ICID Posted February 5, 2024 (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? 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. Post a review of whatever you play. Always provide the name of the WAD, the name of the author, and a link to the file. 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. 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: Revolver Fetals Asylum (Heretic map!) The Last Experiment Medevil Dance Spoiler The Top 10 (out of 70): 1. @Roofi | 8525 2. @LadyMistDragon | 5080 3. @Sena | 2650 4. @Walter confetti | 2635 5. @ICID | 1825 6. @brick | 1740 7. @Endless | 1260 8. @Thelokk | 725 9. @Clippy | 610 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. 5 Quote Share this post Link to post
brick Posted February 6, 2024 (edited) Brick | 2 wads | 3 maps Revolver (2008) by Sam Stackhouse. 1 SP map for vanilla Doom II. A small map that doesn't look bad but that also doesn't have a lot going for it. I played it on HNTR first as I always do, and it was pretty easy and forgettable. I was a bit surprised by so many positives reviews so tried it again on UV. I'm not sure that was such an improvement, sure there are more and tougher enemies, but this includes having to go through mancubus and knights and barons with only the shotgun (well, also the chaingun, but there are so few bullets), and I didn't really have the patience for this. I guess it's small enough that there could still be some fun to be had there. Spoiler Fetals Asylum (1995) by Anthony Czerwonka. 2 SP maps for vanilla Heretic. It's been a while since I rolled a Heretic map, so I'm glad to have ICID roll this. In case you're wondering, yes, this is Adelusion himself, with a Heretic wad that is much older than the upload date, from what I can tell this is from around the same time as the original Dystopia (which was also for Heretic). The first map is ok, the opening room looks nice but there's not much to the level, running around past some linedef opens the exit door and that's it. The second one is more substantial, it seems very nonlinear despite having 3 keys, many of the locked doors lead to optional rooms to help build the arsenal, there are multiples of most weapons scattered around (surprisingly I didn't find the Phoenix Rod, although there are plenty of orbs for it). The finale is against a Maulotaur, or D'Sparil himself if playing on Hard, but there are plenty of items (including multiple Rings) so I don't think it's very hard either way. I think the biggest weakness is that the map is very flat, there's a bit of elevation in some of the side passages but most fights are uniplanar. There's little of the impressive architecture and experimentation that would be later visible in Adelusion's Dystopia 3, Requiem or Strain contributions, but this is a fun wad nonetheless. Spoiler Edited February 6, 2024 by brick 5 Quote Share this post Link to post
Roofi Posted February 6, 2024 Year 2 Month 10 Day 16 I play until I die or intentionally stop. I don't comment the wad where I died/stopped. [1] DIABOLOS.WAD by MYSCHA the sled dog T. Elliot Cannon - Architect age 30 (904) 671-7862 voice mail (1996) Quote Quote DIABOLOS = Greek word for the devil. This level will test your awareness and of course, pit you to survive in many different and confusing 3 Dimensional environments. As you explore the complex of chambers and sewers, you'll find that areas are organized in an intelligent composition. when you see a bloodfall, you can track it to its source. Areas provide visual clues as to what's ahead and what's living there (eg) DIABOLOS is intended to be very difficult and extremely challenging for even the finest of movers. Ammunition and health are sparring so make every dodge and weave count as if it were your last. Before playing this level, I didn't know who was Elliot Cannon, probably just a random doom fan from the 90's. However, DIABOLOS.WAD is abnormally polished and well-crafted for a 1996 map and I therefore did entered his name in Google search. He's a well known AAA Videogame designer and contributed for famous games liked Crysis Warhead and Unreal Tournament. First of all, DIABOLOS.WAD features a pretty high degree of customization. The first thing you'll notice is the classy night sky crowning the fortress. It uses a custom music as well, which fit with the high challenge presented here but its name is unknown. And of course, some free cheesy sounds for your guns because the 90's. DIABOLOS is indeed a difficult and sometimes frustrating map, especially at the beginning. Contrary to maps like "Go 2 it", you will not fight dozen of cyberdemons but you'll suffer of severe ammo famine and the cramped layout require a very careful approach. Rush and you will be killed. The hardest part is located near the beginning : two pain elementals come out from a monster closet whereas you have just the single-barreled shotgun to kill them. I almost died here because they were spamming lost souls whereas I had few shotgun shells in my pockets. However, DIABOLOS.WAD plays like a modern map because almost all enemies serve a purpose and the castle itself contains many traps which preventing the map from being dull. The theme of this map is generic to be honest but it's probably the 1990's map with the most aligned textures I've ever played. The architecture and use of textures are really meticulous. I suppose his experience as an architect has a lot to do with it. Each key area is sufficiently decorated to indicate its importance. This map is truly the opposite of the caricatures often made of maps from the 1990s (cf: Wang, Down the Drain, Fastest Shovels...). Grade : A- (16/20) [2] jcm1-16.zip by JC MegaByte (2020) Quote A full Ultimate-Doom episode of unadulterated 1994 experience. No custom music ! Oversized and empty square rooms everywhere ! Hidden doors at every corner ! Monsters randomly placed and uneffective most of the time ! Some maps are long and big for the wrong reasons and the author like writing the initials of his nickname in each map. Each map has at least some letter-shaped sectors in order to write "JCM". I don't want to be rude but there is no decent map for a wad conceived in more than 80 hours. They all look uniformly ugly and devoid of interest. I have to admit that the first few maps were quite fun, with a fair number of enemies to kill in a limited space, with a few fights against cybers thrown in to spice things up, but in the end the maps became increasingly boring, culminating in the numerous barons to kill in E1M8 in order to unlock the blue key. Even as being the targeted audience, JCM1 is still nothing more than a sleeping pill. By the way, the wad was made in 1994 but uploaded in 2020. Grade : D (5/20) [3] Arena Ball by Eric Harrison (PolluX) (1995) Quote Quote This wad consists of an outer ring with an arena in the center. There is ammoa for everything, I mean EVERYTHING. (but no BFG). The start points are rooms that you can't enter once you have left Each starting room has a rocket launcher, beserk , chainsaw, and megasphere. They also have another weapon (each room's is diffrent) There are pillars, bodies and other obstacals in the arena to stumble over. Two megaspheres (other than the starting rooms) are hidden in the level. A cross-shaped courtyard surrounded by four straight corridors. In order to reach the central area, you have to take one of the teleporters hidden fake wall. THis randomly-textured arena doesn't make me want to fight in it. I stop here for today. 5 Quote Share this post Link to post
LadyMistDragon Posted February 7, 2024 d3d3dm2.WAD (1996) by Leviathan (Crispy Doom) Simple recreation of Red Light District from Duke Nukem 3D and while the somewhat rectangular structure and shape of the hallways in the strip club is mimicked, it's all in vanilla textures, arguably making this pointless. It's still a good map for deathmatch but kind of shows why I'll never understand demakes. Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler pchan.zip (1994) by Whisp A little graphical patch that attaches the character P-Chan from Ranma 1/2 to the plasma rifle. Two notes: it's interesting there were people watching anime in '94 and also, I could go on about Ranma for quite a bit if I wanted to. Which I don't, but P-Chan is basically Ranma's rifle when he's cursed as a pig. Hell's Maw 2 for Heretic (2001) by D-Man (DSDA Doom) A not wholly-terrible map perhaps or certainly no worst than something like Hell Revealed. There are many large and open room with hardly any detail between them and a few narrow hallways just because. Unfortunately, it seems like there's at least one key not tagged for hard so it became impossible to continue. It would probably be a 5/10 because that big blue shrine is kind of nice, but this is a very rough map in its structure and visuals. For slaughter action only though, it's really not bad. 2 Quote Share this post Link to post
