the txt file says the two levels are set in a nukage base. and linkin park has a big influence too, the music, the look of both title and intermission screens, the level names (txt says they are named after linkin park songs, something i would have never guessed)... even if one doesn't like the band, it shouldn't bother anyone. one thing i always did when a level had a song that was really bad or annoying, i just changed the music with the cheat and got over it. i don't like linkin park, but the music on this wad doesn't bother me at all (the song on map2 does get repetetive a bit). the music fits so who cares :-)

the first level (4GOT<10) is by karthik, and its a very colorful one. lots of round corners and very detailed. i really liked the look of it, and i can say this one is my favorite karthik level. its very different from the ones he did before this one and found it much more fun as well. some corridors are very tight and small, but nothing to make the player get stuck or be hard to navigate. the map layout was cool too, specially the big jump into the nuke with the red key. :-)

i played this level on skill3 and at first, i thought it was going to be too easy, specially when i got the bfg, but i was very wrong. it became harder as it went.

one thing i noticed was that on the room near the start, with a switch that's marked with the blue key lights, getting closer to it makes a baron of hell appear. he isn't much of a thread since he just dances around the nuke pool without getting out. its probably the only easy target i had on both levels :-)

what i liked though was the outside. the city buildings! that made the level more than just a nukage base to me. actually, the colorful use of textures made it seem like something else. but its doom, anything works.

the ambush at the start is something i have seen in a few other levels by karthik too, kinda like a signature. so anyway, after you press the switch with the red key lights, massive amounts of evil monsters spawn everywhere, which makes the fights on those tight rooms very intense! and karthik doesn't care about anything man, he lets loose all types of demons and its pretty much him giving you the finger and laughing about your painful death, karthik is evil i say! fights are varied and you don't really know what to expect. i didnt.

so when the monsters started appearing, i started panicking and i forgot where the red key was! (for a very small moment though) and died once again. starting again from scratch was much easier, but still hard on that massive monster spawn. then i remembered i had the bfg :-) knowing what to do made things easier, because when i played this level the first time (after not having played it for a long time) i forgot how things were, and it was scary going into a room without knowing what will happen or what i'll have inside. so knowing my way around made things easier, but still hard. and i played it on skill3! i don't think i could have finished it on skill4 at all. :-)

the 2nd level (EN/DA:ND) is by varun. i barely made it through karthik's level on skill3, varun's made things much harder and if karthik is a very evil man, varun is much worse. at first i thought varun had used more than 3 levels of shading for the lighting, but really looking at it, its just 3 or maybe 4. what really makes the lighting stand out in some areas is the darkness, and it really looks cool. :-)

and lots of detail everywhere, specially very little details. like wires and pipes all over the place. and funky use of textures too. i felt this level to be more bumpier than karthik's, but didn't do any wrong. the music though, after a while became too repetitive for me. one thing though, compared to map01, the texture use was not as colorfull, yet, it was on its own way. dunno if that makes any sense. :-)

after playing both levels, they do feel as one. to me, map01 was more like getting into the nukage base, with more outside parts and such, and map02 has the player inside the base and trying to get out! even though there is one small area with open sky, its very short and its the only one and once you are through it, you go back into the cold, metallic guts of the building, with nukage waste all over the place never making you feel safe. and one is never safe!

back to map02. after getting the red key, things got much harder. and a cyberdemon appeared. is there a varun level without a cyberdemon? :-) anyway, when i got to the little outside area, i died many times there. good thing i saved before entering the red key area, otherwise i would have to play everything from the start many times! :-)

but the outside part is madness... it made fighting the cyberdemon so much easier. i really liked the look of the outside part on map02. probably my favorite area of the level. especially those green metalic buildings! i must steal the idea for a future level :-D

if it wasn't because i already had weapons from map01, i don't think i would have gotten through map02 at all. on skill3 it was too easy for me, but i had to get through it anyway. good thing for that bfg! i don't think i would have ever made far without it. of course, skill1 is always there for the weak like me, but i had to play it on skill3 since that's where all the fun is.

i also felt map02 was shorter, though both levels are small, this one felt was smaller.

varun's photos work really nicely as intermission and titlepics. they really fit with the whole theme of the levels and the linkin park look to them too. even though i died a lot on both maps, it wasn't frustrating. but it was hard for me. too hard perhaps. :-)

anyway. reanimated was really cool and i'd really like to see reanimated 2 someday. that would be very awesome. maybe even more than 2 levels? now that would be too awesome :-)