Endless Random /idgames WAD Adventures #019

[Sena]

Day 9: The Seventh 07 - Final Portal https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom2/Ports/p-r/prwrsv07

 

According to Prince Hamlet, "nothing is good or bad, but thinking makes it so". Ignoring the obvious joke that he wouldn't have said that if he'd seen the likes of Slough of Despair, this level certainly makes me consider Hamlet's position. If the short length from yesterday's map elicited the thought of being sub-par on account of its short length, I completed this level, and I just sat there, I had no thoughts about what I'd just done. The level has some outside area, and once that's done it's a series of mid sized rooms that likes to teleport in large groups of enemies, and then it's over, not too short, not too long, I don't know, which is kind of a problem because by talking about this stuff it's kind of my job to know. To get to the heart of the matter, the level's adequately designed, but it's not one that really does much. 4/10, might think something that's this middle of the road would be a 5, but I think a 5 is something I enjoy to some degree, this must be what having dementia is like, I play a level, and the second it's done I have almost no recollection of ever having done so, much less how I felt about it. 

 

[LadyMistDragon]

Foxysen Self Jams (2020) by Foxysen

 

Finally, after getting three map groupings, three deathmatch sets, and two weapon mods, we are back to single maps! And this one is from just last year and made with GZDoom and created in 30 hours.

 

It's basically a jokewad, truth be told. "Healer Stalks" is the background music, bright blue cartoonish sky is our box, and too many decisions make it clear you're not meant to take this seriously. You start out surrounded by barrels with a solitary sergeant upon a platform you can't reach because jumping's been disabled. Head into the nearby shed, and shoot the barrels from there so you don't get instantly splattered. Also here is a BFG, which is the only weapon you get from the whole map, which is...somewhat annoying, but then, that's the whole point! Entering a building that has the exit door and sign but most certainly is not, you navigate through some Cacos and Imps to an outside courtyard with Doomguys doing their best to fight off a ridiculous amount of Lost Souls and some Cacodemons. Do your best, grab the Megasphere in the middle of some crates you can only reach by jumping from the open-air computer station  above, then head to the left to pick up a blue key and hopefully two-shot some Cyberdemons that you can only see if you're in the blue key area(bear in mind they are a bit far to do that though). Head to the other end of the area then to use the blue key, fight off a large grouping in a very small building and pick up the red card. This allows you to access the bone and flesh building you saw earlier. Don't fall in the chasm unless you want a poorly-drawn Bigf-I mean fox to kill you instantly while a funny message about the author's failure to implment insta-kill sectors displays(you know that old flash game right?).

 

Enter the flesh-building, get lots of humprous messages about the bone zone, fight many Revenants and Lost Souls with undoubatly dwindling supplies, then come across a darkened room with some plasma-toting Doomguys, and more red skull keys and Pain Elementals than you can shake a stick at.

 

But the jokes aren't done. Find the red skull door and be confronted by a brick wall. No-clip through a the blue skull gate because there appears to be no blue skull key. Head through the yelllow skull door, gaze upon a Mastermind inside the building which greets you, and then find there's actually nothing but a Zombieman when you actually enter.

 

This was a fun map, not really conducive to fair design, but that was never the point was it? 5/10/

Spoiler

Spoiler

Spoiler

Spoiler

Spoiler

 

Edited November 11, 2021 by LadyMistDragon

[Sena]

Day 10: The Final Conflict https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom/d-f/fcon

 

This map has an interesting start, using the light amplification goggles, which already makes it different to most maps, but it uses them as a power-down, not a power-up, as you start off in a maze and have your exit mapped out, but not if you're on fullbright. Interesting idea, I suppose, but I think in general if you want to limit the space in which the player can walk, you'd be better off just using nukage.

 

As for the rest of the map, once you get to it, you've already seen the most interesting part. It's almost entirely a flat map, with no real height variation, and its worst aspect is undeniably its enemy usage, which is one I'm sure is familiar to anyone who's played 90s maps even a bit - 90% shotgunners, 9% imps, 1% everything else. Still, I can acknowledge that it's a city map that beats out any Doom 2 one, and it's definitely a city, I can clearly identify that based on what I see, which is more than I can say about most of them, we've got clearly identifiable buildings, like a lounge, hospital, and a gun store, the last of which is completely superfluous, like I really need any of this ammo, you'll notice I almost always have maximum ammo, if your aim is good enough that you can kill a shotgunner in less than 4 tries, you will never have to worry about running out, but I suppose too much is better than too little, and anyone who's played 90s maps even a bit will also be intimately familiar with maps that don't give you enough ammo, so it's good that this isn't yet another one of those. Of its 200 or so enemies you have to kill, about 180 of them will feel completely identical to each other, if your reaction time is better than the shotgunner's, it's impossible to lose.

