Sceptic
Arcane
- Joined
- Mar 2, 2010
- Messages
- 10,873
Boy you're in for a surpriseAdmittedly, d2 = better level design might have been just me shooting from the hip. I played both back in the day and remember liking 2’s levels better overall. It’s hard to imagine it having as many pressure tiles and random switches as D1 E2, but we’re talking 13-14 years ago here, so my memory is quite hazy.
I have a hunch you'll feel differently about Doom 2 were you to replay it now.
I think Heretic's levels are closer to E2 or E3 in design, and while I like them and find some very memorable, I think Doom's are still superior. DraQ will also tell you that Heretic is too candy coloured for a person of good tasteSpeaking of memory, I remember Heretic feeling a lot mire open as well, but I only ever played the shareware version.
I think some of E1 had some mazey bits too, maybe they were smaller and more self-contained and that's why you didn't mind them as much.I'm merely mentioning that looking at the game now, the areas that I had fun the most were EP1 and some more open areas of EP3. EP2 had some levels that were fun, but ultimately spoiled for me due to maze-like qualities, which I've never really enjoyed tbh.
Oh I agree, "elegant" is the word I remember seeing used way back then about E1, there's no better description. As for Romero and pushing the engine, he actually did that with Doom 2, and as a result it's harder to tell whose level is whose. That said, one of his levels (and a pretty good one) is literally called "Gotcha!", so you can see where Roxor and I are coming fromSandy definitely used the engine in more creative ways than romero did in his EP1 levels. But I just found EP1 to be overlal "elegant" in its design. I feel if Romero were to have started using more teleporters and other innovations that Sandy used, he likely would have toned it down a bit and produced a better flow. But who knows. That's an impossible experiment to run.
Incidentally some of the TeamTNT megawads are even more gimmicky than anything id made.
I wonder now, reading all this, what you'll think of Hexen levels... you'll either hate them for the switch hunts, or love them for having everything be interconnected.
Yeah I actually like that and think it improves the pacing. Nonstop shoot em all would get tiresome after a while (I remember feeling this when playing Wolf3D), the occasional breaks, looking at this inaccessible key or weapon and wondering just how the hell I'm supposed to get to it, has always been something I like about the "old-school" FPS design. It's like listening to music or watching a movie, you need the slower and softer sections to build up into the more gripping ones, and you need the gripping ones to appreciate the slow parts as well. To me that's good pacing (provided neither section drags on too long of course, but I find they don't in Doom).Regardless, I just feel like EP1 flows better overall. While I find Sandy' levels too large and oftentime stop the action for puzzles, that while not supremely difficult, break up the action enough that it interferes with the fun factor.