Endless Random /idgames WAD Adventures #013

Another Awsome DOOM PWAD (1994) by Unknown

 

^{Play Settings}

^{Source port: prboom+, complevel 3}

^{Difficulty: UV}

 

Now how’s THIS for Wadchaeology? Our first submission by an unknown, unnamed mapper, Another Awsome DOOM PWAD was found online by Doomworld’s own funduke and uploaded to the /idgames archive for posterity.

 

As an actual map, it’s a fullbright green marble Wolfenstein maze with shotgunners, imps, cacos, and that’s it. I appreciate the attempt to build a real sense of place in the descending, darkening staircase into catacombs and the fact that the author gives you a shotgun, chaingun, and rocket launcher with sufficient ammunition for each – never a given in a 90s WAD. That plus my greater-than-average patience for mazes (Prboom’s overlay automap FTW) meant that I didn’t hate it!

 

Still, other than the most hilariously useless night vision goggle secret of all time, there's nothing much here to write home about. “Awsome” indeed.

 

Grade: 4/10

 

Day 7: Eye of the Tiger v3.1 https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom2/d-f/eyetig31

 

Taking its name from the song, which is the Eye of the Tiger you're thinking of, the one from Rocky, which may be why you get a berserk in the opening room. And, it actually translates quite well to .midi, it's got fade in and fade out which is less than ideal, but music aside, this is reasonably good for a '98 map, although I'd be hesitant map to say it really is a good map.

 

The first issue with this map is its elevators. At this point me complaining about elevators has become a cliche, but this one has a major issue, and that is that they aren't player activated, making them unlike every other single map out there, they just go off on their own, and real fucking slow at that, same speed as the one that's made up of 5 parts in E2M2, you know the one, so this is yet another map where you'll want to frequently be turning on noclip, just because there's nothing fun about sitting on your arse for 30 seconds waiting for an elevator to very slowly go down, and very slowly go up again, only to get clawed by an imp waiting for you at the top and have to do it again, people might complain about product placement in games, but I'll take ten product placements over one ad break. Granted, this wouldn't be such a problem if they were a rare sight, but that's not the case, there's far more than you'd need, 3 in the first room alone, giving you 3 rooms to go into, of which 2 are blocked off until you get the appropriate keys/switches, and you don't know which ones they are until you go up to the top, up to 3 times depending on which random number you choose. If this is the best elevator technology has to offer, I'd rather just take the stairs.

Beyond that, there isn't a huge amount to say, they make use of the light amplification goggles which I guess makes it unlike most other maps (if you'd like a metric for just how unused they are, I've been playing at minimum one map a day for several consecutive months, and only just now had to turn off LZDoom's light goggles filter since I reinstalled back in May or so), but apart from that, it feels like a map 3 or 4 of a megawad, with an adequate combination of low intensity fights in hallways, and more chaotic stuff with lots of enemies in more open areas. At least, that is until you get the yellow key, after which point you reach an outdoor area and the slaughtermap counter goes from 0 to 100. You go from having to handle no more than 15 enemies in a room, to having enemies so densely packed in that you can't even walk in without BFG spam, speaking of which it's got a pretty backwards approach to ammo and health, with too much in the early half when you don't need it, and barely anything when you actually do, and this is one type of map I really do not want to backtrack through to get supplies. I enjoy slaughtermaps as much as anyone else, but the opening part of the outside area especially is far too restrictive, one where your only option is to shoot everything from a distance, which isn't my preferred way of playing, if I wanted to shoot rockets at enemies so far away I have to wait 10 seconds for it to reach its target, I'd rather do it from the seat of a strategic bomber. In essence, it's an okay map that drags on after its second half, and I can appreciate that back then, there wasn't a lot of selection for slaughter maps, and thereby mappers had a far less refined of what made them work, and what didn't. This map was ahead of its time, but so was Icarus. 5/10. 

Edited August 16, 2021 by Sena

Month 4 Day 03

 

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

 

File 1) SSDM2.WAD by Steve Sarlls (1995)

 

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A circular building with open inner and outer courtyards. I think that this is my best wad as far as the looks go. 2 player is kinda slow due to the size of the level. Best on -Respawn & -Altdeath.

 

Very simple symetric and monotextured structure but still looking pretty good thanks to its wideness. The level is entirely empty on singleplayer because the author toggled everything on "multiplayer only" (even the monsters !)

 

This map has a clear and visible exit at least.

 

I fell off an airplane after 15 minutes trying to dodge the many projectiles in the first level of Dance

 

20 hours ago, ICID said:

Another Awsome DOOM PWAD

 

Yes! That's the map I've played long ago as i wrote in the first page! It's a nice map, but nothing exceptional...

