Love You With Poison (LUWP.WAD)

LOVE YOU WITH POISON

by "Memfis"

Memfis made quite a few maps that leveraged resources from classic PWADs like Requiem and Memento Mori II as well as more obscure releases, e.g. Phobos - Relive the Nightmare. Love You With Poison, a MAP12 replacement for Boom-compatible ports released in 2013, is a bit different. The author decided to make use of the monsters and resources of JCD's Survive In Hell, a 2012 megaWAD that drew from - among other things - slaughter standards. LUWP is not a slaughtermap but it is a pretty tough play for a healthy variety of reasons. Note that you WILL need to load the SIHR2FIX PWAD in the correct order with LUWP in order to play the level.

Memfis abstained from including a story with this particular PWAD; he was mostly focused on letting you know how rough the map might be and emphasizing the importance of anticipating trap triggers. There's usually a tale to be told around his levels, though, and in this case the title comes from the lyrics of "Toxic Girl", a track from an Australian electro-industrial outfit called Angelspit. I won't pretend to know anything about industrial as a genre or how the author felt about this back in 2013, let alone some eight years later. The song itself is less hard-hitting than I thought it was going to be; I've been despoiled by my years of distortion-heavy synthwave, I think. I'd say that it's a change from naming your PWADs after hentai mags, but I'm laughing that the uncensored music video features an otaku who is getting his cold-comfort jollies off to... hentai. Don't, uh, look the vid up if you're sensitive to depictions of suicide.

I don't recall what sort of image I had of Memfis going into 2013. I remember seeing the positive buzz for Not In My Courtyard and thinking that he was someone to watch out for but was only really familiar with his "LDFXGESA" from Whitemare (MAP04). The naïve reviewer made up his mind in 2013 - following Heroes' Tales - to play through the author's entire catalogue but totally flamed out after Voyage to Deimos: E2M1. From a point of significant retrospection, Memfis was a pretty varied author. My Cacowards article for Kuchitsu more or less suggested that the depth and breadth of his career could be summed up by its affable difficulty, low-key action, and fondness for classic-era PWADs.

All of these things were absolutely fixtures of a sizable portion of his works. PWADs like Sticky Blood - or even Interception's "Castle Grounds" (MAP13), which I'd actually played - are counter to this generalization, though. Love You With Poison continues the author's sadistic side and goes a little bit farther in giving you that extra special something. The !WOW! factor isn't a product of the Survive In Hell bestiary (not that it doesn't help) but rather the flawless execution of a stunning gimmick and a moderately-sized locale to battle it out in. The word is Poison, of course, and the island on which you begin is surrounded by it with a few patches in the central area to give you an idea of what you're in for.

It's not just your normal everyWAD UAC nukage, though. There's a great viscous fluid noise when you hit the acid and an audible sizzle, plus what I can only assume is a Boom feature that sinks your viewpoint down a bit more. More importantly, Memfis raises the overall level of nukage at several key points during your playthrough. It's a polished effect and really floods the central playing area. It's not just a hazard, either; the poison eventually gets high enough to allow you to access the exit route. I think that damage floors are a tricky environmental hazard to use since there are so many directions that the author can go and always a player to damn you for trying. LUWP is to the point, however. The toxin that you must ford is obvious and in a single location, thus limiting player attrition while still enforcing some respect.

This is a tough level in terms of combat; the author is adept at using monster placement to exert pressure on the player and much of the grunt work is done using the combat shotgun. This leaves you exposed between shots since the reload time makes it better at interrupting an attack than stunlocking a la chaingun or plasma rifle. The rocket launcher is available, too, but it's one of those things where you know that you're going to want it to knock out a hard target like an arch-vile. Or a bunch of soft ones so as to create some breathing room. The hot start opener pretty much sets the tone, ushering you into the central space where you're immediately drawn to the SSG. This opens up an alcove with two revenants showing that, well, pickups make fools of us all.

The encounter design is great throughout. The moment the floor first floods Memfis also drops in a handful of LUWP enemies, two of which strongarm you off of the platform you're currently on. There's nothing like a disorienting double-whammy to keep the player on his or her toes. If you panic at the sight of arch-viles, well, you will typically find them augmenting a smaller group of monsters... and with some corpses crowding the floor. There's a fun bit, reminding me of some of franckFRAG's Swift Death setups, where you teleport behind a contingent of monsters who are facing away. You have the leisure of choosing which direction you're going to push and with what force but the solution may not be intuitive.

Memfis has always had an eye for art and architecture and Love You With Poison fails to disappoint. The island outpost looks great and feats of engineering like the final hallway that cuts to the outer rim and up toward the exit are super sharp. As mentioned before, the rising of the toxic muck looks spot-on. There are plenty of places to pique your curiosity, from the lower gate to the outside to the distant island that you eventually teleport to. One thing that might trip up less agile players is the "platforming" toward the yellow and red key stations. The big hangup would be with the first, little ledge jutting out of the wall. Someone like myself, however, is immediate drawn to goat across and it's not terribly difficult to execute.

LUWP is a rock-solid outing that shows even more depth in Memfis's range. The only downside is that difficulty settings aren't implemented so if the start is kicking your ass then the best that you can hope for is half damage / double ammo on ITYTD. If that still isn't a good time for you then, well, I'm sorry. There is doubtless something else in the author's back catalogue for you to try to enjoy.

P.S. YOU SUCK!