Doom Master Levels: Tim Willits

 Back in the 90s, development companies thought it would be cool if you could make your own levels for games and do (more or less) whatever you wanted with them. This meant that you could go to your local computer store/computer section of a game/electronics store (back when those were a thing) and buy disks full of levels for your favorite game(s). (The internet was uncommon/slow/unreliable back then). The quality was generally iffy, and companies gave them various levels of support. If you were good enough, you might get an official publishing deal (like Counterstrike or Team Fortress for Half Life), most were mediocre and largely ignored, and a few were so bad that they got sued (Starcraft: Stellar Forces).

One of those middling sets was the D!ZONE series, which contained Doom levels. iD decided they might as well get a cut of that sweet random level cash, and released The Master Levels in 1995. 

It consists of two products. The eponymous Master Levels, a set of 21 levels from well known level makers (most of which would go on to work at iD or other companies professionally) and MAXIMUM DOOM a set of 4000ish semi-random levels that iD grabbed from online.

I'm going to charge through all the Master Levels (mostly from pistol-start) and clump them by designer. A few are actually made from larger collections, so I might go and play those as a chunk. 

Off the cuff, I think there's something cool about just grabbing a bunch of independent levels and blasting through them. It's one of the coolest things about Doom, and takes me back to playing whatever the latest level my dad grabbed (probably what someone from work recommended) on the weekends as a kid.

The "official" order is just alphabetical, which means that Tim Willits's two levels are actually 1 and 2.

Attack: 4/5 This is a simple, but fun, "Episode 1 w/ Doom 2" style level. Not a lot going on here, but it's all well enough executred.

Canyon: 2/5 It works, but it felt like a slog. No real theming or anything interesting. Just a bunch of monsters w/ approximately appropriate amounts of power ups to fight them. One or two "gotcha" rooms make it harder than Attack, but not terribly interesting.

Both of these levels use a night skybox that's new, which is fun, always nice to see a little new theming. 

Jaws!

 Is Jaws the only movie that's generally agreed to be better than the book? I haven't read the book in years, but the movie is definitely more respected. Phone posting with bad Internet.

Marble Hornets

 I've been wanting to write this entry for weeks, and I just haven't been able to figure out how to do it. Something I've talked about a few times on the other blog is what I'm going to pretentiously call "signpost media", the books, movies, whatever that shape our tastes in a big way. Maybe you're a gamer because of Wii Sports or an anime fan because of Gundam, or a metalhead because of Lordi. They're not just texts you like, but ones that turn you on to new mediums, genres, etc. (and that you'll always compare every other example of to). Not just those show that you loved or obsessed over. They fundamentally change who you are, if not as a person, at least as a consumer of entertainment. For me, Marble Hornets is one of those series. A gateway to the wider world of found footage, ARGs, and "puzzle box" series. I figured out my path for discovering it the other day Marble Hornets< Yugioh Abridged's "Concrete Giraffes" video< Gamefaqs' Starfox 64 forum.

Technically, it's not a "classic" by this blog's standards (at a mere 16 years old) but I feel like it's pretty safe to say that it'll still be something in 4 years, and they just dropped a spinoff, so I'm gonna go for it. I did a rewatch (like I do most years) this month (and my wife's first run through) after we were in the car talking about Lost and how a lot of people lost interest as they explained more of the mystery. Marble Hornets for better or worse, never got around to explaining what The Operator/Slenderman really was (and probably never will), what the ARK was (this will probably get explained with the comics), and a bunch of other little things. I figured I'd do my usual and do a post for each season, but whenever I sat down to write it was just too much. Rambly, disjointed, nostalgic. I could probably go on about season one for more words than I usually put in this blog for a week. 

Also, I really should get this blog back onto the whole classic lit thing. I don't really want to start a third blog, but I also want somewhere to talk about Marble Hornets and Doom and whatever else that isn't in these two.

I dunno, just go watch the first season. It's an hour and a half and it's so good.

And then, if you liked it, go watch the first episode of the new series. And then I guess go watch all the stuff in between so you can catch all the SICK DEEP CUTS.

