Review by Colin Phipps

This is the fourth and final level in the DOA series for Doom 1. Anyone who has played a lot of Doom 1 wads will instantly feel at home in this level, with it's grey stone walls and old Doom 1 items and enemies.

There are a lot of great rooms at this level, nothing overdone or stunning, but well designed and with a good feel. There is lots of detail in the rooms by Doom 1 standards. The corridors and outdoors are less interesting, but the style and atmosphere of the level is good throughout. An excellent new sky is imported too, with distant mountains and sinister grey clouds.

Doom 1 levels usually aren't so hard, but this level is pretty tricky. It is intended to be played straight after the first level of the series (DOA1-1), so if you try playing it from scratch you'll have problems with ammo (around the middle of the level I was out of ammo for a while, had to take quite a few risks). You have to make good use of the weapons that you are given to complete the level.

There are lots of tricks, traps, secrets, and all sorts going on, so watch out. The mix of monsters and monster placement is good too I thought, well planned to give lots of tricky fights, but give the player a chance to get them fighting each other, or leave monsters behind, anything to reduce the odds. The level progresion is challenging but not too difficult, it doesn't take long to find a way forward.

The exit fight is a big battle, hordes of monsters to dodge round and a series of switches to press; it's quite tricky to get in-and-out hitting the switches without getting pinned down by badies.

There is an interesting challenge in the accompanying text file; the author challenges you to complete a UV demo which using a limited amount of health. My demo skills are pretty poor, but I'm sure some of you experts could come up with the goods :-).

Overall, this may not be perfect but it's certainly challenging and requires some thought to complete. Highly recommended for Doom 1 fans like me.

The text file says that there are some problems running this with the original Doom engine, particularly with Doom95, so you are recommended to use a "limitless" port.