Review by Colin Phipps

BABBLEON is a single level designed for the Boom engine. It was made with lots of play modes in mind: co-op and deathmatch are specifically supported. You can play this like a normal level at skills 1-3 - or you can play at skill 4 using the supplied dehacked patch.

Perhaps foolishly, I chose skill 4 of course :-). The dehacked patch mainly changes the speed of your weapons - the chaingun is more like the minigun in Terminator 2, and the shotgun is much faster too. The monsters are made no harder though - playing with this patch is like watching a Bond movie, because all you have to do is point in the general direction of the enemy and fire, and they die in droves. Just to make things cleaner the patch also makes the corpses burn away instead of clutter things up :-).

Why have the patch, you ask, if it makes things so easy? Well, basically because of the half-dozen cyberdemons. These are scattered around the level, and some have to be fought with the new shotgun, because the rocket launcher is only given later on. Even a cyber only lasts 10 seconds against your super weapons, so all you have to do is dodge a few rockets and you're done.

The architecture is OK; the main area is rather plain, especially the BROWNHUG textures which decorate some of the corridors (I hate that texture). The side areas are better, with lots of detail and a few pillars which provide a little cover for enemies from your super weapons.

Basically, though, playing this level with the patch is like playing with IDDQD, because the enemies don't stand a chance. And playing it without the patch is impossible for mere mortals like me, due to the number of cybers and the limited ammo (the patch removes all ammo limits, so there is little ammo at the level). So I can only recommend this level for people who want to try UV without the cheats, i.e real experts. Good luck!