, decino hadn't even started playing it yet. i haven't been feeling up for much of anything lately. but what can you do.
anyway, ancient aliens is so good. i know i'm not breaking any new ground by saying this, but that doesn't make it any less true. many aspects of doom's presentation have been completely overhauled to fit the desired aesthetics, including all of the music (done by stuart rynn) and most of the textures. there are also two custom monsters: a stealth plasma alien that fires arachnotron plasma shots and is partially invisible when not attacking, and alien guardians that fly and shoot barrages of revenant missiles. they both can significantly complicate encounters where they appear, but the overall combat sticks pretty close to what's available in vanilla doom. the arachnotron and manucubus have received a visual makeover as well, but no behavioral changes. all of that work would be wasted if there wasn't good level design to back it up, and fortunately there's tons of it in this wad. the first episode is definitely the best-playing, but the second one is very good as well. the third one is somewhat less consistent than the others but is still quite fun.
one technical note: this wad uses MAPINFO for episode selection and story screens, and also uses ACS to play sound effects. these features are only supported in zdoom-based ports, as well as eternity. i didn't notice this information in the text file until after i had already played the whole thing in dsda-doom, so i missed out on a few things. i checked it out in gzdoom later, and it's nice but not essential. the story seems to be some kind of drug-induced fever dream where our protagonist convinces themselves that the hypotheses set forth by giorgio a. tsoukalos (aka the ancient aliens guy, and whose face is used as a menu cursor) were real. or something. if you're here looking for compelling writing you've definitely made a few wrong turns.
and one other thing: there are a lot of kills tucked away in various secrets, which i spent a fair amount of time hunting down. i have my doubts about whether this was the best way to play this wad - or any wad really. but i think for now i'll continue making best-effort attempts to kill everything in a level. otherwise i tend to just skip over some of the more minor encounters and that doesn't really seem better.
i vaguely try to keep the standards for medals vaguely equal across wads. so there are a lot of medals.
GOLD MEDALS:
- MAP07: Dare to Fly Where Eagles Soar
- MAP10: Gift of Denial
- MAP15: Wormhole Junction
- MAP16: Leave Your Sol Behind
- MAP29: The Ones Behind It All
SILVER MEDALS:
- MAP06: Sinkhole Showdown
- MAP22: Acerola-Orion
- MAP24: Culture Shock
- MAP28: Floating Arena
BRONZE MEDALS:
- MAP05: Last Refuge of the Anasazi
- MAP08: Ancient Aliens
- MAP13: Polychromatic Terrace
- MAP14: Blazing Boulevard
- MAP26: Egyptian Metaphysics
THE CASALI BROTHERS AWARD FOR MOST ENTHUSIASTIC CHAINGUNNER ABUSE:
- MAP26: Egyptian Metaphysics
THE TNT AWARD FOR MOST SUFFERING:
- MAP23: Trinary Temple
THE LEE JACKSON AWARD FOR BEST NON-DOOM MIDI:
- "Hypercube" by Stuart Rynn (MAP15)
STATS:
- Playtime: 18h, 18m
- Kills: 8169/8250
- Secrets: 50/84
- Items: 1432/1531
All maps are by skillsaw, unless otherwise noted.
Episode 1: One Last Vision Quest
MAP01 (The Ancient Navajor Wolf Warp): this wad features a pretty heavy level of customization, which becomes most obvious when you pick up the peace pipe and get teleported by laser wolves into the level proper. the level itself is a little on the gimmicky side with a cyberdemon holding down the center area while you dart into and out of caves surrounding it. but it does an effective job of setting a tone for the wad loosely based on the american southwest. there's a secret teleporter where the laser wolves help you telefrag the cyberdemon as well.
MAP02 (Sanctum of the Wastes): a more standard introduction to what ancient aliens has to offer. the arsenal on offer is pretty limited for the first half or so of the level. even one revenant can be pretty difficult to deal with if you only have a pump-action shotgun to fight it with. the interior area is split between two different levels which makes for a lot of good encounters with varied sightlines... but there's an elevator to get up to the higher level and i had to wait for it way more times than is healthy. getting the blue key drops you into a basement with a mancubus, which has received a shiny makeover. the one thing about the level that concerned me was the 9 kills in a secret which i only found through the time-honored art of wall-humping. does not bode well for consistently getting 100% kills in this wad.
