Deadly Standards

This wad played in DWmegawad Club at the april of 2019. Despite some flaws (or features) such as the lack of medikits on E1M2, the puzzle progression on E1M3 and the overly ambitious E1M8, the whole team of mappers did a good job. Also Deadly Standards 2 is on the way, so stay tuned.

we have so many E1 replacements it's hard to keep track of them all. Deadly Standards adds to that pile with these maps, most of them are pretty short and fairly servicable. it's not too amazing but it doesn't need to be. E1M1 is a good starting level, E1M4 I didn't like all that much, and E1M8 was psychotic and I loved it. as with any multi-authored level set, this obviously is a mixed bag of sorts.

I just finished the whole episode in one sitting. It was great. I had a lot fun discovering each mapper's style in relatively classic Ultimate Doom limit-removing maps. Indeed , each mapper offered more detailed and more complex maps than the original IWAD. Whereas the three first levels were rather classic (good but not really interesting) , the later levels were more unique , especially the last ones.

Here is my personnal top 3 maps :

1) E1M7 - Eden Log by @Angry Saint

A really intriguing and unusually curvy tech base. It reminds me of Nicolas monti's maps but with aligned and carefully chosen textures. It was the most beautiful map for me . I really liked exploring it despite the fact that the gameplay was very basic. A few more secrets would not have been too much too. By the way , I loved this map because I saw you tried something new.

2) E1M8 - Obliterate Anomalies @Spectre01

Hum... That map was just completely chaotic and psychedelic lol. I really loved the visuals , you definitely have an unique style. You have the best representation of hell : A mess of nonsensical textures but with a massive and detailed architecture. I found your map diabolically beautiful. I liked the gameplay but I was not really prepared for slaughter. It's bad you gave up your map for Deadly Standards 2.

3) To The Surface by @riderr3

It's maybe one of the only maps I liked more for its gameplay than its aesthectics. The level was quite beautiful but I above all enjoyed the progression and especially the part with the huge elevator. This map has a more pronounced adventurous aspect due to fact you must go up to the surface. It's a good gimmick to make more height variations in a Doom map.

Honorable mentions

E1M5 - Third Moon Lab by @CarpetolA : An aesthetically pleasing level with light gradients and fine details. I only regret that some brick textures are poorly misaligned.

E1M6 - The Inner Port by @mrthejoshmon : A quite short level which manages to give a creepy atmosphere. The lack of armor (except in the secret) keeps the player on stress

E1M4 - Research Station by @The_SloVinator : An interesting mixture between action and darkness. teleporting lots of different monsters to the same place is simple but effective !

You can watch my demos : HERE

Fantastic! Quite lovely detailed & challenging maps!

Put on your sunscreen and get ready for the startan, because Deadly Standards is a quality, community project replacement for episode 1. The problem is its a mixed bag between long and confusing levels that hinder the experience to enjoyable levels of the right length.

The levels look good, they play good with balanced health and ammo for the most part, but some of them get confusing, especially the third mission in a mostly outdoor military base. Its a true puzzle where you can see the keys, get to the keys, its just a matter of getting through the doors to get to the keys. That's not the only stumbling block for the episode, a few have darkness, but its still manageable via the map or bumping around in the darkness. Other than that, there's a good use of heights, lifts, stairs, near enemies and far enemies in each level.

The theme of startan and tech base overlaps a lot of levels as its an episode 1 replacement. It wouldn't be that big of a problem if each level didn't sprinkle them throughout. While each level is its own unique snow flake, there sure are a lot of brown and silver snow on the ground that took me 10 - 30 minutes to shovel each level. Multiple play throughs would of course reduce the time.

Another issue is the length of each level versus the variety of enemies. Playing the first 5 levels of the episode for 80 minutes, I had seen enough shotgunners, imps, zombiemen and pinkies to last me the next year. There are specters and caco demons here and there, even a sparse baron, but they are rare. If the levels were shorter, it wouldn't be as noticeable. I begin to feel the excess of hit scan snipers by the first and second level, even if other authors don't use the hit scan snipers nearly as much.

The secrets are worth mentioning as there are a lot and a lot of good ones too even if the items inside aren't a big deal. New music and what felt like remixes of the original songs were nice, even if they were getting a bit old by the completion of some levels.

Overall, the maps would be better off alone or to feel fresh and could have dealt with making things less confusing or shorter to not be as redundant with their theme and lack of enemy variety. You as a player can take it one or two levels a day so they stay fresh.