The plot and story for Last Day on
Earth is as simple and cliché filled as the one that came along with the
two original id releases and that's ok,
because that's exactly the atmosphere we all like and enjoy so much.
However, that's the only resemblance with Doom [] you'll ever find in these
levels.
11 levels for DooM II, which needs a source port.
There's no obvious reason as to why one has to play the wad with zDooM or
Boom etc. except it helps with the elimination of those few VPO's and
because a small handful of Boom effects is present. It's incredible that
those VPO's even occur, because of the simple layout and design.
10 out of the 11 levels are of a very
poor quality. The one that isn't is map08 by Tomi Rajala, which
distinguishes itself so remarkably from the other levels that it's almost
breathtaking; the minute you enter that map after having played through 7
levels of big under-detailed walls, enormous rooms, irritating mazes, big
staircases, poor lighting and shading and badly aligned textures you feel at
ease finally to be able to enjoy playing through a level. Map08 really puts
the other levels to an immediate and everlasting state of inferiority.
There's just too many bad things in these levels to make it a good gaming
experience; you really have to force yourself to get through them because
this display of old-school editing will never impress anyone in this day and
age. The poor combination of different themes scattered throughout all of
the levels doesn't build up a very appealing atmosphere; one minute you're
battling monsters in a wooden hallway, the next in a bright tech
hallway.
And I'm sorry to say that there isn't
much to save either when it comes to the gameplay. It is a
big mess, and the
player is never really challenged, scared, surprised or amazed at any time,
because it's all been seen and done before. You have your normal quantities
of the less challenging monsters in the beginning of each level and then the
graduate elevation of the challenge factor. Nothing wrong with this, it's
just that this happens in every single level right from the first to the
last only with a minor bigger rise in difficulty in the latter levels.
There's no meaning in presenting the player with a Pain Elemental as early
as in map03. There's other and better ways to make the fights with the
monsters more challenging for the player in the first levels using only the
easier-to-kill monsters.
You might want to wait for the rest of
this megawad to be released before downloading anything, because the skills
of the designers -Mr Rajala excepted- will hopefully have improved by
then.