MAP03 (Arachnotron Arrival): despite the warning at the start of the level, the spiders die just fine, but more get teleported in so don't waste your ammo. like the mancubi, they have also received a spiffy desert-themed makeover. they will constantly harass you as you make your way around the level and in many cases severely hamper your mobility. opposition tends to be kind of light otherwise, but there's less infighting than you might expect, and pinning yourself in a corner is hazardous to your health. you do get the super shotgun later in the level, which greatly simplifies dealing with the last few remaining enemies, and some friendly laser bears will help you finish off the last few arachnotrons. getting 100% kills was... complicated, requiring consulting doomwiki and iddt, noclipping through a wall, and pushing an unmarked switch. not sure if i was missing something here.
MAP04 (Bad Medicine Men): this map is under the overwatch of two archviles and three mancubi before you even get there. however they don't control as much space as you think and there's a few safe spaces to work out of. the level won't give you much in terms of offensive options, and getting heavy usage out of the berserk fist will help quite a bit. it's maybe a little too easy to miss what key goes with which door, but once you know what're you're looking for it's not as bad. fortunately you don't have to scrounge up ammo to kill the heavies; with the aid of the laser bear and some decidedly not-laser exploding barrels, the map will become considerably friendlier, allowing for searching for the secrets which are again mandatory for 100% of the kills.
MAP05 (Last Refuge of the Anasazi): this level also has a cyberdemon, and unlike the one in the first map, there are no laser wolves to help you out here, and it's free to chase you over the whole level. the other enemies are relatively flimsy, so you won't be able to distract it for long with infighting, but there's enough cover that you won't have to spend too much time dodging rockets. the only break from this is in a literal and figurative oasis set to the side of the area. unfortunately that area also has mancubi and arachnotrons, some of which are tucked behind a waterfall. eventually you get access to a plasma gun, which lets you finish off that pesky cyberdemon once and for all. this level does up the challenge a bit with a couple of encounters with revenants at close range that need to be managed with a rocket launcher but nothing that deft aim and quick feet can't make short work of.
MAP06 (Sinkhole Showdown): this one's pretty spicy. pick up the load-bearing shotgun and the whole level sinks, leading to an assault by a frankly rude number of shotgunners. you'll need to quickly carve out a safe spot for yourself and then work from there to avoid losing too much health. you'll also get the double barrel and rocket launcher on this level - handy for the few revenants and mancubi here, but much more necessary when you hit the switch to lower the area again, which adds a number of additional monsters and two very problematic archviles. you don't get the chaingun until you grab the yellow key, which also drops you into an incredibly small room filled with chaingunners and pinkies and eventually an archvile as well. fortunately despite my fears otherwise, it appears to not be possible to lock yourself out of all the kills, as there's a route from the ending to the area with the secret that has the last couple you'll need.
MAP07 (Dare to Fly Where Eagles Soar): thankfully not a dead simple variant, but you'll need to take off in a dead sprint to collect all the weapons on offer, and then slowly work your way back up the level. or alternatively take the teleporter back to the top and work in that direction. there are four mancubi placed out of your reach, but they exert surprisingly little influence on the level, and are dealt with via laser owl later on. the verticality of the central area makes it a prime playground for cacodemons, however, and dealing with them should be a priority. the various keys are stored in side rooms, the nastiest of which unloads half a dozen barons into a room that is far too small to deal with them completely safely with the rocket launcher, but if you can quickly pick off one or two it's a lot easier to move them back and forth to deal with them without killing yourself. overall however it's a tremendously creative use of a small and very vertical space.
MAP08 (Ancient Aliens): this map is a significant escalation than what came before, and that's immediately apparent from the start of the map where cacodemons flood over the cliffs into the arena proper. dealing with them requires making your way to the far side of the arena which will net you a significant amount of rockets. the map doesn't let up from there and it starts to introduce archviles in meaner ways, including spawning one behind you when attempting to go up an elevator. the three keys in the level are guarded by the three UFOs hovering above it, and each one has a pretty nasty encounter in and below it, especially due to their small size and the level's limited cell supply. i found the nastiest one to be the one with spectres in dark green hallways, supplemented by three archviles. the rocket launcher seems risky but it wound up being the cleanest way to deal with it.
