Endless Review

ENDLESS Level Review by

Endless is a Singleplayer Level Doom II WAD created by Michael Sparkman, or . He sent it to me and I reviewed it for him.
It replaces level 31, and has an Icon of Sin ending.

First I'll start with the good stuff...

1. This level actually scared me. That is incredible. I have never been scared playing a Doom II level before. It was mostly the four Revenants in the switch area of the crate room making their noises through the walls, I couldn't tell where they were. And some Imps doing similar things.

2. It was, like he said, long. I love long maps, and this one would have been the perfect length, but some things ruined it.

3. Lots and lots of enemies, and not all at once in stupid swarms (Except for the sewer Revenants you evil man). The crate room was very good, with the Imps and lots of Barons of Hell coming in to get me! (Hint: They lost)

4. Very good level design in general, I liked the 2 "hubs", one with the four columns that must be switched off to reach the teleports that lie in their place, and the big open area with the pathways and flashing lights. And Mike also enjoyed playing his key teleports, taunting you with several yellow keys. (And the red one)

5. I liked the Library.

6. Excellent use of releasing monsters into previous areas that you have to go to again. Really excellent!

Now the criticisms. Sorry...

1. You have an unhealthy obsession with Cyberdemons. At most a level of that size deserves around 4-5 instead of over a dozen.

2. The maze could have done with more stuff, i.e. vents with water streaming out and other things, it was rather monotonous.

3. You need more health and ammo. There were several points where I ran out of ammo completely (Once while fighting the second Cyberdemon near the start.) I don't believe there was any bullet ammo boxes in the entire level and there were only four shotgun shell boxes. The Medkits were grouped together in the crate room, Medkits and stimpacks would have been good in the sewer areas.

4. In Pic. 1, you can see an area where Imps came out when the wall lifted up. Unfortunately, the walls were aligned to the ceiling instead of the floor, so it looks like boxes are sprouting out of the ground.

5. Pic. 4 had me fighting a Cyberdemon (almost to death) in a corridor (that didn't look very nice). I ran out of cells and managed to kill it with three rockets. Afterward, I found out that the area at the end was full of ammo, and even Invincibility, I didn't even see them. Perhaps you should make it more obvious for the player.

6. In Pic. 5, some of the raised platforms flickered like the painful, painful ground below. Are they meant to do that? The others don't.

7. Pic. 8 was odd. I think this was Mike's "ghost monster" idea that he had, but I think Doom Legacy stopped it from working. The monsters stayed stuck and kept dying constantly. I also could not for the life of me work out what the hell I was supposed to do in that room. I resorted to pressing open and thumping every side of the pillars, which seemed to work.

8. Pic 8. shows that some parts of the lava crack floor have no teleporter, meaning you are stuck until you die. Good thing I can change the gravity.

9. I couldn't kill the Icon of Sin at the very end. I could tell what I had to do, firing from the distant pillar of flesh didn't work. I jumped into his noggin and it looked like the small opening was barely wide enough to accomadate a missile, which means your sniping with a rocket launcher at a tiny hole while on a rapidly moving pillar with demons shooting at you. No pressure.

10. This level suffers from a case of "Where do I go next?" I spent a lot of my time going around the level trying to find what that switch did, then getting mobbed by Imps in the crate room or something.

11. You should put some radiation protection suits in the sewers and blood sewers. In Pic. 7, I had to fight off four Cyberdemons, and to dodge their missiles I had to jump into the blood and take minor damage. By the time I had killed them, the damage had built up significantly.

12. You used the SS Nazis. That is bad. Evil man, thou shalt not place SS Nazis in a Doom map. You lose a point for that.


I may have written more bad than good, but that doesn't mean that they outweigh the good. On the contrary, I had a lot of fun with this level, and I (hopefully) look forward to playing more from Mike.

Layout - 8/10 (Interesting two main areas)
Monster Placement - 7/10 (Bad Revenant Swarm)
Monster Types - 5/10 (Too many Cyberdemons)
Trap Design - 9/10 (Lots of monster ambush you!)
Item Placement - 4/10 (Could be better, can I have something other than cells and Megaspheres?)
Length - 9/10 (Great length)
Cunningness - 9/10 (Very cunning, key teleports and ambushs galore)
Exit - 3/10 (I'm probably just doing something wrong, but I can't kill the Icon of Sin)

FINAL SCORE
7.5/10
Well done and I hope you continue making cool levels like this in the future!

I recommend that you fix a few things I mentioned and this will be a 9 or 9.5.

(I took off one point because of the SS Nazis, they are a tribute enemy for two levels, not Doom enemies.)

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