Doom 2: Speed of Doom - Map 32: Pyramid of Death (UV Max)

Speed of Doom is a 2010 WAD comprised of 33 maps made entirely by Darkwave0000 and Joshy. Darkwave0000 is a somewhat mysterious, but deeply influential character in the Doom scene, and only really pops up when he contributes to the French Doom Community WADs (like the 3HA series and 180 MPV).
Joshy on the other hand has had a pretty long career since SOD. Having contributed to big projects like BTSX 2, Community Chest 4, and Ancient Aliens, being the project lead for both Plutonia Revisited WADs, and having his own 32 map WAD in Resurgence, Joshy’s impact on the Doom community can’t go unnoticed.
Both mappers have pretty distinct styles, and the fact that they alternate maps in Speed of Doom (Darkwave handles even # maps, Joshy handles odd # ones, besides the secret maps) highlights these differences even more.
In general, Speed of Doom combines influences from many of the most popular and influential WADs from the early 2000s. Scythe/Scythe 2, Alien Vendetta, Hell Revealed, and others can be seen in Speed of Doom, and it coalesces to form an entirely unique and influential mapping style in its own right. There’s a reason why so many modern mappers look to Darkwave and Joshy’s masterpiece for inspiration. Speed of Doom is incredibly fun, bloody, violent, and full of intense combat and heavily atmospheric environments.
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IWAD: Doom 2
Port: DSDA-doom 28.0
Compatibility: Boom (comp level 9)
Mapper(s): Joshy
MIDI: stewboy - Egypt
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Speed of Doom: www.doomworld....
DSDA-doom: www.doomworld....
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This one of a few later Joshy maps in Speed of Doom that I’ve grown to dislike quite a bit. Maybe I’m just slowly developing a very specific taste when it comes to this type of map, but Joshy’s approach to this map feels pretty outdated. It kind of takes the cruelest parts of Hell Revealed and makes them 10x worse. It also keeps the same style of cramming 100x the amount of monsters into a space then there should be, which overall increases the luck needed to get any kind of run above average immensely.
I don’t even know where to start with some of these sections because they’re just absurd. The beginning is super RNG heavy in my opinion. It doesn’t help that you have to rely on infighting just to get past it either. Half the time, those Cyberdemons will take forever to shoot at something else, and then when they do and you start to BFG them, they’ll just instantly turn around again. So, I have to just beat my head against the wall until the Cyber finally decides to cooperate and continue shooting the Revenants just so I can squeeze past him and continue to get mauled by everybody else. Then you get the middle section which is the definition of overcrowded. I wouldn’t spend one minute in there, because trying to clear out each cage and section of demons is a death wish.
Quite frankly it gets worse in the next area. The blue key area is so damn overcrowded that if you don’t go for that invulnerability right away you might as well just restart because the Hell Knights, Revenants, Mancubi, Cyberdemons, Arch Viles, and whatever else will swallow you in a split second. It also pisses me off considerably that the invulnerability doesn’t even really help half of the time, because you either get pushed right into the middle of the crowd by the Arch Viles, or forced to move to the Cyberdemons who’ll smack you around like a ping pong ball while the Viles send you flying, or you’ll just get launched into space and have to waste precious time having to run back to the Cybers and Viles just for the second scenario to happen. Once everything aligns though, you should have established enough of a foothold to clear out the rest of the map.
This is by no means a bad map, and those who love this kind of thing will certainly go nuts over it, but I suppose I just enjoy a different style of slaughter map. Part of me really wants to say that this kind of slaughter belongs in the past, but I must admit, there are times where I enjoy this kind of gameplay. I suppose that part of me is shrinking as the days go by, however.

[@maximumtaco2298]

Badass. I'm gonna go look up this wad right now!

[@CarlRaven91]

Slaughter with a Capital S! I agree this map isn't to everyone's tastes.
But at least we have an awesome Stuart Rynn MIDI!

[@thesoulingredient06]

Yeah I love this one too. Really keeps the energy of the map up.