The NuMetalManiak Review Thread: 2019-2021 (most recent review: DOOM: Damnation)

Last year the Doom community awarded Erik Alm as the winner of the Espi Award, a mapper who's legacy shined on to many modern projects. His influential Scythe 2 was a cornerstone wad for the community: a multi-themed megawad, with five levels of each of the six episodes pertaining to a specific theme, afterwards ushering in a death exit so the player can start the succeeding episode anew and ready for the next bouts of action.

Whether or not Eviternity is directly inspired by Scythe 2, well, you can draw your own conclusion there, but regardless, you get the serving of "six episodes with five levels each". Not only do you get this kind of serving, but you get a whole lot more. Dragonfly and Team Eviternity started in March of 2018, using a brand new texture pack also being developed at the time, OTEX, to make each of the maps. These textures make the Eviternity experience more grand. As you blow your way through Eviternity's encounters, you get to gawk at the new textures and how they are used well, encountering architectural designs you've never seen before. And it feels wonderfully fresh, just like the texture pack that got released on that faithful anniversary along with Eviternity's initial release. Being a wad made for MBF-based ports and also given some specific DeHacked work on some new enemies, expect to find more than just lovely textures in Eviternity. Look out for the fast-moving astral cacodemons, the rocket/hitscan combo that is the annihilator, and the final boss itself in a battle that can be considered heavenly, along with a few more denizens that haunt the many themes.

It's amazing to think Eviternity, as ambitious as it was, was finished in roughly two months from its initial release. Dragonfly, the team head, livestreamed his mapping process on Twitch, showcasing his mapping style and the maps that would eventually make it into the megawad. With his maps being the cream of the crop, expect them to be somewhat short, but also expect them to adhere well to each respective episode theme. And he sure does it well, from the Inauguration that is the first map in the rainy castle to the techbases that make up some of the middling maps, then to other cool maps such as the heavenly nonlinear romp that is Heliopolis. And also the episode ending maps, expect to have it rough in these levels until you reach the warp that leads to the next episode. This doesn't mean that the guest mappers cannot be understated, as their maps are just as memorable, if not more. Don't miss Frimaire, antares031's ice cold outing, or the equally cold Cryonology, where Atronx will let you figure out what the map title refers to. Xaser will show you what Transcendence really is to start off the final episode, and the collaborative efforts of Dragonfly and Eris Falling will help you fly sky high in the penultimate level. Definitely don't miss either of the secret maps, where @skillsaw shows you how brutal the encounters in Eviternity can truly be while @ukiro, the maker of the texture pack itself, brings you one heck of an odyssey that truly defines Eviternity for what it really is. Ambitious, fresh, artistic, well-themed, and tough, these are some of the many terms to describe Eviternity, a project that no one should ever miss.

Just because your submissions to a community project get rejected does not mean you should throw away all your hard work. Bridgeburner56 releases The Slaughter Spectrum, formerly from the Refracted Reality project, and those of us who have seen just how amazingly detailed the project is and have been itching to try out more than a demo from day one will get some detailed doses here. The Slaughter Spectrum serves as an early bird special to this project despite its rejection, and while resource-intensive, is a complete blast to see and play. Of course, expect there to be slaughter, it's right there in the title.

Is paradise supposed to be given? Answer that question while you start up Tango's newest green creation called Paradise. The jungles are teeming with harmful liquids and demonic life that prowl at every corner, while the weapons given to you will prove useful. The Classic Doom feel is in spades, with several changes to weapons and monsters to liven up just what paradise can truly be. Never take a moment to rest however, as some of the denizens of the jungle want to enjoy their paradise without interfering marines and are prepared for heavy ambushes.

In what is perhaps the single most anticipated release in Doom history as we can probably tell from this community, John Romero has decided to work on a new megawad to celebrate the 25th Anniversary of Doom. We've seen quite a few mods celebrate the 25th Anniversary of Doom, suffice to say it's not news for most people who have been on this community for so long, but to expect a release from the one and only Romero himself is something worthy of hype. The man practically oozes hype in the community every time he creates something new for Doom, just look at how well received Tech Gone Bad and Phobos Mission Control were the moment they were released. People in the community sure love their Romero maps.

The same can easily be said for SIGIL. While megawad is perhaps a misnomer, as it is in fact a brand new fifth episode for Ultimate Doom rather than a full megawad, SIGIL doesn't disappoint in its setting. Think of the story as a missing link between the storylines of Ultimate Doom's Episode 4 and Doom II, where the marine goes back to Earth, except with the plot twist of teleporter screwup that causes the marine to stay within hell, only perhaps in something that seems more...hellish than usual, we could say. The gameplay may surprise some players, as it is clearly a lot less action-packed than many modern contemporaries. Loading up the first level on the lowest difficulty setting will be quite a surprise, as it only holds a whopping eight monsters. Although subsequent levels, as well as higher difficulty settings, increase this amount, you won't be seeing monster counts rise over 100 save for a couple of maps.

But this is just fine and dandy as the level layouts serve to make encounters memorable while you try to figure your way out of Baphomet's latest abomination. There's quite a bit of claustrophobia in most maps, and look out for quite a few traps, including some nasty blackouts. Remember you have to walk through each of the three Paths of Wretchedness, and you must not speak of Unspeakable Persecution. The Nightmare Underworld you will eventually find will seem more than just a nightmare in more than one sense. And two big guests are ready and willing to meet you at the end of the Halls of Perdition.

SIGIL comes with two soundtracks, one with MIDIs from our delightful Jimmy and the other with Buckethead tracks (only for those who got the paid limited edition), and on that note Buckethead himself even composed a track for Romero. It helps that the two are in fact fans of each others work!

Take note, as you saunter your way through SIGIL, of the ways Romero has evolved as a level designer. From just using the most primitive of editors back in the day to make levels that still hold up, to the newly modernized hellish designs we see in SIGIL, it's clear that Romero has come a long way. Observe the cracks in the ground and the usage of shootable eyes and clever traps. Romero's just like the rest of the modern mappers with the way he has evolved. Different from many, but still a worthwhile play just like all the rest.

Many of Doom's most notable wads include changes to DeHacked, brand new texture sets, or use advanced source port features to create a memorable experience, and those changes end up being easily noted by players and remembered whenever someone else wants to try something with a twist to the original Doom style. With such new and not new twists to gameplay, it can be easy to forget about the original game that gave birth to this community.

Lunar Catastrophe serves as a reminder of how good that original game was, and it sits as a dark horse amongst a sea of modern sets. There are no new textures, sounds, sprites, or even music, just new levels all done classic-style. Think of it as being similar to say, Doom the Way Id Did. The maps certainly aren't that memorable, but they don't need to be. All they need to be is fun with a decent challenge curve, and that's what they are. Lunar Catastrophe succeeds at being retro and being weird, as its two authors set out to make it. Speaking of authors, this is one of the very few wads in the community created by a boyfriend/girlfriend pair. Now that's something you don't see everyday.

Hellectric Boogaloo. That's the name of the second Doom Mapping Contest created by Vargskelethor Joel to win some nice Twitch prizes. The previous contest had quite a lot of contenders, but more than double the submissions were given to Joel just for this particular contest. Suffice to say, it took a lot longer than than expected, Joel planned to get things done by the end of 2018 or so, but it took about two years, as well as some micromanaging and figuring out just who would win the prizes.

The good news is that the contest basically allowed for an "anything goes" variety (excepting Terrywads and other wads of extremely bad quality of course). So this contest saw some old-school levels that were pretty much to the point, along with it maps made with ZDoom format for some interesting (and sometimes memeworthy) scripting. And then you have the maps that throw in the DECORATE towel and make way for fun new weapons and monsters in these games. Some maps were meme wads, others were total conversions that worked out. Many of the maps ended up being so long (I'm looking at you, penialassociativedefense and your Living End map) that Joel's attention span would end up kicking the bucket and having to move on from there. Joel did a good job picking his winners, as well as the honourable mentions. Still though, there's gonna be some gems to take note of.

Notable gems missed from the awards:

Twitch HQ 2 - doomtherobot's memey sequel to an already memey wad. With Strife mainstays joining in the battles and proving to be quite an adventure.
Frozen Exuviae - dobu makes you revisit the Iron Exuviae, forcing some nasty puzzles for those who wish to not get their feet frozen. Mind the pads on the ground when you step on them! And know that even though you can skip some puzzles, doing them legitimately can be fun to solve as well.
The Stalvern Parable - germanpeter: telling by the name, you cannot expect this to be anything but a Stanley Parable parody. Expect some familiar endings done Doom-style here.
Altera - gorgamesh: practically a new game all on it's own, giving off RPG vibes.
Metal Meltdown - Hasuman's contribution, with the map titled Death Divine, definitely has the TC vibe, new weapons, enemies, textures, setting. And it's generously grotesque.
CEREBRUS - lazorinc, Pack your time stopping module and go on an electrical adventure of powerful custom enemies (watch out for those rocket imps!) until you reach a worthwhile boss fight!
Fallen Comrades - lkymn's wad will set your characters on a journey to help out comrades, which ends up in another projectile-filled journey through hell.
Dual-Layered Violence - mysteriousharuko's palette-swapped little mini-hub adventure is quite joyous.
Baron's Fortress - nuff3 gives players an old-school adventure with a modern aesthetic. Not too tough.
Get Up And Kill - by orangestar1. Sometimes, you do what the title says, and you do it with style. The new weapons help in toasting the hordes.
Hydrogen - another action-packed level by Senseless that despite only giving you two weapons to work with, is a workable and managable level with a few monster changes.
Occult - by shadowymv, a chilling story of a friend's mansion being overrun by demons and ghouls, with Blood-like atmosphere.
The Burial Vault - You haven't experienced 3D Doom quite like this piece by Stormcatcher.
varg2 - by thedickwolf, this is an RPG-oriented wad with fantasy-style elements and gold to collect.
Lost Dreams - valkiriforce's contribution also doesn't have any new gameplay mechanics, it's just straight-up classic Doom with teleport ambushes to find.
Four Elements - xinoea's effort brings Doom 64 weapons, atmosphere, and combines the elements of water, earth, fire, and air in a grim setting, with a tough fight against a dark avatar at the end. Look out for those custom enemies.

All of the wads as well as the winners are of course on the winners page. Admittingly when I played through all of the sets I could not run sarais's wad and it seems that the download for zeroxdiamond's level isn't the full version.

nicolas monti is still pumping, despite all the quirkiness of his previous wads he's not abandoning the signature mapping style anytime soon. Mass Extinction is proof of that. Fans of classic gameplay with Doom Alpha textures are sure to find some comfort and challenge in the maps shown. It slowly introduces each monster, but not too slowly, giving worthwhile progressive difficulty. Both gameplay and layouts are fairly consistent, and the time it takes to beat each map shouldn't be too long for the most part. The intricateness of many layouts is what really shines, and there's quite a few maps not to be missed here. A great overall improvement on the nicolas monti style.

Spectrum is a nice, nice example of author evolution in action. It goes to show that even though you're a classic mapper, you can fit in well with the new crowd. Spectrum is an E3 replacement that is surprisingly difficult yet still fun. The gameplay can remind people of Return to Hadron, it's frantic, spreading out the monsters, yet those who were expecting Capellan's old tricks will be quite surprised. While there's no new textures to speak of, Spectrum aims to combat the complaint about there being "too much brown". Indeed, observant players will barely see brown (there's not even any imps to find) and as such, the challenge is a bit more interesting. A gem in 2019, for sure.

Speedmaps and monthly-event maps. They're a thing. Yet speedmaps have grown much stronger as time goes on, much like anything else. More ideas get implemented and as a result, things get fun and gimmicky. 2019 has been quite a surge in terms of the popularity of speedmaps. NoisyDiarrhea is one such collection, all made by one author for vanilla, each with unique gimmicks that give each one replayability. There also exists Nanopineapple 2018, a collection of wads done during NaNoWadMo, Doomworld's official take on NaNoWriMo, saw one author make and refine 32 maps for the month of November last year. Again, expect some gimmickry within this one. Perhaps that's the thing that really sets these kinds of maps apart from regular megawads, their usage of gimmicks makes them worth looking for whatever weird ideas get cooked up.

It's no secret how amazing Ancient Aliens was upon release. It would of course prove influential as a 10-map episode named Alienated alienates its way to release. Treat yourself to more colorful areas of varying sizes and degrees, and fight your way through alien landscapes, starbases, and torrid temples. It all almost feels like a true continuation of the real deal, just without the custom monsters and made specifically for GZDoom/Zandronum. Don't expect the aliens to let up.

We really wanted a resource pack that ended up making things less vibrant with colors and leaning towards something that will set up a gloomy atmosphere in any map it is used and flat-out succeed in that regard. OTEX showed us that perfectly. With Eviternity being one such set of maps that used OTEX to its most dazzling capabilities, it's only a matter of time before others followed it in the same year.

Remnant sets a perfect example of that. It draws inspiration from modern maps and is made with a simple story of Doomguy fighting out of captivity and showing the demons who's the real demon out there. In many ways, Remnant shares a lot of traits with the ever-popular Miasma three years ago, yet somehow it feels like it could have been an Eviternity map that was held off for any reason. It's a huge single-level wad that is non-linear. It has a high monster count, but everything is spaced out well enough to make any and all setpieces fun to play around in. It's size and nonlinearity gives players multiple avenues of travel with so many ways to get around enemies. And most of all, it breeds a powerful atmosphere, made even better with the usage of OTEX. This all makes the entire experience memorable. The castle interiors are well-decorated, and through the trees, shrubbery, and waterfalls outside the player has to decipher the ways of getting the two keys needed for the final area. A nice battle with the custom Cardinal monster is shown at the end. The stops are all hit, the gameplay leaves you wanting more and more even when you do get done.

For a mapper that spent about 15 years on and off (but mostly off) Aurelius decides to give off an actual release for once (this is the second map Aurelius has actually published), as there has been "nothing worth mentioning" prior to Remnant. And what a release it was. One does wonder, what were the other "remnants" Aurelius had beforehand if this remnant proves an experience like no other remnant could? Just keep watch of remnant monsters as you fiddle around here.

2019 was a year of big projects, projects that were big in size, highly anticipated, a combination of both, or perhaps the big projects that were total conversions. It's nice to see a variety in what can be considered "big". Tell me this, is there a better way to exemplify big than exploring a lost civilization?

Lost Civilization is 20 or so maps all set in varying locales, but there's things in common here. The settings are amazingly constructed and intricate, with the gameplay being entirely nonlinear with every map. The maps never go below medium-sized, and more than half of them are huge. In a couple of cases, huge is even an understatement. Getting lost is the whole crux of this wad, and it is outright enjoyable to get lost in Lost Civilization. The outdoor areas that kick off the megawad are sizeable ventures, that end up compounded once the colossal River Valley (MAP04) comes in. With multiple paths and monsters at all ends, this one delivers soundly, but doesn't really feel like a roadblock at all. The fluidity of each map combined with their sizes gives the sandbox-genre of maps a whole new dimension.

