Endless Random /idgames WAD Adventures #060

[ICID]

^{(logo by @4MaTC)}

 

ICID, what the hell is this now?

Endless Random /idgames WAD Adventures is a small project of exploration, interaction, entertainment and reviews where we meet once every two weeks to select random WADs in search of hidden treasures, lost promises, or our worst nightmares! We use the /idgames archive’s special feature that lets us search for random files. Of course, sometimes the results are resources or unplayable stuff, so we focus on looking for WADs.

 

So, what do we do here?

1. Play at least one random WAD in a two-week period of time. WADs are selected using the Random File feature on /idgames or from the list below.
2. Post a review of whatever you play.
3. Always provide the name of the WAD, the name of the author, and a link to the file.
4. Play however you want, on any skill level, and with any source port, as long as you play the WAD as intended/in working shape.
5. Be respectful. It's okay to criticize a map, but remember that many mappers read these review threads and behave accordingly. Also, please don't tag mappers into a negative review of their work.

 

What kind of WADs are we looking for?

Any file on /idgames is fair game, but most of us choose to stick to singleplayer Doom or Heretic WADs that work in our sourceport(s) of choice. If you're worried about finding Terrywads or broken files, I also pull at least five random WADs for the event. Feel free to play them with me if you wish, or look for your own! The point of the event is to encourage you to explore this vast, random world. 

 

Recommendations for reviewing:

Spoiler

1. Please take screenshots or video of your adventures.
2. Commenting the source port and difficulty level is not required, but provides helpful context to your review.
3. Try to stick to no more than 1 WAD per day to avoid burnout, but this part’s all up to you, champ!
4. Reviews of all formats are valid. Both longform and shortform are good as long as you write with integrity.

 

Endless Random /idgames WAD Adventures of this event: 

1. Space Hulk Doom
2. W7.WAD
3. Extinguished
4. Shogun
5. The World of Deth - From Heaven to Hell

 

Spoiler

1. @Roofi | 6745

2. @LadyMistDragon | 3380

3. @Sena | 2465

4. @Walter confetti | 2250

5. @ICID | 1240

6. @brick | 1100

7. @Endless | 1000

8. @Thelokk | 725

9. @Clippy | 535

10. @smeghammer | 425

 

Join the Doom Master Wadazine community for more events like this! » https://discord.gg/Q2RKn4J

 

And check the Doom wiki for the full list of past adventures.

[Walter confetti]

I played shogun and world of deth already back in the day, but i don't remember quite good them... I own and played a little Space Hulk Doom, It looked cool!

[LadyMistDragon]

The Lair of Bamse Bear (1997) by Rune Andersson (Crispy Doom)

 

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The lair of Bamse has been invaded by vicious aliens. It is of course Furman, Bamse's old arch enemy, who has planned the coup. Your mission is to handle the aliens in the best way that you can, and to teach Furman a lesson. Furman has proven to the gullible aliens that Bamse is Satan, thus: Consider the letters in the name Bamse, and especially their ordinal numbers in the alphabet. B = 2 A = 1 M = 13 S = 19 E = 5 2 + 1 = 3 13 * 19 = 247 5 * 5 = 25 247 - 25 = 222 222 * 3 = 666 666 is the number of the beast. Therefore Bamse is Satan, says Furman. Noone but you understands that the proof is utterly incorrect, because the letter E was used twice.

 

 

Simple map, with what seems almost like a Wormhole concept, until it becomes clear that the two different sides are linked! While it's nice that the areas corresponding to the location of each key are color-coded, the process is quite dull, thanks to the dull combat and moronic jumping required in both rooms. This would work in Marathon but in this game, SR50ing is a no go from this player! The paintings were nice though. Winny the Pooh is a jester but later we found he's gone to seed just like Elvis while some wolf that looks familiar gazes on greedily, at least until one gets to the last section of the map and he's seen with a dejected expression. To be honest, the environmental storytelling here's quite nice. A corpse leading to a hall of Imps. A marble structure outside which seems to be a basketball court. Some other cute little touches. This was quite dull however. 5.5/10

 

Funny story: I'd actually rolled Ray Mohawk along with the previous wad yesterday but for a couple of different reasons, I skipped it. I now wonder if I should have waited a day. Although this map does have some of the ol 90s experimentation and isn't obnoxious, so it actually isn't too bad.

 

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Video here!

 

 

[Sena]

• 1 WAD | 1 map

Sodaholic's Birthday Wad (2012)

 

This one's very short, initially consisting of one room that contains a nicely decorated cake but little to mention in terms of gameplay. After clearing the room, its walls lower to produce an Icon of Sin, consequently making the level mostly predicated on if you like IoS maps or not, and I don't. This one feels more frustrating than usual, since the room is entirely flat and a lot smaller than most other IoS levels, making it far too easy for at least something to walk into your line of fire and mess things up. But even with my general distaste for the genre it belongs to, this level is at least decent, even if solely because, as with the extensive Ruba catalogue, you can't really hate a level when it's only a minute long. 5/10.

[LadyMistDragon]

yeah.....I really should've waited yesterday

 

 

Marine StarCraft (2007) by Marcus Koller (GZDoom)

 

Basically a series of Skulltag mods that were converted to GZDoom (with Impboy being among the credits!). There's not tons to this, just a cool little grenade launcher one probably will recognize from Starcraft, that rail driver plasma replacement that's shown up in several other weapon mods, and a BFG that fires red balls that can badly hurt a player who's standing right next to their target. There's also supposed to be voices, but since that seems to be a multiplayer feature, it wasn't explored here.

 

Spoiler

 

 

STOKER2 DOOM ][ (1995) by Mike Panico (Zandronum and Eternity)

 

Well, the bots were too stupid for this map and I don't really have the patience for neither deathmatch-in-single player combat, nor for the enemies behind the trap walls near the beginning. Too bad because this actually is quite a good map for being a little on the primitive side visually. Twisting passageways head around and above the bland central courtyard, containing some well-detailed locations, within limits naturally. I find it interesting that LEDGES was influential, even in early '95! It sounds like it could be fun if one knows what they're doing but modern DM is probably a little more free-flowing than this. I never thought Mike Patton would be such a good DM designer though! 6/10

 

 

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Razor (1995) by Mike Muir (Zandronum)

 

And speaking of musicians that are wannabe map designers, the guy who's mom didn't give him a Pepsi (and thusly had his brain fried after several months of an institutution) has served us up this suitably bland and dark indoor map. Funny story, this crashes in Eternity for godknowswhat reason. But believe me, there's really nothing being missed here. Certainly not the Razor in question. This is the kind of "help" parents were forcing on their kids in the 80s. 3/10

 

PS: This guy is a Kiwi before anyone gets all hot under the collar.....

 

[Sena]

• 1 WAD | 1 map

pjs01.WAD (1994)

 

A lot of E1M1 replacements can end up feeling the same, as ultimately you can only sit idly by and wait for the pistol to slowly kill some imps so many times before your mind will wander in the direction of "man this is just like that one time". But truthfully, while this may contain certain elements that are at least identifiable elsewhere, it exhibits its own style, combining the author's own form of architecture with the aesthetics and principles that id had already established. The level is in tight quarters almost entirely throughout, but there is still a change in scenery, using both indoor and outdoor areas, and some points that are more characteristic of E2, and in doing so, the level manages to become a lot more interesting to explore than most E1M1s, and perhaps a lot of techbases in general. It still has some issues, namely that I managed to get lost, and while in most cases I am able to attribute it to my poor sense of direction, if it's a map in the 40 enemy range, then it is probably their fault for making it unclear. Nonetheless, it's a pretty good map, and if it were still 1994, this would be an outstandingly good map. 6/10.

