Final Doom - Plutonia

[T-Rex]

T-Rex's Gaming Corner - Final Doom: The Plutonia Experiment Doom, a game released by id Software in 1993, was one of my favourite games and was one of the best first-person shooter games of all time. Other fun first-person shooter games of the 90s included Duke Nukem 3D, Blood, Quake, and Half-Life, but Doom was the most popular game of them all, with fast-paced levels with different themes from futuristic high-tech bases, dark, creepy gothic castles, and the fiery lava pits of Hell. In 1994, id Software released Doom 2, which had more challenge with more deadly monsters to face. Two expansions were made for Doom 2: the Master Levels for Doom which was released in 1995, and Final Doom in 1996. Both were third-party expansion packs, but the most memorable one would be Final Doom. The game consisted of two megawads: Evilution and the Plutonia Experiment. I'll be taking a look at the Plutonia Experiment, because this wad was regarded as the hardest wad during the time it was released. The levels were designed by the two famous wad designers Dario and Milo Casali, who contributed a couple of levels for Evilution and designed standalone wads and levels for other Doom projects of the 90s, most notably Memento Mori and Requiem. The Plutonia Experiment was unique from other wads of its time in style and theming. It had excellent level design with top-notch quality and great architecture. Some levels were inspired from the levels of Doom and Doom 2. Map 7 had the same concept of Doom 2's Map 7 (Dead Simple), Map 18 reminded me of Doom 2's Map 14 (The Inmost Dens), Map 22 had Doom's Episode 1 written all over it, Maps 24 and 27 had the style of Doom 2's Map 29 (The Living End), and Odyssey of Noises (Plutonia Map 29) was a hellish version of Doom 2's Maps 13 and 15 (city levels). What really brings Plutonia to fame however was the gameplay - it's insanely difficult. The first time I played Plutonia, I never saw such hordes of monsters. 32 levels with armies of imps, fleets of cacodemons, and dozens of revenants, all in just the easiest skill level. It's so hard, that I can only beat the levels in god mode. Plutonia may pale in difficulty nowadays since there are more wads with greater difficulty, but it has its place in history. There's also a sequel (Plutonia 2) which started back in 2000 and was finally released on December 31st 2008. I must admit, if Plutonia wasn't created, we wouldn't have these hard megawads like Hell Revealed, Alien Vendetta, Scythe, and other wads similar to it in terms of gameplay. For you Doomers who enjoy playing megawads with beautiful level design and extreme difficulty such as Huy Pham's Deus Vult 2, don't forget that it was Plutonia that started it all. Hats off to Dario and Milo Casali for creating the Plutonia Experiment. That's it for my game talk. Hope you enjoyed it. T-Rex

Edited June 27, 2010 by T-Rex

[Guest garrymodes]

Frankly, everything. The quality is excellent, the gameplay, the divine. Final Doom is actually two games, TNT Evilution Experiment and Pluto. TNT has been designed by a group of fans of Doom, or TeamTNT. Pluto experiment was designed by a talented Dario and Milo Casali, including the (then) a mapper avid Doom. And judging by the expert had to do this, you will swear these maps were made for yourself. Romeo and John together. would've been left red-faced when they saw these two beauties.

[T-Rex]

I agree. Both Evilution and Plutonia were excellent wads and had better level design than Doom and Doom 2, mainly because the majority of the levels in the first two Doom games were designed by Sandy Petersen. The levels by Sandy Petersen were not that bad in terms of gameplay, but the architecture in most of them was virtually nonexistent when you compare them to the levels by John Romero and American McGee. Even the levels by the uncredited level designer Tom Hall were not that shabby, though they were revamped by Sandy Petersen. Even so, Final Doom had better levels since they were designed by mappers who were getting a grasp on making excellent level design. Plutonia was probably the best wad out of the two. In fact, if you've played Hell Revealed, Alien Vendetta, and Scythe, you can clearly see that they were heavily influenced by Plutonia in terms of design and gameplay.

Edited July 31, 2010 by T-Rex