01FAVA is an episode of 9 levels that replaces the first episode of Doom 1. The levels are very much in the original Knee-Deep style, though they include some of the registered textures and monsters to add interest. One texture patch is modified, and the status bar for deathmatch is changed.
The levels are very well put together. They really recapture the Knee-Deep feel, but are (IMHO) better thought out than the originals. The levels have obviously been well planned, with different areas well connected. The levels usually contain 2 or 3 major courtyards/halls/outdoor areas, which are looked down on/into by several windows. As you work through the level, you find entrances to the various viewpoints, giving the levels a very 'complete' feel.
There are glitches, with the occasional ceiling over a door not chosen well, and some misaligned textures. But there are remarkably few such problems for an episode this size. Cleary a lot of time has been taken in perfecting this episode.
The levels contain some traps, and the levels are made more interesting by the good design. There are plenty of secrets; some are rather obvious to a WAD designer like me, but I did not find them all, so some are more challenging. But the levels suffer from being too easy. The author has gone for a "one of each" approach with monsters, so a room will typically have only an imp, a trooper and a sergeant (less at below UV). Larger rooms may have 2 of each or even a taurus or spectre. By about level 5 cacodemons, and even the odd baron, begin to appear. But there is usually plenty of room to retreat, and even the windows overlooking rooms are usually so poorly manned that a few shots silences the opposition.
There is a demo supplied of a deathmatch at one of the levels where a player is blown out of a window by a rocket launcher. Also, CRAP115.WAD is included. This is E1M7 of FAVA.WAD but only half completed - it is included only for the demo, which consists of some players taking turns to be rocketed out of a window.
Overall, a good, well designed and tested episode, which makes a good replacement for Knee-Deep. But it is also not much harder than Knee-Deep, so experienced Doomers will find no challenge here.
A great episode for beginners, but no challenge. A sizeable download due to the demos too.
The author states in the accompanying TXT that this PWAD is incomplete. He lost interest while building it. It is a level in the style of the original E1M7. The level has no exit switch, and many areas can only be accessed by cheating. There are no monsters except a few at the start. The architecture is good as far as it goes.
If it were completed, it could be a good level. As it is, there is nothing here except a nice start area.
This is a level based around a single main puzzle, a cyberdemon. The start is quick and brutal; you emerge in a large hall, with cacos firing from the far end, and imps firing down from a central tower. Enemies converge on you from all directions, and it takes quick manovering to get by.
Once you subdue the start area, the level becomes simpler, as you collect keys and eventually health to prepare for the core of this level - the cyberdemon.
The level is soundly constructed, and the textures are consistent within each area, although the computer area could be better, and the red area (I don't know how else to describe it) is, well, red (I have a prejudice against red walls unless there is a reason). The level is fairly well interconnected, so a deathmatch would be interesting. However, the level is based on a single key element, so it is fairly small; I think 4 players would be crowded.
The cyberdemon is quite playable. You can't really kill him with the limited weapons available, but you can trick him. I won't spoil the puzzle - you can view the accompanying LMP to see the solution.
Skill levels are implemented, but this really is a level made for UV. I can't think of how you can split a cyberdemon for lower skills, and neither could the author - a baron instead is no challenge really; so at lower skills this PWAD should be easy.
This is a puzzle PWAD. Download it for the challenge of UV, have a go, but after you get the trick, its nothing special.
1_ON_1.WAD is a strange mix of some good ideas but mixed results. You start in a small room with 4 doors, and a shotgun and 2 boxes of shells - not a good start, the whole level could be fought on this ammo alone.
One door leads to the room I liked - it has balconies looking sown from either side over the room, which has an acid floor, and a safe causeway down the centre which looks quite impressive. The author has avoided the usual problem with shooting up at enemies by having raised sections of the causeway, at the height of the opposition, so you can have a decent fight with them.
The keycards are on the balconies of this room, but to get them, you have to take another door from the start, and it is quite a trek to reach them. A trek is a good description - with weak opposition (troopers and sergeants) this isn't much of a challenge. Moreover, having got one (from one balcony), you must make the trek again to get the other - no more fighting, not even a trap opened, just walk through the area again to choose the other teleport.
