Doomsday of UAC

Beautiful map for 1994, especially when compared to others at the same time, although a little bit empty and easy (even with fast monsters, but this could be just me).

As others said, this is worth at least a single playthrough. I give it 4.5 stars.

Nice use of Doom's linedef actions + storytelling

nice translucent platforms, the feeling to play on an almost openworld map despite being made in the mid90s

Absolute must play for anyone interested in evolution of Doom mapping or fans of classic 90's wads.

I can't imagine what seeing this for the first time in 1994 must have been like. So many tropes and engine tricks that would become prominent in Doom mapping are on full display here, in one of the oldest user maps ever.

Self referencing sectors are used to create invisible stairs, flat and texture choices simulate colored lighting and there is even a setpiece simulating a tunnel collapse, complete with barrels for explosions!

Supported by a short story included in the text file, there is a clear narrative throughout, starting with your arrival at the UAC complex and culminating in a showdown with a cyberdemon and lost souls (which are implied to be those of your 5 pals who disappeared when you arrived) and your escape in some sort of shuttle. 

The whole map is perhaps the greatest early example of attempts at creating realistic locations in Doom, best represented by the crashed truck you start in, which still looks pretty great even today. Could it be the oldest example of doomcute?

All of this is enough to make this one of the most important maps ever. John Romero himself named it the first "really cool" user-made PWAD he played.

Doomsday of UAC is great for its time, but I must say, I don't enjoy it as much as some other wads from that era, like Galaxia. Aside from its iconic sights, the map is pretty bare, with huge but mostly empty areas, which do give the map a sense of epic scale and show off the custom skybox, but the size and openness makes the gameplay incredibly easy. All you need is circle strafing.

Still, it is incredibly creative, looks great for the time and is fun to go through. Not to mention it's historical significance.

Impressive ideas. Must play. 

5 stars for what this WAD meant in the year it came out, without a doubt the best wad of 1994, good aesthetics, level design and confrontations with monsters, a must-have WAD.

Fun fact: John Romero has specifically named UAC_DEAD as the first "really cool" user-made PWAD I have ever played.

-Juancho

Ah UAC_Dead, I often find myself coming back to it from time to time just because it has a certain kind of charm in its aesthetic. Its details are fairly minimal yet do quite well at conveying a sort of tangibility to the level as a whole. Things like the main building having a lobby and bathrooms, a scenic fountain with the iconic "3D" Logo before a sort of garage-like area, and an overturned and totaled truck serving as your start with a still spinning wheel to boot. And this isn't even to mention perhaps its coolest feature being the invisible staircase in the hellish caverns; a fairly well known mapping quirk today but was and can probably still be considered dazzling both when it came out and now. This and a few other neat tricks like the clever use of the special map tag and caving in tunnel that towards the end that you must get around by "blowing" up the wall nearby certainly make it a memorable experience.

Difficulty-wise it isn't too terribly hard, but is a bit stilted with the beginning certainly being the hardest before petering off into being quite easy once you acquire bigger guns, especially the BFG. It is also for better or worse a quite linear journey with only a decently sized secret area serving as any kind of detour. By the time you finish off the Cyberdemon and grab the Red Skull, there may quite possibly be only one enemy left at the very end assuming you cleared all previous resistance, leaving you with a somewhat anticlimactic run back through most of the level to open up the locked door to the end. To some this can certainly be a turn off to have a decently strong start only to decline from there to finish, and whether you think the scenery alone can make up for this is entirely on your own preferences.

While the map itself sits firmly at a 4/5 for me, I would have to say to anyone going into this for a first time to expect about a 3/5 overall experience. It is a map where its looks are definitely better over its game play, and considering it is a WAD from 94 you shouldn't expect even that to blow you away. But other than some iffy game play that has aged poorer than the looks, it doesn't really have much else necessarily bad about it. Worth at least a single good playthrough.

Although it looks bland in some parts, there's a lot of cool ideas on display here, and apparently this the first known use of self-referencing sectors, I can imagine how they were pretty mindblowing back in 1994!

The absolute standout area of the map is of course the red cave with the invisible stairs, which would probably hold up well even if it were in a modern vanilla WAD, let alone one from 1994.

Sadly the gameplay doesn't match up with the visual aspect. The map can start off pretty rough with the numerous sergeants dotted about the first area. After that it's all very easy, and at times even dull, which is a shame because the visuals here are very impressive for the time it was made.