EXECUTE.wad

Pretty insubstantial, but charming nonetheless. It's basically a one-minute traipse through some large pitch-black corridors with ghostly wailing coming from everywhere. I'll admit there was a bit of tension when I walked into the dark room and didn't know what monsters were in there since all the sounds were replaced with that wailing but - spoiler alert - there are only Spectres in the level.

Otherwise, for its time, it's a pretty entertaining WAD for a minute and I like the narrative it's trying to tell.

Incredibly simple, really short, rough around the edges, and very unorthodox. Despite it not being much of anything, the level still managed to stick out enough for me to remember it among the countless other levels included on those D!Zone CD's. For such an early map the idea it is trying to convey is played out surprisingly well.

Just like the story text says, you fall down into Hell to grab some magical armor to escape with. The escape of course being a convenient blue skull inside the armor you need in order to open a lift out of the dark canyon you end up in. The fact that there are far too many spectres to actually kill does help lend to the need of urgency in getting out, combined with their new sounds and dark lighting. It really is a pretty interesting idea overall.

And unfortunately there isn't much to the map beyond this idea. You can finish it in a matter of minutes, with half of it falling down ledges and into teleports to simulate you going deeper into Hell. All of this of course combined with the typical issues of such early Doom maps (texture misalignment, simple and jagged sectors) leaves the actual game play much to be desired.

Overall it is an interesting way to execute a cool idea within vanilla Doom, although alone it is not nearly enough to justify a level. Would personally give it a 2.5 (rounded up to 3 for personal fondness) out of 5 considering you go into it with 1994-levels of expectations.