And then the exit is available - one of the doors in the entrance rooms leads to it. You even get a supercharge in case your finger slips on the rocket launcher in boredom. For a 300Kb PWAD, this is pretty dull.
There are quite a few secrets - I found a fair few, but loading WinDEU afterwards revealed more. There was areas I had not explored (I never even used one of the keycards I was given), it held 2 sergeants, an imp and a taurus, and a BFG9000 for the trouble (and it wasn't even a secret).
The other area I only visited briefly was at the end of the causeway - it leads what I can only assume is a trap (you need not visit it to finish, and there are few goodies), due to the 2 cyberdemons that shoot at you when you enter (they are held in cages).
The author has used various types of rooms, and has built a variety of structures, some quite good. But some details were not attended to - ceilings of doors were often bad, for example.
It was just too easy. The only interest would be finding all the secrets, or running past the cybers to see what is beyond (I didn't bother, and WinDEU assures me it ain't much). There are no skill levels implemented.
It does come with a new sky texture built in (I don't remember even seeing the sky though), just black with coloured stars, and some new music.
1_ON_1.WAD has some potential, but some way to go to be a good PWAD.
11BONES.WAD is a level with a few large rooms, and a few small rooms at the start to link it up. It is basically a Knee-Deep style level, but lacking those things that made Knee-Deep great - no atmosphere or detail.
Let me get to the main problem. It is too easy. At UV, I finished in 15 minutes, and I was checking for HOM and other such problems. I would have finished it first time, but I tested too well - there are several places where you can get stuck completely. With only a couple of cacos for serious opposition, this PWAD lacks interest.
The structure was mainly OK, just a few places with some minor HOM. The rooms are not very impresssive - STARTAN was used extensively, but didn't go with the other textures used. This is a pity, because the structures used are good; some redecorating, and tuning of light levels, would improve this level greatly. There were also few secrets.
The author should do a new version, with the textures re-done and serious challenge added.
I was pleased to see a story in the TXT accompanying this PWAD. The mission in this PWAD is to recover the BFG9000, and escape the level. It is always nice to see that some thought has gone into what the marine is doing in this level.
The screen clears. I am in a small room, with a switch to open the door. It reveals a few troopers, I quickly deal with them. This room has a door ahead and 2 to either side. I try one, it doesn't open. I try another.
A room full of (about 30) troopers. Great. I hold down the fire button for a minute and the room is cleared. They are injuring me (enough troopers can cause significant damage), but nothing serious.
Next room. More troopers. My pistol has never had so much use. The next room. A squad of imps. My pistol is getting hard pressed now. The next. A squad of troopers, dealt with...
I played this PWAD for 3/4 of an hour with a pistol and (later) the chainsaw, before finally I gave up in disgust. Most Doom players probably only use a pistol for a minute on every PWAD while getting the shotgun, so in case you don't know, playing a level with a pistol is VERY DULL :-(.
I loaded the PWAD into WinDEU. Well, there are 7 shotguns in this level, and 56 sergeants, but the shotguns are all in the same room, a red key room, and the sergeants are in the blue key area - accessible only after fighting a squad of barons.
OK, so if you play it in the right order (as I then did), you can get the yellow keycard, then the red keycard, and then some decent weapons. But the author should have made sure we went in the right direction. He does give a hint in the accompanying text, but I had read it beforehand and found it little use. I know the author did this deliberately - it is part of the story - and he thinks it is part of the nature of the level, but it is too easy for players to never get an idea of which way to go.
Hence I will give a specific hint to anyone playing this - don't go through the door opposite the door from the entrance room, go through the doors to either side, otherwise you'll play for ages and get no closer to the shotguns. This door should (IMHO) have been a red keydoor, to prevent players wandering the wrong way. Explore the start area thoroughly before moving on.
Having found this out, now I played again as the author intended. I played through dying only a few times (mainly to the cyberdemon). The difficulty is about right for a challenging level (I had seen the level in WinDEU after all). There were still rather a lot of troopers to deal with (150+ in all), but the opposition later on became more interesting. The best part of the level was the final area, with some neat traps and tricks.