[Walter confetti]

SHOGUN.WAD by Phil Longueuil - Vanilla Doom, 1994 but uploaded in 2005, SP, 1 map (E1M1), played with Eternity "forseti" 4.0.2

Spoiler

 

A square, maze-ish map that it's the perfect filler map for shovelware CDs (actually i played this for the first time in one of CDs i own and when i was little i misspelled every time the tile with "SHOTGUN") and almost have nothing of Japanese in it, maybe only the SKINMET walls? Anyway, it's a challenging map (especially in the tight spaces with many monsters teleporting or rushing out from closets in) with bizarre texturing choices (including caves with light sectors) and a interestingly looking platforms stair made of red and blue squares, like it's a giant destroyed chess table. It's a ok amateurish 1994 user map, nothing too groundbreaking really. If you want to add more Shogun in your Shogun wad experience.. idk, play it with this song in backround.

 

Assault Rifle from Halo: Combat Evolved by Luiz Eduardo (a.k.a DuduCrazy) - Zdoom compatible ports, 2004, Weapon Mod, played with Zandronum 3.1

Spoiler

 

A small weapon mod that replaces the stock chaingun with this beffy beast from halo, the fire rate is slightly faster but over this there's nothing extraordinary that i found. The graphics of the gun are cool.

[LadyMistDragon]

Should I be glad that I'll have a few days away? Probably, this is my penance for never listening to my parents. Hold on, that's actually pretty relevant.

 

Bittersweet *Unfinished* (2005) by Mouse (GZ Doom)

 

So basically, we have this total conversion that...might be inspired by painkiller and retroactively Bayonetta. Anyways, the protagonist is supposed to be an anime babe and we're basically exploring a temple where we gun down some insane nuns with a series of over-the-top weapons. Later, we end up on rooftops where we get a crazy powerful Sten-type gun that devastates foes., but progress beyond that point can not be achieved. The art style used here is actually really nice - the heavenly and Catholicism aesthetic is sold quite well although it's not exactly what you'd call factually accurate - but in either case, there are sections that can't be shown on Doomworld because of poorly-rendered boobies. No matter though, these paintings are fantastic and I'm now very curious how this compared to Mouse's better-known wads. It's actually really fun, though the map design's a little basic. The only thing I wish is that I was party to the seemingly uselss HUD stuff on the right. I assume the scales with demons and that vial have some alignment meaning but it's probably a placeholder for a feature never fleshed out. Oh well.6.5/10

 

 

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Edited June 1, 2023 by LadyMistDragon

[brick]

Hell Revealed II (2003) by Jonas Feragen et al. 32 SP maps for "vanilla" (the text file literally says "use a port") Doom II. Played with GZDoomon ITYTD+

Bring out the pitchforks, because I'm going to confess that I never liked Hell Revealed. This is not me being contrarian, it's just not what I want from Doom. Getting wads like this on a random roll is a reason I like to participate in ER/IWA (and in DWMC for that matter), it makes me play ones I would otherwise never load. With how polarizing HR2 is among HR1 fans, this could've gone either way; unfortunately I not only disliked it even more than the original, but I can also see why even many HR1 fans consider it inferior too.

I liked the first few maps, they're similar in approach to HR1's early ones, short, tight, relatively low monster counts but some interesting setups. I remember HR1 turning into a meat grinder in the second half, but it happens much earlier here. It's not just that maps start accumulating 300 or 400 (or 800+) enemies (on Easy, mind), it's that most are health sponges. There are symmetrical and identical layouts with dozens of nobles to grind, the wave of dozens of revenants with no cover, archviles teleporting with you into a tiny room with no way to break LOS, the very long wide passage with 50 pinkies and plenty of space to backpedal as you slowly kill them with the SSG... the problem with most of these setups is that they aren't even that challenging. For the first time I can remember, I cheated through several maps not because I was having trouble, but just to get through the more grindy ones faster.

There were several maps that I liked though, even later in the wad. Yashar's MAP17 (Eye for an Eye) is one of my favourites, with fewer enemies but smarter positioning and layout and one that I really enjoyed beating fairly. I also liked Martin's MAP20 (Fear of the Dark), which again felt more restrained with the health sponges and uses lighting superbly to create a tense atmosphere, without being too dark. In general I disliked the homage maps; I liked the iwad homages much less than the originals, and most of the others are homages to HR1 maps that I disliked in the first place. I did like MAP26 (Dis 2000) much more than I expected, the opening view of E3M8 drowned in lava looks striking, and I enjoyed the combat despite the high number of heavies, Pedro is kind enough to at least provide lots of health and armour. Then there's MAP19 (Mind Trap), which made me pull my hair out with the incredibly obtuse progression (and to think people complain about Eternal Doom...), confusing layout with the pseudo-bridges, and repetitive encounters. And even this had nothing on MAP28 (Beyond The Sea), which had even more repetitive encounters (one setup with teleporting cyberdemons and archviles resurrecting chaingunners is identically repeated four times...) and so much dead end backtracking it would make Ian Wilson blush. The finale is an IOS but on Easy it's surprisingly manageable, getting the 3 keys goes by fast, the Cyberdemon wasn't too mush trouble, and there's no aiming to be done.

Going back to those bridges, I think this is the most extensive use in a vanilla wad that I've seen outside of Requiem. They're not in every map, but maps that use them have them everywhere, including a criss-crossing pattern of 4 going over each other in said MAP19, it actually looks impressive... when they don't break, which unfortunately happened a handful of times (though, surprisingly, not this MAP19 quartet). Another interesting personal discovery: I have long complained about slaughter arenas where you have to run back and forth between the corners hunting for hidden switches that then open another one at the opposite end, and it may well be HR2 was the first one to do it, or at least to use this setup so extensively. One thing I'll say, some maps look very good, better than HR1 on average, and there's some great lighting work in many. I think I liked the original music more than HR1's rehash of ROTT (I know, heresy), and some tracks were genuinely enjoyable and very fitting, though unfortunately none of them stayed with me past the end credits.

 

Spoiler

 

[ICID]

 

Space Hulk Doom (1995) by David and Michael Biggs

 

^{Play Settings}

^{Difficulty: Ultra-Violence, pistol starts}

^{Source Port: Crispy Doom}

 

I have a decent familiarity with Warhammer but I never played the Space Hulk games. I watched a little bit of the '93 version this is based on and trying to follow what was going on just gave me a headache. Anyway, this is a decent looking TC for its time, but the gameplay is just awful - you walk through mazes fighting Genestealers which are just reskinned pinkies. Your only weapons are the "flamer" (a rocket launcher, and almost guaranteed suicide in these hallways) and the "boltgun" (an unskinned chaingun). Pinkies alone are barely enough to sustain a single room in Doom, let alone a whole map, let alone a 5-map WAD (the fifth, a map designed for DM, is unplayable in singleplayer because you can't pick up any weapons before genestealers kill you in an impassable corridor.)

 

There is a contemporary /idgames review complaining that the Genestealers are "too powerful", so I guess these were the days before most players knew how to bait their hungry mouths? An amusing historical artifact, but quite terrible.

 

Grade: 2/10

 

 

W7 (1996) by Albert Lam and Mikiya Mochizuki

 

^{Play Settings}

^{Difficulty: Ultra-Violence, pistol starts}

^{Source Port: Crispy Doom}

 

Every so often some kind of "worst monster" thread or something very similar will come around on Doomworld, and people will take the opportunity to complain about the noble lost soul. I'm on record as saying I won't stand for it. Lost souls are an awesome design, easily dispatched if you know how to use a super shotgun, and a far superior movement-inhibiting substitute for the rather toothless pinkie. They're an important, well-balanced part of the Doom roster. Unless, you know, you do this.

 

Some credit does have to be given for how much better W7 is than a lot of its 1996 contemporaries - there's a good sense of scope, nice detailing (the spotlights in that first screenshot turn on as you walk into the room and cross linedefs, very cool) and it's even balanced for pistol starts if you're into that sort of thing. But both of the levels in this set contain inescapable pits, poorly-balanced combat, and LOTS of lost souls just itching to ruin your run with a single headbutt. I admire the ambition and a few of the fights, but overall I found this to be quite a slog to play.

