Beat all episodes on the fresh supply remaster. The default settings were mostly good; I upped the fov to 100, made easier hotkeys for some things (med kit Z, jump boots X, spray can C, tesla coil V, life leech F, voodoo R, inventory Q, diving suit Y), set mouse sensitivity to 75% (70% for x and 50% for y), and later upped the gamma because I had a hard time seeing underwater. I began the first episode on the hardest difficulty and it was ridiculously brutal to the point of severely dampening the fun. It was mainly due to the shotgun and Tommy gun cultists with their insane reaction times, accuracy and damage. I had to adopt the cheapest possible tactics; corner camping point blank with shotgun, throwing dynamite around corners, and save scumming every 5 seconds. So much of survival was already knowing what enemies were where. The other enemies were not too difficult though. The 1st level was an intense struggle until I figured out the tactics and acquired enough ammo. I enjoyed the level and secret design, except for those bullshit insta death traps. I did find the secret level though I looked up the puzzle solution rather than brute forcing it. There was 1 level where I got stuck on a torch alcove and had to cheat no clipping to get out of it, so I did not get the achievement for beating the episode. This also happed in another episode where the end door failed to open after I went backtracking for loot. The final boss level was exceedingly difficult due to the insane hp pool of stone gargoyles. Their eye beam attack was deadly and they could lead shots to still hit me while strafing. I think they were coded to shoot off to the side rather than actually reading the player's trajectory. I tried this level 2 or 3 times and was not able to beat it because there was not enough ammo to kill both stone gargoyles. The best I did was to kill all the regular gargoyles with dynamite, kill 1 stone, and completely run out of ammo trying to kill the 2nd. I probably could have still won but it would have taken a long time, so I put on god mode and infinite ammo. The only thing I could have possibly have done better was to use less napalm launcher during the previous levels since I was full on everything except that. The 2nd, 3rd and 4th campaigns were much better, and I played custom mode to tailor the difficulty: enemy numbers and hp on very hard, dynamite aggression very hard, cultist damage and accuracy very easy, everything else on medium. Though I found that the later episodes (5, 6 and cryptic passage), changed the options by specifically removing cultist gun damage for a universal enemy damage setting, which made cultists more dangerous but not nearly as obnoxious as on very hard. By the cryptic passage expansion I put hell hound aggression up to very hard since I felt they were too easy. I did not find any secret levels past the 1st and cheated to play them from scratch. It was quite interesting playing levels without any resources carried over from previous, which led to far more avoiding enemies, meleeing and trying to get them to infight. I loved how often the levels felt interconnected, with the end room of 1 being the starting room of the next, or close enough. Cryptic Passage was too easy due to the abundance of supplies and shortage of enemies, especially lame zombies in big open areas, though the final boss level was nicely difficult. It also did not have the new enemies from the later episodes. Afterwards I tried out the dos version by beating episode 1 on the middle difficulty. There was no custom difficulty mode and the controls needed significant rebinding just to get to the default settings of the remaster. I turned on mouselook but it was janky and made precise aiming much more difficult than in the remaster. The game was playable but the remaster was infinitely better.

Overall, the level design was excellent (though some sprawling maze like levels were annoying), the weapons were interesting, but the enemies brought the game down some because of some less than ideal design. The bonus items were cool: portable med kit just like Duke 3d, beast eyes that made enemies glow but it did not help see dark environments, jump boots that were great for finding secrets and bypassing parts of levels, and the diving suit for underwater, but it did not last nearly long enough and was still consumed on short dives. There were cool temporary power ups, like invulnerability, invisibility, reflection and dual wielding. I did find it unnecessary that there were 3 armor types though. My fire and spirit armor never depleted while I struggled to keep physical armor.

Weapons:

The pitchfork was a good base weapon that could prevent cultists from shooting and slightly out range enemy melee attacks. It was tedious to use on high enemy hp but most enemies could eventually be killed in melee without the player taking damage. The flare gun was more interesting than the typical pistol in that its projectile was a bit slower (more like an imp fire ball) and most of its damage was over time. It was a hit and run type weapon while alt fire used more ammo for an area effect hit that I never really used. I suppose it could be good against groups of small critters or cultists. I loved the shotgun because it combined both Doom shotguns into the 1 weapon, but it was only good at very close range. Single shot was ok for finishing off weakened enemies and killing critters while the alt fire was much better, shooting 2 shells at once. The gun even remembered how many shells were loaded so you could not fire 1 and then alt fire 2. The tommy gun was similar to the Doom and Duke3d machine guns but seemed to be less accurate at range and burned through ammo very quickly. It was best at mid range and still very good at close. The alt fire sprayed ammo across the screen but I never used it. I think it was better to change position to not be able to be hit by more that 1 enemy, but I could see it being useful for being stuck in the open against many enemies. The napalm launcher was the same as the classic rocket launchers only with some extra burning damage over time. I never used the alt fire, which consumed more ammo for a larger area of effect. Dynamite was a great weapon to throw at enemies that were not in direct line of sight, whether that be below a ledge, above, or around a corner. The standard fire was impact detonation with holding down the button for longer throws. Had to be very careful not to hit myself with it. Alt fire was a timed detonation that could be dropped at your feet and was great for dropping over ledges. There were also remote and proximity detonators that were treated as entirely different weapons using the same hot key. I almost never used them because there was more than enough regular. Remote was the best to drop off ledges because sometimes enemies randomly moved around and did not take the full brunt of a timed explosion. Proximity would be better for kiting and setting up traps. The spray can flamethrower was weak with poor range but it did have an easier time hitting enemies. Alt fire turned it into a weaker timed dynamite that did damage over time. The tesla cannon was very much like the classic Doom plasma rifle, firing a 3 round burst or full auto if the button was held down. It had the highest dps by far, easily mowing down any enemy in the game. The damage ignored armor too, making it the best way to defeat the toughest enemies. Alt fire was a charged up area shot, kind of like the BFG but significantly weaker and doing friendly fire if you were too close. I found the standard shot to be much better and area damage better done by napalm or dynamite. The life stealer staff did not operate as I thought it would based on the name. I expected it to be like the Doom 4 soul cube, killing enemies while restoring health. Instead the alt fire dropped it as an AMAZING infinite ammo turret. The cheese was off the charts, but I loved it even though it took a long time to kill and a few enemies seemed to be completely immune. You could even pick it back up and spend health to be able to place it again. I did not test to see if it still worked with 0 ammo. The standard fire sucked and was not worth using at all; a burst plasma rifle like shot that did very low damage. My favorite weapon was the last, the voodoo doll. It functioned like a sniper rifle, having extreme range and ignoring armor but being slow to kill and struggling with obstacles in the way, like pillars, rails, stairs and furniture. As long as there was nothing in the way the doll had great auto aim such that you only needed to point in the general direction of enemies, which worked extremely well under water. Missing caused 1 point of damage to the player’s health and armor though, which was annoying.

The enemies:

Bats were more like environmental ambience than enemies. I only took damage a couple of times while pretty much ignoring them. Waste of time and ammo to kill. The rats and spiders were tough to kill without taking damage or wasting ammo. It seemed like they did contact damage. They could be killed with the pitchfork, especially when safe on a higher ledge or stair. At least they did low damage. Hitting them while standing was tough so the better way was to crouch to more easily land shots or stabs. The flamethrower was the best weapon against them because it easily hit without having to crouch. It was also easy to lure them to out of the way places or into water to drown since they could not even go up a simple step. The hands were the same as these small critters except that getting attacked was a death sentence because I could not get them off of me. The correct tactic was to mash E to get them off, but that did not work for me until Cryptic Passage. Not sure if this was my error, or a bug in the game that was not fixed until I loaded that expansion, but those enemies were an absolute terror that led to a lot of save scumming. They were especially bad in water, where I had to use voodoo to kill them quickly.

Zombies were the equivalent of pinkies, being moderately tough melee only enemies. They were easy enough to kill with pitchfork, though on very hard this took 9 hits. 1 zombie was easy to lock down by rushing in and out for melee strikes, causing the zombie to stand in place and miss with its slower melee attack. Multiple zombies were much more difficult to melee because they could friendly fire and push each other, leading to sudden and unexpected zombie axe to the face. It took more care to avoid that or even better circle strafing in an open area. They were also easily defeated by jumping on top of a table or any elevation or barrier that prevented them from attacking. While this type of enemy was not a bad concept, their placement in levels was poorly done because they were often put it areas that made it easy to melee them. It was rare that they were put in the sufficient numbers, enclosed spaces and mixed with other enemies that made them an interesting challenge to shoot, rather than the tedious low risk meleeing. In those situations, the shotgun, tommy gun and flamethrower were the best ways to kill them.

The cultists were the most common enemies, most satisfying to kill (loved their death screams), and the most deadly. There was a reason I lowered their accuracy to very low. Lone cultists were easily meleed because they could not shoot while being stabbed, and they did have a tendency to flee along edges instead of constantly shooting. Getting shot from the flank by a cultist you missed made it important to be absolutely sure there was only the 1 before going in for melee. I mostly killed them with point blank shotgun corner camping, though every weapon worked well on them. The voodoo doll was used on them a lot at long range, and napalm for groups at range. They also threw dynamite on a timed detonation so it was important to avoid that, but fairly easy to get them to suicide and infight. The shotgunner was the most common, and very dangerous at close range. The tommy gunner was like the Doom chaingunner, not something you want to be caught in the open against. The green ones only had dynamite and were thus the weakest. The blue ones had tesla cannons and were the most dangerous.

