I decided to start working through increasingly difficult Doom WADs, and to start off I started with one half of Final Doom. That is, TNT: Evilution on ultra-violence.
Fuck me, I can't believe I paid money for that. Granted, the good levels are really solid, but over a third of the map pack is awful. Poor visuals, misaligned textures all over the place, and cheap enemy placement all over the place. Most traps toward the end of the game just involve dropping you in a pit with an Arch-Vile, so if you don't already have the BFG selected you're guaranteed to take a hit. One prominent part of MAP08 has a giant, open arena (so large that it's over a third of the entire map) with almost no cover, filled to the brim with hit scanners. Doom doesn't feature damage fall-off on hitscan weapons, and every bullet you're hit with is guaranteed to do 5, 10, or 15 damage.
That's not even the worst of it. The room opens with a set of stairs, and vanilla Doom doesn't feature vertical look (and, in my eyes, vanilla map == vanilla rules). Instead, you have to deal with an occasionally fiddly autoaim system. The autoaim feature
does have a fall off, and over a long distance won't acquire a target. This does not apply to enemies, meaning that while you're descending these stairs (which offer precisely
zero cover) you will continually get sniped by chaingunners and shotgunners.
The only way to avoid this is to know that the map has a secret invisibility sphere. This adds a random factor to the enemy's aim, greatly weakening hitscanners. I would like to once again emphasize that this item is in a secret area, and if you don't know to save it for this encounter it will do absolutely nothing for you.
Later on in the WAD there are areas where the player is forced to take damage from damaging floors. There were times where I had to reload my level start save because it was mathematically impossible to progress through the level. Yeah, that's nice.
Then there's the sudden resource starvation at around MAP27 or so. I ran out of both shells and bullets at one point and I made every attempt to conserve them. How in the hell does that even happen? Doom only has four ammo types for fuck's sake!
Oh, then there's the point where they just give up, open a wall, and flood a fairly tight area with 10-12 revenants. Cool. A "challenge" that stops moving after two BFG shots. How imaginative. It might have made more sense if the game opened a wall behind the player when they move in for ideal tracer saturation or something, but...nope. Pretty much the least imaginative trap possible.
Probably the worst was MAP22. It wasn't difficult (it was easier than some of the episode 1 maps) but it looked unfinished. A vast majority of the map was full bright, and it had this really irritating sewer section at one part.
An honorable mention to awfulness goes to MAP05, which has a section that's so tight that it
routinely causes irritating collision bugs to crop up (Sigil has similar issues).
TNT's highs definitely exceed that of the OG Doom WADs, but its lows are so low that they're basically strolling along the shores of hell.
Here are some remarks about maps that I feel are notable:
MAP01: Great starter map! Gives you a false sense of security.
MAP02: Some decent traps, but some jumps are more difficult than they should be due to engine quirks.
MAP03: I like it. Good mixture of upper end enemy types, but balanced by having plenty of cover.
MAP04: Conceptually great. Kinda meh to actually play.
MAP05: Corridors are frustratingly tight. Some parts are kinda bland. Meh.
MAP06: Meh. Not bad.
MAP07: Pretty good! A good challenge in some parts.
MAP08: Fuck this map for the reasons stated above. Starts out pretty good, with some nice traps and enemy vantage points, but has some really obnoxious artificial difficulty at the end.
MAP09: I really liked this map, but I kinda feel like it's difficult enough that it should have been placed later in the map pack.
MAP10: Meh.
MAP11: Most of the map is a crate maze. Super meh.
MAP12: Looks boring. Plays boring. Next.
MAP13: A decent hub-oriented level. Also features an incredibly easy to kill cybie.
MAP14: Not great. This map forces you to take damage from nukage pools, so it's possible for the map to be mathematically impossible to complete if you take one too many hits.
MAP15: I like this one! Kind of a neat outdoor map with a central base. Nice amount of challenge with plenty of fun secrets. I took the secret exit, naturally, so it's off to MAP31.