Buttholes of Doom

Doom has a lot of buttholes for not a porn game.

All sprites from spritedatabase.net

Apparently both the Cacodemon and Pain Elemental use them to fly.

You say shadow, I say butthole on the dead imp.

Several of the monsters also have excellent cheeks

Doom 2: Back into Hell

Plus side, Covid gives me lots of time to play Doom. Minus, not the best posts. I was not having fun on some of these.

Nirvana: This is the point where Doom 2 level design gives up on coherent architecture and just teleports you everywhere.

The Catacombs: Two of the secrets are different ways of getting to the same room. Made of slime and chaingunners. Feels like a troll level.

Barrels O' Fun: My love of Petersen's gimmick levels is well established, but this one is fussy. If the barrels don't go off right, it turns into a pain. Further exacerbated by the fact that the map is mostly connected by teleporters, rather than paths. Run through a teleporter, and don't have the barrels go off right? Enjoy that Hell Knight coming through later. iD is really getting into the Pain Elementals at this point, and I'm not loving it. It basically just means pray and spray with the plasma rifle. I'm rarely short on the ammo, but it's annoying-stressful, not challenge-stressful.

The Chasm: Sandy Petersen does John Romero. Does a pretty good job.

Bloodfalls: Has an empty secret on the higher difficulties. You couldn't have given me a small plasma pack or something if the BFG was too much.

The Abandoned Mines: John Romero does John Romero. Also does a pretty good job.

Monster Condo: Has an actual art portrait on one of the walls. Neat. It's based on a texture from another game that's based on an ancient Greek carving. I think it looks like Ben Franklin. Teleporting you into the same room, but with monsters, is a choice, but I like that you get an automap first and can see the identical room. Has the only 30 second secret (like the ones in Sigil 2) in regular Doom/Doom 2.

The Spirit World: This is an underrated level. Not flashy, but just well put together.  Challenging, but not in a cheap way, multiple good uses of fake walls. Using Spectres in one of them is a neat touch.

The Living End: This is almost the same structure (going around the outside and teleport to the middle) iD would use for the Quake final boss. I remember my Dad's game used to crash on this level when we played coop.

The Icon of Sin: The first of iD's puzzle boss endings. I don't know how many times my dad and I tried to beat this thing as a kid. It's a pretty lame ending (it's like a primitive QTE) for Doom and doesn't fit at all. It looks cool as hell though.

I took a bunch of screenshots that I might come back and add? It's a pain in the butt. Doom 2 is definitely a worse level set than Doom 1, but it did give map makers a lot of fun toys to play with. I don't know that we'd still be killing the Doom 1 monsters 30 years later without the added variety from 2.

Doom 2: Gentrification

 At this point, any attempt at theming the maps in Doom 2 pretty much falls apart. Maps 16 and 17 ("Suburbs" and "Tenements" NO THE!) round out the ones with cityish names.

Suburbs is the winner for getting the closest to looking like actual buildings Petersen claims two of the buildings are  based on his and a family member's house. One has something recognizable as a garage, and another has a sweet library with a shoot-the-switches puzzle. Hope none of the books in there are worth anything. Unfortunately, it's also the start of a trend of iD seemingly running out of ideas and starting just drop giant teleports of monsters around levels. Grab the key, kill the couple dozen goons that teleport in, repeat, will become a major part of the last half of the game. Traps like this go all the way back to Episode 1, but the frequency really increases, while the creativity drops, in the upcoming levels.

Tenements is a functional, if forgettable Romero level. Slime everywhere, horde of Cacodemons, and some awkward platforming around both of them.

The Citadel's one distinguishing detail is inner teleporter room that mirrors the level's shape, and has the teleporters sort of match the quadrants they're in. 

Gotcha rounds out this section. It opens with a somewhat promising gimmick (Cyberdemon vs Spider Mastermind fight) but feels kind of empty and under developed after that. 

