Playing Plutonia is like being inside a Wicker Man.
32 maps created by Milo and Dario Casali. Now, that second name, that sounds familiar. Where have I seen that before? "The Black Mesa compound is maintained at a pleasant 68 degrees at all times." [Half-Life] That's moving up in the world. They both have a long and well-earned history in game design now. Plutonia was created by these two in about four months as part of Final Doom. Isn't that cute? The other half being TNT, which we're not playing right now; I don't even want to play it in general. It's not nearly as hard as Plutonia. It's just really, really, long, and full of huge labyrinthine maps, and about when I get to map 21, I just zone out. Final Doom was released in 1996 and it was mind-blowing to have two whole new campaigns to play through. But Plutonia is mostly small maps you can finish in about five to ten minutes. It's just infamous for being, at that point, one of the hardest map sets ever created; by today's standards, it's nothing! See: people make WADs all the time now that are unrelentingly difficult because everybody's had 25 years to get good. I tell you what though, we may never have gotten good without the Plutonia Experiment. Of Doom, Doom II, and Final Doom, Plutonia is my favorite. Here's the story. After the events of Doom II, the government decided to try to prevent further demonic invasions, and so they re-founded the UAC and started making these quantum accelerator devices, which magically shut down demon portals when they try to invade. You guys all know what a quantum accelerator is, right? It worked when one portal opened and then the demons just decided to open seven portals instead. That's a good metaphor for Plutonia: when one doesn't work, send more! And you were on leave a few minutes away on the beach. You suited up. You grabbed a pistol. You raced your pickup truck to the complex. "You know that within an hour or two, an entire division of Marines will arrive to assault the base with full artillery and air support. You also know that they'll be too late. Far too late." So I assume this takes place in Africa - the first level is called Congo - and in this one level, you're gonna learn pretty quickly that Plutonia is here to brutalize you. Any other start map and Doom up to this point took it easy on the player. The strongest monster you usually see is a Pinky or maybe like a Chaingunner. Not Congo. You start off getting assaulted by a half-dozen Shotgunners. There's a bunch of gear upstairs- armor, a backpack, ammo - and you're gonna need it 'cause this map is a sick wake-up call for casual Doom players. Walk through this hallway, and there's Chaingunners up there. So you kill them. You go upstairs.
You hear a door open. "Okay, sure, so...?" [Arch-vile noise] Oh, fuck. This is where Plutonia introduces you to one of its favorite tricks, which is using Arch-viles to resurrect dead enemies; in this case, this Chaingunner.
Over and over, until you nail the Archvile. And at this point, I have a shotgun and a chaingun. I haven't gotten the rocket launcher yet. You want to see how you get the rocket launcher? [Revenant noises] Technically, this rocket launcher is optional. You're still gonna need it because there's three Mancubi guarding the exit along with Chaingunners. Okay, so how about the super shotgun? [Arch-vile noise] That's two Arch-viles in the first level! Plutonia is infamous for cruel and unusual traps, and while I can't hit every single one of them in this video, we're gonna see about highlighting several that are just... ** EVIL π TRAP ** ** EVIL π TRAP **
Ugh. I haven't done the calculations to support this. It's more of a gut feeling that's probably true. There are more Revenants in Plutonia than there are Imps; there might be more Revenants in Plutonia than there are stars in the sky. Every level exit is, what I assumed, was always one of these quantum accelerators. They all look the same. Remember this, because the game is gonna try and trick you later with fake switches or teleport exits that just fill the room with revenants or whatever. The second map, Well Of Souls. It still doesn't see Plutonia reaching its full power. I mean, yeah, it's hard - it opens with Chaingunner ambushes just to make sure it has your full attention. One of the first rooms is what I like to call a "nope room." Nope! And the end? The end of this map will absolutely turn any casual player away. I remember the first time playing as a wee lad and thinking, "What the fuck is this?" ...I was a vulgar child, but I grew out of that shit. So this is an invisible bridge. It's done somehow...I...I don't know. The only way you'll know it's there is you got to shoot a console, not a switch, but these wooden blocks raise to show you where it is. Sure.
