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Number One Kill The Next Generation

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There was hexen and hexen2, startrek and startrek the next generation, quake and quake2. What do they all have in common? The sequel was a hell of a lot better than the original which was good any ways. Well now theirs #1kill the next generation which follows the tradition. It features 23 never before seen levels with new textures and music from all off doom ever created under Id. It was built with the experience of building 13 levels for doom/doom2 and the experience of playing doom, doom2, final doom, obtic, hexen, swheretic, quake, and other levels off the net, These levels are built to be challenging with the quality you would expect from Id, playability, and beauty in mind.


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Book Lord

· Edited by Book Lord

  

Our current Doom community loves to look into itself, to support the creative work of its members, and it sometimes dares to ask for more, despite an output that surpasses any reasonable playing capacity. It did not always go that way: the community used to be smaller, internet connections were slower, and not every piece of work got the exposure it readily receives nowadays. I cannot see any other reason for Angelo Jefferson to be such an obscure author, considering the originality of the WADs he submitted to idgames archive, in times when the database was overfilled with amateurish works. 

 

Angelo Jefferson believed in himself enough to create his own franchise, the Number One Kill series, and to advertise it as “built to be challenging with the quality you would expect from Id, playability, and beauty in mind”. He even arranged the now defunct email address N1Kill@aol.com to collect comments and tips from his audience. When he uploaded The Next Generation he was longing for feedback, he expressed his will to fix any bugs people might report, and he looked forward to releasing a full 32-map version called The Final Frontier, planned for Christmas ’97. Sadly, nothing of this happened, so we are left with a mutilated work lacking the entire third episode, and most notably a comprehensive quality check. I do not know what happened; I can only assume Jefferson did not receive the expected attention, so he moved on from Doom to never come back.

 

After his disappearance, his body of work quickly fell into oblivion, put in the shade by the combat scale of Hell Revealed, by the teamwork of the Innocent Crew and their comrades with the Memento Mori series, and by the engine trickery and graphic prowess displayed in Requiem. That was a shame, since The Next Generation displayed great combat fundamentals, rooted in the IWADs but filtered with a gameplay vision that was way ahead of its time. Not only Angelo Jefferson was probably the first solo author to submit a 23-map megaWAD to idgames, but he was also an early student of Plutonia’s encounter design, that he successfully emulated and expanded beyond the safety guidelines.

 

Thematically, The Next Generation showed little or no continuity, jumping between disjointed locations that matched the classic IWAD design tropes: tech-bases, mines, buildings engulfed by the natural landscape, evil strongholds, urban sandboxes, and the rest belonging to the abstract mixture of demonic shrines, surreal places, corridor mazes, and battle yards that shape the familiar world of Doom II, culminating in the weird puzzles of MAP12. TNT: Evilution was always present as a source of inspiration, both in the visuals and in the occasional exploratory segment, but the combat was based upon the Casali’s legacy and sustained by Jefferson’s creativity.

 

He had a penchant for tough encounters featuring small groups of monsters, rarely giving in to the temptation of slaughter. The great difference in map scale and the opposite approach to resources suggest that he never played Hell Revealed, published only a few months before The Next Generation. If Chaingunners and Arch-Viles were essential ingredients in his recipe of challenge, Revenants were seldomly deployed in large numbers, with Cacodemons and Pain Elementals becoming Angelo’s jacks-of-all-trades. Barons were preferred to Hell Knights on UV, and many situations used Arachnotrons, Mancubi, and Pinkies with an efficiency that was quite unexpected in a 1997 map set.

 

I first played the megaWAD blind and continuous, then from a pistol-start for February 2023 DWMC; both runs were on Ultra-Violence, with savegames mid-level (not during encounters to cheat the RNG or to facilitate anything) because I knew that I should not underestimate the design of certain encounters. Pistol start made me realise that resources were not plentiful, it forced me to conserve the powerful weaponry for the hardest fights, and encouraged me to avoid damage, as healing items were at a premium. It also confirmed that every map was beatable, with only MAP07 and MAP08 being too stingy with ammo. It must be observed that all skill settings had been implemented, with notable differences in the monster composition and quota, and especially in the health distribution. The maps were not only balanced in their difficulty, but it appeared that also length had been taken into account; most entries required between 20 and 30 minutes to be thoroughly UV-maxed.

 

Angelo Jefferson loved the official Doom products, and he disseminated nice homages in his work, including a soundtrack that tastefully remixed midis from Doom, Doom II, and Evilution. At some point of the development, he learned to edit textures and replaced the ZZWOLF and ZZFACE library with his own resources, mostly obtained through palette changes. The levels that made wide use of custom textures were quite memorable, especially the streak preceding and following the secret maps. The Star Trek references might have been implemented a little more, instead of being limited to a simplified rendition of the Starfleet logo that still works as the series’ hallmark.