Gargoyles were a common enemy that was more of a nuisance than real threat due to their poor AI. Unlike cacodemons and lost souls, gargoyles could not descend to the player's altitude unless the player was in the same room as them, which meant they spent way too much time being useless non threats. They also could not attack unless on the ground, and often preferred trying to melee over throwing their dumbass short ranged bone. They were ridiculously easy to get trapped and kite, though they took a lot of damage to kill. I usually used the flare gun and flamethrower, kiting them while they burned and maybe throwing in a shotgun blast or 2. Being on fire or at close range made them always go for melee attacks. They were easy enough to kill in melee but it took a long time and was a big risk if there was more than 1. This enemy was poorly designed and should have been able to bee line to the player to attack from any height. They were not enough of a threat to be fun. Stone gargoyles acted like regular ones only they were tanks that took dump truck loads of ammo and explosives to take down, except for the Tesla cannon and voodoo doll that ignored their huge armor and killed them reasonably quickly. I avoided fighting them whenever I could. Their eye beam attack did massive damage and was difficult to avoid. The best strategy was to stay close enough to make them only melee while not actually getting hit. It might also be possible to kill them with a life leech turret by letting the game run for 15+ minutes.

Ghosts had the same AI as gargoyles with the addition of being invulnerable while not attacking, and having a very annoying nails on chalkboard loud scream. I did not like them for the same reasons as gargoyles; they should have been more aggressive with better pathfinding and preferring ranged attacks. They were easy enough to kill with pitchfork by moving back and forth though I preferred to blast them point blank with shotgun.

The underwater enemies were difficult to hit unless on the same altitude, so I often just swam past them. The eels were best killed with Tommy or voodoo, while the big ones dropped easily to shotgun blasts. They seemed to be fire resistant, so flare gun and napalm were a bad idea, and the big ones seemed to always hit me whenever I tried to melee them. These enemies were so obnoxious at times that I dropped life leech turrets into the water and waited until it got quiet.

The fat butchers were slow and easy to avoid. Their ranged attacks were how I realized the enemy shooting AI seemed to be randomly shooting off to the side rather than actually leading the player. It was tricky to be in their line of fire for long but their range was limited. They had high physical armor that made them take a lot of bullets or stabs to take down but were very vulnerable to fire; 4 flares or 1 direct dynamite was the best way to kill them. For some reason the voodoo doll barely used any ammo killing them, making it a very efficient way to kill them. It took a long time though so there was a high risk of taking damage.

Hell hounds were another enemy that was not threatening enough in my opinion, largely because their fire breath could not be shot upwards so getting on top of pretty much anything made it trivial to kill them with pitchfork. Without any high ground or water to drown them, I mostly killed them with shotgun or Tommy. Dynamite was good for when they could not get to me and I was too far way to melee. Tesla and voodoo killed them the fastest, which was important when there were several with nowhere to run. They seemed to be somewhat fire resistant. They really needed a better ranged attack that could hit different elevations, or some kind of leap/climb to get to the player.

The giant spider boss was not much of a threat; I assume it can melee but I only seen it spawn little spiders. They took a lot of punishment to take down, so given the limitations of small spiders I often left them alone. Shotgun and napalm were the best ways to kill them since I had to keep moving to avoid the critters. Explosions could knock them around easily and could be used to trap them or knock them into chasms. The cerebus boss was essentially the cyberdemon with powerful explosive fire balls that very quickly killed the player if caught in the open. It was the most fun boss, requiring unloading whatever ammo at it for a few seconds before running for cover. The final boss was similar with an added hit scan attack similar to the arch vile's fire. The later episodes had some other new enemies; plants and vines that shot projectiles in a high arc like a mortar, which encouraged high mobility. They were easy enough to kill with dynamite and shotgun. The little clones that came out of broken mirrors had limited range so the best way was to crouch and Tommy them. I actually only fought them once because I never broke another mirror after the first time. Then the final final boss was tough red robed cultists that morphed into beasts. I found them incredibly deadly because they had some kind of ranged stomp that could not be avoided. They were not fun to fight and I relied on them not being able to get up to my higher elevation, though dynamite and napalm sometimes launched them up which inevitably got me killed. Eventually I discovered that life leach turrets made them bug out and ignore me, and that attacking them with voodoo did not consume any ammo. These made the fight trivial but time consuming.

I did not like this game as much as Duke Nukem 3D and did not really care for the protagonist or story. I loved the level design and how they often felt like real world interconnected places. The guns were fun and some were quite unique. However some of the enemies did not mesh well with the level design, which made the game less fun that it could have been. In particular, the hit scanning enemies were way too deadly and the melee focused enemies were not always used in situations that forced shooting them, in a first person shooter. I found it boring to encounter small groups of zombies with plenty of space behind to kite them, and to see another gargoyle stuck flying into the map edge while I casually ran past. Still the game was a lot of fun and a classic, and some of the enemy flaws could be worked around with better level design.

8.2/10