Revolution!

Revolution by TVR 

 

Revolution is a limit removing megawad  for Doom 2 published on 2003 by Thomas van der Velden. I have beat this wad several times, as it is one of favorite fan content for these games. At the time of writing this review, I have just beat it on Ultra Violence, on continuous play and saving after every key using Doom Retro with the awesome Midi Pack

 

This wad is famous for popularizing the Doom Cute aesthetic. The levels are more or less based on real locations, and the ingenious use of texture works great in its favor to recreate places such as moving trains, cinema theaters, factories, mansions and so forth. At the time of release, the megawad received mixed reviews, while many players praise the realistic locales and the creativity, some others found the difficulty too low. Despite of this, the wad has achieve a cult status and it is often recommended for new players or fans of realistic architecture in Doom. 20 years later, it is hard not to see the wad influence in map sets like Anomaly Report, Monster Hunter Limited, Nostalgia and some others.

 

Difficulty wise, this may be between the original Doom campaign, and Doom 2. None of the levels get particular frantic, and there is plenty of health items around the map.  TVR intention appears to be more on trying to tell a story and letting the player explore the levels without too much pressure. This may be a drawback for people looking for a harder experience, but it is perfect for a chill afternoon or for people starting to get into fan content. On 2022, the map set and its midipack were added to the unity release making it even more accesible.

 

Revolution is divided into roughly three episodes. The first set of maps take place on planet earth and are roughly based on real locations while moving into tech base territory at the end of the episode. This is followed by a set of maps which have an hellesque aesthetic mixed up with brick bases kind of similar to the first Darkening Episode. Finally, the last episode combines surreal landscapes (such travelling the innards of a giant worm) with temple ruins.  There is an increase of difficulty on each episode, but as it has been mentioned before it rarely gets very too deadly. I have beat this map set around three times and at the time of writing this review my death count was quite low.  All three episodes are memorable, but I find the last set of maps less so than the rest. They are not bad, but they feel more generic than the early escapades.

 

Overall, Revolution is an enjoyable romp made out of gorgeous vanilla maps and exploratory based gameplay. You may want to look into it if you are getting into fan content, or if you have a knack for a more relaxed kind of gameplay. Veterans, or people looking for more challenging content may feel up being disappointed. 

 

Favorite Maps:

 

-  Map 03 Infestation: A sandbox level set on some city ruins. Pretty good level with some powerful weapons hidden. It´s main gimmick is that after every key a new set of enemies is released into the contested streets. 
- Map 12 Utopia: The player is tasked to explore a demon infested city. Have a cool fight against a Cyberdemon inside a chapel and some nasty teleporter ambushes near the end. I love the city design.
- Map 13 Dead End: A weird map in which the player is ambushed by a Cyberdemon and needs to traverse some lava infested caves to telefrag him. It is one of the most combat oriented maps of the megawad.
- Map 23 Pyramid of Pain: An exploratory level set on a pyramid. Full of traps and little puzzles. Kind of feels like a Tomb Raider inspired map. 
- Map 26 Phragmobasidium: An Innmost Dens / Circle of Death inspired map set on a series of small islands surrounded by waste. Some nasty fights on this one as the player traverse tight catwalks while being sniped from afar.

If you like compact level design, then don't miss this one. Most of the levels are quite short. And the overall difficulty is easy even on pistol start, but still there are some challenging levels(especially when you reached the final part of the megawad). So when you want to play some wads during coffee break, try this.

As it's been said before, a pretty damn ez wad. Even on pistol-start, it's not that challenging, and it's a great wad for beginners. I liked the environment of some of the levels, and the midi pack that accompanies this slaps. Give this a try, won't take you longer than 5 hours to complete it.

Who says easy WADs are not fun? This is a true masterpiece. 

Easy, relaxing megawad with very small, but well-designed maps. I played it with Project Brutality to add some extra difficulty and it worked perfectly.

This is my all time favourite megawad along with Hell 2 Pay and Perdition's Gate.

Its a total adventure telling a new and rich story, with just a few number of new assets and full of creativity everywhere. And there are few out there that follows the trend that team TNT started with TNT: Evilution, thats its, action-adventure mapsets, full of story elements and details that make the story progress throught contextual narrative. Obtaining in the process a very inmersive, interesting, and fun experience.
This megawads is little on the easier side, but it could be a challenge when it want. But being easy not stoped it from being one of the must fun mapset i have played.
With no more to say, thanks Thomas Van der Velden, and also thanks Jimmy and all the community members that worked on the midipack and bringing us a mindblowing music collection.
What i would really want to see some day, is a proper vanilla sequel to this masterfully made megawad.

Sometimes, after playing through a level set that stomps your balls in, you want to relax with something a little more laid back. This is that megawad. Highly recommended. <3

I'm always ready for some revolution.

For being serious now, it's one of those wads where you sit back, relax, get comfy and give blast through easy, simple maps. I rate this megawad only 4 stars, because map30 felt like a big joke (few rockects and map ends). 

Played it on UV with the Brutal Doom mod, pretty enjoyable. The Icon of Sin level was the most half-hearted effort I've ever seen though, I finished it at the first time of asking in under 10 seconds. Maybe this was a joke on the part of the wad's creator?

Generally pretty quick and easy, but overall good fun.

Good architecture doesn't make up for the complete and utter lack of difficulty.

Incredibly nice and well layouted maps, great monster placemant. The whole style is different from stuff I've seen before, and it's amazingly different. Sometimes for me it was hard to believe that I played a vanilla WAD. Most levels are more on the easy side, and some puzzles are annoying (but not difficult). But it's fun to play. Give it a try, it's worth it! 5/5

Amateur, huh? If this is amateur, I'm a big fan of amateur maps. 5/5

Good for a amateur map.

Really fun maps, which while a bit small, are really well done. I really recommend you to grab this one!

GREAT! Great map with nice architectory !

Picks up after the first two maps. Mostly easy, but T.V. always keeps things interesting. Unfortunately, MAP18:XS contains a very annoying puzzle, and maps 21-22 are letdowns general. Meanwhile, MAP04:Phobopolis somehow manages to turn a map based around exploration, puzzles and platforming into a great experience, and we have MAP28:Exodus, which is some sort of watered down slaughter map. The best word to describe this is "different".

Very fun mapset with well designed, small maps. Also enjoyable to speedrun.

one of the best megawads! 5/5

Legendary

classic stuff. must play for oldschool fans.

Looked nice in jDoom.shortish levels with good gameplay flow,not much switch-hunting/backt racking/puzzle solving here. one key leads to the next. a few good surprise battles as the the game went on.overall-very good,can't wait for Plutonia 2!-4.5[5]/5 d.d.koop

this wad kicks ass

good wad! :D need of change in fist map in the wall of line of train. the map32 is good is identc of final doom map30 good more (bug in map detected i see the hell knight i shot in and hell knight disapear of none!) ???

Like Shao Kahn would say: "Outstanding".