Review by Colin Phipps

"The Seventh 07 - Final Portal" is a large level for Doom 2. It's industrial style, with fairly empty, open rooms, and lots of features like metal beams and lighting to make them interesting. It needs Boom, for some conveyor belts and deep water effects.

Early on I had mixed impressions about the level. There is a big outdoor area, with lots of arachnotrons, cacos and such; there are good features like boxes, and the building you come out of looks good, but the bareness of the level stands out in the water area. It's not easy to get the monsters fighting each other, so the fight is surprisingly difficult. Then the next couple of rooms have some very deadly traps, with lots of badies including revenants teleporting in; it took me a few tries each to beat these.

But the level got better as it went on. Maybe I got used to the style; the fights continue to use powerful enemies and dangerous traps, but you get some much appreciated armour, and the positions you have to fight from aren't quite as difficult as the earlier ones. The second outdoor area is a pretty good canyon, complete with stream and 2 bridges. The level progression is interesting too, there is a good trick where a few doors open and close to change the layout of one area, pretty cleverly done.

It's a long level with lots of revenants, barons, cacodemos, etc, and the design is such as to make the fights even harder. Provided you like the style though, a good level, really fun toward the end.