MAP09 (The Nectar Flow by joshy): the first map in this wad to break the 500 monster mark. fortunately they're mostly cannon fodder, although there's a decent number of heavies sprinkled in. the tiny metallic corridor you start in hides the scale of the map which is huge, and there's a beautiful cavern with waterfall and various passages in and around it that forms the centerpiece for a lot of the maps exploration. reaching some of the mandatory areas is tricky - reaching the red key requires taking a leap of faith into a waterfall, which does have some indication but perhaps not as much as you'd hope. there's a cyberdemon and spider mastermind, and both those fights are pretty fun, although there aren't many cells in the level (and the plasma rifle is in an obnoxious secret) so you'll likely have to depend on the super shotgun. the last encounter lets you really tee off on a big group of pinkies, hell knights, and revenants with the rocket launcher and is a lot of fun. try save some rockets or cells for the exit passageway, as otherwise you won't be able to punch your way through the door to the exit as there's an archvile that can resurrect a crowd of hell knights faster than you'll be able to punch through them.
MAP10 (Gift of Denial): the gloves are fully off for the episode finale. grabbing the rocket launcher unleashes a horde of enemies into the starting area and it doesn't get less intense from there. up on one side of the river valley, there's a tiny arena with crushers that you'll have to tiptoe around, and picking up a key on the far end unleashes archviles from a hallway that allows them to bypass the crushers. on the other side there's a nifty fight where a big arena breaks into four levels, preventing exiting and the levels come back together on a timer. there's an archvile on the far side that you'll have to put up with until you've killed all the other monsters or the timers expired. the last large arena has three cyberdemons and also a BFG, but picking up the BFG lowers the very good cover it's hiding behind. i chose to play it slow and pick off enemies and let infighting happen until i was ready. then it's up to one last UFO which has four archviles that can rapidly corner you. hopefully you've still got cells - i didn't. then step on the central teleporter and it's off to...
Episode 2: Applied Einstein
MAP11 (On the Origin of Spacies): hmm, not sure where this neon-soaked space station is. but it's a return to a lower level, techbase style of combat. make your way through the base and carefully pick off the hitscanners, you've seen it a thousand times. except... this map also introduces two custom enemies. the first is the stealth plasma alien, a fast, small humanoid that is partially invisible while moving and fires off plasma shots, like the arachnotron. fortunately they have the durability of wet tissue paper - even a single pump-actionn shotgun blast will take them out. the other is the alien guardian, which flies and fires volleys of revenant rockets. they'll go down in one rocket. i suspect these will be high-priority targets going forwards.
MAP12 (Magenta Heat): pretty similar continuation from map11. the super shotgun has been absent from both these levels. and it is dearly missed, especially since this might be one of the closest-quarters maps in the wad so far. one thing that is somewhat more obvious in this level is that the stealth plasma aliens have a very audible search sound, making it easy to tell if one is active nearby. handy, especially as they tend to come in big numbers. there's one particularly nasty close-quarters archvile encounter - you'll have to deal with it using the rocket launcher which will likely require slipping past it and around the hitscanners it spawn with. there's a weird shootable-switch secret hiding the last couple of secrets. kind of a mostly-just-okay level.
MAP13 (Polychromatic Terrace): okay now we're getting somewhere in this new act. there's a super shotgun right at the start, but it's easy to miss and do half the level without it. the level centers around a big arena, and making that safe for traversal is the first order of business. really the first thing that has to get done is securing the rocket launcher on the far side, which locks you in as monsters pour out of portals at potentially uncomfortable-to-rocket ranges. there's also a nifty shortcut where a teleporter takes you to an island that has imps, explosive barrels, a megasphere and a teleporter to the far side of the level. after another couple uncomfortably close archvile encounters, you will manage to get your hands on a plasma rifle, and then face off with the grand finale: like a hundred imps. sounds easy, but you're stuck on a narrow bridge that makes it difficult to avoid fire. but if you're quick enough with the imps on the bridge it's very manageable.
