i'd been meaning to get into playing doom WADs proper for a while, especially after playing ashes 2063. this post was definitely a push in the right direction. in any case, playing this WAD is a bit like eating your vegetables, as it's notable (they sold it in a box!) but is filled with long empty corridors, long elevator rides, and lots of wandering around in general. it also heavily leans on flimsier hitscan enemies and a lot of traps that are frankly pretty lame. i thought about doing a level-by-level breakdown or making some videos but there's plenty of stuff out there already and it's probably of pretty limited appeal.
the two secret levels, however, have stood out among the levels i've played (up to 18 or so so far). they're considerably more elaborate and interesting; the second secret level is especially fun as the first part features a lot of tight quarters and surprises while the second half is a big brawl with a cyberdemon and a number of other monsters on an open field. they're also the only two levels that are in tnt that are made exclusively by dario casali, who made the plutonia experiment with his brother and then went on to work on a game you may have heard of called half-life. and when looking all this up, I found that dario casali has also been playing tnt: evilution. here's his video of the first level:
This video already has some interesting tidbits:
- dario made 8 levels for TNT, but most wound up being cut.
- he felt that level 1 of a doom expansion should have been more like level 33 of doom 2, instead of the very straightforward first level of TNT.
- he describes the full run of videos as a "complaint ridden descent into madness"... so I'll be interested to see what the rest of the videos are like.
as for TNT itself, i've heard some of the worst maps are yet to come. so that'll be "fun".
the remainder of the levels were as much of a slog as i'd heard. i guess the main things i felt ground me down after a while were:
- tons of narrow corridors and bumping into walls
- a general unwillingness to challenge the player even to the extent that doom 2 did
- some easily exploitable enemy encounters and placements
anyway, now it's on to the plutonia experiment which I've done the first few levels of. that is needless to say a much different experience, but i'll have more to say on that in the future.