brick Posted February 7, 2024 (edited) Brick | 2 wads | 4 maps Adventure | 4 wads | 7 maps The Last Experiment (2018) by Krzysztof Kietlinski. 1 SP map for Doom II in Zandronum. I'm not sure about the Zandronum requirement, especially since the map is purely for single-player, but I got it to work more smoothly in GZDoom, it looks beautiful in Vulkan. It's one of those ZDoom-family maps that needs ZDoom because of DECORATE enemies, GLDEFS dynamic lights, and MP3 music, but the map itself is of very classical design, I think it should be entirely possible to turn this into a limit-removing wad without touching the map lumps themselves. As such, those who don't like ZDoom might look at this and think why did Krzysztof even bother, but I admit I enjoy this classic gameplay with a more glossy coat of point. The lighting looks very nice in parts thanks to all the dynamic lights defined in GLDEFS, and the music is a cover of Suspense that I thought was fantastic, the two definitely combine to create a very atmospheric experience. Playing on HNTR I think I also didn't see all the new enemies, but the low monster density fed well into a more spooky exploration feel than the more typical all-out action of Doom. The map also has its share of doomcute, the truck was nice but that escape plane is just adorable, there's also lots of machinery, and little touches like fire near a door that's malfunctioning, pistons, and other fun bits to make the research complex feel more alive. The main progression is not very complicated but makes good use of backtracking and looping segments that send you back to a previous room where new doors have opened. The secrets are much more obscure, some are devious, a couple are just not fair, but they're optional secrets after all. I don't know if Kryzstof is on Doomworld or if he's released another map but I'd totally play more of his stuff, I enjoyed this one a lot. Spoiler Medevil (2018) by whirledtsar. 3 SP maps for Doom II in Boom. At least I think it's Boom, the text file is not super clear but it mentions needing PrBoom+ or above. This was another enjoyable wad utilizing the Gothic texture pack and a beautiful sky by Mechadon (of course) that makes for, as you may have guessed, a very medieval-feeling trio of maps. The music and sound effects taken from the Raven games certainly help. The maps themselves are short to medium, more on the short side really (the whole wad took less than half an hour) but the maps are full of recognizable landmarks and very nice architecture, with chapels, castles, a cemetery with a crypt going deeper into the earth, for small maps they sure have a great feeling of exploration. I think this is helped by the texture pack being used so well, there are so many beautiful halls where I'd just stop and look around in admiration (and spam that printscreen button...) and the lighting is top notch. Enemy count is pretty low on HNTR with more bite-sized fights. It was another fun exploration-focused wad, so different from the previous one in almost every way but achieving similar gameplay balance and a great deal of enjoyment too. I realized afterwards that I've played some @whirledtsar maps in HUMP-Mini and XUMP, there's even a Hexen II wad (!), maybe I should check it out! Spoiler I tried playing Dance, but it is such a mess that I didn't make it very far. Edited February 7, 2024 by brick 3 Quote Share this post Link to post
LadyMistDragon Posted February 7, 2024 NUTS: Chex 3 Edition (2020) by @kinker31 (GZDoom) Exactly what the name says. You've got that shooting star background from Chex Quest 3. Nuff said Industrial Suicide (2014) by Wraith (Nugget Doom) Just last year, Wraith put out an magnum opus of a Heretic map that while technically following similar lines to the majority of his work in it nonlinear approach, was a refinement of everything learned in the past 10 years or so? It's hard to tell because there seems to have been close to 10 maps already released by Wraith by this time and unfortunately, this isn't going to rank among his best. That's certainly no fault of the map construction which might be a little spare on detail but nevertheless conveys a moderately strong sense of scale, thanks to the prison barrier running through the middle of the outdoors. Encounters are well-framed and will keep you on your guard.....but the problem ultimately lies in the sheer grindiness of the gameplay. There seems to be maybe 2 official secrets and moreover, there's not really enough to blast through enemies and you'll find yourself relying on infighting for the most part. That's not always a bad thing but when you run into Arch-viles and Spider Masterminds before you even find a rocket launcher and no Super Shotgun, things really start to feel aggravating. Granted, it's not like they're guaranteed to kill you when they spot you for a variety of reasons but the issue is how Hell Revealed this nonsense is and seeing as how the best way to kill a Mastermind is to get a nearby crowd of Revenants to block her and render her hapless, it leads to some serious actions. There are a couple of little function rooms heading toward the yellow key generator room which will teleport monsters and there's little reason to stick around! The only cool part was the hallway in the northwest leading rather lamely to the yellow key where the lights go out and several Revenants are unleashed at the very end to use (too many) of your hard-won plasma cells on and then, you have to do the same whilst returning! The series of slaughter fights toward the end were ok but kind of beg for a BFG since most likely, this'll finish by just shooting Arachnotrons which I just plain fucking hate, especially when everything else will be dead! Having said that, it's not really all that bad and has its moments but has a few needlessly aggravating sections 6/10 2 Quote Share this post Link to post
LadyMistDragon Posted February 8, 2024 Hitler's Bunker (2006) by Bowen (GZ Doom) Someone made another Wolfenstein tribute that thanks to the magic of ZDoom, replaces certain Doom monsters with enemies from Spear of Destiny, including the bosses! It's not really as difficult, but just as much of a dull grind. And also, I don't think SFX and message patches work correctly in newer versions of ZDoom or GZDoom. There was that one room with the skeleton and Doom monsters that reminded us what game we were really playing though. 4/10, i am just so over these Wolfenstein maps, you can't even guess! 3 Quote Share this post Link to post
LadyMistDragon Posted February 9, 2024 Diehard version 1.0 for Doom 2(1995) by Jon Pitonak and Ben Sigelman (Crispy Doom) Here, we have a rather ambitious effort that...probably wouldn't quite make King R3ol proud since health and ammo are too available for that but nevertheless strikes a good balance between challenging combat and sections with trash combat that are more meant to fill up maze exploration. But action's constant enough (there's around 400 enemies apparently) that it never gets tiring! Visuals are quite primitive though, with the entrance to the final port area showcasing a hilarious example of hanging stone walls at roughly the other end. Also, certain areas feel undercooked and basically just exist to fill up some weird space quota. See, much of the map centers around a particular tower with a form and structure not entirely dissimilar to a particular Jim Flynn map where we have to ascend a tower with lots of windows that's kind of indoors in the original Doom 1/pre-Enigma version anyway, though thankfully, the process of switch-hitting proves to be a lot less of a puzzle. The large square wooden room with a rocket launcher actually has what proves to be the hardest ambush of the map! It's almost proto-modern in it's sheer ruthlessness although I suspect most of the speedrunning crowd would probably sneer at it. And indeed, my own personal struggles were probably due mainly to be conditional incompetence. The final area is a little weird because the enemies are placed such that you'd rather just run through and avoid them, til we get to the final series of switches and shallow docks, featuring 2 Cyberdemons and a smattering of other enemies that guess what, feels just like the final area of Jim Flynn's Interdiction Zone with far more enemies! 6/10, visuals are crap mostly and the enemy placement at the end is just like, Imps behind a remote fence? But this map was good. I might do another one later but I'm low on time. 0 Quote Share this post Link to post
brick Posted February 10, 2024 Brick | 1 wad | 11 maps Adventure | 5 wads | 18 maps Insertion (1998) by David Shaw, Stephen Watson, Thomas Evans, Adam Williamson. 11 SP maps for vanilla Doom II. Probably the most recognizable name of the bunch is Adam's, who was a famous enough speedrunner that even I had heard of him even though I don't follow that scene closely, he apparently pioneered Pacifist style in its early days. David might be equally famous as a member of Team TNT and as a very prolific composer, most famously for Requiem. Naturally he also composed all the music for all the maps here. I think this is a better wad than I am going to give it credit for, but I had a difficult week and it affected my enjoyment. I found some of the maps a bit samey, though most of them have a memorable room or gimmick (the amphitheatre in MAP04, the teleporters that light up or down in MAP08, the final crusher room in MAP11). I think my mixed feelings may also be due to most maps having elements that I enjoyed fighting against others that I found annoying, MAP10 is a perfect example with some really cool architecture and a very nice sense of space with the walkways over the toxin pool, but then the map also has the elevator maze, which felt like such a waste of time. There were a couple of maps early on that also had a lot of backtracking and some very obscure progression. Combat likewise made me flip back and forth, some of the encounters are very fun, there's the occasional surprise like the Spider in MAP10, but there's also an abundance of hitscans like I've rarely seen, if you thought Evilution overdid you will hate this. Ironically I think the maps I enjoyed the most were by Thomas, who I think is the least known of the quartet and has credit on almost nothing else. Regardless of the author, all maps have a pretty nice aesthetic, with very careful use of lighting (I really love that light refracting through the grate, it really could pass for dynamic light!). I'm sure I would've enjoyed this more at a different time, despite some of the flaws. Spoiler 2 Quote Share this post Link to post