But here's all the other stuff happening during this. Aztec, level 3. I'd say we're about 60% of the way to full Plutonia here, but only because of this one room. [Yawn] I didn't even start taking notes yet while playing. Towards the end, you step on a bridge and get railed by four Chaingunners and two Revenants. Oh...come on! Level four is Caged, which is pretty reminiscent to the Abandoned Mines in Doom II. It's harder, sure, it uses misdirection to think you got a deal with these Chaingunners here, and then it throws three Hell Knights at you...is that it? I'm just not feeling it yet. Then comes Ghost Town. Ghost Town is the first 100% full-on Plutonia map. ...God help the masochistic bastards who pistol start these levels, I hope you go to QuakeCon next year. You go up to, like, the hottest cosplay chick you can find, you get right in her ear, you say: "I...pistol-started all of Plutonia on Ultra-Violence..." And she jumps on your dick right there. ( Ν‘Β° ΝΚ Ν‘Β°) Look at the start of this! You get two Chaingunners - not too bad. All you got is a shotgun and then two Barons and a Revenant on each side... ..oh yeah, and inescapable deadly water. Plutonia has some strange rules about damaging liquids, in that slime sometimes damages. Same with toxic waste or blood, but also water, water hurts?
It's...really inconsistent. As soon as you exit the starting area, you get ten Chaingunners all out for blood. Not even the worst part of this map. Not even close. There's a megasphere over there, and I'm saving it 'cause there's two more parts to this level, and they're both cruel and unusual. First, you have to get a key.
Of course. And as soon as you approach... [Spider Mastermind noise] Yup! But also... Uh-huh. (snort) Did you think that was it? "Oh yeah! That's it! Harder, Daddy! Harder!" ...Okay, so that was awful. What's next? ** EVIL π TRAP ** Two Arch-viles, four Barons, a Hell (Knight), and one Arch-vile that can't actually go anywhere? This right here is the first true Plutonia map in my opinion, the one that solidifies the burning sensation you get when attempting to play this. Level six is Baron's Lair - not to be confused with Baron's Den, this one is way shorter... There's a secret with a bunch of supplies I'm gonna need for the next level. This map isn't too bad. It's not like the last one in terms of cruelty. We're still fairly early into Plutonia. You meet your first Cyberdemon of the game here, before being able to get to the next level, which is the Dead Simple replacement, and is way harder than that, just... Plutonia is really generous with rockets especially if you're not pistol-starting - thank fucking god - because it might replace the shotgun for usefulness. If you're close enough into a horde of monsters in this game to use the super shotgun, you might already be dead. Level eight is called Realm, and it's notable for two awful, awful, traps: One, where you getting the blue key - naturally - and this shit happens. And then at the end, where... You know what? I'm not sure it's enough! Two Arch-viles, and eight Revenants! I'm not sure it's evil enough to put...right in front of the level exit you...ffffffffffffFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFU- I've played this, I knew it was coming, so I saved this berserk over here. Level nine, Abattoire[Sic], which is spelled wrong... Yeah, you go get it Mr. Pinky, I believe in you. ...Nah, I'm bored. Suck my infinitely tall shaft to splash damage, you fucking boners! ..Oh, what's that? I'm being told we've just won the "Most Phallic Line Ever in a Youtube Show" award. I'm also being told that that's a thing and yeah! Look at that! I guess you guys can't see that, but I promise you it's shaped like a penis. The end of this map was one of the most difficult parts I had to deal with. And don't talk to me about infighting; that's for later. Right now, these two can't even hit each other. Oh yeah, this is the Onslaught... Did you like that thing in the first map with the Arch-vile resurrecting the Chaingunner forever? Because now there's two of them. You can't kill them until the game teleports them out of there. There's like a dozen Chaingunners. That's not even remotely the worst part of this map, 'cause when you teleport those Arch-viles away, one goes over here, and you can't go get that key yet, because that's teleports in the other monsters, and no matter how much infighting they do, the Arch-vile is going to respawn them. And the other one spawns in this building... ...and he resurrects the Chaingunners from before... Okay, killed them, bottlenecked the rest. We done here? The exit room is a...
