Review by Colin Phipps

This set of six levels continues the Demonfear series. The first 5 levels of DFear3 were in the city style of mid-Doom 2; DFear4 is in the Inferno style, following on from the last two levels of DFear3. The levels are definitely a mixed bunch, so I'll go straight to my comments on each level in turn:

The Lesser Temple - It seems to be easy to make level that look good with marble textures; a temple with water and a bridge at its heart might sound weird, but it looks ok. Just some chaingunners and an archville for tough opposition, nothing too testing. There are no traps, but a useful secret.

Chamber of Horrors - The description in the text file applies well for this one - "some sort of sick Trophy Room" - it's a hellish level with lots of gory decorations, and skin and rusty metal walls. The use of decorations and other features makes this a good looking level. The level threatens a lot to start with, as quite a few monsters hear you at the start. Not many actually attack though; most of the serious enemies are trapped in an area further on, easily shot through the windows and bars. I completed the level almost uninjured, so the presence of two green armour vests seemed excessive.

The Infernal Gardens - This level recaptured what I thought was the best part of the early DFEAR levels - a great opening fight. You start in the gardens, with quite a few chaingunners and shotgun men shooting at you, and some cacodemons floating around too. There's nothing like seeing my health at 12% to let me know I'm enjoying a level :-). However, the gameplay after that was nothing like as good; you release a couple of archvilles, with only a couple of awkward pillars for cover; I found this fight fiddly and died several times. You then enter the base itself, which is tiny and empty. Finally you open the exit room, which has 3 barons and 2 hell knights to grind down. The architecture is pretty good, nice and hellish; I particularly liked the scaffold.

Flood of Fire - This level is very unusual, because it takes place in a small set of buildings where the streets have been flooded with lava. Several of the buildings are completely flooded, while others are like islands. It's a very clever idea, and very nicely implemented in the level. There are a few skulls that attack across the lava at the start, but they didn't seem to be able to reach me, so I dealt with them easily. After that I just had to run between buildings, killing the few sergeants and chaingunners hiding in the buildings.

The Greater Temple - This level certainly stands out from the other levels here. It's larger, although only average by normal standards. The gameplay is more sustained too, with a more normal series of rooms to fight, and some traps too. It's a tricky level, with lots of revenants, chaingunners, and barons, and a couple of well placed archvilles. The marble and wood architecture is pretty good too.

I thought the flooded town was particularly clever, but the enemies at that level were so weak that it wasn't so interesting to play. The other levels are interesting, though only the final one really shone I thought.