 

Grade: 4/10

 

 

Extinguished (2016) by Stormwalker (aka Vordakk)

 

^{Play Settings}

^{Difficulty: Ultra-Violence}

^{Source Port: dsda-doom, complevel 9}

 

Fair warning to fellow adventurers who choose to play the thread WADs - the /idgames page that says this is limit-removing, but I couldn't get it to work that way. Seems to be Boom or bust!

 

Anyway, after the last two WADs in this adventure turned out to be duds, so I was hoping for something great this time. Did I get it? Yes and no. Visually this is a feast for the eyes, grand but not entirely in-your-face visuals accompanied by a subtle palette change. But the fights don't quite meet the visuals. Combat here is quite slaughter-y, but while the best slaughter consists of clever combat puzzles and smart use of infighting, this is mostly big clusters of a single type of enemy, and you spend much of the map with just an SSG - so you're holding down M1 and praying to RNG for favorable damage rolls. There's an early fight against a bunch of revenants that meet you in a hallway under these conditions that'll really test your patience and let you know whether you're going to be willing to stick with the rest of the map.

 

Though this map mostly didn't do it for me, Stormwalker is one of those great mappers who works in a variety of styles and keeps on trucking without much recognition. I played their "Assault on Chextropolis" for a previous ER/iWA and it remains easily the best Chex Quest map I've ever played - making genuinely clever use of the somewhat limited CQ roster. I wish this one had been as much of a breath of fresh air as that was, but c'est la vie.

 

Grade: 6/10

[Sena]

• 3 WADs | 2 maps

 

CTF_Turbine (2020)

 

I don't normally bother with deathmatch maps for the simple fact that you can't really play them, but I decided to give this one a shot since it's based on the other ctf_turbine from TF2 that I would guess is recognisable to at least most people here. And it is at least a faithful recreation, it is not strikingly turbine, and if I were not told, I wouldn't have guessed that it was based on anything. It seems to be appropriately scaled, so if you want a particularly rectangular CTF map, then this one will probably suffice.

 

Fatal Error Doom (2005)

 

Far less interesting than a Terry trap, this WAD by BPRD replaces the titlepic with a fatal error message for ZDoom, and that's all it does. Apart from the fact it's improperly cropped, it just doesn't seem like the kind of bait/joke/troll WAD that was well-thought out, because you are inevitably going to react to having your ZDoom crash by pressing something, which will reveal that the menu is working just fine, if the audio didn't give it away to begin with.

 

 

Nukage refinery. (2010)

The only actual WAD I played to completion today, and it's pretty good, although peculiarly enough this one also contains a misleading titlepic, because despite what it may say, this isn't Deus Vult. In its first half at least, this reminds me of an upscaled E1M7, being a spacious techbase, and if it has one unique and memorable quality, it is that it is absolutely packed with imps. I've seen the argument before that the super shotgun ruins the balance of the game, since it makes it far too easy to score an instant kill on low-level enemies without much drawback, but this level provides a good counterpoint, because sometimes that level of efficiency is necessary to keep the game interesting - I finished this level with around 70% kills, of which I estimate the number of kills I was actually responsible for was closer to 40%, because with only a regular shotgun, killing imps one at a time when the number of them to kill is in the hundreds is something I'm only going to do when it's necessary to progress through the level, and the majority of them are placed superfluously, enemy window dressing that is not remotely threatening when the map is so open. However, apart from that singular issue, I would struggle to level any complaints, it has plenty of atmosphere and interesting architecture, the difficulty is kept challenging but not majorly so throughout, and despite its daunting size, it goes by quite quickly, and as always, being able to blaze through a level is a good time. 7/10.

 

Edited June 1, 2023 by Sena

[wertercatt]

I got "Rainbow dash HUD" (combos/rdhud.zip) by Joe-Ilya & Omer. It's a status bar, weapon sprite, and player sound replacement released in 2014 which I loaded with my standard GZDoom autoload setup. The description says that if you're 'A fan of MLP and Doom? This is for you!' which I can agree with as a MLP fan. Rainbow Dash is probably the best choice of the Mane 6 to replace Doomguy with, as she's the easiest to imagine picking up a shotgun and facing down the forces of hell. For a mod listing MS Paint as the tool used, the artwork is surprisingly well done. I only wish there was a MLP mapset to go with it so the HUD would fit more thematically. Still, I give it 10/10 for competently doing what it set out to do.

Spoiler

The next WAD I got was ROMAN (levels/doom2/deathmatch/p-r/roman.zip) by Steven D. Surles a.k.a. God Mode. It's a deathmatch map for Doom2 from 1996. I loaded it with 300 Pounds' Deathmatch Simulator to get a feel for how it plays. It's an incredibly small and hectic map, and I wasn't able to figure out how you're supposed to get the items on the pillars without jumping around. 6/10, I guess? I don't play Deathmatch enough to accurately rate a DM map.
 

Spoiler

 

Edited June 1, 2023 by wertercatt
Added a sentence; forgot a word; link to GZDoom_portable.ini for context; play ROMAN

[Roofi]

Happy birthday to Er/Iwa which just turned 60 !

 

Year 2 Month 05 Day 14

 

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

 

[1] ARACHNA2.WAD by Bjorn Hermans (all the editing and design work) and Holger Nathrath (testing & comment) (1995)

 

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The evil Spider Mother has made her lair in a Holy Church and turned it into a place of Supreme Evilness.

 

An old collab Doom 2 map taking place inside a green marbled fortress. The authors put a lot of efforts in the architecture which prove to be a lot more elaborated than I usually see among the 1995 releases. Between the layered architecture, the detailed light gradiants and above all the cool spider-shaped ceiling sector near the end of the map, this map pleased my eyes.

 

The progression and gameplay were a bit messy. Some rooms have quite a lot of shootable switches just to open regular doors for instance or you can access to a large room in the shape of the star in which you find all the mightiest weapons and many teleport in. The locked cyberdemon presents no danger , even without the big guns and the Spider-Mastermind just wait to be killed with your BFG. The exit switch can be reached once you lower a sector and I'm 99% sure you can bypass it with the zero-press trick.

 

I mostly enjoyed this map for its detailed architecture and sector-art. ARACHNA2.WAD is an advanced work for 1995 but I don't think  that level had any more impact on me than that.

 

Grade : B  (13/20)

 

[2] 2-hour base by Zoltan Schmidt "Katamori" @Katamori (2011)

 

Quote

I was bored in a usual weekday, and I made a classic-style, solid and simple map under 2 and a half hour. my first old-school level.

Hope you like it =)

 

A small decayed tech-base if you've 5 minutes to spare. "2-hours base" offers a lot of details for a map made in two hours. The destroyed wall at the beginning of the map , the deteriorated floors or the busy warehouse helps making this map looking less "speedmappy" than it actually is. Katamori doesn't challenge your dooming skills by giving you a lot more health and ammo than you need. 2 soulspheres for a map of that size perhaps feel overgenerous but I will not complain.

 

It was a fun undemanding speedmap with decent visuals.

 

Grade : B-  (12/20)

 

[3] Shotgun for Heretic Patch v0.9 by Ronald M. Young (1997)

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A PWAD that replaces the Ethereal Crossbow with the shotgun from Doom.

 

I didn't playtest this mod because there is no wad nor dehacked. The files are dislocated and I have to run an install.bat. Problem : I don't have the original EXE of Heretic so fuck it, the description say it all. Needless to say it's totally anachronic.

 

[4] Intensity by Chris Wright (2009)

 

Hmm, I took screens but Crispy Doom didn't save them.

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A cruel affair wherein you will be constantly bombarbed by hideous demon attacks from every accursed angle. You cannot advance in this level without stumbling across nest after nest of nest of vicious hellspawn.

That said, I want to have fun playing this too, so there's enough ammo if you scrounge thoroughly, and always somewhere you can flee. Have fun mes amis.

 

A small gimmicky speedmap made in 4 hours in which you have to walk on linedefs in order to open closets revealing monsters and the path to take. The limited ammo and weaponry encourages you to exploit infight but the combats remain straightforward if you stay cautious and don't rush. The absence of etablished theme and decent visuals make this map particularly bland.