Day 8: CONGESTION CONTROL 2 https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom2/Ports/a-c/cct2

 

The sequel to Congestion Control (might sound painfully obvious, but plenty of WADs out there claim to be sequels but there's no verifiable information regarding their predecessors), which got into the Top 100 WADs of All Time, or at least all time as of 2003, and if this is as good as the original, top 100 sounds fair, this is an all around solid map.

 

A map that starts off with cyberdemon footsteps is a bad omen, which was misleading, as it's actually a solid map, and one I'd have a hard time really levelling any major complaints towards. Major complaints, not none at all, as first of all, they give you way too much plasma ammo, while I am way too conservative with my ammo, pretty much never using anything other than the SSG/chaingun for anything that isn't a baron, cyberdemon, or spider mastermind unless there's 20 of them, or I'm backed into a corner, this map seems to assume you are way too wasteful with your plasma ammo, and will use it on anything that isn't an imp, maybe I'd like the plasma rifle more if it wasn't so goddamn loud. But, with that aside it's got pretty much everything I'd want to ask for in a level - enemy variety, a mixture of indoor and outdoor areas, good music, plenty of height variation, a solid 7/10, and almost certainly a 10/10 if it still were 2003, so even it might not be as grandiose in its enemy encounters or structures as a Ribbiks map, as the ER/IWA has displayed, a 7/10, an adequate score, is hard to come by, so it'd probably do me well to appreciate it now I have. Also they said in a post-level text crawl there's a Quake 2 secret somewhere, I didn't find it, so there's something to keep in mind if you give it a try.

 

 

Month 4 Day 04

 

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

 

File 1) MENACE2.WAD by Neil,Chase1 (1995)

 

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This is a Sequel to the first Menace wad and I can describe these wads as mini Death Arenas which are designed to be fast paced and is inspired by the infamous Danzig series.

 

A good looking small green tech-base with many items and especially weapons and ammo. In the second screen, you can see a megasphere with an invulnerability but they are actually unreachable , because teleporter lines had been placed. However it's not really a trap because one of them lead to the BFG.

 

File 2) CONQUER.WAD by Donovan Young (1994)

 

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Twisty passageways and sniper nests surroud A large open pentagram shaped chamber. The only weapons you'll find are the shotgun, chaingun, and Rocket Launcher (Great fun in the sniper nests - Be careful though, some of the 'nests' can suddenly become not-so-secret!). Anyone can get a frag with the Plasma gun, so weenies keep out. ;-)

 

A DM map replacing E3M1 with a central star-shaped arena surrounded by plenty of corridors. Actually, the outdoor cenral area looks pretty good but the rest consists just to boring and confusing grey rooms.

 

File 3) The Marble Maze - Doom I version by Scott Earnest (2000)

 

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Oh, about the level--it's very big but it should be fast even on slower computers. I designed it more for style than difficulty, so you hardened DOOMers may be able to do this in your sleep. But watch out, there are a few unkind surprises!

All weapons are available, but the BFG is *EXTREMELY* well-hidden. Don't expect to find it on your first time playing. But once you know how and where to get it, it's easy!

 

As title explains, you explore a totally marbled temple populated by some weak monsters and a cyberdemon at the end. Actually , it totally looks like a 1994 map even if I enjoyed playing this map. Aesthetics are not really bad but very basic because of the orthogonal maze without any detail. However , the author brought some variations in order to avoid a too repetitive gameplay.  Indeed, some places contain some height variations or small traps.

 

This level was obviously designed to be complex but you can easily find your way if you take attention to the computer map. I didn't find the BFG though but it was not necessary thanks to plentyness of ammo and the invulnerability in order to kill the cyberdemon.

 

Good map.

 

Also , I really like the music used which is "Head like a hole" by Nine inch nails.

 

 

I got bitten from below by a demon in Da Will

 

The Arch-Vile Compressor (2020) by Timothy “MArt1And00m3r11339” Brown

 

^{Play Settings}

^{Source port: gzdoom}

^{Difficulty: UV}

 

211 Arch-Viles, all of whom will be woken up simultaneously by so much as a single fistbump. A slow-moving crusher. Between them: a long hallway with lots of cover. This is The Arch-Vile Compressor, a level that would take more than 5 hours to complete as intended (as the creator of the WAD demonstrated by playing it himself here.)

 

It’s obviously impossible to rate, or even play really – I watched a healthy chunk of the demo, died twice to the first archie who I only barely managed to graze with the crusher, and then decided I was done with that. Even knowing exactly what I was in for, I found the gameplay profoundly frustrating – the arch-vile can only walk into the crusher when it’s at its highest point, requires multiple crushings to fully kill, and the nature of arch-vile attacks makes them prone to standing still for long periods of time. A true nightmare.

 

 

As always with these “curiosity” WADs, I find myself wondering about the author’s intent. Brown mostly enjoys playing and making slaughtermaps (with 64 contributions to the /idgames archive, by my count, the latest of which was just two months ago.) Is that what this is? A natural extension of a hardcore slaughter fan’s propensity for pain? Doom difficulty pushed to its limit?

