THE UNDERGROUND
by Alex Parsons
Alex Parsons was one of the contributors to the original Community Chest. Most of his World's End series was released as single levels on the /idgames archives but two of the entries are only available as a part of CCHEST. The Underground, released mid-2002, is the second step of the journey and as was the case with AP_001 it is a MAP01 replacement for Doom II for play in a limit-removing port (even if it comes inside a folder called ZDoom). I hate to say it but I have a feeling that I'll be sick of D_RUNNIN all over again by the time I make it to Community Chest. It certainly looks that way from a perusal of the Mossvale Dungeon .TXT.
The initial level of the series is also called World's End but Parsons is ambivalent as to whether it's an all-encompassing region or if it's just confined to the setting of the first level. That's probably because it didn't have a very strong identity in his mind when he initially started out. Whatever the case, you begin your adventure in a rugged, imp-infested no-man's land. Once you cleared the beasties out you continued your treacherous journey down into The Underground, which consists of the toxic tunnels from where they came. The story implies that you're trying to reach the surface again but the adventure itself feels more like clearing the remaining demons out of the far corners of the Earth.
AP_002 has some nice contrasts going for it. World's End was a morass of brown between the sky, the stone, and the muddy water. Being lit in daylight didn't really help matters. The Underground takes place beneath the surface, though, so you get some light / dark opposites going on. Alex has also upgraded to a two-tone color scheme, setting the brown dirt and earth against Doom's toxic green with a few splashes of beige brick at the beginning and the end. It's less monotonous as a result, especially when you consider those red torches stabbing out of the darkness, but you won't be seeing too much of it at any given point in time.
The layout is pretty cramped and naturally favors imps with cameos from all sorts of zombies as well as, annoyingly, specters. The combat can be frustrating at times because there are several segments where the imps will be throwing fireballs at you from behind a curtain of nukage. The reasons for its less than stellar /idgames reviews, however, are due to the focal gameplay gimmicks. Large portions of the cavern system have poisonous floors for which you're afforded a handful of rad suits in key locations. It's also a three-dimensional maze with a couple of "platforming" sections. There are legs that you can descend into but not back out of, only exiting by way of a teleporter somewhere down the line.
The focal point of hate is probably the first intersection since there are several different ledges for you to jump to and screwing up drops you to the bottom where a conciliatory warp awaits. If you can't get this lined up for some reason then you'll be burning enviro suit time and getting madder with each cock-up. Throw this alongside imps behind nukage false walls and specters in the dark and you have a pretty hate machine. It didn't bother much and in fact reminded me of Chris Klie's MAP09 and MAP26 from BF_THUD!. I'll concede that the final platform puzzle - where you have to wait for each column to hit the ground and then pop back up again - is a technically interesting but ultimately unsatisfying feature.
I liked The Underground and I'm glad to see Parsons sticking to organic-shaped layouts. I'm surprised that I was given the plasma gun and shotgun at the start and still felt as though the chaingun was a milestone. The setting has yet to convey the same sense of adventure that I get when I look at all of the individual map names as a list but I see a lot of potential in the future of World's End.
GOT TO GIVE UP LIFE IN THIS NETHERWORLD
GOT TO GO UP TO WHERE THE AIR IS STALE
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