 

Grade : C-    (8/20)

 

I stop here for today.

[SuyaSSS]

Doom Birthday Cake. - Espi, 12 December 2003

Played On: GZDoom, UV

 

Not really a full level. This map is just made as a celebration of Doom's 10th anniversary, hence why the cake has 10 candles and 10 written on it. The map just spawns 1 enemy of each type available, spawning another enemy if you kill that one. I also think that the zero gravity thing was a bit annoying mostly due to the limited air movement. This is basically a glorified enemy rollcall from Doom 2.

 

Grade: D-

 

UFO - Simo Malinen, 11 July 2003

Played on: Nugget Doom, UV

 

Very easy level but also very claustrophobic. The level does have quite a lot of detail but I think that this is too much detail. The texturing is also a bit ugly with overuse of silver and the DOORTRAK texture and also some misalignments that could easily be fixed with upper and lower unpegging walls. Gameplay wise, thankfully, the map is easy enough so that the claustrophobia isn't a problem and for once I thank the RNG god that this map is for Doom 1 because I couldn't imagine how I would've survived Revenents homing missiles in this map. One big nitpick is that the doors, for some reason, do not use the regular door texture and instead the mapper opted for combining textures like silver and doortrak to create these doors. Thankfully, most of the doors open automatically.

 

So, if you have the urge to constantly bump into random walls and keep bopping up and down for a few minutes, play this map.

 

Grade: D

 

Doom 2 crashed - Chaingunner, 22 January 2012

Played on: Nugget Doom, UV

 

This map is confused over whether it wants to be eery or comedic. Some parts of this map can give chills because of how empty they are and also the dark and moody lighting adding to this very nice atmosphere. On the other hand, picking up a shotgun plays a very annoying sound of someone screaming "He's got a gun" which is not only completely unnecessary but also removes any sort of tension that this atmosphere has built up. This level entirely comprises of low tier enemies. This map can function as a very nice 1st map for some sort of megawad. 

 

One thing though, WHY THE FUCK IS THIS SWITCH MARKED WITH A BLUE KEY INDICATOR WHEN IT CAN BE PUSHED WITHOUT THE BLUE KEY AND IT LOWERS THE PLATFORM TO THE BLUE KEY.  The map is short enough that having no indicator would've worked especially because later in the map, the switch for the yellow key has no yellow key indicator.

 

Overall, the map is quite fun and looks decent enough and would be quite good if the sound effect is removed. Maybe a bit more of Doom 2 stuff would've also been cool but i'm quite happy with this map.

 

Grade: B+

Edited June 2, 2023 by SuyaSS

[DrRock]

Data Center 1.0 by Ilya Seletsky (Vanilla, 2008) - Doom II

played in Zdoom 2.8.1 on Ultra-Violence

Spoiler

The first of the six maps that encompass this WAD doesn't leave too great of a first impression. A super narrow little techbase that doesn't show much confidence from the author. Each consecutive level starting from the second one gets to be more and more complex and adventurous, leading to much more intricate techbases, a small-sized cavern with some height difference, a cleverly made spooky level in a void and a final challenge level that ends with a very agreeable boss shooter section. I find this to be nice little adventure and one I would recommend you try out, especially since it appears to have flown under just about everyone's radars all these years as I couldn't really find any mentions of it anywhere thus far. A hidden gem of sorts?

 

 

Urban Fire by ProcessingControl (Boom, 2012) - Doom II

played in Zdoom 2.8.1 on Ultra-Violence

Spoiler

Here we have a previously released multiplayer map modified for single-player gameplay and intended for inclusion in CC4, which didn't happen. I'd say that Urban Fire would have made a fine addition were it picked for the megawad, since it upholds the general high standard of visuals and nasty difficulty that CC4 has. As early as the beginning room with the conveyor belt feeding you your first weapon, things can get hairy if the chaingunners feel like ruining your day. Otherwise, your main goal in this little city block is to carve out some breathing room for yourself as there are lots of monsters roaming around, filling up almost all the space in the main area. Usually, having monsters of various types all bunched together makes for easy infighting fodder, but here it serves to keep you on your toes since you can't easily mow down enemies by doing one and the same thing in a single area for too long. The open-endedness also allows the various foes for many nasty vantage points to approach and attack from. Once that's done things get a little easier but the difficulty never really lets up throughout. Urban Fire is high class action all the way, just be prepared to get your shit kicked in repeatedly by ProcessingControl's creation.

 

 

Easy14U by Dave Johnson (Vanilla, 1997) - Doom II

played in Zdoom 2.8.1 on Ultra-Violence

Spoiler

Easy14U almost feels like an inverse counterpart to the first WAD reviewed in this post in that, after the decently crafted first room and accompanying fight sequence, it seems to practically devolve into simpler geometry and enemy formations as it goes on. Despite that, it never really gets awful or tedious. A competent 90s map, just  not a very exciting one.

[Sena]

• 1 WAD | 1 map

Overrun (2015)

 

 

This one's pretty good, it would be misleading to say it's a standard techbase, as its custom MIDI, sound effects, and use of sourceport trickery prevents it from feeling generic. Not to suggest that it only relies on gimmicks in order to set itself apart, as its level design is entirely solid, being on the darker side of things which helps add to the atmosphere, and it also uses the overgrown E2-style aesthetic which is something I'll always welcome, and its gameplay is perfectly good too, with it using enough hitscanners that even on HMP I had to watch my own health and play it carefully. Slower paced than a lot of other maps, and certainly one whose conceit relies a lot more on its atmosphere than on its raw gameplay, but this is definitely a good level, if you don't mind the regular shotgun being louder and bassier than the super shotgun, which really revealed to me how important sound design is in making a weapon actually feel powerful, even when its actual damage output is unchanged. 7/10.

 

https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/reviews/ticrev01

 

And as a historical curiosity, here's a series of reviews from '95 by The Innocent Crew that I stumbled upon. Good to know I'm not engaging in chronological snobbery when I complain about old levels being incomprehensible, and it's perhaps worth noting that this shows that both WADs and the reviews themselves have stopped being as formulaic and boxy as they once were.

[SuyaSSS]

SHOGUN.WAD - Phil Longueuil, 18 September 1994

Played on: Nugget Doom, UV

 

Looks ugly just like most other 94 wads but has some really fun fights. My favourite fight being the one in the blood room. The map does lose a bit of steam by the end where the final fight is just you fighting 2 barons. There is also the very common issue of using key card indicators to indicate doors opened by skull keys which is shown here for the yellow door (also the blue key door is indicated by the blue light texture like where's the consistency?). This map is quite good in terms of the fights and there are some areas which look cool, like the aforementioned blood room. This map is definetely a complete experience like how a standalone wad should be. (Also 233 monsters is a bit surprising for 1994.)

 

Spoiler

 

Grade: B-

 

Occult Library v1.0 - Vile1011, 7 February 2014

Played on: Nugget Doom, UV

 

I did it? Wooooo. That was tiring and took me over 30 minutes and a lot of saves. Let's get the obvious thing out of the way. This map looks gorgeous with some really nice lighting and details. The details are sometimes obstructive but aren't that problematic usually. The gameplay, I felt, was usually fun but there were some annoying parts here and there. My biggest problem was the lack of idea of where to go. Many times, the progression in this map felt very awkward. So much so that I had to open the map in Ultimate Doom Builder to figure out where to go. The thing I was looking for was a blue key door which was behind some sort of annoying maze-y area and since I got a secret? area by jumping out of the window, the map became much more harder to me (atleast that secret gave me a rocket launcher and a soulsphere.) 

 

The final fight was in a room that you have visited but some health was locked behind bars. So, I returned to that area after pressing the switch in the blue key door (which let me tell you, is quite far from those bars) and the doors behind me locked. And...... nothing happened. I thought I was stuck so I opened the map in the editor. So, the mapper decided to put the linedef triggering the floor lowering a bit farther from where it should have been, so I was able to grab the medikits without triggering the linedefs. OOPS :P. Well, the floor lowers and there is some sort of boss fight with an arachnotron, who upon killing leads to the spawning of another arachnotron and this happens a few times before spawning a spider mastermind, who is a complete joke but still a bit fun since you have to get out of her firing range by hiding behind constantly raising and lowering floors. All these spiders stand on the red skull key which is your final key. Upon getting the red skull key, I returned to the starting area, took a lift from where I got the yellow skull key and opened the red door and reached the exit. Fun map but their is a lot of annoying key hunting.

 

Spoiler

 

Grade: A-

[Roofi]

Year 2 Month 05 Day 15

 

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

 

[1] Delire I by Delire Software (1997)

 

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This is a DOOM II DEATHMATCH pwad.

Oh,well! It's good!! It's cool!!! It's delirant!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

P.S. There are others delires in the world! Delire1 not bad! Delire3 The best DEATHMATCH pwad ? SOON MORE DELIRES...

 

I don't want to hurt author's feelings but I don't share his overenthusiasm about this bland DM map. Delire I has a lot of fake walls and most of the weapons are hidden behind them. It rather looks like a marbled graveyard of random ideas. What is the purpose of the room with the many lifts inside for instance? I don't know how it plays in multiplayer but I don't think it's as delirant as the author tell...

 

[2] prison10.WAD by Dr fred441 (2005)

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An early version of a file I will add on to Extensively if interest is great enough.

 

A short 1994 map uploaded 10 years later and to say about it? it's very low quality unfortunately.

 

Doctor Fred created a room just to trap you with a surprise crusher which is extremly simple to avoid. That one room doesn't even have goodies or something else to make it worth looking. It's just here for the crusher...

 

The rest of the adventure involve several barons to kill with the shotgun. Grabbing the RL located on its pedestral triggers the exit.

 

The two advantages of prison10.wad are its short duration and low difficulty, but otherwise I'll never make another visit to Dr Fred again.

 

Grade : D (6/20)

 

[3] better run trought the jungle by Walter "Daimon" Confalonieri @Walter confetti (2011)

 

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Another speed map i've posted ages ago on doomworld, but never send it on idgames, so i do it now. Theme now is a jungle place, check out the abandoned scientist camp, get the key for the demonic temple and GTFO.

 

The Plutonia Experiment but it's a peaceful stroll or rather in appearance because the sweet midi comes from.... Cannibal Holocaust. Walter's version of Plutonia features lot of space and few monsters. The grassy outdoors and the cute simplistic architecture feels like vacation to me. The indoors tend to be gloomier but the light-hearted music removes all pressure.

 

This map doesn't have a lot of content since it's a speedmap but I really enjoy straightforward maps like this. I could say that it reminds me very slightly of 'Gravity' from Eternal, but there's nothing extraordinary about the architecture.

 

Grade : B    (13/20)

 

 

And I got murdered by the countless chaingunners in Eyeball

 

Quote

 

[brick]

Brick | 2 wads | 6 maps

Adventure | 3 wads | 38 maps

 

Space Hulk DOOM (1995) by David Biggs et al. 4 SP + 1 DM maps for vanilla Doom. Played with GZDoom.
I didn't hate the wad as much as ICID but I can't deny that it's pretty bad. I played the Space Hulk game that inspired this but I never got very far into the campaign, at the time I thought the game was absolutely brutal (I wonder how I'd feel about it 30 years later). This is naturally a very unfaithful adaptation. The original game was in real-time, but you controlled a whole squad of space marines, one at a time, you could see what 4 of the others see through smaller windows and could instantly switch to control them, but I recall some missions have an even larger squad. There was a heavy tactical element to controlling them all and setting up perimeters, surviving ambushes, funneling Genestealers into killzones, there was a lot to keep track of all at once and it was a reasonably complex game. None of this is remotely doable in Doom, so you just go through corridors gunning down sprite-replaced pinkies. I expected to hate the wad but found it oddly relaxing to mow down through so many pinkies without an SSG for a change (or even a regular shotgun for that matter). The texture replacements don't look so great but brought back some nostalgia for the blocky look of the original. The Genestealer sprites on the other hand brought back terrifying memories (I was young). Still, this came out a year after Aliens TC, and it pales by comparison. Seeing a David and a Michael Biggs in the credits makes me think of a family collaboration and I'm sucker for these and I start wondering - brothers? father and son? cousins? it's always cute to see, as is seeing them collaborating with at least one random stranger they must've met online and who shared a passion for Doom modding, long before internet forums and the means of communication we take for granted today.

Spoiler

 

Extinguished (2016) by Stormwalker A.K.A. Vordakk. 1 SP map, allegedly limit-removing (actually Boom?) for Doom II. Played with GZDoom on HNTR

I'm much more familiar with Vordakk's Heretic output; I didn't love Call of the Apostate but really enjoyed Dark Deity's Bastion and Templum Dormiens Dei (did I get that right?). Extinguished came out the same year as the latter. I agree almost completely with everything ICID said, the maps looks amazing with no custom assets to speak of and a subtle palette change, which I found very fitting. However I too did not like the gameplay, from the get go the map throws homogeneous groups of mid-tiers with just the SSG and in several fights with nowhere to move or dodge, even getting the RL later didn't help much because much of the fighting is so claustrophobic (the RL room itself is a perfect example: a dozen or so mancubi in a small space with no cover). Vordakk cautions in the text file that there's more to be done even after reaching the exit, and after some searching I found the big secret, but this was a disappointment too, it's mostly a copy/paste of the starting areas stuffed with nobles, revenants, archviles, and a horde of chaingunners, which aren't much of a problem with the provided BFG. I think the map is worth playing for the sights, but I like the contemporary Heretic wad more.

Spoiler

 

Edited June 3, 2023 by brick

[ICID]

 

Shogun (1994) by Phil Longueuil

 

^{Play Settings}

^{Difficulty: Ultra-Violence}

^{Source Port: Crispy Doom}

 

Absolutely elite by the standards of '94 - a 233-monster epic over several colorful rooms that rarely lets up and contains a number of brutal traps, but also gives you enough ammo and health to deal with it all. It's still pretty boxy and flat compared to the original IWADs, you're gonna have to shotgun a few barons, and "colorful" isn't quite the same as "has any aesthetic sense whatsoever", but I still had a lot of fun, maybe just because my standards for this kind of thing are so low.

 

Grade: 6/10

 

 

The World of Deth: From Heaven To Hell (2000) by Morten "The Big One" Strømsvold

 

^{Play Settings}

^{Difficulty: Ultra-Violence}

^{Source Port: Crispy Doom}

 

I don't have time to play a full megawad in a week, so per usual I just idclev'd to see the first 2-3 rooms of each map here, and will be omitting the score for fairness' sake. That said, even the little I played in earnest was shockingly dull and repetitive.

 

World of Deth (named for the level editor used to make it) is a very early megawad - it was actually made and released in 97, and this 2000 release is just a bugfix. For its time it's undeniably impressive, especially in the scope of some of the huge later levels. There's a definite effort to give the player a sense of place as you travel through the Doomcute-packed city levels (MAP11, The Evil Airport, is a true highlight) through Quake-esque castles and ultimately into hell itself.

 

Unfortunately, the aesthetics of the map designs are let down heavily by Strømsvold's baffling decision to limit himself to a small handful of textures. The only colors that exist in this world are green, brown, and very occasionally grey - MAP20 has an actual blue water feature that truly did feel like an oasis in the desert of wood and marble. Moreover, all these areas are very dark, giving the WAD an extremely gloomy atmosphere that wears thin fast.

 

If that's not enough to lose your attention, the levels get extremely repetitive. This is true at the macro level, where you'll quickly realize that almost every map after the first episode is a variation on "starting outside and then entering a big building full of demons"; it's also true at the micro level, where as early as MAP02 you can see identical rooms copy-pasted over and over again to pad out levels. The worst example of this are MAP24 and MAP25, titled "Dead Mans Place I" and "Dead Mans Place II" - as you might guess, these is indeed the same level copy and pasted, with slightly more detail (and, weirdly, fewer secrets) in its second iteration.