Secrets are in just about any nook imaginable. The monsters for each map are laid out in ways that both feel threatening if left unattended and fun to run circles around. Cacodemons climb the mountain walls while mancubi and revenants snipe from afar. The assortments manage to be challenging despite all the open spaces to work with. Even themes are tackled profusely (there's even a nightmare map!). The Division map will divide the player in many ways, a powerful allusion to the open sandbox-style of outdoor Egyptian maps and further envisioning the dreamscape theme. And then there's the juggernaut, MAP20. Appropriately, or perhaps inappropriately, it's titled Ending. Yet not only does it feel like it never actually ends, but it always leaves you wanting more and more of it.

@Jaska wanted to "achieve something unique and memorable what has never been seen before". This is a set where you will want to have a lot of free time to explore, and it will all be worth it. It is not wise to give up playing this, as there's always something interesting that can be easily missed. Nonlinearity and exploration are the keys to this lost civilization. Mountain passes, farmlands, river valleys, city centres, and even inverted pyramids. You must see to believe.

The question of what has been done before often prevails for mapmakers. We play the IWADs to memorization, we play famous PWADs like DTWID and the Memento Moris to memorize what made them great. Well not all of us did but I certainly did. So when I played DOOM: Perdition, my eyes were set on a lot of things. For one, it was advertised as a "spiritual successor to E4". Which really sort of doesn't mean a lot from the first map, does it not?

It seemed from the get-go that it was heavily inspired by E4. E4M1 is a souped up version of the original Hell Beneath. E4M2 that follows isn't as much of Perfect Hatred as it is something else (namely MM2's MAP12). And then E4M9 has those Tim Willits design charms to it that resembled both the original E4M9 and ATTACK.wad. E4M3 is where it takes off and takes off well. It's a weird map, you'll have a bit of trouble figuring out what does what, but it somehow manages to be a fresh level that works out well. E4M4 is a sandbox/town map, evoking the shades of the maps it was inspired by, E3M6 and MAP15. E4M5 draws a bit of SIGIL inspiration, but does it fantastically, making it the overall best map. E4M6 is based on that castle map from Doom 64, E4M7 draws heavy inspiration from Against the Wickedly and MM's MAP08, then you see shades of DTWID's E3M9 in the final level.

The overall feel of the levels and their gameplay shouldn't really be insane in difficulty, but tough enough for the player to have difficulty conquering. The maps are sized well with quite a few notable homages to look out for. But there's not really anything groundbreaking overall. It's just another decent episode replacement, the kind you're bound to play and be okay with.

What's the standards you go by? Deadly Standards the second comes right after the first Deadly Standards, giving us the same limitations, which basically means make whatever as long as you have the stock textures. For the most part it's good enough, the maps are medium-sized and only get bigger and bigger, with veteran mappers like Confalonieri, SteveD, and Roofi giving it their all. Hate to be blunt though, I hate the direction towards longer and more confusing levels these mappers are making, preferring maps that are generally more action-packed than "action and then you run around trying to figure out what you need to do next"

This is blatant in Roofi's maps and especially the final level. You nail the atmosphere at the sacrifice of gameplay, with the only notable gameplay parts being the cyberdemon fight at the end (very dependable on the skill setting it seems) and the fight around the blue switch. But a lot of the things you gotta do here have progression that makes heads spin. And come on, LET ME GO ON THE TILTED SHIP IT WOULD BE COOL. Other maps, well E2M3 is kinda sloppy but still doable, and E2M7 was made to be as aggravating as possible instead of enjoyable.Rest that aren't mentioned have decent gameplay for their sizes.

3/5

Well the textfile says exactly what it is, a complete episode replacing E1, rough looks, typical of the 1994 era. Yep, that's what you'll get if you play this episode replacement. The monster counts aren't THAT high, but the supply counts definitely are. All those soul spheres in specific rooms. And then you have the other issues: required keys in secrets, no hints to doors, bad usage of lifts, pressing random walls just to get things to work, node issues with crushers and monsters not being active. The names Funduke and Perseus are credited, these are usually associated with uploading the Maximum Doom PWADs and generally bad 1994-quality stuff, Respectively. you can easily pass this E1 replacement up.

1/5

Philnemba's general mapping style is entirely generic, often utilizing techbases with simple design and simple architecture. Not much else to really say is there? Hell on Phil Episode 1: Phantom Phobos is a vanilla episode made entirely like this, although it's not all techbase as E1M6 shows. The episode replacement is just plain and average overall, not too good but not really too bad. E1M4 is actually the same map from Doom 2 Unleashed (MAP38), except now it actually is finishable (originally the level was unbeatable due to a weird design flop). E1M8 is a neat finale map, heavily BFG9000-centric and being a weird slaughtermap with invulnerabilities. Charming indeed, but not extremely exciting overall.

3/5

Here we have a 10-level wad for Doom 2 and specifically for GZDoom with UDMF triggers and CC4-tex included. No real changes to actual gameplay, just 10 nice-looking levels that are medium sized and have reasonable monster counts with generally good flow. The layouts are done quite well, a few homage the maze area from E1M2 and the encounters aren't too tough to deal with. Perhaps it is a bit too easy. I get a bit of Suspended in Dusk feel at times. Atmosphere is done well and there's no sacrifice to the gameplay thankfully. Overall it isn't bad but it's far from memorable, plenty of other wads do this kind of thing better.

4/5

We have Slaughterfest 2011, Slaughterfest 2012, Slaughterfest 2013...ohohohoho NO we have Slaughterfest 3 instead, cause some people took too long. So now we have Slaughterfest 2020...ahahaha actually we have SlaughterMAX. It's so interesting to see how much the slaughterfest community project evolved over the years, the first one separated maps by author, giving us ways to see just how selective mapping styles were done, and it actually did pretty well. 2012 went away with that gimmick but gave us 32 decent slaughtermaps, then 3 came around and whaddya know did the same thing. SlaughterMAX spreads the further joy as the fourth official slaughterfest community project, with UV-MAX demos recorded in order to prove they are complete-able (even though one is literally called Literally Unplayable)

So when I played SlaughterMAX I was disappointed with it. Why? well, I expected...more perhaps? The first level tries to be interesting with pain elemental usage (the map itself resembled one too, I guess that's cool) but it kinda doesn't hit its stride. MAP02 on the other hand, the door didn't work, and the room after it was just a glorified arena. This arena trope is prevalent for the next three maps, and they aren't really designed all that well. It isn't until MAP06 (which was already in Doomworld Mega Project 2016, and was one of the better maps) that I started liking stuff, and only in spades at best. MAP07 wasn't a slaughtermap, the maps after it do better especially MAP10 and MAP11. MAP15 had interesting gimmicks, and I ended up seeing more of these, which is good. some maps resemble hubs, where you go on your merry way. MAP23 was another excellent map.

MAP27 is aptly named Back and Forth and is a strong yet silly level. MAP28 oh man, this was the reason I was disappointed with the wad as a whole. Because I completely expected the wad's quality to be just like this judging from screenshots. And then I couldn't actually play the level in hardware mode, wonderful. However MAP29 was a worthwhile odyssey of a slaughtermap, with an appropriate music change that fit the mood swing, plus it gave off a perfect Sunder vibe, the best level in the whole set. It wasn't the closer, MAP30 was the frantic closer which can be rendered completely unplayable if you're not fast enough (actually I'm not even sure how to beat it in any case).

For the other ones that weren't mentioned, they had their moments, but ultimately felt flat. Given the quality of many maps from the previous slaughterfest community projects, I really did expect things to be amazing, but either the design was bleh or the fights were mostly glorified arenas with waiting being the main protocol. Take note I DON'T hate slaughtermaps, just the arena parts where you're forced to wait often for the next switch to finally be revealed just to move on. I like more adventurous slaughtermaps with more freedom like the ones from Sunder and such. Arenas aren't fun anymore.

Hey look, a classic Doom 1 megawad. what do we got? Well...it's not as good as expected. There are bits that work and lots of bits that don't work. There's quite a lot of classic Doom homages, and a few that seem like they are inspired by DTWID, but there's a number of problems that give this a stanky 90's feel. Big one would have to be the times when you're in the blinking hallways, pitch-black areas that blink every now and then. Other problems include the HOMs, awful backtracking, and yes a few levels may actually be broken. The idea of playing as a female army student seems neat, until you realize she shrieks at just about everything including pressing walls, which gets old quickly. This wad and perhaps several others are made for schools? Seems interesting but I think the quality needs to be better. For some reason E3 is unfinished?

You can pass this one up, as it does things that others do better and with less issues.

This is a bit of an oddball as far as episode replacements go, as it replaces E2 of Plutonia. Well, not really, but these nine maps are speedmaps that require the Plutonia IWAD for their textures as well as taking up the MAP12-20 slots. The first few maps are the bleakest, being one-hour maps, but the quality increases as you go along. Expect Plutonia vibes. MAP20 being the big enchilada, a super tough map with a hard beginning and numerous cacodemons coming in to play as well. It's some good entertainment in speedmaps.

As you might obviously expect from this author, you're gonna see the abstract and feel the abstract. It's sort of the same thing if you're already used to monti's style, weirdly-textured locales, completely cryptic secrets, oddball progression, very Mano Laikas-like, which definitely wasn't suitable to many who have played it. But at least here we have a memorable map in MAP06, a well done forest level, and the Mt Erebus-esque MAP07. 

It's mostly standard fare for those already used to the style that monti uses, and is worth at least one go for some unique tidbits.

What else can you expect? This wad may or may not be inspired by Slayer MAP08, which incidentally was called 10 Secrets and had exactly 10 secrets. 60 Secrets shows up 6 levels each with 10 secrets. These are of course done with the weirdly-textured and unorthodox methods that monti is well known for. If you're used to this style, the secrets will prove to be a quaint challenge. This is also one of the more cramped wads throughout all six levels, with ambushes happening around every corner, at least one arch-vile per ambush at times (get ready to fight resurrected monsters each time), and if you can find the secrets when you need them the most, they will prove useful. This is probably the hardest thing monti's ever made too.

The Czech community megawad projects always tend to have the weirdest things some times. The first one I'm familiar with is Beyond The Hell, made exclusively by four Czech Doomers in 2005 but it was one of the more dreadful ones. Of course not one of those names I would recognize. The second and more famous one is Zones of Fear, a more recent megawad with several of the mappers who participated in this year's Czechbox. The authors in particular were Damned, who made mostly compact levels with great detail and attention to quirky yet wonderful gameplay; Jaeden, who was more or less over the top with any and all outings being marathon levels to some extents; Matthias, aka enkeli33, who also made big maps but were a little less over the top; and Pipicz, known for making the slaughtermap MAP28 as well as being the creative one behind Bloodstain.

Now ZOF definitely had its share of mixed bag and Czechbox isn't as different, but it was a lot nicer to go through than ZOF due to the levels not being huge in any ways. I'm quite surprised at how many maps Damned contributed this time around. jaeden only had a couple or so maps but they weren't big, and Pipicz as usual only contributed one (MAP19) but it was a good one of course. The new mappers, well, Sulphurit's work is amateur, and it seems that they are at the beginning of the mapset just to give the megawad a feeling of "it gets better from here", and indeed it does. Kloki's maps are weird ones, and Matthias, the second biggest contributor, did a number of things that are normal and abnormal. the Kafkaesque world (MAP10) and Orwell's Nightmare (MAP18) are middle episode highlights with cool gameplay, followed by the crate level MAP23 and MAP24 the big arena one. Some of these are certainly speedmaps or rehashes, and are treated as such. be mindful of the platforming especially in Damned maps. Overall though Czechbox is perhaps the most fun of the Czech wads to go through, even if you do it only once or so.

As with Remnant, it was only a matter of time before those lovely OTEX resources were used again, and Death in Excess does that. Imagine Sunder but with those textures and you basically have Death in Excess. These are, of course, slaughtermaps, done with extreme macro-detail and loads of locales all look like they'll wet your pants off, combine that with slaughter gameplay and you're probably just gonna turn on god mode or no monsters just to admire this shit. This is eighteen levels (MAP01-16, plus 31 and 32) with progressive difficulty, so naturally the levels go from small to big, hard to harder.

The big issue is when the frames start dropping, causing levels to be nigh-unplayable for me until I switch settings. MAP32 and MAP16 were the big offenders there. they are the big marathon levels that evoke a lot of Sunder vibes, especially MAP16 with its sneaky inescapable pits, platforming segments (please DO NOT attempt to go across them if your framerate won't cooperate, it will not work out for you) and marathon-style gameplay, combined with six keys and all. The rest of the levels have several other vibes going for them, some feel like Rush, others feel like Slaughterfest 20XX levels (kinda bad when you think about my opinion on forced arena fights, I'm not gonna go into detail there but at least here you don't have to wait as long as others). MAP15's idea is splendid for those who had enough, but those who perservere will be rewarded with MAP31. MAP31 is deceptive, having a boss shooter at one midpoint and platforming segments at the other afterwards, with one that will ruin your concentration but only if you want that secret exit.

Needless to say, bigger is not always better when it comes to architecture and the sheer number of things that ruin framerates. Just some food for thought.

Each year Mayhem gets started, worked on, given resources to fuck with, maps get made, and then the entire set waits until next year to reach idgames. That last part makes no sense but some people are just lazy or something. The last few Mayhems (at least the ones I played) all certainly had quite a few standouts, the first one in 2012 had that last map, 2048 had quite a few memorable levels, as did 1500. While I haven't played 2016's Mayhem I definitely had a hand in Super MAYhem 17 which is still the best one, and 2018 was a double pack which featured...basically the direction this one is headed to resource-wise.

And I am so not a fan of it...

Can we just not with custom monsters and weapons please. I don't want to see another MAYhem with them again. These guys in this wad weren't all that amazing even though they at least don't modify original monster behavior for the most part. But what I see basically are different variants of hitscanner, a skeleton enemy and a golem enemy that function as an imp and a hell knight respectively, a dark bishop-like enemy that functions a bit like a revenant, another that is even more bland in design and gameplay, a few bomb enemies (one is a blue orb that functions like a lost soul, and the other is a pain elemental like thing that shoots mancubus fireballs but still has blast radius), a few boss monsters (well the maulotaur got more use, but it's not a good enemy and STOP WITH THE MANCUBUS FIREBALL MONSTERS USE A DIFFERENT PROJECTILE FOR ONCE), some bats which are fodder, a modified red imp, a cacolantern with different attack, two arachnorb variants that actually have really low health for some reason now. The best enemy are those stationary cube things which function well as plasma turrets. Probably missed a few but screw it. Bottom line is, apart from the cubes and probably the bomb enemies the rest honestly feel very vanilla-like, and that's kind of lame when put up against the creative monsters used in the 2018 packs.

