AT A GLANCE: George “King REol” Fiffy, the 30-year-old mapping sensation behind Hell on Earth, gives FPS fans yet another reason to cry themselves to sleep at night. Besides being a remarkably shitty Doom conversion, “REol Tough: Total War!” is also a tribute to the King’s 5-year mapping career, because obviously the notion of anybody making levels for that long is simply incredible, not unlike Fiffy’s dramatic account of how he single-handedly shut down an evil BBS system bent on world domination.

DESCRIPTION: Given King REol’s history of being an obsessive raving lunatic, it shouldn’t surprise anyone that Total War’s text file is a giant 4-page manifesto that takes at least twice as long to finish as the map itself. Reproducing it here in its entirety would probably break the copy/paste function on my computer so instead here are just a few choice snippets. The best part is where Fiffy admits that even after 5 years he still couldn’t get the skybox to work, just another example of the high standard of mapping that has made “REol Tough” the household name it is today.

This is how it all started in May of 1994, with a copy of DooM, and an editor called DEU. Trying to make a level, attempts failed, until a very large, round arena was made. It had tougher monsters put in, but it was impossible to do. Walls were later put in, but they were horribly out of line, and corners overlapped, or didn't meet at all. In other words, the first REoL TOUGH map made (then known as Total War) was released in June that year, and was a total disaster.

That was about 5 years ago, and to celebrate the 5'th anniversary of REoL TOUGH, a recreation of the very first level ever made for DooM, but done for Quake II.

Known Boo-boos:

(1) Couldn't get the sky textures to work (HOM), so I left it white, like an overcast sky, but things can hit the "sky".

(2) Done before the true 5'th anniversary. :)

Once again, it's all in realism. If in real life, we made these big structures id and other authors made, they would be CONDEMNED on the spot by Building Inspectors, if they didn't COLLAPSE already! My structures more or less represent what can be built in real life, and aren't so overwhelming either.

YES, DOWN WITH BIG STRUCTURES AND COMPETENT MAPPING!! WE DEMAND REOL-ISM!!!!!!! GEORGE FIFFY FOR POPE!!!

THE MAP: Why anyone would want to celebrate the 5th anniversary of this map is a mystery to me. Imagine the worst Doom map ever made converted to Quake 2 and then repeatedly dipped in raw excrement until all the positive aspects of both games have been replaced with fullbright brown rectangles and you’ll have some idea of how head-explodingly awful Total War is. Actually, that’s still probably too generous of a description. A truly accurate summary of this map would involve the use of purely theoretical words that use “shit” as both a prefix and a suffix.

This map is so ugly it even makes the walls nauseous.

About a dozen strogg seem to have shown up for the big REol Tough tribute. Quite a turnout considering that’s at least 12 times the amount of real life fans George Fiffy has. Haha, I’m just kidding of course. REol Tough has millions of devoted followers and is literally a cult phenomenon.

GAMEPLAY: By taking one of his existing Doom levels and not changing it at all, Fiffy has almost exactly recreated the experience of playing a crappy Doom level in Quake 2. Isn’t he amazing, folks? No wonder his Quake maps have won so many coveted imaginary awards.