I've commented before how impressive it is that iD was able to turn Doom 2 around 10 months after the release of the first game. New gun, several new monsters, 32 new levels. It's starting to feel like a lot of these levels were last minute crunch, first pass, etc. Glancing ahead at the levels I have left, I don't think I even remember half of them, despite the fact that I beat them dozens of times over the years. 

Doom 2: Wolfenstein

 Doom 2 has two secret levels (technically one secret and one "super" secret) both based on iD's previous game Wolfenstein 3D. One would be a cool idea, two feels a little uncreative. The fact that they're hidden in the basement of a castle has lead some people to speculate that this is literally Castle Wolfenstein. That would mean either Doomguy is German (semi-impossible) or that a chunk of Germany of Helleported to America, which makes slightly more sense.

Given the Nazis, these levels have gotten censored or removed in various ways across ports over the years. The current one is replacing all the swastikas with a triangle and removing Hitler's mustache. Can't have kids killing Nazis...

Beyond that, I like that they crammed some demon and space marine corpses in the cells. The idea that this could actually be a castle in (still Nazi? Revived Nazi?) Germany that's holding out the demons and experimenting on them is a cool idea. 

Besides Nazis, you get to shoot some Pinkies, I guess the Nazis are experimenting on them. They're pretty dumb, seems plausible.

The second level is straightforward (SS mob+Cyberdemon boss fight) until the end, when John Romero decided you needed to murder a bunch of Commander Keens from one of iD's other games. Lots of bonus items though.

Still sick. :(

Doom 2 "Livin' In The City..."

Covid :( so this is going to be kind of half assed tonight, with an update later. The middle section of Doom 2 is set of "city" levels, that generally aren't very popular. I'm usually all over Sandy Petersen's levels, but they should've let Romero (with his E1 experience take the load here).

The Factory: Things that are not common in factories: Hard wood floors, hell portals, random pillars.

Downtown: Alright, this at least kind of gets the skyscraper vibe. Big steel/glass looking buildings, windows for the monsters. Better job, Sandy.

The Inmost Dens: And suddenly, a castle (not surprisingly, by American Mcgee)! This isn't a great level (it has one of the easiest softlocks in Doom), and it looks like it got pulled out of Heretic. Also way too easy for this point in the game. Big level+low monster count= boring.

Industrial Zone: And then Romero takes over and shows them how its done. Definitely the best, and most thematic, of the city set. Big buildings, some of which can pretend they have smoke stacks. And a cool split between the "mundane" and Hell parts make this one fun to play and fit better. And it let's you off into the secret level, which I'll cover tomorrow.

Doom 2 "Episode 2"

 After a slow start, the final two levels of the first segment of Doom 2 pick things up. The start of the next one "Tricks and Traps" adds the BFG to your armory and throws the first Cyberdemon of the game at you. I've mentioned my love of gimmick levels before, and your feelings on them will pretty much dictate your opinion on T&T. It opens in the middle of an octagon, with most of the doors leading to some kind of gimmick (Brons infighting the Cyberdemon, teleporting Imps, vertically challenged Demons, a "bait" sergeant to lure you into a swarm of Cacos, and a close up encounter with a Baron). Each one is relatively easy if you know how to play the gimmick, but overwhelming without. It's very Sandy Petersen. Also the debut of the Pain Elemental. Their only attack is spawning Lost Souls, which is why they stopped counting for kill scores in later patches.

The Pit is also a great level (and has a kind of similar hub and spoke structure, but less contained/puzzly). I think it's the most vertical level in any of iD's Doom sets. Over 205 monsters on Ultra Violence means the Pain Elementals sometimes don't spawn Lost Souls, so that's a plus.

The Refueling Base (I feel like the Episode 1 levels at least sort of looked like their names. Command and Control has lots of computers, Toxin Refinery has a lot of nukeage, etc. The Doom 2 ones feel a lot more tacked on, there's one area with what I guess are fuel tanks, but there's also a warehouse and a creepy demon cave) has the most enemies of any of the iD maps. Its a lot. Ammo is very tight. Pretty good map, would struggle through again.