MAP14 (Blazing Boulevard): another really good map. the see-through laser platforms that get raised up by switches are used to very good effect here, and there's one that lowers that gives you a preview of the ambush to come. this level has a number of archviles that are given relatively free roam, and adds in stealth aliens and guardians, both of which are direct threats as well as threats to your safety with the rocket launcher in hand. fortunately this level also has plenty of cells which you shouldn't hesitate to use. there's a spider mastermind with a cohort of imps at the end, but that's not nearly as dangerous as the wave of stealth aliens that will chase you down upon grabbing the final key.
MAP15 (Wormhole Junction): the start of this map drops you into a big donut-shaped area with... a little bit of everything. this is another map with 500+ enemies, and unlike map09 they're not particularly squishy. if you haven't already, you'll learn to respect the alien guardians and their barrages of missiles as they're easily the most dangerous thing here. there's tons of health around, but ammo management will become a problem, with even shells and bullets being scarce a lot of the time. the yellow and red keys are in their own separate areas - the yellow key fight can get pretty bloody, and has a couple archviles at the end, but completing it grants access to the BFG which greatly simplifies the remaining encounters. the secret level entrance is... well let's just say i'm glad some kind soul added it to doomwiki, and even then it's still hard to find. having a dedicated texture for a shootable switch is pretty useful though.
MAP31 (Grey Dwarf by stewboy): this map is... considerably less fun than anything else in the wad so far. it's a huge and very gray space station with thirteen secrets and if you want 100% of the kills you'll need a significant fraction of them. the combat is pretty flat, especially after having just played map15, except for the few instances where an alien guardian winds up directly in your face. you wind up with far more ammo than you could ever reasonably spend as well. once you've found your way to the end it's a lot of poking around for closets and areas that have the few remaining monsters. i wound up spending quite a lot of time in this level, doing things like awkwardly strafe jumping and pressing unmarked computer monitors to get access to another couple of kills each. shoutouts to doomwiki and iddt, without their forces combined i'd never have gotten to 100% kills, and even with them it still took a solid 45 minutes.
MAP32 (Ossuarium Exoterre): a solid map, although it doesn't seem to really fit in with the aesthetics of the rest of the wad and it's pretty limp-wristed for a map in this slot. the most dangerous room is probably the first one which springs a couple archviles on you at close range, but it is very straightforwardly defused by shooting a couple of alien guardians and running outside, granting yourself significant additional cover. there's less than 200 enemies in this map, and a lot of them are cannon fodder just standing around. there's a lot of health on offer, but never quite enough rockets, making appropriate ammo management helpful. the last kill i got was an arachnotron perched up high - there's no easy way to hit it normally, but there's a secret teleporter behind a bloodfall in the blue key area that will take you to it, although you'll either have to poke around on damaging floor for a while or check doomwiki for which one is the correct one.
MAP16 (Leave Your Sol Behind): if there was any concern after the two secret maps that this wad was out of gas, this map puts that idea to rest. it was voted one of the most memorable maps by doomworld for good reason. the opening area is impressive enough, with a circular laser elevator forming the centerpiece of the area, and various switches allowing it to reach higher and higher areas, packing a lot of variety into a small, relatively easy to explore space. eventually you get access to a UFO... but instead of a tough fight, you get to commandeer it and head off to an ice planet. the ice planet features stiff resistance and you'll have to run in search of safety. clearing out the ice planet lets you head to the lava planet - initially slow paced with a narrow walkway surrounded by molten rock and enemies attacking from the surrounding cliffs, but make it to the center and you'll be dropped into a lava pit, where you'll have to contend against a large number of enemies as well as the clock, as the whole area is damaging and you'll need to keep supplied with rad suits. finally, there's a showdown on a rocky planet where you're pinned down by four cyberdemons while hell knights and pinkies charge in. fortunately, your laser animal friends have returned, and if you can carve a path to the teleporters it'll greatly simplify your safe escape. fantastic level.
