Hell's Arena (HELLARNA.WAD)

HELL'S ARENA

by Simon "Volte-Face" Broadhead

V-F was a contributor to a few community projects - most notably CCHEST and its sequel - and has more submissions to these than solo releases. This may be part of the reason that he never achieved the same level of renown as some of his peers. Broadhead was no older than thirteen when he started mapping, kicked around for a few years, and then disappeared after Exquisite Corpse. As far as I know his debut work was a lackluster submission to Doom Center's E1 Contest (E1M7). Hell's Arena is the first of his two individual releases and is a MAP01 replacement, published in 2001. Simon suggests that this will work with the vanilla executable but recommends using a limit-removing port. I failed to see any reason why it wouldn't work inside the Doom II executable... but I played it ZDoom so I don't know for sure.

The author declined to manufacture a story for the occasion but it is blunt in its gameplay aspirations. There is actually barely anything Hellish about it apart from the opening marble room. The first few segments have the lion's share of the detailing, too, by which I mean relatively painstaking lightcasting. DoomCute fans may enjoy the small personal computer in an incongruous office annex. The actual playing area is an outdoor square with a platform in each corner. Broadhead wisely classes it up by setting the four plateau at different, staggered heights. This topography is further intrigued by requiring the player to leap from one of the highest planes in order to reach the lowest, highlighting Doom's three-dimensional space. Simon really gets a lot of use out of the minimalistic layout, which I appreciate. It makes the design feel pretty smart - much more so than his submission to 2001's E1 Contest.

The combat isn't too intense for slaughter heads but initiates may find themselves overwhelmed. The ground level isn't necessarily small but it feels pretty tight as the invasions scale up. Some of the monsters come from sizable side alcoves while the beefiest invaders teleport in. The platforms make clearing the incursions less than graceful since the depth of the ledges makes it difficult to hit your enemies - particularly the twitch revenants. The scenario feels hectic at times due to homing missiles, pain elementals, and Cyberdemon rockets turning the field into a murderous maelstrom and cluttering your dodging space. Whether or not this feels overwhelming depends on your relative level of skill.

HELLARNA was a bit of a surprise. It's not the most ambitious release that I've ever played. It feels more like a setpiece area from a larger, action-packed map even though it works quite well on its own. This is probably just my slant toward epic-length adventures showing itself. I appreciated its abstract simplicity. If you are looking for some fast and slightly frantic gameplay in an augmented arena then this one ought to deliver. I'm looking forward to sampling the rest of Simon's small catalog.

THE ATMOSPHERE IS ELECTRIC