Surrounded! (SURROUND.WAD)

SURROUNDED!
by Jim Flynn

Surrounded! is a curio for OG Doom, replacing E2M8. It's also the only WAD Jim Flynn made for the original Doom that he didn't convert as part of the Enigma Episode. Why, gentle reader? Well, it's a one-on-one fight with a Cyberdemon who you "have surrounded". Yep; Flynn of all people made an arena map. Aesthetically it's pretty boring, a giant octagon with cherry red siding alternating with some tech guts while you're ankle deep in water. There are four marble cubes bearing the IOS relief floating in the air in a square arrangement. They don't serve any actual purpose but they help make the architecture less deadly dull.

The Cyberdemon, your sole opposition, stands on a platform in the map's center. He can't move very far, and with the abundance of cell ammo for the plasma rifle given to you at the map's beginning, he's pretty easy to take down. Flynn makes things interesting, though. When he says that you have the Cyberdemon surrounded, what he's done is add four teleporter pads in the map's cardinal directions. By facing the center and moving to either side, you will warp to the next pad in sequence. If you move forward or backward, you can play the fight as normal, but using the pads to blink around while hosing your opponent down with plasma ammo is kind of rewarding. You're also practically invulnerable blinking from teleporter pad to teleporter pad (unless you make the mistake of blinking back).

I'll give Flynn props for introducing a creative idea to spice up what is traditionally a very by the numbers boss battle. I can also see why this didn't make it into Enigma, which is why I wouldn't recommend this map to anyone but the terminally curious. If the idea sounds intriguing, though, by all means, have fun.

YOU'LL NEVER TAKE ME ALIVE, DOOMGUY