Amazingly enough I'm not as much of a hater of the custom monsters as I am the levels though. The first few maps up to MAP08 are entirely unmemorable, nothing sticks out, it's DMPhobos's map that is the first actually good one. MAP09 tried something cool, but like Impie's other map didn't deliver in combat. MAP10 and MAP11 annoyed me due to spending minutes trying to find the next required switch, Please princess please give some hints as to where to go god damn I hate spending so long in maps that have low monster counts. Also MAP11 has two secrets that I so far have not been able to find solutions for. MAP14's beginning section needs to fucking go away, the rest of the slaughtermap was okay. And MAP16? when will dobu make a completionist-friendly map? Or actually one that is fun AND interesting instead of fun OR interesting? This is one of his worst and I can't stomach it. So either most of the maps are nauseating or they are boring, really.

The good maps besides MAP08 though are MAP12 (a nice pacing map), MAP32 (yes that's right, a fucking joe-ilya map manages to be one of the better ones), MAP15, and MAP17 (both better done for slaughtermaps than MAP14). However, MAYhem as a wad series needs to stop with the dehacked stuff now and just make something with a texture pack and a limitation for next time, plus BETTER LEVELS PLZ. 1/5

Hey! be nice to short people please! With the joke aside, smfsp2 is apparently a presequel of the first smfsp, which was done by @datacore. This one was actually mostly authored by Roofi, but also includes three datacore maps and one from Vergogneful.

Now these are speedmaps and have to be treated as such, most were done in 30 minutes with the exception of two Roofi maps and all Datacore maps. As such, the quality is largely varied and there's bound to be some fucked up stuff throughout. To really craft something amazing in 30 minutes, this does not do that, but it tries at least. And by try I mean try to come up with something that seems crafty in many cases. The wacky texture usage is an obvious echo to the TimeOfDeath mantra, although there's not a lot of slaughter in the maps that have this texture usage. Then you have the abstract MAP26 which as small as it is is certainly one of the better 30-minute maps. Plus MAP03 and its 6000+ monster count. There's a lot of dissonance here as you play maps both short and not-as-short, moments where the crampedness combined with the monsters present could spell an early grave, a la Swift Death at times. The three Datacore maps are not speedmaps, but they obviously look the best and surprisingly don't take as long as you might think. The custom skies are neat fits.

But at the end of the day this is predominantly speedmaps and fit the nice little coffee break for the day, if you can get past a few hurdles that is.

Levels, levels, and more levels. Ultimate Doom megawads seem to be nothing but levels and the occasional custom asset here and there, and SINERGY is no different. As the text file clearly dictates, SINERGY offers none of that custom stuff or modernized level design, vying instead for yet another megawad with old school design and gameplay. As such, levels are not big, excepting a select few, and you have a full 36-level set. While most of the maps won't be seen as memorable since they will usually follow the same formula, they are done well enough with interconnecting halls and gameplay that will remind of the old days. You'll notice that all the EXM1's feature standard pistol start gameplay with a shotgun maximum for the weapon grabs, and the EXM8's being more than just boss levels, but rather arenas or otherwise large-scale battles that will take lots of monsters to beat. The overall feel is just another old school-style wad and there's never anything wrong with these kinds of wads even today.

A2Rob isn't a household name in the Doom community...yet. This is a mapper who so far contributes only to community projects, speedmapping projects, and wad contests. And by playing those past maps, I got the impressions of a modern mapper who understood the complexities of making gameplay central to each layout while keeping things designed decently.

Running Late 2 might just be the big breakthrough A2Rob is looking for, featuring 14 maps (plus two bonus maps) all within the modern style of things. There's a few new things, like weird textures and such, and also incorporating plasma marines and punchy skeletons replacing the SS and Commander Keen respectively. These custom enemies are properly used, even though in general they aren't too impressive. A2Rob's level layouts work for what they got, there's bound to be several linear moments, but the enemies will keep players busy. a number of arena areas exist, secrets are actually easy to find, and the levels were slightly designed for co-op play, so you'll probably gloat as you face hordes of monsters pouring from several areas. Some of the levels have what I like to call "Joshyisms", as there were moments where I got slightly lost and thought to myself, how am I gonna get this key and all of a sudden I find a weirdly innovative and somewhat counter-intuitive way to pick up this one key. Hell, I actually managed to get a Resurgence vibe out of many of these maps, which further strengthens the use of this term.

The levels all vary in size and memorability but for the most part there's enjoyment in each one. The longer ones MAP05, MAP10 and MAP12 will definitely be busters, and they sort of ruin the whole purpose of "running late" given just how late I end up getting to the exit, hah. Looks like that boss won't be happy no matter how fast I make it to the exit. All things considered, there's all the time in the world to play this mini-megawad. So don't be late.

2 hours for a speedmapping window, 24 hour period. 26 maps were made, all by different authors. Speedmapping certainly has become so popular it's hard to keep track of all the different session names. For this speedmapping session, the theme is "hell base", which I guess depends in a number of ways, some do it better than others naturally, others neglect the base part I seem to notice. The other theme is "one weapon" and this wad is for GZDoom so it uses the "resetinventory" and "resethealth" properties to, well, reset upon completing a map. Makes sense, since the authors expect players to beat this using only one weapon only.

The good news is that there's quite a lot of variance to go by with these, the smaller maps naturally use the smaller weapons for instance. The bad news is that the chainsaw and fist were not used in any way (apart from a few berserk packs, but these don't really do much). And the ugly news is that some of the maps broke the convention of one weapon, specifically the ones where I get both shotgun and chaingun. Some of the map names will clue you in to what you might expect, others won't. Interesting ones just so happen to be the BFG slaughter ones, specifically My Pheasant Likes Blue Balls (MAP12), an invulnerability-fueled blue shitshow as well as Circle Strafe (MAP23). So much in terms of random quality but there's concepts to be had here and there.

It seems like this was a long time coming, given how the one and only time I played Demon Eclipse had me left hanging for quite a bit. Regardless, Hell-Forged is a beast of its own right despite being pegged as a remake of the second episode of Demon Eclipse, featuring several new things that definitely qualify this as a robust TC.

There's a few new enemies, some of which actually function like reskins (Draugr to revenant, Corpulent to mancubus, Arachknight to, well, arachnotron, even some of the boss monsters like Helldukes which are essentially cyberdemons). These new enemies are mixed well with regular beastiary, although you'll notice a complete lack of hitscanners at all times here. Other new monsters are somewhat interesting, the devil is just an enhanced imp, while the new demon and spectre variants do use projectiles. Infernals and sentinels were also quite impressive.

For weapons, we start out with the melee Templar sword, but you'll notice that each slot up to 5 has two weapons, the Vorpal blade being exceptionally amazing when fully charged and using alt-fire, capable of slicing down even barons with ease. For slot 2 the fire weapons, starting with the immolator which shoots fire jets that continuously harm, or fires the ground up. The other slot 2 weapon the basilisk has a crappy alt fire with a dual flamethrower, but its regular fire is a nice Duke3D-like devastator weapon. Slot 3 gives us the Wheel of Pain, a very unique weapon that functions like a shotgun but gives a healing projectile to the player upon a successful hit, and the alt-fire is a chainsaw variant that apparently gives the weapon more ammo. The other weapon the Hellbolt functions like a rocket launcher and a bouncy grenade launcher. Slot 4 has weapons that echo the nailgun and super nailgun from Quake, with the alt-fires of both being rather strong, the mauler in particular is essentially an SSG in alt-fire mode. Finally the soul weapons in slot 5, the Soultaker functions like Quake's Thunderbolt weapon but is powered up, then the alt-fire releases a deadly blast consuming that energy, while the Reaper is essentially a nasty BFG-type weapon spawning ghasts that continue the attack.

And then you got the power up spheres that compliment the journey accordingly. The Doom sphere essentially is a Tome of Power, while other spheres do things like give infinite ammo, completely replenish ammo, or speed up the player, and well there's more.

There's so much to take in, but the levels are gonna be the big thing here. This is an episode of 9 levels, each level being quite big in size and getting bigger as you progress, making this a worthwhile adventure. Level layouts can have you taking multiple paths, but there's usually a hub you start out in and then you branch off to find the keys or whatever. Lots of secrets, unfortunately even I cannot find them all, like in H1M4 the Factory-like area with the Dead Simple arena, there's one secret I never could find. Notably there's all these mushroom dolls which I think are in every map and are secrets in their own right, I think I got all but one of them. Then the green key is usually a secret key in each map, and finding several switches behind green doors tends to allow you to access the better weapons sooner. However, many of the maps are huge, but not too difficult to actually navigate. H1M8 is a hub with five spokes to go to, but apparently you only need to reach three different areas, which is slightly convenient.

Prepare for an episode that's guaranteed to have you in for a long hall with this thing. It's a long ride for a TC.

What can I say, I'm obviously impressed with the scale and the grandeur. Verdant Citadel isn't really super tough, but is the kind of map that feels great to get lost in, much like Remnant was. This is for GZDoom as it features both slopes and 3D floors, and its the latter that really sells this citadel off. The enemy encounters try their best at keeping challenging, with the main highlights being the shoreline fight which includes cyberdemon as well as the final elevator battle. The sheer balance between verticality and horizonticality (if you can call that a word) is the thing that really makes this unique, and as the ZDoom maps evolve, I guarantee we'll be seeing stuff like that sooner than expected.

Jaws in Space is mostly known for his critique of several wads both classic and modern, but playing this one, his own mapping sure does leave a lot to be desired. Granted, the simplicity of things actually isn't a bad thing for the most part, you get to find what you need, fight off monsters in non-linear layouts that seem to work well, and then you exit and the experience in each map should not take more than five minutes. But even after all these maps I still feel as if there could have been more interesting things in the 2048x2048 spectrum. Well, there's some levels that stick out: MAP13 Disorder in the Courtyard is quite fun, MAP25 Saucer has several traps in switch areas, with monsters to compliment your escapes, while MAP32 Watch Your Step utilizes tricky platforming. For the rest though, it feels arcade-y which is okay. The overall quality is just average overall, nothing super exciting. MAP12 I recognized from 2048 Unleashed as well.

"A bunch of shitty, unbalanced speed maps made for nanowadmo" Well you're definitely right about the shitty part. No balance to speak of, wresting the BFG from the first map proves the mission statement for the rest. This is unbalanced slaughter with some levels trying to pay homage to whichever mapslot they are on. MAP30 has a monster spawner gauntlet before a big 9000+ slaughterfest at the end. You'll be loaded for bear for megaspheres and cell ammo but you'll die a lot too. But since these are speedmaps, treat them as such, not amazing detail, not amazing gameplay.

At this point I've played one too many wads made by one too many mappers and frankly I can easily tell what styles people end up going for all the time. Darkest Room is themed for black, gray, and green, evoking shades of Death-Destiny maps in both mood and gameplay. A medium-sized map that has exceptionally tough combat due to resources being conserved in a number of places, plus the green cyberdemon isn't too bad a custom monster. It's worth a go, although it's definitely not the best of the crop and sadly will likely be forgotten for other DD-style maps despite being a runner up in the last cacowards.

Amongst the many projects stuck in Doomworld development hell and often showing up on the first page of WADs and Mods with updates (or just people bumping threads and shit) we have Texture Extravaganza. To the uninitiated, one probably thinks it's just a resource wad, made with the efforts of creating new textures, but in reality it's a 27-level megawad, with 26 regular levels and one secret level, with the main gimmick being to use only a select set of textures for each map. It's a community project, started by bzzrak, continued by NaZa, and only now in 2020 was it compiled for idgames release.

The overall gist is this, each starting room is a black room where you see all the textures and flats used to create each map, and with that in mind the teleporter will take you to the map itself. The overall progression of the levels go from generally easy ones with limited resources, to more modern stuff, to the slaughter stuff at the end, which is quite typical of modern megawads. There were mappers I was glad to see, and mappers that I honestly didn't want to see, making maps for this thing. walter conflagration made some interesting maps, some more annoying than they ought to be, and riderr3 made three maps, surprisingly only MAP15 made me feel groggy. The shitty progression in it is bad, but it's actually way worse in Stormcatcher's MAP24, which honestly ought to have been a standalone (when are we gonna get a compiled Cursed Realms). I was okay with pretty much everything else, dobu's map was actually good, even if it's one of the easiest levels, and Azurish's level is good too. Most maps tend to go for the gimmicks, which are love or hate, but I'm glad this got a release.

Jimmy's been known for quality no matter what kinds of maps or midis he makes. While these seem like throwaway random maps without much purpose, each map individually is fun. This is pretty much all that matters. But in each map you'll find textures from various sources, most of which are his own. Quite a few maps take inspiration from many classics. But the bottom line is we're dealing with mostly easy levels with great layouts and a few gimmicks and what not and the experience never really degrades at all. Compared to other speedmappers Jimmy basically does things better.

"A classic-style Doom II megawad with 32 levels. Version 3 music fix released."

Well isn't that right. The gameplay of Deep into the Massacre definitely holds the classic style for the most part, although there's some discrepancies to be had. There aren't any music tracks in this wad, but the wad's music is shuffled more or less. Not that I care about that though. The wad was tested with GZDoom, and I played on that too. It says it won't run with Vanilla Doom, but I think it can run at least on a limit-removing port, if not, Boom-compatible, as there's nothing that really screams ZDoom use anywhere here.

Anyways, design-wise, this is nothing special at all. Gameplay is all over the place depending on the map. Some maps play pretty fine, others try for some gimmicks but come up short. A number of them are a bit boring due to bad baron of hell placement. Secrets make things way too easy. Some areas are symmetrical and often employ the revenant or chaingunner trap. And then there's MAP26 which unfortunately must be broken because it looks like there's no sector tagged for some of the teleporters required to go through.

When it's there though, the combat is alright at the best and mediocre at the absolute worst. It's not that bad but it definitely has room for improvement.

Combat, storyline, and atmosphere. All key ingredients to making some of the best wads, as well as those that would fall under the radar. I would say Infernovasion does fall under the radar, it's only one episode replacement, the likes of which we've seen multiple times throughout the years. But it both plays quite well and offers plenty of deceny in regards to atmosphere and combat. It's never too hard and it usually stays pretty creepy. Most of the levels will get done in about five or so minutes too, so it's a little delightful experience. The cyberspace secret level is decent, the only level I didn't like much was E1M6 and its nukage but the overall feel was decent and it's worth at least one go.

So yet another megawad, yet another community project, and I must be getting old, because I recognize less and less names in the community nowadays who participate in these projects. The overall gist is that this is a project which is in Doom 2 format, where each mapper who participates must use a maximum of 40 sectors. So it's like 10 sectors except times four. Then, you are limited to only using four monster types, which is four times 1 Monster. I guess Four Is Death. but the last limitation will likely raise some eyebrows, as it basically says that there is no SSG allowed. A weapon that can balance itself well against Doom II's bestiary, and it is cancelled completely for this project.

Nevertheless, modesty is the name of the game, and that's what these map layouts offer...modesty. Don't expect supremely fancy Ribbiks architecture, expect more modest, 90s-style layouts that really do remind you of 10 Sectors the megawad. Most maps are short, but several outliers exist, like Blue_Juice's two maps, which I actually don't like. This is an episode-driven megawad, with not only death exits but also episode selection from the main menu. There's going to be slaughtermaps, special mention goes to both secret maps which are stupid and silly levels where shotgun guy hordes basically kill themselves trying to kill you. I can surmise it's likely that players will miss that SSG for the entire megawad.

