(Big thanks to @Scamsley for reminding me that this was a thing that existed and encouraging me to play it!)
Would you look at that, it's December 10th! What better day to beat and review Sigil... than the day that Sigil 2 releases!... Dear god I’m terrible at organizing these things…
You may have caught on to this, but I really, REALLY like the original DOOM, even after arriving too late to the party and having played the modern side of the franchise first, that didn’t stop me from having the time of my life with it; it was a fantastic shooter, to tightly designed and fun that I could just not stop playing, and even after the admittedly cold shower that was Thy Flesh Consumed, I needed MORE.
And it’s not like I had a shortage of content; even when ignoring the existence of DOOM II, the community around the original game is so massive, so unbelievable expansive, that I’m convinced that I could play only fan-mad Doom WADS and Episodes for an entire month or two if I wanted to. Hel (on earth), there are even some expansions that have been made kind of official through their release on the Steam version of DOOM, something that also eliminated the hard process for my weak and feeble mind that is installing GZDoom, so I quite literally had no excuse for not playing AT LEAST one of them.
However, one of them in particular was brought into my attention, one that I remembered noticing it when it released simply because of the impact and excitement it generated through the internet and even in some of my closest friends, and how it could not? It’s not every day that you get an expansion made by one of the fathers of the game itself. In every instance I’ve talked about DOOM, I’ve refrained myself into diving deep into its creation and the people behind it, simply because it’s such a well-documented part of gaming history by people far more capable than I that it would be hysterical of me to try to add something to the discourse in any major way, but I just cannot talk about Sigil without at least mentioning John Romero, simply because how intrinsically tied one its to another.
A figure controversial (Daikatana shall be a story for another time…) as it is beloved, the pedigree of one of the masters of Doom incredibly interesting at times and fucking ridiculous at others; it also turns out he was also born in a 28th of October, so me releasing the DOOM review on that day ended up being even more fitting! But ignoring funny coincidences and other tales, Romero has made efforts to be remember more-so by its successes than its mistakes, and can’t say the man hasn’t succeed: to this day, he’s a very prominent figure in Doom community, participating in events in conferences dedicated to it and beyond. At a glance, one could easily thrown him with the pile of people living off their past legacy, but good ol’ Johnny decided to go one step beyond, ‘cause some legacies last forever, but Doom’s… Doom’s is eternal.
Sigil’s release in 2019 was already a pretty surprise even to someone that wasn’t really into the original back then, and now here I am, having beaten it to the very end, and the only thing I can say for sure is that… this makes look Thy Flesh Consumed even worse and I didn’t thought that was even possible. I sheer fact this wasn’t an actual official release boggles the mind, Sigil is not good, it is absolutely outstanding. It’s still more DOOM, there are no crazy additions or changes, nothing of the such, this is just taking everything that the base game had and going all in with it, and my fucking god if it does. The demons, weapons, secrets and looks, at a glance, it all feels taken straight up from the three original chapters but it goes even further; the set pieces like cacodemons rising from a crater that reaches the depths or hell or walking past passages filled with imprisoned Lost Souls are unlike anything seeing in Inferno or any other chapter; there are no two exact same passages in this megawad, everything feels so distinct and cathartic, which is something that could be said the level design as a whole.
In my original review I defended Inferno and said I really like how it experimented with a ton of cool ideas, and I wished that the game expanded upon there even more… Sigil is exactly what I wished for multiplied by 100x. Don’t get me wrong, there are some really noticeable bumps; M5 as a whole feels extremely confusing and even a bit messy, and the whole ending of M7 feels unfun to move through and the lack of ammo given to you in it makes up for a frustrating time rather than a tense one, but the rest? HOLY CYBERDEMON THIS IS FIRE. Each map feels like a complete world of its own, not because of its structure and how it experiments with mechanics like the teleports in fancy ways or the way every location feels incredibly different and feels like your are reap and tearing through actual hellish locations, but because of for. E4 also did both of these things, but meanwhile in there the result was often confusing, jarring and it sometimes even feels artificial, in here it feel like how it should be, and the results just speaks for themselves: creative and original challenges, masterfully designed areas, some of the most tense and fun combat I’ve experience in ANY Doom game, and a fantastic OST on par with the original pieces to go and with it. I still get shivers thinking of that final stretch in E8, or the tension of going through all the passage ways in E4, it has given me an experience that I could have perfectly been playing just after finishing the original game, this feels like DOOM, it is DOOM.
To me, Sigil is right up there with the best moments in Knee-Deep in the Dead and The Shores Of Hell, which it’s the best thing I could have ever hoped to say about it. It is technically harder than Thy Flesh Consumed, and it is, but minus all the tedious stuff that plagued that chapter. It is not the first un-official work done by Romero for DOOM, but it is done with such care and respect it truly feels like it could have really been some kind of modern DLC. It is not a magnum opus, nor does it put the original as a whole to shame in ANY shape or form, but it feels like a culmination, the result of everything that base DOOM should be turned into 9 maps, a sawm song dedicated to each end every person that has worked on keeping this game alive through amazing and incredible WADs and fan-episodes, and it’s kind of incredible to see and play.
If you enjoyed the original DOOM in any way, I cannot recommend Sigil enough, I didn’t expect to love this so much, but it’s not the first time this year I’m surprised like this; a wad that got me in awe at some holes in the ground and it showed me how truly good the plasma gun is, truly impeccable…
Would you look at that, it's December 10th! What better day to beat and review Sigil... than the day that Sigil 2 releases!... Dear god I’m terrible at organizing these things…
You may have caught on to this, but I really, REALLY like the original DOOM, even after arriving too late to the party and having played the modern side of the franchise first, that didn’t stop me from having the time of my life with it; it was a fantastic shooter, to tightly designed and fun that I could just not stop playing, and even after the admittedly cold shower that was Thy Flesh Consumed, I needed MORE.
