Realm of Evil

My first wad", said the text-file. The reviewer grits his teeth and plunges in, fearful of what awaits. But in this case he gets an extremely pleasant surprise. These five maps offer very interesting and challenging gameplay, together with fairly attractive, uncluttered design. There are plenty of wide-open areas, but you are rarely completely safe.

Initially, I thought that ammo was poorly balanced in each map (i.e. not enough of it), and that the maps were meant to be played as an episode rather than from pistol starts. However, I stubbornly continued with pistol starts and found that if you make extensive use of infighting, then the supply of ammo and power-ups is just sufficient to get you through - in fact you should have a surplus by the end of many of the maps (the ammo-monster balance ranges from 1.20 to 1.61 according to STAT.EXE). Some Tyson and especially Pacifist skills would be useful, but the main thing is to adopt a good strategy and to avoid using ammo when it's possible to get the monsters to self-destruct on their own. The balance is so fine that I can't believe it was accidental, and I presume extensive play-testing was done on these maps. Apart from on map01 there is little or no difference between skill levels 2, 3 and 4, so if you want to make it easier on yourself, then you can play them as an episode, or else choose skill 1. Also, the maps are much easier to survive once you know your way around them; I'd guess that most Doomers should survive each map at the second or third attempt without using any savegames.

I imagine this will prove a little controversial, but it's my pick for wad of the week.

INDIRIZZO