Doomworld Mega Project 2017

to really grade a Doomworld Mega Project as a whole wad is completely unfair, because you have to wade through a LOT of shit at times just to snuff out the really good maps that basically become major highlights. still though, given what I have seen from the majority of maps in this set, a huge chunk of maps have complete malpractice in terms of gameplay. just think, direct denial of resources through turreted enemies, bad teleporting enemies (usually in the ZDoom set), prying weapons from former humans which is way worse considering Doom has the shittiest pistol ever, completely tedious gameplay that is FILLED with level padding, sadism that isn't fun sadism, many rooms I see in many maps don't serve any real purpose, and according to the textfile it seems some maps weren't even finished. the hub level for the GZDoom players has the ResetInventory and ResetHealth flags, something the previous DMP didn't have, and you can just open an editor and delete them if you don't want to play pistol starts.

the vanilla set is okay, with Scypek2's gimmick map being probably the worst. the limit-removing set is also okay apart from riderr3's MAP10 which has zero sense of direction and maybe MAP12's beginning. Boom set has most of the quality maps but also a good chunk of fucky maps. both MAP19 and MAP22 suffer from Ribbiks syndrome, where the cell weapons are not reached until much later when they really could have been useful, as a result these two slaughtermaps are slogs. MAP31 is a gimmick map, and MAP20 is a HUGE slog of Wolfenstein 3D that basically is a full on hunt. then you have MAP33's dumbass orgy map. so much wasted! on the other hand, A2Rob and antares031 deliver nicely with MAP23 and MAP24, and MAP28 is a good ode to Scythe's closing map. MAP35 was a good slaughtermap too. finally the GZDoom set easily is the shittiest with most maps generally either being lackluster or have arena padding or other forms of padding to make them insufferable. the best one is GJUNX by RaphaelMode, followed by the fun Maus Haus level

so yes, quality is hard to find in DMPs and this one has more shittier and slodgier maps than good ones. thanks to the hub you can skip most of the shitty ones, but know what you're gonna get into first. it helps to know author styles.

"The majority of maps are playable, balanced and very fun. The best ones for me were MAP 17 (by Forli), MAP 20 (by Nate River), MAP 24 (by antares031), MAP 36 (by bonnie) and MAP 42 (by RaphaelMode). Good maps were MAP 03, 11, 18, 21, 23, 28, 30, 31, 32, 33, 37, 39, 41, 43 and 51. Bad Maps = 05, 10, 13, 19, 22, 35, 38, 40 and 50. All the other maps were fine to play but nothing special. So, only 9 bad maps out of 52, deserves at least 4 stars from me.

I commend grouping the maps such that there is a streak of excellent maps followed by not so good maps. That way it's easy to continuously play good maps without getting disgruntled with the WAD.

I recommend all vanilla maps (yes, even TimeOfDeath's one), two first ZDoom maps, all limit removing maps except MAP10 and MAP11, boom maps - the quality varies here but there are still some good maps.

Special highlight for map of the WAD goes to MAP24 - what a map, what an excellent use of textures. The illusion of lighting and depth is strong in this one. What excellent architecture. What grand design. What great fights. Go play it!

Awful stench awards go to:

- MAP11 - the inversed turd mountain that you climb and climb and climb in a rotating spiral while imps spawn and spawn and spawn and then you fall down like a ski jumper.

- MAP20 - It's like a Wolfenstein 3D level but with 1200 enemies. Avoid.

- All jump puzzle maps in ZDoom map pack.

Given that there are no quality guidelines for this particular community project, I still think that there are plenty of very high quality maps here, hence it's a remarkable achievement, hence 5 out of 5 stars.

This was not a fun experience for me.

I pretty much expect the Doomworld Megaprojects to be a mixed bag. While this one is no exception, what brings the score down to two stars instead of three is forcing pistol starts via a hub system. I tried to play by these rules until I hit map 19, where the bullshit became too much for me. I said "fuck it" and engaged IDGAF mode (read: I cheated) just to see what the rest of the maps were like. Many of these maps don't feel like they were balanced at all. Some of them I swear feel like they belong in a Slaughterfest project (nothing against slaughtermaps; I like them but to see this many in a Megaproject just seems off). A couple don't seem to work right at all. One (the last map) crashed my GZDoom executable.

Forcing players to play a certain way (i.e. forcing pistol starts) isn't going to make a lot of players enjoy the experience. Some players (like myself) will get tired of it, say "fuck it", and either cheat through the experience or go even farther and just edit out the crap we don't like in SLADE/Doom Builder so it will play the way we want to play it.

I don't know why an episodic system was used (i.e. an episode based on vanilla only maps, an episode based on limit removing only maps, etc.) instead of forcing pistol starts. That would have been a much better compromise, in my opinion.

It's a damn shame because there are some good maps in here that I think should have been released on their own. However, I have to rate this project as a whole package and as a whole package it was a miserable experience from start to finish. There was too much bullshit that overshadowed the few maps that were fun to play.