There are some highlights here - I actually think the Icon of Sin fight is pretty good (as there are for once enough monsters to justify the map size) and again, the city levels are a lot of fun - and I'm blown away at the years of work it took to make something like this in 97. But if you need 32 levels of 90s charm, you're still better off playing any IWAD.

[LadyMistDragon]

PSYKOPLEX22 (2022) by JS Graham @isthisnametaken (From Doom With Love)

 

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This set of maps is a waste of time.  Proceed no further if that is not your intention.  The only thought I've ever had of Doom being better was for it to be bigger.*  More territory to explore and conquer.  More enemies to exterminate.  More time away from a considerably less fun and exciting reality.  (Before Brutal Doom came along!*)  

 

 

The above quote is taken from an extra text file included with it and um, yeahhhhh. This must have been released before I started seriously looking into things released on /idgames that seemingly have not been released on Doomworld(actually, it wasn't. I think the text file may have caused me to gloss over it though). It's basically akin to a map called Crux Funestus that Jeff released not too long back in it's arguably overly-grindy slaughter gameplay. The recently-released Elegant Agony this is not unfortunately.

 

 

In any case, the two maps I was able to play (I adopted the Roofi philosophy for this one just in case it was like an undiscovered gem) are fairly average, if sprawling and healthily-detailed pieces of techbase goodness. What's not quite so good is that killing is an overwhelming part of the gameplay. If one is more into the exploration factor, buckle up because there are large groups of enemies around basically every corner! On the plus side, the secrets all tend to be pretty nice. Unfortunately, it's also quite easy to miss the powerful weapons here.....then there's that ridiculous hitscanner room that one only hopes can be approached from above. If not, there could be some trouble.

 

The second map was a place where I had little issue with playing carelessly, but there was still 75% killed by the time I gave up the ghost. That series of elevators near the beginning was slightly annoying. Curious quasi-hanger homage as well

 

Score 6.5/10 The maps are actually fairly well-done....but I just don't like maps that throw down tons of enemies unless there's progress and some atmosphere going on which these first maps don't have at least. Play with a pillowblaster mod for maximum enjoyment! 

 

Spoiler

 

Video here!

 

 

Edited June 4, 2023 by LadyMistDragon

[Sena]

• 1 WAD | 1 map

gorefest.zip (1994)

 

For a level that predates Doom 2, this one has some exemplary detail and atmosphere in its layout, and for that alone it's commendable. It's too bad that it isn't commendable for much else, as while the visuals are ahead of their time, just about every other aspect of the level is more 90s than Wayne's World. The combat is generally fine, about as challenging as you may expect, even when accounting for a few nasty traps that can take out half of your health in short order. However, while the visual design is generally good, it still has a lot of the flaws that you would expect for the time - misaligned textures, textures that are the wrong size, and it is anything but cohesive in its flow, opting for the classic method of using random wall textures as doors, and even when you are going in the right direction, in many places it is noticeably rectangular and maze-like. I've seen far more egregious levels come out of the absolute randomness that was 90s mapping, but for a level notable for going in so many places in terms of theming and texturing, it is remarkably cryptic and intent on preventing me from accessing it. 4/10.

[Roofi]

Year 2 Month 05 Day 16

 

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

 

[1] Maze - BIG IS BEAUTIFUL by "Spooky" John Bye (1996)

 

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Fair big.

 

Yeah it's big but it's also boring. You start at the middle of an immense but empty circular room and your mission will be to sneak in a lot of flat, uneventful organic mazes. I only killed 44% of the enemies not because I deliberately skipped them but rather because you don't have to explore all the areas to  beat that map. And, to be honest, this is a good thing. I will try to uv-max this map if I ever come across this wad a second one but I'll settle for that for now. Thanks John Bye.

 

Grade : D   (6/20)

 

[2] Flamer Baron (test map) by @smeghammer (2021)

 

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A very short arena, primarily as a vehicle for demonstrating my Flamer Baron custom monster.

 

This test map or rather "Die burning with green goo stuck to your arse!" shows an improved version of the baron. Instead of just throwing "easy-to-dodge" projectiles, it can spit fire over a short range and the flames linger on the ground to inflict more damage.

 

For a simple test, this level has a sort of playability. It rather looks like a boss map but it requires some rework of course to make the barons more interesting. The architecture here is simplistic but seems honest. I was expecting a square made up of  default beige Startan.

 

About the imps at the end of the map, I wonder what they're doing here but I think they're wondering the same thing haha.

 

Grade : C+  (11/20) (If I consider this test map as a playable level)

 

[3] JAX04.WAD by Glenn Jackson (1996)

 

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This wadfile is pretty tough to beat but, it is possible. . .to win if you've got what it takes and also, once again as always the wad you're about to play is, totally . . . evil, and absolutely without mercy for the weak.

THINK YOU GOT WHAT IT TAKES TO WIN? WITHOUT CHEAT CODES?

I designed this wad when I was pent-up and full of anger after yet another nice and patronizing day at my job, which I hate but must go to because I'm stupid So, trust me, you're in for a fight you'll remember for the rest of your life.

I also included a *.LMP recording of this wad so you could clearly see that this wad is indeed a nightmare come true so, lock and load.

And try NOT to use codes. If I can make it through the game, than you should be able too!

Anyway, give it a go and tell me what you think.

 

An early slaughter map I already played in Month 7 Day 07. Here's what I said about this level :

 

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Wow, I had a lot of fun on this old slaughter map ! Indeed, the author has placed so many spheres and ammunition that the level loses all its difficulty. However, the fun lies in the ease of killing hordes of monsters. Moreover, this level illustrates that slaughter doesn't necessarly mean difficult.

 

Aesthetically, the wad has nothing special, although there are a lot of stairs. I really appreciate that the layout doesn't consist of arenas, unlike many modern slaughtermaps.

 

A very nice find.

 

Nothing to add compared to my past review. Old-school slaughter maps figures among my favourite mapping niches. I love them just for the idea to bust ton of ennemies, not really for the challenge. Either way, maps like JAX04.wad tend to easier than standard maps because they flood you with power-ups and ammo in a comical way.

 

Grade : A-  (16/20)

 

[4]  HOMER'S DOOM (version 2b) by Original version - Brad Version 2 Update - Sparky of KISS Software (2000)

 

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A Partial Conversion for all versions of Doom/Doom2 based on The Simpsons TV show. Homer's Doom features: 2 new monsters, a new shotgun, new menu graphics and status bar (including Homer's face), and lots of new sounds from The Simpsons.

The only changes I made from the original Dmgraph/Dmaud patch are: - fixed a few graphics faults and sprite offsets. - added some missing animation frames for the Imp and the exploding TVs. - added blank graphic patches for Doom's Episode1 intermission screen. - copied sky1 to rsky1 for use with Doom2. - copied wimap0 to interpic also for use with Doom2. - modified some of the main menu option graphics (load/save game, episode/skill selection, etc).

 

A cute simpson-themed graphic mod poorly drawn with paint but which serves few purpose because it replaces a small part of the sprites and textures. Only two enemies have new sprites : the zombieman which is now krusty the clown and the imp which is Barney throwing beer bottles at you ! It doesn't replace all the monsters of the first episode of Ultimate Doom at least...

 

The strangest thing resides in the weapons. You can see the yellow arms of Homer when using the shotgun but the fist and pistol have been left as default.

The sound design is really fun, it's maybe the most complete aspect of this mod. The doors make a snoring noise and the elevators and the picking up sound as well make the sound of a teat for instance.

 

I've tried several simpson mods before and I think this one might have been my favourite if it wasn't so incomplete. The fact that it's drawn like Ms-paint adds a lot of innocence.

 

[5] KIMDM1.1 by Kim Vidal (2002)

 

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I mostly know Kim Vidal for his "ARCADE.WAD" megawad consisting of only one room filled with different monsters in each level. This lost DM is atrocious to look at. The harsch contrast between the grey platform and the black void make my eyes bleed. The custom textures created by the author unfortunately don't improve the visuals at all. In order to go up or jump on an another platform, you've to walk on red triangles drawn on the floor. Useless stuff. 