MAP17 (Daylight Under a Dark Sol): the starting area is profoundly uninterested in giving you appropriate weapons. you'll have to advance with the pump-action shotgun and the chaingun while under fire from mancubi and arachnotrons out of easy reach. there's a super shotgun shortly into the level, and grabbing it will allow proceeding to a higher level... which spawns a couple of cyberdemons, which you again don't have a way to deal with. running through a portal leads to a tough encounter... which would have been a lot easier if i knew there was a plasma rifle nearby off the beaten path, by taking a blind jump off a cliff. i was able to thoroughly disrespect one of the cyberdemons by luring it to a ledge that was too tall for it, and the other i led into the next encounter for infighting purposes. the final encounter is against another pair of cyberdemons and a bunch of lost souls that mostly get in the way; it would have been easier had i found the BFG, but it again requires a blind leap of faith into a pit.
MAP18 (Illuminati Revealed): this is a hot mess from the moment you have to shoot the first switch to access the rest of the level, waking up every monster in the map in the process. there's an icon of sin somewhere in this map, causing monsters to constantly spawn, and like doom 2's map30 you mostly have to hope that there aren't too many archviles or pain elementals. unlike that map, you have to run all over the place finding three keys to reach a UFO that is your getaway instead of shooting the icon of sin with rockets. it takes a lot of effort just to figure out where to go and this isn't helped by being under constant assault and needing to move quickly. the blue key section adds crushers into the mix and is extra painful. once you get the yellow key it's time to bail; there's no point in sticking around as monsters will continue to spawn. a valiant effort to make the icon of sin a palatable encounter, but i'm not sure it's a completely successful one.
Episode 3: You're the Alien Now
MAP19 (Crash Landing): in my mind, part of doom's success is its well-balanced arsenal of weapons, each of which is suited to cover a variety of roles, and proper understanding and usage of those roles is crucial to your success. what this map supposed is: what if it wasn't. this isn't the first melee-only map, but it's the first one of this scope i've played, and it was a frankly a very negative experience. the damage on the berserk fist ranges from "tickle an imp" to "two-hit a revenant", making any kind of planning impossible, on top of being incredibly short ranged. i don't mind punching out an occasional pinky, but this map has you taking on a large slice of the bestiary, up to and including an archvile. the final encounter mercifully grants you a shotgun, but the tactics are mostly "run in a circle and hope for infighting". maybe i was missing something in how to do this but i can't say that i'd be looking to check out other tyson maps any time soon.
MAP20 (Code by AD_79): this map is relatively small compared to a lot of the other maps, but a whole lot meaner. getting access to weapons requires sprinting out towards a bunch of hitscanners, and even then ammo is going to be pretty limited throughout the whole map. the map is split into two halves with one key each. the red wing has an interesting gimmick where it places exploding barrels under holograms of archviles, and destroying them causes an archvile to spawn. i chose to spawn them one at a time, but with enough rockets it's probably possible to unleash them both at once. the blue key's fight just unleashes two archviles on you with a bunch of hitscanners at close range, with resources on top of pillars you can temporarily lower but are also your only cover. the final fight is not so bad - some hell knights, imps, and alien defenders - but by the time i got there i was so drained of resources i could barely make it through, finishing the level with less than a hundred bullets and minimal health.
MAP21 (Cyberbullying: Beyond Earth): major change of pace from the last map, although not entirely for the better. some of the map involves ducking cyberdemon rockets until you make it to the end, but a lot of it features relatively tame encounter and far more health than you really need. the first time i saw the cyberdemon, it teleported away before it was able to do any noticeable damage, leaving behind some monsters to cleanup. there's an easy-to-miss switch that leads to this area and without it you'll be wondering how it is you should progress, but it's relatively straightforward once you find it. the next time you see it, you'll have to awkwardly dance back and forth between narrow closets on the side of a hallway as monsters rapidly fill it. the finale is... mostly really annoying, as the cyberdemon and a number of additional monsters teleport into an arena filled with crushers. also there's no cells in this map that i found, so finishing this up is pretty tedious. also four monsters got stuck in a teleport closet, which didn't improve my perception of this map, and i didn't feel like fishing them out.
