DIFFICULTY RATING
This was a tough call for me. At times I found myself outnumbered, low on ammunition and health and backed into a corner and needing to find a creative escape from a bad situation. I could tell you how I escaped from those situations but that would take all the fun out of it. At other times however, I found myself bored as I had killed everything there was to kill at that time and I was looking for the next thing I needed to accomplish. When I was fighting, I was in for a fight. The creatures seemed well thought out in placement and their difficulty in killing seemed proportionate to the weapons I was toting around. I did find the rocket launcher handy in a situation or two. :-) I am not going to say I'm the best Doom player that ever lived so my experience with the difficulty is based on my abilities. I'm better than some, not nearly as good as others (play a DM guru sometime). I was never in any real danger of running out of ammunition although I did empty out my cache of bullets a couple of times as I played. It is a difficult level but it came in spurts and left me too much free time which I am deducting a couple of points for but overall it was very much fun and there was a good body count....

PLAYABILITY
The level plays out well with lots of things to discover, hidden rooms to find, etc... At the time of this writing I haven't quite finished the level so I haven't discovered all there is to discover but it all seems to go together well. I did get a little frustrated as I searched for ways to continue on in the level but I think the darkness of the level contributed to that quite a bit. Again, it is very good overall. The lack of creatures to kill at times did account for a slightly lower score than I otherwise would have given it.

LEVEL DESIGN
This is unquestionably the best part of the wad. It is very Quakish in its design and uses the Zdoom features provided by Zdoom 1.23 very well. Being an old school doomer I have a problem personally with this because I like to think while I'm playing that I am still playing doom. This is NOTHING like Doom2 at all. The level has all the features you would find in a good Quake level... sloping floors, broken walls, and much more. The lightning effect and the earthquake effects are very good features of Zdoom and are used well in this level. Unfortunately, pictures cannot do this level justice. Tormentor, I believe, is one of the top level designers for Doom/Doom2 today and his effective use of architecture and textures/flats is excellent. You really won't see much better out there and he's one of those designers that forces the rest of us to marvel at his expertise. You won't be disappointed playing this level despite some of the shortcomings I mentioned earlier. If you liked Quake you will DEFINITELY enjoy playing this. If you want to see what is possible with one of the best ports out there - then you will want to see this as well. It just doesn't get any better. I know, it all sounds so good but there is a downside to this - the level design completely takes over the wad and overshadows every other aspect of it which might explain why although I found myself fascinated by the design, I actually had the time to smell the roses so to speak. Still, for design alone, this wad gets my top score.

OVERALL SCORE
Tormentor definitely should be proud of this creation. It is beautiful and for the most part fun to play. You won't find many better at designing for Doom2 than this gentleman and you should definitely visit his site, send him an email and thank him for contributing to the Doom community. Don't forget to grab Zdoom 1.23 - You're going to need it - take my word on that. Also, check out his site - you can also get his previous project - Perforated Entrails there, another really good project.