A combination of rules set out to make a megawad that multiples and combines aspects of classic limitation megawads, and the result turned out exactly as its namesake, modest. Some maps will be weak, there's no getting around that. At the most this set as a whole is just modest.

OOPS: All TechBase, yet another community project that uses techbases, except with the hay fever of dropping bananas on people's heads in the middle of a rainstorm while snakes on an island wear suits and ties. Wait no that's not what it's about. It's a community project with the theme of techbase. Kinda inevitable when you think about it. I was annoyed at the lack of a wad description though.

At least it plays exactly how I expected it to. it has techbases, metal stuff, and well that's all I can say. Other than that, fairly typical community project. Not a lot of names I recognize it seems. Since it's a community project it has ups and downs overall and I don't wanna bother explaining that in detail. short levels, long levels, the occasional fight that feels like slaughter, but even the one with the biggest horde isn't really that hard to deal with. MAP22 is probably my favorite here.

Ideas never seem to run out for many things that have been done before. Reshaping Hangar in multiple ways is the name of this one. You can predict that the layouts still adhere to Hangar, and in some ways so do the monster selections, although they all try different things overall.

MAP01: Alpha textures
MAP02: attempted combo of Hangar and Entryway
MAP03: Doom Jr-like version of Hangar
MAP04: well there's a dock.
MAP05: Hell theme
MAP06: Wolfenstein 3D
MAP07: Resident Evil-based with custom assets
MAP08: Minecraft with a lot of areas that seem different
MAP09: SI6IL based
MAP10: Plutonia MAP01
MAP11: city theme
MAP12: another Hell theme with a small smathering of Go 2 It vibes

Addition to this there's also a new weapon, a pulse rifle with bouncy plasma projectiles as well as the Hell warrior enemy, Both thankfully used sparingly. Most maps are quick to beat like the original Hangar so there's always a chance to revisit this.

This is the kind of wad you will end up playing when you are doing either a huge fucking download elsewhere, or are rendering something important, but because speed fluctuates from between 1 hour to 10 minutes to 5 days, you have nothing better to do other than make some sort of attempt to just strangle your ISP in a fit of rage. But since you probably don't have a clue where your ISP is you decide to play a Doom wad instead. And even then, you can somehow finish beating this one all the way through BEFORE your thing is finished.

This wad isn't your average everyday episode replacement. It's something that is made to befit the 1994 era like a tee. I'm serious. you're seeing what I'm seeing, weird aliens that replace zombiemen and for some reason having arch-vile death animations, the Pluto dog from Disney as the shotgun guy, Reptile from MK as the imp, and the alien from Aliens as the baron. Then the items are like random sprites more or less, with glasses as the light amplification visor and a pink dress as the radiation suit. Sounds are wacky as had been with those ambitious '94 authors, and those who know monti's music selection would probably realize yes, that's weird too (neat that a SD3 song was in E1M7). To further drive the point on home, monti manages to make plenty of areas as annoying as possible, in a way to emulate the sheer annoyance of playing Maximum Doom-like shitty maps of the 1994 era. Hard to believe he would even think of this kinda thing, but there you go. You've got rooms with multiples of weapons and keys, dumb encounters with lots of barons and cacodemons, and every map has 10 secrets and all are stupid hard to get. Backtracking is incredibly prevalent and so is the frustration factor. Perhaps the only thing it really lacks is the inescapable pits or other silly mistakes that '94 mappers made. There's also these philosophical sayings in these secrets, as well as stupid parody imagery of world leaders and Mr. Rogers among other things. What can I say, this is a mess. But it's also an appropriate mess that fits with the desired theme.

Another year another one of these stupid Doomworld Mega Projects where the quality is all over the place. Oh wait this is MAYhem, so it at least tries to be refined in some way to be "different" I guess. But hey! Looks like overdosing on custom monsters and other dumb stuff is thrown by the wayside for "looking back at the olden days of Doom mapping". Think of it as a 10 Sectors tribute, but each map now has 20 Sectors for double the trouble or so they say. To further it, there's resources used from the alpha and beta, so it all feels more of oldie nostalgia.

Nevertheless, the biggest advantage AND the biggest disadvantage that MAYhem 2020 has is basically every single hallmark of a modern community megawad. Think about it, there's...

-More than 32 levels, so a bunch get relegated to the bonus levels. And weirdly the first few seem like they could fit right in the main set (the rest are gimmicks more or less)

-The obligatory MAP11 and MAP20 death exits

-The obligatory MAP21 berserk map

-A joe-ilya map somewhere in the bonus section

-The almost obligatory slaughtermap which may or may not be good

-The late game map (MAP29 in this case) that is more grandiose than it really is and is honestly more troublesome than it's worth

-And everything else in between that is high or low depending on your skill

Oddly enough MAP30 isn't an Icon of Sin map for once, but MAP48 is one. So yes, there you have it another MAYhem, thankfully it was released on the same year as its iteration and not in the testing hell it would have ended up being. My favorite map was MAP14 by the way.

As the previous Glaive was heavily inspired by the Scythe techbase style with ample combat, this continues that tradition, this time tackling the hell theme. As you'd expect, Glaive 2 is obviously much tougher, with a few setpiece fights to bring out the carnage while sticking to the Scythe style. Well, mostly. I identified some particular areas seeming similar to One Bloody Night's hell areas, so maybe it's just Eric Alm-inspired overall? Regardless, it's another quickie if you got time to kill. No map names again.

Before I start this I should note that the link is not really the final as they are still bugfixing and well they'll get to it considering I gave some feedback on bugs. This review is on how the overall wad feels to me though.

So I'd say this was a well-anticipated megawad considering I really did enjoy much of the previous Interception (even if many of the levels there seem mediocre now). We've got lots of custom music which is excellent, and the promises of action-packed stuff. Okay so that's there and all. Above all else though, the biggest issue is the overall pacing. There's no short maps in the set aside from MAP31 (which is a gimmick map and doesn't really count as much). Every map is medium to large-sized and it's very likely a player will get fatigued or forget where they are going overall. We can appreciate the long map between other maps in a megawad but not multiple in a row in most cases. That's not even getting to why they are so long. I'd wager that speedrunning this in any category is nauseating, as the pacing of the maps tends to go to a standstill once you don't know where to go. For completionists, it's even nastier, as items are scattered everywhere and monsters are placed precariously, with plenty of secrets in most maps. And my god, stop with forced arena fights. Many of the Boom triggers seem screwed up it makes me wonder why they didn't stick with vanilla compatibility. While anticipated, it blew my expectations to the ground with just how the gameplay tries to do everything to make you regret playing it.

Here we have an 11-level Doom II wad using IWAD music and generally speedmapped layouts. A few other changes like different-colored textures and such, and the layouts work alright for the most part. Levels are usually done fairly quickly. Some notable changes include a plasma trooper which replaces the SS as well as a spectre version of the cacodemon. Also the lost soul is green and for some weird reason, the hell knight has a more pixelated sprite (I don't know why this is the case at all). One of the weird highlights is the last level, which in actuality when you trigger the spawn shooter it actually makes no sounds for spawning enemies (they spawn in teleport closets and go to the main area more or less, but you pretty much need to beat the level quickly anyways). So it's another generally short speedmapped set. Not anywhere close to the best but more could be coming.

Return to Hadron E3 does what E1 don't and what E2 doesn't. But it's much of the same except with the hell theme predominant more or less, so those used to cannonball's style well there's not much new. NOT that it's a bad thing if you're interested in gameplay, as this is what cannonball focuses on most. Most areas are populated heavily, but each area also has fluidity so getting lost isn't an issue for once. There's at least two long levels at the end but are well-balanced and good enough to go through. My only complaint would be the baron usage as there's one too many in most maps. E3M5 in particular in a real nasty one.

Here we have the sequel to the first 1000 Lines Community Project, so the levels will still not be as huge as they appear, well for the most part anyways. We have 34 of them, and to make things sleeker, these mappers all used VOTEX. What the heck is this VOTEX well it's a vanilla-compatible texture pack version of OTEX which people should be familiar with by now (and if you're not get the hell out of the rock you're under). Also included are plenty of music tracks, particularly several new ones by AD_79 who composed the majority of it.

So as you'd expect, this being a community project of course quality varies, however consistency is nicely done so that no map (well apart from one) feels expurgated in a way. Things scale nicely and there's distinctions between short maps, long maps, slaughter setups offered in spades, traditional death exits, yes. Well I was only disappointed in MAP30 but most IOS fights in megawads are pretty bleh anyways.

As for that one map. I think after people play it it'll be the one map to be talked about for months. Let me give you a hint. Revenant rockets

So here we have not one, but two megawads, where each level is done so that the file size does not exceed 64 kb. Which equates to small levels. Hey, this is good, since I can get through it quickly. Of course, <64kb maps tend to be very unmemorable overall, those that try to make things interesting end up making their maps more annoying in retrospect. The more memorable outings are in the limit-removing set, and that set utilizes "YAMFSCMWHO" or "Yet Another Mancubus Fireball Spewing Custom Monster Wow How Original". Scypek's map has the first custom stuff, and was interesting. I am left wondering if Aurelius's map was intentionally glitchy. Overall what else can you expect aside from mixed bag?

And now I hear that there's a 128kb challenge. Personally I'm sitting here waiting for "64kb 1024x1024 32 grid 5 textures 5 flats 69 monsters in the style of joe-ilya Community Project"

One year late so you're telling me this could've been a 2019 megawad, in any case, it's our 22nd megawad of 2020 (23 if you count both 64kb wads). There's not much to really say, other than this does indeed use every line and sector action at least once. So it's got some creativity right there, some levels have one-time only switches which are only troublesome for secret finders and will not render levels unsolvable, and there's such things as a five-minute door, thirty second door traps. surprisingly map size and monster count are mostly small, but even the smallest maps have their hard parts. Some maps work better than others as usual, like I really don't like MAP15 and its lifts at all but many other maps around it were great. Gimmick maps were fun to get the hang of.

So who could imagine, that in 2020, that not only would we have so many megawads, but also a one-man megawad made by possibly the most interesting modern mapper yet? Scypek2 is known for participating in just about every community project, but whenever you play a map by this guy you're not gonna get conventional Doom. instead you get, well, the weird, but still playable level. The big bonus here would be that the entire set is vanilla-compatible and follows an interesting story. here, you are dealing with not one, but three marines, each setting off on their own adventure, with death exits and such to differentiate the different characters. The levels all try to combine neat concepts throughout and are assured to be fully playable and the gimmicks understandable. MAP24 is my least favorite though, because the switch puzzle for the blue door is bad, but this was still a fun megawad.

When it comes to making your first map, it's honestly way better to make it underwhelming instead of overwhelming. This follows the overwhelming approach, and not in any good ways at all. 7 Deadly Sins appropriately titles its levels after the sins, and at least tries to make a level out of each concept. Ultimately it doesn't make anyone happy, in fact, it seems to do everything it can to make you regret playing it.

Sloth and Greed are the shorter maps, but neither are particularly fun even though they try with the concepts (Sloth tries to be somewhat of a starvation map, Greed goes with the first room having you dodge cyberdemons and enter square rooms to telefrag them before the final room where you would get invulnerabilities to take down cyberdemons). Wrath and Envy are more medium-sized, but both have long, drawn-out areas, which are even more prevalent in the slaughtermaps Pride, Lust, as well as the sort-of hub map Gluttony. This combined with the "my first map design" does not abode well at all for this wad as a whole. The two first maps are slaughter maps, but it seems like all the meat is concentrated weirdly, like Pride has the majority of them being in the obscenely huge cargo room and most are imps, while Lust just has LOADS of zombiemen in the beginning while the other areas are milder, albeit still stupidly long and boring. Gluttony tries to spice things up but goes so slowly it's not worth it. Finally there's a game-breaking bug with Envy as that one library room seems to function like a door which means that it can close all the way and be locked out.

Overall the wad is very generic and definitely has the "my first wad" feel. Although inspired by WOS I didn't see a lot in that inspiration, as the textures were not used as well and the layouts are bland and overdrawn. Encounters should be made much more fun too. it helps to look at how other maps were designed, both in design and gameplay, when it comes to making your next map.

The year of the megawad ain't over yet. Not much in the way of story for textfile, and frankly, not much in overall changes, just a 32-map megawad made by one author. Levels are medium-sized and flow excellently, with no major progression hiccups. Secrets aren't too difficult to find and difficulty scales accordingly. While typical and somewhat average, it's as charming as a typical megawad. Highlights include the brutal mancubus trap in MAP19, the "climb" that is MAP30 which is the slaughtermap (oh and the Icon of Sin is on MAP29 this time), and a somewhat weird story which well I couldn't understand but I don't care. This was certainly a fun romp and worth a try.

Here we got a small collection of five birthday maps by Arlene for various friends and such. They all use OTEX like a number of cool projects, but the levels are all small in size so they are over rather quickly. Most of them have at least one hub, the first one is sort-of a slaughtermap but the others go for a more hubspoke approach. None are particularly tough and some have a few cool GZDoom effects.

Wow, this year feels like FOREVER and yet despite all the shit that's been going on this year it seems that Doom megawad making is at its all time high.

Anyways this iteration of /vr/ isn't necessarily timed to speedmaps, it is yet another 2048 megawad though, so sizes are compact and the levels small, for the most part. Luckily no stupid slaughterfests snuck in but there is gonna be mixed quality in general. And sadly, the levels despite using the decent textures don't really stick out, and just sort of feel like levels that you run through without remembering much about them. There's an extra set of levels that didn't make the cut, and it's up to your discretion whether or not they deserved those extra slots (some did have annoying usage of voodoo conveyors which felt longer than needed, so I say yes they deserved it). How far do you think 2020 will go for megawad making?

180 minutes = 3 hours, so essentially this is 3 heures d'agonie 4 just under a different title. A treat of speedmaps with a few doses of custom content. So if there's any indication you're playing these maps, is that they are speedmaps, so generally small layouts, plus you get to accommodate yourself with specific author styles, such as WH-Wilou84 preferring organically-constructed locales that lean to slaughter at times and having music from Hell Revealed 2, or JC preferring more orthogonal layouts with the same gameplay, or Datacore being more or less a traditionalist. and a wild Darkwave0000 also made a map, but it's by far his easiest or so. And as you can expect, slaughtermaps are in the back. Every megawad doesn't need a slaughtermap at the end you know. For custom monsters, the multi-eyed caco which shoots a one-two punch of imp and mancubus fireballs is actually kinda neat, but I'm not a fan of the heresiarch. That's about it there. Despite their size, the level layouts are tricky and the authors really really want to hide those secrets somehow. Crazy, don't you think?

