NiGHTS108

To new players, my #1 recommendation has always been Vanguard. It's made by a rather popular mapper, is pretty short, not too hard, and it'll introduce you to a fair amount of common long standing Doom community tropes.

Do any of you guys want to switch? I hate to be stubborn but I mean, I did get there first and I think my idea is quite funny (I’m thinking some kind of like, Entryway-ception with Go 2 It in a sense) (Also, worth noting that Entryway and Hangar has already been fused in Amalgoom)

Update, could I have MAP29? I hope I'll be able to do something in three weeks . . . My maps are Entryway and Go 2 It (working map title: "G2 Two 2t II") @Cutman First map choice: Entryway Second map choice: Go 2 It Desired map slot: MAP29

Actually That's not even a bad idea, I think I could do some Funny Shenanigans with that

Will the amount of map slots be expanded if you hit the limit? This project sounds really cool but idk if I want to commit to it right now . . . My idea is E1M2 and Go 2 It

MAP17: Sacrilege Kills: 87% Items: 73% Secrets: 100% Time: 7:48 Surprisingly, it seems Chris Harbin actually pulled through for the last, well, serious map of Operation Biowar. I was, in fact, right to trust in his ability to make hub maps. As far as the hub itself goes, I had a good time not waking up the Cyberdemon as long as possible. You have to when you hit the red key switch in the center of the structure though. It's three simple little fast paced challenge rooms. I appreciate how, for the first two, you have to go between them somewhat frequently in order to make progress, though the last one is just a fun little challenge room. The Spider Mastermind was a neat touch to that last part as well. In fact, the whole last room weirdly reminded me of Plutonia MAP30. I think it's the strong reds and little alcoves off to either side. Anyway, this map isn't particularly the fastest map in this wad or anything, but it's definitely up there. Sacrilege didn't blow my mind or anything, but hey. None of these maps really did, to be honest. Strong ending. Grade: B Difficulty: B- - MAP18: Die Heuschrecke Kills: 76% Items: 100% Secrets: 100% Time: 2:17 Well, it's not MAP30 but Icon Of Sin time anyway. As far as these go, Biowar's is Perfectly Fine. Go through some micro challenge rooms with a BFG, then it's time for an Icon Of Sin fight. This one gets bonus points for me not needing to mess up timing rockets with the Icon Of Sin's brain. You just simply run around, hit 4 switches, then the cube in the center opens, which in . . . probably actually a really cool plot twist especially in 1999, you head inside the Icon Of Sin's mouth to finish the job. This reminded me of Wormwood AND Disturbia! Good job 1999 Icon Of Sin. Edit: I looked up the meaning of the name, why is this map called "The Grasshopper" . . . Grade: B- Difficulty: C- - FINAL THOUGHTS Overall kills: 1750/1884 Overall items: 357/627 Overall secrets: 19/51 Overall time: 1:48:15 (thanks DSDA level table!) As a time capsule, Operation: Biowar is a fascinating little thing in the year 2024. I suppose you could almost say this wad was something of a microcosm for, well, what I percieve to be the community atmosphere at the time. It has a few good ideas here and there, makes numerous thoughtful choices, though it has a bad habit of holding itself back in my opinion. Several maps come *close* to being legitimate 90's classics, though I don't think Chris Harbin really thoroughly realised some of them enough. They're just a little undercooked. I don't think I risk controversy to say even in 1999, I don't believe Biowar particularly broke any barriers. This wad tends to kind of have a split personality, between its quiet tech bases and loud, sometimes still tech base shootouts, though there's not much here you can't find in spades in The Plutonia Experiment, Hell Revealed and TeamTNT, and even its fairly brisk quality and fusion of these two differing styles would go on to be enormously superseded in Scythe and Alien Vendetta respectively in the next few years. Chris Harbin's a little bit of an interesting character, though in 2024, it's kind of just another Fun And Chill Wad buried underneath the endlessly refilling pile. Having said that, I don't like to really talk about Doom wads in terms of "innovation" anyway, especially when it's a negative. I actually had a Rather Nice Time going through this wad, even if it's just to run around and enjoy Doom's elastic physics. I wanted a relatively no-nonsense little wad to hang out in, and I got it. What more could you want out of that? Final Grade: C+ Overall Difficulty: D+ - MAP RANKING Oh, and to add a little bit of optimism to this thread, I'm actually very excited to get to Equinox. I have some interesting things to say about that wad. Speaking of which... Equinox MAP01 Kills: 100% Items: 82% Secrets: 80% Time: 4:57 Man, what a haunting opening sight. Equinox gets off to a great start. Combat wise this MAP01 isn't particularly stylish, though the theme here really impresses me. Again even the first frame looks great, just in general I actually really like B.P.R.D's specific lighting style, the way the beams of light stretch out from the facility itself. Equinox MAP01 strikes a nice balance between welcoming and unwelcoming. The music and atmosphere feels distinctly alien and "un-Doom-like" though the interior of the facility is rather well lit and open. This is the kind of map I can really enjoy hanging out in. You know, maps where even after you've got 100% kills you can just enjoy walking around a little bit. Much like the combat, the structure is also quite simple, being your somewhat bog standard two areas on opposite sides of a hub with an area opening up at the opposite end of where you came, though still, I think this contributes to how weirdly homely this map can feel. Also I like the obvious not so obvious secrets, and how you can, for some reason, turn the lights of the facility off and can't turn them on again. Even outside! Also the little secret at the start with the tiny cabin in the mountain and footprints and the sand is great too. I love the confidently bizarre attention to detail here. I don't want to go 100% B.P.R.D. fanfare mode Literally one map into this wad, so I will say it's not the best opening ever or anything. As mentioned, when you strip the map down to its fundamentals, it is a rather simple opener all things considered, though there is absolutely a memorable, otherworldly atmosphere here worth praising. Grade: A- Difficulty: D+

