| GP | AR | UV | Overall |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3 | 5 | 4 | 4 |
Review by Colin Phipps
"INCA" is a large level for Doom 2. The level has two halves; you start
having entered an ancient "pyramid"; the tension builds well as blockages
raise behind you; the passages are dark and spookily lit, all creating a
good atmosphere.
There are some excellent fights and traps; you don't get very powerful weapons, so it took me a few tries to beat some of the fights. Ammo and health are very well judged; in the middle of one really tough fight I was constantly having to look around for ammo, dash for loose shells, which made the fight even more fun. Unusually I think i really needed he partial invisibility for that fight :-).
You finally find yourself in a high-tech underground base; the area is one
large room, with sergeants and chaingunners looking down through
the windows overlooking everything, and lots of crates scattered around with
more enemies on/around them. It's a great fight, since you have
to use the boxes for cover, carefully running between covered spots and
picking off the well placed snipers. However, this area caused quite
a slowdown on my computer because it was so complicated, which added an
unfortunate extra element of difficulty :-/.
There are lots of new graphics imported, mostly recognisable from other Doom levels, and there were air vent textures taken from Duke Nukem to decorate a maze of air vents. There are also some new sounds (the moving floor sound from Quake 2, which made things a bit spookier early on), and music from Heretic. The high tech area looks really good, lots of detail.
The level progression is generally pretty good. Except for the bug :-(. There is a blue keydoor that only accepts a blue keycard, when you are only given a skull key. I couldn't see the key even cheating with the automap, so in the end I did a TNTKEY cheat to get the key. Hmmm.
Overall, this level does a great job of mixing 2 distinct styles in a level, with an excellently done plot. The graphics are good, just a shame they are so hard on your computer. And it's a good challenge too. Pity about the bug.