 

[6] DOOMONAS.WAD by JOHN MARES (2005)

 

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DOOM ON A STICK

 

A map made in 1994 I already discovered in Month 12 Day 14. Here's what I said :

 

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What is a speedmap made in 1994? A bunch of flat rooms with random abstract shapes and things placed at random. In this map , the best weapon you can obtain is the boomstick and you can only find it if you're courageous enough to run in a tunnel of nukage. If not, the pew pew will be your best friend.

 

I prefer to warn you that DOOMONAS represents pure garbage stuff from the doom's prehistory but I didn't dislike it. It has ammo, health and it was short. The author was generous enough to grant you an automap and killing small enemies with the pistol amused me.

 

Grade : C

 

I played on Crispy Doom this time in order to kill the fifty enemies and the lone secret. My thoughts are the same after playing this map a second time but giving a C was maybe a bit too much. It's ugly as shit and the progression is needlessly obscure at times with unmarked doors. I don't feel downgrading but I think it rather deserve a C- or D+ despite it was far from being a chore to play it.

 

Grade : C   (8,5/20)

 

[7] FOA4.WAD by Harq (1998)

 

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Welcome to Mortuary! - Your mission Jim, should you decide to accept it, clean out this place called Mortuary. - 1 key...and the JOY of the kill. - When a demon dies, where does the body end up? Mortuary, of course. Did you think they don't mourn? - A little detail.

 

A boom-compatible level released at the earliest days of boom mapping but except some silent teleporters, I didn't spot any boom feature. Anyway, as the author indicated, you venture into a detailed mortuary with wooden coffins and ornaments. Those help to give this level a personnality instead of just making an abstract marble temple.

 

It's a mid-size level with a bit less than 100 monsters and small-scaled encounters. There are 4 secrets but I found none of them, because I didn't need to search. The great sense of detail from Harq is what catched my attention the most and it features some interesting way to progress. For instance, you have to lower coffins's sectors in order to unlock passages. I've a softspot for the crematorium in this level.

 

I don't have a lot to say about this map because the gameplay remains traditionnal but the theming does all.

 

Grade : B  (14/20)

 

I tried to approach a cyberdemon in the darkness, in   3 Steps of Hell.

 

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[ICID]

 

Three Small Deathmatch Levels (1995) by Mark "Boogeyman" Anderson

 

^{Play Settings}

^{Difficulty: Ultra-Violence}

^{Source Port: Crispy Doom}

 

Nothing more or less than what it says on the tin. The text file says that the author deliberately kept the visuals simple to make sure it runs as quickly as possible on his old computer, which makes some sense, but why do authors trying to "keep it simple" in the 90s always default to wood, green marble, and gray? Stock Doom II has plenty of colorful hell textures - heck, we even have great maps today using simple two-tone zimmer textures, just throw some green in with your brown. I know they didn't have the editing tools we do now in the 90s but they still had eyes, right?

 

Anyway, plain visuals aside this is a pretty decent but not exactly innovative set of DM maps - wide spaces with plenty of cover, good weapon selection, some dark rooms where you can set ambushes. Not too much to write home about but if you're reading this from a time machine in '95 and you need some solid levels that won't melt your processor, sure, these are fine.

 

Grade: 4/10

 

Mortal Base (2011) by Wraith

 

^{Play Settings}

^{Difficulty: Ultra-Violence}

^{Source Port: GZDoom}

 

Top review on /idgames calls this "too zdoom-ish" so I was expecting a lot of cutscenes and stuff, but there aren't any Zdoom-specific features at all actually. I suspect this reviewer may be complaining about the number of high and low enemies you can barely see, but I play without freelook and I was able to kill those just fine, so idk.

 

Anyway the real issue here is that the map is a classic switch hunt - you walk down one corridor, hit a switch that gives you no feedback, then backtrack to find the new corridor that's opened, repeat for a surprisingly long time (the map has over 200 monsters and you never fight a group of more than 12 or so at a time, so do that math.) It doesn't help that the base looks pretty samey. Combat progression is a bit all over the place, too - mostly you're not gonna fight anything tougher than an imp but every so often there will be a trap full of revenants or chaingunners that feels like it came from a much harder WAD, only to then go back to fighting corridor zombiemen.

 

So yeah, not great, but I've played much worse even just this weekend. At least there's some nice lighting and plenty of ammo.

 

Grade: 4/10

 

 

King's Palace v2 (2014) by Martin Bazley

 

^{Play Settings}

^{Difficulty: Ultra-Violence}

^{Source Port: Crispy Doom}

 

The starting room is full of more ammo than you would need to beat God Machine, then there are three empty rooms, then there's an "exit" that takes you into a secret-tagged hallway, then you fight a small handful of mid- and high-tier monsters in a startan octagon, then you kill a spider mastermind with the BFG, then you exit with over 100% kills and secrets. One of those weird "baby's first map" experiences you run into sometimes, too short and amateurish to really hate, but not worth anyone's time.

 

Grade: 2/10

 

 

 

Ultimate Chaingun Combat v2 (1999) by Sparky

 

^{Play Settings}

^{Source Port: GZDoom}

 

A weapons pack that replaces all weapons with extremely overpowered variations of the chaingun. Sadly they all use the same chaingun graphics so it's hard to tell them apart. My personal favorite is the shotgun, which fires all the shells you have at once (regardless of how many you have) in a huge spread - second screenshot above shows what it does to a room full of chaingunners. These days we have better versions of this joke like Too Many Super Shotguns, but it's fun to see an early version of the same idea.

 

Grade: 6/10

 

 

Selfdead (1994) by REINER

 

^{Play Settings}

^{Difficulty: Ultra-Violence}

^{Source Port: Crispy Doom}

 

Another "baby's first map" type experience. BFG your way through a few ugly, flat rooms before you arrive at the main event and the likely reason this map is called "selfdead" - a voodoo doll, blocking what seems to be the exit in an attempt to trick you to kill yourself. Fortunately you can backtrack to a secret area where there's a real exit. The use of a voodoo doll in 1994 is notable, but nothing else here is.

 

Grade: 3/10

 

 

RCKETDETH (1995) by Ian Cawthray

 

^{Play Settings}

^{Difficulty: Ultra-Violence}

^{Source Port: Crispy Doom}

 

The text file for this describes it as a "Small level with hundreds of rocket launchers!" and that is indeed accurate. In fact, that's all there is. The small room in question is shaped like a "D" and there's an inaccessible secret area at its center you can IDCLIP to. There is no exit. This is the most complete and comprehensive description of a WAD I've ever written.

 

Grade: 0/10

 

 

Bites the Dust (1994) by Scott McCreary

 

^{Play Settings}

^{Difficulty: Ultra-Violence}

^{Source Port: Crispy Doom}

 

One more short 90s map to bring the post to a close. Aesthetically this is all over the place but a few areas look good and honestly I have more respect for the "throw every cool texture into the same room" approach to bad visuals shown in the first screenshot than I do for the "make everything the same color" approach I discussed earlier. There's enough cells and health to utterly embarrass most monsters, but the final cyberdemon fight that forces you to either get up close or shoot through a chokepoint is pretty clever for 94. There's a lot of weird choices - for example, cacodemons consistently only appear behind cages, making them into little tomato turrets - but at least those choices are mostly kind of endearing rather than actively frustrating.

 

Grade: 5/10

 

[LadyMistDragon]

Temple Ruins (2009) by Henri Lehto (Doom 64: Absolution)

 

Honestly this almost seemed more trouble than it was worth to run...at least until I read that this replaced Map 24. Didn't know people were doing that in 2009. At any rate, this doesn't run in the latest versions of Doom 64 EX due to a linedef reading issue so *sigh* it was required to download that, install it and...let's get to this damn map!