 

I hold The Next Generation in high esteem, but I cannot ignore the technical flaws that plague many of its levels: missing textures, misalignments, slime trails, HOMs, clunky sector effects, haphazard secret marking, abuse of 20% damage floors, stuck monsters, unreachable items, soft locks, inescapable pits, and a few encounters that were unfair at best. MAP13 crashed in the modern source ports and even required to be fixed with the editor. The lack of technical polish might have discredited Jefferson’s work among the community, inducing most people to give this megaWAD a wide berth and to put the less flawed Hell Revealed in the spotlight, which featured a notorious speedrunner as the main creator instead of an outsider with exotic ideas. If only Angelo had released a complete, controlled, and bug-fixed version of The Next Generation, he might have changed the history of hard WADs. This happens to be wishful thinking, so I can only hope that as many Doomers as possible will rediscover this flawed half-masterpiece, give it a proper DSDA coverage, and enjoy it as a wonderful journey from the rudiments of mapping to potential excellence, if they can get past its raw and rushed appearance.

 

Best maps:

MAP 09 – The Pit

MAP 10 – The Wicked Metal Garden

MAP 15 – Lair of the Baron

MAP 31 – On Earthen Soil

MAP 32 – Arsenal

 

Other standout maps:

MAP 01 – Entryway

MAP 04 – Country Side

MAP 11 – Circle of Death

MAP 16 – Fortress of Fire

MAP 17 – Fortress of the Damned

 

Special mentions map:

MAP 12 – Stra(n)ge Universe

 

Detailed commentary of each map can be found in the February 2023 DWMC thread.

 

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Argenteo

  

Great megawad with little more than 20 maps. Difficult and riddled with enemies but with beautiful views.

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printz

  

Very good megawad in the TNT: Evilution style but with cool design ideas. It uses a lot of the TNT music, but also music from other Doom IWADs. Also very challenging and not always well-balanced, sometimes with deadly traps, but overall highly playable and with cool architecture and ambience.

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MuratMikal

  

I really liked this one megawad! Very difficult, chaingunners is indeed overused all through the maps while other enemies are underused. I didn't find any unfair encounters as others have pointed out. I will say though MAP 12 is very confusing, didn't like this one. Favorite MAPS = 06, 10, 08 and 16. I would really recommend it but you should play very carefully due to the ammount of hitscanners.

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Guest

  
It would be so much better if there weren`t unnecessary death traps, millions of heavy weapon dudes, impossible situations and so on. The design isn`t as good as it seems on the first look, while playing you feel if there is empty space left behind the textures, it is not appealing to the eyes at all.

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Guest

  
Decent fun, but nothing too remarkable.

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Flammable

  
I liked, It looks shitty in terms of visualization, but overall not bad. Flammable4444 02.09.15

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Guest

  
Great MOD. :)

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Guest

  
compatable with gzdoom?

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NuMetalManiak

Unknown date

  
extremely overdosed in chaingunners and too many instances of 30-second doors. also i got stuck inside a wall on MAP11 and MAP12 is just terrible. because of how difficult some encounters are, i'd say this is great for coop, but terrible overall for singleplayer on UV. also, why are all the MUS files duplicated?

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Guest

Unknown date

  
Good work!

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Guest

Unknown date

  
I agree with prdarkfox's review, great work there.

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Guest

Unknown date

  
Kewl. -- 5/5

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Guest

Unknown date

  
I played this with brutal doom. What a blast 5/5

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Guest

Unknown date

  
very good!

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Guest

Unknown date

  
Nice megawad. Had a blast playing it.

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Guest

Unknown date

  
good old wad

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Guest

Unknown date

  
Ver good!

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Guest

Unknown date

  
this is awesome!!!! A MUST :D

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Guest

Unknown date

  
Another wad that confuses quantity with quality. Where are all the small and clever maps? Why this encouragement of dull overkill?

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Guest

Unknown date

  
nice maps 4/5

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Guest

Unknown date

  
I really commend the work put into this piece, but I have to take down a star for critical bugs in some of the bugs. (Using NoClip is not always desirable just to progress the game) The detail level is pretty good, the monsters and ammo laid out nicely... Still worth playing. 4 out of 5. -prdarkfox

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Guest

Unknown date

  
A really simple WAD introducing very few new textures, and still it has such an atmosphere that I dare say it is my favorite WAD. It has improved and fantastic maps and a lot of traps. Prepare to be scared, for this WAD will definetly surprise you a LOT. Not just the traps, the envirionments and the get-the-key-and-go-b ack-to-the-start-of- the-map style of gameplay also works. You don't feel bored for a second.. This is a MUST for anyone who likes the old Doom WADs. 10/10 -spadeKing23-

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Guest

Unknown date

  
It was a pretty fun and easy Megawad. I liked it.

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Guest

Unknown date

  
Wery good Doom wad! 5/5

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  • File Reviews

    • By Devalaous · Posted
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