 

If, as Sena suggested, this is supposed to be more of a riff on the work of Marphy “Revenant100” Black, particularly the similarly-tedious Revenant Bus, does that make this a jokewad? If so, I think Black’s work is better executed – not nearly as frustrating, and with more jokes built into the central premise (a Doom parody of Desert Bus that’s also a revenant quadrilogy sequel that also has jokes like forgetting your wallet that also has silly sprites and custom actions for the horn and such that has even more jokes packed into its ridiculous trailer.) Sure, I similarly gave up on Revenant Bus after only a few minutes of “play”, but at least I left it feeling amused and satisfied, not frustrated and annoyed.

 

Still, I think that’s too simple an explanation – if this is just a joke, why present it so seriously? Why play it yourself for five and a half hours? The answer’s beyond me, but at any rate, this is the kind of stuff the ER/iWA was made for in my opinion. Forget hidden gems, give me the hidden mysteries.

 

Day 9: Intruder https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom/g-i/intruder

 

A '97 map by Justin Madigan, the author of Twilight Warrior, a level which must be important because it also got to be in the Top 100 of all time, but I've never heard of it. 

 

 

Probably the most significant aspect of this WAD is its music, a midi from a song taken off the Beverley Hills Cop soundtrack, a song that 6 years later became Crazy Frog. Other noticeable changes include new sounds for the doors, and the pistol and shotgun (the two weapons you get), which I'm going to say actually sound better, the new pistol could have easily been the sound of a sniper rifle in some other game, although the fist is unchanged despite the fact you find a berserk pack after about 12 seconds thereby incentivising its usage, which I guess makes for some amusing irony - your pistol that shatters the earth with each shot takes 6 shots to kill an imp, yet punching one so hard he explodes instantly barely makes a sound. Similarly, you get a couple unique textures, most of which conform to the general theme of "intruder spotted", the most significant one is the exception to this, a sign that reads "Warning, carbon monoxide poisoning", which I would have very much liked to have read about before I entered the room. Still, despite the variety of custom textures, including one specific spot which played off a bunch of warnings in rapid succession, which is kind of cool but they went off so fast I had to watch it through about 5 times before I could actually read it, the levels are still very plain looking, often one little texture placed in a boring looking area, which doesn't do much. Quite often, you will be placed in small rooms with five different switches, and you have to quite tediously press one, wait for the handful of enemies to come out, and very slowly expand the room, and it all looks the same, all in the same wooden texture. Again, we get one singular exception, and it's in the form of a FIREBLU wall, which flashes and pulsates, two things I never want to see from FIREBLU, that area is about as pleasant to look at as IOGW's Mount Seizure.

 

The level itself is also put together very poorly, it suffers from a major case of "the button you just pressed opened a door in the most far-off location yet revealed to you" syndrome, i.e. you've got to constantly backtrack and waste your time, and half the time it is profoundly unclear where you're supposed to go, the aforementioned carbon monoxide area doesn't actually have anything. It's got a couple cool textures, but when it's exclusively D tier enemies you're fighting, and you spend more time trying to figure out just where to go, not made any easier by the whole place looking the same, it's not a particularly good map. 5/10.

 

 

 

Month 4 Day 05

 

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

 

File 1) Tab30 Level by Michael Contorno (1997)

 

 

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The big 30 in the Tab series! Though this Doom2 wad is a solid entry in the Tab series, it is not quite on par with some of its predecessors. Still, a good challenge for veteran players and much better then the average wad. Save often, this one can be tricky!

 

An adventure-oriented level taking placed in a kind of small town located in desertic landscapes. Indeed, you have to enter in various buildings and structures and explore the almost totally brown and dark outdoors. I love how atmospheric the level is despite the music had not bee changed (I played without music). Aesthetically , it's very good for a 1997 level thanks to extended use of light gradients, tall architecture and omnipresent darkness which make the level more mysterious without being annoying to play.

 

Gameplay-wise, the author said it's hard but it's actually quite simple. He gave plenty ammo and health , which are more than enough considering the bestiary used stay pretty weak. You will collect many cells packs but don't expect to meet a cyberdemon or a mastermind. Anyway, it's fun. I think the strong point of the gameplay resides in visiting diverses places like a cavern filled with lava , a room with a big stairs or even small monuments holding the keys.

 

A level that may be too easy but turns out to be quite adventurous and exciting to discover.

 

File 2) Kroz, IBM-ASCII Char # 002 by @WildWeasel` (2004)

 

 

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Kroz, one of the millions of smiley-faces that have graced ages-old text mode games in the past, has finally gotten upset at Bill Gates for phasing DOS out of existence. So...he gets his revenge at last!