Circle of Death is a strong contender for my least favorite map in Doom 2. It just feels very busy/clumsy. There's the titular O of Doom in the middle and there's some enemies in it and on it and around it, and they're just all spread out kind of at random in a way that makes them not terribly threatening or fun to fight. You clear it, and you're closing in on half the kill count for the level in a pretty boring way. It's got big ol' John Romero sludge pits everywhere, just to make your life vaguely annoying (but again, not really that dangerous). Then you clear the little fort (with the world's most obvious/pointless secret) and meet the Arch-Vile. New enemy, cool, but not a great intro (needs more room to move around so you can really see what he can do.) A couple ledge runs later and you can clear the very easy red door and grab an invincibility for your requisite John Romero Caco-Swarm (now with Pain Elementals!) it's a lot less scary in Doom 2 than it was in Doom 1. It is the debut of this cool giant skull exit texture at least. (Which apparently is the switch to drop the shield stopping the evacuation of Earth. No one plays these games for the plot.) This brings us to the infamous city levels.

Doom 2 is, in general, more generous with giving you secrets than Doom 1. The different wall textures, etc. are more noticeable, and a lot of them are shootable (allowing you to randomly get them in a firefight). As a trade off, a lot of them are more stingy with loot. Here's your secret, one box of ammo! But there are more of them, so it kind of balances out.

Doom 2 "Episode" 1

Decided to jump right into Doom 2. Released about 10 month after Doom 1 (impressive!) Doom 2 moved from mail order to a regular box release, and has 32 levels. There's a fair number of smallish engine improvements (and some more creative combinations/execution of existing tricks), most of which have filtered into the later Doom 1 level sets that I already played. 

Over time, I think it's become more or less accepted that the Doom 1 levels are generally better than the Doom 2 ones. I forgot how much of a slog a lot of these early levels are, just kind of boring and basic. Even compared to Episode 1, the first five are pretty small (E1M1 is simple, but carefully executed, Level 1 of Doom 2 is just small and awkward). On the other hand, Doom 2 really throws the guns at you, giving you everything up the the plasma gun by the end of level five (first appearance E2M1, the 10th level, in original Doom). The first level gives you three weapons (shotgun, but not much ammo, chainsaw, and the ROCKET LAUNCHER!) and the second adds the Super Shotgun.

Ironically, it's not actually that great in these early levels. Against a crowd of sergeants (the biggest threat at this point in the game) it's possible to line up a great SSG shot and get all of them, but you'll often leave one or more. The shotgun will usually clear the group in two shots, but a much shorter reload, leaving you less open to retaliation.

Level three (The Ga(u)ntlet, most Doom 2 levels are THE something) adds the chaingunner, the first new enemy. They're tougher than shotgunners, and can deal more damage if they zero in, but don't have the burst or sniping potential. It does have a great hidden spectre in a dark pit. They're much more invisible in darker areas, and Doom 2 takes advantage of this more than Doom 1.

Level four has a light switch. That's about the most exciting thing I can say about the level.

Hell Knights (Barons with half health and less color) debut in level five. It also has the most annoying jump in all of the iD levels to get to a secret with a couple ammo boxes.

The Crusher (level 6) is the first "good" level in Doom 2 (it starts a pretty solid run of about a half dozen, mostly designed by my favorite Sandy Petersen). If you're on a high enough difficulty, your first shot will trigger the alert sound for a Spider Mastermind, the final boss of the original Doom. It's in the next room over, and not really a threat, but playing a final boss sound effect on level 6 is a fun choice. In the end, it's easily killed by the gimmick (a switch operated crushing ceiling, hence the name), but still cool. It does run a little long, with the crusher being in the second room, which you'll clear about a third of the way through the overall level. It also introduces the one new power up for Doom 2, the Megasphere. It maxes out your health and armor, and mostly just saves designers from having to stack a Berserk, Soulsphere, and Combat Armor next to each other. 

