Review by Colin Phipps

Exodus is a single Doom-2-style level. It is a mixture of an industrial base, with drains, computer panels, and metal and cement textures, and also a lot of wood textures, complete wiht bloodstains and gory decorations. So there is a range of styles used, but it seems to hold together in actual play (hey, nobody ever accused the original Doom 2 levels of having very convincing themes). The level excels in detail; there is particularly good attention to lighting, with lots of wall lights, windows and overhead gratings to let light in. Without going over the top, or making anything too complicated, the author has managed to make all of the rooms interesting. Oh, and there is new music too.

The level is quite tough at the start. You have only a shotgun and limited ammo for a very tough first fight, and then there is an archville to be fought with the single shotgun. With that kind of beginning, you could be forgiven for expecting a very tough time. There are a number of secret stashes with extra health and weapons, and you will find it tough if you don't get any of these — but provided you get at least one of the secrets, the rest of the level is not particularly hard. What it does have is some quite nasty in-your-face traps, but the author only uses this occasionally and does not make these too strong, so the gameplay is generally fair and balanced. There are two cyberdemons and a spiderdemon, none of which absolutely must be killed, and all of which can be killed easily enough if you decide to.

Okay, so what are the bad points. The level progression can be complicated, with backtracking and occasionally searching needed to find the way ahead, but it does not take too long to find a new way ahead. Some of the use of decorations can get in the way of the player's movement. There are some visual errors, such as windows around the bend in a corridor from which you can see sky but should be able to see the previous passage you were in. And the level is quite strung out — joined up by corridors and other linking areas I mean — and so there is little connection between areas and the connecting bits are a bit trivial. But this is all very minor stuff.

Overall, this is a fun half an hour. Perhaps the balance between the first few fights and the later ones could be better, and there are some other minor complaints. But it is a nice level with some good fights, and generally good architecture.