Well I don't know much of the story behind Rowdy Rudy, considering I never played the first one. But in any case, we got 20 vanilla maps, plus two Boom-compatible ones in an extra wad. And there's some subtle changes to the weapons, namely the pistol is now an assault rifle which I enjoy for reasons obvious and not obvious, while the SSG and shotgun have been made much faster, same with the chaingun. Monster changes are overall alright, each has a niche that works out well, with the best being probably the flame caco. Yes, there's one of those chaingunner types that only drops a clip and replaces the SS, but for some weird reason, a mini version of the spiderdemon exists to replace the chaingunner.

Onto the levels themselves, honestly I can see them actually being memorable! Many of them have sense and purpose to make sense with the backstory, none are particularly huge in size (except MAP22 but that's a bonus map), and all are fun to go through. A few homages to some maps, like one has a Toxin Refinery homage in two places while MAP17 takes after Plutonia well. There's an obligatory slaughtermap at MAP20 but it's actually super easy and kinda disappointing. Overall though, this is one of those romper megawads, where you'll be progressing well and fluidly.

One year ago NoReason had compiled a megawad for NaNoWadMo with the same intentions as this one, speedmaps that are made in the unbalanced slaughter category, with no rhyme or reason in most cases.

Well, the same thing more or less applies here! Maps will have MOD music, hordes, teleporting hordes, platforming (timed platforming for the two Zandronum levels too), death exits at times (and ResetInventory as an added measure). Some maps are quite detracted from the rest of the set, especially MAP25 which isn't anything slaughter-like but still hard. Others are incredibly long they make me question if they are speedmaps, MAP16 is the biggest one for example. again you're probably just gonna put your favorite overpowered weapon mod and god mode everything if you're gonna play it. The spiderdemon has changed, and the cybruiser acts as an additional rocket-shooter again. Have fun not having fun and then having fun I guess.

"Ready to leave work today?" "Uh, sure". Clock Out is a map clocked out of a project for going overtime, which is quite a cut above the project's intended pay grade. In any case, it is designed as a speedmap. Afterglow is one of the unsung mappers that people know for specific certain maps, but is still somehow underrated in the community by quite a lot. This map definitely reminds players of his Jagermorder levels of old, the level is reasonably sized with ebbs and flows of difficulty. highlight that rough beginning with the chaingunners, then you go from there. Other chaingunner encounters prove to be difficult. The encouragement of cacodemons, which seem to be one of the guidelines in Isolation, was used to full effect here, even flinging cacodemons, literally, into the main area. The bridges section is well done. My only complaint is one of the final areas with the arch-viles on the conveyor and the cacodemon horde, which well it's difficult to even hit the former enemies there. Afterglow sure does make some of the better standalone levels in any case though.

Ss Clock Out was a one-off wad that didn't actually make the cut for this community project, I got some sort of idea on what I was expecting. Main premise, we're all bored to death while in year-long quarantine, not much we really could be able to do. we've got a new palette, and every time there's a new palette (or custom font) can bet there's going to be some hard gameplay. It's an unwritten rule of modern wads, you know, but it seems like I'm the only one who understands this. So each and every one of the wads we see here deals with no F_SKY (cause you're stuck inside), the nukage is always damaging, and the health pickups are always on water (stimulating the importance of clean hands for health). Also no more than 12 hours must be spent, after all, a long map can really break the flow of the overall megawad, and thankfully nothing really breaks the mold. Must be why Clock Out was taken off.

In any case, we have yet another 2020 megawad that does its rounds and does them well. Expect good level, expect great levels (MAP29), and expect an_mutt to pull an an_mutt. Also the ResetHealth and ResetInventory flags are in effect, and if you don't like pistol-starting every map I suggest you remove those lumps from MAPINFO or something. I was unable to find the secret exit in MAP15 so I had to warp to those levels I guess. The only real hiccup's gotta be MAP26, as the teleporter out of the north section doesn't work (plus an area in the hub has a big HOM and the door on the west side doesn't seem to open). The backside of the lowerable bars that lead to the exit are only Switch Once too, so this level definitely needs bugfixing. Also it's not obvious where to really go and as a result it's probably the hardest level overall. 

STRAIN 2 of Isolation:

Same premise, except weaker maps. This must've been all the leftovers from the huge turnout I think, based off of what I see. the majority of the maps are really small and definitely have that new mapper feel to them, so nothing is truly exciting. Later maps straddle slaughterfest lines. In any case, don't expect the second strain to be as infectious as the first.

Not a short map by any means, but there's only one map to play here, and it's an E2M2. Large, but fairly standard, areas are mostly open so you're gonna probably find enemies on all sides, particularly demons. Not to difficult to move around and there's room to get lost, but you'll still find your way through it easily. An entire section after the red key door teleporter opens up even more, with a larger horde to weld through before yet another one, then you have the interesting exit area. The area between the exit area and after the red door teleporter was cut for a shorter version of this map which is in the E2M3 slot, but this was still decent.

Once again, vanilla-compatible stuff from the Doomkid. I sorta skipped this earlier this year since it was only six levels, but I regret this now. This was definitely a lot of fun. The silliness of the music tracks used, hula skirt imps, and the frantic combat all remind me heavily of good ol' Duke Caribbean, despite being Doom instead. DoomCute is present in the first map, but the later ones adopt traditional level design. Reminiscent of the 90s but with added flair such as mildly adopted weapons, this is a little mini ditty and it's worth the titty.

4 levels with a winter theme, perfect considering we're bound for the cold and wintery winter. Levels are well-made using some very fine textures to go with the theme, and the overall difficulty never exceeds a very hard threshold. It's like playing lost levels from the Whitemare megawads or something, but even not considering that this is well-made and likely to be a hidden gem.

Well I only played on the lowest setting but this is a pretty cool rendition of the place I guess. You can pick up weapons, explore secrets, "play" with arcades (this actually gives you some secrets), go through portals, explore, find a hidden switch to crush the arch-vile trap at the exit, and even find a little Adventure secret where the demon is replaced with a dragon. It's all DoomCute and fun. The higher settings probably put monsters around the museum.

So this is a sequel to a previous megawad known as Djinn featuring a protagonist known as Snail. Both Djinn and Happy seem to deal with some insane stuff, and despite only playing Happy I think I have an idea of what this is. Basically, imagine A.L.T. in 2020. You've got some tricky combat in certain maps, as well as unorthodox progression that will have you turning your head quite a bit. Overall the levels aren't actually huge, but some are going to lean into Ribbiks-like gameplay so it's very important to keep on your toes at all times through each level. There's a new "crackodemon" which is super annoying, also faster gray demons and a few boss monsters to add to each "episode". Still not a fan of custom monsters though. Visually and gameplay wise it's quite busy but you'll still be bound to lose your senses.

Touted as "the map to destroy your bitrate" this wad originally was a jokewad in which every texture was FIREBLU. But it became way more than that. The walls, floors, ceilings, torches, switches, and even enemies all are painted in the dark red and dark blue. The level is quite large, with lots of monsters, but revolves into setpiece slaughter, with design reminiscent of Ribbiks and gameplay highly reminiscent of Death-Destiny. It's a tough one because of that, with certain things teleporting in after each switch press or key grab.

When it said "the map to destroy your bitrate", I was a bit skeptical since I play on a laptop now, but shit, the fucking map made it seem like my computer was going to BS at some point or another even when I tried to cool it down. Dunno what it could be that could've caused it, there was lag at some parts when you look at the big area. The setpieces at the north end (circular arch-vile area) and the south end (shotgun guys in the windows plus all the foottroops. it's got the difficulty of death so be prepared for a toughie.

All these damn sequel numbers right? Anyways Doom -1 is more than just your average everyday community project. Doom -1 is an experiment. It's all about one person making something, then another editing on top of that, then another, and so forth. In a surprising plot twist there's more than 32 levels of this, and each intermission screen shows who was involved in the making of each finished level, though you'll probably not be able to read all the names sometimes (then again you're probably a creep if you pay way too much attention to author names than other things in a megawad). Doom -1 allowed the use of custom assets, including new sounds, music, weapon and monster sprites, and even a few new dehacked enemies like a rocket shooting turret.

The beef's of course in the levels themselves, as you may know anyone can add their edits and submit and such. Each level is considerably sized, with MAP15 and MAP18 being the biggest marathons to conquer. Because of this, each level has at least one thing that feels worthwhile. Now it's still in bugfix mode and i've submitted my findings for some of the more heinous issues, but this was a worthwhile experience and its mention in Special Features this year helped me find out about it.

Of all the stuff mentioned in runner's up, I find Gods & Guardians to be the absolute strangest pick out of all of them. Maybe it's because Wraith777 has a very unique way of creating vanilla levels, or maybe I'm just not that used to the style ever since I played Alpha Accident. In any case, we have 7 levels to throttle through. They exemplify adventure more than combat. There's lots of exploration, and this is especially true for MAP04 and MAP05, the biggest levels by far. The combat is of the classic Doom variety, too easy for expert players but a fine romp for everyone else. prepare to get lost. There's an Icon of Sin match in MAP06, the final actual level, with MAP07 being more of a bonus level or anything.

Word of warning: try not to play this with mods that modify monsters since MAP06 and MAP07 use a 666 tag for certain enemies. Also is that supposed to be a glide marker in MAP07?

aVOID by @bolon667:

So after a name change we got ourselves a weird concept of minigames. Yep, this is a quickie, but it's one to test your bullet-hell instincts more or less. A quick summary:

-Rocket, barrel, and crusher dodging. some of the early stuff is actually harder than the one with the sidestepping on the platform (which has crushers and the large rocket wave)

-The punching of enemies that show up, you basically punch them out of the ring, then you have a cyberdemon at the end with an invulnerability timer.

-The next one I think is supposed to be a "find your way through maze" thing but it was bugged and I couldn't see anything so I basically trial and errored it while cheating cause it didn't work properly.

-The final challenge is in three waves where you get a plasma gun, rocket launcher, and BFG respectively then fight off waves of demons, imps, mancubi, and finally a cyberdemon at the end (where you can finally move your character so you can see it, although you can only shoot upwards), note that the cyberdemon does fire in a completely different mannerism than you'd expect, watch out he gets tougher each time.

It's a simple time-killing wad of sorts, either you'll retry a lot, godmode it and get bored, or you'll just sort of like it. In any case, it is unique.

While rummaging through everything that has shown up in the Cacowards of 2020 I stumbled upon a prequel to a runner-up by accident, but here we are. Leave it to jazzmaster to come up with interesting ideas for a TC, this one combining elements of the Doom clones while incorporating the Doom monsters and several other new ones. Health bars can help in determining how much it can take to finish off the enemy in this mod, plus you get several interesting tools of death to use. the crossbow felt great against singular opponents, the raven and serpent staff do the jobs of the Heretic Dragon Claw and Doom shotgun respectively, while the Hellforge Cannon is obviously the rocket launcher. The former two weapons require White mana to use, which is dropped by most enemies and can be replenished with blue potions, while the Hellforge Cannon and another fire-using hand weapon use Black Mana, requiring purple potions. Some of this stuff is inventory items, along with several powerups to also help.

There's RPG elements to this stuff too. The main map is this huge-ass hub that thankfully has several warps and even has enemies reappearing once you revisit some areas. The towns of course are where your allies are, so check the quest log and buy stuff that's really all that's necessary. jazzmaster makes sure you keep the run-and-gun action going, so it's recommended to run past most of the enemies that reappear as you go about the quests which are required to progress. The separate levels are either one-off side quest levels where you can find treasure (oh and there's chests to loot, by the way), or fight bosses, and the main levels although much smaller than the hub offer incentives to progress, even the bosses. Certain enemies are buffed and have names, and these enemies are bounties which you can trade for more moolah.

Overall this isn't one to pass off, as it does an interesting premise along with decent gameplay so that you're not gonna get bored with it. Just remember not to lose yourself in the hub and you're fine. now I shall play Abysm 2, which actually was the runner-up.

After some thought, the most annoying thing about (G)ZDoom wads may not be that they try to flash you with all sorts of visual effects or are overdosed on scripts or whatever it is everyone else hates about them, but the fact that I gotta get a new version just to play some of the newer stuff due to compatibility issues and all. I'm sorry, I love sticking to just using a slightly outdated version without all the super effects. Even worse is when I actually cannot play some of these newer GZDoom versions on my laptop without it crashing, so for this cacoward runner-up I switched back to my slightly-corrupted desktop with hardware renderer and it worked fine.

So Abysm 2. I've outlined pretty much the gist of what to expect in the review of Abysm: Dawn of Innocence, so look for that review in a different status update. In any case, the main expansions would be a class selection screen (hunter, sorceress, alchemist), which determines starting weapons, as well as stat skills, which can be boosted by talking to an NPC. And guess what, it's an action RPG TC, a bit like Zelda II in some ways and like most other Action RPGs. Plus forging weapons by trading in Iron Shards (common drops) as well as trading in souls to power up mana-based weaponry (interestingly, these are rarer, so the best place to get them is to target named monsters). An unfortunate circumstance is that upgrades can only happen once, which kinda sucks but I guess things gotta be limited. I went with the sorceress class and most of my damage output came from the mana weapons at the expense of other weapons not doing enough damage. Other new stuff would have to be some cheesy one-liners uttered whenever you gib enemies as well as that fucking fog that annoyed me a lot.

But for the most part, aside from the stuff that makes this more of an action RPG, the rest of this plays out quite a lot like Abysm 1. You've got the super-big hub map where you go on quests in your hometown, then you have smaller maps that have the jazzmaster design tropes (general linearity, not too many monsters, good sense of direction, etc.), have warp waypoints to use, monsters respawn whenever you exit towns, sidequest areas where all you gotta do is explore, and a compelling story about being a slayer and hero for your town. Each individual area has some form of boss or super treasure room, especially the sidequests, and much of the Doom monsters make reoccurences as regulars (although palette swaps are around too) in addition to some of the Heretic and Hexen enemy mainstays who's behaviors all get modified and such.

What can I say, it's a sensible adventure TC that is wonderful to prod through. Leave it to jazzmaster to come up with some of the more innovative ways to make a TC.

Well what can I say. The holy shit quotient reaches new levels each year, and we get perhaps our biggest yet with Ar Luminae, easily the biggest of the Cacoward winners of 2020.

And, sadly, the least accessible one.

In order to even play Ar Luminae, you gotta have the latest GZDoom (so 4.5.0, although I guess the last few latest versions MAY work, but it seems that 4.5.0 is the best in performance overall), tinker with the settings appropriately, hardware rendering MUST be on, and above all else, your rig has GOT to be able to handle everything. Amazingly despite my desktop being corrupted with its USB ports and all, I was able to actually play this map. But only barely as some fights got impossible due to lag issues. In any case I'll describe what I can.

