Damn, this is just immense and endlessly creative and honestly it's the type of thing that really expands on Doom while turning it into its own thing entirely, and I just loved all the environments and level design in this. When I mean immense I mean IMMENSE, and god there's something about the way this map plays with DOOM's terrain where so many of the individual levels are just so distinctive in their own right. I mean it's also a heavily collaborative effort but it really does seem to work so well even if fundamentally this game is just "kill monsters, collect three keys." and so forth. There's levels in this that took me literally DAYS to finish with just how huge they were and it's also weird how like they're just in the middle of the game and then the next level afterwards would be completed within a few minutes. Also just the way that this plays with hidden areas and Doom's puzzle solving mechanics were certainly interesting, just with how intuitive it is. There's a whole bunch of times where I flipped a switch, an entirely new areas opened up where I killed hundreds of imps with my chaingun and BFG and what proved to be the deadliest weapon of all in this game... monster infighting, which is just yeah, you know.

This was really good though. Doom's gameplay has that nice combination of simple yet intuitive crossed with graphic violence that gives it such a rhythmic quality to it and yeah, I played this a lot and found it weirdly relaxing. That, and I liked how each of the episodes in this felt so distinctive from each other in terms of their settings and oddly it gave it kind of an abstract storytelling vibe to it. One thing I will say is like before this game is IMMENSE, like it's huge. It's weird when like one of the main things I may or may not have against it is that it's overwhelming but my god, you know. Definitely a must play for Doom fans.

I find it funny that I can review doom wads in a website like this, but don't be fooled: This WAD is a full length doom mod. A game of its own, if you will.

Eviternity is a product of love for all things DOOM. Its ambitions and technical prowess are nothing like we've seen in a DOOM engine game, but is it better than DOOM?

No, but that's not the point of Eviternity.

I played this wad on Ultra-Violence. I'm not as well versed in DOOM as its devoted fans, but I do know a thing or two about how to play DOOM. Of course, as a result, I've been humbled. Eviternity presents itself as more or less a "fight by fight" mod, or in other words, you're going to feel like you're fighting in arenas more than you're going to feel like exploring an entire map while encountering enemies along the way. It's a question of pacing and also a question of preference. I'm not in the camp of doing arena fights, but I still enjoyed what was given. These fights are hard, and I've tried my damnedest best to not save on every encounter. Some of these fights (thankfully not too many), I'm sorry, are kind of bullshit.

See, Eviternity adds a few new enemies (as well as modify some base game ones as well). One of these enemies is the "Annihilator", which is a Hell Demon, but Cyber. It shoots missiles and also chainguns people to death harder than Chaingunners do, and that's saying something. I hate to say it, but these enemies are terribly designed. They're frustrating to deal with, they have a high amount of damage output AND they have a lot of health. They're also put in many scenarios where the player can easily get owned by them. They are simply not fun. The astral beings from Out There, In The Universe, told me that they are changed in the sequel for the better.

Speaking of Chaingunners, some map makers really, really like the idea of adding to the difficulty of a map by adding as many as possible. Some of the fights obviously had the process of "Hmm, this is a bit easy, actually. How should I make this harder?" to which the answer is, of course, chaingunners. Call it a nitpick, I call it a disappointment. These are not the kinds of enemies to place around to make fights harder in a good way.

Alright, I've got my complaints about this game out of the way.

This mod is fucking beautiful. Holy shit. The music accompanies it very well, the Capital A Architecture on some of these levels is impressive. These people went above and beyond for what's expected in a DOOM wad when it comes to visuals. It's a full fledged journey. I'd stop and wander around after fights, just gushing about looking at the set pieces. You could play this in no-monsters mode and have an outstanding walking simulator to enjoy. There is a story in Eviternity, but it would rather just show you the environments than tell the story because it's just more important and efficient that way, anyway.

Difficulties are well adjusted as well. I did a quick look on the easier modes and they should be a good start for people who aren't as good at DOOM, but still want to experience a new, full length DOOM game.

This is the ideal megawad. Not only emulating the style of the original games, but pushing it forward with new enemies, whole new areas powered by a brand new texture pack, and new design concepts. Level after level of this game took me back with its creativity. There's one early on that starts in a small hallway and, with every switch press, opens up into an ever larger level filled with hordes of enemies. That's a design I hadn't really seen before—this level that evolves and grows as you go through it. Not just opening individual doors, but bringing down entire connecting walls and opening up into a larger space. It's also not even the most interesting level in the game.

Barring some horseshit here and there (the second secret level is far too long for a Doom level! it took like 30% of my total playtime to beat it!), this is just an incredible piece of work. The team has my respect forever.