Doom 64: The Lost Levels | DOOM64.WAD
Sam "Kaiser" Villarreal
Sam Villarreal and Doom 64 go way back. From his DSV being a youthful homage to the console classic, to spearheading a hand-crafted remake of the game for the Doomsday sourceport, to creating a dedicated source port that ran off a ROM of the game, to finally working for Night Dive and remastering the game in 2020, the Kaiser has long been a part of the Doom 64 ecosystem, that is when he's not doing crazy stuff like bringing obscure 90s console shooter classics like Turok or Powerslave to PC. He wasn't just content to surprise us with a Doom 64 remaster, however -- the re-release also featured a little extra gift: The Lost Levels, a six-level minisode built entirely by Villarreal himself.
Of course, don't get this confused with his Outcast Levels expansion for the old Doomsday remake; it's brand-spanking new maps, and tough maps to boot. The story is just a scrap of text, really, something about the Mother Demon's sister deciding to just yeet Doomguy out of Hell to stop him from tearing everything up -- it's not even revealed in-game that the first map, the sole techbase, takes place on Sedna, a tiny planetoid out past Neptune; that little tidbit was instead randomly mentioned in a pre-release interview. It's as pure an expansion as one can get, an almost story-free little romp through a more modern take on the Doom 64 formula. While Doom 64's mapping trio of Randy Estrella, Danny "Technoman" Lewis, and Tim Heydelaar have expressly cited as inspiration early classic megawads like Memento Mori and The Plutonia Experiment, Villarreal's design ethos definitely follows a more newschool, post-Hell Revealed II sensibility.
(Wow, it really kinda comes down to that, doesn't it: as far as Doom mapping goes, there was the time before Hell Revealed II, and the time after.)
The Lost Levels functions both as an enticement to buy Doom 64 (as if the novelty of playing this semi-lost Doom classic wasn't enticement enough) and as a sort of distillation of modern Doom mapping tropes with the basic outline of Randy, Danny and Tim's respective styles. It's hard, significantly more difficult and, shall we say, hectic, than the base game, with a nasty sense of progression that's less dungeon crawling and more a series of blistering set pieces. "Plant Ops" is a tough opener that's sparse on health and throws some of the upper-tier enemies at you towards the end. By "Evil Sacrifice" things will calm down a bit as you build out your arsenal, but it's still a rough ride. Things kick up again for "Cold Grounds," but after that it sort of evens out a bit. But at no point does Lost Levels ever really slow down; the Plutoniousity is pretty high, especially in "Thy Glory," It's a good landmark for where Villarreal is as a mapper, even if his primary work has been less in level design and more in programming.
MAP34: Plant Ops
Welcome to Sedna. Aesthetically it's pretty much like any other Doom 64 techbase, though there are some strong visuals like in the opening areas. What's more interesting to me is the way certain rooms serve different purposes at different times, for example the exit room, which is first the site of one of the bigger encounters, but when you come back to it, it'll be on the upper level, allowing you to make a break for the exit. Nice and twisty level, bringing a more newschool progression scheme than the old '97 maps.
MAP35: Evil Sacrifice
Welcome back to Hell. Compared to the last level this is a lot easier for the most part. The opening area is pretty simple, but cool-looking, but the tombs and library to the south will offer some fairly stiff resistance. The real show, however, is in the western courtyard after you throw the blue switch -- get ready for lots of pain elementals and arachnotrons. You might be glad to have the BFG, if you know how to get it.
MAP36: Cold Grounds
Reminiscent of Tim Heydelaar's levels, namely "Altar of Pain" and "Unholy Temple," "Cold Grounds" is a monster-stuffed castle with a grimy moat as a storm rumbles overhead. Tackling it requires a steady, systematic approach, especially as the rocky canyon is lined with imps and cacodemons have a nasty habit of floating in from across the map, making for some real bullet hell, literally so with all the zombies posted on the castle walls. Add in another wave once you get the red key and it's a pretty hectic time.
MAP37: Wretched Vats
Pretty reminiscent of Randy Estrella's overall mapping style, it's a sprawling dungeon crawl with each section posing its own intense encounters. Villarreal seems to have an affinity for arachnotrons as they were quite prominent in "Evil Sacrifice" and are even more so here, especially in the exit hall and yellow key room, but my favorite fight has to be the hell knight and cacodemon throwdown near the blue key.
MAP38: Thy Glory
Aesthetically it most resembles Danny Lewis' style -- particularly "Watch Your Step" -- mixed with the vaguely Mesoamerican style of Randy's "Breakdown." As the penultimate level for this minisode it's a sprawling temple complex with lots of tough encounters. Height variation is king here as there's a lot of walkways over a sea of blood, and you'll be searching high and low for the keys. Even after you've cleared the yellow key area and gotten the key itself the area is still dangerous as every time you warp onto the rocket launcher platform a pair of homing fireballs shoot right at you. The most memorable moment to me is probably the big wave of fliers and other bullshit that warp in as you finally lower the blue key column.
MAP39: Final Judgment
Like "No Escape" on steroids, "Final Judgment" is composed of two phases. The first is a very large firefight in a boxy arena that offers multiple invulns. You are granted the Unmaker before you enter the arena, and your job is to fight your way to the three demon keys located at various points and use them to gain access to the Sister Resurrector's cage. If you forego the initial invuln for later use like I did you might have some trouble, but there's at least three -- more than enough to kill everything that moves with your laser (which plenty of ammo laying around to feed it with) and squash the Sister Resurrector. Pretty fun finale for what it is.
-June <3
Hey you
Eighty-six
A U
Why don't you tell me what you're going through?
Part of a series on Classic Doom
| Doom |
The Ultimate Doom |
| Doom II: Hell on Earth | |
| The Master Levels | No Rest for the Living |
| Final Doom | |
| TNT: Evilution | The Plutonia Experiment |
| Doom 64 | The Lost Levels |
No comments:
Post a Comment