Roofi Posted February 10, 2024 Year 2 Month 10 Day 17 I play until I die or intentionally stop. I don't comment the wad where I died/stopped. [1] Jimbo's Single Player Doom II Wad or Jimbo's Nitemare by Jimbo (2000) Quote Quote Originally I was making this for regular doom ][ back in '98 but it just lay around on my hard drive for a couple of years. After I got Doom Legacy I decided to dust it off fix it up and release it. Not much innovation but a few special effects and Lots of Switches. I think it turned out to be a pretty cool doom level. Tell me what you think:) Jimbo's Nightmare transports you in an abstract and multi-themed stronghold featuring nice visuals and quite a lot of ennemies. If you plan to play this map, I advise you to read TimeOfDeath's comment published on idgames first because the hidden SSG is life-changing here. This map isn't hard but each surprise closet contains its load of ennemies and walking on damaging liquids is sometimes mandatory. I don't know what we're supposed to do here but the music , which I don't know where it comes from, reinforce the feeling to explore an underground dungeon as we can do in The Elder Scroll's series for instance. Besides the non-sensical progression, lots of details catched my eyes such as the light which passes between the bars requiring a yellow key, the oriel window located above a door in the rooms with the many switches proving its author's intention to make 3D elements or the tiny stonehenge located outdoors guarded by .... nazis? Overall, it's a regular level with some advanced visuals. Grade : B (13/20) [2] Slaughter Canyon by Megaduck (1994) Quote Quote Its a huge level. Qualifying this level as huge is too much as I took only 11 minutes to beat it but Megaduck definitely tried to create convincing large environnments. You are lost in a grey-ash canyon and your mission consists to explore a grey tech base merged with a green marble temple, both hidden inside the canyon. The term "slaughter" must not be taken litterally because the map contains a reasonable ammount of ennemies. There are some tiny slaughterish moments in which you kill several groups of zombies and imps but the difficulty remains low overall and the emphasis is definitely on exploration rather than combat. Having very recently made a canyon-themed ultimate Doom map myself, this map could not fail to please! Grade : B (13/20) [3] PERD DeathMatch 05 by Anthony Czerwonka (1997) Quote Quote 1 Level, 8 DM Starts, a GOOD small level. That's all you need for some Non-Stop Action... One small deathmatch map using the resources from GothicDM.WAD. It's a small L-shaped courtyard and you can spot a small circular room located at its corner. It contains a plasma gun. Beside the gameplay, needless to say that Anthony Czerwonka was one of the masterminds of the first hour in terms of texturing and architecture. Died in an unfair duel against a cyberdemon from OSHIT , one of the descendants of wow.wad. Quote 2 Quote Share this post Link to post
brick Posted February 10, 2024 Brick | 1 wad | 1 map Adventure | 6 wads | 19 maps Invasion: The Siege (1994) by Andy Chen, Claude Martins. 1 SP map for vanilla Doom II. This is a spinoff of the Invasion series, whose second entry made it into the Missed Cacowards. Unlike the main series, which was for Doom IWAD, this runs on Doom II. It's a single IOS map that tries to spice things up with a more interesting premise, described in great detail in the accompanying text files. The demons are coming in through a shield (ie the monster spawner is working), we're supposed to stop them by destroying the IOS, while being careful not to damage the shield generators (the metal/fireblu pillars), since doing so will allow many more demons to teleport in (G1 lines on the pillars opening up teleport ambushes). The map is very spread out so there's a limit to how long most players will survive, since demons will slowly but surely start flooding in and eventually make it too difficult to accomplish the objective. There's an escape switch to end the map should this happen, which counts as a draw instead of a victory. Some of the text is useful since it describes the map layout, but honestly the actual win condition is a lot easier to accomplish than it seems once you have a handle on how the map works. It takes single-digit seconds to get from the start point to where we need to be positioned to shoot the usual rockets, and the spawner won't awaken until we fire a shot. The only real danger is that health while not rare is very spread out, and since our biggest enemy is time there's a cost/benefit to abandoning the firing platform to go far away to replenish health. I ended up having to do so when I got low the first time, and what's not shown is me being at 28% health by the time I got the IOS, but still my victory run took less than 5 minutes, and with all restarts and reloads I was still under half an hour. I'm not sure the implementation fully takes advantage of the premise but it's a very interesting idea. Spoiler 3 Quote Share this post Link to post
LadyMistDragon Posted February 10, 2024 kboom12 (2000) by @kdoom (GZDoom, w/ Gem's Weapons Mod) This appears to have been the very last attempt by Kurt Kesler to make a Boom map. And....there's not really lots here in vanilla mode anyway. Lots of long open spaces, pillar Imps along the outside and some interesting visual setpieces set amongst general blandness. There is some machinery, some underground lava caverns, a tower in the outdoor region, a power station probably more minimal than the last Kboom map I played, and base stuff at the end. The mod I played might have made things harder but I think that maybe I just needed to get used to it. Although some of the weaker enemies have their numbers boosted to account for variance which creates a seriously stiff challenge 6/10, it's not going to be the best but monster placement at least has more intentionality behind it than kboom whatever, probably because the map mostly takes place in tight corridors. 2-hour base (2011) by @Katamori (Crispy Doom) An early Katamori map which probably explains why D_RUNNIN hasn't been replaced. But this contains all the sort of newbie exuberance in the vast amounts of details that actually work out for the most part. The wrecked base at the beginning with overgrowth of vanilla trees is actually a really nice touch and are in line with the rest of the map The little hell decorations sitting close to the cages in the caves are somewhat less so. And oddly enough, the blue door that leads to the interior of the (warehouse) base isn't marked but no matter, it's a cute and fun map, with combat that doesn't quite break the bank but still raises the stakes pretty well! 6.5/10 0 Quote Share this post Link to post
Roofi Posted February 11, 2024 (edited) Year 2 Month 10 Day 18 I play until I die or intentionally stop. I don't comment the wad where I died/stopped. [1] RamTag Stairway To Freedom (Take 2) by Rambutt (1996) Quote Quote RamTag : Stairway To Freedom is a brand new Dethtag wad based on the original Dethtag series by Aikman and Talon. Like Talon's Warzone, this features 3 different modes of play ; 4 player Dethtag, 2 player Dethtag, and, of course, good ole Dethmatch ! The way you play is determined from within the starting area. Plus, there's even a digital scoreboard (used by permission of Talon !) I've included rules on how to play Dethtag in general, as well as a few rules on this wad, so check out the notes at the bottom. One deathmatch from the "Deathtag" series, meaning that you can either choose the classic deathmatch mode or this specific mode in which the blue team and red team must score points to win. Contrary to some other Deathtag maps, the presence of another teammate isn't necessary in order to reach timed doors or else. You must first press a switch which opens a timed door, unlocking a radsuit as well as the action that opens the door blocking access to the scoring button. Once you obtained the radsuit, you must go to the top of the sort of hill composed of damaging blood liquid. Climb it and you'll reach the button in order to score a point ! About the theme of the map, it takes place in natural landscapes of grass and light-grey rock. The "Stairsway to Heaven" music is as relaxing as ever, but don't lose sight of the need to dominate your opponent. [2] Shell Shock planet one by Shane Ward (2000) Quote New level for DOOM2. Which is ment for deathmatch but has single player options. Realy good in deathmach. Try it!!!! You may notice that it was a little blotchy in deathmatch. That should work better TIP Shoot all the trees, the game should run smother. I wanted to take screenshots but crispy doom didn't save them... nevermind "Shell Shock planet one" is one of the oddest deathmatchs I ever encountered, not because of unique layouts or gameplay but because of sprite replacements and the theme. As the author indicates, it has single player options, meaning that you can slaughter a certain number of enemies inside, including a cyberdemon. This map takes place in a kind of village lost in the jungle and there's ton of spaces in order to dodge projectiles and the several caches filled with power-ups , weapons and ammo probably create too much camping opportunities. If you attempt to leave the town by taking one of the bridges or just crossing the river full of damaging water, you'll be teleported back. Also, the map is so large that Shane Ward put some teleportation pads in order to traverse the map more quickly. Now, what is strange here? The author replaced the sprites of the enemies with robot sprites, probably drawn with mspaint, which are as weird as they are ugly. And above all, you'll notice lot of trees. Don't stand near them - they're hidden explosive barrels! Shoot a tree and it goes boom! According to the description, it's not a bug but a feature to avoid performance issues, given the size of the zones. [3] Twisted Dimension by @Tango (2006) Quote Quote Twisted Dimension is the best of my works so far, and also the most creative. It's originally based off of my very old map Death Arena, in which you would enter a room and kill all of the monsters it contained to gain acess to the next room. I 'based' the first few rooms off of Death Arena, but then later started making it much more different. Also keep in mind that this map is somewhat linear, but I'm hoping you'll still enjoy it. One of the earliest works from Tango as 2006 corresponds to the beginning of his mapping carrier, according to the doomwiki page. "Twisted Base" sends you in a castle-base lost in the void and you have to survive in a serie of challenges which can be : jumping on platforms while killing monsters waves, killing some demons in the complete darkness or more broadly surviving in locked-in fights. Creating compulsory combat zones in which the player gets stuck for a while has become very common in modern mapping, but this is usually counterbalanced by more open phases in which you can explore more or less as you please. However, this is unfortunately not the case in Twisted Dimension. Extreme linearity characterizes this map and the flat corridor-y progression doesn't help bringing more variety. The outdoors sections where you can see lot of floating marble represent my favourite areas of the map but they don't constitute its core. The Mp3 music also helps bringing this map a surreal ambiance, a bit similar to Void by Cyb or Agent-Spork's maps but like those wads mentioned, the gameplay and level's architecture have really aged badly, with lots of corridors, doors, borders and, above all, very constrained progression. The different challenges remain fair, which is why I managed to survive, but their design are simplistic, involving ennemies teleporting from nowhere. In short, the level itself has a number of qualities, notably in its visuals and atmosphere, which remain well crafted. It may even have been great in its day, but it's definitely not my jam. Note : I get the impression that a lot of maps from the 2000s tended to follow the formula of more modern fps (Doom 3 etc) and that's why I tend to find them particularly outdated nowadays, perhaps more than the wads of the 1990s, which, their quirkiness and abstraction, seem to fit better with Doom's physics for me. Grade : C- (8/20) I stop here for today. Edited February 11, 2024 by Roofi 1 Quote Share this post Link to post