 

A simple skin for gzdoom which allow you to incarnate a smiley which come from this 1988 ASCII PC game I suppose? Also , your sounds consist just to basic noises like what an Atari 2600 can produce for instance.

 

Very basic and not interesting to be honest.

 

 

I got instant-killed in a gimmicky DM map taking place on a giant chessboard in the megawad The Nutty Wad

 

 

I never understood why the tab levels have their own /themes folder in idgames, it isn't even a type of wads that drastically changes the theme of original Doom or of any other user content made wads, like aliens or x-rated for example.

Why this happened? Doom historians, help me solve this mystery!

Edited August 18, 2021 by Walter confetti

Day 10: RealCombat https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom2/Ports/p-r/realcomb

 

Made in 2006, this contains 6 versions of one map, with two weapons, the shotgun from Halo, and the assault rifle from Halo. It's basically a version of Marine Doom that's better than that, but a lot worse than Hideous Destructor, which for the record I don't like at all. The variants are mostly identical, usually subtle changes, to name what I can remember, in the early ones you have the soldiers from Marine Doom, which are later replaced with Doomguys, in versions 5 and 6 you can't actually pick up the guns, there's a bleeding mechanic introduced along the way but I've got no idea what the button to apply a bandage is, and in the last version, you get the ability to climb walls somehow, and there's a really grating footstep sound, think Half Life alpha ladder climbing, and also there's a couple of blokes who are invincible for no clear reason. 

Superficially, this might look like a milsim, but it's really not, in all the versions you start with 20% health, which can't be restored in any way, nor can you restore ammo, 12 shotgun shells, and 60 rounds with the assault rifle, which can take anywhere from 5-8 shots to kill someone. To reload, you have to deplete all of your ammo, and then you will de-select the weapon, and then equipping it again reloads, because I guess just pressing R was far too straightforward. The other major issue is that the enemies have no delay nor inaccuracy, and a very low pain chance, so basically if you get seen, you're probably dead, and the map design has plenty of angles through which you can get seen from, and you die in less than half a second. Your only other weapon is the frag grenades, and this game probably has dethroned Counter Strike as the game with the most useless frags, they have to be dead on target to actually kill, and it takes far too long to equip them, there's no option to throw them overhand/underhand, or pretty much anything, I'm sure Doomguy would have a much better time with those frags if he actually threw them instead of just punching them. Also I'm pretty sure there's no way to actually exit the level.

 

I should probably give the creator of this credit, he definitely put in a lot more effort than most other people out there, but I've played RO2, there's ways to make a tactical shooter, and there's ways not to make one, only saving grace it has is the funny voice acting, which still isn't anywhere near as funny as many other WADs or commercial games out there. 4/10, he uses the words "RealCombat simulation" in the description, alluding to the fact that he seemed to think of it as a milsim of sorts, and I'm not playing any fucking milsim that doesn't know the difference between a clip and a magazine.

 

Month 4 Day 06

 

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

 

No review for today. I got instant-killed by a possessed marine called Zalbruk in the Ultimate Doom jokewad Bleah II: Tower of Stupidity. This wad has multiple scripted deaths in order to exit maps but I was suppose to kill him and not die this time....

 

You've reached the final map, anyway. What did you think of that old crazy thing of mine?

Object “32” (2008) by Lainos

 

^{Play Settings}

^{Source port: prboom+, complevel 2}

^{Difficulty: UV}

 

As a big fan of movies, I find it's often interesting to go back to the early work of a director I really love. Usually their first attempts at making something aren’t so good on their own, but they have half-formed shadows of the greatness that would eventually be achieved. There’s something triumphant about going through a filmography in order and seeing an auteur finally find their voice.

 

Object “32” is in many ways the first landmark in the career of 2016 Mapper of the Year award-winner Lainos, who I would definitely consider one of the auteurs of the art of Doom. It’s not that it’s his first work (that would be Ancient Cave) or that the map itself garnered much attention upon release – but something about the brown and green atmospheric industrial hell represented by Object 32 wouldn’t leave Lainos’ memory. After initially developing it for an unrelated project and giving it its own standalone release here, Lainos (with the help of his buddies in the newly-formed Clan B0S) would expand the story of this map into his first real megawad, Da Will, even remaking it for that WAD’s big finale: the suitably-named Object 33.

 

 

Da Will was our first real sign that these “Russian realists” would become a force to reckon with, building up to several of the most artistic WADs of all time and, for what it’s worth, all those cacowards. And Object 32 would get yet another remake in 2011 with "Object 34: Sonar" – so like I said, there was something about this flooded, overrun techbase concept that stuck with Lainos forever, critical recognition or no.

 

As for the map itself, well, it’s got touches reminiscent of the masterworks to come, but doesn’t stand too well on its own. I love the commitment to “narrative”, giving the player plenty of memorable moments that seem to imply that the structure of the Object 32 base itself has been turned against you – the lowering floor that prevents you from getting a backpack, the cheeky shutters that intermittently block the goodies in the opening room, etc.

