AV Demopack comments:

AV is a very good megawad. If I used the 3 point test of any great wad it
would get 1 full point for playability and 1/2 points for detail and 
design. Would have been the best wad of 2001 if it wasn't for the outstanding
work of Richard Wiles Slayer wadset. AV's high points are it's playability
and creativity in design. Some of the levels really show a stride towards
creating detail and design never seen in DOOM. 

AV suffers from a lack of discretion. If AV were a film it could use some
serious editing. Many wads have too many areas 'tact' on. I can feel that
whole "mine is bigger then yours" vibe. Someone should have took a broom
and swept out the bad parts of certain levels. Otherwise, I don't think
it would have hurt to see a new version of AV. I think it's just one of
those inevitable aspects of making a megawad. Megawads as early as Momento
Mori had to release bug fix versions. You just cannot anticipate everything.
I think Anders stuck with the idea of not breaking compatibilty in favor 
of fixing some nagging bugs. All he was really saving was some first, 
second, and maybe third effort runs. 

My contributions are just miscellaneous. I really only recorded what
I felt like. The only demo I could not pull off that I was trying was
a tyson of map03. It's a bit tricky, but I know I can do it. I just
don't have the patience right now. Nice to see some diverse contributions
to this pack from a variety of talented individuals. See ya at Compet-n!

Individual demo comments:

Level 11 Max - 17:37

I must advise against watching this demo. That's right, I said don't watch 
this demo. It's somewhere between not too good and downright bad. It's 
just one of those demos that can only be appreciated by my mother or
the level author himself. Well, my mom said she's not interested in 
watching the demo right now so that is definately a bad sign. And 
usually she'll sit down and watch our favorite lmp's together. She
said something or another about 'not having enough time to watch 
my exploration missions'. Yeah, well, you know.

One of the architectural masterpieces from AV. This level plays for the 
most part well also. I wish Martin would have stayed away from 
too much cave activity at the end. By then my nerves are fried and
not really happy about navigating 96 units wide caves. Some noticeable 
alignment problems, but otherwise, a great monster of a map.

Level 21 Max - 4:39
This level kind of annoys me a bit. Anders says he did ammo balance and 
that he purposely made it so that beserk would be needed in certain
areas. I still think there is just not enough ammo to the point where I
feel I might as well make a tyson demo if I were to attempt a max demo.
The health is scarce too and made barely sufficient by an unmarked soul
sphere secret. You can get aggravated pretty fast when you die in the
final room because your trying to get a soul sphere secret (?) that is
behind a door located in a pool of -20 blood (?). GRR. It also is visually
a bit boring because Pablo's editor doesn't seem to be able to change
heights in a level. 

Level 15 Speed - 3:41 (secret exit)

I'm NOT at all a speed player. I don't really have any interest in it.
However, as months of time passed making this demopack there was a lot
of blanks. I decided to make this demo to show a real speed player how
easy this map could be done. I guess if your reading this no one stepped
up to beat this time. BTW, I use the secret exit. I just got tired of 
dieing 15 straight times in the final room trying to exit normally.

Level 05 Tyson - 9:30

My first tyson style demo for one of the best maps from AV. Simple, pure 
design and a clean layout complement fine tuned gameplay. Chris and Anders
quickly sealed off the max category and I thought why not try the tyson
cat? I've always admired that cat from afar. The demo came out good
even though this was my first exit. Thats because I finished 3 times before
with 98% kills and a time near 11 minutes. Then I realized the monster I was
missing was the chaingunner teleporting in at the exit. 


Author Info:

Anthony "Swedish Fish" Soto
neworderdatabase@hotmail.com 
http://thefish.8m.com/