Not everyone has years, weeks or even hours to commit to demon slaughter. Not all of us can be Coincident, fighting through the armies of hell for six hours solid. Sometimes you’ve not even got a minute to spare, and if that’s the case, I recommend seeking better work-life balance. Also to check out madcap Doom mod Blitz: Race Against Time, a collection of 32 maps, each with a 30 second timer. Ready, set, kill!
Having played through about half of the set over lunch, I can confirm that Blitz is a genuinely fun collection of levels built around OG Doomguy’s absurd 50 mph run speed. The second each level begins, you’ve got to make a beeline to the finish before the exit door seals itself shut. Each map starts you out with just the basic pistol, but the weapons you’ll be picking up here have been re-tuned with speed in mind, making for a satisfying little scramble. The bad news is that the enemies are a bit twitchier as well, along with a few new baddies that can stop a run dead.
Watch On
The main difficulty comes from the sheer chaos of it all. Given that there were 17 mappers involved in this project, you’ll have to think fast and adapt to wildly varied environments. From a sprint across crumbling rooftops taken straight out of Evangelion to barreling through an office building in search of the toilet, there’s never a dull moment, and there’s a surprisingly cool and varied soundtrack to be heard, even if you won’t get through half a track most of the time.
Of course, Doom mappers being especially extra, there’s plenty to see and be explored in many of these levels. Lower difficulties disable the time limit, but also if you manage to reach the end of a level before the timer runs out, you’ll be free to backtrack through each map in search of goodies you might have missed in your haste. It gives Blitz a bit of a double identity; each level providing both a fast shot of adrenaline followed by a more relaxed round of exploration.
Of course, Doom being both infinite and eternal, this isn’t the first mod focused on going fast. If you want something similar in concept but a little more fleshed out (to the point of being effectively a whole game unto itself), check out Skulldash and its fifty time-trial maps. It might be over eight years old now, but still holds up great.
You can snag Blitz: Race Against Time over on the Doomworld forums here, although you’ll need a modern source port like DSDA or GZDoom to play it.
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