E4M2: Perfect Hatred (Doom)

E4M2: Perfect Hatred is the second map of Thy Flesh Consumed in 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.

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.

Secrets
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.

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, with the PS version having minor slowdown versus the Saturn version's being 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.
 * There is a map in Plutonia 2 that is heavily inspired by this level: Map15: Where Hate Runs Red.