What are you playing now?

Sector 666 was a fun look back at skillsaw's Promethean talent (of Vanguard and Lunatic fame). The actual architecture of most of the levels is pretty bland but you can easily see his skill for dynamic lighting, and the encounters are (mostly) fun.

Moving on to Rick Lipsey's "The Final Geometry" and then probably Paul Corfiatis's Twilight Zone (well, the '03 remaster).

I've been playing a lot of Ghouls vs. Humans and Master of Puppets lately. Icon of Party is pretty fun, too.

kmxexii said:

Moving on to Rick Lipsey's "The Final Geometry"

This one took me ridiculously long time to complete (about 2 months ago). Confusing as hell.

vdgg said:

This one took me ridiculously long time to complete (about 2 months ago). Confusing as hell.

I think my end time was around 50 minutes or something. I got hung up on the red key room and finding all those switchbacks he has to make progression slightly less difficult.

Currently playing Whispers of Satan and a bit of Cyberdreams.

Armadosia with Brutal Doom and PSX music and sounds. Its soo scary, but mostly to the atmosphere that the music makes, but its still kind of enjoyable.

sazza said:

Brutal Doom and PSX music and sounds.

Wow...that's awesome on many levels

Finished Twilight Zone. It was the updated version, which mostly featured some gameplay tweaks for speedrunners (though not entirely) and some very nice lighting, typical of Paul's work. It was adequate; I wasn't thoroughly impressed, and the amount of backtracking through dead space sucked, but there were some cool ideas (besides MAP23). Interesting sidenote - you don't get to see the finale in ZDoom; the WAD just loops back to MAP30 after it plays the end text string.

Since CC4 is about to be released soon, I decided to play the other CC wads. Currently playing CC1. On map09.

Grrr, error.

Getting caught up on pwads, having been a while since I've even touched Doom. Currently going through DTWID, which has been quite good. I stopped at E3M6, so I suppose I better keep an eye open for the secret level.

I used to play megawads with savegames and keeping all of my gear. Nowadays, I just play each level from a pistol start. I feel like that lets me evaluate each individual level better, even if it takes some of the feeling of progression out of it.

I'm currently playing through the beta of Interception and this wad makes using the shotgun a lot of fun for some reason, it wasn't until I got up to MAP05 that I started having a blast, once I got the supershotgun I immediately switched back to the shotgun to maintain the fun this wad made me have with it.

Scythe 2, I must admit that I'm a bit noob so I'm training on the first Cyberdemon of map 24, I usually kill a cyberdemon in like 3-4 bfg shots and I have to make sure that I'll be able to do it in 2 shots.

Played Redrum by Mal Blackwell. I remember it from a Jive compilation, but it had been converted for Doom II. The combat is less intense but all the Wolf3D puzzle-play remains. I still like it, as it's one of those large, adventuresome maps that's fun to explore.

Also played Chris Klie's Smudge for Heretic, three maps in the style of BF_THUD. They actually fit the Heretic style pretty well, though E1M2 is full of diabolical puzzles.

Currently busting my balls on Kristian Aro's 20 Days in Hell. The maps are generally short but they're not playtested for pistol start very well and have obscure puzzle solutions. The mapset was accused of being a bunch of modified Plutonia levels, but I've only encountered one so far (MAP16, a modified "The Omen"), though one level has the first few rooms of Thy Flesh Consumed's "Hell Beneath".

20 Days in Hell is really rough around the edges and will probably have even speedrunners smashing the keyboard in wrath at levels with Cleimos-sized ammo disparities. 32 Days in Hell, its sequel, both looks and plays better on average, though a few of the maps are just as bothersome. Plus, it's one of the few Doom WADs with an explicitly female protagonist, and that has to count for something, right?

I chased 20 Days down with Eden, another level from Mal Blackwell. It's a small, decent E1-style map with an E2 bestiary...but every key is hidden in a secret (with Wolf3D-wallhumping), so play at your own risk.

finished uac ultra,pretty fun,especially the outside area in MAP10,i usually don't finish a lot of map packs,but this one got me hooked in,i liked the dark style of the maps,it has some doom 3 feeling but not repetitive.

I currently played through yestrday.wad "Yesterday's Nightmare" and it's ridiculously detailed, however towards the mid-end it got tight on ammo and I had run from the invasion of Pinky Demons after wasting my ammo on killing half of them, ran through the gate to the last area near the exit only to be greeted by quite a few revenants and some chaingunners and because of the lack of ammo I had to rush to the exit without getting killed, I guess I should've played it on an easier difficulty than UV. :P

Played Grzegorz Werner's "The Grim Reaper". It's a pretty cool map that has a unique graphic arrangement, in spite of being really brown (the tetronimo walls help). I loved the poetry puzzle hints. The only real problem is the deadly dull northern section of the map, investigating tons of cubbies.

