Endless Random /idgames WAD Adventures #024

[ICID]

^{(logo by @4MaTC)}

 

ICID, what the hell is this now?

Endless Random /idgames WAD Adventures is a small project of exploration, interaction, entertainment and reviews where we meet once every 2 weeks to select random WADs in search of hidden treasures, lost promises, or our worst nightmares! We use the /idgames archive’s special feature that lets us search for random files. Of course, sometimes the results are resources or unplayable stuff, so we focus on looking for WADs.

 

So, what do we do here?

1. Play at least one random WAD in a two-week period of time. WADs are selected using the Random File feature on /idgames or from the list below.
2. Post a review of each WAD. There’s no required pacing, but most of us post a review once every 1-2 days.
3. Please take screenshots or video of your adventures.
4. Play however you want, on any skill level, and with any source port, as long as you play the WAD as intended/in working shape.
5. Be respectful. Good rule of thumb: making fun of a map is okay, making fun of the mapper is not.

 

What kind of WADs are we looking for?

Any file on /idgames is fair game, but most of us choose to stick to singleplayer Doom or Heretic WADs that work in our sourceport(s) of choice. I also pull at least 5 random WADs for the event and add them here. Feel free to play them with me if you wish, or look for your own! The point of the event is to encourage you to explore this vast, random world. 

 

Recommendations for reviewing:

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1. Always provide the name of the WAD, the name of the author, and a link to the file.
2. Commenting the source port and skill-level is not required, but provides helpful context to your review.
3. Try to stick to no more than 1 WAD per day to avoid burnout, but this part’s all up to you, champ!
4. As mentioned above, screenshots or videos are awesome.
5. Reviews of all formats are valid. Both longform and shortform are good as long as you write with integrity. 

 

Endless Random /idgames WAD Adventures of this event:

1. Iron Hall
2. Trilogy
3. New Order
4. Long Days
5. DOOM 2 - Flashback to Hell

 

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The Top 10 (out of 31)

 

1. @Roofi | 2835
2. @Sena | 1305
3. @Walter confetti | 675
4. @ICID | 505
5. @LadyMistDragon | 395
6. @Endless | 390
7. @smeghammer | 285
8. @LUISDooM | 235
9. @Maribo | 145
10. @Biodegradable | 105

 

Join the Doom Master Wadazine community for more events like this! » https://discord.gg/Q2RKn4J

[Walter confetti]

Oh boy, Long Days! Prepare for a really hard map with a great song!

I see there's also Flashback to Hell that i wanted to play from quite some time... 2 of 5 are good maps, the other i don't know...

[LadyMistDragon]

Tripline(1995) by Brian J. Wilcox aka BUDMAN (Eternity)

 

Fairly straightforward '95 map, with the emphasis on the fairly. The bit near the beginning where you shoot the barrels after releasing the hounds is kind of nice. But incredibly odd design choices start to mar this map from this point. What is up with these invisible doors? Why is there some weird twisting small room? Why is there no obvious way back once you pick up the red key, in a room filled with Barons that you thankfully have a BFG with too much ammo for? Why is the progression to acquire the blue key so utterly nonsensical ( walk over a little linear room with potions to open the way forward and also trigger a series of crushers for some reason). And placing a berserk pack in the MIDDLE of a pinkie mob is just incredibly eye-rolling. And I know it's stupid to bash authors for placing arrows on the ground, but there's ZERO reason to do such in both the locations you can find them. Seriously, placing EXIT in such large letters on the ground is like, dude, relax. At least there aren't lots of random textures. I do want to know why the mud courtyard at the end doesn't damage you because it shouldn't be so big otherwise. Oh, and you have to approach the exit teleporter from the sides because you'll just be teleported back to the other end of the arrow. 4/10

 

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Edited January 10, 2022 by LadyMistDragon

[Rujasu]

JarJar's Last Pinenapple Fritter by B.P.R.D

IWAD: Doom 2

Difficulty: UV

Source Port: PrBoom+

 

I haven't participated in random WAD reviews before, but I gave the archive a few shuffles out of boredom and suddenly felt like I might want to talk about what I've witnessed.

JarJar's Last Pinenapple(sic) Fritter is, as you might imagine, an old jokewad. It's a flat plain decorated by a couple of elevated spots, fences and big brown brick tunnels. Powerups, barons and hellknights are the primary inhabitants, scattered randomly all over the grass; eating a Tom Hanks from one of the fritter-guarding cyberdemons is the only way anyone's dying on this map. The fences are the only things stopping the player from beelining at the eponymous fritter, and nothing on the way presents a credible threat. It even gives you an invulnerability for the small clump of hitscanners.

The sprite and sound replacements seem equally arbitrary, the only common thread being that both rockets and cells are Tom Hanks. God knows what the plasma bolt graphic was, other than way too large for its purpose. It's also a relief that nothing in this 19-year-old jokewad seems to be in particularly poor taste by today's standards, and it doesn't wear out its very short welcome of under two minutes.

 

I feel like this is one of those cultural artifacts that are only possible to find thanks to long-term archiving, because nobody in their right mind would have kept this if they curated their HDD space even a little bit. Well, I guess it is the whole point of the thread that these things are there for us to find.

 

[Roofi]

Month 7 Day 10

 

I play until I die or intentionally stop. I don't comment the wad where I die/stop

 

[1] Intergalactic Xenology v1.1 by @Dreadopp and @Lord_Z (2020)

 

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The alien menace has returned to haunt you even after their defeat. A new wave of adversaries have begun their assault. You wake up in a dark corridor and begin your trek through a new nightmare.

 

 

Woah , I'm lucky today to find a 2020 runner-up , which I already played last year ! Fun fact, I had played IX 2 this week-end !

 

Intergalactic Xenealogy is not the kind of wad I would call a "coffee break wad" because there is a real work done on each map but the two authors have chosen a very digestible format. Honestly, I find it more and more difficult to play whole megawads because of their length and most of the time, there usually are quite a few filler maps. Here, you can find 5 maps in the style of Ancient-Aliens, all of which can be finished in 1-2 hours when first discovered. However, each level manages to bring a different experience including an underwater base in map 02, a kind of Inca village with outdoor exploration in map 03 or epic celestial battles as the last map.

Moreover, everything has been designed to avoid frustration. The wad features notably low difficulty, which IX 2 has notably raised a lot in my opinion. The wideness of the layouts also allows to adopt different styles of play: you can either play slowly by killing the monsters gradually or you can rush more and create bigger encounters. In map 04, one of the fun aspects of replaying this map consisted of getting the 3 keys as quickly as possible and then forming a big battle between spawning monsters.

Aesthetically, I think that Lord_Z and Dreadopp did a much better job with the textures in IX 2. All the maps are still nice to look at but the map 01 and 04 have a rather simplistic detailing in many places, especially concerning the outside areas. Nevertheless, it's still very solid and the difference in style between the two authors doesn't contrast too much.

 

Honestly, I feel like saying that I had more fun discovering IX 1 & 2 than Ancient Aliens. Maybe because of the more pronunced variety between levels. 

 

I stop here for today.

 

[Walter confetti]

iron hall by Michael Krause - Vanilla Doom 2, 1996, played with Eternity engine 4.0.2 forseti

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Third map made by Micheal Krause, a 90s mapper mostly famous for his big sized structures in maps, i think i've played another map from this author always from the random adventures selection. Not a really bad, reminds me a lot of TNT maps, especially "steel works" and Drake o' Brian for the map size, is a labyrinthic rusty techbase with many monsters in it (385 in HMP), many switches to hunt (but not that many, luckily) and also some "sector switch" a la quake (that even borrows some of the sounds, giving this map a weird feel in it), a not so difficult maze section and a kinda cryptic progression (especially when i hit the small nukage room i didn't have any idea where to, then pushed a switch in a dark alcove and moved the next section. Ok...), but overall a fun semi-hard map with a lovely theme in it. Also, this is the "first" time i've found a MAP30 map without the Icon of Sin gimmick, even without a proper boss fight against a cyberdemon or a spider mastermind! Just killed 3 revenants, entered into a anonymous square sector and the level is over. Anticlimactic, to say the least.

[LadyMistDragon]

Quantum Path (2018) by @Datacore85 (GZDoom)

 

The first of 3 absolutely shocking maps I got through the downloader. What we have here is a Map 01 replacement for Freedoom Phase 2. Basically about as memorable as some of the latter Datacore maps from 180 Minutes Pour Vivre. You'll see a tree outside with an freedom imp on a ledge for some reason, even though killing imps of any kind with a pistol tends to suck. No secrets either, just straightforward action, although there is a room with enemies that is quite easy to skip if you don't really know Freedoom door textures. Ambushes may be light, but they are nicely timed. Still Freedoom Hell Knight at the end felt obligatory. It's only one though. Good since the SS equivalent seems absent here. 6.5/10

 

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Edited January 10, 2022 by LadyMistDragon

[Sena]

Day 1: iron hall https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom2/g-i/ironhall

 

1996 was a different era. Quake had just come out, and accordingly, this WAD uses sounds from the new game, which according to one anonymous idgames reviewer, was enough to award it a 3 star rating. I should bring to your attention that this level's title is "iron hall", singular, because that's what it is. You start the level, you are confronted by a singular hallway, with one custom door texture (and a bad one at that), roughly 8 gargoyle switches that do nothing, and enemies crammed into every single corner like a bunch of rats eating the mould in the walls, which would probably be a better way to spend your time than playing this tosh. When it comes down to it, it's impressive that people didn't just give up on Doom years ago, that people are still able to find new and interesting ways to create levels and gameplay encounters in such an old game, but you definitely wouldn't be able to gather that if this was the first WAD you played. You go through a plain hallway with enemies strewn about with so little care you know for an absolute fact they just dropped them in with zero consideration of any of the implications, and this shit goes on for over 300 enemies. Typically, the author completely forgot that any weapon that isn't the shotgun existed - I did not count one pickup for a single other weapon, and only incidentally did he remember that there existed enemies other than shotgunners, chaingunners and imps. Because the only thing better than playing a completely monotonous level where every room feels the same, is doing it all with the exact same weapon and exact same miniscule selection of enemies.

To make matters worse, the author seemed to actually have thought that it was a good idea, saying there was "excessive attention" given to the design of the level, and if putting a bunch of useless switches on the walls constitutes excessive attention, then my name is Jimmy. Playing through this level is psychologically damaging, it goes on and on, it's a game you play for what feels like 5 minutes, and then look outside the window and notice that nuclear armageddon has commenced, although I wouldn't mind dying in a radioactive blaze if it meant I no longer had to live in a world in which iron hall existed. 1/10.

