RED is a very good single-player level for DOOM I. Its strong points are a nice, stylish design, a huge amount of stuff to discover and, above all, excellent playability. It doesn't have any extras like new graphics, new sounds or new weapons: it just puts to good use the classical DOOM ingredients, and what sets it apart from the others is that the author gets the balance exactly right.
The areas have a pleasing, self-consistent design. The action develops both outside and inside the complex. Ammonition is not scarce, although you may sometimes have to go back to get some.
The playing area is enormous. I played RED for almost an hour, without ever restarting or reloading, and I finished with only 28% secrets. I'm sure this would also be a good WAD for cooperative discovery.
There is a maze, and it's just the right size (i.e. fairly small): you get lost, by moments, but you find the end before you get bored.
The essential shotgun is easy to find (just shoot a sergeant, of course) but the other weapons are hidden. It took me ages, after collecting boxes and boxes of rockets, to find the rocket launcher; and I still haven't discovered the location of the chaingun. I'm sure that there is one somewhere, because all those green 50-bullet boxes can't be there just for the pistol...
The best thing about this WAD is, I think, the careful dosing of enemies. Too often a WAD becomes boring because it's too difficult to be done without saving or cheating. This one, instead, gives you plenty of opportunity for exploration but in a friendly (if you can say so of a DOOM WAD) episode-1 style of fight. When I did the one hour run-through I did save during play, but I was never forced to reload (except for two deadly traps, but I had discovered these during my initial visits so I avoided them).
I'm not at all dismissing it as a trivial WAD: there are some challenging situations where you'll have to fight hard to survive, like a small room with three barons (luckily they come out one at a time) or a cage full of pinkies where you must absolutely avoid being surrounded.
In summary it's well designed, well tuned, and huge. You get to what you think is going to be the end, and still you've got a lot more to explore. It's been four months in the making, or so the .TXT says, and it shows. Get this level, you won't be disappointed.
Title : Red Rock
Filename : red.WAD
Author : Jan Hladik
Email Address : [email protected]
Misc. Author Info :
Description : Far out in the uncharted backwaters of deimos lies
an old unregarded factory. It was built in a
time when people thought that there was
something in these red rocks that was worth
building a mine for. Soon it was abandoned
and only used to store waste in. When the
monsters attacked the bases, this one was
none of those that were hard to take, for it
was only manned with few workers - - - On
your way back to earth you just get past
this mine and notice that the noises that
come from the inside sound quite common. And
you know that no single one of these
creatures may survive. So you enter.
I tried to make special rooms like a machine room, living rooms for the crew,
a bar, a conference room and so on. Hope you can recognize them (and also hope
you can't recognize the traps before you're inside!).
Additional Credits to : the usual ones - ID and Raphael Quinet
================================================================
* Play Information *
Episode and Level # : E3M1
Single Player : Yes
Cooperative 2-4 Player : Yes
Deathmatch 2-4 Player : Yes
Difficulty Settings : Not implemented
New Sounds : No
New Graphics : No
New Music : No
Demos Replaced : None - I won't show the secrets in a demo!
* Construction *
Base : New level from scratch
Construction time : About 4 Months - All this work concentrated in
1 level!
Editor(s) used : Deu 5.2
Known Bugs : None - I got a lot of HOMs working with DEU (dunno if
it's a bug of DEU or if DOOM really can't work with
such a room), and so I had to take out some of my
ideas again.
* Copyright / Permissions *
Authors MAY use this level as a base to build additional
levels.
You may distribute this file in any electronic format (BBS,
Diskette, CD, etc) as long as you include this file intact.
* Where to get this WAD *
Try
ftp://ftp.cdrom.com/pub/doom/wads/newwads/red.zip
or a similar place on a mirror near you.
May be moved to
ftp://ftp.cdrom.com/pub/doom/wads/p-r/red.zip
in the distant future.
BBS numbers:
Other: