Laitos (LAITOS.WAD)

LAITOS

by Esa Repo aka "Espi"

Espi was one of fifteen different people who submitted levels to DoomCenter's E1 Contest for the chance to get a sweet, signed copy of The Ultimate Doom from the man himself, John Romero. Some of them went on to have rather illustrious careers in the community. Amusingly enough, the contest winner did not! Some of the contestants released their levels individually once it was over. Laitos--which was originally E1M8, not that this technically meant anything--has virtually doubled in size, if not more so. My understanding is that Espi revised this level several times. The final version (v1.4), published in early 2002, is an E1M1 replacement for the original Doom.

Repo wasn't much into overt storylines, instead preferring to lean on environmental design to evoke the player's imagination. Laitos apparently translates to "facility", and this could be pretty much any radioactive waste facility on Phobos post-invasion, but it's a bit better lit. Maybe you were out for a stroll a la TNT: Evilution, or maybe you're some base personnel stopping by to check on a loss of communication. Maybe it's in media res and you already fought through half the base to get here... and then were conveniently reduced to wielding a pistol? The player comes in through what appears to be the front door into an impressive foyer, only to be confronted by the inhuman shout of a zombie in some sort of security checkpoint. Retreat is not an option and it'll be hard to rest without slaying all of the evil.

Laitos is a large, E1-textured techbase with a little more than 200 monsters. The original geometry of the level is largely intact. Additions include the starting area that leads up to the security hut but, more significantly, EVERYTHING accessed off the easternmost wing through either the dual apertures heading east or the east-west hallway that juts off the southeast corner. This includes several storage rooms, another nukage yard, a computer station, and a largely isolated building that occupies the level's southern region. The difficulty takes a step up once the player starts investigating the newly-added regions as you'll have to fight off two relatively meaty cacodemon ambushes AND push through a squad of Barons on your way back to the blue key door.

I could recognize it in KARMEA, but Espi's entry in the E1 contest felt like a major step toward what I think of as iconic of his Suspended in Dusk. I'm talking about aspects like height variation and visual interconnections, windows that allow you to peek into future areas to be explored, design principles laid down by John Romero in Knee Deep in the Dead. Espi has a bit of more fun with them than John ever really did, with one of the first moments coming early on when you clinch the yellow keycard. The red one is sitting on the same slab but on the side opposite the player's. This immediately places a goal in mind: acquiring the red keycard. You get several opportunities to peer into your future route while you're on it.

The individual release of Laitos adds a new instance of this, but rather than a keycard, it's a building. The southern wing of the installation can be glimpsed from windows all along the southern edge of the main complex. You don't really know that the blue key is somewhere in there, but the genre-savvy player will probably guess that it's important. Just as the second act of the map involved a quest--the red key--the third act sets the player's goal as the southern annex. There's a secret task, too, to be had. Espi has a treat lying in plain sight, though you may have difficulty making your way to it: a BFG between the two buildings on an outdoor ledge.

This level may not showcase Espi's texture crafting skills, but it's still a treat to see his work with the vanilla set. Laitos is just a handsome level, with judicious texture placement and upper/lower texture cheat sectors adorning fantastic yet elegant architecture. I liked the look of the toxic pit border alcoves with the rusted pipes; it struck me as a unique aesthetic. I think that the first half of the base gets the majority of the cool architecture, like the starting area, the western annex, and the spiral staircase that leads to the outdoor area with steps down into a trench. There are a lot of bits of the level that reminded me of Suspended in Dusk's architecture but the trench room is one of the big ones.

There isn't a lot of lightcasting but when you see it, like in the pillar room right before the yellow key, it looks pretty impactful. I was surprised to see that this map didn't have a whole lot of it but then I remembered that it was originally designed for the E1 contest and, while lightcasting figures into memorable visuals like into the computer maze of "Nuclear Plant" (E1M2), it wouldn't be appropriate to punch it up to something like Dr. Sleep's work. One of my favorite new bits of detailing in the level is a deep water hack in a flooded portion in the exterior of the southern annex. I also appreciated a sign-posted radioactive materials storage area barrels that wasn't a damage floor. Exploding barrels notwithstanding, it's nice to see a slightly more realistic depiction of radioactive materials.

The combat in this level is knocked up a notch when compared to the original. E1CONTEST Laitos only had one Baron of Hell and one cacodemon on UV. Here, you have seven of the former and nine of the latter, and I believe that all of the additions are part of the new areas. The second caco ambush and final Baron rush are subtly unleashed into the playing area. The only reason that the Barons didn't sneak up on me is because they all filed into an imp alcove that's accessible via a secret that only the player can open. Granted, they got to throw some green shit at me through the windows, but I had fair warning of what was wandering around. The rest of the map is fairly typical E1 combat with the added wrinkle of all of Espi's window interconnections. It's cool that you can peek into future playing areas, but this means that the monsters can see you.

If you liked Suspended in Dusk but haven't played Laitos, or just like OG Doom in general, then you really ought to. It's a great level to explore, offers a few stiff combat scenarios the deeper you go in, and looks awesome. I'm glad that Espi took the time to develop the map so much farther than its original incarnation.

THE CONTESTED ZONE