Finished the 20 Days in Hell trilogy with 1 Day of Hellish revenge. It's a pretty good minisode, using the last three maps of Plutonia. 28 is the largest and hardest. Speedrunners will sigh at virtually invulnerable Cyberdemons in MAP29. It's definitely Kristian's best work of the series.

kmxexii said:

Sector 666 was a fun look back at skillsaw's Promethean talent (of Vanguard and Lunatic fame). The actual architecture of most of the levels is pretty bland but you can easily see his skill for dynamic lighting, and the encounters are (mostly) fun.

Sector 666 was a nice set of maps by skillsaw. Short, quick, and a blast to play through. The aesthetics in the maps may be pale by today's standards, but they are still entertaining. Here's some additional trivia as well. Before skillsaw's return to Doom mapping in 2007, he went under the alias "Maduin," and was going to be involved in Paul Fleschute's Ultimate Invasion, a project that was going to be another Team TNT title, but since 1998, the project was canned and never saw the light of day.

Of course, I had to play the last Grzegorz Werner solo release. Die Young! is a large, cool Doom II map with a bunch of different themes and cool fights. It's way easier if you can find some of the secrets.

Also replayed the Alpha 1 Trilogy for a review. Still one of my favorite WADs (well, more appropriately three compatible WADs in one .ZIP). It's kind of like something Rick Lipsey might make if he was a bit more organized / less prone to making obscure puzzles. I highly recommend it to everyone (unless you hate large maps).

Replayed TNT Evilution for review. I'm less impressed back when it was the first thing I really played after Doom II, but looking at my original comments, I despised revenants, so some things change for the better! It may not be the greatest megaWAD ever (or even of '96) but it's still worth playing. What I didn't recall was there being so many hitscanners, which may be incredibly annoying to some (it was to me!).

Chased TNT down with CHORD1, which was something in a bit of a different direction. Not as good looking as CHORD_NG, but still a great play, with some real jaw-dropping traps. I'll remember the AV / megasphere corridor for awhile yet.

Damn, either I'm playing really fast or things are slowing down. Played Plutonia through again. I like it more than the first time I played, with most of the maps being a fair bit easier than I recall (especially MAP32). I think I hate The Twilight more than I did before, though. Still a fantastic megaWAD.

Followed up with CHORD2, an atypically large level from Malcolm Sailor. The fights aren't as memorable as CHORD1 (or CHORD_NG) except for a teleporter gimmick he seems to have gotten from Sverre Kvernmo's Black Tower. It's actually pretty cool as it's not used annoyingly.

Also played HACX. It's odd, it feels like a cross between the BUILD games and Doom with all the themed levels and destroyable furniture. More Doom than BUILD, though. I don't really care for the "surreal" cyber maps; I think I've seen better from other authors (Schmitz, Hermans, Cyberdreams). It has a really good opening thirteen levels, though. If HACX 2.0 is as polished as Xaser's presence indicates, I'll be ecstatic.

Playing through Community Chest 4 and random stuff from idgames

Let me think.....Whispers of Satan, Cyberdreams, Community Chest, Deus Vult, 32 Inch Nails, Epic 2 and Beyond Reality Demo.

=D

Playing along with the Doomworld Megawad Club's playthrough of Community Chest 4. Other than that, too busy with other things.

Took a break from LoL and finished CC4.

Darkening E2... love the textures and the level design to bits.

Just started playing Marswar. So far it seems fun. Got to level 8.

Just moved on to level 5 of Planet Phobos (pphobos.wad). What a wonderful Episode 1 replacement this is! A shitload of enemies on UV (345 coming up on level 5), oodles of secrets and lots of exploration to do. Just the kinda wad I like.

BTW if you play it don't forget the added bonus, a tenth map which plays on Ep 2 level 9. And don't judge the wad on the first map which kinda sucks. Things definitely get better!

Was working on a max demo pack but detoured to play cchest4, which seems quite good so far. Still doing the pistol starts and I am happy that the megawad supports this. Think I was up to map11 which looks rather expansive (judging by the opening room).

Playing through DTWID Episode 1. Currently at E1M5, enjoying it. Difficulty is similar to the original Doom, though I did die a few times due to carelessness. Lots of secrets and they are fun to find like the original doom.