Thread:Deathstalker666/@comment-1496755-20180827202615/@comment-3547390-20181220131436

Sounds like fun.

Unreal sort of gets like this. Has a great beginning and an amazing end. But then you got stuff like "Dasa Mountain Pass", where they decided to just make a level with almost endless respawning waves of enemies in sealed areas, something which just makes no sense when compared to the rest of the game. That level tends to last ages and just be miserable to work through. But then you get past it and reach a series of absolutely amazing content. And then you have stuff like the ISV Kran, which also takes ages to complete and reminds me a lot of Doom 3's Alpha/Delta labs in how it is segmented into multiple parts just due to how long it all is.

Even both Thief games have it. Thief Gold is pretty much infamous for mostly including slog levels, the real redemption is because it also includes possibly the best level in the game (the original version didn't have many slog levels outside of a level ironically most love, but I just find a nuisance to work my way through). Thief 2 is almost nigh perfection, but then has a pair of levels near the end that is exactly this, lasting forever. You can always tell a slog level as everything looks the same, nothing really eventful happens, and yet there is no quick way through it.

I think you will find American McGee focuses a lot more on atmosphere and thus feels it can work stronger if the experience is dictated by a mandatory route. His stuff is more about the world-building than the actual levels. Claustrophobic natures, darkness, all of that is standard McGee. You will probably find Doom was actually the one with the limited engine, it was one he created levels for, but not really the atmospheric style he really clung to later on. The lack of dynamic lighting and just the mentality of the game probably wasn't his particular style.

The madness of the maze probably didn't help.

I was debating that one as well. Shareware as it has been known has always redirected to Episode 1, since that is the shareware Episode and there is barely any difference between the Shareware and final release. PAK0 almost pretty much belongs as a small sentence there, maybe with a redirect. Except maybe having a separate page for Shareware would be better, not really sure. It is one of those pages I just won't care about, too much of a technical focus, and I prefer focusing on stuff found inside the game.