Review by Colin Phipps

It's quite unusual for a Doom level to go through as many revisions as this one has. Initially released back in July 1997, it's been revised 4 times since then. I first played and reviewed this map a couple of years ago, and the most recent revision of the level was partly to fix some of the things mentioned in my old review - it's nice to know that I'm not just talking to myself here :-). It also stripped out some superfluous side areas, so this version is actually smaller than the one I last reviewed.

The UAC Center is a largish level for Doom 2, but it's really got the feel of a Knee-Deep level, with lots of areas that are instantly recognisable as drawing ideas from the original Knee-Deep. The start area is very like the start of Nuclear Plant (Doom 1 E1M2), and there's a big box room just like Containment Area (Doom 1 E2M2, one of my personal favorites).

Early on the level is good old fashioned action, with a scattering of the basic enemies to clean up; there aren't many concentrations of enemies so it's fairly simple stuff. It's never dull though, with plenty of clever traps around and a good mix of monsters throughout the level.

The level progression is very non-linear, there are lots of ways around; but this means that about half of the doors in the level are keydoors. I don't know, it just seemed odd to me that a secure area (which a keydoored area is presumably meant to be) would have so many ways in. There are quite a few secrets too, but I was a bit disappointed that half of these turned out to be not very secret, being reached from a set of teleports from a room that isn't secret (the room is protected by a keydoor too, so you can't reach it until you've almost completed the level anyway).

Later on the big badies come out; there are 2 archvilles to kill, but these are used sensibly with only weak enemies to resurrect, so it is more fun than the typical archie fight (you know, kill it in 3 shots or you might as well reload, is how it is in most Doom 2 levels). There is also a spiderdemon, but you get plenty of rockets and an invulnerability which makes it rather easy.

This level is not very adventurous, mostly these are just bits of architecture very familiar from Doom 1, and the fights are good in places, but early on there wasn't much to challenge the player. There are a lot of secrets to go looking for, but somehow this isn't a level I'd play twice. But it is certainly a good old style level making clever use of the new Doom 2 monsters, so it's well worth playing.