| GP | AR | UV | Overall |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2 | 2 | 1 | 2 |
Review by Colin Phipps
"Galilean moons" is a mini-episode with 4 short levels for Doom 1. Each
level is a Knee-Deep base style level; each uses a different set of
the Knee-Deep textures, so each level has a very different style; however
only the first has texturing and details, the others are not very good.
The levels are all very easy by today's standards; there are a few tricky traps at the earlier levels, but enough health and ammo to get by easily enough. Here is my per-level summary:
- A small level, with a great Knee-Deep feel. The computer panels and lighting are excellent. Ammo and health fairly well judged, but the level is very easy, just imps and shotgun men mostly. There is one really good fight in the main courtyard though, when a lot of imps and spectres/demons are released; you have to dodge around a lot to make space to fight them.
- Another short level, but this one is almost entirely decorated in brown textures. My mani conplaint is that CEIL3_3 was used on the floor of the main courtyards, which looks silly and pixellates badly at distance. There isn't so much nice detail as at the previous level, and some rooms were just plain dull. Other places looked good though. There were a couple of good fights, nothing too hard but they are tricky.
- This level is obviously related to BLAHBLAH, another level by the same author and an old favourite of mine. Alas this is an older version, and has neither as much detail nor as many good fights. It's pretty straightforward to play through; there aren't any serious flaws, but neither is there the good fights or the nice architecture of BLAHBLAH.
- The final level; the main distinguishing thing about it is the use of semi-open ceilings (corridors with half-open ceilings, rooms with openings to the sky). Apart from that the level is rather boring, with little detail and just a scattering of monsters in some otherwise empty corridors. A couple of the rooms were nice, and there was limited ammo, but it's basically an easy, uninteresting level.
At the end of this episode, I exited and there was a nice ENDOOM screen that explained the levels corresponded to teh 4 Galilean moons of Jupiter. I was a bit disappointed that the level names in the game weren't changed to show this, it's a bit late when you finish playing :-/.
The first level is good, but overall the levels are each too short to give a really good game. I was disappointed, the potential is there for some great levels.