Mortiser 3: Supply/Shipping Depot (SWMORT3.WAD)

MORTISER 3
SUPPLY/SHIPPING DEPOT
by Sam "Metabolist" Woodman

2001 was a very busy year for Woodsy, probably the busiest of his career as he wrangled submissions to several ongoing projects, managed at least two of his own, and found some time to crack out a few maps on the side. Speedmaps, mind you; it doesn't look like Sam was big on anything that took longer than a day's work. Supply/Shipping Depot is the third level in the Mortiser series, a small group of maps. They are tied together mainly by their resource pack, MORTRES. SWMORT3 follows the same progression as the previous two levels and as a result occupies the MAP03 slot. You'll need to play it in a limit-removing source port if you want to avoid the mentioned HOM effects.

At this point, I've come to realize that there is no actual great plan to the Mortiser series. It fits in seamlessly in just about any point in Doomguy's quantum quest to quench evil. You start out striking a small outpost with a teleporter (Lookout Base) in order to use it to travel to a distant facility to the north where ice is mined to produce water and recover resources (Ice Station Alpha). The Supply/Shipping Depot is your next target but like MAP01 it's only really useful insofar as it has a tram that you plan to take to a chemical manufacturing plant.

SWMORT3 is a very small level. The main base is in a dark metal style that reminds me of some of the segments from SWMORT1 and the outdoor area is hewn out of the same frozen wasteland as SWMORT2. The start is kind of cute, though, the player ostensibly having climbed in through some duct work after crossing the icy wilderness entered at the end of Mortiser 2. Once you're inside you have one large storage chamber which also houses the tram bay and a door opening outside to a long path leading to the blue key. You'll need both it and the red one in order to ride the transport out. The latter isn't hard to get but it's easy to miss.

Your opposition is mostly imps. The first big fight is the only one with any real teeth since the layout of the crates lets the fiends move in an organic fashion. Afterward, though, it's a quickly slaughtered cacodemon in the doorway followed by a long line of imps and then demons, finishing on a lukewarm Hell knight / Baron ambush. You're only in any real danger of running out of shells at the beginning depending on how quickly you make it among the boxes but after that Woodman gives you enough ammo to succeed in spite of embarrassing inaccuracy.

And, uh, that's pretty much it. The design is clean enough but like Woodman's previous works it's rather flat and uninspired in its combat. I'm still holding out hope for the final two outings, though!

HOBO WITH A SHOTGUN