LadyMistDragon Posted February 11, 2024 IB2TUF4U.WAD UBSCRWD.WAD LOOKOUT.WAD (1994) by Ror, Jim, and Chris Quote My brothers and I were DOOM addicts, but when we finally found a usable PWAD editor, we were reborn as DOOM junkies. Thus, we humbly offer these PWAD files to all other DOOM junkies or addicts. All of the PWAD files enclosed in this package are described below: FILE NAME LEVEL NOTES ------------ ----- ---------- IB2TUF4U.WAD E1M1 Great for single or multi- player modes. Lots of secret rooms, but not to hard. Created by Ror. ib2t_zen.wad Above level with rebuild REJECT. UBSCRWD.WAD E1M1 Great Level, but nominated as most likely to piss you off! (Single or Multi are OK) Created by Jim. ubsc_zen.wad Above level with rebuild REJECT. LOOKOUT.WAD E1M1 Psycho nut-case level made by my little brother. We recommend God Mode if you know the code for it. (Single only) Created by Chris. look_zen.wad Above level with rebuild REJECT. It's always nice to see someone in the early days of Doom. get their hands on an editor and actually have fun with it, despite the often-frustrating limitations of the time. It's really kind of a heartwarming description. Anyway, IB2TUF4U was the first one I played and it really isn't too bad! Well, it does kind of have a penchant for Wolfenstein secrets, in the sense that you can open a wall to a large room and then open up another large room in the same space. But the vined walls at the beginning look decent and while there are some weird textural clashes (brown floors and blue ceilings in one section) this really isn't too bad! UBSCRWD on the other hand, is one ugly map, though the one with the most consistent action. Though it does get rather repetitive and contains some highly questionably weapon placement (I never did find a plasma rifle), along with a probably useless Invulnerbility, the kind of twisting layout that should make backtracking unnecessary, but at certain points, it'll be necessary to head back to some locations you'd never guess were now critical to progression. Like hitting a random switch in the Cyberdemon courtyard in order to get the red key that's mostly been taunting us the whole map. And this map ends in a swamp for some reason. Hey, at least it's a like a Wolfenstein escape sequence (because it's got kinds of secrets in common with the previous map) I'll start by saying LOOKOUT is actually kind fun at the start for a seven-year old. There's lots of barrel-shooting and watching enemies go boom, but that slowly becomes more impractical until a point that they aren't useful at all. It's probably the largest map, and bends and twists around itself to such a degree, that it's extremely easy to get lost. Although it you memorize the weapon locations, it should be easy to equip yourself in short order. The trouble is that the rocket launcher and plasma rifle are in such obscure locations that you'll have already chaingunned far too many Lost Souls by the time you find them most likely. Then of course, corridors are extremely tiny, kind of like my sole mapping efforts but then, large rooms show up quite randomly and one hallway is even long enough that it risks shattering visplane limits. Also, it seems like all barred windows can be walked through. It's quite a mess and not really difficult like the text file claims, although occasionally, you'll probably suffer from shitty monster placement. Maybe there's some challenge if you're playing keyboard-only and not always running, but this isn't worth the trouble. So this probably should get an overall score of...4.5/10 https://studio.youtube.com/playlist/PL_dD5v7xLFc4WCSPR-to54WpJ4ABUbnlN/edit 1 Quote Share this post Link to post
brick Posted February 12, 2024 (edited) Brick | 1 wad | 11 maps Adventure | 7 wads | 30 maps UAC Ultra (2010) by 40oz & Super Jamie. 11 SP maps for Doom II in Boom. It took me a couple of maps to start appreciating the wad. The predominant colours are dark brown and dark grey, very dark, very brown and very grey. A coupe of maps in I started gaining an appreciation for the consistent texturing and some of the little details that the mappers squeeze out of it, and for how much contrast can be created with the reliance on these darker colours, especially when paired with yellow and red. It helps that after a couple of unremarkable opening levels the maps start gaining a lot more personality in their architecture and setpieces. I think MAP04 is the one where I realized just how much fun I was having and how memorable the maps can get, what with the reactor room and the large room with the crusher platforms and lavafalls. There are some other cool bits too, like the cold rooms (exquisite use of custom textures to create the compressor fans with visible frost; we have a cold room at work, and I'm never going to see it the same way again), or the wonderful series of secrets to the BFG in MAP05. The trio of MAP04/05/06 was my favourite, crammed as they were with memorable architecture, fun fights and interesting puzzles. Then there's a death exit, and I started liking the wad less. MAP07 is an almost even simpler version of Dead Simple, more obnoxious, and introducing the one custom enemy (something like a Maulotaur). MAP08 and MAP09 were alright, though the two-stage arena at the end drags on without being particularly interesting or challenging. MAP10 ended up on the Top 100 Most Memorable Maps, and while it looks beautiful and has an interesting gimmick (the majority of the map is in damaging atmosphere, which requires careful rationing of the radsuits provided), it goes on for way too long. I think the biggest problems is that the fights get too samey, with most consisting of large packs of the same enemy, and with 300-400 enemies per map and no BFG (if there is one in the second half I never found it) it's not a very sustainable model. Still, this doesn't change how much I loved the first half of the wad. Spoiler Edited February 12, 2024 by brick 2 Quote Share this post Link to post
ICID Posted February 12, 2024 Revolver (2008) by Sam StackhousePlay Settings Difficulty: Hurt Me Plenty Source Port: Crispy Doom via Delta Touch Two-room vanilla slaughterhouse with a few dozen high-tier monsters, many of whom (at least on HMP) are frustratingly blocked in by no-cross linedefs so that you can't make them infight each other. Hope you like shotgunning hell nobles. Wish the visuals looked better. The Last Experiment (2018) by Krzysztof Kietlinski Play Settings Difficulty: Ultra-Violence Source Port: GZDoom via Delta Touch I'm not usually a fan of these kinds of GZDoom maps where the author updates the animations, weapons, monsters, etc. to suit their particular tastes, as though the one thing holding Classic Doom back was the fact that it looks and sounds like Classic Doom. But this one really worked for me - maybe Kietlinski's tastes are similar enough to my own, or maybe his vision is unified enough to feel purposeful rather than piecemeal. Either way, this is good stuff - spooky, exciting, seemingly inspired by Doom 3 (which is great, because Doom 3 is a great videogame) with lots of fun secrets and Doomcute to discover. The monster additions are, as usual, pretty pointless (including two new variations of the pistol zombie?) but on vibes alone this is a masterpiece. 3 Quote Share this post Link to post