Dead Simple is the first "boss" level, and opens with a text screen similar to the end of the episodes of Doom 1, which explains that you've fought your way to the middle of a space port. If you can disable the defenses, humanity will be able to evacuate the Hell-occupied Earth. Also, a backpack stacked on top of other ammo pick ups to make it REALLY full of ammo. The square "layered arena" (with multiple gangs of mid level monsters in each) will become one of the basic Doom level templates. It adds the Mancubus (XL demon w/ flamethrowers) and Arachnotron (XS Spider Demon w/ plasma gun) to the bestiary.

 I'm going to wrap this up with a quick look at the changes to the bestiary and armory between Doom and Doom 2.

Doom 1's armory:

1 (Berserk)Fist/Chainsaw: Generic crappy melee weapon, better (but still situational at best) fast melee weapon, and gimmicky power up weapon.

2 Pistol: As crappy as you can get and still technically be a gun.

3 Shotgun: All around workhorse. Good power, but slowish reload

4 Chaingun: High DPS, not a lot of ammo. Great for cutting through a horde of weak monsters or locking down a small number of middish ones.

5 Rocket Launcher: Heavy splash damage

6 Plasma Gun: It's a better chaingun.

7 BFG: Slightly gimmicky ultimate weapon, almost a screen clear when used correctly.

Doom 1's bestiary:

Left-right, slight threat increase

New row, larger increase

Pistol Zombie(as weak as you can get and still be an enemy)

Imp, Shotgun Zombie (that hitscan burst is way better than a slow fireball, but slightly weaker and won't attack as fast in melee)

Demons, Spectres, Lost Souls (weaker, but makes up for it with mobility)

Cacodemon

Baron of Hell

(This space left blank)

Spider-Mastermind, Cyberdemon

Doom 2's Armory:

Only adds one weapon (the Super Shot Gun) but I'd rate it above the rocket launcher (similar damage, but no danger of blowing yourself up and more likely to flinch, but slower/less accurate) and slightly below the Plasma Gun (worse accuracy and lower DPS).

It also does ~3 shells worth of damage for the price of 2, improving your ammo efficiency considerably. The regular shotgun does still have some use: a higher rate of fire is useful for modest sizes groups of weak enemies and a tighter long range spread. Overall the SSG is good against mid tier enemies and very tight groups of weak ones. It's perfect for knocking out Demons (who want to clump up, and can reliably be one shotted, compared to two to three shots from the basic shotty).

There's also a lot more bullets in Doom 2 (partially from more plentiful ammo in general, partially since the chaingunners drop 10 rounds per kill) which makes the chaingun more reliable for situation uses against Cacodemons and other weak-but-spongy enemies. Therefore the new bestiary looks more like

Doom 2's Bestiary:

Pistol Zombie

Imp, Demon, Spectre, Lost Soul (the SSG really put in work here), Nazi, Chaingun Zombie (tougher than shotgunners but too slow/inaccurate to be that dangerous) Shotgun Zombie 

Hell Knight (hits hard, but only two or three SSG blasts to drop), Cacodemon (effectively dropping a threat level due to better chaingun access), Revenant, Arachnotron, Pain Elemental, Mancubus (not much tougher than other enemies in this tier, but hits a lot harder)

(This space no longer left blank due to the filled out middle ranks and more plasma to go around) Spider-Mastermind, Arch-vile (much squishier, but more deadly and with a pain in the but special ability and quicker), Cyberdemon

Basically, iD had to really fill in those middle ranks to give you something to hit with all those SSG pellets, and the existing middle ranks became a lot more manageable. It's amazing how much one gun (and a bit more ammo) changes the whole combat balance of the game.

More Doom tomorrow! (Probably)

Sigil 2

 Rounding out the Doom 1 level packs is John Romero's Sigil 2. I want to lead off with a note that also applies to the first Sigil: while Episode 4 sometimes felt like Doom 2 levels badly smashed into Doom 1, the Sigils manage to feel like they take elements from Quake (iD's next FPS) and get it into Doom. The best example is probably the use of narrow crushers as "spikes." Overall, I think Romero does an impressive job of backporting these elements, since they (mostly) feel like they fit, compared to the very cludgy Episode 4.