Architecturally, the level is LARGE. The central room is huge, and looks good to, with crates stacked out into the room. As a result, this room is slow, but there are no fights in it, so this is no problem.
More attention could have been payed to some details though. The ceilings on doors were often not chosen. There were many doors where a small texture had been used on a tall door - instant tutti-fruiti, and would look ugly even without it. There were also odd panels of different textures in otherwise uniform rooms (not radically different, but different). There were also switches tiling vertically up walls. And in places the author used the SKY texture for walls - doesn't look very good.
Object placement was not great. The author adopted a style of ammo and health dumps, with a room containing 18 medkits, and the armoury, containing the 7 shotguns, 7 rocket launchers, and loads of boxes of ammo. OK, it is a nice idea, but during play these rooms were a long way from the later areas, so running back and forward was tiresome. The author clearly found the same, so he included a few goodies later on in the more conventional manner (a stimpack here and there). This made the amounts in the early caches unecessary (I used only 6 of the medkits).
There is plenty of ammo after the shotgun room, although you will not have enough rockets to kill the cyber - but by that point, you have the BFG9000, and loads of cells, so you get by.
Interesting toward the end. Remember the hint.
This is essentially a deathmatch PWAD. At single player, the only weapon available is a shotgun, and no more ammo is provided. At multiplayer, there are a selection of weapons.
Each zone in 11INHELL.WAD has its own texture, but most of the zones are large and empty. The level as a whole is spacious, but since each room is large and empty, there isn't much content filling the space. There is no overall theme, the zones seem unrelated, and some of the texture combinations are strange.
This level requires a co-op finish. At single player, therefore, it is impossible to complete the level, and also (since you only get 8 shells) impossible to kill all the many skulls, barons and cacos. You can explore - the huge rooms swamp the monsters around.
As a co-op level, the multiplayer weapons will make this easy to complete, except that I find it doubtful that co-op players could find the method of exiting by accident. For deathmatch - I don't know, but some of the starts are silly (8 starts in the same not-all-that-large room).
A deathmatch only PWAD.
Castle Nideck - the castle is the whole level - is a large castle with 4 large turrets and connecting walkways. The castle is imposing, and is a great idea for a Doom level. Basically, you enter the first turret, and battle each turret in turn, crossing between them using the walkways.
The opening fight is frantic, as there are enemies on the walkways, in the turrets, and cacodemons floating in. I charged around picking of cacodemons, while dodging the shots from those on the walls - these are some way apart, so it is easy to dodge.
The turrets each have their own style, and in each there are new problems to overcome - the level has a lot of variety. There is something for everyone here - I liked some areas, and didn't like others, but overall there were plenty of interesting ideas to see.
The author took a sensible approach with the difficulty - he designed it to be played at Hurt Me Plenty. This means there is still ITYTD for newcomers, and ultra-violent for experts. I played at ultra-violent, and completed the level in an hour, but I died many times (you will need to save at the entrance to each turret at least - as I said, each has its own style, so the traps will vary too). It was a good challenging PWAD to play.
The architecture is in general good. But there is no overall style to the PWAD - the castle itself, for instance, is covered by 4 different textures for the 4 different turrets, so it looks a bit odd. Then again, each turret is like a mini level in itself, each interesting. There was the usual odd defect (ceilings of doors again), but nothing that major.
There is a downside. In the second turret, walking on a platform raises a walkway. Problem is, the platform has 4 sides, so it you step off a different side, the walkway goes up again. This leaves a major HOM, and prevents you completing the level without typing IDSPISPOPD to get up onto it. This occured playing the level under Ultimate Doom v1.9, and once converted to Doom ][.
The play was interesting from start to finish, but the opposition were not so consistent - 3 barons in one tower, only some imps and shotgun men in the next. The ammo was well judged, though mostly it came as a room with shell boxes at the start.
Spoilt by the bad platform, but still a PWAD to download.
Another PWAD by the same author as 11GETBFG, which had been a sound PWAD but with lots of frustrating points. I was afraid this would be the same, and my fears were somewhat justified.