Roofi Posted February 12, 2024 Year 2 Month 10 Day 19 I play until I die or intentionally stop. I don't comment the wad where I died/stopped. [1] A rush of blood to the head by Oswaldo``Joaquin´´ Zuniga (2006) Quote Quote A new map for Ultimate Doom, simulating a building, with some Doom2 textures. This isn't an easy level -play it in Ultraviolence and fight all those Cacodemons!-, and requires some time to beat it. If you just recreate your house you get myhouse.wad but you can obtain a neighbourhood if you combine several houses ! This is an old-fashioned exploration map with lot of doors and square rooms filled with doomcute and random enemies. Your objective consists to find switches in order to progress, as they open doors. According to the description , I was supposed to struggle against cacodemons but I easily skipped the swarm coming from the street at the very end of the map. Beside that, the challenge is inexistant and I wasn't looking for that anyway. The addition of the orange sky from the fourth episode is welcome too but also unexpected. I'd say that more "serious" maps tend to use this sky, whereas myhouse.wad and other commonplace reconstructions generally make do with the original sky. No custom track though. Cool map. Grade : B (12,5/20) [2] Burning Fane by Vasek "Damned" Havranek @damned (2006) Quote Quote Small map firstly made as 1024 map, but after ending of contests I have broken the 1024 concept with some promotories and tried some (for me) new features ;) A map which follows the "1024x1024" trend but the emphasis is put on the fancy zdoom effects rather than optimisation of space. If this map figures in a megawad, it could be easily placed among the first slots because the biggest threat you"ll encounter here is a lone mancubus which sometimes goes invisible. The teleporting imps in the last combat presents no danger thanks to the ammo and the blue armor. All the slopes, the floor textures used as wall ones or the moving lava ceiling seem superfluous. I don't think they're ugly, but it's not really what enhances a map visually for me. The layout remains simplistic, with small rooms and corridors. I'd argue for a more sparing use of gzdoom effects, as the final rendering looks really outdated in this case. In any case, a decent map that exudes the 2000s era through every orifice. Grade : C (10/20) [3] Rust Bucket by Colt "Inkie" Burton @Inkie (2013) Quote Quote A rusty metal techbase built mostly for the dumping of toxins. Bits of it are kinda sorta not really based on the level Inmost Dens. Have you ever wondered what "The Inmost Dens" would look like if it were a map from the first episode rather than the second? Probably like this. Doom 2's map 14 is reimagined as a hazardous facility filled with nukage but populated with mostly low-tiers monsters, specifically zombies.The similarities with Map 14 lie in the canals and pillars holding chaingunners. Moreover, the author put more attention on wide zones rather than height variations but it brings some fresh air. It's pleasant to move in this map. Overall, a nice classic Doom 2 maps which could fit in the first episode of the Iwad without trouble. Grade : B (13/20) I stop here for today. 2 Quote Share this post Link to post
LadyMistDragon Posted February 12, 2024 FIREBALLS (#1 in a Continuing Series) (1994) by Ziroc (Crispy Doom) A rather early DM map, feauring spaces that are much larger than they need to be, and consisting of side lift textures and a particilar white texture with lines in the middle. At one end of the map, there are a collection of Spider Masterminds and Cyberdemons that just form an infighting party and one large ledge in the same location as the Player 1 start. All there is to say, 3/10 Spoiler IDEAL WAD for DOOM II (1995) by Jordan Feinman Quote I have taken the time to make this [what I feel] to be the most deathmatch- suitable wad. It has open space for great battles, and a lot of thought has gone into the relationship between rooms, platforms, etc. Please email me if you do or do not like this wad! NOTE: This level does not contain the BFG9000. If you want it, you can add it yourself. This is my first wad -- I plan on making more in the future depending on the success of this one. Misc. Author Info : Do you really care? :) Oh Jordan you jokester, precluding the days when identity theft became a widespread issue. Anyway, this is a medium-sized deathmatch map, bits of asymmetry thrown in every now and then and nothing very notable visually. It plays fine but yet, the outdoor areas are kind of like every other wad at the time, only rectangular 5/10 Spoiler The lost wad (2001) by Pablo Dictter (Crispy Doom) You know you're in for trouble when the incorrect map name is listed in the text file. Thankfully, the map # is in the /idgames reviews because I would've never guessed otherwise. It's still about 15 minutes of my life I won't be getting back. It's not terrible by any means, but the thing which lowers the blue key flesh pillar is dumb enough that I just noclipped when it went up again. Elsewhere, other Pablo Dictter tropes like square rooms, some random crate nonsense, and Cacodemon excess prevalate throughout most of the map. The two occasions when you teleport mysteriously were less spooky and just really weird. Though when that one maze goes dark, a la the Lost Soul room of E2M3 was kind of disorienting, like that hallway of corpses. And there are some strong visual touches for sure and the red key courtyard ain't half-bad. But combat is rote enough that it feels like there's probably at least one secret with something like 3-4 rockets. Not like that would help too much because of sheer enemy numbers though. I guess some of the Ninth Gate outtakes weren't going to be great though 5/10 YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE HAW (2002) by anoymous (Crispy Doom) Yup it's bad. A layout that feels totally like the thinnest string possible, thoughtless monster placement, and areas that are much more open than they need to be. But run in a straight line: you'll be out of this godawful excuse for a map in a jiffy! 1/10 Spoiler 2 Quote Share this post Link to post
ICID Posted February 13, 2024 Medevil (2018) by whirledtsar Play Settings Difficulty: Ultra-Violence, continuous Source Port: PRBoom+ via Delta Touch, complevel 9 One always feels a bit concerned when one reads "gothic castle" in the description of a WAD because that so often means that the author will have a terminal addiction to stone textures and the color brown. Not so in this case - these are three good maps from a known community project contributor with an excellent, striking mix of textures and sharp, considered lighting. Combat is consistently engaging though not especially challenging - just hold down the trigger on the SSG and swing it towards anything that moves. MAP03's progression is a bit confusing but by that point I was engaged enough to forgive it, and it helps that it also has the most impressive visuals of the entire WAD, from the magnificent throne room to the spooky outdoor cemetery and rocky catacombs. Certified Good Shit. 3 Quote Share this post Link to post
LadyMistDragon Posted February 13, 2024 Tei Tenga Refinery (2004) by John Cartwright @bejiitas_wrath (GZ Doom) In contrast to his early efforts, then-still speedrunner John Cartwright turns out quite a solid map, using fairly standard ZDoom mapping tropes of the time, including the human part of a monster wad authored by someone called Namami that seems to have got quite some good press for a monster wad of the time. Anyways, this basically serves to add a few different human monsters: chainsaw guys, plasma guys, buckshot guys, and rapid-fire guys. You've probably seen one of these varieties at a time in other wads. They're tankier than normal so they debatably add little. And the design....well, there's some standard plain vanilla stuff, but there's also some computer banks, advanced use of lighting that gives certain parts of the station character, along with swimmable sludge. And that outdoor area with the lake is just so cool but entirely optional, like a lot of John Cartwright maps and it's also the most dangerous section. Interesting paralells with Blackforge Basilica and Supply Station too, I expect (I need to finish the latter) in that aspect! Combat isn't too difficult for the most part and has sections of Imps to just shotgun through but the hitscanners at the beginning are quite nasty and will probably drain our health some. Of course, placing 4 Barons in a hallway isn't nice, but there might be ammo nearby for them. Didn't feel like searching for secrets though. Very solid overall, even if the difficulty slackening at the end is a little curious 7/10 amarcorde (2008) by Walter (Crispy Doom) One of Walter's last releases before mostly heading off to the aspiring heights of community project land, we have an obviously speedmapped layout, little bits of machinery that do nothing but were certainly part of E2 of the original Doom, slime and crates arranged in an ever so cute fashion and even some outdoor areas! Although perhaps some might object to the Strife midi because unfortunately, these kinds of compositions tend to grate more often than not. At least it's not the 'sewer' theme. Who cares though, crawling through sewers is fine, but mid-tiers are few 6.5/10 2 Quote Share this post Link to post
FistMarine Posted February 14, 2024 (edited) Hi everyone. I have been thinking to join this event since a while ago but even if I got to play through some random wads, I didn't get to review them. Now I finally got some time to try playing and reviewing some random wads. Before I begin, I want to ask without bumping the older editions/threads, is it possible to play what was chosen long time ago? I am talking about the five randomly chosen wads in the OP, since these are the ones I'd like to stick to playing/reviewing. So if I wanted to play one or more wads that were chosen long time ago (e.g. on the first couple editions), is it possible to review them here in the current topic? If yes, I will try to do that since next time or so, if chosen wads don't interest me. Anyway, for today, I want to review the first two wads: Revolver and Fetals Asylum. I never played them before (though I heard the author behind the second wad has made other famous maps/wads), so I decided to play them earlier this week. I put the reviews and screenshots in spoilers. Spoiler Revolver - Doom 2 v1.9 - Ultra-Violence - 100% everything with saves - Keyboard Only - Played using DOSBox 0.74-3 Kills: 127% Items: 100% Secrets: 0% Time: 14:34 Deaths: 0 I was originally considering to do Revolver.wad in PrBoom+ 2.5.1.4 (I still use this PrBoom+ version for wads until 2020 or so, for compatibility reasons) on complevel 2 but then when looking up the text file, I noticed this map was tested in vanilla Doom, so I went ahead and did it in DOSBox for extra challenge and it seems the map worked fine. This is a rather short and average looking map. It seems inspired by Plutonia with the ambushes and cramped combat. The ammo is really tight at times, even if you conserve it well. You have to kill a Mancubus and a few other monsters early with a Shotgun, then when you grab the SSG, backpack, ammo packs and you have to watch for a couple more ambushes involving chaingunners, revenants, as well as two ArchViles (one in current room, other behind those many knights) when you press two switches. The health/armor situation is good if you consider the Megasphere being given very early, as there is no other armor pickup in the map, while health is limited to two stimpacks