I might have to fire up Sigil 2 again on the PC so I can try it in another port. There were a lot of places with minor clipping issues, etc. My understanding is that the port used for the Switch version is pretty faithful, and I wonder if a more flexible one like GZDoom might have fewer issues.

Like I said in my Sigil review, a lot of the gimmicks are pushing to the point of tedium here (although it doesn't help that I played both packs back to back). The shooty switches hidden in alcoves got kind of old, and every level really doesn't need a Cyberdemon (or 3, which is more than the combined total of the original 3 Doom episodes, and more than half the total of the 32 level Doom 2), etc.

I did like the middle part of the episode, when Romero goes back to his techbase levels. He'll always be best remembered for Knee Deep In The Dead and it was cool to see him go back to this style (but harder, longer, more advanced, etc.) He's much better at doing secrets in other secrets than he was in 1993.

All in all, I think Sigil 2 was slightly less creative than Sigil 1, but I enjoyed it more. If you took the best 9 levels across the two packs, I think it'd come in ahead of any of the original 3 episodes. As its own thing, it's probably above 1 and 4, but below 2 and 3.

After sort of beating around the bush, I can finally move onto Doom 2 now. Officially, it's one 32 episode sprint, as opposed to the 9 episode chunks of Doom 1. Unofficially, it's broken into ~10 level chunks, with text screens similar to the end of episodes. I could go either way, we'll see.

Resolution Check In

 One thing I miss about last year's format was the easy opportunities to drop little reflections about the blog/process. They were explicitly built into the weekly updates (until I dropped those) and the commentary process also let them slip in sometimes. So, I established 3 resolutions this year:

1. Get my Chess ranking up. This one's gone nowhere fast.

2. Get back into exercise. This one has gone pretty well. I started the year working more on the Chess stuff and kind of slacking here, but this is the one I stuck with better the last couple months and have seen some results. This is mostly thanks to my wife picking up a fitness game for the Switch. The hardest part of working out (for me) is actually finding a good set of workouts to do daily without a ton of equipment. I have a Switch, and the game's got a couple dozen workouts, so that's pretty good. We even took it on vacation. After a couple nights on a rough hotel bed, I really appreciated having a nice long stretch routine. At first, I thought it was kind of cheaping out vs doing regular exercise, but the stretches were just what I needed.

3. I still kept the blog (I guess that wasn't official)

4. I thought I did a resolution related to memorization, but I guess that came later. I still have two things more or less memorized, but I'd like to pick it back up.

I really underestimated how good the format was last year for daily blogging/resolution. I got to say I'd do it every day, and it was a reasonable commitment, but it was also easy to front load if I knew I was going to be away. I think I said this before, but I'll probably try to do something more similar next year.

The Sublime

 I'll post this as a proper entry tomorrow (or later today. TIMEZONES!) but I wanted to quickly jot some thoughts down.

I've read a couple essays on the sublime for this blog, and I didn't really care for them. One of the most popular examples is the ocean. It's big. Crazy big. Big enough to swallow up everybody and not even notice big.

We're on a cruise this week (part of the reason for kind of half assed posting). So, tonight, when I went out to get a little exercise, I decided to stop at a low section of rail and just look at the ocean for a while. The path of the moon reflected in the water is cool. Like you could just step off and walk on it and wind up on the moon eventually. I should've taken a picture. (Maybe tomorrow before I post this). And that's when it hit me. A clenching feeling in my chest and a drop in my stomach. Which, I guess, is like the smallest possible version of the sublime.

I walked down ten decks or so, trying to find the lowest open spot of deck I could and looked out again. The feeling was stronger this time, enough that part of me wanted to look away. But I decided to stand there and just look around the ocean and the horizon and count for a minute or so. The feeling didn't get worse, but it kind of spread out through my whole body. I'm sure being tired helped, which is not conducive to writing a good blog.

I headed back inside, to the 1000% bright all on all the time bar/mall part of the ship, and that was kind of surreal too.

Inside, giant ship with thousands of people and lights. Outside, much more giant ocean that's just dark. You could bundle up all the lights on the ship, drop them down, and it's like they wouldn't even be there.