[chef kiss] It's a masterclass in being an asshole designer. You walk over here, a closet opens, a Baron pops out, you're boxed in because a bunch of Hell Knights and one Shotgunner - ONE Shotgunner - also pop out. The monster closet wasn't close enough, so the map teleports the Baron right in your face! This right here is what got a dude a job at Valve! Next up...oh boy! It's the second-most infamous level in Plutonia, Hunted. You, a bunch of Arch-viles, a maze, the bunny music? I played this as a child and it gave me nightmares that I remember to this day. [Music: Sweet Little Dead Bunny by Bobby Prince] There's coffins at the beginning to give you an idea of your chances. You aren't allowed much in the way of mistakes. I got hit once and I had to tough it out for the rest of the level. At least at the end you get a BFG and a selection of one of two portals. One portal goes to the exit. The other goes into this room. Which doesn't kill you. It just does the thing like at the end of "Knee-Deep in the Dead" where you can just exit hitting low health. If you want to get a hundred percent kills in this level. You have to take that exit. Isn't that awesome? Bullshit. Blood and wood. Again, this one's not really too challenging until you get to the end where you're getting sniped by a dozen chaingunners and then it rolls out the revenants and the archviles. Are you kids sensing a pattern here? There's a cyberdemon too, but he's not really a problem. The blood doesn't hurt you in this level. The crypt is... Oh! Are we already on to this? Yep, I'm making fun of these traps, sure. You got to remember Plutonia has some fantastic action in it. A lot better than DooM 2, in my opinion. It just shows such a deep understanding of the monsters abilities and how they can best fuck over the player. Especially with archviles. ππ΄π±π¦π€πͺπ’πππΊ πΈπͺπ΅π© π’π³π€π©π·πͺππ¦π΄. Whoo! And the bite-sized levels make the whole thing a lot more palatable. The next map, "Genesis." Small, but also ferocious. Yeah, you know it's coming, but still. "The Twilight" is one of those Plutonia maps that sticks in your mind. It's uh...emotionally devastating. This map is like the end of Telltale's first Walking Dead Season. It makes me cry like a fucking baby, every time. You remember our old friend "hidden archvile that keeps resurrecting chaingunners?" He's back. I'm pinned down right here. Basically, at the start getting chaingunned everywhere. Getting chaingunned. Take a left here. You'll walk into a trap. Take a right and you'll walk into a worse trap. The chaingunners are nice enough to kill these Cacodemons, but I'd prefer if they just stay dead. Wall opens up to give you a spiderdemon and you know, just all this. I'm just gonna hang back, not waste rockets or cells. Not like there's a shortage of bullet pickups. Once you cross certain line, crushers will kill the archviles that keep reviving the chaingunners and you're basically at the end of the level. Yep, that sure is the end of the level. That's the exit I'm taking. Pay no attention to how I have all these rockets now. It doesn't matter. Another short map with... Oh, this one. Oooof. Not cool. The next trap is kind of fun though. You pick up the key and... Oh That's the stuff! Then teleports an archvile into that area, which isn't the stuff. It isn't cool. Next map is relatively easy, except for all that slime. The map after that isn't. "Neurospheres." Kind of like "The Inmost Dens. Except harder. Starts off teleporting hitscanners all around you. Good luck. Next map is "NME." No, thankfully not that one. You don't need a ton of enemies to be difficult, just inescapable pits and no room to maneuver. The archvile teleports away. I forgot to hit this switch here and... Oh, sweet Jesus! Now, this thing with chaingunners right at the start? It's not getting old at all, no. Oh boy! It's just like "Circle of Death", except harder! No, fuck you! Uh...yeah, not so much an impossible mission. Not even as impossible as like, most of the earlier maps. To be honest, Plutonia gets soft towards the end. Maybe I'm just acclimated to it's treachery. This is one of the bigger maps that has a lot of backtracking. I don't really like it. Another giant one, but much, much, harder. Finally, we're back to that nice feeling of punishment. Man, I remember when DooM 2 threw two archviles at you that one time.