Just to add My Two Cents to this, to be fair, it's not necessary for progression. The player can still just go back through The Focus and head to the yellow cluster that way. Not sure, I'd say it's perfectly fine tbh

Must've gotten confused with the MAP12/31 entrance. I mean this bit here

Excellent wad! Just played through the whole thing lol, just a few flaws I noticed - Numerous of the doors were open when I got to them, I can't exactly remember if I saw any in the first Tribute Quilt like that? I imagine that was a playtesting convenience..? - There's a missing texture on the path from MAP31 to 21, on the little grass lip bit. - MAP32 just has an ever so slightly misaligned texture, on the northern entrance. - This is more subjective but personally, I'd have had it so the secret exit end of MAP31 was pointing to MAP21, though I get it if you wouldn't want it to be that way.

Thanks for pointing that out, it'll be fixed

MAP14: Absolution Kills: 91% Items: 50% Secrets: 0% Time: 9:11 Eh... not wild about Chris Harbin's first real attempt at a hell map. Absolution, even for this wad's standards, is rather mundane, possessing the general flow and layout of a Doom I E3 map. It is the second hardest map so far tbh, only a little behind MAP13 as far as I'm concerned, but this map's difficulty only really results from it being a tiny bit stingy sometimes. I guess the red key fight was okay, but that's about it. The rest of the map is just meandering from room to room, not really doing much. It seems like Chris Harbin's fall-off after MAP11 is sadly gaining momentum. By the way, whoever posted an edit to this map's Doomwiki page before I did talking about the softlock, I'm sorry. I absolutely could not read it. I only figured out what was going on when I played the map for myself and fell for it. Grade: C Difficulty: C+ - MAP15: Heat Kills: 100% Items: 68% Secrets: 50% Time: 6:54 Sadly Heat is a map I didn't particularly care for either. I guess I like this map's theme a little more than MAP14 (show me ONE instance of ROCKRED looking bad) but it doesn't manage to be more interesting. As I've said before, previously I've praised Chris Harbin for how straightforward and direct his mapping style is, though I think some of that has gotten lost in especially the last handful of maps. Heat, again, just feels a tiny bit clumsier to me versus this wad's earlier maps. Not a whole lot more to say really. Just not a very brisk layout, relatively uninteresting combat, and none of the interesting atmosphere/semi-Doomcute from before. Let's just hope this'll improve soon I suppose. (Psst, I've played MAP16. No it won't.) Grade: C- Difficulty: C - MAP31: Juggelo Funhouse Kills: 100% Items: 95% Secrets: 0% Time: 3:34 Hmm... Amateurish? Strange? Sure, maybe, but in a weird sense I kinda love Juggelo Funhouse. I don't 100% get the reference, exposing myself as someone who's probably not cool enough for this map, but this map is still kinda sick. Quite simply three little challenge rooms smothered with textures of Insane Clown Posse, which is a reference I only got because at least one person here mentioned that name. Those challenge rooms actually aren't bad either, they get better as they go on and I actually quite dig the last one. It might tell you literally everything about my taste in maps these days that I think Juggelo Funhouse is the best map in Operation Biowar, but I don't care <3 Grade: B+ Difficulty: D+ - MAP16: The Killing Fields Kills: 87% Items: 54% Secrets: 50% Time: 12:25 Oh for god's sake. I really didn't care for The Killing Fields tbh, it feels like the most directionless map so far to me. You start in this small little grey brick area, then go through an obviously fake exit into... TNT MAP21, then through a teleporter into the main section of the level. A weird overgrown tech base thing. Maybe I'm just feeling somewhat jaded about this megawad at this point and ready to move on to Equinox, though this level definitely feels out of steam. I can't keep saying it from MAP14 and 15, but the brisk quality is effectively completely gone now. It just feels big for the sake of being big, like "oh it's the end of the wad, looks like we need a Big Map". It's the pinnacle of this wad frustratingly holding itself back in the name of conventions. Sure, have a maze filled with that rotating Icon Of Sin cube texture. Who even cares anymore. At least MAP17 seems to be hub based, Chris Harbin's good at that, and MAP18 seems very short. By the way I did spend several minutes trying to SR50 over the gap leading to the exit. It didn't work, though I'm still convinced it's possible. Grade: D+ Difficulty: D+