11SPACE has a plot better than DOOM ][ (damning with faint praise? no it is sensible ;-). A spaceship carrying evil is approaching earth, and no high tech weapons can break its shields - so instead you get to go in and destroy it from the inside.
You start in your shuttle. You quickly grap your plasma rifle, BFG9000, and 200 cells (plenty of ammo I thought), and blast your way into the ship (well, pistol a couple of walls, but the author did his best).
The level is not too hard - you get no more weapons, but plasma deals well with everything. The problem is ammo. Like 11GETBFG, most of the ammo is all in one place, and unless you get there, you'll find yourself pistolling barons with your dying breaths. OK, it is probably a 50/50 chance whether you choose the right route or not, but I didn't, so I'm annoyed :-(.
The level is very grey. Most of the walls and ceilings are grey, with little decoration in the corridors. I think some computer panels would have added some interest here. The rooms on the other hand were good - the sick bay and bridge are both well done. But then again there was one room with green marble covered by vines - on an otherwise grey spaceship?
Some details had been overlooked - the odd doortrak was unpegged, and the doors were strange shapes (because the level is very curved), so some looked strange. Also, the level is broken into lots of small chunks, and connected by teleporters; however, these were octagonal rooms, which didn't fit the square teleporter floor texture well, so looked tacky. There were no other major problems in the rooms though.
The level is fairly straight forward once you find the ammo. There are a lot of cacos, but plasma can deal well with any opponent, so there isn't much skill involved. There are a few barons, but there is health available.
The skill levels are done rather oddly - at different skills, different weapons are provided. If you find the plasma boring, play skill 2, so you can use a shotgun instead, but then most of the monsters become easier, so the challenge drops.
Some nice rooms; if you are writing a sci-fi PWAD, download it.
This PWAD is stupid. It centres on a large room, which contains about 2 dozen sergeants, 2 dozen troopers, and 2 dozen imps. There is an invulnerability provided, but I didn't use it - you can just stand and cut them down. There are a number of side rooms, containing more imps, sergeants, and demons. But none of them are challenging.
The level consists of rectangular rooms, connected by short rectangular corridors and doors as deep as a teleport pad. Narrow doors have a normal full door texture on, so look like half a door; other doors are 1 and a half the normal size, so get 1 and a half of a door texture. The door ceilings were forgotten, and DOORTRAK is used for the sides of doorways despite their depth, and DOORTRAK pixelates badly at distance. All the rooms have the same textures.
There are no interesting features. The level is easy (under 10 minutes at UV, plenty of health and ammo, an invulnerability unused). No skill levels are implemented (contrary to what the author says in his description file). No multiplayer starts are included (contrary to what the author says in his description file).
The author says a fun challenge at UV. Don't believe him.
This level is a strange mix of styles, with large metal rooms, marble halls, and a few outdoor areas. It was full of texture misalignments, bad doortracks, and there was even tutti-fruiti on the exit switch! And all this despite the fact that the level is fairly simple architecturally. The level had no real theme, and no impressive areas. In one place, to get a keycard you had to pass through a grating - it only blocked monsters, but there was no hint.
The object placement is crazy. The author has opted for the "room full of" approach, with 2 (small) rooms full of shell boxes, 2 full of bullet boxes, and various others containing a mixture. Monsters were placed similarly. Fighting each of these rooms was tricky, but there was very little variation throughout the level. You will have hope the first room you open is an ammo room, not a monster room.
There was loads of ammo, but little health. With care, most of the fights were simple enough. There are 2 cyberdemons on the level, but tons (this may even be literally) of cells and rockets are provided, along with an invulnerability and a BFG9000, so if you work quickly, you can kill them both without being scratched.
Having just tested 1FIFFY.WAD, I was afraid that this would be more of the same. I was soon proved wrong on one count. Starting at UV, you are givern 2 boxes of ammo, then the 1st door reveals a couple of cacodemons. Not much further in, you have to fight 2 barons with a shotgun, in awkward surroundings. This level is quite tricky, although the author has still gone for small rooms full packed with monsters rather often.