MAP22 (Acerola-Orion by esselfortium): the product of cohost's very own esselfortium. the initial impression is very chill perhaps driven by the midi which i like a lot, and the dramatic naturalistic canyon where it's set. but a lot of the map is a literal and figurative uphill battle with a variety of monsters in elevated positions able to attack you from the start of the map. fortunately there are a lot of rockets on offer as well as a surprisingly large amount of plasma - without a backpack, i had to pass up one of the cell packs in the secret because i wasn't using them aggressively enough. although you're often under attack from long range, that's the easy part of the level. the hard part is the close-quarters archvile spawns which are numerous and pretty nasty, often requiring you to work with minimal cover, at dangerous ranges with the rocket launcher, or both simultaneously. i struggled a lot with the final encounter which starts with a very tight maze of revenants imps and pinkies, who can get teleported behind you unpredictably, which mancubi fire on you from above. then when you reach the center, the walls lower revealed two archviles and a horde of spectres which substantially complicate your rocket launcher usage. i had to fiddle with my graphics settings a bit but i got there eventually.
MAP23 (Trinary Temple by pinchy): this is a long, long, long map, and honestly there really isn't enough to it to justify its length. the first part is especially egregious featuring a lot of running around a wide open area that's far harder to navigate than you'd expect, and you'll need to scrimp and save every bullet and shell to make progress. monsters keep spawning in the area, but the logic by which this happens is far from clear. after finding the red key you'll be able to enter the temple, which mostly reminds me of a hotel lobby. the first room seems dangerous with two archviles overseeing most of it, but there are a couple spots that neither can see and allow them to be easily dealt with. the combat is better-paced here, but it's an awful lot of imps and pinkies for a map this late in the wad. the hedge maze is... weird for a lack of a better word. a lot of monsters will spawn within and outside it, but can easily be cut through with the plasma rifle and the monsters can be kited outside of it. there are some further weird traps in there, like when you pick up an ammo box and two (2) imps spawn. hopefully you did the weird janky yellow key encounter outside, as that'll give you access to the BFG for the final encounter, which is far harder than the rest of the map, mostly due to the alien guardians that flood in from above, which will block you, fire way too many rockets, and explode on death making even the BFG not fully safe. once the two cyberdemons spawn, you can just walk out and they won't be able to follow you, making the final cleanup easy. getting 100% kills was weird too - after going into the temple a bunch of arachnotrons were outside and i don't really know what caused that. two monsters got stuck in a spawner closet and i didn't really feel like figuring out what ammo box i'd have to pick up to get them to spawn, so i just left.
MAP24 (Culture Shock by lupinx-kassman): a stunningly built map, but one that's perhaps more fun to look at than it is to actually play. the map is set in a city in the clouds with waterfalls into the void and stone rings allowing you to "fly" across the sky, via chain teleportation. the intro is pretty peaceful but proceeding through the next area by climbing a rope (i have no idea how this rope works... silent teleporter?) and you'll be getting shot at from a number of angles, and worse, constantly bouncing off narrowly placed walls and needing to climb up and down ladders - never a particularly fun task. clearing out the difficult to reach arachnotrons and stealth aliens significantly simplifies as otherwise they will constantly harass you. the blue key is guarded by an archvile reading a newspaper, and there are a number of other similarly adorable touches. collecting the red key is a little esoteric, but it leads to the courtyard fight letting you tee off on a bunch of archviles, mancubi, pinkies and imps with the rocket launcher - as long as you're careful about it. there's a BFG in a secret, which is a little special. can't give everything away here though. eradicate the cyberdemon standing in front of the exit and it's off to the next level.
MAP25 (Xenoarboreum): kind of an odd map, and i don't think i particularly care for it. there are these interesting neon cylinders that appear to be delivering demons in the initial area, and that area also has large sections of transparent floor - unlike before, this floor is not damaging. after clearing this area out, the level kinds of loses its way a bit and the way forward becomes pretty unclear, requiring a weird, janky jump and poking around for a surprisingly easy-to-miss switch. the combat in the level is decent enough but relatively tame. some of the encounters will make it seem like there's safety on the other side of a group of monsters, but that's never the case. just hold your ground and most of the fights will sort themselves out. the one exception is the fight after the blue key door with a number of crushers, which is... not very fun. there's a cyberdemon in a secret area but don't worry about saving your cells - there's more than enough to go around, including 300 in that area alone, and without a backpack it's best to spend them with abandon rather than trying to hoard them. better than trying to deal with a horde of pinkies with rockets when they're already in your face.
