MAP32: Hectic (Doom 64)

MAP32: Hectic is the 32nd level of Doom 64 and is considered to be the most difficult. From a chronological standpoint this is where the player first comes across Hell Knights and Arachnotrons. The BGM is the one heard in MAP04: Holding Area. The main reason for going through this stage is to unlock the "Features" menu.

Walkthrough


This walkthrough will provide guidance on using the alternate exit in this level. The normal exit can be activated simply at the start of the level, but using this alternate exit will enable the "Features" menu option. All items in the beginning room are booby trapped. Some of the traps can be overcome (see the Items section) with varying degrees of difficulty, but failure will lead to death.

Open the door on the right and enter. Pick up the red key. You will then be lowered into a room with no exit. Immediately, arachnotrons will appear. Pick up the rockets scattered around the room and dispose of the arachnotrons. Due to the limited space available, this is difficult to achieve, as the arachnotrons can corner you if you are not careful, and there is always the possibility of splash damage from one of your rockets. When they are finally killed, you will be allowed back up to the starting room.

Now enter the door which was on the left when you first started the level. Collect the items and the Blue Key. Turn around, and you will see that the door is now closed, and you have 2 hell knights on each side of the very narrow bridge. You must kill all of them for the door to open. You must not fall off this narrow bridge, either by accident or because of one of the hell knight's attacks pushing you off. It is best to use the side strafe exclusively to dodge attacks while unloading rockets at the enemies. The door back to the starting room will open once the hell knights are dead. Now enter the other door that has not been opened so far. Use the lifts to move to the Yellow Key, but take care not to get hit by the darts thrown by demon faces on the walls. Once you have the yellow key, move to the Red bars in the starting room and unlock them, then unlock the Blue and Yellow bars and exit the level.

Enemies
There are only seven enemies in this map (four hell knights and three arachnotrons). You have to kill them all to reach the true exit.

Items

 * In the starting room, you CAN get the soulsphere, though it requires almost pixel-perfect movement. Face the soulsphere, tap forward and immediately tap back to avoid dropping into the tiny pit that forms. If you fail, you will get crushed to death a few moments later.
 * The only other item here is a berserk pack in the room with the lava. You can't miss it.
 * The crusher that protects the green armor is not triggered if entering from the east side. To get the armor, move around to the back of the crusher from the east, then slowly walk in and then walk back out the east side. If any of the other sides are crossed, the crusher will activate and you will be killed.
 * Another method to get the security (green) armour: First, get some good distance, then face the armour from any direction and run (DO NOT slow down). If done correctly, you should now have the security armour.
 * The Megaarmor, which does not count towards the item percentage at the tally screen, is impossible to achieve because if the player grabs it, the camera will zoom out of the? player's view? and be gibbed.

Secrets

 * There are no official secrets in this map. Even if you head for the easy exit as soon as you enter the map, you'll still get a 100% for secrets on the completion screen. However, the main goal of the map is to try for the hard exit!