and two berserks (one is placed on starting spot, so its only benefit is having the powerful fist since the beginning). So you really want to grab the Megasphere, though it's best grabbed after you are taking one or two hits (but don't risk it too much), it feels much more satisfying when grabbing the megasphere at low health. Even though I spent the ammo wisely, on first attempt I couldn't kill the Cyberdemon at the very end, mostly due to the garbage collision detection in vanilla, half of my SSG shots were missed or barely registered against the Cyber. I had to run past him to the exit because I wasn't going to berserk punch him to death. Managed to open the locked doors and then got hit by a rocket in the back...and survived with 19% health and 21% armor (from 124% health and 126% armor), just enough to press the exit switch in time. And then I decided to restart the map and manage my ammo better, even killing the Baron with just the berserk fist (pretty happy how it turned out, didn't take any damage) and did everything a lot better, besides that bullshit unavoidable 80 dmg homing missile that hit me around the corner but afterwards I never got hit by anything, so I stayed at 160 health/armor. I had much more ammo and was confident I could kill the Cyberdemon this time without running out of ammo. In the end, I managed to kill the Cyberdemon with 200 bullets, 38 shells, 1 rocket and 20 cells left. There is no Plasma type weapon in this map if you are wondering and there are also NO secrets, which is why 0% secrets is scored in vanilla. This is fixed in Boom ports to ALWAYS show 100% secrets for maps without secrets, while ZDoom ports also fix Kills/Items to show 100% if a map lacks them. Overall, this map was nothing special. It can be fun but I found the ammo quite strict on first playthrough even with the boxes of ammo supplied. On top of that, I found the map quite cramped and the combat could have been a lot better if the map was slightly larger, though I am happy to have finished it without dying. I think it's worth playing it once. Spoiler Fetals Asylum - Heretic v1.2 - Smite-Meister - 100% everything with saves - Keyboard Only - Played using DOSBox 0.74-3 Kills: 31/31 (E1M1), 182/167 (E1M2) Items: 4/4 (E1M1), 58/57 (E1M2) Secrets: 0/0 (E1M1), 2/2 (E1M2) Time: 07:28 (E1M1), 01:08:35 (E1M2) Deaths: 0 Before I begin the review, I want to mention that until last December, I only owned Heretic 1.0 and Heretic 1.3 in original form (I have the original CDs that I bought from eBay a couple years ago). Heretic 1.1 doesn't exist and I was aware that Heretic 1.2 is only available by patching Heretic 1.0 to 1.2. And then one or two years ago, I discovered that Heretic 1.2 exists in install form (with the DEICE program), encrypted on the Master Levels CD (the file is HERETIC.MJ3). Just like how the rare patched Hexen 1.1 (dated 22/03/1996) is available in encrypted form (HEXEN11.MJ3) on Quake 1.01 CD. I have asked for help a few times on the Doomworld forums back in 2022-2023 and got no answers. I then approached two people in mid December 2023, who were able to help me. With the help of those two forum members (they are also members on the Duke4.net forums), I was able to get Heretic 1.2 in original install form, just in time for Heretic's anniversary late in December. It turns out Heretic 1.2 (dated 28/06/1995) is not any different than what you get by patching 1.0 to 1.2 but nonetheless it was a cool discovery and as someone who collects (almost) each version of the 90s games, it was worth it. ;) Because the file FETAL2.WAD is dated from July 1995 (shortly after Heretic 1.2 was released), I thought I'd use this "rare" Heretic version to play this wad and it seems to work fine in DOSBox. Of course, if you are playing in a source port, you should ALWAYS use the latest version of the IWAD, as older versions will cause problems. When comes to the DOS version, you can use any version you want for older wads, provided the wad was created for that specific version. This rule applies to every game, if you care about the compatibility. The first level is quite short, it only has 31 monsters (fire gargoyles, nitrogolems and undead warriors). The only weapons available are the starting wand and the crossbow which is placed twice. You can also find two flasks and two tomes if you take your time to explore. The map is easy enough that it can be completed without even getting hit. Though due to only carrying ONE artifact of each type between the levels, it is recommended to use that one extra tome. I didn't because I wasn't sure what to expect next, so that extra tome got wasted in-between the levels. For the starting room, I recommend circle strafing, you should be able to get through just fine while also creating a bit of infighting between the gargoyles and golems. I realized the map ends abruptly when you go towards that door that was opened earlier and contained monsters inside. I reloaded save just to position myself in front of exit before I saved and exited. Afterwards, you will arrive in the second level, which is much longer and much more challenging, easily taking around an hour to complete on the first playthrough. On top of that, the level has plenty of surprises, ranging from ambushes, confusing progression and even a couple bosses encountered! Instead of describing each in detail, I will just give a couple helpful hints to help. 1) Don't forget to grab the armor at start of level. 2) Refrain from collecting large ammo packs until you get the bag of holding and/or the weapon itself, so you don't waste extra ammo for nothing. 3) Keys are collected in this order: Blue -> Yellow -> Green. Yes, I know that in original HERETIC, you always collected keys in a specific order (Yellow -> Green -> Blue) but in most cases in custom wads, you collect them in a random order. 4) When you get locked in some rooms, press on the wall with different texture to escape, as the locked door will open for a while. 5) When you are inside the boss room that contains Maulotaur and THREE Liches (make sure to kill them BEFORE entering the room), it is safe to drop into water to collect a couple goodies and push those pods around. To escape, you don't need to use Wings, just press on a pillar to lower it. 6) At the very end, after defeating D'Sparil, all monsters will die at same time (except for the disciples that happen to get summoned after he dies). This applies to original game as well and if you manage to speedrun the level, you can just go straight to the boss, kill him quickly and the rest monsters will die too. 7) You can escape the final boss room by shooting at the tiny exit door with wand/claw. You don't need to fly with Wings, just aim up and shoot at the door. Then you have to go back to the starting room to find the exit now revealed. 8) There are TWO secrets to find and they are really weird. You access by going to the dark green room where the Hellstaff was in the middle and notice two corpses sitting in lava. The actual sectors don't hurt you and register the secret upon stepping on them, though note that in vanilla, there is no indication if secret was registered or not. But also you need to run into the corpses to get teleported inside a place filled with lava, which will take a while to do in vanilla. There's two different secrets that contain various goodies, ranging from various artifacts to super armor. Once you finish with collecting the goodies inside one of the secrets, you escape by using the Chaos Device you collected. Do the same for the other one but be careful to not teleport again into same sector or else you are stuck dying into lava. 9) Phoenix Rod is found inside one of those two rooms that you can reach by opening the locked doors (they require green and blue keys). They have some disciples inside but also a couple extra goodies. 10) Firemace has a chance to appear in the level. It actually appeared to me but I never needed to use it because I was well stocked on ammo. 11) There are MANY Armor Pickups in this level. There are at least FIVE Silver Shields and THREE Golden Shields (aka Enhanced Shield as I like to call them, they are officially called Enchanted Shield). Heretic veterans will know how useful the armor is, it is much stronger than the armor in Doom, so you want to conserve it until it reaches 20% or less, then you can replace it. I only used one Silver Shield and two or three Enchanted Shields. 12) There are MANY Powerups in this level (Flasks, Rings, Tomes, etc). In fact, it is encouraged to use the Tomes on larger groups of monsters, as you get plenty of them (still had 6 tomes remaining in inventory when I defeated D'Sparil). I never needed to use any ring, though. Heretic monsters' attacks are much easier to dodge and even having a single silver shield is enough to make you feel safe at times. 13) Some monsters (Disciples, Iron Liches, Maulotaurs) have a rare chance to drop artifacts. Those dropped artifacts will inflate the item count like Archviles do with resurrected monsters in Doom 2. I do find it hard to believe that only one Iron Lich dropped an item of all the Iron Liches I killed in this level, unless I missed an artifact somewhere in the level. 14) Due to fighting D'Sparil outside of E3M8 slot, this was the first time (in vanilla Heretic at least) I have seen that you can get more than maximum amount of kills, thanks to the summoned Disciples and seeing the level stats when finishing the level. In ExM8 slots, much like Doom, Heretic skips to text screen instead of showing level stats, so I never thought of this glitch happening before. But I know that ZDoom ports fix the count bugs, so you then know if you truly got everything. Overall, the first map was okay. As for second map, I liked how action packed it was but I felt like the progression was a bit confusing at times and many corridors looked average/samey. I liked how some rooms looked, though. And I like how generous the mapper was with everything, I finished with full everything except the Wand that only had 157 shots. I didn't like how the sprites were flickering at some point in the second map (mostly starting with the part with bosses), due to vanilla limitations of having many sprites displayed on screen. That made it a bit hard to notice some enemies/attacks when they were disappearing, this mostly happened when I used tomed Hellstaff against some bosses. I know I could have used a source port to get rid of limitations but I prefer to do the maps/mods as intended for maximum compatibility. Plus back in 1995, source ports did not exist yet (and I also did not exist until later that year). :P Spoiler Edited February 14, 2024 by FistMarine 3 Quote Share this post Link to post