Oopsies I missed A Lot Of Maps I'll do some of the maps now and more of the maps later, short reviews this time MAP11: Frozen Terror Kills: 98% Items: 59% Secrets: 0% Time: 4:18 Continuing with Chris Harbin's for-the-time rather out-there themes, here's a snow map! It's impressive how this map actually doesn't look too terrible while only really using 2 different textures, though I guess the main snow texture used doesn't look rough enough to bother me. The combat still isn't particularly great, though that's a rather common remark. I can feel Chris Harbin's clean plain-spoken style kinda slipping a little bit here. Back in MAP05 I praised that I only needed to ride a particularly long elevator once because a teleporter appears when you have to go back up, but here you have to ride a long elevator again at least twice. C'mon. Fair map otherwise. Nice MIDI btw, works surprisingly well. Grade: C+ Difficulty: D - MAP12: Military Center Kills: 100% Items: 79% Secrets: 50% Time: 3:57 My personal favourite map so far in the wad, Military Center is a much needed shot of adrenaline. Despite still not being the hardest map in the world, it has a simple, clean structure and a general Scythe E1 appeal to it. This map feels like a bit of a self imposed challenge for Chris Harbin, to make several little challenge rooms in rather small areas just to see how it would go. I think it went pretty well. Chris Harbin is easily at his best when he doesn't overthink his maps too hard. If he's making a fun challenge map or a quiet tech base, the common quality the best of these iterations share is being simple and brisk, and we can find a fair amount of that here. Best map so far. Grade: B Difficulty: C- - MAP13: UAC Prison By John Bishop Kills: 92% Items: 55% Secrets: 100% Time: 11:03 Peculiar choice for a final guest map I suppose. John Bishop's UAC Prison is unquestionably the beefiest map so far. I mean, not that it's huge, but it's got about triple this wad's average run time and monster count. I think it's close to being pretty fun, but kinda similar to MAP11 in a few regards, I don't exactly think it flows as well as it could to be honest. I suppose I appreciate the ingenuity of reusing a single arena four or five times, though more often than not these reused fights end up feeling a little clunky. The prison area near the end is kinda neat, even if there's Several long elevators to get there and you need to randomly shoot a wall at the end of a corridor to open it. The "hell" area is kinda neat too, almost qualifying as "a big fight" as far as I'm concerned. Also, seriously. What is up with John Bishop and shotgunners. MAP06 was like this too, both maps had exactly one invisibility sphere, so clearly he knew sometimes opening a door to two shotgunners who hit you about 5 or 6 times in total instantly for 40 damage and you scream because you physically did not have time to react isn’t very fun. This map has literally 185 shotgunners. Okay maybe not literally, it has about 180 shotgunners in it. That’s almost half this map’s total monster count. Did they just never tell John Bishop that Doom II has a lot more monsters? They pepper every major fight in some form or another and there’s always at least one in this map’s quieter more hallway-ish moments. Also, while we’re on this topic, shotgunners are worse than chaingunners. Chaingunners at least have the decency to give you a window, a small window, but still an existing window to react and hide before they do even one hit of shotgunner damage. Whatever, this argument is broader than the map itself. I’m not petty enough about this to reduce the map grade over it, but man if I was single-segmenting this I sure would be. Who cares, kinda fun map all in all. (I wrote all that yesterday when I beat the map I didn't intend for it to be well over half the review LOL) Grade: B- Difficulty: C+