The architecture is better than 1FIFFY. The level is based on a castle. You start outside, with a nice view of the front, and the first room inside is quite good. But the side areas don't really fit the theme. There are even some more of the shiny metal rooms like in 1FIFFY, which hardly fit in a castle. There is a room with 9 upside-down crosses (like the one in E2M1), which looks OK. The final area contains a nice metal structure (even if it totally out of place in a castle).
However, the whole thing is marred by a lack of texture alignment. No effort has been made to align textures no stairs or around the battlements of the turrets. The floors of teleports are not aligned. The ceilings and floors of doors were often not well chosen. Again there was tutti-fruiti at the exit.
The author boasts in the accompanying TXT "REALISTIC SHADDOWING! Areas get darker as you move away from lit areas. You'll see that graduations in the main entryway of the castle (ID Software couldn't do this!)". Rubbish! The lighting effects (along with attention to detail) are what sets ID's levels apart from the bulk of 3rd party levels. Besides, while the light level does decrease as you go further from the entrance, there are odd door sectors in 1FIFFY2 that have light level 255, higher than the surrounding sectors.
There is a vast excess of ammo - I left at least 12 boxes each of shells and rockets. There is a cyberdemon and a spiderdemon, and this time no BFG9000. But you can get them fighting each other, and there is an invulnerability for cleaning up the cyber afterwards.
This is a level in the industrial/high-tech style. It is curiously designed, since it is only a medium sized level to play through, but is much larger if you find secrets.
As such, this level combines 3 things I hate - it is slow; my Doom ][ v1.9 could not save games; there were display errors with things disappearing due to thing overload - without the level appearing any larger to play, or any more interesting, as a result. I played through (without saving or dying, due to the saving bug) without needing any secrets, and since I could not save, I was unwilling to take chances exploring, so the secrets were a waste that made the level slow and irritating.
The level has some interesting architecture; I liked the way you passed by areas you had already seen on the way to the exit. But it is spoilt by the bugs (things disappearing), the complete excess of ammo, health and decoration littering the rooms, and visual imperfections (misaligned textures, and some doors into outdoor areas didn't look right when viewed from outside).
The ammo is totally over the top. I was playing through for the first time, and could not save and restore, so took a lot of unnecessary damage, but even so I had health (including a beserk pack) to spare. The monsters once again come in blocks (if a room has monsters, it is full of monsters). This leads to boring gameplay, as you move from door to door, knowing the next room will be packed, holding the fire button down until it is cleared... dull :-(.
This level would have been better with the enormous collections of ammo and monsters replaced by fewer, more powerful equivalents. That is why there are powerful weapons and monsters - to avoid levels like this.
1FIFFY5 is a Shores of Hell style level. The start is quite good, with a nice outdoor view of a church (of sorts). I was also relieved after the previous level that I could save OK. The early areas are a bit slow, but later areas are fine.
The church itself is a bit strange, since a light brown wall texture with pipes on it has been used as the basis. The level is a bit patchy, with each room having its own basic style, and usually unrelated to any other area. But the individual areas are OK, and some are interesting. The best part of the level is the wooden maze, where the light levels are perfectly judged - it is too dark to see walls more than 10 metres away, but you can still fight the spectres surprisingly well if you are careful. There are however still some glitches - like floors of doors.
The level was more balanced than some of the previous levels by the same author. There was no longer a huge excess of ammo and health - at UV I finished with 35% health and about 200 bullets, though with a couple of bullet boxes unused, and I had saved and restored a lot. The author has stuck with the "room full of monsters" style, but with more variation. There are rooms that you cannot fight, but must just run through. However, unless you find secrets (I did not), you can only get a shotgun, which makes some of the fights repetetive.
The level is complicated to complete. Switches often had effects in totally different areas of the level. But I found I could trust the author - there was always a way forward somewhere, even if it took several minutes searching to find it.
Not a bad PWAD. A pity it is not all as good as the maze.
This is a level very similar to The Abandoned Mines (Doom ][ MAP27) (based on it?). The major difference is that this level contains 80 Barons of Hell (hence the title). These are mostly confined in cages and balconies, overlooking the major areas.
This level is quite a challenge. At the start, you are immediately confronted by barons. You run, grab a shotgun, and carve a way through the central area, fleeing the shots of the dozens of barons firing down at you. Eventually, you find a safe spot, and begin to recover.
