I could never imagine the conversion of retardation to the Doom format, but this wad has proven that this is possible. Already scared? Don't be. Be pissed that this classic game has been tainted.
Where does one begin, honestly, after having tortured themselves with this wad? The sense of redemption is always hanging, even when the shit this wad flings at you is overwhelming. It's like I tortured myself for an hour, trudging through the terrifyingly bad levels just to see if I could discover a neat level, or an impressive weapon or enemy. Such things just never greeted my screen.
Instead of a fun, innovative wad with impressive features, this wad is a right mess. Weapons are either overpowered or have no lasting value beyond the first few shots you fire out of curiosity; enemies are a complete joke; the guys who designed this wad were far too fucking fond of intermission screens; and honestly, they don't know how to map properly at all. Let's start with the weapons...
There are just too many, and unlike the compilation wad known as "Aeons of Death", there's no justification for the many weapons you pick up. You only end up using a select few that are abysmally overpowered, to the point of killing the fun factor in the wad. There are two machine-guns on the ninth weapon slot that eradicate every single enemy, save for just one, in mere seconds (don't get me started on the uglier one on that same slot, which feels more like a machine-shotgun on steroids). You get two rocket launcher weapons, though you only need one of them at all. When you pick up most weapons for the first time, they don't even show up; instead, you have to guess which slot the new weapon went to and what the hell it is at all. Some weapons nearly break the game, such as the laser cutter thingamajig which slaughters a Cyberdemon in very little time. I'm just going to skip the rest of this element.
Enemies are lame. There is your summary. As for in-depth detail, I'll give you a bit of that as well. In many maps, you have no reason to fight enemies at all. They're poorly placed, too numerous, some are outright ridiculous in terms of attack power, speed, and health. The first cyberdemon you fight is just around some random corner with absolutely no indication at all, and this is a problem because it's rockets are sped up in this wad. There's a variation of the imp called "werewolves" that dish out insane damage, are fast, and have twice the health of Hell barons. And they're numerous. There's a rocket launcher zombie that, while slow, was seen to handle an enormous barrage of rockets. Then there's the new bosses, ripped straight from two licensed games. They're simply no fun to fight.
And why are there so many fucking intermission screens, guys?! First of all, either learn how to properly communicate in English, or get someone to write them for you, because it was like having to read a kindergartner trying to write a storyline each time these screens appeared. To shorten this part up, though, I will go out on a limb and guess that the number of intermission screens I've seen amounted to over twenty. Shit, and many of them are fucking useless, no thanks to the butchering of my mother tongue and the incoherent "plot."
Map design is abhorrent. They don't know about triggers, there's no logical connections or ideas running through any of them, shit blocks you everywhere, there are solid (and harmless) flame sprites peppering half of the maps in the wad, enemies are often placed in bad spots, ZDoom features are abused ad nauseum, none of the doors locked with keys are indicated accordingly, and textures are (to a lesser extent than this wad's superior predecessor) misaligned. Man, what else can I say? You probably get the point. They have a few novelty ideas here and there, but they're overwhelmed by laughable level design. Shit, there are times that you can't even carry on through a map because they simply don't know anything about the design aspect. One of the levels, called "Sewer", is cursed by a terrible quality death metal track, with horribly integrated vocals. I won't even begin to try to justify that bit.
I'm going to give a non-personal suggestion to "the OutDoomers"; give it a rest, or get a good long bit of practice. Both of you guys yet have a long ways to go before you can make anything redeemable in quality. To break away from that, I'm going to give you an indication as to how mature these guys are. Here's an example of not only their literary "prowess", or lack thereof, but their attitude towards a gaming demographic:
"GAME HAS A STORY LINE
AND ITS VERRY RECOMENDED TO READ ALL TEXT CUT SCENES
SO YOU DONT HAVE TO BITCH LIKE "WHAT IS GOING ON? ITS SO CONFUSING,
WHAT DO I HAVE TO DO? WHERE? TOO WEIRD""
That's from the "H.A.D.2 TIPS and RECOMENDS" text file included with the download. If you do heed this guy's blunt suggestion, then I hope that you don't tear your eyes out each time the "storyline" via the intermissions dot your screen. As I mentioned before, they're typo-ridden messes with no real plot. And might I mention the half-rate dialog implied in some of them? GOD!
Anyway, I would totally avoid this wad. And if they were to ever enact a charge for downloading this, then they'd be committing a crime against humanity. Somehow, the designers managed to make even more of a fucked up wad than with their previous Hell After Dreams incarnation. They have definitely displayed the common happenstance of sequels being worse than originals with Hell After Dreams 2. I am not curious about the upcoming third act at all, now that I've put myself through this one.
I give it a flat 0 out of 10.
Wad created and designed by Redheadmetalc, with DECORATE coding by Thiny93. Includes lots of stolen, non-attributed content.
