Zalewa

So what you get is this: - 2 Tyson/Pacifist maps where you will be running in circles finding switches or ways out while avoiding heavy fire. - 2 maps that are actually playable but will throw bullshit at you. - 5 maps that are done in overused style that I've seen countless of times. - In-your-face Arch-Vile that will fuck you up when you walk on a ledge, or the same situations with enemies gangbanging you frontally and from the rear. In all cases you are forced to drop off the ledge and then find your way back up. - Clunky layouts that will force you to run around wonder how to get back to the place you saw earlier. For a WAD with 5 maps, all of this was really annoying. Any pluses? Visuals... although see bullet no. 3.

A town under a starry night. This map is done very well in nearly all aspects, with good atmosphere and eerie architecture. Music adds to this mood, although it gets weary after a while. Layout doesn't let you get confused, even though the main area of the map consists of several buildings. Fights are set up in interesting ways, although not very difficult. All in all, there's something about this map that just spells "well done".

In accordance to its name, this WAD oscillates between excellent gameplay and killing your ass with army of whatever the hell will squash you up against the wall + arch-viles + infinitely tall cacodemons raining at you from High Heavens if you play with infinitely tall actors. To be precise, maps 07 and 09 do that. Other maps are nice. Architecture shows plenty of effort and imagination.

Fun fact is that this map does resemble a recreation center - with that stadium and all. The map revolves around 3 doors that are at the beginning of the map and where you will be returning after grabbing each key. Detail is sparse, but the map doesn't look bad. Gameplay is straight forward and somewhat challenging only at the end. 3.5*, but rounded down this time.

A 1400 monster slaughtermap born of love for players. You will get more health, armor and ammo than you will need while large amounts of monsters will be thrown at you. This is pure action & pure fun, with all around excellent architecture that constructs a huge and open castle, while always keeping you in the outdoors. You can breathe in this map.

A travel through colliding dimensions of techbase & hell, sometimes the collision is very clashing as a single room is textured half-by-half. This WAD is enjoyable, but quite straight-forward and also not exactly multiplayer friendly, which is always a shame. Detail looks a bit messy (whatever that means). 3.5*.

This features agoraphobic ruins of a military base that turns into lake of nukage and then temple ruins. So: ruins. All in all, this is good, with some variety packed into one map and well constructor outdoors.

This is like a really short map made nearly entirely of SILVER textures that spins around into blocky architecture that most closely reminds me of Doom 1's Containment Area but on psychedelics. The map is very short and also you will get a lot of weapons and also an invulnerability sphere. This map is crazy, but before you can go insane, it will end.

I don't know what kind of idea this is, but it's pretty damn well executed, so have 5 stars.

I went around the huge frikkin courtyard, found a button at the end and then backtracked to spawn. As I suspected, the button opened a door at the beginning of the map. After witnessing such bullshit, I decided not to play this map further.

This is fantastic! A very light-hearted adventure that turns into a slaughter map that doesn't utilize 10000 revenants, 1000 arch-viles and 100 cyberdemons. Everything here is bright, and sunshine permeates throughout the maps. The silly pop music actually fits here (Roxette, lulz) - it definitely is not detrimental to the overall atmosphere. You will witness lots of "realistic" detail: chairs, computers, home utilities, beds and other stuff that, when recreated in Doom is silly but charming. All of this stuff is done really well. You even have these patches of flowers around pavements. I haven't played a WAD like this ever since School Doom II.

Frankly, I'm glad this wasn't speed mapped but polished instead. This WAD doesn't screw around and throws you into a tight fit from the get go. You will have to find your ground, stand it and then slowly conquer the rest of the map. This goes for the first map. The second is a bit lighter on difficulty. The third, however, begins as a huge, empty facility that will very quickly get swarmed by enemies. You will constantly need to run, keep attention to all entrances and windows and look out for ammo. That last map provides lots of rockets and the rocket launcher will be your main weapon. Don't blow yourself up! As for the visuals: the theme sticks to green tech walls, raising from brown dirt and with many crates thrown around the floor. This is excellent, constant action; difficult but not annoying, with complex but not complicated structures. I love it.

So, this is a jokewad with pure visuals and little of anything else. Revenants speak Skeletor lines from He-Man, there's an arachnoteddybear, Commandeer Keen's helmet and a strange red coin that's supposed to be a reference or something. Gameplay is straight-forward, with some ZDoomisms like deep water, scripted invasion in an enclosed and cramped arena, a boss fight, some underwater crushers and a switch that should probably give you access to the red keycard but either I missed something or it broke in Zandronum. The level is padded with some copypasta. Play this only to admire visuals.