And it’s not like I had a shortage of content; even when ignoring the existence of DOOM II, the community around the original game is so massive, so unbelievable expansive, that I’m convinced that I could play only fan-mad Doom WADS and Episodes for an entire month or two if I wanted to. Hel (on earth), there are even some expansions that have been made kind of official through their release on the Steam version of DOOM, something that also eliminated the hard process for my weak and feeble mind that is installing GZDoom, so I quite literally had no excuse for not playing AT LEAST one of them.
However, one of them in particular was brought into my attention, one that I remembered noticing it when it released simply because of the impact and excitement it generated through the internet and even in some of my closest friends, and how it could not? It’s not every day that you get an expansion made by one of the fathers of the game itself. In every instance I’ve talked about DOOM, I’ve refrained myself into diving deep into its creation and the people behind it, simply because it’s such a well-documented part of gaming history by people far more capable than I that it would be hysterical of me to try to add something to the discourse in any major way, but I just cannot talk about Sigil without at least mentioning John Romero, simply because how intrinsically tied one its to another.
A figure controversial (Daikatana shall be a story for another time…) as it is beloved, the pedigree of one of the masters of Doom incredibly interesting at times and fucking ridiculous at others; it also turns out he was also born in a 28th of October, so me releasing the DOOM review on that day ended up being even more fitting! But ignoring funny coincidences and other tales, Romero has made efforts to be remember more-so by its successes than its mistakes, and can’t say the man hasn’t succeed: to this day, he’s a very prominent figure in Doom community, participating in events in conferences dedicated to it and beyond. At a glance, one could easily thrown him with the pile of people living off their past legacy, but good ol’ Johnny decided to go one step beyond, ‘cause some legacies last forever, but Doom’s… Doom’s is eternal.
Sigil’s release in 2019 was already a pretty surprise even to someone that wasn’t really into the original back then, and now here I am, having beaten it to the very end, and the only thing I can say for sure is that… this makes look Thy Flesh Consumed even worse and I didn’t thought that was even possible. I sheer fact this wasn’t an actual official release boggles the mind, Sigil is not good, it is absolutely outstanding. It’s still more DOOM, there are no crazy additions or changes, nothing of the such, this is just taking everything that the base game had and going all in with it, and my fucking god if it does. The demons, weapons, secrets and looks, at a glance, it all feels taken straight up from the three original chapters but it goes even further; the set pieces like cacodemons rising from a crater that reaches the depths or hell or walking past passages filled with imprisoned Lost Souls are unlike anything seeing in Inferno or any other chapter; there are no two exact same passages in this megawad, everything feels so distinct and cathartic, which is something that could be said the level design as a whole.
In my original review I defended Inferno and said I really like how it experimented with a ton of cool ideas, and I wished that the game expanded upon there even more… Sigil is exactly what I wished for multiplied by 100x. Don’t get me wrong, there are some really noticeable bumps; M5 as a whole feels extremely confusing and even a bit messy, and the whole ending of M7 feels unfun to move through and the lack of ammo given to you in it makes up for a frustrating time rather than a tense one, but the rest? HOLY CYBERDEMON THIS IS FIRE. Each map feels like a complete world of its own, not because of its structure and how it experiments with mechanics like the teleports in fancy ways or the way every location feels incredibly different and feels like your are reap and tearing through actual hellish locations, but because of for. E4 also did both of these things, but meanwhile in there the result was often confusing, jarring and it sometimes even feels artificial, in here it feel like how it should be, and the results just speaks for themselves: creative and original challenges, masterfully designed areas, some of the most tense and fun combat I’ve experience in ANY Doom game, and a fantastic OST on par with the original pieces to go and with it. I still get shivers thinking of that final stretch in E8, or the tension of going through all the passage ways in E4, it has given me an experience that I could have perfectly been playing just after finishing the original game, this feels like DOOM, it is DOOM.
To me, Sigil is right up there with the best moments in Knee-Deep in the Dead and The Shores Of Hell, which it’s the best thing I could have ever hoped to say about it. It is technically harder than Thy Flesh Consumed, and it is, but minus all the tedious stuff that plagued that chapter. It is not the first un-official work done by Romero for DOOM, but it is done with such care and respect it truly feels like it could have really been some kind of modern DLC. It is not a magnum opus, nor does it put the original as a whole to shame in ANY shape or form, but it feels like a culmination, the result of everything that base DOOM should be turned into 9 maps, a sawm song dedicated to each end every person that has worked on keeping this game alive through amazing and incredible WADs and fan-episodes, and it’s kind of incredible to see and play.
If you enjoyed the original DOOM in any way, I cannot recommend Sigil enough, I didn’t expect to love this so much, but it’s not the first time this year I’m surprised like this; a wad that got me in awe at some holes in the ground and it showed me how truly good the plasma gun is, truly impeccable…
4 Comments
@GoldSource Really hope you enjoy it when you get to it! It's wonderful and super fun add-on in everyway
@DeemonAndGames I’ve finally played it! It honestly so good I can’t even comprehend, it felt like playing Doom for the first time again!
@GoldSource So glad you enjoyed it! It's insane how tightly designed it is, it's so fun, so creative that I cannot see it as anything but a true fifth episode for Doom, it's a fantastic addition!
GoldSource
4 months ago