Vibrant, visually-appealing setting and design is compounded by fast-paced gameplay designed to use @Tango's Supercharge mod, which certainly flairs things in many ways. It really does help to play on the lowest difficulty level (if at all) because you want to check it all out. 20 secrets, and while I as the expert secret hunter had no trouble finding all 20 of them, you're gonna be banging your head just about everywhere to figure out how to get each one. And the design and gameplay are compounded by the sheer girth of the level. There's LOTS of ground to cover, as well as a few innovative arena battles. One section has you finding four blue switches, and you fight a cyberdemon variant in each one. Another has arachnotrons continuously respawning on conveyors on your way to getting the yellow skull key and a new Stomper weapon (pretty much necessary for that part). Another has interesting poison clouds rotating around while monsters teleport, another has hexagon platforms that sink into the lava plus archviles that can be crushed instantly by shooting switches.

In a way much of the level feels like at least twelve levels in one, since there's at least one puzzle in each particular "segment", if you will, and the ultimate goal is to get this weird artifact. But of course, prepare for multiple hours of just getting to it. I should mention, that final battle is a test of endurance and patience, even though it's just fighting waves until you can open that core up. Even on the lowest setting that fight can drain you easily.

So even though I was BARELY able to play this wad, I bet a huge impercentable chunk of people won't be be able to due to how much it contains in every single Dooming aspect and how much will slow down your systems. These megamaps are certainly something, but in my opinion, we shouldn't be getting too ahead of ourselves.

So the sequel to yet another thing I have yet to play. In any case, she manages to make a fun level with good GZDoom lighting, but more importantly, one that is fairly simple in gameplay. It's not going to be a true showstealer, which is why it's in the runners-up category, but it does what it does and does it well, giving classic gameplay to a modernized GZDoom setting. It was fun and playable and those two things matter. there's a few custom arachnorbs included, including two back-to-back queens, followed by yet another cyberdemon on the end. Stuff that keeps you on your toes, it's all fun.

Here's yet another GZDoom level that plays fairly well in classic, er, modern style. The red atmosphere is what really steals the show but that shouldn't distract you from the obviously great gameplay. Although this is a three-key map, the expanse looks more massive than it should, and the meat that you need to grind through feels worthwhile. Loving the former human mosh pit, while the other central mosh pit is quite a grinding one. The cage with cacodemons watching is a very intriguing highlight fight above all else, especially once the cage opens and the cacos come marching in! It was worth the fifteen minutes of play, that much I'll say.

(I played the low spec version of course)
 

Probably the main highlight of this year's cacowards, due to it gaining a ward along with its soundtrack. Then again, they all are winners, so I should shut up. In any case, Bridge bridges the bridge into another epicly-designed level with absolutely surreal architecture that pushes GZDoom to the limit, but not to as humongous as Ar Luminae. It was far more playable in that regard. Of course, let's not get ahead of ourselves here. This one functions essentially by giving you the hub, allowing you to choose your destiny as usual, but then you're going to deal with setpiece slaughter in droves. Just imagine those epic cacodemon waves coming around, especially one particular area at the south end that unfortunately I noticed you can fall into the center and get stuck or something, which isn't cool. Most of the other areas work fine though. I'd say the biggest surprise was after my first trip back to the main yellow key area the first real slaughter just showed up. The endgame fared better than the beginning by far.

Void-style, blue, purple, Supercharge mod, GZDoom portals, the feel of a hub map with two portals, cyberdemon fights after keys, one major slaughter after you finish the north side. I summed up what you'll be dealing with, but how you deal with it is the fun to be had. Ammo and other supplies should be abundant to compensate for what you're gonna be tangling with in this whole map, and while this is one of the smaller entries to make use of Supercharge, it still does it well (I hate those floating behemoth things!). Individual sections on the way to the red and blue keys are well done (except I hated the abrupt cyberdemon showing at the blue key), and I enjoy the way it ends where it began.

It's so strange to see that so many of these things that get mentioned in the Cacowards start out as speedmaps, but for some reason, go out of hand. It's like they needed the drive to make their map much more than it should and the result ends up being yet another epic 30-minute long drivel. That's what Criticality is. A Boom-compatible single map, fairly nonlinear, has bits and pieces of slaughterfest gameplay along with the always fun OTEX textures shining through. Well, I gotta say, I felt underwhelmed. Some of the fights are there alright, but many of the ones I got to later ended up being easier than some of the ones in the middle. The nonlinearity meant I wandered a lot without fighting, trying to see what was new in the complex and all. The area behind the six-key teleporter was especially underwhelming on the lowest skill setting, and the exit is achieved rather quickly. Fun to explore, and some slaughter is there, but it's easy to see why this was only a runner-up.

"Wait a second there's MORE megawads in 2020?" YES! For some reason whatsoever @DyingCamel has this stream thing and a bunch of non-Mayhem-related schmucks come together and well I don't know the details or what actually transpired during these things because sadly they don't mention what were the guidelines for this session in the textfile. Someone may as well respond what you guys were supposed to be doing because I don't know.

But from what I played, it lures people into a false sense of security. For an uninitiated player the first few maps seem like quick and dirty speedmaps, nothing exciting but nothing offensive. It makes you think that this was a speedmapping session of sorts. Then MAP05 happens and you say "wait this isn't a speedmap this is a full-blown odyssey". And then every map from MAP08 onwards is some form of slaughtermap, designed for maximum pain and zero pleasure. With some maps having numerous megaspheres or invulnerabilities scattered one must wonder if they made this stuff as a joke. These maps definitely don't play like they're beatable levels and 0% of filthy casuals in the community will find this to be a fun wad. Who wants to dispute?

That being said this is the first wad I played that had the 3D Pinball music in one map. That's something right there.

These two mappers have had small bits of spotlight by being community project members from time to time, but if there's anything to say about their mapping prowess, is that they always deliver some goodness. We have a five-map wad with Ancient Aliens assets thrown in. The maps are not difficult, especially for any seasoned player, but each one has their fun. The open spaces of MAP04 and its three-key hub can prove deceiving when the monsters start coming in, and the forced arena battles of MAP05 feel nice, especially the final fidget spinner battle. Maps before those provide great buildup but nothing seems boring. Just simple Doom fun!

December never seems to end given what we've been dealt when it comes to all these damn megawads. And yet we are granted yet another one this year, although it was only 16 maps this time around, and many are actually quite quick too. Anyways, Boaty McBoatwad drew its inspiration from the excellency of Jimmy's 25 Greatest Sector Ships, and as always, the results, though varied, manage to make quite a few memorable vessels of vassals. Expect to board and be boarded. Expect harboring of harbour monsters. Expect some of the boats (looking at you MAP12) to look far, far better than those around it. It's a fun coffee break, excuse me, rum break of a mapset and did its job well.

On a dark Doomy highway there's a cold cut in my hands. The warm smell of roasted turkey and ham rises up through the air. But I can't eat the fucking thing because my jaw will dislocate. Sorry.

Imagine if Eviternity, Eternal Doom, Sunder, the NOVA wads, ZPack, and Mutiny all had one bastard offspring. This is the result. Take the OTEX textures and level design that made Eviternity famous. Take the super-long slaughter gameplay of Sunder. Take the longevity of Eternal Doom, Take the collaboration mapping efforts that Mutiny had. Take the Megiddo maps from the NOVA series of wads. Take the mixed bag that was ZPack. Here you go. The Mapwich 2. You can check out any time you like. BUT YOU CAN NEVER LEAVE.

So let's see. A GZDoom megawad of 22 maps using the rapid-fire gameplay of Supercharge yet again. These levels, unfortunately, are VERY LONG, considering the Sunder-style gameplay as well as the huge amounts of linedefs that can tank certain rigs. Be prepared to spend days with this. The slaughter gameplay compounded with Supercharge's effects really does slow things down. There was a buttload of freedom with how these wads were made, and it seems that there are no rules (according to cacoward judge Not Jabba), so you're required to use IDDQD if you want to enjoy yourself.

Personally though, the more I went the less I enjoyed. Many, many of these wads really work well standalone, but multiple long ones back to back is exhausting and the threequel for the Mapwich series needs to have much shorter levels if you want more people to enjoy them. Linedef candy and slaughterfests are one thing, playability and difficulty are another. Ask yourself, how much do you expect players really want in these levels? And speaking of working well standalone, apparently Ar Luminae was a part of this set at one point, but it was so damn big that it had to be standalone. Yet I spent more time with Mapwich 2 than with Ar Luminae. Go figure.

Nevertheless, if you feel like warping to levels to see just how badass they can be, be our guest. Insane_Gazebo himself took part in this one making MAP20, which was great. Dragonfly and our creator of 2020 Bridgeburner made a fun finale. And if you're a masochist, have fun with MAP21. Everyone sure went overboard with this Mapwich, but limits are limits. And still those voices are calling from far away.

2020 proved to be more than just a year of the megawad, but also a year of the slaughterfest. With Mapwich 2, the two NoReason's Speedmap megawads, SlaughterMAX, Death in Excess, Bastion of Chaos, When you get three budding slaughtermap authors coming together to create 18 (actually 17, as MAP18 is just an end map) high-quality levels full of linedefs and design echoing its almighty grandfather Sunder, you'll be quite surprised at how well it looks up to its predecessors and eclipses them.

Luring many into its amazing macro-architecture and scenery porn, each of these Boom-format levels play like a true slaughtermap, but each has their own theme to make them stand out. It of course has a good progression from the smaller fights to the larger ones, and usually the largest battles are saved for the very last each time. In most cases, establishing a foothold will require a few tries, but I can see each fight being manageable once a foothold is secured. As a result, there's actually barely anything negative about this wad as a whole! Well, apart from framedrops in MAP13 if your rig isn't even remotely good enough, which makes some of the platforming segments impossible. Be quite careful with the inescapable pits in some maps (starting around MAP06 in particular).

Highlight not-to-miss moments:
-MAP09's imp house. You'll know what I mean.

-MAP10's lost soul swarm.

-Much of MAP13 (if you can handle it). Reminds me of The Hag's Finger

-MAP16's endgame. Best map in the set by the way, but the open space is safe to run around with.

-Most of MAP17, final battle in particular.

Other good stuff:
Maps aren't as gargantuan as Sunder, so each map shouldn't take more than an hour even if your at your slowest.

With the exception of a few switches that are often out of the way in arenas, it's impossible to get lost.

Salty moments of mine:

Framedrops on MAP13 making platforming segments impossible (not author's fault)

Took me a while to play this, probably because I got annoyed with the music at a first glance, but I'll turn it off and play accordingly.

Those already familiar with ESP 1, well, this one tries to be significantly different, but is the same, but is still different. Do not overthink my statement. As usual the compilation wad orders things in a way that playing continuous is disjointed, so pistol start is recommended. First few maps are from the NH series, so no health. A lot of save/loading can be tedious but these maps are extremely easy anyways. MAP11 is a DMP2017 map, kinda quick though. The UDINO E4M9 thing I definitely remember a lot about, certainly fun to see a number of fears, though Dying is over the top. We then see a mixture of NH levels plus another DMP level before MAP17 tells us to put in the dehacked patch for MAP18: Teledest. After that is the Boom-compatible stuff, some of this I was familiar with in the projects they were already featured in like 50shades and such. ZDoom comes in at MAP26, well these are of course varied. The two Loink maps I wasn't a fan of, but the other, smaller ones felt alright, of course there was more than enough action to tangle with. Didn't bother with ZDaemon wads for now but I think I've had my fair share of fun.

Highlight not-to-miss moments:
The Drown in Blood levels
UDINO E4M9 in more or less its entirety

Mr Graytall

Other good stuff:
Well this has good stuff if you like easy slaughtermaps!

Salty moments:
Music was bad so I turned it off.

Since I haven't played the first one yet, might as well. In any case, this is supposed to be some kind of Lovecraftian TC, and a good look at the level design, enemies, weapons, and even playable character all reveal that yep, you're in some crazy eldritch abomination of a wad made to look and feel as such. Is it good?

Well my first impression wasn't all that exciting. The first weapon in the game is a reskinned pistol, and the enemies are more or less reskins of the zombieman (Goresack) and imp (Deacon). Not even sure what the Zealot was supposed to be. Seemed like another hitscanner? The revenant-like enemy known as the Bonelord at the end of the first map had an interesting high-speed ranged plasma bolt, which is more unique. But the second level proved a lot better, with both shotgun forms present, and the SSG in this game, the Vile Slayer, is already kick-ass, with both a good fire rate and the ability to shoot either both barrels or two at different times. The Leviathan weapon fires the same plasma that that revenant-like enemy does, which is super fast and can be somewhat overpowered. This was also the level where we first see what seems to be a reskinned caco (Angel). Third level immediately introduces the chaingun replacement, the Splinter, which seems to function more like ST/Zandro's minigun really. Also the Shrine version of Doom's demon (Hunter) was here too. Quite a few hordes in buildings to take care of but much quicker overall. MAP04 had its moments, but introduces me to the Matriarch, a.k.a. hell knight/baron replacement, firing multiples of the traditional green fireball or one big bright green one. MAP05 gives us the rocket launcher equivalent, the Placenta Cannon, along with a new floating projectile enemy called Afflicted. MAP06 was alright but kinda lame; it does introduce the Sinner, who functions like a Lost Soul. Those things are quite ruthless without either the Splinter or Leviathan wailing on them, they've got the health to survive well and this can easily be seen in the Cathedral level, which also features the mancubus replacement known as the Guardian. Nothing new in MAP08, but it's themed well to build up to the simple boss map of MAP09, where the BFG Replacement, the Eldritch Annihilator is, along with the boss, the Dreadnought, which frankly isn't as cyberdemon-y as I thought. Also the Eldritch Annihilator functions more like the BFG2704 from the alpha really. The Womb level that follows is quite grotesque, with a surprise Dreadnought at one point, then the Archives that follows it, while mostly standard, gives us the Seraphim boss, with a number of unique electricity attacks. It's also flying, and I find that the Leviathan is the best choice if you can somehow slam it outside the field. The Elder World is the best designed level so far, but Aether after it is just a lame climb-up map. Sentinel was a fun level which even had rain effects, and the big enemies in tough halls. Crucible is another meh boss level, before the final level in MAP16 with the Old King boss. Looks and moves like an arch-vile, but has a homing BFG attack plus a spread-fire BFG assault move, with only two obstacles to avoid the projectiles with. An interesting ending to this 16-level mapset.

Highlight not-to-miss moments:

The graphics are amazingly grotesque and neat

Weapons are more fun to use

Other good stuff:
The Seraphim and Old King are decent boss enemies

Ending was cool

Salty moments:
Felt like most of the monsters just felt like crude reskins or something, was hoping for more uniqueness.