 

But gameplay is usually king in Doom, and well, it’s just not quite there yet. Run through similarly-textured brown rooms and easy-to-get-stuck in green hurtfloors getting sniped by everything as you desperately try to find a decent weapon and get ready to backtrack through mazes that are incredibly easy to get lost in. The “confusing” complaint would dog Lainos for his entire career – always a risk when you’re trying to push Doom design to its absolute limits – but he would get better at making the player’s confusion part of the narrative and atmospheric experience, rather than leaving you feeling…well, a bit bored, to be honest.

 

Leagues ahead most of the contemporary stuff we’ve played for the ER/iWA but far behind his own later work, Object 32 is an interesting crossroads; a map that’s more fun to read/think/write about than it is to play.

 

Grade: 6/10

TL;DR: Interesting context for fans of the mapper.

 

Day 11: Doomworld Speedmapping Compilation #1 https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom2/Ports/d-f/dwspd001

 

Another speedmapping comp, this one in 2001, 13 maps, 100 minutes each, with the theme of a "lava city". Not made by anyone I recognise, apart from SgtCrispy, I don't know who that is because he's not important enough to have a page on the DoomWiki, but I vaguely recognised his name, and I apparently searched for it in the past, so he's obviously done something. I don't know why I keep playing speedmaps, maybe I want to finally prove myself wrong and find one good, but if that's why I do it, then I need to look harder.

 

As I'm sure everyone is aware, Romero has announced that Sigil 2 is in development, but has refrained from giving it a release date. Why? Because he intends to put out a quality product, and does not want to forego that quality to reach a deadline, so when something was made in 100 minutes, you can largely assume that quality was not one of their considerations, and it really shows, if you showed me 10 screenshots, and told me to identify which 5 were from this WAD, and which 5 were from Mock 2, I do not think I'd get a very high score. There's doomcute, and there's doomugly, the completely random rectangle computers and lava thrown about like someone tried to build a map using a voice dictation program, only they had it set to the wrong fucking language. Of course, there's no cohesion in the maps, some of them will put in multiple megaspheres, others will expect you to hold your own against 2 revenants in a hallway with no cover and 8 shotgun shells, if there was one strategy they all seemed to incentivise, it was pacifist runs because when these areas are so restrictive you can't actually stay in place to kill anything. My favourite map of the bunch was the one with the arachnotrons, because I completed in less than 10 seconds, and my least favourite was the icon of sin map, because it was an icon of sin map, which I didn't try to complete as a matter of principle, it wasn't even a map 30, so I can't even overlook it as being 'tradition'. Basically, there's nothing good about any of this, 2/10, to quote a certain angry video game nerd: it fucking sucks, it sucking fucks, it's a piece of shit, it fucking blows, and I don't like it.

8 hours ago, Walter confetti said:

You've reached the final map, anyway. What did you think of that old crazy thing of mine?

 

I thought it was a pretty fun joke wad. I enjoyed the scripting as well as the the pseudo-ascension in the building. The boat part was maybe my favourite. I had a lot fun punching all those zombiemen. Also , the "Who wants to be molcosaire?" was hilarous

Day 12: OH MAN! THIS COULD GET NASTY!!!! https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom2/m-o/nasty3

 

He wasn't wrong. After an opening room that largely consists of waiting very slowly for everything else to kill each other because you lack the firepower to do so yourself, and from that point on, it basically becomes a series of rectangles, with everyone's favourite, teleporting in 30 revenants in a room with no cover, and it's just a huge slog, it all looks and feels completely monotonous, it's quite impressive how despite playing it for so long and knowing all of its gameplay mechanics inside and out, Doom can still provide me with new gameplay experiences. But this WAD can't, you can only spam rockets into a corridor until everything in it dies so many times before it feels the same, it's the same reason why the FPS genre has largely kept away from trench warfare, because that shite's boring. Doesn't help either that you've got such a lack of weapons, you get about a 10:1 ratio of rockets and cells, and nothing else for any other weapons, and apart from the one pictured room, which I think they might have stolen from Ancient Aliens, there's really nothing interesting going on. The rest of it looks like a blank canvas, like a huge sea of wood that they forgot to actually add anything to, and the fact they got the colours of their own doors wrong says more than I ever could. But, as I am here saying things, I can add that the whole map looks the same, there's no variation, you do one thing, and then you do it as many times as you need to until you snap and realise it's all the same shit and you didn't even particularly enjoy it when it was new. 3/10.

 

 

 

Also, as a bonus, here's ZPong https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom2/Ports/v-z/zpong. Not got much to say about this, the hit detection feels a bit dodgy, but yeah, it's definitely Pong.

