File:DMAS10 - Porch Of Doom

Description
Due to the reusing of the same exit message, I am assuming this is the same developer as the previous two levels. Why that is surprising is because the developer finally got the scale of the rooms right!

The porch room is pretty decent sized and allows for action paced combat. There is a room with Water and Yellow Armor, so the room is smaller so as to not be ridiculously spacious for no reason. Of course, now the flaw is that the level designer created a map with just two rooms and little content in each room. The first room is a small corridor with 2 Rockets and a Yellow Armor, meaning most of the map is basically centered in the second room (the one with the titular porch).

We got a Nailgun, Double-Barrelled Shotgun, and Rocket Launcher. I guess there is some form of weapon balance, ammo for the Rocket Launcher is on the opposite side of the map which causes the lesser weapons to have a use (and difficulty for the Rocket Launcher player who needs to travel the length of the map to get it). As soon as the Rocket Launcher player gets to the opposite side the balance is lost, but at least there is a chance for the weaker players to get some points.

Still, as I have said, I am not a big fan of one room maps (which this basically is). The balance that exists is due to the massive amount of limited weaponry, which was never a popular style even though plenty of maps were designed in such a fashion (see DM1 and why it is never played). This map is very limited in design as well, thus why it appears better than what we have seen.

Of course, that balance might actually not exist. There are only a few spawn locations in the map, most being corrupt and whatnot. Only one is on the top platform with the Rocket Launcher. Combine that with the logic that there is only one possible route up and it suddenly becomes quite viable to wait for the Rocket Launcher to respawn. There isn't much balance if someone can sit there and kill everyone with Rockets, basically dominating the map by camping with little ability to stop it. So, as long as the player doesn't try to do something like go for the Yellow Armor, they can control the top. The top is the only place with Health Packs as well. Yeah, though I tried to create a whole situation that would make this map sound like it would have balance, it seems that there is actually little balance if you stay on the porch. Well, I tried to imagine that this was a good level!