MAP16: Tower of Babel (Console Doom)

MAP16: Tower of Babel, also known as MAP16: Hell Gate, is the sixteenth map of most console versions of Doom, designed by American McGee. It first appeared on the Atari Jaguar, and later appeared in the 3DO, Game Boy Advance, Sony PlayStation, and Sega Saturn consoles. It is completely different from the map of the same name in the original PC version of Doom. The PlayStation and Saturn versions go by the name of "Hell Gate", as they already feature the level conversion based on PC's E2M8, Tower of Babel.

Essentials
There are no keys in the level. In the starting room, take a soulsphere and a megaarmor in front of you, and there will be a door opening sound. Drop ahead to the room below. Pick up the plasma gun and take either left or right. Come closer to the wide door ahead that leads to the south. This will open revealing you a large south area where the major action takes place. However, two doors behind you will lock preventing you access to the initial area and two alcoves containing demons will open. Kill them and enter the alcoves where they waited in ambush, and you will find a shotgun and a box of shells.

Now, visit the southern area. Kill a demon, two or three demons depending on your skill level. At the east you can see an alcove containing a large number of imps and barrels. Blow up one barrel to obliterate all the imps there. At the southeast there is another alcove containing imps and barrels. Again, destroy one barrel to kill all the imps inside. At the west there is the third alcove containing imps but no barrels. So, you need to kill them one by one. Now, when the area is cleaned up, notice a gargoyle switch at the south. Flip it or simply approach it and two baron panels at the west and east should open revealing more hellspawn - a baron of Hell, a demon and one or two cacodemons. Dispatch them. After this, take the eastern alcove where there were cacodemons. Press the gargoyle panel. Return back and enter the last door at the southwest. Kill two demons and press the gargoyle switch. Now take the northeastern door and press the switch to end the level.

Other points of interest
Taking the berserk pack in the southern area will open one of the doors containing a baron and demons (or no one on I am a Wimp or Not Too Rough skill levels). The barrels surrounding it can be accidentally destroyed by the imps in the nearby alcoves, so it is advised to kill them first and spare the barrels for packs of hellspawn that will be unleashed later.

The button at the south of the southern area actually unlocks the northern area (as mentioned above, it is enough to approach the switch without pressing in order to make progress on the level). Return to that northern - starting - area to discover two open doors containing ammo and, in one of them, a rocket launcher.

Secrets
There are no official secrets in this level.

Bugs
On the PlayStation and GBA releases, the two demons in the south-western alcove, guarding the switch that opens the exit door, cannot see the player unless they make a noise or step into the ceilinged area in front of the alcove.

Comparison of versions
The Jaguar and PlayStation releases have identical layouts. The PlayStation and Saturn versions add an exit sign above the exit switch, as well as slightly increasing the switch's width.

On PlayStation, the animated fire sky is used in this level even though it is technically set on Deimos. Earlier console ports use the red sky and mountains seen in other Deimos levels.

Music
The map uses the following music tracks:

Player spawns
This level contains seven spawn points:
 * 1) facing south-east. (thing 2)
 * 2) facing north. (thing 70)
 * 3) facing north. (thing 71)
 * 4) facing south. (thing 72)
 * 5) facing south. (thing 73)
 * 6) facing south. (thing 74)
 * 7) facing south. (thing 75)

Things
This level contains the following numbers of things per skill level: