best wad of 1995

still working on my A Decade Of Doom thing for the 10th anniversary, and i'd like to get some input.

1995

Doom, Infinity.wad

Doom 2
Several of Mark Klem's wads
MINES.WAD by Jim Flynn
Metro13 by Michael Reed
Hoover Michael Reed

So many to choose from... I'll just mention a few personal favourites, divided into two groups: ones that I think are just plain good wads, and ones that, although they have good gameplay, I find memorable mostly for other reasons, such as interesting graphics, novelty features, etc. Within each group, I have not ordered the wads in any way. They are all for Doom2.

Best Wads
H2H-Xmas by H2H Gaming Network
cic (City in Chaos) by Alex Busby
pdgate (Perdition's gate) by Alex Mayberry
rigel1 by Scott Lampert
wtrfront (Waterfront) by Scott F. Crank
mines (Mines of Titan) by Jim Flynn
Gather2 (Gathering II: The Dark Side of the Mind) by Daniel Norman
punisher by Dario Casali
anubis by Glen Payne and Marshal Bostwick
oracle by Jim Flynn and Scott Harper
artifact by Paul Schmitz

Good with added novelty/weirdness value
aboosord by Bob Reganess
doomcity by Shamus Young
domstone (Doomstone) by Bob Reganess
phoenix (doomzaak.wad) by R.L.L. Timmermans
dsanta (Ziffnet 1994 Christmas DOOM II Level) by Stephen Baldwin
diabolo (I don't have a text file)
fthils07 (Foot Hills of Hell) by David Ramos
surreal2 by Dan Teeter

Fava Beans

Bak2hell is pretty awesome too.

For odd reasons 1995 seems to be a rather weak year.
The best ones I can remember are:

Cleimos 2
Obtic

and of course Fava Beans which will probably be the best Ep1 clone forever.

i don't think fava beans is really that good an ep1 clone. the maps definitely do look e1ish but a lot of that is just because they ripped bits and pieces off from the original episode 1. the design isn't as intricate either, and it's a bit too cheery. you spend far too much time outside, for one thing. in knee deep, 80% of outdoor areas are within secrets, kind of giving you brightness as a sort of reward. in fava beans you're in brightly lit areas and outdoors quite a lot. but the theme is a good imitation, and i have to say it probably is the most E1 set i've played outside the originals. but it's still a far cry from the real thing.

and it looks like i have some maps to (re)play :) i agree with graf zahl though, '95 does look extremely weak compared to '94 for whatever reason.

Ultimate Doom, id software

DooMBoy said:

Ultimate Doom, id software

Yeah, I know what you're all thinking, but you're probably missing his subtle humor. This post is actually intended, rather than to point out his stunning idiocy, to make a clear stab at modern society and our mentiality of social interaction. This man is a genius. That brief remark took an unpredictable attack at the hypocritical political system of the United States, undermined authority and delivered a funny yet cynical outlook towards the economic status of the western European world.

DooMBoy said:

Ultimate Doom, id software

only episode 4 was new though. that episode did have without a doubt in my mind the best maps from '95 but i'm only looking for free pwads.

Lüt said:

like 12 lines of stuff

[doomboy]DooMBoy[/doomboy]

I think there were quite a few good wads back in 1995. As people have already said, favabeans is pretty close to the best. I had forgotten about the H2H series, but they were all really fun to play. Someone mentioned Mark Klem, I think his best level was mkfrgtme. And waterfront is that one with the archvile bug isn't it?

Other personal favourites of mine are 2die.wad, I actually really liked it, worked well in DM. Plus it had a cool midi by the Cure. I think my favourite SP map from that year though (and one of my favourites ever) was the original deadshri.wad for ultimate doom by Orin Flaharty. It was eventually used in MM as map08, but when it was first released as an Ultimate DooM map (I think it works better without the SSG, plus you really need the Ep4 sky) I was amazed at how good it was.

A silly map I remember is oldwest.wad, which (as the name suggests) tried to recreate an old west style town. It's pretty shite really, but for some reason I used to play it a bit in DM. Also, wasn't acheron 2.2, and quite a few of the classic DM wads (like danzig and vortpak) also released in 95?

The Flange Peddler said:
And waterfront is that one with the archvile bug isn't it?

Yes, AFAIK it was the earliest wad to make deliberate use of the bug (31-May-1995). The second I know of is Gathering II (12-Jun-95).

The first maps to use voodoo dolls came in 1995 too.

I had forgotten about the H2H series, but they were all really fun to play.

Yes, H2H produced some good maps that weren't in their Xmas megawad too. H2HMUDFE.WAD is a nicely humbling experience (also 1995). [edit]Actually, that's not true at all - all the maps from that wad were in the Xmas wad. I was getting it confused with dm2mud.wad.[/edit]

Mark Klem's wad page is here.

Lüt said:

Bunch of nonsense

If I didn't know any better, I'd say that you copy/pasted that from somewhere. I know I've seen it somewhere before. And yes, my post was intended to be humor. ;) As far as I'm concerned, Ultimate Doom, even if it only had the one new episode, is by far and away the best Doom wad of them all. In other words, nothing tops the original, Ultimate or otherwise.

And waterfront is that one with the archvile bug isn't it?

What is the Archvile bug?

Grimm said:

What is the Archvile bug?

When the archvile resurrects something which has been squashed by a door, ceiling or what not. The resurrected enemy becomes a 'ghost' - effectively behaving like a noclipped player, so it can walk through walls. It also can't be shot by anything except the blast of a rocket or an archvile attack.

Or in other words: A ghost can only be hurt by splash damage.

Heh, this has happened to me before--but here's the thing: It's only happened with Demons and in The Ultimate Doom. I specifically recall RIKER11.WAD, if I got the name right. Weird, eh?

Grimm said:

Heh, this has happened to me before--but here's the thing: It's only happened with Demons and in The Ultimate Doom. I specifically recall RIKER11.WAD, if I got the name right. Weird, eh?

The Ultimate DooM. Archvile bug.

Eh?

i dunno if its called obtic.wad or whatever well it was a tc from around that time and it was called obituary or something

player said:

i dunno if its called obtic.wad or whatever well it was a tc from around that time and it was called obituary or something

Yes, that's the same. But it's not a TC. It only replaces 3 monsters and Commander Keen if I remember correctly.

Ifinity.wad

I dunno, but I've always found Serenity, Infinity and Eternity a bit overrated.

Don't get me wrong. They are definately good for 1995 stuff, but they are nowhere near the best.

Grazza said:
aboosord by Bob Reganess
domstone (Doomstone) by Bob Reganess

Are these PWADs available anywhere?

myk said:

Are these PWADs available anywhere?

grazza seems to have an old wad stash somewhere. i hope he starts submitting some of it to 3darchives. i just uploaded a copy of 'mines of titan' myself because i noticed the archives was missing it.

mines (Mines of Titan) by Jim Flynn is not on the archives, there's a mines.zip but's that dm. Perdition gate was indeed a blast. old school:alot of powerups, secrets and teleports??? They're more original, diverse and spiritfull then recent maps. But that's a matter of taste, though I could argue that people releasing maps in 95 when most people just heard about the internet were not the average ones. Another argument is that mappers who wanted the best engine and doom mappers where in the same collection that year. And what about releasing those old maps but with a different weapon/ammo/health balance?
I would put waterfront in the Good with added novelty/weirdness value category. It's not what it could have been.

I hadn't uploaded Mines of Titan since it is available on Jim Flynn's website. There are several others on his site (most notably Enigma) that aren't in the archive.

The Bob Reganess wads: aboosord is one I have from way back (I'd lost my copies of most of his other wads - and it was almost causing me physical pain to be without aboocean). I managed to contact Bob recently, and he e-mailed me a bunch of his wads, including domstone and aboocean (which includes aboosord as map04). I mentioned the archive to him, and left it to him to decide whether to upload them. He hasn't so far. :(
All his wads include a text that says they can be distributed, so I could upload them, or else mail them to people who want to see them.

Grogglogobofink: I've got something like about half a gig of old wads that aren't in the archive (mostly ones from the CompuServe Action Games Forum). A lot of them aren't all that good, of course, and sifting through them to identify the ones that are worth uploading is quite time-consuming. I'm willing to slap them onto a CD and post it to you, if you want to do some of the sifting.

Coldfusio said:

I could argue that people releasing maps in 95 when most people just heard about the internet were not the average ones. Another argument is that mappers who wanted the best engine and doom mappers where in the same collection that year.

There was a phenomenal amount of mapping activity in 1995 and 1996. The average number of new wads uploaded to the Action Games Forum's file libraries was something like 20 per week. Mostly low quality of course, but I think that by mid-1995, John Carmack's oft-quoted statement "90% of pwads are crap!" was no longer true. And as you imply, Doom was the game to map for at the time - quite a few of the people who did the better wads in those years went on to get jobs in the gaming industry (e.g. Dario Casali, Alex Mayberry, T. Elliot Cannon, and doubtless many others).

Coldfusio said:
And what about releasing those old maps but with a different weapon/ammo/health balance?

What do you mean?

Grazza said:
I mentioned the archive to him, and left it to him to decide whether to upload them. He hasn't so far. :(
All his wads include a text that says they can be distributed, so I could upload them, or else mail them to people who want to see them.

Maybe he didn't reply simply because he felt it was unnecessary, given the fact the texts state they may be distributed? That is, he already gave permission... just let him know they're up there.

Uploading a distributable WAD to the Archive is no big deal. The only thing I would suggest is adding a note with your info (name, email) to the external TXT for other people's WADs (since you're neither the author nor the host, yet responsible for the uploading.) But you have the habit of doing that already, so...

Coldfusio said:

mines (Mines of Titan) by Jim Flynn is not on the archives, there's a mines.zip but's that dm.

yeah, it hasn't be sorted in yet. i gave it the filename mines2.zip since mines.zip was already taken

Grazza said:

I hadn't uploaded Mines of Titan since it is available on Jim Flynn's website. There are several others on his site (most notably Enigma) that aren't in the archive.

well, i personally like being able to get everything from one source. who knows how long a website's going to stay up. i've had a lot of non-archives download links die on my reviews page, whereas the archives are a more stable source.

OK, by popular request, I have just uploaded:
aboocean ("Shoreleave")
aboo5th ("Doomstone")
aboojail ("Jailbirds")