MAP31: So, when Final Doom came out, this map had the essential yellow key marked as multiplayer-only. I would have thought that the Steam/GoG versions of Final Doom (at this point I don't remember which IWAD set I'm using) would have used the patched version, but apparently not! Fortunately, it's easy to bypass the yellow key with a quick strafe jump and linedef press, so I was able to complete it without cheating. Still, not a great look to release a commercial level pack with an "unbeatable" map.
MAP32: This is probably my favorite map of the pack, honestly. A nice mixture of indoor and outdoor combat, with some great traps and frenetic action. This one made me glad I decided to go for the secret levels.
MAP16: Meh.
MAP17: Simple layout, but a fairly fun map.
MAP18: Decent enough action for the most part, though the ending fight kinda monotonous. Unfortunately, this is one of those levels that make you activate a bunch of switches without giving you a clear idea of what each switch does. I ended up having to run all over the damn place through a nearly-emptied map just to get a feel for what changed when I pressed each switch. Ugh.
MAP19: Nice visuals. It has a surprisingly good looking office, and at one part has a well-designed warehouse with a cleverly built truck in the loading dock. It honestly felt too easy, though. It would have probably felt better if this and MAP09 were flipped. One complaint that I have is that the yellow key is very difficult to spot.
MAP20: Decent beginning, kind of a crappy ending with a bunch of unintuitive teleportation.
MAP21: God, this map sucks. Long, boring corridors with boring patches of enemies, with boring rooms, and a boring nukage pit where you collect boring keys, to work your way to a boring end with boring enemy encounters. Boring. Bland.
MAP22: I already talked about this one above, but then I suddenly remembered that the blue key is hidden behind a fucking wall. THEY HID A KEY BEHIND A SOLID WALL. WHAT THE FUCK
MAP23: IMO, the only map in the latter third of the game that's really worth a damn. Kinda feels a bit on the easy side, though. It would have probably been better placed in E2. Solid fights and good architecture.
MAP24: *spekturr snores loudly*MAP25: I barely remember this map despite only having played it around an hour ago. I think that pretty much says it all.
MAP26: Boring. This map has a ton of imps for something this late in the game, and they're easily one of the easiest enemies to deal with in classic Doom.
MAP27: Decent early half with an awful ending section. If you don't know exactly what you're doing you'll be stuck taking hits from damaging floors. The actual exit of the map is also freaking weird, with you getting teleported to a red platform, then running off of the platform triggers the exit. Wh-what?
MAP28: Bad. This is one of those ones that opens obvious monster closets right in front of the player. Basically, if you pull out the BFG every time you backtrack you won't have to worry about anything. There is one room of the level that has five pain elementals because
reasons, so I might have went a little BFG-happy in that room as well.
MAP29: Definitely a mixed bag. I liked the marble section of the map, but I was less impressed by...pretty much everything else. The cramped, thankfully optional, room that teleports in a bunch of lost souls and projectile-slinging enemies with large hit boxes was just fucking adorable. Nothing like taking advantage of Doom's infinitely tall enemy hit boxes to prevent them from dodging fireballs. That's not cheap and lame at all.
MAP30: It starts off with a "puzzle" that requires you to follow a color pattern correctly (or instantly die) so obviously it puts its best foot forward. Pretty lame combat leading up to the final boss room, if I'm honest, and as for the final boss room? Well...it's even easier than the OG Doom 2 Icon of Sin, except it's set up in such a way that autoaim fucks you over and locks onto enemies below! Literally all you have to do is hit a switch to raise some stairs, BFG the hell knights and barons on top of said stairs, stand on the top stair, and hold the fire button. Eventually you'll cut through the enemies below you and kill the Icon of Sin. Considering people have managed to do UV Tyson (that is, using only the fist and pistol) of this map, there's probably an even lamer way to kill the boss. Fantastic. What a way to end a WAD.
Yeah, honestly, I can't see myself ever playing this all the way through again. I'm almost tempted to just extract the maps I like and making a TNT mini-WAD. Should be able to get a good 10 level pack out of it without a problem.