THE OUTLANDS
by Alex Parsons
The World's End series is mostly notable because a couple of its levels were exclusively released as part of the original Community Chest. It had similar company in the works of Gene Bird (Blind Alley) and, to a lesser extent, Sphagne. The Outlands is the third level in the series, following World's End - for which the sequence of releases is named - and The Underground. As was the case with the previous entries, it was released in 2002 and is a MAP01 replacement for Doom II to be played in any limit-removing port. There are some other similarities, too, and they show that Parsons had a definite style coming out of the gate.
The overall direction of the series is not as heavy on plot as it is on place. The collected AP_0XX levels read more like an adventure through locations in a Dungeons and Dragons campaign. The player has no clear purpose apart from I assume exterminating demons still lurking in the furthest recesses of whatever planet you're exploring. You started out in World's End, climbing into a local dungeon where the remainder of the imps were holed up (The Underground), and rise up to The Outlands. I think that the name is a conflict of interest since it's in the same wheelhouse as the location you started in but whatever. Your new digs border the place you were before as well as the next step in your journey, The Foul Ruin.
What I instantly admired about AP_001 was its layout. Parsons made a topographically complex landscape for you to explore. It was just buried under beige textures, brown sky, muddy trenches, and a morass of imps. The Outlands is a different take on the same concept. It jettisons a lot of the baggage that made World's End unappealing on its face but, true to form, incorporates a few new elements to get hung up on. The level is visually refreshing compared to AP_001. While it keeps the same stock sky the canyon walls are made of granite and the floor texture is a weird sort of dirt with patchy grass / moss. The fluid of choice is molten rock and one of the level's greatest successes is the use of sector lighting to make the walls surrounding the slag pits pop. The contrast of bright and dark is a welcome median between the first level's uniform glow of day and The Underground's darkness, which is so thick that it will swallow you hole.
AP_003 succeeds in its naturalistic scenery but there are two distinct platforming problems. The molten lakes you encounter will kill you dead if you manage to fall in them. Not instantly but because there is literally no way to escape. Parsons has also included a handful of minor death pits in the starting area. There's a small section of level that has some player-blocking lines, though. A couple of ledges go into lava but one of them is directly overlooking a path that's only accessible via the starting area. The intent appears to be to prevent you from quickly looping back into the beginning upon entering the northern section's crazy crossfire but it's not like doing so would grant you an enormous advantage. It just smacks of a noticeably artificial limitation.
The combat is more multi-faceted than either of the previous levels. Since it's right next to World's End you still get a bunch of imps plus the occasional Hell knight lurking in the caverns. You also get a variety of zombies, though, with troopers and shotgun guys on the ground as well as the occasional chaingun sniper up high. I wasn't too bothered by the commandos since the starting encounter encourages you to proceed with caution but the mess near the end almost got me. The other monster debut is the mancubus. They're all entrenched turrets located organically in the periphery level and they make hanging out in the open very dangerous, even more so than chaingunners because the latter only take a shotgun blast or two to kill.
I understand why the death pits and sniper monsters might put some people off but Parsons is swiftly becoming one of my favorite discoveries during my PWAD archeology. I love his layouts and The Outlands is a big step away from monochrome color schemes, uniform light levels, and one-note thing placement. I'm interested in seeing where the adventure takes me next.
OUTLANDOS D'MAL
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