Month 4 Day 07

 

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

 

File 1) DIAMOND-SHELL VER 0.8 by Diamond-Project-Team (1996)

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Start your ID-Games with this easy to use menu-shell. No need to know the startup-parameters any more. The shell handles single-, net- and modemplay. Lots of functions like telephonebook, usertext for each played PWAD, ability to sort the PWADs, view all maps (also Hexen-maps) and many more ...

 

Another old EXE I cannot launch , but by reading the description, it looks very complete. Also, I wonder what was the purpose of the telephonebook.

 

File 2) CBLedges by Unknown - renovated by Clint Bowick (1995)

 

 

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This is one of the top rated levels of all time. I just fixed a few light levels, and spruced the textures up a bit. It consists of a large courtyard surrounded by - you guessed it - Ledges. Definitely a fine level.

 

A circular arena surrounded by rooms linked by ledges. I like how the author used computer textures for the stairs. It's maybe the most memorable visual gimmick of the map. Besides that, it's just a very generic DM map , even after the renovation.

 

File 3) QUAKE! for DOOM by Jonas Andersson (1995)

 

 

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4 excellent deathmatch levels for DOOM.

Me and my friends use nothing else when

we run a deathmatch-weekend.

There were supposed to be one more level

but a major bug was discoverd during

playtesting. Perhaps I'll include it in

the sequel to QUAKE!, if I ever make one.

 

Contrary to what the title suggests, don't expect a total conversion of the famous FPS released in 1996 ! This game was not released yet. However, according to the description, this wad consists to 4 DM maps for Ultimate Doom. I played worse DM maps but they are far from being excellent.

 

To be more accurate, all maps are not that bad but their layout are way too huge and too complex to be adequatly played in DM mode. Moreovern each of them has an intricate networks of cramped corridors , which make the navigation a lot harder. I think they look definitely more like regular singleplayer maps. E1M3 was my favourite level just because the author had the good idea to place some monsters in this one. Also I enjoyed the little puzzle with switches and timed doors in order to reach the exit in E1M4 , even if the exit is unreachable on singleplayer because one of the door is too far to be reached at time.

 

Anyway, those maps would be a lot better if they were designed as  singeplayer maps but the mapper was a DM addict...

 

File 4) Doom Redemption by SlayeR (2003)

 

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A 'tribute' to Doom 1. All the styles of episodes 1, 2, 3 (and even 4) squished into a 9 map episode.

This wad doesn't use any ZDoom features that are not seen in the original doom, except for HUD messages at the start of each level, and of course the features that come with Hexen format maps.

 

An ultimate Doom episode for Zdoom which condenses the gameplay and the aesthetics of the four episodes. Actually the first three maps use the E1 sky , the next three ones the E2 sky and the E3 sky for the two last levels and the bonus. Besides some little zdoom features , like using several skies in a same episode or displaying the map name at the beginning of each level, the author restricted himself to vanilla settings for level design  so expect a almost completely classic wad.

 

Also, you can listen to module tracks instead of midis, which require zdoom to play. They consist to remix of some tracks of the original midis. I enjoyed listening them but some of tend to be a bit too repetitive for my taste.

 

Whether for the gameplay or the aesthetics, I think this wad has nothing really outstanding or memorable. As I said before, Slayer remained very faithful to the classic episodes. The first 5 levels are extremly easy due to rewarding secrets and the plentyness of items. However , the levels become really tougher once arrived to E2M5 and therefore more interesting. The author deciced to restrict health items and ammos and create more hazardous environnements , mainly because of the toxic liquid. I almost died in E1M6 because I almost got stuck by a baron after running out of ammo. The last level is not really hard but cybers can go very random while infighting !

 

Anyway, I still enjoy more the original IWAD. This is definitely a very solid episode but a lot of things make me think it doesn't surpass the ID software's levels.

 

File 5) HellKeep V2.0 by Mike Treit & Jason Clark (1995)

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Level starts in a fortress type setting, and later progresses into a variety of classical doom-style techno/hell themes. Fairly challenging, with plenty of surprises. This level was not designed specifically for deathmatch but Map 02 would, in our humble opinion, kick ass for that purpose, as would map 03. More levels are forthcoming... look for the latest versions of hellkeep on ftp.cdrom.com!

 

A set of 4 maps taking place in totally distinct areas : a marble fortress (Map 01), a wooden mansion (Map 02), arteries and flesh (Map 03) and a "city" made of MODWALL with some labs (map 04). Obviously , aesthetics are extremly outdated with a ton of misaligned textures but it didn't prevent me to appreciate this wad.

 

If you ignore the unreplaced midis, all maps ooze a strange and ominous atmosphere with a lot of darkness aggravated with blinking and glowing lights. The same way, I really like how the author built long and tall stairs as well as non-orthogonal layouts with verticality. The exploration was really exciting and keep us in suspense with many teleporters  and some traps which are sometimes a bit dangerous.