Confessions of an American Paperback Eater

 Wandered through a used book store on our cruise today, and look what I found:

I mentioned wanting to do some version comparison, so I'll use this for at least part of it. Might read from it some, not super thrilled with the version I have. I like doing the public domain stuff so I can post the whole doc, but it's not always easy to get good editions.

Opium Eater Prelimary Confessions 2

 We're into full narrative now, though a bit harder to follow. De Quincey's stomach-ache strikes for the first time, and he makes friend with an orphan girl. He takes wine for the stomach-ache this time, not opium, yet.

Opium Eater: Preliminary Confessions 1

 This is a pretty long chapter, so here's a couple initial notes. Just kind of taking it casually.

We start with how he becomes an opium eater. He initially used it recreationally, but was "protected" from addiction by the fact that if he took it too often it wouldn't be as enjoyable anymore. He gets addicted due to needing it for stomach pain. So, you know same as a lot of people today. 

He blocks out a bunch of people's names (as well as places.) I get the names and a few of the places (like if you need to block out the headmaster, you should probably block out the name of the town/school as well), but it gets excessive in some places. I want to see if other editions are like this. Either way, I assume someone has filled them in.

 For the last year and a half this room had been my “pensive citadel”: here I had read and studied through all the hours of night, and though true it was that for the latter part of this time I, who was framed for love and gentle affections, had lost my gaiety and happiness during the strife and fever of contention with my guardian, yet, on the other hand, as a boy so passionately fond of books, and dedicated to intellectual pursuits, I could not fail to have enjoyed many happy hours in the midst of general dejection. 

This is pretty much how I felt about undergrad.

He tries to run away with a trunk with his whole library, which is funny.

He puts a random couplet in the middle of a paragraph, which is such an opium-philosopher-writer thing to do. 

 

Franklin Grave

 Traveling with questionable Internet and phone posting. Here's Ben Franklin's parent's grave.

ULTIMATE DooM

 Finished Episode 4: "Thy Flesh Consumed" today. It's a pretty popular episode to whine about, but I honestly didn't find it too bad. I'll be the the contrarian and say that I think the perennial favorite first episode, "Knee Deep In The Dead" is the worst. There's only so much you can do when you limit yourself to 2/3 of the arsenal and enemies, and mostly tight indoor industrial maps.

I think my final ranking would be more like 3>2>4>1. In the end, I think the main issue with TFC (with how much it bothers you directly influencing how you'll feel about it) is that it's really a set of 9 Doom II levels crammed into Doom 1. 

There's a certain aesthetic, pacing, etc. baked into Doom 1. It's generally slower than Doom 2. More about getting the right shot in tight quarters than zipping around and whittling down a cadre of tougher monsters. Gimmicks in levels tend to be rarer and less pronounced. The addition of the Super Shotgun, and filling out the ranks of the mid difficulty monsters (combined with generally bigger, more open, maps) really changes how Doom II plays. TFC feels like (and in at least one case is) someone took a bunch of Doom II levels, and then squished them into the constraints of the Doom 1 arsenal and Bestiary. In some cases, that's not bad. You get to telefrag Cyberdemons and get more choices in your path through some of the levels than you would in most of Doom 1. The secrets are generally less wonky (though that one level with 22 secrets, 19 of which are in one room and two of which are broken stands out...) On the other hand, it sometimes means you have to fight 12 Barons of Hell in one level (episodes 2 and 3 have a total of 18 each across all 9 maps). Map 2 would be a lot better if a few of those Barons could be replaced by a Revenant or Mancubus. 

The difficulty is something everyone harps on, particularly in the first two maps. Map one is hard, but it doesn't feel super unfair. It's just tight on the pickups. Map two does feel more like a late episode map (and the difficulty dips back down after it) but it's not as bad as people make it out to be. I beat it from a pistol start (map one is so rough you might be in worse than pistol start shape anyway) with a reasonable amount of retries. All in all it's not the best episode, but it's not unplayably bad like its sometimes made out to be. Definitely worth taking a stab at if you're blasting through the classic Dooms.

