1 Day of Hellish Revenge (1DOFHELL.WAD)

In 20 Days in Hell, the Doom marine was slain while defending his wife from a mugger. Hell unjustly claimed his soul unless he could survive for twenty days, but the devil isn't known for fair bargains. In 32 Hours in Pain, his stoic wife Serena battled her way into the inferno to rescue her husband. In 1 Day of Hellish Revenge, released by Kristian Aro near the tail end of 1998, the Doom marine has recovered from his injuries, but not the mental trauma. To put his troubled soul at peace, he returns once more to the Stygian pit, meting out his particular form of retribution.

1DOFHELL returns to a familiar stomping ground for Kristian, the Plutonia IWAD used for his first megaWAD. And yet, his skill as an author has grown by leaps and bounds when compared to the often shaky 20 Days in Hell. Aesthetically the levels have plenty of hooks to keep you interested in the changing locales (even if the enormous crater in MAP30 is a little bland looking out). The difficulty is a little uneven, with MAP28 being the hardest and challenge decreasing by a tier per each level. Thankfully you won't find any weapon availability issues if you take but a second to look around.

1 Day of Hellish Revenge is a nice cap to a decent series. It's interesting to trace Aro's authorial development through two megaWADs and a minisode, but it's easy to see with this offering where he jumped off to become the acclaimed level maker he is today. If you're gonna play just one installment of the 20 Days in Hell series, make it 1DOFHELL. You could probably stand to experience all three, though. Well, maybe not 20 Days.

1 DAY OF HELLISH
REVENGE
by Kristian Aro

MAP28	Hell Gate
	A very cool and very violent map. It's got kind of a Hell Revealed meets Plutonia feeling, except for the sense of scale. You're at the eye of the storm in a pit with monsters on the ground and in the sky and have to fight your way in to the little bunker to grab a rocket launcher and raise the stairs so you can climb out. Then the hard part begins, depending on how much health you have. Between the hitscanners and the enormous crossfire toward the lip of the caldera, you may end up dying a lot. The key encounters aren't nearly as thrilling, though the yellow key is a nice reveal. Looks great, plays rough.

Threshold to Agony	MAP29
A short map but not any less hard. The scenery is imaginative, more in the vein of an abstract Hell on floating islands of pain. The first courtyard has two Cyberdemon guardians you're probably not killing that bring to mind the Symplegades. Afterward it's to the main event, which involves some gratuitous baron herding. Don't forget to grab the rocket launcher or plasma cell down below or you may find yourself shooting dry.

MAP30	Doomed Forever
	Not really a boss shooter map; more a visual finale / monster gauntlet set on the side of a huge crater which the IOS sits opposite of. He won't even wake up until you're sneaking into his brain to grab the yellow key. You'll have to dispatch a few Cyberdemons but they're really easy to handle in spite of having no BFG (that I found, at least). A nice close.

ONE FINE DAY
IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT
THREE DEAD WADS
GOT UP TO FIGHT