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NOVA: The Birth

   (38 reviews)

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10 Screenshots

About This File

/\/\/\FILE UPDATED (Ver 1.1) 8/31/15/\/\/\
Here we worked on creating a 32 map megawad consisting of efforts by those who are new to the Doom mapping experience. The restrictions are as follows:
- All maps must be in limit removing format (-complevel 2 if that definition means anything to you)
- All maps are to be made entirely from stock Doom II textures.


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MuratMikal

  

This is a great megawad! Most of maps are well designed, balanced and pretty fun to play. The first hard part of megawad is MAP 15, the final fight (2 parts). After that, MAP 17 is other major spike in difficulty. Then, MAP 28 and 30 are very hard, with 30 being the hardest of the set. Anyway, favorite maps = 18, 20, 25, 28 and 30 (half of it really). The only bad map I've found is MAP 31. Overall it's a megawad I recommend but be warned MAP 30 is very though in UV, I had to play this in HMP instead. I will certainly replay this one eventually!

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P41R47

·

  

Remember when maps weren't planed all around coreographed encounters and turrets of enemies, and just tried to be originals, creative, and with a satisfying challenge that its not a walk on the park but also doesn't is a slaughterfest?
Well, Nova: The Birth is that and much more.
Maps and maps of pure and sheer creativity without restrictions.
Love it from the get go!
Some maps draw a little as they are a little too big or with a little too much arenas to be totally enjoyable, but most of the maps are around the medium to large with interesting areas and neat effects.

 

Its not a 5 because last map, beside being a great achievement, have a really unfair an slaughterish arena that isn't funny at all and diverges too much from all the other parts of the megawad. Also, there are heavy ramps-up in difficulty on some maps, not that is bad, but a little more balance could have been better.

It is a great achievement from new and fresh mappers with some aid and contributions by amazing veterans that offered some really marvelous maps to the set.
 

Probably gonna play it a lot in the future as i really enjoyed it!

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Poncho1

  

[ SUPER LONG REVIEW ]

 

I like the idea of a WAD being created by inexperienced and/or new mappers: it can showcase new idiosyncracies and allow little (in most cases, I guess)-known people to make a name for themselves on these forums.

 

Having beat this for the third time and knowing how a good chunk of the levels worked, I also turned my focus to design and thematic consistency. Thankfully, the levels all seem to have about the same sort mapping skill on an aesthetic scale (with a few exceptions). This isn't a negative, by the way; if there's anything I dislike, it's seeing a beautiful map followed by a vastly inferior-looking one. That sort of thing doesn't gell well. The first NOVA on the other hand is consistent on that front. And, besides, considering the whole nature of the WAD, maps not looking quite as polished as stuff you'd see in Sunlust or BTSX isn't at all bad.

 

So, what comes to basic looks, the WAD comes together nicely. How do the mappers themselves, what comes to gameplay, fare? Above-average, I'd say.

 

PRIMEVAL, who made the first level (Outpost) and co-made The Seventh Circle (Map28) goes for typical pistol gameplay in the former. Kinda stale type of gameplay, but it works for a simple Map01.

 

Jaws in Space only made Map02 (Administration Center), a sort of fast-ish paced techbase level with a nukage-cavern and ocean backdrop. Besides the hideous-looking toilets (well, I suppose that's the point), it looks fine. Gameplay can be a bit annoying, considering you'll have to use the Pistol for a bit.

 

mrthejoshmon ups the game, making 3 levels: his first (Map03: Water Treatment Plant) is a compact map with some bigger monsters. It's alright: okay secrets and a non-official SSG (while I do like). Compound (Map08) is a kind of tribute to Containment Area (or I guess Storage Facility from TNT?) and has some secrets that weren't placed too good. Again, it's compact, and slow-paced. Luckily his third and last entry, Incubator (Map12) is a faster run-and-gun through an admittedly blocky-looking tech area (it uses that ugly black-and-white texture quite a lot). Still, a fun map is a fun map, so I can't complain too much.