(They were being merciful back then.) Not all that much to talk about for a while. This next map is like "The Living End" from DooM 2. And then a couple maps later is the same thing. Plutonia is running out of steam. Spare this one area where you got a cyberdemon wrecking you all the way over here And when you try to flank the bastard everything's in your way. What else we got? A lot of these later maps are more of the same. There's "The Sewers." Another giant pain in the ass, but manageable. I'm surprised there's a sewer level this far into the game. Map 29 picks up the slack. "Odyssey of Noises." An out of nowhere city level that's probably better than any DooM 2 city level. It's a little confusing to navigate. Has a lot of dead space where nothing happens. And monsters in windows. Especially chaingunners. Thankfully I have a million rockets. You guys don't want to see me getting lost for twenty minutes trying to find the key to hit a switch, to open a door. So let's just go straight to "The Gateway to Hell." Yeah, I already knew this was coming. Still an awesome way to introduce the Icon of Sin again. And honestly better than DooM 2's last level. A cyberdemon stands between you and pumping the demon wall full of rockets. I got extremely lucky. No pain elementals or archviles spawned. Three good hits, and the game's over. "The gatekeepers evil face is splattered all over the place. As it's tattered corpse collapses, an inverted gate forms and sucks down the shards of the last prototype accelerator, not to mention the few remaining demons. You're done. Hell has gone back to pounding bad dead folks..." Katie, give me a picture of a demon banging Hitler! Yeah, okay, that's fair And in what I consider to be the baddest thing ever put into a DooM end text. "Remember to tell your grandkids to put a rocket launcher in your coffin. If you go to hell when you die, you'll need it for some final cleanup..." I know it's not that impressive of an ending for something as infamous as Plutonia. That's why I saved the secret levels for last. It's easy enough to find the secret exit in "The Twilight." Like it's not even hidden well. You just hit this wall. You take this teleporter and you're done. Just understand that this is a one-way ticket. You can exit the first secret level of Doom 2 or TNT and go right back to the main game. You can't do that in Plutonia. "You found the second hardest level we got. Hope you have a saved game a level or two previous." Oh yeah, a level or two. How about a room or two. This is fucking Plutonia. "If not, be prepared to die aplenty. For master Marines only." "Cyberden." Oh, yeah. Four Cyberdemons. All caged. Fought one at a time You've got to hit these face wall switches to release each one. I don't know if it's the second hardest level. Taking one cyberdemon at a time isn't so bad. The last part though... Remember what I said to be suspicious of exits that don't look like this? Yeah, fuck you skeletons! You ain't shit! The exit will take you directly to the super secret level. "Betcha wondered what was the hardest level we had ready for ya. Now, you know. No one gets out alive." Welcome to the most infamous level in Plutonia. This time, they're not lying about how hard it is. Witness! Be amazed! The hardest level in any commercially released DooM game. The Titan. The birth of the "Slaughter Map." Rooms full of archviles. Chaingunners. Revenants. A bastardized version of the layout from DooM 2's first map. Packed to the brim with only the most dangerous monsters. There are thirteen cyberdemons in this level. Nineteen archviles. Eleven pain elementals. Nearly fifty revenants. A courtyard that gets filled with monsters when you do so much as sneeze. But just run away from them and let them infight for a while. They'll usually thin the herd down if you kill all the archviles. You leave those archviles alive? They'll make your life miserable. Fuck the "Icon of Sin!" This should have been the last map. Nothing else comes close. Welp! Mission accomplished. This is how legends are made.
Never stop civvie.
Just discovered Civvie about a week ago. The line delivery, how the videos are edited, you'd think he'd be doing this a lot longer than only 2 years.
this dude's videos are great
30 minutes of Civvie? I'm in.
So many Revenants
I remember playing through TNT and Plutonia over IPX with my little sis. Good times!
Iβm really surprised he liked Plutonia more than TNT. TNT seemed, to me, to be hard but fair, and has a cool new soundtrack, but Plutonia was just pure bullshit with chain gunners everywhere. No fun to be had there for me.