Some of the rooms are impressive, and the design is very interesting. However, some of the peripheral rooms are not as good - often they are just cubes with brown walls. There are also a lot of texture misalignments.
Once (if!) you can survive the first charge through, you find a storeroom of ammo (dozens of shell boxes, ammo boxes etc) and it dawns on you that you actually are going to have to kill almost all of the barons. You first begin by clearing the outside area, in a tough fight against 10 barons in a courtyard. Then you begin clearing the barons on the balconies inside, going back to the storeroom for ammo at regular intervals.
This level is a real war of attrition, as you slowly pound each collection of barons until they are all dead, then the next lot, and the next... It isn't the most exciting or varying of levels, but it is a challenge. There is an excess of ammo, but not by as much as you might think.
A challenge, but there are more interesting PWADs.
This is a moderately large level based on a castle, in the Shores of Hell style. The level is well put together. The architecture is nice, with a view of the battlements at the start, a box room, and good main rooms.
The level is far from perfect, however. The textures are not all aligned. The final area looks tacky, and completely out of place in this level. There is a pitch black area which is a pain to fight (though it is not necessary to complete the level). The author has deliberately left HOM in the level to represent mirrors - I think this just looks odd.
The level is interesting to play, with plenty of good traps. The author has stuck with the "room full of monsters" style, but the traps are more intelligent. The level all links up nicely (if you see somewhere early on, you will probably get there later), and it seems to have been worked out nicely. There is the usual excess of ammo and health, though. There is a cyberdemon at the end, but held in a small area, with cover available, so is an easy fight.
There is new music, and new sounds - the human enemy sounds are replaced with things like kill
. There is also a new status bar, which is very tacky. Just goes to show that just because you can do something (like replacing a status bar), it doesn't mean you should.
There are a bundle of other goodies included, including 1FIFFY2.ZIP (see earlier review), FLAME.ZIP (a patch to replace the rocket launcher with a flame thrower), and DRILL.ZIP (replaces the chainsaw with a drill!), though I did not try these. These make the ZIP much larger than necessary - personally I would prefer levels and patches that are not directly related to be separate, to save those people on slow connections hassle.
An interesting level, but a big download.
This level is crazy. The author has got completely carried away with his rooms full of ammo and rooms full of monsters. The level is extremely slow, so people without Pentiums shouldn't even consider getting this file (then again, by the time you read this review you wouldn't anyway).
The first part of the level consists of finding a new room, setting yourself at an angle to the door, and holding down fire with the machine gun until the room is cleared. This is just tedious, and the side areas full of monsters just make the area near unbearably slow.
The level has bugs, most notably that saving is impossible. I gave up when I died a bit further on, but from looking in WinDEU I can say that the later areas are equally silly. The architecture is nothing special. Little care has been taken, The fights are long and tedious.
Don't waste time on this one.
1JUMP4IT is a small level intended for deathmatch. The level consists of a large brown courtyard, overlooked by raised walkways around it, and a second courtyard, with high stone walls with a few windows looking into it. They are joined by some brown corridors.
The level is simple is design, with no real interesting features. The textures have been aligned above and below windows. There were only minor problems, like ceilings either side of doors being poorly chosen.
There are only a few imps for opposition. The different skill levels just give different weapons. I completed it in a few minutes, and I explored the whole level.
A deathmatch only PWAD.
1KILL is a replacement for the entire Shores of Hell episode. It is a mix of styles taken from the original doom levels. Note that some of the levels require the 4th sky texture, so will only work under Ultimate Doom.
The early levels are in the Shores of Hell style. The architecture was varied. Some rooms were bare of decoration, others looked more like the original Shores of Hell. There were no major problems, only a few minor texture problems - tutti fruiti, and texture misalignments.
The early levels are no walkover, but they aren't really hard either. I played through the first few levels saving and restoring fairly few times. There is a good supply of ammo and health, and there is usually plenty of space to deal with then opposition.
At the start of the second level, there is a large area which is completely dark. There were plenty of opposition, but at maximum gamma correction I could just make out enough to shoot by. A little more light would have been appreciated here.