 

EvilNed is one of the more prolific mappers in this particular WAD, authoring 5 maps: 04, 07, 10, 14 and 17. All have a distinct look to them: tech levels that contain some form of liquid, whether it be simple water, lava, etc.. I must admit, his secret placement isn't what I'd personally call stellar, and the gameplay is really hit-and-miss: for some maps, like Map07, it's really fun (besides that damn ending!), others are adequate (04 and 14, the latter of which I'd argue has TOO many Mancubi, in spite of the map's jokey name "Man Cub Up") and the other two are just a bit frustrating (in 10, some areas shut off and potentially ruin a 100% run, and 17's ending is flat-out annoying, and has pretty shaky pacing).

 

Next up is kildeth. Not a fan of his first map, Hazard Facility (Map05), what with the damaging floors everywhere, monster placement that I found obnoxious and, in my mind, crappy secrets. His second entry, Sensorium (Map27) is weird in that it's quite large but has sub-100 enemies. The first time I played it I hated it, but using the current UV-max strategy, it's more bareable.

 

Arjak's two levels are quite different from one another: the first, Sewage Processing (Map06) is a compact map with a lot of secrets (relatively easy to find, one of which has an SSG!) and rather fun gameplay. Map20 (Castle Bloodletting) is a much larger level, with an annoying start that has enemies just about everywhere, but progressively gets better. The ending is quite tense.

 

FuzzyFireball's only level is Suspend (Map09), a very linear massacre through hallways where the enemy fodder becomes stronger as you progress. Tense and fun.

 

Phobus Anomaly (Map11) is a very Phobus level; rather small, and precise (and concise) enemy placement. I will admit though that I wasn't a huge fan: some of said enemy placement did feel annoying.

 

sgt dopey delivers one of the first bigger maps in the form of Warehouse District (Map13). The start isn't great; for one thing, there's a slow lift that you have to manually activate to proceed, and falling from where you end up meand you have to repeat a dumb ascent to a switch, blah blah blah. The highlight is the ending in a city-looking area, with a fight with a Cyberdemon.

 

Cannonball is a mapper who, in general, is REALLY hit-and-miss for me, and his NOVA levels are no exception. His first outing, The Prisoner (Map15) is not one of his masterpieces: aggitating enemy placement and Arch-Vile traps that bugged me to no end. The ending's quite tense, but it doesn't make up for the rest. Power Core (Map18) is our first real taste of slaughter-ish gameplay; it's okay. The Hell Revealed-inspired "maze" looks neat but plays like crap, but besides that, the map's serviceable with enough resources and well-thought secrets.

 

Paul D made Teleportarium (Map16), quite the fun "go-left-or-right-to-find-whatever-key" sort of level, featuring an ever-increasing growth of enemies that swarm the centre of the map. He revisits some of the areas of this map with his second entry, Immaterium (Map23), which is sort of Map16 if it was merged with Hell. Cool design, but I don't think the gameplay elevated it to quite the former map's status.

 

Cyriak (or mouldy) is one of the mappers (along with Cannonball and dobu) whose aesthetics rise above most of the others, and sort of fucks with the consistency I was on about above. Despite this, his maps are fun to play and you can see his surreal design bearing fruit (and being perfected in Going Down). Bad Blood (Map19) is apparently his first Doom map ever, and it's quite impressive. The ending with the Hellish tentacles are very Cyriak-y. Vile Arterium (Map25) has the fatal sin of being beatable in less than 30 seconds: you can literally run straight to the exit with a Hell Knight and maybe a Cyberdemon in your way, whom you can avoid. Besides that, it's okay, with a lot of diverse areas like a blood sewer (?), machinery, vents, etc.. The Seventh Circle is, I'm guessing, mostly a product from him, and is possibly my favourite map in the WAD; a large cave, a library and prison-like areas... also, inventive traps.

 

joe-ilya delivers a couple of Hell-themed maps, the first being Beta Base (Map21), which does have ammo and the like, but just enough to kill everything. It's weird since the last level didn't have a death exit, so why do this? I dunno, maybe for pistol starters. In any case, okay, the ending with the enemies in the field is dumb. Hell's Playground (Map26) is a "jog"-paced (between slow and fast) map revolving around the chaingun and the shotguns. It's more of a filler level than anything.

