It takes a lot in this day and age
for a DM level to distinguish itself from the rest in terms of gameplay and
looks. "Outpost" does distinguish itself from the huge amount of
DooM II DM levels out there, however not from being spectacular in quality.
The biggest flaw in this level is
probably the boring design. The level is built up by four square rooms which
is connected to each other with long hallways. The level only consists of
90ยบ corners and straight lines. This doesn't necessarily make a bad level,
only its damn hard to make it look interesting especially when its totally
stripped of detail and lighting/shading. There's a reason why the size of
the wad file is a poor 14kbs. There just isn't any thing interesting at all
about the looks of this level. This is also strongly resembled by the choice
of textures namely various gray cement walls and flats, which gives the
players a headache after only 5 minutes of playing. It should have been a
piece of cake to align textures in this small and simple level, yet somehow
that one slipped through the author's fingers too.
Gameplay? Well, a bloodbath is
guaranteed if you're more than two players. Two things of major influence to
the bloody gameplay: Weaponry and items: A plasma rifle, shotgun, chain gun
and rocket launcher neatly placed in each corner-room combined with a
spawn-spot right next to them gives "Outpost" an easy level of
difficulty: You re-spawn, pick up a weapon and starts the killing spree all
within a few seconds. The only challenging thing in this level, is the big
windows which makes shooting from room to room and hitting an opponent very
easy. Its "irritating" when you're running around one room and get
blasted to bits by a lucky shot fired from the other end of the level, which
is the only good thing about the gameplay really. And you can forget about
potions, medi-kits, armor etc. because it isn't there..