Beyond a little bit of doomcute, there really isn't much to say about it, map design almost makes the game feel like a light gun shooter, especially when it's got so many areas that are completely plain and uninteresting, which is kind of disappointing given that the author has clearly demonstrated an ability to make interesting areas, but I guess he can't do it all the time. 5/10, but for 1994 this was probably the best level ever made.

 

[Walter confetti]

You've got a great find! Yeah, the maze at the start is horrible (but that's my tastes), but the town section is pretty good!

[LadyMistDragon]

Fireworks (2003) - By Francois "Helioth" Coppex (Eternity)

 

This guy has made several maps apparently, which was surprising, because it kind of feels like a '94 map in both its simple concept and execution and some amusing replacement of some sound effects, with the enemy sounds all coming from Heretic. At least the default shotgun sound has more heft to it. The chaingunners letting out the death cry of Corvus never fails to elicit a snort from me. The music is quite nice, both in the intermission screen and map

 

Anyways, you have an open hilly field and a tower a la Surface from Goldeneye that looks like it was cobbed from Cranium. It plays decently enough, but you probably shouldn't provide a rocket launcher and plasma rifle at different places in the map if you're not willing to provide more ammo for them whilst utterly overloading the player with shotgun shells. It's ok though, there's only 155 enemies, despite the massive hoarde released when you pick up the blue key. You should probably ascent the left side at least to pick up the Super Shotgun, though you can also pick one up after you collect the blue key.

 

Anyways, this is where you get the action of the map truly coming to the fore. A massive hoarde of Cacodemons descends upon you whilst Manicubi fire from the now-lowered blue skull barrier. And behind the Cacos are a healthy amount of Hell Knights firing from a ledge to the right. It certainly earns the map it's name if nothing else.

 

I believe it's when you hit the switch to lower the pillar with the Megasphere where the Mancubi when the exit opens, at the point in the tower when you're attacked by barons when you've picked the blue key up. I accidentally stumbled upon the map's only secret while backing away from the Hell Knights asd it turns out.

 

Kind of fun, but then, rockets are better for the Super Shotgun with these enemies. 6/10

Spoiler

Spoiler

 

Spoiler

Spoiler

Spoiler

 

[Sena]

Day 11: Pinball Dreams (revised version) https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom2/p-r/pinball2

 

Supposedly, this map is meant to represent a pinball machine, complete with sound effects, for which reason I guess I should give them credit solely for deviating from the 4-5 types of map that everyone else goes for, although it doesn't really feel like a pinball machine to me, I suppose it's like Slough of Despair in that regard, I'm sure the idea of a map shaped like a hand seemed like a good one, but when you play it, doesn't really feel that special. As for the level itself, not much to say, big oval shape, lots of stuff in there, including stuff to shoot at, but I didn't really seem to understand it. The readme implies that the author actually completed, and thereby it can be done, but I wouldn't know how that's done, they've got arrows on the floors, they've got switches everywhere, and I am largely certain I pressed every single one there was, but I only got to about 60% kills and nearly all the secrets, largely because I don't think the person that made this knows what the word secret means. Guess it's alright by 90s standards, 5/10, still better than the pachinko level from Mario Sunshine.

[Roofi]

Month 6 Day 03

 

I play until I die or intentionally stop. I don't comment the wad where I die/stop.

 

File 1) The Lair by Keith Hickman (1996)

 

Spoiler

 

Quote

Built for Doom2 v1.9

 

A particularly long and monotonous infernal map. Originally it was supposed to be included in a project of 22 maps. There is a new music, a midi rendition of "Phantom of The Opera", which is fun at the beginning but quickly becomes annoying because of the shrill instruments. The new sky with black mountains is on the other hand extremely classy and original for my taste.

 

I rather liked it overall, the outdoor spaces and the marbled temple are well done aesthetically speaking. On the other hand, there are a lot of boring areas such as a dark and labyrinthine cave without any detail.

 

Concerning the fights, it's quite flat with some effective traps involving  pain elementals or some arch-viles, but that's all. As for the progression, it is the classic "3 sections, 3 keys", simple but effective.

 

It's a good map but I couldn't play a whole megawad.