 

Getsu Fune's two maps are distinct for having large rooms: Broken Confluence Point (Map22) starts off with a few monsters, then gradually opens up revealing Hellish caverns and gives you a nice dose of heavy artillery to help out. The ending involving telefragging teleporters sucks, though. The secret map Riptide (Map32) is a borderline-Tyson adventure underwater. Interesting idea, just very slow and not well executed in my opinion.

 

Stygian gives us one of the big maps, Rings of Gyges (Map24). Getting some of the secrets is a pain, and a lot of the enemies feel like they're there just to boost the monster count up. Some fun areas involving key traps, but that's about it.

 

dobu gabu maru's secret map Iron Exuviae (Map31) can be beaten pacifist, but going for the super secret exit, that's a whole different story. I actually enjoy the non-fighting portions, since the areas where you DO engage with enemies are generally poorly conceived. The first area is tight and has a ton of corners that you can easily get pushed into and it's game-over, and the last has a massive swarm of Revenants and a bunch of pillars you can easily rocket yourself into. Nice design and music, but otherwise bothersome.

 

Memfis and fiend-o-hell collaborate on the same map, the penultimate one: Extorta Nova (Map29). Usually a map made (or at least co-made) by Memfis is a good sign, but sadly the first half is a bit daft, waiting on slow lifts to get you into areas with 20-dealing damage floors and, once again, telefrag teleporters. To me, that is indeed "artificial difficulty". Just teleport the player near the start. The Cyberdemons are in tight corridors. God help those playing this from pistol start.

 

So, that should be just about all the mappers. Some of them (namely: kildeth, dobu, Cannonball, Cyriak and Arjak) collaborated for the behemoth of a final level, Megiddo! Each made their own section. Only three are required, but for completion's sake I did them all! Arjak's is probably the easiest and has by far the least enemies, though the Revs and the Spider Mastermind can be bitches. Dobu revisits some areas from the previous maps (that's an idea I've always wanted to see, so cool), which flows quite nicely. Cannonball goes for slaughter-like gameplay, and it's quite fun actually, and can get really intense. Cyriak is more fiendish, using Arch-Viles especially to catch the player off guard. I can see this frustrating some people beyond belief, but knowing this stuff beforehand, it's fine; I also like the blue design. kildeth, I suppose, made the southwestern portion which I stand by as the "bullshit" section: a wide-open cavern with Pain Elementals, a few Cyberdemons, Arch-Viles and hitscanners galore. Sure, there's an Invulnerability, but even so, it's dumb. Also, 20-damaging floors are aggravating! The actual ending looks cool, and isn't that tough: a small clan of monsters, then focus on a trio of Cyberdemons then shoot into the boss brain. You win!

 

All-in-all, a mostly consistent (I have a limited vocab, I know), interesting WAD that warrants a try.

 

Best Maps: 06, 09, 16, 19, 28, 30

 

Worst Maps: 05, 15, 31

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Juza

  

Better than the second entry in the series.

What shines brightest in this pack is the third episode, although the previous two are also pretty good, though of course, all containing some black sheep.

 

Although I don't judge a work by the author's name, I was very impressed with the work from the beginners here. There's passion in these levels, their greatest aim was to be fun. I have good memories from these levels.

 

It's worth a check, it might be someone's deal.

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valkiriforce

  

There were fun maps and there were okay maps - some of them blur my memory after a while due to an abundance of techbases, but there are some solid earth/brick maps and of course hell maps to be found later on. My highlight experience would have to be mouldy's contributions as well as dobu's metal map puzzle and likely a few others - otherwise there wasn't much here I felt was spectacular which is understandable given it's a beginner's project.

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Kalerdulius

  

Maps of interest: 20, 21, 25, 26, 28, 29.

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trrobin

  
Yep, it's pretty darn good. I preferred the later levels to the earlier, although the last level was a bit grindy. Still a gooden overall.

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vespa

  
Fun up to Map20, after that it gets... weirdly not fun anymore. Would be 4/5 but the Nightwish midis really put me off.