If you know Erkattane or Road to Gamzatti, you will know what to expect. Architecture that drags and snakes around like intestines on cramps, monster placement that sends death at you like shooting squad with you put up against the wall, traps that are metaphorical middle fingers, pop music as MIDI with vocals replaced by flutes and lots of running around searching for keys. This is a severe upgrade from Erkattane, but a downgrade from Gamzatti. This is also the last WAD by Nicolas Monti that I will ever play. I just don't dig that style. The metro tunnels on one of the early maps were pretty rad, though.

How does it feel to pump rockets into spider demon that is lifted up and down like a reversed version of Icon of Sin? Hilarious at first, aggravating second. Nice lighting effects at that last corridor and a nice idea to give the invisibility sphere to make the final, final fight more difficult.

Constant action that grows more and more hectic with each map. The struggle for survival is real in this one. The distinctive part of this WAD is the music, which sounds like something that could come out of an Amiga game. The maps have elaborate layouts, with branching pathways that can be beaten in parallel in coop or with parts of maps connecting in unexpected ways.

There are 5 maps here and 1 "credits" map at the end. The further you go, the more complicated the maps get (complicated, not complex). You will get layouts that are difficult to navigate, even with automap on. You will get lots of backtracking upon finding keys, especially in E1M5. You will get lots of combat, that I basically cheated by spawning a Super Shotgun and thus it wasn't so tedious. You will also get lots and lots of very nice detail that utilizes Doom alpha resources as well as the standard "computer in the wall" stuff. All levels follow a base theme. In overall, this is a good WAD that will be probably enjoyed by most, but I again found the layouts to be a big detriment to the fun factor.

"Layout done in 1 day". Not bad, not bad at all. The map is short and it gives you all weapons and ends in a massive monster slaughter invasion and an Icon of Sin monster spawner. It might sound difficult, but it's not due to invulnerability spheres. The mood is indeed "grey" here, both literally and metaphorically. Despite the use of mainly grey colors, the visuals are still decent and create a gloomy theme.

This set of maps is mostly chaingun-based. You will be shooting with the chaingun at lots of different monsters: mancubii, revenants, hell knights, cacodemons. Fortunately, not too many Barons (I don't think I recall meeting even one). The visuals are richly detailed, something that you will note when looking at room backgrounds and ceilings. Layout is straight-forward, though not exactly linear. You won't get lost. It's however a misnomer to call these maps "slaughtermapish". Although there are large amounts of monsters, they usually consist of the puny ones and they are stacked in neat rectangles like Roman legions. This doesn't feel like a standard slaughtermap at all. After all, you only get SSG in the last map, and the rocket launcher in the last room of that last map.

A good level with unorthodox feel that can sometimes be attributed to "first WADs". It follows a hellish theme, though texturing can suddenly change into bricks for unknown reasons. Maybe the idea was the hell replicates a mockery of Earth? It plays well, and that's what's important.

I like this mapset. It's short but with constant action. The maps progress slowly from base theme to hell, but unfortunately they do seem a bit "samey". Maybe that's due to the use of blocky design, but then again this isn't visible that much. The maps are rather open in overall. It isn't anything mind blowing, but it's well done and if you like playing standard Doom, you will like this mapset.