 

File 2) Doom II Enhanced Music: Volume I by Andrew Prosnik (1996)

 

Quote

Tired of hearing the same old music? Hate the low-quality music WADs? Want music WADs that contain all kinds of music fitted to each level instead of one style of music thrown into the game without regard for the level's "personality?" The Enhanced Music WADs are for you! These WAD files are split into 3 different files so that you can load whichever WAD file contains the songs that you like the most.

This WAD contains new background songs for Doom II. This can only be used with DOOM II. Not only is the level music replaced, but the intro music, intermission music, and tally screen music is replaced also.

 

Great, 35 new midis to use in the maps ! In fact, the author just took some midis of music that we don't know the name of, but that we heard at least once. I could recognize the theme of Jaws, the Pink Panther or Ghostbusters.

It's up to you to judge if these musics suit you but definitely nothing authentic. Besides, there are some crappy midis using piano or trumpet.

 

 

 

 

I was spawnkilled by a chaingunner who lacerely machine-gunned me while I only had my pistol in Lukasxd's 512X512 Maps

 

Spoiler

 

 

 

[LadyMistDragon]

Hemdale (2005) by Lord Equimanthorn (DSDA Doom)

 

Dude, pick a shorter user name if you're gonna call yourself a 'Lord' of literally anything. Is that really too much to ask?

 

Anyways, this is a fairly anonymous deathmatch map, beige brick and fort-like with perhaps the hint of a city that certainly has no existence in the 21st century. Player 1 start doesn't promise too much, you're just gazing at a courtyard. Explore around a little, and things get fairly interesting. Some pillars at the midway point and then the 'city' section, with teleporters which allow you to access the buildings standing guard. Perhaps a little slightly larger than average, but on the whole, it actually seems quite decent 5/10

 

Spoiler

Spoiler

Spoiler

 

Edited November 15, 2021 by LadyMistDragon
Adding a link

[Sena]

Day 12: Play When Bored 3 https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom2/Ports/p-r/pwb3

 

Can't be that surprised that this is a good one, seeing as it's by @40oz. It's quite basic in its design, almost entirely flat, and not that far off the 'Atari maps' that I've mentioned before, you walk in a room, monster closet opens, you kill them, you move on, do that until you've killed about 60 enemies and you're done with it. And for that reason, I'm not really sure why I like it, I've ripped apart levels before for having one combat scenario that they copy-paste over and over, and this one's no different, but I had a good time with it. Maybe it's because they give the super shotgun right off the bat, maybe it's because they don't spam revenants and chaingunners up the arse, maybe the linearity of its design means there's no down time so I have less time to really think about how the combat encounters are orchestrated. In any case, it's a good map, it's simple, and it's over quick so it doesn't overstay its welcome. I played it when I was bored, as suggested, and that boredom was relieved. 7/10.

[Roofi]

Month 6 Day 04

 

I play until I die or intentionally stop. I don't comment the wad where I die/stop.

 

File 1) Rim 2 - Cere by Frank Polster (2006)

 

Spoiler

 

Quote

DOOM map

 

An ultimate Doom map officially released in 2006 but probably created in the 1990s. According to Memfis, it dates back to 1999.

 

Frankly, Rim 2 - Cere was a little masterpiece for me even if there is a good chance that we will not agree with my opinion.

First of all, this wad in vanilla format is distinguished by its gigantic desert, very little detailed due to technical limitations but which manages to highlight the architecture of the buildings.

 

Secondly, the author has not varied the textures very much. Concrete is the most used material during the whole level. However, the varied architecture thanks to the curved staircases, the large size of the structures and the shadow effects helps to break the monotony. Moreover, exploring the different buildings is a big part of the pleasure of playing this map. You can find a flooded room with floating crates, a compartment with pipes infested by demonic forces...

 

Finally, the author has brilliantly used the melancholic music "Adagio for Strings" by Pierre Delerue. This last one really makes us immerse in a devastated world where a disaster has taken place. 

 

The only flaw I can find in this map is its gameplay without any challenge where the lack of notable traps is felt. Moreover, you can get lost quite easily and the doors that are not presented as such, do not help to know exactly where to go.

 

File 2) Hell's Core by (\/)&(\/) |\/|/\|\| Software (1998)

 

Spoiler

 

Quote

A very fun and very large level in Hell. In Hell's Core it's all out Hell!

 

Hell's Core, not to be confused with the megawad HELLCORE, is presented as a slaughtermap from the 1990s. It takes place in a huge cave with a gigantic tower of brown bricks. 