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Guest

  
Reminds me of the first two Community Chests in a way. Worth a play, even if its rough around the edges in some maps.

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NightFright

  
I admit being sceptical at first when I was reading about a "newbie mapper" effort. However, levels are surprisingly good. There may be a few visually weaker ones, and also difficulty is a bit mixed (especially later on), but it's fun and not too hard. Beware of maps 28 and 30 - they are massive and brutal slaughter maps. For my taste, the final map was too long, merging many levels of the pack into an insane mix with 800+ monsters. Could have had 5 stars otherwise. I liked it.

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Guest

  
Maps 1-20 generally pretty good. After that, stoopid takes over, either incomprehensible, ugly map design or boring-as-watching-p aint-dry slaughter maps. Ruins the overall wad totally. Worth it for first 2/3 though.

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Guest

Unknown date

  
A good idea, well executed with definitely some interesting results. It's different from your ordinary community megawad which that alone, gives it some unique qualities. For early author efforts even the levels themselves are generally solid works. A successful project overall.

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Guest

Unknown date

  
Very good work.....this is very close to Cacaward.....or maybe runner up either way 5/5 Cheers.... -Popsicleman313

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Guest

Unknown date

  
This was surprisingly fun! Maps are definitely lacking in detail and atmosphere departments, but they sure are fun and (mostly) of perfect size and reasonably challenging. Also, I must mention awesome choice of music in several maps.:)

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dg93

Unknown date

  
Excellent quality maps, exhilarating gameplay, and overall impressive megawad. Great job NOVA Team. 5/5

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rsl

Unknown date

  
A remarkable set of levels - especially in the latest part (large and continuously changing settings, with fights against large hordes). Also the music stands out as one of the few catchy and pleasing soundtracks ever encountered in a MegaWAD. 5*

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Andrea Rovenski

Unknown date

  
Very very nice wad. Although some of the latter maps are a little rough. Overall though this is definitely a must-play.

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Jaws In Space

Unknown date

  
So what do you get when a bunch of noobs come together to make some map? You get a map that feels surprisingly similar to Evilution. Even right down to E1 & E2 being tech base & E3 being vaguely hellish. I will say that Tech levels do start to blend with each other after awhile & most of the crap does show up in E3. Still I can say that I look forward to seeing new projects from Paul D, Dobu Gabu Maru, Stygian, fiend-o-hell, & Mouldy in the future.

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IMX

Unknown date

  
"this is a newbie's PWAD". Well, except for a bunch of lower unpegged textures in some doors this map seems to tell otherwise (specially MAP31). Great job guys!

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NuMetalManiak

Unknown date · Edited by NuMetalManiak

  

on the surface, NOVA looks like another community megawad, you'll find the level that sparks your interest, then you move on, possibly finding another one that sparks your interest, and then you move on from there. that's much of the experience with it, and it's not something bad at all. mostly standard fare, with a number of nuances here and there due to the idea that NOVA was made by and for the newbies out there, which I also participated in somewhat. regardless of any discrepancies that may have been exaggerated during playtesting, the wad maintains consistency in fun factor and even the weak levels work out for the better. while NOVA II ended up with more standouts, this one still holds pretty decently, with the two secret levels, Megiddo (the five mapper trend coming after it) and mouldy's maps marking the high strides of the megawad.

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Guest

Unknown date

  
Good stuff. Map19 and 29 were too laggy for me to play however.

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Guest

Unknown date

  
They may be new to mapping, but they are evidently NOT new to DooM; it shows in the high quality gameplay. For a group project it's very consistent, except for the occasional dud (Map 31 has the worst gameplay idea i've ever seen. It takes 10min just to find monsters, and then you get slaughtered... wtf?!? you may want to forego the secret levels just for that; map 26 is downright HIDEOUS...) A very decent mapset, and never easy. Great if you like your DooM shaken instead of stirred...

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Guest

Unknown date

  
Right nice there. Well done!

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joe-ilya

Unknown date

  
Lots of detail and well thought out gameplay.

