Plutonia 2
released on Dec 31, 2008
A mod for The Plutonia Experiment
Plutonia 2 is a 32-level megawad for The Plutonia Experiment as an unofficial sequel. After being in development since 2000, it was released on December 31, 2008. At the 2009 Cacowards it was declared one of the winners and understandably also received the Mordeth award.
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I want to give this 5 stars so much. The Plutonia Experiment is my favorite of the original ID WADs and Plutonia 2 doubles down on everything great about the OG Plutonia. Unfortunately, it has a couple of things that stops it from being perfect IMO.
The level design, atleast for maps 1 through 16, is superb. They're so tight and carefully designed. Every inch of these maps were laid out with purpose. The first half of Plutonia 2 wastes no space in its levels, nor does it waste the player"s time. They're brutal and unapologetically challenging, but always fair and to the point. No endless keycard hunts or switch puzzles that take forever. Just fast and brutal. They're cohesive in a way alot of user-made wads aren't. You can often see the exit or other parts of the map as soon as you start, so you're never stuck wondering where you have to go.
They're also surprisingly short, despite the challenging difficulty. They usually clock in around 10 to 20 minutes, the perfect length for a doom level if you ask me. However, things start to change around maps 17, 18 and 19...
The short but brutal maps begin to step back, in their place, are these massive maps with hundreds of enemies and switch hunts. They are....not as tight as the early maps, sadly. Map 29 took me an hour to do, partly because it has a MANDATORY secret switch.... it was pretty frustrating.
Despite the OG Plutonia's reputation, it's actually (usually) pretty fair. Sure, sometimes it has some chaingunner ambushes you kinda need to prepare for in advance, but it rarely throws anything at you a player couldn't reasonably handle, but Plutonia 2 near its end crosses the line. Mandatory secrets are inexcusable IMO.
Overall, definitely worth playing if you enjoyed the OG Plutonia. I would say overall it surpasses the OG, but some things like the over-ambitious level design of the last few maps, kinda sours the end for me.
Still one of the greatest user wads of all time tho, without a doubt.
The level design, atleast for maps 1 through 16, is superb. They're so tight and carefully designed. Every inch of these maps were laid out with purpose. The first half of Plutonia 2 wastes no space in its levels, nor does it waste the player"s time. They're brutal and unapologetically challenging, but always fair and to the point. No endless keycard hunts or switch puzzles that take forever. Just fast and brutal. They're cohesive in a way alot of user-made wads aren't. You can often see the exit or other parts of the map as soon as you start, so you're never stuck wondering where you have to go.
They're also surprisingly short, despite the challenging difficulty. They usually clock in around 10 to 20 minutes, the perfect length for a doom level if you ask me. However, things start to change around maps 17, 18 and 19...
The short but brutal maps begin to step back, in their place, are these massive maps with hundreds of enemies and switch hunts. They are....not as tight as the early maps, sadly. Map 29 took me an hour to do, partly because it has a MANDATORY secret switch.... it was pretty frustrating.
Despite the OG Plutonia's reputation, it's actually (usually) pretty fair. Sure, sometimes it has some chaingunner ambushes you kinda need to prepare for in advance, but it rarely throws anything at you a player couldn't reasonably handle, but Plutonia 2 near its end crosses the line. Mandatory secrets are inexcusable IMO.
Overall, definitely worth playing if you enjoyed the OG Plutonia. I would say overall it surpasses the OG, but some things like the over-ambitious level design of the last few maps, kinda sours the end for me.
Still one of the greatest user wads of all time tho, without a doubt.