 

You have to kill a lot of monsters like barons and HK, cyberdemons, bread elementals, some arch-viles in an arena that is actually located in a deep crevasse. There are megaspheres available, more than enough to survive easily in any case. Concerning weapons and ammunition, you get everything at the beginning inside the tower, by climbing a long spiral staircase that puts a real emphasis!

 

However, the overall quality leaves something to be desired, because of the very simplistic aesthetics due obviously to the vanilla limits, or by the fights that can easily be overcome by circlestrafing and infighting with the cyberdemons.  On the other hand, it is very easy to reach the exit.

 

On the other hand, this does not prevent me from thinking that this map is really avant-garde. The atmosphere of the map with its new midi which turns out to be power metal I don't know the name of, reminds me of more modern wads such as New Gothic Movement or the Slaughterfest series.

 

 

 

I was playing The DOOM Tribute Project but I decided to stop after roughly 20 maps. Anyway , it's a cool wad , I recommand it.

 

Spoiler

 

[Sena]

Day 13: Circle https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom2/a-c/circle

 

It definitely is a circle. You get two teleporters, one with a megasphere, another with weapons but it's glitched so the second you get into the weapon room, you just get sent to the main room again, forcing me to play pacifist, which means the level took less than 1 minute. You push a button, enemies come in, you push another, more enemies come in, and the exit opens. This kind of level design would probably be alright if it wasn't so big that nothing can even hit you, but there's no point talking about hypotheticals, what you've got here is something that's not really capable of provoking thought at all. If I'm going to continue to compare WADs to video game consoles, then this is a walking simulator for the PS3, and there's nothing fun about walking if you don't get to kill things afterwards. 3/10.

 

[LadyMistDragon]

The Last Resort (2005) by Michael Houston, et al (Eternity)

 

For the second time in a row, I get deathmatch maps made in 2005! I think I might have actually heard of this one somewhere! It replaced Episode 2 and features 9 maps of generally well-designed multiplayer maps guaranteed to provide some fun for a while! I really like the vague pirate theme, though that's really no connection to anything here. First map seems to take place in a sort of Wild West town, with all the building ducking that comes with that. The rest are for the most part centered around some vague concept, with maybe only one of them having a generic circle layout. Two stand out the most: E2M9 (Versailles) which actually does a strong job representing what most people think Versailles is, or a beautiful garden with a giant pool in the center and lots of neat landscaping. Then finally is E2M8, the Funhouse, a maze-like, intricate sort of map completely unlike any of the others with several points of call (mirrors and hexgonal rooms) that actually feel like a real funhouse. The clown switches you see in every map can only help to add to this. Barring E2M3, I think these could definitely last a while. 8/10

 

Spoiler

Spoiler

Spoiler

Spoiler

Spoiler

 

Edited November 15, 2021 by LadyMistDragon

[ICID]

Thanks for another great adventure, everyone! Scores are tallied and the madness continues anew over in this thread:

 

[BuzzSaw]

On 11/3/2021 at 6:03 PM, ICID said:

BuzzSaw: City Under Siege (2019) by Luis M. Arevalo

 

^{Play Settings}

^{Source Port: prboom+, complevel 9}

^{Difficulty: Ultra-Violence, pistol starts}

 

Inscrutably described as the “1st chapter in the second story of the BuzzSaw Saga”, Luis Arevalo’s sole contribution to the /idgames archives involves a “death trap previously know as Operation: Extermination Time” and if it sounds like I’m taking a bit of a mocking tone with this one, it’s because I hated playing it. Let’s do a map-by-map review, shall we?

 

MAP01 (untitled, like all the other maps) is a cramped, brown opportunity for hitscanners to take endless potshots at you. It’s what people who hate city maps think all city maps are, with absolutely no cover from chaingunning snipers and totally inscrutable progression requiring you to run between multiple buildings playing switch Sudoku. Start as we mean to go on, I guess.

 

MAP02 introduces us to one of BuzzSaw’s cardinal sins: no matter how high the monster counts get, and no matter how tough said monsters are, you are never getting a super shotgun. I give Plutonia (the base for this particular WAD) a lot of guff, but at least it understood that if it was going to throw mancubi and arch-viles at you in the first level, it also needed to give you the equipment to deal with it. Not so here, as Arevalo apparently expects us to take the time to slowly chaingun high-tier enemies, bullet by bullet.

