Doomed Space Wars

"Force may be with you. Always."

And thus Doomed Space Wars endeth, played through GZDoom 4.1.3 on UV difficulty. That's one interesting Star Wars themed wad, so let's see what do we have here.

Doomed Space Wars is a 12-map Star Wars themed wad centered around fast gunplay and atmosphere. It comes with new enemies, textures, sounds (the majority of which originating from PSX Doom), effects, status bar, intermission screens.

The levels themselves are large and complex, but fairly straightforward at the time, with plenty of exploration to do, but not mandatory at the same time, most of which can be pretty much avoided, with good flow and progression. The enemies are well placed, not too dissimilar from the likes of Plutonia or Scythe, requiring the player to act thoughtfully and especially fast. The combat itself is very fun and fast paced for the most part, showing no signs of slowing down at any point. The maps offer a decent amount of resources with some very juicy secrets in places, but managing them well is essential, assuming it is all going to be easy is a costly mistake, and mistakes are punished, but not through cruel or unfun means.

The difficulty is the traditional kind, starting easy and getting more difficulty as you make progress in the wad. That being said, the wad does make it clear even from the very first room of MAP01 that some opposition will definitely be faced down the road and it won't be a mere walk in the park with fancy looking levels and poor gameplay, they both go hand in hand in DSW. The wad also make good use of GZDoom effects such as colored lightning which adds extra atmosphere to the levels, and 3D floors. Colored lightning, along with the sound design, add a PSX Doom touch, with the weapon and enemy sounds originating mainly from that port. The enemy count ranges between a few dozen at times, to a few hundred, but goes no higher than 400. After all is said and done, the wad ends with a battle against the Chaos Elemental, and especially deadly version of the Pain Elemental who fires projectiles and with much more health.

Perhaps the main flaw of the wad shows in the secret levels, or rather, MAP11. This is because this level is little more than a filler, or, depending on the perspective, an easter egg. It is a PSX Doom styled level, which feels out of place when taking in consideration the rest of the SW-themed maps. Another problem is the fact that some enemies are overused, the Sentry drones are everywhere, by far the most common enemy in the entire wad. Interestingly, it also carries a System Shock 1 vibe.

All things considered, DSW ends up as a fantastic SW themed wad. It is obviously a passion project that manages to capture the atmosphere of the movies very well in its base levels, and there's plenty of new things to see in each map to keep you asking for more, and more. The authenticity and detail is surprising on quite a few levels, showing that it goes well beyond simply giving a SW vibe with symbols and textures in its maps and tries to immerse the player into them as well, building an actual, believable world, all while staying 100% Doom, probably the main reason why it does not feature any new weapons, and all vanilla enemies are present, in addition to entirely new ones. It is well worth a shot, even if you aren't too much in SW, a similar story to Pirate Doom. Now grab your light saber and cut 'em droids.

this is quite possibly Paul's most ambitious work to date, with medium-sized levels with proportionate and disproportionate combat throughout the entire set. expect lots of traps, expect arena fights, expect walking on bridges over instadeath pits because this is clearly based off of Star Wars, known for its voids and shit. also expect the unexpected, weird side stuff like the Wolfenstein and Mario easter eggs, this is worth at least one play. best of all these new monsters are all generally well-fitting into the set as a whole except maybe the Afrit, and the Chaos Elemental is a pretty good boss. still very challenging and proves you can have a challenging set without having walls of monsters.

The Good:

Jeeez, just about everything!

Stunning graphics – the Star Wars themed atmosphere is just awesome!

Large Maps

Loads of clever Secrets & Puzzles

Great monster placement

You're gonna work for most of the keys

Hardly a Slaughterfest

A few Easter Eggs

The Bad:

There’s no Doomed Space Wars II

In Short:

I’ll admit I’m not usually a fan of new monsters implemented into a Doom WAD. And this is why:

The problem is that usually the “new” monsters come off as cheesy, with poor graphics and even worse sounds. Most times, the new monsters don’t fit the theme of the game and that’s a problem for several reasons.

But this WAD does NOT have that problem. Mr. C. has created his new monsters into more or less upgrades of the original ones, along with brand new ones, and they all fit perfectly in this game because of its theme. You can tell much work went into creating this entire WAD!

You know how in some WADS, you find the final key, open the final respective door and it's usually the EXIT switch (or portal)? HA! Not this game! When you open that final door, that's when you best bring your A game...

I had loads of fun with Doomed Space Wars. I just wished it was longer.  

Whether or not you like the PSX sounds is up to you. I personally didn’t mind them.

Bravo! Highly recommend.

Solid 5 out 5 Stars.