When I think of the most solid freeware episodes from '97, it's this, bbelief, mexx9/10, and zer that pop up into mind. This is probably the weakest of the bunch, but it's well worth playing. Also play Plutonia Experiment (Doom II, Final Doom) by this author.

I think it is time to replay this pack. I think it was quite difficult on hard yet it was fun and interesting. This pack has also some impressive speedruns on SDA.

Quality work from one of the Casali brothers who had blessed us with Final Doom before. It's not as difficult as one would expect after playing Doom's Plutonia, but that wasn't what I was looking for, anyway. Map layout is great and enemy placement keeps you at the edge of your seat. One of the early and memorable highlights of Quake modding!

What more to say? Great work by the maker of (half of) Doom's Plutonia Experiment and future Valve Software worker!

Secret level entrance is kinda easy to find. And also nightmare level entrance. Just look at the right place ;)

Great addon.

Great episode, very good design

Playing this episode made me really uncomfortable. The whole layout is confusing, too many pathways, too many buttons shooting. Many times in order to get from this point to a 50 metres away point you need to run across 2/3 of the level.

There are two moments in one of the levels where you have to have considerable amount of health: first is jumping into lime pool and second the room with like a dozen nail traps. The nail traps room takes away 78 percent of health. 78! And there's no way to avoid the nails. What if player doesn't have 79 plus percent of health when entering this room?

In general, I would not recommend playing this release. My opinion is it feels too strange and odd.

I'm stuck on the first level. I think I need to activate the brown lever, but I don't know how to raise the lift over the slime area to access the lever room. Please help!

Aaaand, as usual, I found the solution myself right after asking. Shoot me.

Repus, about the nail trap: you can avoid any damage by stepping a little to the side. And you can use the trap to kill the enforcer. :)

I played a couple of the maps, and it was a brutal grind--tough and not very fun. Also, gameplay felt very Doom-like in some respects. It's clear that a lot of effort and skill went into creating this, but it's not for me.

Pretty good early quake map pack that is challenging and fun to play through. I also enjoyed the custom red texture skybox that Dario created within this mod. However in some maps it was quite vague of how to advance within the level as it was not always very clear of where the correct switch was in order to progress. As a result i can only give this early quake mod a four out of five rating but would highly recommend downloading this mod as it is very high quality.

I had never heard of this gem before. The maps are quite simply beautiful and a marvel to behold. The architecture is creative and varied, and there are all kinds of cool ideas and gameplay mechanics you don't see very often.

The gameplay is challenging in a good way most of the time, but I'd say level 1 and, to some extent, 4 are too skimpy on health, which isn't my favourite way of adding to a map's challenge. Also, the secret map will probably take quite a bit of tries to beat; it's TOUGH.

But all in all, I warmly recommend this episode, if you don't mind challenging gameplay. After finishing a map, I was hungry to play the rest of the maps, and that's a very good sign in my book.

Once I learned that this episode was created by the mind behind Doom Plutonia, I was definitely interested, but some words of warning...

(1) I played on hard, and the experience reminded me of playing Plutonia with Brutal Doom: the encounters are unforgiving unless you treat them as puzzles. There's little room for experimentation because the mapper has orchestrated the experience expecting the absolute best from you.

(2) It's not always clear how to advance in a level, and this coupled with the above point can make for a frustrating experience. To be honest, I got through four maps before calling it quits. The style of gameplay encouraged by this episode isn't my kind of fun, but there's no doubt this episode takes Quake to a new (intimidating) level.

Sometimes it gets convoluted and frustrating in navigation - particularly I have found such elements in the map 'Venom', an otherwise excellent installment - as well as, it may become exhausting to take all in one sitting, but nonetheless, a remarkable release.

This is new to me. In 1997 it must have been pretty amazing. I've been playing on Nightmare, and found a few places just too unbalanced to remain fun, but that's my fault for not playing on hard.

At the end of level 3B, is there any legitimate way to get past the shamblers and death knights in the final area? Some important secret that I'm missing, maybe? A quad or a pent? Otherwise, I just don't see how it's possible.

Also, on level 4, how are you supposed to open the exit door in the room where the walkway over the lava rises to crush you against the ceiling?

Also, what is the gold key for on map 4? Pretty much as soon as you get it, you exit the map without having used it/

I finished this, having cheated a few times -- noclipping through unopenable doors and god-moding the shambler fight. It's tough to score. Twenty-five years is a long time, and there is no way this pack can stand up now as it did in 1997. By modern standards, the maps fall short in being cramped and arbitrary, and also in odd ways like using misleading textures for pressable and shootable buttons. But even now there is plenty of gameplay to be had here. Impressive, even when not really fun.