 

Or maybe not. This map takes the shape of long runways – my interpretation was that this was some kind of abandoned metro line (silver lanes shining starkly against a city backdrop – the best visuals of any map in this set by a country mile) that actually make it pretty easy to run past a lot of the worst foes. And not just easy, but kinda fun! Thrilling to dodge between mancubus shots and try to lead arachnotron plasma into enemies. Here I thought that maybe the lack of good guns might be to some extent a stylistic choice, forcing the player into new forms of gameplay. It’s not Doom, but it might still be something else fun, I hoped.

 

The next several maps would disabuse me of this notion.

 

MAP03, though, is actually by far the best of the set. Sure in terms of actual layout it’s just a big square, and it’s still quite frustrating in parts and I still miss having an SSG, but at least combat seems to be calibrated correctly. Most fights are against small groups of low- to medium-tier enemies actually befitting your loadout (minus a chaingunner-heavy ambush that just turns into a pure RNG fight) and while the hub is a bit dull at least it makes it easy to know where you need to go. Plus there’s a dark room that gives you a chainsaw and loads of pinkies to fight that is the one time I actually had true fun with BuzzSaw, rather than just the absence of not-fun.

 

MAP04 gets us back to wide open spaces, tons of snipers (mostly arachnotrons), and none of the weapons you need to deal with them. Not much else to say except that every room here is a rectangle attached to other rectangles, kinda feels like even Arevalo was getting tired of his work by this point.

 

MAP05: penultimate maps in Doom are usually seen as a place to summarize all the ideas of your WAD before the final boss, and well, that’s certainly what happens here. Way more monsters than ammo, stacks of mancubi, chaingunner snipers, ugly brown buildings containing inscrutable progression – the works. Most memorable for its central fountain structure, which is to say two blue cylinders stacked on top of each other.

 

MAP06: Really thought this was going to be a boss fight of some kind, or at least have some sense of finality, but instead Arevalo dedicates himself to one of the few awful mapping tropes he hadn’t touched so far: the sewer level. Other than the abundance of hurtfloors (and total lack of radiation suits) this feels like every other map in the set. The actual final enemy before the exit and therefore “boss” of this mapset is a single SS Officer, which feels right. Actually lol'ed when the game went straight from that to Plutonia’s default text message about “killing the guardian”.

 

All in all, I would say that Arevalo has a decent if cliched visual sensibility and at least not the worst sense of progression we’ve come across in the ER/iWA. Dude knows how to put together a map, for sure. What he lacks, seemingly, is an understanding of the fundamental gameplay of Doom. How to balance ammo and weapons against enemy counts, how to use different types of monsters in different scenarios. Killing maps absolutely loaded with mancubi and pinkies with only the default chaingun and shotgun (and some rockets that will kill you instantly if you dare to use them in any of Buzzsaw’s very cramped combat spaces) feels like almost the literal definition of banging your head against a wall. It’s exhausting. Just exhausting.

 

Grade: 1/10

TL;DR: Looks okay but otherwise like all my least favorite mapping tropes piled up together in the same car crash.

 

I really appreciate you taking the time to play it and give it your honest review. I was hoping someone would play it eventually.

 

My only defenses are:

 - They were designed to be played on HMP if doing pistol start only and UV if doing actual progression (keeping weapons/ammo from level to level). UV can be done on pistol start but only if you know where some of the secrets are beforehand. SSG is on MAP01 & MAP02 but in secret areas. But i totally get it, I also only play most if not all PWADS on UV. And visual is also subjective so I can't make excuses for it, but I like it :).

 - There are specific boss fight areas scattered throughout the maps, I consider Barons a boss :). SS Soldier was put in as a dumb random joke, especially after fighting all of those Barons.

 - It was originally gonna be a 32 level Megawad with "custom" textures and music (taken from DOOM Betas and Heretic), but stripped out the textures when I only wanted as much of my own creations in the wad file and didn't want to include any commercial textures. It's the only reason I chose Plutonia as the iwad, for the blue waterfall and a 32 height fence.

- I should have clarified in the ReadMe that I had been working on and off on random levels for over 20 years, not just these specific 6. I had a few levels made with Heretic textures in the Megawad and I converted them to actual Heretic maps.

If it's cool with you, can you post an abbreviated version of the review (1 star and all :) ) to the idgames archive where the download link is? Any and all feedback posted to the wad file would be greatly appreciated. 

 

I did post a "demo" of the 32 Map wad back in 2004. I wish I still had a copy of the wad to show the changes made to the current one.

I'm also completing MAP07-11 to complete the pwad... these are also some of the levels I've still been working on. :)

 -Luis