Between the time when the oceans drank Duke Nukem and the rise of the sons of Modern Warfare, there was an age undreamed of. And unto this, Requiem, destined to bear the jeweled crown of Doom megawads upon it's troubled file extension. It is I, its player, who can tell thee of its saga. Let me tell you of the times of high Dooming. Doom doom doom doom, doom doom... This here is the crowned jewel of Doom, showing the pure creative force of this fandom. The WAD that was to mark the end of the modding scene, now shines as its achievement, whereas the successing games faded into obscurity. Who would have thought that the simplicity of Doom's geometric shapes will beat the complicated brush mapping of later titles? Is it flawed? - Yes, a little. Does it have technical derpiculties? - Yes. Is it awesome? - Fuck yes. Straight from 1997 comes a mapset of excellent design. You will never notice a misaligned texture, you will never find yourself prolongly stuck, you will never think that the fights are boring. Instead you will find masterpieces such as MAP21, where the Doom engine was pushed to its limits. Or MAP06, which is another take at the famous "'O' of destruction". Or the city-like MAP22 and MAP27. Or the eerie MAP24. It's funny, because when you look at the automap, the shapes are almost always rectangular and bending on right angles. This is something that the mapping community has strayed from nowadays, and yet, in this WAD, it is absolutely not detrimental. There is great variety between the levels. You never feel like you're playing a rehash of a previous design. The combat never stalls and there is right balance between the difficult fights and the monsters placed there to keep you engaged. Sometimes, after a particularly engaging map, the WAD will give you a respite and the next map will be a low monster count, light-play game. This improves the pacing and makes you want to play just one more map, even when you know that it's time to take a break. Initial maps will give you plenty of shotgun and chaingun ammo but very few rockets. This balance changes in the latter half of the WAD and you will have to choose between your weapons more carefully, albeit there will also be plenty of rockets and cells. Whenever a large pack of Barons is thrown at you, it's almost certain you will have enough of BFG ammo to dispose of them quickly. This is very good as it maintains the pace of the game. This WAD has not aged a bit and if you haven't played it by now, you should give it a try.

This is a WAD full of conflict. The good meshes with the bad and the average and it creates a soup with a bitter taste. This is something that I've managed to complete thoroughly in coop, but it was an experience that could only be described as mediocre. If you want to see what's the best this WAD can offer, go play MAP25. Every other map will be worse than this one. The Good It must be noted that the WAD is correct in nearly every technical aspect. The architecture is of standard Doom proportions, there are only few mistakes and there isn't a place here that would indicate that the mapper lacked technical knowledge on Doom mapping. This isn't perfect, though. One thing that bothered me were the hanging corpses, strewn in some places above otherwise unobstructed floors where, if you play with infinitely tall actors, they will block you. This makes me doubt if this was tested thoroughly in Chocolate Doom, because this problem should've been caught and fixed. Another good thing are the ideas - at least for some of the levels. The Trench is a level that shows an interesting idea but with mediocre execution. However, this point is also disputable because there are many levels that are just the same as the other levels stuck in their map index vicinity. There's much repetition in gameplay. The architecture, from visual standpoint, is decent. There's not much detail but it is there and it does its job nicely. The visuals are sufficient. The Bad The layouts. By Crom, the layouts are fucking sadistic. Not only there's lots of backtracking involved, ALL levels consist of running around hunting switches. When you find a switch, you are doubly screwed because now you don't know what it did. More often the switch will trigger something on the opposite end of the map. And the maps are HUGE! I used "turbo 255" console command for MAP28 and MAP29. Sometimes there are many potential places that can be triggered (almost always these will involve metal bars), and you will find yourself thrashing from one place to the other, growing more and more aggravated with each passing second. More often than not the layouts will either consist of room-corridor-room progression or huge, empty landscapes (or very long corridors). The fights. It can be noted that the fights go in unison with the layouts and the repetition. When you walk into a room, and look left and see a chaingunner, it's highly probable that there will be another chaingunner to the right, mirroring its colleague, both of them ready to strike you in a scissor-like fashion. Arch-viles will very often pop out from the ground and usually be completely threatless. There are very few fights here that can be actually dangerous to your continuous play and if you die it will probably be because you lulled yourself into auto-pilot gaming. The Summary This WAD could be considered as a treatment for insomnia, or as an example of very problematic layout design. If you're a mapper and you want to know what to avoid, you can use this WAD to learn. However, on a more positive note, if the author were to design the layouts differently and the fights weren't so easy, I'm pretty sure his maps would be more than decent.

Cool MIDI and a cool map. It's sort of a big, open area but intertwined with rock walls and barriers in a way that makes you circle it around several times to complete it. Despite that, it's hard to get lost. The whole thing seems to be build more like a deathmatch level than a single-player one, but that's not to the map's detriment. It's quick to beat, too.

For a first map, this is technically inspiring. There's a music replacement, the geometry is mostly correct from 3D perspective of all things and yet the style maintains this unorthodox approach that makes you feel that something is off but in an endearing way. Fights are setup in a way that forces you to stay focused. The blue door section is unfortunately rather weak - with a blue computer wall maze (at least its linedefs show on the automap) and with general blandness of everything. At least the enclosed fight at the end of that section returns to a higher standard. All in all, not bad. Not bad at all. 3.5 stars, rounded up to 4.