MAP26 (Egyptian Metaphysics by tarnsman): if you were worried this wad had grown soft, this map has arrived with a chaingunner-studded fist to the face. this map has fewer than 200 enemies - and 65 chaingunners, who have been placed in elevated positions with sight lines to virtually every part of the map. and if you were hoping to hang out at the start and carefully pick them off, a mancubus is delivered behind you via elevator to flush you out and force you to run out in to the level. there are plenty of rockets in the level, but there's only one launcher, and it's in an easy-to-miss spot guarded by two archviles. it's very easy to work yourself into a difficult spot trying to find resources in this level, as there's very few safe spaces and often not a lot of time to hang out somewhere specific. getting the plasma rifle drops you into a pit with cacodemons and mancubi at close range, and the BFG is in a secret, but you'll need one of the two to get through the finale, which features a tiny room with minimal cover, four archviles, and an assortment of other escorts. this level would likely be much less challenging on a second playthrough but it's still very good.
MAP27 (Kingdom of the Crystal Skulls): this map gave me a hard time. not because of the difficulty of the combat - it's actually a lot easier than i'd expect from this point in the wad. but i got up to the point where the yellow key was and had absolutely no idea how to progress further. i had to watch a playthrough of the level to figure it out; early in the level you teleport up in to a UFO. the triangular-shaped middle room has a double-barrel shotgun and a pretty unimpressive ambush for this point in this wad. but that room also has almost perfect rotational symmetry, and i got turned around and missed that there was a third exit with a bunch of additional stuff, along with another hard-to-notice switch. i guess i could have forgiven this but the rest of the level didn't really give me much reason to endorse it. probably the most memorable encounter has you snaking around a narrow walkway over damaging floor, needing to cut through hell knights while under fire from imps on a cliff you have to make your way up to. but really even here the biggest dangers are falling off and running out of chaingun ammo. they give you plenty of cells in this level, so use them whenever you're able.
MAP28 (Floating Arena by joshy): the gloves come off with this map, but i still feel like it's a pulled punch. the opening is probably the hardest part - there are two cyberdemons and two archvile in your vicinity, and while they are facing away from you, once you pick up weapons and start firing they'll make your life pretty difficult. there's cells but no cell weapons for the first half of the map or so, so you'll have to put up with the cyberdemons for a bit. the blue key area is an obnoxious encounter with a dozen or so archviles and also an invincibility, which more or less boils down to firing rockets wildly and hoping to not get bounced around too much. this area also gives you the opportunity to finish off a few of the cyberdemons with the super shotgun without them being able to retaliate, if you're not above that (and i'm not). shortly after, the map hands over the cell weapons and the pace picks up substantially, barring one weird platforming section. the final fight floods the area with a ton of revenants, a couple of spider masterminds, and some assorted additional monsters. stealth aliens are surprisingly problematic here - you'd think they'd immediately die to infighting or the BFG but it only takes one to ruin your day. oh and there's a secret invincibility to be found - save that for the half a dozen archviles hanging out by the exit switch.
MAP29 (The Ones Behind It All): this is it, the moment that you find out the truth behind this whole affair. but before that happens, you're going to face some especially fierce opposition in the form of three large arena fights. the first one is probably the nastiest, with very little room to maneuver, limited amounts of cells necessitating rocket usage, no backpack, and three waves of invaders. the last of these distracts you with a couple of archviles while stealth aliens flood in to cause far more problems. the next arena is more straightforward, although it starts out under strict archvile surveillance. kill a couple and you'll have plenty of room to rocket to victory, and crushers will apparently kill the rest. the final arena is the big throwdown we've all been waiting for, with plenty of every type of monster and an arena that gradually expands to reveal more. it's not as bad as it may seem initially - use the pillars for cover, keep moving, and watch out for those stealth aliens. oh and there's an extra megasphere and a bunch of cells in the center of the arena along with some good cover - i didn't find out you could go in there until the map was already over.
MAP30 (The End): ahh, a nice and calming map celebrating your journey. just don't check behind that waterfall.