Levels felt shorter than they should have been, some feel like filler maps

Overall a nice, quick TC that paved way for a bigger sequel. 4/5

Things are significantly different in Shrine 2 than in Shrine 1. It's more standalone than its predecessor, with its very own GZDoom verison required, inventory items, alt-fires added to weapons and what not. Let's see here:

Bone blade is the first weapon re-reissued, it's now a sword-like weapon and alt-fire shoots your character forward, explained in the second episode as a way to shoot your character forward. The Shade enemies at the start are good practice for this. There's also Pod Bombs (slot 8), which are basic grenades (alt-fire can throw a bouncing bomb if you equip one). Also a frag bomb variant that shoots shrapnel if you get it for its alt-fire. A crossbow weapon is Slot 6, the enhanced adjudicator, which shoots freezing bolts, alt-fire is a punch to shatter. Primary fire can be used on water to create frozen tiles too, making it far more interesting. A secret on the first map shows a Hiveslayer, capable of shooting bees (homing bees for alt-fire). The Gore Blaster, also in a secret on the first map, fires a buttload of shotgun shells on regular fire, but a smaller spread and higher rate of fire on alt-fire. Later on it's possible to dual-wield this weapon. Slot 4 was given to...the Holy Cross, a weapon that shoots a spread of cross projectiles, or for alt-fire a bigger one that can split into three more. The Dark Cross is also in Slot 4, except its primary fire shoots 5 instead of three. In Slot 5 is the Bloodrail, a gun without an alt-fire, but its similar appearance to Quake 2's railgun gives away its main function. In fact, it is a charge-up weapon which is great for annihilating lines of enemies in front of the player. In episode 2 I found the Bone Mortar, a Slot 7 weapon shooting short-range explosive projectiles, with alt-fire shooting a small spread. Another charge-up weapon for Slot 1, a Molten axe was also acquired. 100 heat ammo, can shoot fire if above 50, and the ammo regenerates. I found a Hound Staff in episode 3 (slot 9), supposed to summon a dog (alt-fire pets it, aw), but it was weird cause I didn't get ammo for it beforehand. Armor says its different as well. Inventory items include Hell's Fury (increased damage), haste boots (speeds up weapons), time clock (basically a time stopper), and the Augur of Ophanim (powers up weapons like Tome of Power). Also Flight Wings, which are Heretic's Wings of Wrath more or less, as well as Void Satchels (backpack).

Powered up weapons from Augur of Ophanim:
Hiveslayer shoots either bee bombs or shotgun-spread homers
Gore Blaster shoots either ricochet shoots or chaingun-rate-of-fire shotgun blasts
Adjudicator shoots railgun-spread freeze shots and crazy punches
Pod bomb shoots fire bomb or bouncing frag grenade with shrapnel
Both crosses increases in spread for primary fire and power for alt-fire

Bloodrail is stronger and may even have a rapid-fire railgun moment (had it happen once, don't remember how to replicate it)

Bone Mortar shoots either a bouncing super-explosive or a fireball-spewing explosive
Molten axe can shoot flamethrower-style and I think it regenerates ammo faster

For enemies, the Shade functions a bit like a hitscanner, but those are just fast shotgun-like pellets. The Bilepod is an interesting gasbag, and there's a Vermin monster too that spawns from it which has 1 HP and is pretty annoying without your melee weapon. The Cultist is this game's chaingunner, while the Branded seems to be this game's imp. Sometimes the Branded respawns (as Branded2) and continues attacking, meaning that the best course of action would be to freeze it with the adjudicator to prevent it from respawning. The second level gives the Butcher and Gravelord, which function like demons. A spider-like enemy called the Lustbeast seems to be the arachnotron. There's a Hangman enemy which shoots another projectile and reminds me of something from Earthbound, but also becomes a weak Choker upon defeating it the first time. The Fallen seems to be another meaty projectile shooter, and also flies. A Lower enemy looks like the Goresack from Shrine 1 but functions like a suicide bomber. A Maw enemy seems to be like a Lovecraftian cacodemon, but its projectiles remind me of Hexen's dark bishop. The Punished is quite reminiscent of the revenant in looks but fires three high-speed projectiles. The annoying Brute enemy shoots explosive projectiles that bounce. The Lighthouse fires a flurry of homing projectiles and is real lanky. A Hellhound enemy was also seen, being another melee enemy in some way, although you can summon your own as allies with the Hound Staff. Episode 3 has the Apostle, originally a boss crony enemy, but becoming more common in that episode. Episode 4 retrieves the Matriarch from Shrine 1 and rebrands it as the Sister, functionally similiar to its original counterpart. There's also the Brazen, which shoots bright green projectiles at a rapid pace.

As for levels, overall they are much better. Secrets are around, and there's such thing as "soul secrets" which are like Blood's super secret or something. The first level shows that somehow, the player from the original Shrine has somehow been imprisoned and stuck without weapons, until he gets a new one from a voice above. The levels are more refined from their Shrine 1 predecessors, and are slightly longer to deal with, but none of these maps should take over 10 minutes apart from boss fights and at least one major level. Ritual Ward (MAP05) is a neat little city map where things pick up well. It also introduces the exploding barrel equivalent too. The following level, Clockwork Cathedral, is quite a trap-filled level, as well as a multi-tiered boss fight against a big organ sort of thing. Six turret things to attack first, then you hit the heart (which doesn't really do anything) and then from there repeat two times. The second episode starts off incredibly strong with a surreal section, before the forest and then a dark encounter with the Lighthouse enemy. Much of the rest is fairly lukewarm for this episode, but the Hawkboss at the end is unique enough to warrant mention as a tough two-stage boss. MAP11 was another cool city map, and YET ANOTHER boss level in MAP12 featuring the Horsyman (later Horseman), originally riding is horse at first while shooting spread shots, he gets off the horse eventually and goes bullet hell on your ass. Made even more annoying by Shade enemies being summoned into the field. Turns out he's the one responsible for the incarceration of the player. And yes, another boss map, against a CrusaderMob enemy who fires slicing projectiles and has Apostle allies (functioning a bit like cacodemons) on MAP13. Also the Hound Staff at the end. Later levels don't fare as well in design to be frank, such as the bad maze in MAP15 (MAP17 has quite a lot of design potential but it doesn't offer as much in gameplay). Ophanim, the boss of MAP18, is another bullet-hell riot, but without any added monsters in it and a number of obstacles making it easy. The first secret level MAP31 showcases a familiar level from the first game but enhances it and even gives off an EvilTusk enemy at the end with your arsenal against you. The end of episode 4 is against Dagon, which spices up boss levels by having you defend certain Sisters called Domineereses, against a horde of monsters, as they are the only ones to defeat Dagon. It's easy to mistake them for something else and accidentally kill them. Episode 5 further spikes things up with a strange platforming area with multiple gravity moments. A more enhanced Sister is on the chessboard at the end. Carnival part was fucked up and didn't really care that much for it, but I experimented with the adjudicator to find my way to the soul secret on the next level. It seems that Origin is a buildup to the titleless final boss against Azaoth, another multi-stage boss fight, throwing you in the black void first, then a maze area where Azaoth has a nasty melee charge (noticably the boss seems to throw mortar projectiles if you use your own. Another fireball spewing segment later and he becomes a big heart thing with lightning and mortar. This is unfortunately where the game outright crashed, because one attack has him spewing all around him but it ended up lagging to the point where it crashed. After cheating I found out that was the final stage of the battle and ended up at the endgame, a rather decent ending to this character's legacy. One other thing to say about Azaoth, he seems to have no mass value, as evident when you hit him with the Bone Mortar he just FLIES somehow, and that ends up kinda funny when he's in his last form.

So overall, Shrine 2 is a neat odyssey TC with strange weapons and monsters to tangle with, the levels are all mixed and some are still very easy to go through.

Highlight not-to-miss moments:

The soul secrets if you can find them.

Weapons, level design, and monsters are much, MUCH more different than in Shrine 1

Other good stuff:
Using the powerups to spice things up, although it helps to have at least one of each for reserve if necessary.

Salty moments:

What's with the sprayaround attack that the final boss uses that tanked my system?

Insurmountable may be a perfect term to describe tourniquet's Mutabor, a surprisingly Vanilla-made level that is just rife with green and brown. Perhaps we've seen more than our fair share of the color scheme in Miasma and numerous other well-designed levels by other authors, but Mutabor delivers more than just its color scheme. It's a level rife with life, enemies are abound here, but the vast majority are of the small enemy variety, so the kill count rises fairly quickly. Be mindful of arch-viles and sniper enemies around most of the corners though, and note the verticality as the landscapes often change shape all around. It's hard to even pinpoint where you are in many cases. The yellow key is now a green key, while stuff like the health bonus and soul sphere have also been recolored green. The chaingun is now ST's minigun while the SS and Keen are replaced with former human enemies that don't drop much-needed supplies.

But really, the main draw here is how, at least in the main level, the difficulty settings are all over the place. Notice that the second skill setting is called "Onslaught". Looking at the monster counts, well imps, hell knights, barons, mancubi, and revenants, etc, they all seem to be more numerous in the standard UV rather than on the lower settings, but a look at the counts for arch-viles, zombiemen, spiderdemons, cyberdemons, and the two dehacked monsters show up far more. There's 350 Chaingun sargeants (that's what they're called) on Onslaught as opposed to 35 on HMP and 59 on UV. What the heck. Weapons and other pickups are also strangely separated according to difficulty, and Onslaught features the least amount. You get the minigun early, but the only OTHER weapons to get are a rocket launcher (five are present), a chainsaw, and a BFG9000 (can find up to three). With all of the chaingun sargeants, the main issue is going to be pacing as the hitscan hell is unleashed to make you cower in fear while you only get a minigun for much of the way. Essentially, Onslaught is the Nine Inch Heels difficulty setting, so play that at your own risk of sanity (and that's even if you cheat). I think ITYTD has the same thing as Onslaught except with the usual ITYTD bonuses.

Secrets are all over the place  in this map and are often multi-step and difficult to access. For convenience the exit can be accessed with any key, so if you get one key and find one key door, you can in fact leave the level should you have lost the will to progress on. That being said, the real challenge is conquering it, getting every secret, every monster closet, every item, enough to take an hours worth of time. Most places can be squeezed through well though, and as a whole Miasma and other maps manage to still be tougher than this, assuming you're not on Onslaught setting. There is a second level, as well as an exit level in MAP03. The puzzle level, however, didn't seem to work (I assume you're supposed to press the switch behind the start, and a bunch of voodoo dolls were supposed to teleport into the buildings and such?

Highlight not-to-miss moments:

The secrets if you can find them
The design and most of the setpiece encounters

Other good stuff:
Difficulty settings are weird.

Salty moments:

Puzzle map didn't work right.
Onslaught difficulty gives only the minigun for a weapon for most of the entire way. Took me thirty minutes to find one of the five rocket launchers.

Yikes, another standalone release using the newest GZDoom release, okay. And yet another TC, although it's actually very short with only five levels. With this being version 1.2, could there be more in store? Who really knows. First impressions had me thinking of Adventures of Square right away, and when you strafe, your character has a very interesting lean. What do you fight? ROBOTS! And they blow up quite nicely. It's sort of Adventures of Square meets Descent but with 2.5D sort of ordeal; you fight many different robots, some are simple turrets, others are mobile. Some are quite bulky and difficult to bring down with loads of hit points and usually lots of firepower. Snap (I assume this is the character name) has only one weapon, a blaster that shoots until it reloads (or until you finish shooting, in that case you auto-reload), and he can also kick things. In the game, there's canisters which function as powerups, the beer item is useful for increasing max HP, while others give you limited ammo powerups like spread shot, rapid fire, bomb blast, homing beam, mirror laser, flamethrower. The sad things is it means that if you pick up two different powerups, you basically use only one of them, and when its exhausted you go back to the default blaster, which means they have to be consolidated quite well.

As far as levels go, the first is bleak but sets up for the later ones, which are both bigger and badder. 4th level is quite an odyssey. 5th is a simple boss arena. Got super annoyed with his attacks being impossible to dodge though. One thing that's quite interesting is that the difficulty levels do more than just increase the enemy load, but also offer different level routes. This adds to the replayability of this rather short TC.
 

Highlight not-to-miss moments:

The powerups are great

Got that Descent-meets-Adventures of Square feel.

Graphics are top-notch

Other good stuff:
Difficulty settings offer different level routes and replayability

Salty moments:
Final boss attacks nearly impossible to dodge.

After nearly 7 years of development hell Switcheroom 2 finally hits the idgames shelves. For those who are unfamiliar with the first Switcheroom, the concept is to remake a level for Doom 1 as if it was for a different episode, so like Hangar was made in E3 style while Deimos Anomaly was remade in E4 style, and so on and so forth. You can then easily guess that the same sort of concept would be used for Switcheroom 2, except with Doom 2's levels. So now Entryway is going to be a Hell level, while The Living End and the Icon of Sin are going to be techbase levels. Wonderful stuff right?

It really does suck, however, that the original project leader somehow went completely AWOL when we actually did get a working beta. Was there ever going to be a release? It took Jaws in Space to finally get the project running again, even though there was an overhaul of half of the beta maps in the set. Those that were kept were generally decent enough already, usually the cannonball and Magnusblitz maps stayed, while newer mappers came in and made some decent stuff too. All great fun re-revisitng Doom 2 maps in different styles of course. I think Magnusblitz was the best mapper overall, despite only two maps created, his style of creating the maps in the chosen style work well, but he also incorporated stuff that was in the original mapslot. Like Low Power for instance is The Catacombs in base style, but Magnus didn't shy away from putting in several design decisions from The Focus, which is where the map is in the mapslots. His Switcheroom 1 maps followed the same ideals, which makes them the strongest. Meanwhile, cannonball focuses heavily on the gameplay, and tourniquet sort of expands on the originals with his submissions. I think MAP29 overdid it, but whatever. Also MAP30 imo probably should've had a boss shooter?

By the time Jaws got to releasing this on idgames I was going to get ready to message him if he was going to send the rejects in a separate wad, but it turns out that I didn't need to as they are already in their separate wadfile along with the main download. It's nice to see the several levels that have already been beta-tested but scrapped again, and I remember most of them. It then brings me to some hot takes on which maps got scrapped, like "I prefered sincity's Courtyard to cannonball's Courtyard", and I was definitely in two minds about scifista's Wolfencity being scrapped for joe-ilya's Rock 'N Roll City (both were MAP31 done city style). Both were very unique levels in their own way with scifista's being all about incredibly tough gameplay while joe-ilya makes what could be his most surprisingly competent work to date. There were a lot of Grosse remakes, and for some reason an_mutt's Factory remake uses the MAP07 tags despite not being in MAP07. Many of those rejected were mediocre, and I value mediocrity a lot so I don't hate them. Just the two BlueFeena maps are terrible, and anyone who's betatested them knows how bad they are.

You get more bang for your buck with these nifty renditions. It's worth the time to play through all these levels to spot all the fun similarities.

Highlight not-to-miss moments:

Magnusblitz maps
tourniquet maps

cannonball maps

Other good stuff:

All others are good
Forgotten levels were mostly still fun

Salty moments:
Still do believe that some of the mediocre levels are still good.

I have a huge soft spot for the whole damn series despite its super easy gameplay. A TC that plays like Doom, but in jungle and cave styles and mostly melee enemies, made into a well done story. And it's stupidly funny in a way because it seems that after each Temple of the Lizardmen installment, your character goes on a vacation. That is, until the next installment where you have to go back in the Temple of the Lizardmen over again! But then again, this is the actual last installment in the franchise, and it seems that it will actually be converted into a graphic novel series some time in the future.