[Rujasu]

E1M1SAS.WAD by Scott A. Smith 05/28/94
IWAD: Doom
Source Port: PrBoom+
Difficulty: HMP

 

This seems like a decent enough E1M1 replacement for its time. The rooms are reasonably sized for the encounters given, and some of them I'd even go as far as to say are neat, like the prison break opening or the switch room where it teases you with a soul sphere before monster closets open. The biggest stumbling block of the wad are the six barons, and the four rockets you get to deal with them. The description does say that "Ultra Violence is a major monster-fest and intended only for experienced mouse users," but honestly the main difference is ammo starvation. This was actually the first random WAD I downloaded, but I tried on UV first and it was just kinda frustrating, and it's not because the encounters were particularly hard. On UV even the chaingun was a secret and the occasional cell pack lying around only offers false hope, for the plasma is multiplayer only. Shotgunning barons is not fun. Trying to chainsaw them down, even less so.

 

E1M1SAS.WAD is competent, if unremarkable. With a little bit of tweaking this would be a fine first effort even today.

 

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[Roofi]

Month 7 Day 11

 

I play until I die or intentionally stop. I don't comment the wad where I die/stop

 

[1] toonporn.WAD by Justin White (1998)

 

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Hardcore cartoon porn. YEAH!! See Spiderman getting it on, along wiht your other fave super heroes

 

YAMETE!!!!!!!! 

 

toonporn.wad is an old x-rated wad which replaces some floors and walls textures with hentai pics. Also the sky features a porn pic ! As many 90's wads you can hear cheesy new sounds.

 

Well,  pure garbage... or not hehe. Nice  job Justin. But I didn't see Rule 34 of Spider-Man so I'm disappointed.

 

[2] Goff's Deathmatch Floor by Ron Goff (1995)

 

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Another Doom2 Deathmatch floor. I hate long intros. I like to kill people in doom2 and thats what I designed this floor for.

 

A sort of circular hedge maze. You can go through a lot of small passages and tunnels. Apart from that, it's a classic DM map with scattered weapons and ammunition but the architecture is really fascinating although a bit narrow.

 

However I greatly disagree with Ron Goff about the facts that Deathmatch is the only way to play Doom 2 and music don't matter in Doom. Just don't keep D_Runnin please. :(

 

[3] Voltage.wad by Joshua Gunder (1996)

 

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A giant Circular room with walls and pedestals. Made for deathmatch

 

Another circular arena but underground and much more spacious this time. You can actually find weapons on luminous pedestals. Honestly these little details are quite nice. Nevertheless, the map lacks a lot of relief. The whole thing is too flat. Some monsters managed to keep me busy for a few minutes though.

 

[4] OFFICE.WAD by Rick Kelly (2005)

 

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You arrive in the lobby and head for the elevator to take you to another day at work, but something very strange is going on.

 

An Ultimate Doom map released in 2005 but made in 1994. This map didn't make me want to go to work and I think that all the employees finally deserted this place.

We take an elevator to finally venture into huge but almost completely empty offices. However, I finished the level with only 9% kills because it appears that the author designed a teleportation room full of monsters that didn't work.

 

This level has nothing special but I appreciate the effort to create something non-orthognal. The building seems to have a rather triangular shape.

 

[5] Atlantis.wad by Jim Wiscarson (AKA) Bartman (1995)

 

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Great Deathmatch wad 2-4 player. Lost City of Atlantis.

 

A generic deathmatch map featuring lot of water and mossy brick textures. The very square layout doesn't bring anything memorable but the midi music of "Chicken Dance" creates a strangely goofy atmosphere compared to the dark universe of Heretic. I would have liked more serious music but it made me smile.

 

I stop here for today.

[Sena]

Day 2: Trilogy https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom/s-u/trilogy

 

3 maps, that differ greatly in their design. The first, a city level, might historically be one of the first instances of doomcute, and it's nonetheless in the top 10% of city maps, as it actually looks like a city, mostly. You get the incidental hospital, gun store, train station or other place that definitely looks like a real place, and impressively so, although the level is also permeated by STARTAN blocks where it's quite clear the author didn't really bother making it look good, and while the level is grand in its design, and it's always fun to explore an interesting level, I think it goes a bit overboard, as it's got way too much useless rooms, less than 1% of the rooms have anything actually necessary to advance the player forwards to get through to the end, leading to a large number of dead ends.It's not particularly difficult, even with all the barricades and enemies on all sides, but it is a level that gets to be a bit tiresome, and it is too tiresome for its own good, if they removed the filler areas, you'd have a legitimately good map on your hands. Apart from the opening of map 2, which involves a train coming into a station (i.e. it actually moves), they basically abandon the urban setting, going for the mix of techbase and hell stuff that looks like, well, everything else in 1995. The gameplay might not be up to par, but it's competent, which for the era isn't something you always can say, and the last map felt like the weakest of the bunch, the mapper thought it'd be funny to put in some graves with the names of his playtesters on them, but then realised he had to make a whole level around that. Ultimately, I'd describe the trilogy as a precursor to good city levels, it's got some good ideas, but it's rough around the edges, and while ambitious, it's got a lot of areas that sour the experience, and they'd definitely have been better off just merging all those good ideas into a singular level. 5/10.

Edited January 12, 2022 by Sena

[LadyMistDragon]

Quandy Crush (2019) by @Datacore85 (Eternity)

 

Yes, that's right. I ended up with TWO Datacore maps in a row and one each from 2018, 2019, and 2020. Did I actually get three in a row? Stay tuned!

 

This specific map was later released for some reason as a bonus map in the 3rd installment of Short Maps for Short People, now almost entirely by @Roofi I guess it probably would fit with the criteria there but yeaj.

 

The map itself feels like something of a test map. Enemies on a conveyor belt firing in your direction all whilst you run to the other end of the hallway and press a switch to activate a crusher which kills them all. Then RUN through the next room to get past another crusher here's that's triggered, pick up the Super Shotgun, and open the extremely lazy secret containing an Arch-vile and Berserk Pack to finish the map.

 

I can't really rate this one since there's little to it.

 

 

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Edited January 11, 2022 by LadyMistDragon

[Rujasu]

The Hive by Chris Klie 08/27/95

IWAD: Doom 2
Difficulty: UV
Source Port: PrBoom+

 

Description: This was an outtake from the Master Levels.

 

Oh goody. I can't wait.

 

The Hive hot starts you in a smallish room with several zombiemen and imps. Each wall has a door, and they all open on the same trigger, revealing that you are, in fact, in a tower and the only way forward is to hurl yourself off it. After a fairly uninspired skirmish with a random mishmash of enemies, the next objective becomes finding out a way into the smaller towers surrounding the big one. For most of them, it turns out, the solution is to find the teleport back to the middle and keep throwing yourself off at various angles. I guess the idea is novel, and rather peaceful since no enemies spawn during your keyhunt.

 

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Anyway, after reaching the yellow door and the exit sign, you get teleported to a small ledge with a horde of imps behind and a pain elemental below. In case this is too intimidating, there's  a backpack, invulnerability, blue armor and a plasma with plenty of ammo. The rest of the map is a clockwise rotation around this wide, brown corridor, punctuated by mancubi and a weird timed lift that's neither interesting nor challenging. It's just there.

 

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The penultimate challenge of the WAD is a sludge pit with narrow walkways à la The Chasm, with a clump of mancubi and revenants on the other side that mostly takes care of itself. I went back to take screenshots in godmode, and turns out there's no way out of the sludge if you fall. So that's fun.

Finally, after a small structure with a supercharge and some more plasma ammo there's the final pit that has just a lone cyberdemon in it for you to use all that plasma ammo on. After killing it I wondered why there was a thick rectangular pillar in the pit and entered the teleporter. It took me to the start of the level. You see, in the structure with the ammo was also the switch that raised that thick pillar to reveal the exit to the level, and there was no way to backtrack from the pit. There was no added challenge from this, I just had to throw myself off that tower one more time and redo the platforming in the final section.

 

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Honestly, I was more or less on board with the first half of the map. It's not really something most mappers nowadays attempt to do so it was refreshing in its own way, but by the end of it I had to admit that The Hive just kinda sucks, even for '95.

[Walter confetti]

Gave a review of Trilogy on Wadarcheology thread since i found it a pretty interesting map to be played by more people...

 

And, as a bonus, i give you this review of a random file got hitting the random button:

 

Tab25 Level by Michael Contorno -  Vanilla Doom 2, 1997, played with Eternity 4.0.2 forseti

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Another level from the Tab series, as like the other maps played for this series, this is a pretty competent made map with a fun layout (even if a little bit too squarish, but it's not a bad thing! Makes me think of McGee layout style in some way) matched with a fun gameplay and strange touches, like bloodfalls on nukage? What? Overall, a pretty good map sets in a castle surrounded by canyons and lava, interconnected layout and fun gameplay and make this a good map worth of a play!

[LadyMistDragon]

Tartarus (2020) by @RonnieJamesDiner(Eternity)

 

Ok, I'm probably cheating a little because this was technically released near the end of 2019, but it was only uploaded to /idgames in January of 2020! And just like Intergalactic Xenology, this map was also a Cacoward runner-up! So make that two! Oh, I feel so blessed! Except that this should have won a full Cacoward! Yes, it is genuinely that good!

 

So I was initially thinking this was going to be some sort of ridiculous slaughter map, though some part of me though I could be mixing it up with "Dark Tartarus.". And despite the presence of a few incredibly slaughter-y fights, it's not really a throw-monster-masses kind of map at all. The fights all have a little too much self-awareness and sadism applied to them for that to be the case. Rather, it seems like Ronnie's taking the chaos of the average Cyriak map and somehow making it his own

 

Let's just go a little into the map itself. It's set amongst a hellish-void type location, pierced by the fortress which you find yourself entering in ever so dramatic fashion at the beginning. From here, you're basically traveling around a structure, hitting switches and unveiling a location that proves surprisingly interconnected once you've unlocked a few paths. Oh yeah, and it's almost equal with Bastion of Chaos in the visual sense, other than it, you know, not being influenced by Sunder really.

 

The fights are the best and most brillant part. Ronnie like to inject hitscan enemies in amongst much stronger ones to give you something of a jolt. For one, the first big fight (around the center of the map) starts by teleporting in a Cacodemon, a Pain Elemental, and several other enemies including Pinkies, Imps, Chaingunners on one side, and Revenants. I'm really starting to appreciate Ronnie's use for Pinkies to a point because of how they emerge when you open a particular gate or how they literally swarm from every possible direction, turning things into a delightfully chaotic mess.

 

Another fight would be the blue key fight. To be honest, placing an area to fall into around a Mastermind was probably an ill-conceived idea, but I also was playing like crap. Still, placing Barons on either side of a Spider Mastermind while causing Hell Knights and other enemies to teleport was great in practice, but the lift also goes up much too quick.

 

The last one is then an appropriate finale: Arch-vile and other assorted enemies against 2-paits of Cyberdemons coming in from each corner to rain holy hell on literally everything. You might want to spend a little more time discovering secrets than I did. While this map is fairly short and not so lengthy, I felt to be running low on time.

 

Top fucking marks, 10/10, get me out of here please.

 

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[Walter confetti]

New Order by Moniac - Boom compatible (?), 2006, played with Eternity 4.0.2 forseti

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I will be going to do searching on the wiki if there's any article, but is the author of this wad is russian? I see lots of that school of thinking in this wad: dark, gritty map with strong usage of brown textures, Hexen tree sprites, lots of detailing, some sort of searching for realism, clever puzzles that needs quite some thinking to be solved and with big emphasis on exploration... the "signs" from that part of the world mapping community is all here! I read somebody talking about black people in London in another map by this author (gibberish and weird) review, so he's english? If anybody from 2006 that knows this guy please let me know about him!

Anyway, this is a pretty good map (if there was from two years prior, it will be another map for Wadarcheology) that uses New Order (the band, not the conspiracy theory) "Blue Monday" as track for the map. Funny that i've played a map titled Blue Monday some time ago! The level is set in this kinda abstract structure that feels like a forgotten TNT map made by Ty Haldermann but heavily modernized, a pretty long (it takes me a half hour with killing 68% of monsters the completion of this map!) adventure in this rusty harbor where puzzles and very fancy boom trickery involved during all the map, culminating in a big city emerging from the sky and the best looking maze i've seen so far in Doom. But is till a maze in Doom so for me is garbage, sorry. But it also have some downer (over the already mentioned maze structure) like a sadistic puzzles similar somehow to something i saw in original Doom E4M2 but here involving small catwalks and faith leaps into some rooms, weird texturing in some parts (especially the maze) unshootable monsters at the city section and some visible texture misalignments... Monster usage is used with single monster and small groups to fight, with a big battle against a big group of medium\high monsters teleporting before you get the blue key, a cyberdemon and a spider mastermind, made more easier by the "secret" invulnerability spheres hidden around the map. The level progress by parts of the map revealed by the player passage, showing the place piece by piece.

Overall, this is a good and fun big map with pretty enjoyable design choices and lots of fun even if with some little mistakes!

 

MORBDEATH 2 by CHTULU - Vanilla Doom 2, 1995, played with Zandronum 3.1 and bots

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A weird random find got hitting the random file button: a Deathmatch map with no reviews, a little descriptive read me text saying this map is a remake of remake of map called moribund by the same author and a weird file organization in the zip folder, having the wad hidden two sub folders taken from the Doom Construction Kit editor folder. The map itself is not bad for a 1995 DM map, maybe too overpowered and with some choices in the layout that in these days will be questionable, but overall a pretty fun map.

 

Death Field by Adam Holz - Vanilla Doom, 1994 but uploaded in 2005, played with Eternity 4.0.2 forseti

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A final small map before going to sleep, is a arena style circular map with weird texturing and broken sectors in the middle, making the map glitching even in freaking Eternity and more effort in the ascii art for the title in the text file than for the map, wonderful. Also, the author advertise this as a very hard map, but it's not. Actually is really, really easy! Some monsters are scattered around as well of the guns (is this some sort of DM map too? I don't want to discover it) and the hardest enemy is a baron of hell. Total monsters: 19.

One of those maps that you found hidden into some shovelware CD and you see from the start that is crap. You know, i think to have played already this map in one shovelware Doom WADS cd i have at home! A pretty bad map.

Edited January 13, 2022 by Walter confetti

[LadyMistDragon]

0_5 Resor.(uploaded 2011) - Unknown (Eternity)

 

A collection of alpha and beta maps for Doom containing many familiar layouts but all converted to Doom II. Honestly, people that have studied alpha and beta versions of Doom will know the fact that there was still some wolf3d dna, as evidenced by some of the status bars. I never knew any of this stuff, and didn't really think too much about how much of Tom Hall's original design showed up in the early builds. Unfortunately, the weapons here fire MUCH slower (because they were still working out kinks or whatever), with the rocket launcher taking off far too much of the screen like the SPNKR launcher from Marathon. The effects when you successfully blow someone up are absolutely GLORIOUS though. We do get an early version of the zombies SigCow weapon (it was in the novels, don't at me) before someone decided a pistol would make more sense. Other than that, every map is bland and visually uninteresting with only Pinkies and Imps as enemies. To be honest, I didn't play past 6 maps because of how unfun this really was. I guess it's good to see some idea of how the initial maps developed, but it comes across as near complete-crap even worst than generic '94 maps.

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Edited January 13, 2022 by LadyMistDragon

[Rujasu]

Spoiled Waters by Stocki 09/22/17
IWAD: Doom 2
Source Port: GZDoom
Difficulty: UV

Very solid map overall. Careful attention to detail all the way from the dark (too dark on default GZDoom settings, I think) cavern, though the techbase sections and the open areas towards the end. The chasm and lake areas both looked really nice, and the wall/techbase divided them in a way that still felt connected, if you get what I mean. Point is, level design good. Spider demon ambushes and the archvile in an open area were tricky, but the difficulty seemed to curve nicely through the level. Spider mastermind final boss was an anticlimax in the familiar spider mastermind way. First publication by Stocki, which really makes me wonder about my earlier statement about E1M1SAS.WAD being a pretty good first effort even by modern standards. There's clearly a big difference in quality between this and that.

 

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NEON GENESIS EVANGELION SEPHIROTIC TREE DOOM ][ by Yukio Ide 07/03/96
IWAD: Doom 2
Source Port: PrBoom+
Difficulty: UV

Spoiler

Japan DOOM Power isn't strong with this one.

 

Despite being interesting as an artifact from the 90s Japanese Doom scene, NEON GENESIS EVANGELION SEPHIROTIC TREE DOOM ][ isn't really worth anyone's time. It's a simplistic map designed to look like the Sefirot from Jewish mysticism, with pictures of franchise-appropriate anime girls on the walls. The weak resistance in the hallways consists of anything from Hellknights to nazis, strangely enough. The buttons behind the key doors don't have an immediately obvious effect, which adds to the tedious wandering around the straight halls and circular rooms while MIDIfied Fly Me To The Moon loops in the background. The imps rising from the floor in the final room in response to a line trigger is arguably the most impressive feat of the wad, and the arbitrary replacement of sound files to voice clips from the show, like doors opening or the shotgun, pushes this thing to near jokewad territory. However, it definitely overstayed its welcome this time around.

 

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[Roofi]

Month 7 Day 12

 

I play until I die or intentionally stop. I don't comment the wad where I die/stop

 

[1] - Killing Grounds by Greg Smith (2005)

 

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It's Dark, It's Hot, and It's part of Hell!

 

 

Uploaded in 2005 but made in 1994.

 

An underground base included among a rather extended network of caves. As a result, the layout consists mainly of randomly drawn polygons featuring nearly absolutely no detail. Nevertheless, I liked the depth effects created by the size of the places and the light contrasts created at some places as well. Most of the map uses massive grey cement textures, but my favorite part maybe resides in the small red rock passage.

 

Gameplay wise, the beginnin proved to be a bit dangerous because of the many barrels near the player spawn. However, the rest of the game mainly consists to fight randomly placed enemies. Also, the ammunition balance made me my chainsaw very useful. The latter are indeed not extremely prolific but I didn't feel frustrated thanks to the possibility to create soe infighting.

 

In any case, I don't think this map is enough worthy to be featured in wadarcheology but it's not that bad.

 

 

I died in the last map of BLOOD ON THE WALZ VERSION 1.0

 

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[LadyMistDragon]

URBAN01 (1995) - by Graham Evans (Eternity)

 

Well.....this one could certainly be worst. Takes place in a central courtyard that is apparently where you've been involved in an urban training exercise, your obejctive is to find the way to the control room and get out of here. But despite the exit being nearby, you must spend your time going through a whole host of other areas.

This map has custom sound effects. They are kind of an odd mix of stuff that sounds more realistic and impactful than in OG Doom mixed with some cartoonish-in-context lizard sounds emitted by some of your foes, such as the clangy metal Arachnotrons now make.  The human sounds definitely go with the now-possessed humans though. The weapon sound effects sound taken from other maps, but they largely do their job. The repetitive music may have you wishing for 'Running from Evil' though.

 

At first, I was half-convinced it was unfinshable. It's not at all, but a Revenant blocking your way to a critical teleporter when you're not even equipped with a SS yet was a very strange decision. Especially as this is quite an easy map overall. Despite some signs of amaterurishness as having easily accessible BFGs and Invulnerbility Spheres along with poorly-aligned doors, it's impossible to call bad. Or I suppose it is until you enter the yelloew key area and you have to navigate through a rather incoherent series of rooms. Finally, you come back to the courtyard to witness a moderately explosive scene confronting you. It's still not exactly difficult since it's quite large, however, you now find yourself pushing a series of switches inside the various buildings of the central courtyard to access the exit. Ok, the progression is pretty bad and arbitrary, but still decent 5.5/10

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[Walter confetti]

Long Days by Alexander "Eternal" S. - Prboom+, 2009, played with Eternity 4.0.2 forseti

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A really epic nuts clone made by the legendary mapper Eternal (where this guy go?) sets in this weird, abstract desertic temple with ancient gods statues, the map is actually pretty easy as Eternal wrote, not a walk in the park but with cheating is beatable, maybe some of you guys can beat this without cheats, maybe if you are zero master or decino or whatever. Also this map uses a original song from the band Nomeansno, Long Days. Really neat song, is the most doomer song i've heard so far and it's a mistery for everyone how this map been accepted even using the original song, here in OGG format. Overall, a beautiful nuts clone, 8888 monsters but still a great fun map!

[Sena]

Day 3: New Order https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom2/Ports/m-o/neworder

 

Some good parts to this one, the music being a major part of it, and a mostly decent flow to the combat. I say mostly because it's still got the archetypal obnoxious 'gotcha' moments, invisible walls with chaingunners, entire squadrons of chaingunners shooting you from so high up you can't actually see them, and monster closets that appear with enough frequency that you start to notice it, of which chaingunners only incidentally appear. Apart from a singular maze, which was a pain in the arse because it was a maze and a barren one at that, the level design is generally solid, and if I had to say it gets one thing right, it is its pacing, there's a decent amount of down time inbetween the combat encounters, and the level design itself is usually decent, they might throw some traps your way, but rarely when you are devoid of cover (i.e. options). And then I reached the halfway point where I got lost and had to give up, but what I played was mostly alright.

[Roofi]

Month 7 Day 13

 

I play until I die or intentionally stop. I don't comment the wad where I die/stop

 

[1] DMatch: The Ultimate Urban Deathmatch v0.59 by Extreme Software (1996)

 

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DMatch is a collection of deathmatch WAD's Created by Extreme Software, they have all been made so that you may view them in single player mode before playing in deathmatch.

 

A pack of 5 Deathmatch maps where two of them look like they have barely been started as they only consist of a large, flat and almost empty room. The finished maps unfortunately don't have anything more sensational. Map 04 looks like it came straight out of a 1994 wad with a long fucking staircase and random texturing. Map 05 is set in a small and austere restaurant and the first map proved to be the more rich thanks to the new textures and the use of the night sky. Honestly , I liked this simplistic but mysterious sky.

 

I stop here for today.

 

[Sena]

Day 4: Long Days https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom2/Ports/j-l/longdays

 

I reviewed this one some time ago, and my thoughts on it haven't changed. Some good music, it runs so bad on LZDoom if you actually try and look at the 8888 enemies that the level is unplayable, but you don't really need to worry about that, just wake them up and circlestrafe around the edges as they do most the actual killing for you. It takes clear inspiration from Nuts, whose name is largely appropriate, as you'd have to be a nutter to want to play this all the way through.

[LadyMistDragon]

Drilling Station (2003)  by Simo Malinen (Eternity)

 

Replaces E1M1. This is quite the fun little map, released at a time when mappers were starting to figure out significant amounts of empty square footage would turn people off of their work generally. Because this one doesn't disappoint in the combat department! It's quite easy, but nothing can take away from the fact that, as Todd Howard says "..it just works."

 

The persistence of white is quite montonous, but on the plus side, the mapper's use of verticality is quite awesome and needs to be commended, despite much of it being in seriously narrow spaces. Besides, the beautiful landscape actually goes well with the map for once. There's also a cool bit not far from the beginning where you're attacked by a Baron of Hell, you find yourself sidestepping, and most likely seeing a switch hanging in the wall to your left which opens a wall behind you contains a rocket launcher and just enough rockets to make all your Baron woes go away (there's two more in this map).

 

It's also one of those maps where you can collect the keys essentially in any order, though the entrance is right at the beginning. The emphasis on providing you plenty of baddies is eminent here, and shotgun snipers can be near deadly if they successfully turn their sights on you. Still, a secret with a megarmour and some other stuff should help you to survive if you can find it. Very good 7/5/10

 

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[Roofi]

Month 7 Day 14

 

I play until I die or intentionally stop. I don't comment the wad where I die/stop

 

[1] ODESSA 2 ("Oasis") by Bob Evans (1995)

 

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On any long fought journey, there must be an oasis for rest, for food and for water. Well, there's water anyway. 1 out of 3 isn't too bad I suppose.

 

A map by Bob Evans, author of the dreaded Map 30 from Eternal Doom where the progression is still considered as one of the most cryptic ever made by the community. Odessa also features unintuitive progression, especially because of the numerous switches hidden behind walls. Nevertheless, Bob Evans stayed fair because it's possible to find them by consulting the automap and by looking carefully the variations between textures.

 

Odessa 2 takes place in a kind of fortress where the name "Oasis" comes from the large circular courtyard filled with water at the centre of the map. You can see 3 keys on pillars. The objective consist to collect them successively by exploring different areas that sometimes tend to tech base. In any case, this oasis reminds me of the E1M1 map from Heretic where you start near a small lake.

 

The difficulty lies only in the "puzzles" since the bestiary consists mainly of imps, demons and zombies as well as some mid-tier monsters that you can meet occasionally. 

 

A good map anyway.

 

[2] SHIRE.WAD by Harq aka Paul (1998)

 

 

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-Deathmatch- Visit the 5 areas... The Canyon, The Pit, The Snake, Nick's Garden, and Heat n' Hump. Lots of visual candy and surprises. Control Room? Yes, its there. ALL of the colored bars in the Control Room are switches.

 

 

A pretty nice DM map where several areas mentioned in the description are linked and looped together. Visually, I don't think it's pretty enough to be an visual candy, especially because of the ambient darkness, but it's not bad either. Nick's Garden" contains a small slime fountain for example.

 

In the same way, although there are different areas, they consist mainly of rocky spaces (The pit, the Canyon, The Snake ...)

 

I was able to see two BFGs on this map but I couldn't figure out how to get them.

 

[3] Jenny2 by Andy Mckie (mystic) (2002)

 

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I had already played DM maps of mystic which had the particularity to take place in space and to use translucent 3D floors. Jenny2 consists of a grey and orange tech-base containing pools of water where you can swim in. However, the effect had been badly executed so you feel more like entering a parallel universe when you put your head under water. You swim in a kind of an endless metallic room.

 

Anyway I liked the new lamp sprite where the bulb seems to be a soulsphere colored in orange. However, the layout suffers from its repetitiveness since there are many featureless identical rooms.

 

[4] SQUID2.WAD by Unknown (2006)

 

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Kill them and survive!

 

This file was released in 2006 but made at an unknown date (most probably 1994 as usual for Ultimate Doom).

 

A map that has nothing outstanding. We start in a marbled area containing random pits that seem deadly, I did not try to jump in them! Most of the game takes place in a kind of complex made of grey bricks where lamps are used as barriers, which I think is a little bit pretty. I liked the attempt to make something big and the number of monsters makes the fights quite fun.

 

[5] Death Match City by Sam Lopresti (2005)

 

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The Best Deathmatch Level Ever!

 

A DM map released in 2005 but made in 1995. Each player starts at the top of a slime waterfall, in front of several weapons and a blue armor piled up.

 

I liked this map where you can walk around in a big grassy courtyard and explore four white buildings where you can find other weapons and ammunition. Also, although the outside areas are very well lit, the inside of each building has no light at all and so are good places to hide.

 

 

 

I fell in damaging water in Eternal Darkness

 

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[Sena]

Day 5: DOOM 2 - Flashback to Hell https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom2/Ports/d-f/fth666

 

A 15-level WAD with a connection to the default game, though your mileage may vary, and it's got some custom sound effects which seek to sound a bit more crisp, and I didn't really like them at first, which I also imagine is how most people will feel about them, but like a tumour they grew on me. Some levels will have a singular room that looks close to the default Doom 2 levels, whereas at other times it almost feels like they're halfway to just recreating the map but with only a few changes, as with The Waste Tunne- I mean The Sewage Aqueducts. It's not entirely clear what the rationale for this was, as there is a bit of a disparity in the general level design, with some of them closely adhering to the original design, almost being analogous to a redesign of the levels, whereas others are complete reimaginings, such as the Dead Simple clone, which shares zero architectural features with its predecessor. Not that I have any issue with the variance, as the levels have a clear consistent quality, more so than the original levels, which may be the reason why they stopped at 15, the only way you could make The Abandoned Mines good would be to make it end immediately. But in any case, there were very few levels which presented any real problems, and while only a few of them were close enough to the original to evoke that feeling of "I know I've played this but things aren't exactly right", sort of like when playing through beta content, nearly all of them still had a clear level of craftsmanship. Most stuck to the 150-170 enemy limit, which I think is the exact length I look for in a level, and there was plenty of solid ideas in terms of level design and combat encounters, and I only remember one level which was a major issue when it came to figuring out where to go, which is actually a good thing all things considered, most the time I play 1 map off the archive and they find some way to fuck it up, 14/15 maps presenting no real problems is statistically very impressive. The levels embody that classic design aesthetic, with some proper combat to boot - if not for the wild inconsistencies among the official WADs, I feel like this is what a regular Doom 3 would have played like, and if that were the case, it'd undoubtedly be the best of the series. 8/10.

[Walter confetti]

DOOM 2 -Flashback to Hell by @Vordakk - Boom, 2014, played with Eternity forseti 4.0.2

Spoiler

 

Probably one of rare moments i play a cacoward winner map and (at least at the first episode) one of the rarest moments i don't get why this mapset got a cacoward. Sure, PRIMEVAL and Jimmy soundtracks are top notch, but the mapset from MAP01 to MAP11, is a (really good) series of remake / remix / re-imagination of the first original 11 maps from Doom 2 with some new changes in map flow and difficulty and lots of great detailing, with MAP09 being the top of the bunch followed by MAP10 and the "worst" offender been MAP07, but the i reached the hell maps and... that's the real deal, we're not joking around anymore. 3 maps sets in a burning red rocks surrounded by lava, dark menacing fortresses and hard-ish but fairly challenging gameplay for all the maps. I've completed all this mapset in a evening *cough* with che-*cough* *cough*ats *cough* *cough* Ah, what a bad case of simulated wrote coughing! I'll better end this review fast!

Too bad the hell maps are so less (only 3, from MAP12 to MAP14), but overall, this a very, very good mapset that deserved to be played once, or maybe more times!

Worth it's cacoward winning overall, great mapset.

Edited January 16, 2022 by Walter confetti

[Endless]

The D.M.Z. by Chris Klie | 1995

 

 

Doom connoisseurs will probably know the name of Chris Klie as one of the early, 90s Doom mappers that managed to get his work to be officially stamped by id games thanks to the amateurish collection of maps from the Master Levels. Aside from having a prolific output for the time and contributing to two commercial WADs during the 90s (one might say a lucky-shot) Chris was not really a good mapper and the vast majority of the levels he created for Doom during his active years are of simply mediocre quality. In this case we have The D.M.Z., part of his ''outtakes'' for Master Levels. Klie submitted multiple levels to be accepted by the guys at id games, and apparently his strategy was to simply submit a handful of maps and see which one stuck. It worked for him, in a way. While the result in Master Levels, uh, well, here's a map that really makes me think of the dark days of the 90s. It's silly, it's extremely simple, round, without any attention to detail or care and with some design decisions that I can't quite understand. There's a red door, with, well, literally nothing. It's literally just a door to nowhere. An enigma. This is simply a mediocre map. Only reason I would recommend this map is as a case-of-study for the 90s dark side and Doom history.

 

Demon Aquarium V1.2 by Stephen Whittaker | 2007

 

 

A rather simple and dull map with a lot of marble. Good thing I like marble, but I still don't let my bias make my reviews to biased... much. Anyway, this map has an interesting concept but a very poor execution that falls really short and it's quite underwhelming considering that by 2007 there were already some very interesting and mindblowing maps. This one, on the other hand, while not the worst I've come across, it's just plain forgettable. At least is fun for like 5 minutes.

 

Starlite! for DOOMII by Dave Johnson | 1995

 

 

On the same level of quality as the previous one. Not as ''tactful'' but, in comparison, they stand over the same kind of rating I give. It's a 1995 map so it's actually quite decent for the time of release, sporting some interesting, yet not exactly the best kind of features and layout. It's fun at least, but doesn't offer much so I wouldn't recommend it unless you just want to complete every single thing on /idgames.

[Roofi]

7 hours ago, Endless said:

 

 

Starlite! for DOOMII by Dave Johnson | 1995

 

 

On the same level of quality as the previous one. Not as ''tactful'' but, in comparison, they stand over the same kind of rating I give. It's a 1995 map so it's actually quite decent for the time of release, sporting some interesting, yet not exactly the best kind of features and layout. It's fun at least, but doesn't offer much so I wouldn't recommend it unless you just want to complete every single thing on /idgames.

 

I know Starlite ! I played it during Month 5 Day 30. Yep, it's not a bad map , the court with the star-shaped sector was a bit memorable for me but nothing really outstanding otherwise.