Classic Car Cruise

 I volunteered to help out at a classic car show a half hourish away today. Not a big car guy, but I'm trying to volunteer a bit more and one of my friends was working so I went with him. Not a ton of excitement, I mostly helped park Jeeps. One of the older guys working was teasing me about being "a typical kid on my phone" (I'm in my 30s, but sure). I told him he was a typical old man on a golf cart.

Halushki and Kielbasa for lunch. We were very much in Slavic mode today.

A year or two early, but that's almost the Sam and Max DeSoto

Meep meep

You should all go volunteer. It's good for you, and for your community.

Doom Episode 3: Inferno

Finished up the original Doom level set tonight. I talked up episode 2 quite a bit in my last post, but 3 is a lot better than I remembered. It's probably my favorite of the classic 3. The aesthetic is a little more Hell focused, but still interesting. The fights mostly feel fair, and even when Id just throws 40 odd demons at you it stays fun (a bit issue with a lot of later level sets). Ammo scarcity felt about right, I was consistently relying on my shotgun where I'd have preferred to use something else, but I had just enough rockets/plasma when things go rough. Bullets were really tight, and I never felt like I had enough. I could've been a little more spendy with plasma. Rockets turned into my "back up" ammo at a few spots, which kind of screwed me when I had none to hit the secret exit (first rocket jump in an Id game! They'll be a way bigger deal in Quake.) Fortunately, the ol' push the switch from the other side of the wall trick worked. Good secret level. It's basically the first level of the episode with a boss fight in the middle and an extended side section. Hits better playing the whole episode in one evening, so I'm glad I did that.

I talked a little about the Baron corpse on the Cyberdemon level, but I missed out on a similar bit of atmosphere in the form of this texture:

This signals Barons in Episode 2, and will continue to (mostly) do so in episode 3.

Beyond that, not a lot of new content. The Spider Mastermind is the only new monster, a final boss that's slightly less scary than Episode 2's (but with a better level). The BFG9000 is the only new gun. You don't even have one for the Spider Mastermind fight, which feels like kind of a miss. It'll play better in Doom 2.

Beyond that, some new level design tricks (the first wide open levels, some good fake walls, an okay switch-combo puzzle.

I do have a couple quibbles. There's a few spots you're locked out of backtracking. Doom doesn't do this a ton (I think once or twice in Episode 1 and none in Episode 2) so it was a shame to see if here. The levels are also kind of slime heavy. They're pretty good about giving you enough slime suits, but it can be a pain when you're exploring, looking for secrets, etc.

Debating between jumping to Doom 2 next (since it came out first) or sticking it out and finishing Episode 4 (which is a later expansion).

Confessions of an English Opium-Eather by Thomas De Quincey (1821) Part 1: "To The Reader"

 Confessions...

Bonus: 

You're welcome, Macgyver

Summary: "I'm an intellectual. I also ate A LOT of opium."

Commentary: Gonna stumble through this as a daily. Not quite sure how the pacing will work. Shout out to Standard eBooks which is more convenient than Gutenberg for a full length book. Also, I'm not technically violating their license (I'm pretty sure I am when I yoink stuff from PG).

I just like the idea of the writer directly addressing the audience. I've talked a little before about the beginning of The Odyssey beginning with TELL ME O MUSE and my love of rambly blogs attached to webcomics and what not.  I liked having a parasocial with creators before it was cool.

Probably the most noteworthy thing in the intro is his:

apology for breaking through that delicate and honourable reserve which, for the most part, restrains us from the public exposure of our own errors and infirmities. Nothing, indeed, is more revolting to English feelings than the spectacle of a human being obtruding on our notice his moral ulcers or scars, and tearing away that “decent drapery” which time or indulgence to human frailty may have drawn over them

This stiff-upper-lip-stoicism is definitely a running theme in a lot of the stuff I've read the last two years. On the one hand, people whining about their faults is annoying, but there are some problems society has gotten better at dealing with by discussing (like addiction, wow).