ICID Posted February 14, 2024 5 hours ago, FistMarine said: Before I begin, I want to ask without bumping the older editions/threads, is it possible to play what was chosen long time ago? I am talking about the five randomly chosen wads in the OP, since these are the ones I'd like to stick to playing/reviewing. So if I wanted to play one or more wads that were chosen long time ago (e.g. on the first couple editions), is it possible to review them here in the current topic? If yes, I will try to do that since next time or so, if chosen wads don't interest me. Absolutely! 1 Quote Share this post Link to post
LadyMistDragon Posted February 14, 2024 The Halls of Death (1996) by Ian Stewart (Crispy Doom) Otherwise known as "the map probably made for Doom II because of the release date", monotonous (largely tan) texturing, extremely open and long hallways and kind of random and certainly scattered enemy placement. The red key is quite pointless, just open a door in the nearby closet and continue and the exit's placement is so unceremonious as to be laughable. 3/10, straight to the bin. Spoiler Insects (1995) by Insect (Crispy Doom) One of Hideki Kamiya's many enemies released a deathmatch wad that's actually not half-bad! Central area is a vaguely hexagonal space with white vined walls surrounding, a few different wooden rooms (one being kind of a bookstore) and in some side areas are a field with a Baron outline and a little indoor room that's like some kind of rock garden and sewers 6/109 Spoiler Batman Forever v0.0 test version (1996) by James I've seen the name before and as I expected, this whole thing was kind of a mess. Another disposable sound pack. I'll pass. I don't want to hear Batman and Robin say stuff over gameplay or Joker giggle like a moron. HRET-BW.WAD (1997) by Jose Luis Gallardo I don't really understand what the point of a game with already notorious monotonous texturing being turned black and white is. Strange as it seems, there are good reasons why a Game Boy Color came out and this makes no sense in the context of a pseudo 3D game. Angel (Exodus) (2001) by Michael "prower" Reid (From Doom with Love) Declared as being his very last Doom map before leaving the Doom community (Antistatic was presumably already finished by this point), Angel actually proves to be a fair bit easier and less annoying than that other one I played, with a monster count around 120. It actually wasn't his last as it happens, as he had other scattered mapping contributions continuing to 2006. Perhaps we'll explore that one day. But currently, Angel is a sort of castle map with quite a few crate rooms, boilerplate combat that nevertheless throws in some furious and claustrophobic ambushes. Regardless, there are just two that stand out. One is unleashed after picking a key up and is located in a room with some very limited lighting (Michael's lighting throughout this map is excellent at complementing the aesthetic but isn't really scary) and consists of a massive Spectre horde that blocks this large hallway entirely and made us thankful we'd taken the time to pick up the hidden plasma rifle. Although perhaps that's the wrong weapon here because there's other situations later on that probably deserve it more. Such as the ending room which springs two chaingunner closets and enough Cacodemons to screw over anyone without infinite height. Though there's certainly enough rockets at this point, getting blocked is inevitable so please choose who you shoot! All that said, this is a far less painful and draggy map than the other map whose name escapes me at the moment. Maybe it feels a little dull and the large ambushes are just a little eh, but it's a fun time 7/10 3 Quote Share this post Link to post
LadyMistDragon Posted February 15, 2024 PEARLJAM.WAD (1994) by Ian C. Hay (Crispy Doom) Quote It's no secret, DOOMSDAY is a month away The Final level for 1.2 from this author, Once again no fancy story line just a lot of traps and secrets and some REALLY hard bits. :-) BTW If it seems really impossible, look around there IS a way. If you wonder about the names it's just the name of the group that's on when I finally finish creating a level , if you haven't already, get my other level - Nirvana.wad Doomsday referring to the upcoming release of Doom II. Basically, though, this is just a collection of some really annoying mazes and timed switches in some cases, with each area still feeling unique. The little outdoor rock structure and outcroppings in the sewers leading to some green armor are highlights. And combat....isn't necessarily difficult but there's still a few unnecessary Invulnerbility power-ups. The enemies do get packed in rather thick when they appear but swarms of Lost Souls in one location aside, there's not lots more monsters than low tiers. That lava chasm was the hardest part but that was basically connected more to the ammo dearth than any other factors. And that stupid series of switches was just really bad because it seems like you have to backtrack twice to now-opened areas each containing solitary spectres. 3.5/10, can't recommend. FUNDOOM Sound Patch for Doom I or II (1996) by Mark Dillon (Crispy Doom) Oh boy, just a random collection of sounds that appear with certain enemies or when every weapon but the plasma rifle is fired. Ok "I'm fallen and I can't get up!" is funny because of that one ad from the mid oughts but the sounds are basically thrown together with no rhyme or reason. There's a random Homer line for one and at least one from the Terminator. Hard pass. 1 Quote Share this post Link to post
Roofi Posted February 15, 2024 Year 2 Month 10 Day 20 I play until I die or intentionally stop. I don't comment the wad where I died/stopped. [1] SEMATIC (si-mat'ik). adj., serving as a warning or sign of danger. by Insane LTD. (2005) Quote Quote A new level for Doom 2. It seems that the Chigs have overrun a UAC installation and have built a heavily fortified refueling depot to assist in the attack on Earth. You are the last of a team of four to transport down to the surface. Your job is simple. Find your way into the complex, kill everything that moves, and come out alive. It's always exciting to explore a map at night and this map makes no exception. You venture inside an large underground metallic base and the moody soundtrack from Heretic fits like a glove (using Hexen soundtrack in doom maps is underrated by the way). According to the scores, I only killed half of the enemies but Sematic remains a bit challenging for a 1996 map. My health has been brutally shattered by distant arachnotrons, vicious spectres moving in the dark or sneaky shotgunners in certain enclosed areas. At some point you have the choice to take three teleporters and two of them transport you in a area full of enemies you can fortunately easily escape. I really liked this map for its mysterious ambiance generated by the suspenseful midi, the minimalistic large-scale architecture and above all , the starry night sky which which remains as classy as ever. Grade : B+ (15/20) [2] WELCOME.WAD by Neal Rayner (2005) Quote Quote You can tell that the keepers of Hell are toying with you, making you go around in circles as they welcome you back to hell.... An Ultimate Doom map made in 1994 I already played in Year 2 Month 07 Day 05 (13th September 2023). Here's what I said about it : "The first custom Doom map ever made, ORIGWAD, was released in 17 April 1994. WELCOME.WAD was initially released in 24 April 1994 according to the textfile, so it appears that I played one of the first wads ever made ! And indeed, it can easily be felt in the level design because you'll spend your time navigating among red hellish corridors ressembling a bit to giant arteries and exploring large empty and hideous rooms containing a lot of Tutti-frutti and monsters as well. The progression is a bit advanced for a 1994 map because it mostly consists to return to previously visited areas and kill monsters that emerge from closets. Unfortunately, WELCOME has no interesting place and does not meet minimum decency standards, but it remains largely playable. I maxed this map on prboom+ this time after killing the 130 enemies and finding the 3 hidden closets marked as secrets after 10 minutes of endless wallhumping. Those contain the RL and the chaingun which, despite being not necessary, considerably reduce the grind. Nothing else to say, it's a bad map but not terrible. No reason to be a completionist on this map except if you want to waste your precious time like me. Grade : D+ (7/20) [2] Fag Face Alpha by Chris Wright (2010) Quote Quote This one's for Bloodshedder. Lot of random curves, no height variations and different flat textures used for no specific reason, that is Fag Face Alpha. As you can easily guess, this is a poor lazy map but the most annoying thing here is that the ammo is almost totally unexistent whereas you have to face a pain elemental , an arch-vile and some midtiers. And, cherry on the cake, the author hid the exit behind a fake wall. Garbage. Grade : F (3/20) I killed myself with my RL while dueling against a cyberdemon in a crampy room from ULTIM.WAD *DOOM: THE ULTIMATE DEATHMATCH LEVEL* Quote 3 Quote Share this post Link to post