 

I think my favourite level is the last one , taking place in the weird city , even if I got dumbly stuck for 20 minutes. I think my attraction to this level is because of the large, empty outdoor areas that emphasize the fact that we start in buildings, high up.

 

A very good find for my part. I would play a megawad full of levels like them.

 

File 6) Cyberdemon fraggers 2.0 by William Lawson (1996)

 

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A large level where you grab your gun and go down and blast some cyberdemons, plus, you get: Some guys(zombiemen) a spider and three Arch-Viles up the top guarding the BFGs and Pain Elementals with Lost Souls and of course(on DM not co-op) the other player(s)

 

A silly map but still memorable because of the white custom texture which could fit in a modern laboratory themed map. Also, it's not that fun. You have a lot of powerful items but you definitely have not enough ammo to get rid of all those cyberdemons (if you want to kill the 4 "bonus" cyber locked in a small room)

 

This level also don't contain a proper exit. In order to finish the level , you have to press a random wall which use a marble texture.

 

Meh.

 

File 7) ALAIN.WAD by Alain ARRAULT (2004)

 

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New design, great space, full ammos and lot of monsters. Not so difficult to end but be carefull. Feedback should be appreciated.

 

An old map from 1994 uploaded on idgames 10 years later. Naming your wad with your first name is an extremely underrated practice. Anyway, Alain is a kind of strange mixture between "Trick and Traps" from Doom 2 and "Tower of Babel" from Doom 1.

 

Indeed, you start on the top of a kind of pyramid located at the middle of the central outdoors courtyard. You have to explore 6 triangular areas to find three keys in a determined order. Each place consists of a small test which are more or less dangerous. The worst part has several fast crushers.

 

After completing the first part , which strangely look like to the jewish star with 6 branches , you are transported to giant outdoors where you have to confront a single cyberdemon a few foes. Extremly easy part due to the fact , you have the BFG and many cells.

 

Great map with good aesthetics. I think it definitely fits in Wadarcheleogy.

 

 

I fell off in a very nasty dead pit in Gunsmoke

 

Eye of the Tiger v3.1 (1998) by Sparkle Tom

 

^{Play Settings}

^{Source port: prboom+, complevel 2}

^{Difficulty: UV}

 

This level has, in my opinion, the best description of any Doom WAD ever, and I’m simply going to share it in full: “Lucifer's nursury - and you're the nanny. Dispense lovin' and talcum. Work those wipes ... soothe that rash!”

 

I assumed that the WAD would have a hard time living up to its description, but Eye of the Tiger turned out to be a total delight. I could repurpose much of my earlier review of “Trial” for this map – sure it’s just a bunch of square rooms, but it loads you up with weapons, sends the full bestiary after you, and is a ton of mindless fun start to finish.

 

I could see complaints that it’s too backtrack-y since it only takes place over a handful of rooms, but I feel like there’s a distinction to be made between good backtracking and bad backtracking. Bad backtracking, as anyone who’s played even one wad for these adventures knows, is when you’re lost and bored and constantly traveling back through the same empty hallways for long periods of time. Good backtracking is when a level fully makes use of its space, sending you back to new fights in the same areas and re-contextualizing or re-making said areas. I’d say Eye of the Tiger mostly falls in the latter category.

 

What more is there to say? This is a real gem of the late 90s and a cracking good sendoff to this ER/iWA. Only real complaint: the titular MIDI was fun at first, but a bit too repetitive for the length of the map.

 

Grade: 7/10

TL;DR: “Lucifer's nursury - and you're the nanny. Dispense lovin' and talcum. Work those wipes ... soothe that rash!”

 

Day 13: Jägermörder - 01 Chemical Lab https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom2/Ports/d-f/dmdjm01

 

A map from the first year of Derek MacDonald (Afterglow)'s career, which would later include the Cacoward-winning Jägermörder 2, a map each for Eviternity and Hell Revealed 2, and quite a few texture packs. So, he's quite evidently a mapper of some importance, and we've all got to start somewhere, and as far as first WADs go, this isn't that bad.

 

The level does have one early point where you have to use a berserk against a hell knight, which took me out of my comfort zone, and they used a single silent teleport, but beyond that, I would find it hard to say much about the level. Scripting broke on my way to the yellow key resulting in a softlock, and it's got just enough backtracking to make it boring at times, which is made no easier by the fact so much of it looks the same, and also so much of it is blocked off by toxic floors. The only other thing I really have to say is that there's a lack of weapons available to the player, you get an SSG not too far in, a chaingun so far towards the end that it's barely worth mentioning, and that's it. It's not particularly challenging, they have at least 8 barons too many, which to reiterate you will have to SSG all of, including 3 of them coming at the very end, who unlike most last-room monsters you have to kill for the exit to open up. 6/10, a rather generic map, it's not particularly hard, it just wears you down.

