E4M2: Perfect Hatred (Doom)

E4M2: Perfect Hatred is the second map of Thy Flesh Consumed in The Ultimate Doom. It was designed by John Romero and uses the music track "Donna to the Rescue."

Of all the levels John Romero contributed to Doom and Doom II, E4M2 took the shortest time to finish; he started working on it at midnight and finished at 6AM.

Its open yet compact design means that the player will immediately alert and face a mass of monsters at the start, particularly a concentration of Imps and Cacodemons, without much cover and in very close quarters. Also, as much of the level consists of platforms above damaging lava, some skill is needed in making the "jumps", often while dodging enemy attacks.

This level contains a secret exit leading to E4M9: Fear.

Overview
The map title comes from Psalm 139:22: "I hate them with perfect hatred; I account them mine enemies."

Walkthrough
There is a walkthrough of the level on Ultra-Violence difficulty available in YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zM1Zs4la0Yo. Note that this does show two of the three secrets in the level, but not show the exit to the secret level, detailed in #3 below.

At the beginning of the level, the shotgun guys standing in front of you are facing away across the room toward other enemies and can thereby serve as momentary protection via infighting as enemies further away fire at you. The only serious immediate threat are Cacodemons, which are able to float above the pit and attack you at close range; Imp and Baron fireballs can be dodged. The level is fairly well supplied with weapons and ammunition, even when dealing with numerous Barons, and the biggest challenge is to refrain from falling into the lava pit.

Official

 * 1) In the smaller, isolated lava pit in the southwest of the level, drop into the lava and flip the switch to raise a bridge. Step into the small triangle of lava next to the switch to open an exit out of this pit. At the top of the stairs is a teleporter. Open the wall to the left just before the teleporter; behind it is a secret cache. The right wall at the back of the secret room also opens, and you can take the other side of the teleporter to a separate secret room.
 * 2) After opening the blue "door", run up the stairs and across the raised platform with the Cyberdemon guarding it until you hear the sound of a door opening behind you. Run back down to the lower wooden platforms, and a teleporter will have appeared. Go through it to telefrag the Cyberdemon, saving you a lot of work. Pick up the BFG and lower the wall in front of you to exit.
 * 3) Secret exit: Upon lowering the wall to exit secret 2, a wall back down in the western wall of the main lava pit will lower temporarily. Quickly run into the opening to reach the exit to E4M9: Fear. If you miss it, you must take the teleporter and try again.

Non-official

 * 1) Getting the plasma gun opens the yellow key alcove and another one at the southern edge of the southwest lava room. Pressing the eastern edge of this alcove reveals a hidden switch that raises the central part of the floor in the main lava pool, allowing you to have more space without falling into the lava pit.
 * 2) In secret #1, the secret teleporter angle takes you to a ledge with a combat armor and a box of rockets. From there, you can also grab the BFG9000 by running into the northeastern wall. If you run the right position, then you can grab the BFG9000 early.

Routes and tricks
You can straferun to the northeast of the blue pillar, if you go the right location, you can bypass any use of the yellow and blue keys.

Records
The Compet-N records for the map are:

Trivia

 * In The Ultimate Doom, it is the fourth stage in the demo rotation. The player didn't last long.
 * Due to the influx of monsters and other various moving objects, the PlayStation and Saturn ports' version of this stage suffers from varying degrees of slowdown - the PS version has minor slowdown while the Saturn version is almost unplayable.
 * The opening is considerably more difficult in the PlayStation and Saturn versions, since the sergeants standing next to the stage entrance will immediately attack the player character instead of engaging in infighting. As a counterbalance, the Cyberdemon does not appear in these versions of the level.
 * MAP15: Where Hate Runs Red, from Plutonia 2, is heavily inspired on E4M2.