brick Posted February 16, 2024 (edited) Brick | 1 wad | 9 maps Adventure | 8 wads | 39 maps Shotgun Symphony (2019) by Steve Duff aka Steve D. 9 SP maps for Doom in Boom. About halfway into this I started calling it Shotgun Guy: The Wad, and only then got the joke. If you got it immediately then you will not be surprised to learn 90% of the damage I took was from enemy shotguns, the only real other dangers throughout were one teleport ambush with a swarm of demons in E1M4, and the ubiquitous damaging floors (especially in the second half). One map is even called This Is My Shotgun, and it has a hundred of them on HNTR (don't ask about UV). They ambush from the darkness, they shoot from far far away over open spaces or from high ledges where they can't be reached, and they relentless teleport all around you. The wad claims to be inspired by Fava Beans but I'm not sure how much that relates to gameplay, this is much, much harder. If anything I'd compare the difficulty more to Double Impact, but that wad was much more restrained with its with its Shotgun Guys (and enemy count in general). As for other elements, I liked the level design, architecture and aesthetics. The only map I found confusing to navigate was E1M2, the others were all very well designed, the puzzles are not always obvious but they make sense, at least those that are required (secrets are more uneven; some are clever, but a few seem to require indiscriminate wall-humping). There are no custom assets at all (it does use the E4 sky with more traditional Phobos/Deimos bases look), but the texturing is excellent. The architecture is often grand and imposing, with beautiful vistas or pillars that arch far above, and some beautiful lighting, I think E1M5 was the one that wowed me the most. I'm not sure if the wad truly requires Boom, I actually forgot to change my compat settings in GZDoom and was on Doom Strict all the way through E1M4 (oops) without encountering any problems at all. I guess it's hard to call the over-reliance on Shotgun Guys a problem considering the title of the wad, but I do think the lack of restrain is the wad's only flaw; E1M8 illustrates this too, it opens with a great storytelling set piece, followed by a fantastic multi-stage fight with the barons then the cyberdemon, but then just keeps going on with less interesting set pieces. When it's not too indulging it's a lot of fun though, and looks great throughout. Spoiler Edited February 16, 2024 by brick 4 Quote Share this post Link to post
LadyMistDragon Posted February 16, 2024 Nin UAC wads (1996) by Matt Rodgers (Crispy Doom) So you know how there were some serious NIN fans long before Trent Reznor was contracted to do the Quake soundtrack? Well, anyway, inspired by another person who's effort (NIN Doom, I think) showcased all the flaws of 90s Doom level design, this 4 map effort was produced! Kind of surprising, because while the first map is unremarkable, it's also by far the best one in the collection, even if the secret finding felt like an odd process. However (putting aside that this is balanced for continous play and you'd better appreciate that!), Map 02 has even more large and open areas, a horde of Barons in a courtyard opened by pressing a switch in the first courtyard kind of sitting off to the side and then.....a monster spitter with a Cyberdemon just below in a sick parody of Map 30. Absolutely, fuck that noise, though the exit seems to be just behind this stupidity. Map 03 almost seems like it could be the best so far but I didn't get far because again, DON'T pistol start this. Map 04 has an incredibly cute 90s-eseque dock, with some Hitler portraits that can be spotted in a shed and unfortunately, this turns into something that appears to be a Wolfenstein E1M1 remix. Map 05 has no replaced music, but is a short linear cave, leading to some kind of production facility with a Romero head behind a wall. The sheer faceplanting of this wad is beyond belief and like, don't put a Cyberdemon behind a fucking fake wall in the second map! 2/10 The TWC Wad Collection December 1995 (1995) by The Wad Crew (Crispy Doom) Some guys that had presumably released the wads collected here on other sites like CompuServe. No matter though, only the ones marked for single-player were checked out since the individual wads aren't exactly all just sitting in the zip folder. They'd also have to be extracted. Masochist is the first one, and doesn't really have a clear theme, beyond some details that hint at spookiness and danger. These prove quite disappointing since there's a few locations where enemies just plain don't move even when shot at. Otherwise, it's a moderately dangerous and completely open-ended map where no two routes will lead to the same location. I'm not certain there's an exit though. Townhouse is EXACTLY what it sounds like. Though there's no enemies in your condo, you can discover some in all off the surrounding ones. Chaingunners like to throw on the block parties and these guys sure like their hot cakes if you know what I mean. Elsewhere, TVs and stereo systems can be indentified as comprising much of the Doomcute, along with sofas. Amusingly, the exit's like 10 steps away from the Player 1 Start. These maps aren't too bad at all, but they were designed for deathmatch primarily, and while it's probably less of the problem in Masochist, the numerous examples of stuck enemies and especially in one location leaves a serious stain 5/10 https://youtu.be/w-Vuurr0UaE 3 Quote Share this post Link to post
Sena Posted February 16, 2024 Bloody Rust by various (6 maps, 2017) These maps are quite small, around 50 enemies each. Correspondingly, they are carefully considered and contain no real wasted space, as claustrophobic combat encounters that give you minimal room to retreat or reposition during a fight appears to be have been a guiding design philosophy. I wouldn't be able to contest that they are well-designed, but with this intention, coupled with the reliance on revenants (only 50 enemies per level, and I'm sure I must have seen more than 10 in MAP02) and chaingunners, makes for a WAD that I can respect, but one I have a hard time bringing myself to enjoy on a personal level. 6/10. 4 Quote Share this post Link to post
brick Posted February 17, 2024 Brick | 1 wad | 9 maps Adventure | 9 wads | 48 maps Southern Cross (2002) by The Solution and bryant robinson. 9 SP maps for Doom II in ZDoom. The Robinsons created several wads, some together and some as solo release, often inspired by Quake. They also had the habit of partially remastering their old wads and replacing the idgames files, so that many of the non-remastered maps are hard to find because the original is no longer on the archives. Southern Cross is a bit of an exception because both the original and the Gold Edition are still there. I know I've played these maps before but don't remember if it was this or Gold. It's an episode-length set of maps that according to the text file needs "possibly ZDoom"; in fact any port capable of reading the old MAPINFO format (I think Eternity can do this too) should work fine, this is needed for the last map to work. The wad has a strange feel, replacing all sound effects with their PSX counterparts (though the enemies still behave as in PC Doom II; no slow Revenant or fragile Lost Soul) and adding all of the Doom I textures back. It really feels like playing the Doom I part of PSX Doom, with most enemies being the first game's and the sequel's only making sporadic appearances (except for Chaingunners, they are everywhere). The first few maps are forgettable but they get more interesting later on, there are some fun progression moments and some tough combats. Visually it's a paradox, there's some lovely lighting and some beautiful attempts at detailing in parts, but the architecture is often crude and very orthogonal, with little deviation from a set formula. There are several homages to E1 here and there (E1M3 and E1M4 are very recognizable) and they look much more simplistic than the IWAD original. Some of the fights border on mini-slaughter, with large waves of enemies and lots of ammo (though the BFG makes a late appearance). The final map is surprisingly low-key, atmospheric with very few fights culminating in a Cyberdemon 1-on-1, not quite what I expected when previous maps had hundreds of enemies, but it works. I have the feeling it is Gold I have played before, because I remember the maps being better detailed, but maybe it's just my memory playing tricks. It's not the best wad out there but it's a fun play and most maps are pretty quick-playing despite the high enemy count. Spoiler 4 Quote Share this post Link to post
Roofi Posted February 17, 2024 Year 2 Month 10 Day 21 I play until I die or intentionally stop. I don't comment the wad where I died/stopped. [1] Freedom On Earth by Maxime "Datacore" Bisiaux @Datacore85 (2019) Quote I don't need to explain why wads designed from freedoom are so rare but Datacore seems to be one of the few mappers to be a fan of it. "Freedom on Earth" is a vanilla-compatible episode of 9 maps using only stock assets. The new soundtrack is by far the strong point of the iwad but let's move on. "Freedoom On Earth" includes a variety of classic themes such as overgrown and rusty bases or red hell castles but the whole feels rustic , maybe due to the textures but above all because most of the maps take place underground and/or feature fairly cavernous layouts. The level of detail remains sufficient for a vanilla-compatible wad thanks to the use of lot of different textures but Freedoom on Earth lacks of landmark areas which would help making the levels look more memorable. "FOE" more or less equals "Doom 2" in terms of difficulty, perhaps a bit harder, because the latter maps include a handful of nasty arch-viles and tight ammo balance. The penultimate map features several cyberdemons since it's called "Rocket Zone" which is far from being a hard map, but shows that "FOE" has its challenging moments. Unfortunately FOE loses its momentum near the end because Map 07 is just a generic arena map, a short gimmicky level for Map 08 and at last a placeholder (That's what map 09 is called!). So, I could present "FOE" as a decent classic adventure. It's not overly creative, the challenge remains tame and it works on the original EXE. I could criticize the fact that it's designed for Freedoom, but that won't be taken into account in the rating. Grade : B- (12/20) Got gangbanged at the start of GUARDIAN Quote 5 Quote Share this post Link to post
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