Month 4 Day 08

 

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

 

File 1) XD700.WAD by Michael "migru" Grube (1995)

 

 

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Designed for Deathmatch (small, compact and no overflow of goodies). The size fits perfectly for 2 players. Use -altdeath (Deathmatch 2 rules). Single player is possible as well, but only in skill 5 (nightmare). Try to maximize the kills-percentage using the given ammunition (should be >1000% if you don't waste shells and cells as shown in my demo). There are only 6 monsters inside, but watch out. It's not as easy as it looks.

An aesthetically pleasing DM map for its time. I played the first time on UV before trying the NM challenge.  I managed to reach 1383 % kills because the 6 monsters are : 4 imps , 1 zombieman and a spectre. It's actually pretty simple if you don't dumbly waste your ammo. Anyway, I would really like to see more DM maps designed for this kind of challenge I found really fun !

 

File 2) DELUXE, a new environment for your preferred: DOOM ][ by Javier Fernando Almenara Otoya (1999)

 

 

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A file that constains some new Sound Effects, new Music (for level 1) and some new stuff, like 'nude' textures and screens, and much more; take a time and enjoy this WAD file.

 

One of the X-rated wads with nude pixelated women included in crappy levels. There is only a ugly level finishable in under 1 minute. Also , the author replaced the sky texture by a nude texture , but he had the good idea to make an underground-themed map. 

 

I died on damaging grass while trying to kill the stuck cacodemon locking the exit in a stupid speedmap from SargeBaldy Speedmapping Compilation #3

 

 

 

Day 14: Exist https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom2/Ports/d-f/exist

 

A 2006 map by th0r, who would then be active in Doomworld for another 4 years, making about 10 maps total, and this is quite good. Using Quake textures, it's surprisingly well thought out and challenging for something from the era.

 

Some people may be critical of the fact that this is a pretty linear map, there's very little choice in where to go, which you can look at as a strength and a weakness. There's not much player freedom, but that also means there is almost zero backtracking, which is something I am all for. The fights themselves are a bit tougher than what I've come to expect from anything pre-2010 (or maybe I should say the pre-Ribbiks era), but even on UV I didn't have too much trouble despite them being ever so slightly sparse on health kits. Apart from one section that involves teleporting into hurtfloors (while on 10% health, in my case), that isn't lava or nukage which are the two universally recognised symbols of hurtfloor, while also dealing with a two-pronged attack and not realising for a while that I needed to have jumping enabled to actually move properly was notable as twice as hard as any other point in the WAD. The second hardest part is any point involving stairs, normally I'm a mouselook purist, I'd be going through the ER/IWA via Crispy Doom if it had a screenshot feature, but I had to turn mouselook on for these stairs, there's multiple of them, and they've specifically put in the very monsters who benefit the most from trapping you like that when you can't fight back. Still, the Quake textures look good, and the .OGG that comes with it is just as good, a 7/10, a good map that is probably a lot less monotonous to go through on a second playthrough than most. According to th0r that means that I'm not gay.

 

 

Run, Hide, or DIE -

The WADS Never Stop

 

A new adventure awaits!

 

On 8/22/2021 at 3:53 PM, Sena said:

Day 14: Exist https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom2/Ports/d-f/exist

 

A 2006 map by th0r, who would then be active in Doomworld for another 4 years, making about 10 maps total, and this is quite good. Using Quake textures, it's surprisingly well thought out and challenging for something from the era.

 

Some people may be critical of the fact that this is a pretty linear map, there's very little choice in where to go, which you can look at as a strength and a weakness. There's not much player freedom, but that also means there is almost zero backtracking, which is something I am all for. The fights themselves are a bit tougher than what I've come to expect from anything pre-2010 (or maybe I should say the pre-Ribbiks era), but even on UV I didn't have too much trouble despite them being ever so slightly sparse on health kits. Apart from one section that involves teleporting into hurtfloors (while on 10% health, in my case), that isn't lava or nukage which are the two universally recognised symbols of hurtfloor, while also dealing with a two-pronged attack and not realising for a while that I needed to have jumping enabled to actually move properly was notable as twice as hard as any other point in the WAD. The second hardest part is any point involving stairs, normally I'm a mouselook purist, I'd be going through the ER/IWA via Crispy Doom if it had a screenshot feature, but I had to turn mouselook on for these stairs, there's multiple of them, and they've specifically put in the very monsters who benefit the most from trapping you like that when you can't fight back. Still, the Quake textures look good, and the .OGG that comes with it is just as good, a 7/10, a good map that is probably a lot less monotonous to go through on a second playthrough than most. According to th0r that means that I'm not gay.

 

 

Thanks for the review. I have actually made a loooot more maps than 10 but they are kinda scattered and maybe lost by now. Sorry for old post bump.