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  • File Reviews

    • By Mizuki_Jun10 · Posted
      It turned out to be a surprise for me because I didn't expect it to be such a fun level, when he said he wanted a lot of monsters in his level I didn't imagine that amount of monsters, but it was definitely fun.   I consider it a very good map, for its time, for a first map made by him, for a very humble map.   But overall I don't consider it a great or extraordinary experience, I don't see myself revisiting Crusher, but I can't call it Average because what he did is super interesting.   And it's a long level, which I also didn't expect, but to be more precise, the exploration is interesting, the layout was a little diverse, and the action on the map kept me focused and entertained, some rooms had poorly aligned textures and didn't seem to have been looked at at the last minute, which is a bit strange because he said he spent a lot of time developing the map, but I imagine why since at that time there wasn't an "Ultimate DOOM Builder" with automatic texture alignment, or maybe there was one automatic alignment?   And the maze everyone mentioned was annoying, yes I admit it lasted a lot longer than it should have, and I feel like it could have been shortened in Wad's release, it made the level feel longer than it is too, but I don't feel so much that the level it got worse because of it.   The positioning of enemies isn't that great, but they make you take cautious measures at times, but at times I was like... "It could be better..."   But that's it, it's a good level, it hasn't aged well, it could be better, but I feel like it would be unfair to call this level average, it's a level that I enjoyed, did things that weren't that common at the time, and seemed to use of resources that at the time many used wrongly, I don't feel like I wasted my time. I deserve to see more from the mapper.... (If he released something after that of course...)
    • By Mizuki_Jun10 · Posted
      Surprising even, one of the newest community maps out there, 1994, wow, but it's still a bad map, the encounters are interesting, the layout is the most superior aspect here, but it still doesn't support the technical errors that even for 1994 were already guaranteed by the original DOOM maps. Weird textures, lack of variety, lack of a more interesting design than platforms going down or going up in the dark, some moments were really fun like the dark cave itself, but the fun lasts very little, with spaces that are too tight, and a shallow exploration.
    • By Mizuki_Jun10 · Posted
      I love Quake, it's my favorite Shooter, and I totally forgive the lack of detail and technical refinement that Mapper concluded here, but I have to say that even though the map is still recognizable compared to the classic E1M1 from Quake... The map just doesn't have such a refined texturing, a good light variation, and many of the areas don't even carry the classic Quake identity, as the best example: The part where we get the Nailgun, there aren't even monsters and an encounter with Zombiemans in that room , there is very little positive to consider here unfortunately, but it was a bit fun in some parts. Either way, there are a lot of negative things that make it impossible to ignore while playing the level, a horrible map, how sad.
    • By Mizuki_Jun10 · Posted
      Normally I would define these two maps as maps with interesting premises whose execution does not positively complement the result, Chicken.wad has such a simple layout that it is disappointing at first sight, which keeps you at a higher height than Cyberdemons that you They wait in sectors that flash between dark and very light, I can only be direct in saying that although the battle between the Cyberdemons is fun, the map doesn't present you with anything other than that, and it is even impossible to cross the other side of the bridge endless to eliminate the rest of Cyberdemons. Completing Chicken (Even though Chicken doesn't have an exit on his map.).   Let's go to Gangstar.wad, you can see a somewhat open space, different from the previous experience, but with the classic theme of a UAC warehouse style E2M2 from DOOM, but the boxes here are a little distorted? (Perhaps spacetime begged the mappers not to finish the maps so it distorted the map space causing this visual curse.) As much as the open spaces of the map are fun to navigate, the fun is short-lived with several of the structures being distorted. carrying with them ill-adjusted texturing. Clearly a superior map to the previous one, but unfortunately still poor, the repetitiveness of the texturing, plus a bland design and several other missing details, make this map yet another disappointment unfortunately.   The verdict is that both maps are completely disposable, I would love for the mappers to continue with their work after such complicated work, so they would at least be able to build more and improve the quality of their design work.
    • By Devalaous · Posted
      One of the classic megawads, and the successor to TNT Evilution. I've played this several times over the years, and its grown on me more with each play as my tastes mature.   Still has a bunch of maps that got me killed in 2024, after ive finished stuff like HR and AV, and plenty of maps are memorable. Only real downsides is some of the levels have little content, showing its age.
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