The later levels go more to the Ultimate Doom style, with marble and wooden rooms with rusted metal supports and cages. The levels become considerably harder; the last 3 levels are a real challenge, with lots of barons and cacodemons. There remains plenty of ammo and enough health.
The architecture improves too, with some good rooms at the later levels, though there are still some defects. There are plenty of secrets and traps.
E1M6 is really tough in places, and E1M7 is a really challenging level from start to finish - every area is full of traps, and the level is packed with monsters. However, E1M6 is slow, and E1M7 is very slow. Neither REJECT was built, and E1M7 could really do with it. Anyone with a computer more than a few years old should at least build the REJECT for E1M7. It is a very long, challenging level, and the moving-through-treacle effect won't help you much.
E1M8 is a real battling finale. There are 2 cyberdemons and a spiderdemon - only 1 cyberdemon needs killing, but that won't be very easy. At least plenty of goodies are provided to give you a chance.
A good episode, but with poor early and slow later levels.
This level is similar in style to E2M6. Despite being only medium sized, the fact that the whole level fans out from the start room with almost every sector in the level visible (at some point) from the start room, means that this level is rather slow.
The first room looks out over an outdoor area with lots of imps and cacos. I started at UV, let the imps and cacos fight, then cleaned up the cacos. I proceeded to the next area, but soon ran out of ammo. So I tried again, at Hurt Me Plenty, and the same thing happened.
To complete the level, you have to be careful with ammo in the early stages. I was able to complete the level safely at Hurt Me Plenty by being careful with ammo at the start. UV would be harder; TCOUNT reported an ammo ratio of about 1.4 (1.4 times as much ammo as needed if you were perfectly accurate), which is well below the average 1.76 of the originals.
The level looks good, with good rooms and attention to detail. I looked at the ceilings of doors - they were OK. I looked at doortracks - they were OK. My only complaint is that in the 3rd room the walls either side of the steps each go to a point - so looking point on they look unfeasibly thin. But overall, this PWAD had the fewest defects of any I had seen so far.
The play consists of triggering keycard switches, to enter new areas and find more keycards. There are no traps as such, but some of the things you have to do are nearly as bad. You can nearly always find somewhere reasonably safe to take cover though.
A PWAD to download.
In the TXT file with this PWAD, the author says "My 5 first levels. I have made better wads since, believe me. These aren't supposed to be challenging or anything, just interesting. Any beginners should look at these. They are exactly NOT what good levels are."
E1M1 is a clone of the original E1M4, but much smaller. There is a baron, so it is harded, but it is also tackier, with unmarked secret doors which you must find to do the level, and sometimes strange textures.
E1M2 is a Knee-Deep style level. I suspect these are not in the order that they were written, since this is better than the others. There are some nice features taken from the original Doom 1 levels (e.g the long rooms with circular blue flashing ceiling lights from E2M2). But there is not a lot of new ideas, and some of the textures are poorly chosen (especially the odd doortrack).
E1M3 is very messy, with the main corridor having lots of different panels of different textures, several of which turn out to be keycard doors in disguise. I was a little low on health and ammo (admittedly I left a supercharge behind on E1M1 - too arrogant), but there was a plasma rifle so it was fairly straight forward.
E1M4 has 4 cyberdemons, hidden behind shoot-through walls, but you just run past them. There is loads of health, and a couple of easily dealt with barons. The ending relies on a Doom 1 effect, (so if you convert to Doom ][ as I did, you can't complete the level without cheating). The level is very small, with no real interest, though it is less tacky then E1M3. You end by by dying in an acid room (ala E1M8 of the original Doom).
E1M5 has a spiderdemon to fight for real, but 2 barons can be made to do much of the work for you. There are serious tutti-fruiti errors, and a terrible choice of ceiling on the first door. The main courtyard is quite stylish, but spoilt by the glaring misplaced textures and tutti-fruiti.
E1M2 is not bad; with refinement, and separated from these other levels, it could be worthwhile. The author says the levels are small, so there is no excuse not to download, however bad they are. I say, all but E1M2 are junk, and E1M2 is just a collection of ideas from iD's levels, so play the originals unless you really want a new level in the old style.