 

Because it's actually quite good as it happens! It definitely has a bit of a slaughter-lite feel as well as an ill-advised hot start but detail-wise, this is some really strong stuff! It definitely is a step above what the original Doom 64 level designers were probably envisioning. Bolstering this is the presence of 2 custom enemies: the nightmare spectre, which is like a faster version of the regular spectre, and a reddish variant of the Cacodemon that I'm pretty sure is only found in the second to last room that functions very similarly. And despite the vast number of outdoor courtyards, many being quite cinematic, this isn't exactly an outdoor map so try to watch out.

 

I found probably 2 or 3 secrets, which trust us, you'll want if you want to use more than the shotgun on anything. Henri really likes to lay the Arachnotrons on in certain locations and as you don't know, they are my mortal enemy so that was quite annoying.

 

Difficulty doesn't consistently climb as such, there isn't a huge fight at the end. Though the 2 Barons preceding it (the only ones on the map unless there was one in a secret) are good signposting, the challenge might come more from conserving one's ammo enough to comfortably handle the challenges at the end. Although there is a pair of Nightmare Spectres in the exit room, the fight that opened it consisted of just lots of Imps and Pinkies so it's not like this entirely exists to kick the player's ass. But in any case, just assume your every action triggers an ambush and things probably won't prove too frustrating.

 

The easiest 8/10 ever as it happens. This badly begs for a modern conversion. The detail and combat are just too solid for anything else.

 

 

PS: I took some screenshots but turns out they're in an incompatible format and the online convertor I tried finding....it's just more trouble than its worth after a certain point. I've hardly played anything else today.

Edited June 4, 2023 by LadyMistDragon

[Sena]

• 1 WAD | 1 map

SMILE.WAD (1994)
 

This one gets its name from the fact the automap contains a smiling face with a hat on it, which is a nice gimmick I suppose, not sure why the hat seems to be held up by hydraulic presses, but I don't keep up with the fashion trends. Apart from that, it is a fairly standard pre-Doom 2 map that makes it astoundingly easy to just ignore everything the map puts your way. Its setup is rather strange, putting very few enemies in your path while on the scavenger hunt for 2 of the 3 keys, before releasing them all right at the end, at which point you can just leave anyway, and even though the cyberdemons and spider masterminds killed everything in that room for me, I still only ended up with around 50% kills, and I haven't the slightest idea where they could have hidden the remaining half of the level. This level is at least inoffensive, I can't accuse it of committing any sins of mapping, but at the same time it's not very good - the primary reason I play Doom is to shoot enemies, and they don't give you any real opportunities to do so. 5/10.

Edited June 5, 2023 by Sena

[LadyMistDragon]

(I could do more later, but I honestly doubt it. tons of new crap to at least look at. For now...)

 

Secrets list for the fourth and fifth episodes of Heretic: Shadows of the Serpent Riders (1996) by Paul Falstad 

 

You see, back in the old days, before firm online depositories for walkthroughs existed, there were these things called strategy guides that you actually had to buy because you'd be lucky to come across anything online for many games.....but anyways, this was probably an incredibly convenient resource at anyone annoyed that they couldn't find the secrets in the last two episodes. These days, this really wouldn't make lots of sense, but Doom fanatics at the time must surely have been grateful.

[Walter confetti]

W7.WAD by Albert Lam - Vanilla Doom 2, 1996, SP, 2 maps, played with Eternity 4.0.2

Spoiler

 

Two medium sized hard maps with many grindy and kind of boring fights, the layout is overall good and the detailing is cool and simple, i like it! It uses mostly the standard DCK medieval theme for the maps, it's a nice couple of maps but the fights aren't that fun. Speed runned the shit out of MAP01 cheating. Better players will make better times on this.

 

TRECIAS.WAD by Donatas Tamonis - Vanilla Doom 2, 1998, SP, 1 map, played with Eternity 4.0.2

Spoiler

 

A pretty long and puzzle-y map with lots of of very interesting detailing and designing works that feels pretty modern from the year it was done, the first part is set in a mine\techbase area with lots of interesting puzzle parts and the second part is sets in a big, sprawling sandbox city, I've skipped some parts by noclipping (again) and overall, is a good map, worth of a play!

[stephyesterday]

oh hell yea, i do this every now and then anyway. fun to see what sort of nonsense and/or hidden gems you get

 

BrikBlat! by John Bishop, 2002 (vanilla doom 2, single map)

the /idgames date says 2002, but one of the reviews says it's from 1997?? who knows

I feel like I got a lucky roll this time, because this one's pretty interesting. It's a fun little cramped romp stuffed with a ton of imps and shotgunners with a bizarre puzzle-map element hidden beneath. I actually got pretty lost a couple of times because of how well the progression was hidden. Annoyingly well, to the point that I had to open it up in UDB just to see what i was supposed to do next. It's a mixture of obscured line switches and sequences that make it a muddled mess, but a really endearing and fun one, honestly. It's archaic, but it kept me engaged. Neat little find.

Also it features an inescapable water death pit hidden with a fake floor at the very start that I may or may not have fallen into several times, resulting in the majority of my deaths. 7/10
 

Spoiler

 

[Walter confetti]

OK, NOW I'M MAD!!! by xxxdarkmaster1337 - Limit Removing or Vanilla, Doom 2, 2017, SP, 1 map, played with Nugget Doom 1.9.0

Spoiler

A compact and fun slaughtermap by xxxdarkmaster1337, known nowadays as xdarkmasterx, is sets in a pristine silver techbase surrounded by darkness and some occasional light arena, it's a lovely approach to the usual slaughter style with some grindy fights, especially the start with the almost unbeatable revenant horde against a small gun rooster made of shotguns combo + chaingun, a more juicy ammo and guns support is here but hidden in the darkest corner of the court... finding it when i less wanted and at the end with barons horde at the stair leading to the kind of unused cyberdemon vs baron fight in the arena above, as well as the irriting surprise revenant horde hidden in a monster closet below the final arena, also includes a charming 90s style in graphical\thematic department, making me want to play this more. 
Overall a nice map with some battles that can been done better, i mean why the baron horde at the end? I think Hell Knights are better for such a type of wads, maybe use them as a bonus fight but not the main star! Also adding more ammo at the start? The visplane fixed vanilla wad doesn't change too much in terms of gameplay, there's a minor layout edit and i've also noticed one of the secret doors doesn't work for some reason? 

 

Cunning Stunts  by Master Cylinder - Vanilla Doom 2, 1996, SP, 1 map, played with Nugget Doom 1.9.0

Spoiler

Talking about 90s Doom maps, this is a pretty neat find! Made in the Febraury of 1996 by a mysterious english guy by the name of Master Cylinder (is that a Monty Python reference? A Felix the Cat the torture war crimes disguised as a cartoon movie reference? I really want to know, this name gave me these two vibes), the level is sets in a city like place where two different offices, the one where the author worked at the time (Highs and Hill) and the second is the evil nazi subsidiary with a semi-hidden medievial dungeon in it, are been attacked by aliens that replaces the people with androids, zombies, imps, demons, giant middle age men floating heads spitting a "You're Fired!" attack at you like they are English Donald Trump and 3 almost unbeatable cyberdemons (but you can find a way to beat them, just be careful on the layout and new rooms opening!) populating this corner of world. New textures are added as well, both in cartoony MS-Paint fashion or in a more realistic approach of using photographs of building walls or objects like cars (with 8 sprite rotations nonethless!) or toilets, new animated walls are added as well in form of a movie screen where a revenant beat the shit out of some dude and the many clocks you'll see  and the author used neat vanilla trickery like instant opening doors\closets and trasparent doors, the layout is crawling and explorative, check every room for interesting stuff! Gameplay is kind of relaxed with some nasty stuff for keeping you always alerted for the next encounter, i liked the teleport ambushes here and there in the map... The wad is divided in 2 different archives, this one with the main map, graphics, installation for Dos (works with DosBox too) plus a small Demoscene executable that works as installer of the wad as well and another called CUNSTUN2 that includes new sounds and music, but this level works as well without them using any limit removing source port, too bad because i wanted to hear how this sounds with ELP Tarkus blasting on the background. Overall, a charming find from a forgotten past, worth a play!