Hoover Dam

First things first, if you want to experience the map, do yourself a favor and look for a cool fitting midi that inspires nature and beavers, open this wad in an editor like SLADE and import that new midi, which will replace the ol' d_runnin, which doesn't suit the environment. For reference, I picked Requiem's MAP05 and it worked nicely. 

 

Did you do it? Good.

 

Hoover Dam is a recreation of the actual place in the USA named like that, which I've never seen in real life and never will. It's atmospheric outside, with a neat vista of the dam, and the canyon, although dry and empty, isn't painted in just one texture but various different rocks interspersed, kinda gives it more colour. Visually the only boring parts are deep inside when it's not cool sector enginery. 

 

Most of the action happens on the ledges around the rocks and plenty more to work out in the interiors, you wander through caverns, facilities, control bases, a hellish portion, and even a very flat very narrow maze that can rub a pain elemental's little arms. It's nothing exceptional if you're familiar with '90s type of combat flow, and the high ration of blue artifacts will diminish some of the dirtiest surprises later on, unless you're being too careless with The Tomato Crew. I quite enjoyed the exploration and the feeling of ending an invasion of imp-like beavers, who wouldn't enjoy that?!

 

Cinematic elements abound. My favourite was a fissure in some generator room expanding behind me while the floor was slowly collapsing, that felt a little scary. Arriving to the top of the dam, long after I stared at its imposing height from below, was a good sensation, as if I marked the most important checkpoint in the map.

Stop the invasion of the damned dam before the demons blow it down. Cool visuals, try not to fall down.

Excellent stuff for the mid-1990s. Lots of action, good layouts, pretty challenging on UV. 

 

9/10

The visuals are simple for the most part and there are some small visual glitches, but the gameplay was very fun.

For its time, I suppose it's a good level, although gameplay isn't amazing. Finished it in 20 minutes on UV.

A classic. I remember playing this was when I began editing Doom myself.

It's OK, but no more than that. I found the gameplay only so-so. There were many far better and more imaginative wads in 1996.

This is nothing short of legendary. With great visuals, superb gameplay, and nice tricky sequences and traps, it is Michael Reed's masterpiece and one of the most classic levels in existence. --5/5

couple of hom moments , but otherwise a bloody good classic

One of the best classic levels for Doom 2.

Legendary. I remember snagging this off the old PCGamer CDs back in 96. Truly one of the first great maps I remember playing, and one of the first to try and emulate a real life setting. -Scuba

Very fun and classy map for it's time. 5/5 -Mr. Chris

Pretty neat

Classic stuff.

I was pleasantly surprised at how fun this map was, even though it's over a decade old. Glad to see Mike still mapping with the release of The Spire 2. ***** -deldelda

This wad's a classic. Every Doomer should play this at least once. This level could have benefited from a different sky texture. The default Doom 2 sky texture looks really bad.

Heh, I didn't even know this was on the archives! Well, now I've seen it - Legendary. One of the few old wads that was a real challenge, looked good and was awe inspiring in size.

Good fun, and surprisingly tricky. It takes place in a canyon leading up to a big dam, and it's especially clever for something that uses the plain Doom 2 engine. The ledges reminded me of a similar level from Half-Life, which was a couple of years down the line.

This is definitely one of the best old wads I've played.Close quarter lay-out makes it challenging for 3/4 of the map;the end opens up and gives you room to breathe.Recommended to anyone looking for a good old school map to play.5*

Great classic style map. Not overly challenging but the exploration and progression are very nicely done. I just love big open spaces and the author really tried (and succeeded) in making this very fun to play. 5/5

This should come packaged with Doom, a must play and a great piece of Doom history!

HUGE!!!! Took one hour to complete. Great level for an oldie. Well Done.

Pretty old map. Successful recreation of a dam. Their main problem is its ease, but give it 4 stars.

it is mint but the grafics arn't that good

Played great and delivered the good old Vanilla Doom map experience. Idiots complaining about it only utilizing vanilla textures or having poor gameplay can shove it, not every WAD needs to be something revolutionary or groundbreaking. If you have HOM issues, it isn't the map's problem; try using a newer version of ZDoom (GZDoom 1.9 pre-406 is what I used and I had no problems) or Vanilla Doom before complaining, ya dingus.