Pretty sick this is coming together! Ironic my little Grosse segment is surrounded by so many dense maps, heh. Also cool the player will have to enter it through the side opposite the Cyberdemon, like in the regular Grosse. I debated making a Betray segment with one entrance/exit just a little half-hearted joke, like "do what you want with this ig lol", I only didn't because I remembered what Betray looked like, and well it seems like you have enough on your plate.

All of the episodes are entirely different wads

MAP10: Dark Woods Kills: 80% Items: 100% Secrets: 100% Time: 5:38 I actually think Dark Woods is pretty sweet, at least by this wad's somewhat timid standards. We're back to Chris Harbin again, and he's building on his atmospheric skills again. We start in a . . . something that has a crate flat for a floor for some reason, but quickly transition to the woods, which is the main area of the level before a little rocky and snowy area at the end. I don't know if this was just me, but I was kinda surprised this map actually had woods in it. 90's maps were just named stuff, man. What part of TNT MAP18 looks like a mill to you anyway? The woods themselves are barren, sure, though again this is a map where I appreciate the gesture more than actually playing it if I'm being perfectly honest. For the time and even now honestly, I'd call it some inspired work. Also, I complained before about these maps having very little continuity, so I do appreciate here how the mountain area foreshadows the incoming snowy map. I think the gameplay, compared to what we've seen so far, is perfectly adequate. It still doesn't thrill me, though, MAP09 didn't thrill me either, so maybe my tastes are just kinda skewed in that regard. This map's huge, wide open natural areas certainly reminded me of Turok a little bit, I don't mean that as a compliment though it didn't bother me either I suppose. Also, I don't exactly see how pistol starting is a problem here. I ran past everyone and gained the shotgun in exactly 37 seconds. Now, I didn't end up going back to kill the opening crowd, but I did get 80% kills in an 84 monster map, and I didn't find ammo particularly strenuous. In fact, the only part of this I found kind of annoying from a pistol start were the two Mancubi near the end, although it seems I missed a Super Shotgun somewhere along the way. As a whole though, if you don't want to pistol the opening crowd like how I didn't, then you don't have to. (If you noticed I'm running out of talking points here.) All in all, fine map. Doesn't differ too significantly from what we've already seen in my opinion. Grade: C+ Difficulty: D+