So most of the gameplay mechanics from the Temple of the Lizardmen 4 remain intact, from the enemies to the weapons. New enemies include the pyro demon and Archon of Hell from Realm667 as well as the dark revenant (which actually functions like a regular revenant). A few bosses in the final level round things out, including the Helltaur mainstay. Weapon-wise, most of the mainstays are here, but we also get a Striker MkII which is a bit different from the semi-automatic shotgun as well as the Stinger which is a rapid-fire crystal shooter. The Dragon Scepter has also changed significantly making it more viable. The slot 8 weapon is still a reskinned BFG more or less.

Level-wise, this one spices the thing up from the branching path segment, so this time, you won't be missing certain levels. Although I liked that aspect in Lizardmen 4, it does mean that you couldn't get through every single level in one go. In Lizardmen 5, there are two hub maps, where you can go to separate levels in order to get skull orbs, which are used to progress the game. After you get a skull orb in a separate level, you can then insert it, and just to prevent you from being too bored with the hub map there will be monsters entering upon putting in each skull orb. The first hub is bigger than the second, with the second only having four maps while the first having eleven (both also have a secret portal level). Both before and after there are a few levels to tangle with, with the latter of course being the boss levels where you go up against Spectra once again. Storywise, the Big Good known as Therana basically gives you your missions and such.

The hub maps offer some potential insight as to what to expect in each individual level. And design-wise, Alando still does well in making these levels less linear and more worthwhile. Plenty of the maps pay homage to familiar levels in the Doom games, like one combines the main aspects of Inmost Dens, Tenements, and Bloodfalls into one map. The penultimate boss gauntlet level has areas that remind those of Phobos Anomaly, Unto the Cruel, Hell's Maw, Tower of Babel, and finally Icon of Sin, before you fight Spectra for real in a relatively small arena (making it more of a challenging fight when compared to her Lizardmen 3 battle). I cheesed many of the bosses, since I tend to save the amulet of invincibility from other levels to battle them with. The overall gist is of course I enjoyed almost every level and the nonlinearity is awesome throughout.

Highlight not-to-miss moments:

Homages to Doom/Doom 2/Heretic/etc levels in design

Nonlinearity and exploration!

Other good stuff:

Finding secrets which wasn't actually hard to do.

Hub maps have action to prevent boredom

Salty moments:
None

Of all the episodes, Inferno has the most awkward start. Surely, for the first time Doom player, they're not as used to the idea of taking out the starting imps with just the pistol when compared to the former humans that inhabited both Hangar and Deimos Anomaly beforehand. And especially not the caco behind the first door. They weren't expecting the shotgun bridge to lower, or the weird corridors with demons, plus the roomful of imps and then that's basically the map. The entirety of E3M1 is super awkward and no matter how you play it, it just doesn't feel right at all and is often considered one of the worst levels of the IWADs. Then, you have Warrens, which drops you back into Hell Keep, except with a surprise twist at the end with a surprise cyberdemon, then enemies to see while backtracking! Surely this perplexion has garnered attention making it a more well-received level, even if it was a secret map.

Autumnal Infernox by ReX Claussen is a take on both Hell Keep and Warrens. The design sticks to the Inferno style, but the gameplay is much wider than the standard Hell Keep. You still get the imps and the caco at the start, but the shotgun is in a much easier location. You then teleport back to the starting hub, open another door, and have to deal with some strange corridors, which then culminates into a damaging blood area, where you might as well backtrack because a demon closet has opened with a radsuit inside. Then you teleport back, get a yellow key, and cross a non-lowering bridge. The home stretch involves yet another walkway while projectile monsters battle you. Now that's just E3M1. Remember to conserve your ammo like in the original and you'll probably get through this one fine.

That being said, the E3M9 in this one does things far differently. You're going through the familiar areas in a different order, as opposed to going through them the same way until the end. Of course, the exit teleporter reveals a bigger path, and there's an additional secret to find in the map as well. And the cyberdemon will make an appearance after you teleport to the monster gauntlet section, in the starting hub. Of course, there's more action, so it's quite a lot more fun. It was nice playing these Hell Keep/Warrens tributes. I will say this though, the progression isn't what I would call nonlinear, despite what the textfile says. You start in a hub, finish a spoke, return to hub, finish another spoke, repeat. This goes for both maps.

Leave it to nicolas monti to do...nicolas monti things. nicolas' maps all fit very well for casual doomers, as they offer Metroidvania-style exploration and generally decent gameplay. Enceladus is an E4 replacement, but do not expect it to be about a bunch of brown and blood. The texturing of this episode is sort of unique, it's a special brand of "wtf are these textures" but despite seeming like eyesores you can still play the levels without issue. And secret hunters will have more than their work cut out for them, stuff that I myself am very much used to by this point.

Frankly, I'm so used to monti's style that it's just another fairly average episode replacement from this guy. The levels, with the exception of E4M7, are all medium-sized, and speedrunners who dare to speedrun this will get themselves in a bind, I can easily see it. But casual players will enjoy the exploration. Much of how monti does his gameplay is present, the excess use of nukage and radiation suits, a few nasty traps that even when prepared will take out of you quite well, the occasionally trippy battle here or there. Some of the baron fights are honestly kinda boring. Then you get E4M7, which is monti's largest map to date and is an amazingly cute nod to both sector ships and city maps. Said sector ships are also the level's best means of crossing the nukage, as there's no radsuits to see! It's a nonlinear expedition, and unfortunately you WILL get lost in it trying to get three keys and the exit. Don't say I didn't warn you. E4M8 sort of folds things back, but it's a decent level and you can kinda skip the ending battles if you kill the spiderdemon early enough.
 

With this said, monti continues being the prolific author he is and that's great to see.

Highlight not-to-miss moments:

E4M7

Other good stuff:

The general monti goodness and/or craziness.

Salty moments:
One secret in E4M7 I wasn't able to actually register despite finding it. Ree.

What have you done mou...oh wait this isn't Going Down 2. Where hath mouldy run off to in the past few years? We haven't seen him. But what we do see here is yet another megawad involving some elevator action. So I'm coming in expecting compact action. This is what Going Down would be if it is about going up instead of down (and I'm not referring to the first map or the secret maps of that megawad) and it was a community project of speedmaps. For the story, the demons want to apparently invade heaven so they build a big ass skyscraper and Doomguy basically has to go up to kick their asses. Neato.

One thing to respect, the level names make sense. You start out in the lobby, and interestingly it's a rocket launcher-oriented level despite the monsters not being as strong. The cafeteria floor (MAP02) is quite deceptive, as the enemies are minding their own business until you wake them up and such, then you basically gotta look out for the occasional ambush here and there. You'll note that the red key is the required key to get to the next floor each time, and will always be the last key acquired. Also to start each floor, the Keen sound effect is modified to sound like an elevator ding. Also many ideas are abound in these floors, like the Doomcute water cooler with a barrel as the cooler. That being said, you see this start of MAP04? Don't do this, ever. Feels real bad having a complicated floor as the fourth one. Other interesting floors are the crazy dance floor of MAP09 with varied battles and the cyberdemon floor that followed it in MAP10, which tried to spice up a neat obstacle course while you and the cybie dance around other enemies, and that central crusher can actually be useful! MAP13 was a very nifty shapeshifting floor. MAP15's secret exit, I think you go in the exact order that you get the keys with regards to which color buttons to press but apparently you get only three tries before it locks forever. I think that's how it goes? I'm still unsure. Also unsure how that one room at the north end of MAP29 is supposed to play out so I skipped it. Most other maps do what they can but nothing's ever perfect. Since these are speedmaps, they aren't really that long to beat, and they all have a plus-shaped layout which is befitting of the skyscraper to climb. Since these maps go by quickly you can go through this megawad quickly and effectively as well. Going up?
 

Highlight not-to-miss moments:

Quite a few good ideas, like the interesting secret exit concept and MAP09's frantic pace.
Much of MAP13

Captain Toenail's maps were really good.

Other good stuff:

It really does remind you of Going Down.
Having to get the red key last reminded me of Icarus too.

Salty moments:
MAP04's start had me pulling my hair.
Had to skip MAP29 (something about a voodoo doll teleport closet not working)

So what we have here is the sequel to a not-so-mediocre quickie of a double megawad, but this time we have 37 levels in Ultimate Doom format. Seems fun, right? It doesn't get off to an amazing start, but rather a relatively humble one. Yeah, I'm not that happy with E1. Aside from the appreciative mediocre levels some of these maps definitely had low quality to them, like E1M9's starting room of HOMs and E1M8 being blatant with backtracking and having literally no idea on what to do for much of that map.

E1M8 felt like a halting point overall, thankfully it was the very last level in the episode. But most players will probably get bored from the first lift ride since nothing substantial occurs from it. The bonuses in the lava are tempting at least, and the combat is okay although previous levels were better with monster placement and ammo (by just a tad, no biggie). Again, two more lift rides, and frankly I still don't like them, even though there was some more meat to keep me from being truly bored. By the time I reached the top end and pressed the switch, got the blue key, was thinking what should I do next? I'm usually not the kind of player who goes to the "all keys go here" area until I get every key and there's probably more like me so that part will end up stumping players. This can perhaps benefit more by adding some extra pointers as to where to go. After getting that figured out was the backtracking, and honestly I think this could benefit more from monster closets rather than more enemies teleporting in, but maybe that's just me. It also wasn't completely aware that my next destination (for the red key at least), was one lowered crate, specifically one behind a much larger one. And then back to the key switches and THEN back to the two lifts yet again, taking them up to get the yellow key, then taking them down yet again before at least one more final battle before you can finally exit the damn level. It might take me another play to warm up to E1M8, but it felt like it went on long enough and could improve in a number of ways, like make the lifts better and perhaps try to make some fights more interesting (of course with the limitations, not everything is possible). Okay!

Thankfully it does get better from E1, as E2 dials things up to be a tad better for the most part. Magicsofa and riderr3's maps are definite standouts in good ways (lol at the caco ass flat!), and I was a bit surprised to have somehow entered E5M1 in the middle of it, a decent level (that HOM at the end room actually felt like a part of the level and not a newbie error too!). E3 furthers it with even more fun levels, especially E3M7 and its spider hordes. E4 has an epic start, going into the mouth of the beast! There's lots of creativity with the levels overall too. E4M7 seems like a love letter to Requiem's MAP07 given the layout, but to me the whole episode is an "all killer no filler". I really don't feel the need to say much else, but there's sweet and sour sauce abound overall. 128kb is a case of "it gets better from its mostly humble start" and that's great.

Highlight not-to-miss moments:

All of E4

The caco ass flat. Once you see it you cannot unsee it.

Other good stuff:

Captain Toenail, magicsofa, breezep maps were cuts above the rest.

Salty moments:
E1M8 and its hideous backtracking

Released at the end of January along with several others to get an idgames release that day, 2021 seems to be yet another year of community megawads if this kind of output is to continue, and there is nothing wrong with that. And there really is nothing wrong with that. Do you really think something is wrong with that? Note that I said the same damn thing three times? It's because this particular community megawad is 3x3. We have 29 levels (MAP01-27, plus secret maps) in which only 3 flats, 3 textures, and 3 monster types (there are of course a few exceptions apparently, like lost souls don't really count for pain elementals and such and so on and so forth). For the authors, they can create a maximum of two wads for this project, and are given a time frame of just one week. The megawad was compiled by order of submission, which while not the most substantial or consubstantial or tersubstantial way of compiling a megawad, does make the whole thing feel more like a three-by-three box of chocolates, vanilla, and strawberries rolled out.

Of course, it's not ENTIRELY random in difficulty, so leave me alone. The first few maps work well as warmups. MAP03 reminded me of cannonball's work, very fun and frantic action and great use of shotgun guys, cacos, and revs. The next super interesting map was MAP08, a spider shootout in the field and yet another casing of NaturalTvventy that is cool. MAP10 was nice, although I personally don't like the lifts in the final room. Someone probably has a fetish somewhere though. MAP21 has a bit of an HOM problem where the shotgun guy perches are (before the yellow key) and also some monsters didn't teleport in on ITYTD but is otherwise another dandy dandy dandy map. Quality ramps up well in the latter half of maps, with several maps hitting modern mapping-era strides of various degrees. Plutocracy (MAP24) is quite appropriately annoying and uses the three monsters that hallmark much of Plutonia's drudgery as well as the textures and flats that define it. The Gentle Dark that follows it is a fairly artistic one with spectres making up the bulk of the enemies and lots of dark walls (though I get the sneaking suspicion the author cheated because of how dark it is that you can't tell what textures are being used for the main walls! :D). The last level MAP27 may be tame in gameplay but is quite artistic. Every other map not mentioned didn't stick out as much but none of them are bad in any way and are average at the worst. Which means that this is an good megawad.

It is also a great allusion to the 3x3 workout! Was this the actual inspiration? You start with the lower weights which are the more average ones, about your strength in general, then move up higher in quality, then again! Of course, not all of the weights feel the same, but the workout will leave you a much stronger Doomer at the end of it.

Standout maps: MAP03, MAP08, MAP10, MAP21, MAPS24-27, both secret maps too.

Verdict: Worth both a play and a replay

For an even better challenge, actually do the 3x3 workout WHILE you play this.

I love megawads, they're just an endless source of interesting and potentially interesting levels that just feel like a complete adventure. DOOM: Damnation is another such megawad, a full Ultimate Doom megawad filled with...traditional gameplay! The author of this one put gameplay at the forefront, a great move on your part there. Design-wise, I can see it could definitely need some improvements in many places, as anyone in the modern era will look at it and think of the 90s wads of old. For me this design is fine, and gameplay first. Some levels have great atmosphere too and I mean great atmosphere. And while the megawad's supposed to feel like a reboot of the original Doom parts of these levels feel like they expand into their own thing in a number of ways. First episode appropriately themes the base, not too many monsters and generally easygoing. No major standouts but there doesn't need to be, each level services well and has good length and gameplay. E2 starts with even more atmosphere and a bit different gameplay, I'm guessing it's running from barons and such to get BK and then the chaingun and RK. Spooky. E2M2 has a few of those rising/lowering lifts which I never liked, but redeems itself spectacularly with the secret lost soul chamber. E2M7 is an interesting siege-like experience, and the episode closes with a Dead Simple arena which allows for lots of infighting. E3 fares great too, don't have a lot of highlights to talk about until E3M6, a nice sandbox with lots of monsters, only the switchhunt for maybe the secret exit is a pain but it's fun to explore. E3M9 is a fun reprise of several areas of the previous two episodes. I'd say it's the best episode out of all of them overall. E4 has servicable levels that work out, monster counts aren't that big overall which helps in speedrunning, although E4M9 is the weakest due to it being a 100% linear trail where everything except for a caco horde is in front of you, but that doesn't tarnish E4 that much. E4M8 is a great free-for-all. Overall I didn't regret playing this one bit, it's got plenty of 90s-style goodness in every map. The sandboxes in particular are extra fun. Recommend.