Scuba Steve's Must Play Wads, for Newbs

[Scuba Steve]

Hello, I'm Scuba Steve, you guide through the world of Doom... better known as Doomworld. In the coming Weeks, many new members will be upon us here. Some of you seasoned veterans in search of rekindling fond memories of your youth, others new to Doom who have only known it through "50 greatest Games of all time lists". Old or new, ugly or steamingly attractive, you're... most deffinately... going to want to get your hands on some of the best mods out there for your Doom gaming pleasure. Stumbling upon a site such as this you may be asking, where can I find these great maps, and with an archive as large as this, how will I ever search through there for anything good... it would take me a lifetime! Well my friends and esteemed colleagues, fear not... for the past 8 years I have wasted away my life, and weeded through the garbage so you don't have to. Our tastes may differ, not only in our selection of fine wines and women... but in our mods as well. Before you is my pick of the best wads that are still playable, and will excite you to this day. Say what? You don't know how to play wads with Doom? Before I phone in the Waaambulance, check the compendium at the end for ports and technical Doomfermation.

In no spanktacular order, here thay are...

Aliens Doom [1] [2] [3] - Any of you doom veterans will remember this, the grandaddy of Doom conversions... how the FIRST conversion ever remains one of the best today is still a mystery, even to me and me alike. You will get to play as a marine in the movie Aliens in Doom. This is a deffinite must play, and if you haven't played it... put that Doom3 preorder back on the shelf and don't cash it in until you've tried this. Afterwards, cash it in and play a better game.

Void - Mike "Cyberdemon" Watson has outdone himself with this one. More like a surreal American McGee's: Doom. Upside down rooms, Bizarre locals, and yes... even a shrinky dink machine. This mod has enough visual goods, to keep you oogling for a good while after. Requires ZDoom.

Doom Raider - ...

Sorry about that, I was busy making out with this wad. It's absolutely stunning, you will actually feel like you're in an old Egyptian Tomb. New Guns, gorgeous purtty effects... one of my top pics. Requires ZDoom.

Fist Full of Doom - Oldie but goodie. Sadle up partner, you're headed to the old west. Not the lame old west with gun dissease and gingivitis, but the awesome old west of Spaghetti. You'll fight cowboys and spaniards in a very convincing town, over two levels.

The Adventures of Massmouth 2 - Nevermind that the graphics are ugly 3D model snips, or that John Romero's head is eerily always facing you, Massmouth 2 is good fun. Tons of amazing effects, and the ability to kill Andrew Stine, a must play. Requires ZDoom.

Batman Doom Forget the fact that "[insert pop culture reference] + Doom" ideas are often lame, Batman Doom is phenomenal. Excusing batman's need to constantly masturbate when punching, this project features all new graphics, amazing and fun new levels, and some of the most creative new effects ever.

Twilight Warrior - Forget Rainbow Six... well... OK don't because Rainbow Six is way better than this, but that doesn't mean Twilight Warrior isn't the best Special Forces conversion for Doom. Using real life weapons (and the VERY first appearance of the OICW in a video game), shoot guys dead. Requires ZDoom.

Scuba Steve's: Action Doom - A very modest conversion that was released earlier this year. By modest I mean it force fed itself down your throat with nonstop advertising and promotions. It's all chronicled here. Aside from the frustrating and nigh on impossible factor of the mod, multiple paths and a plethora of new graphics makes it fun to play with IDDQD. Requires ZDoom.

RTC-3057 - The dichotic bretheren of the above wad. The previous featuring NO story and nothing but unflinching action... RTC features an in depth story, and frantic calculated firefights. Using some of the most amazing features this side of 1997, it's deffinately not Doom like you know. Requires ZDoom.

Doom: Rampage Edition - Heh, just kidding avoid like the plague.

Chex Quest - Any Doom mod that comes with Ceral is OK in my Book. This could go down as the most bizarre project ever, a conversion of Doom... about Ceral. Even more bizarre is the fact that it's fun.

Caverns of Darkness - Chris Lutz is my hero. Nothing make me happier than running around in beatiful dark caves that make my computer slow to a crawl.

Phobos - Let's just pretend that this is what Doom Ep1 was SUPPOSED to look like. Amazing environments... littered with new textures that fit the Original Doom environment. I lost my viginity to Phobos when I was younger and into Doom mods.

Doom City - Shut up, I love Doom City. I still get giddy when I hear the music for this project. It's pretty bland by today's standards, but this was the first project I ever played that felt like the author had a fun time mapping, making gas stations, grocery stores... which all feel pretty convincing too. In a world of Sandy Petersen "Downtowns" this map is a gem.

Darknation's Wacky Adventures in Impse - Nothing but different types of imps. Word baloons cataloging your every homoerotic thought of Trent Reznor. Fun, with some interesting tricks and traps. Oh and you'll want to IDDQD through the microimps because they suck. Requires ZDoom.

Doom Kart - An amazing Racing mod for doom involving Karts. New physics and sprites make this a must! Requires ZDoom.

Imp Encounter - To be part of Doomworld, you'll want to brush up on all your Doomworld "in" jokes. Imp Sex.

Operation Arctic Wolf - While the gameplay may get a bit repetetive at times... there are enough new textures, graphics, dehacked effects to make the game feel fresh. This is probably the second greatest of all the WolfenDoom series. It is important that I mention that I think the last in the Wolfendoom episodes: Operation Rheingold is probably the best. Unfortunately it is only 2 of the 5 episodes.

Enjay's: Marine Assault - Another in a long time honored tradition of naming the project after the author. Even a master veteran like me lets a map or two slip through his grasp. I recently played Enjay's Marine Assault and had a blast. And new users will too... That means you silly! Requires ZDoom

Suspended in Dusk - Arguably the greatest vanilla mapset ever designed. Espi's new graphics fit beautifully with the stock Doom work, and the atmosphere is great. Suspended in Dusk demands to be played.

Port Compendium
So you're new here, and you see "Requires Zdoom" on wads above. Well, what the heck is Zdoom? Bluntly it's a modified Doom exe, but more than that it's a modified execute of the Doom Engine. What is that per say? Well, many years ago id software released the Doom source code so developers could build off of it. today there are many ports that all offer something new, like High resolutions and washing your laundry. These ports add mouse aiming, High resolutions, jumping, bug fixes and they make playing wads much easier. The most popular ports to date are...

Zdoom - The most popular port 'round these parts. Because of its easy of use, stability and powerful editing tools that can transform Doom into Void.
JDoom - Purdy new graphics, models (available at the site for download) openGL coronas and Eye sex just for you.
Legacy - one of the granddaddy's of ports.
EDGE - A port that was built with a very open ended scripting in mind. Not the most gorgeous, but powerful.
Eternity - The wad of choice for Mordeths alike!

Now that you know what ports are available... maybe you'd like some help in running the above mentioned wads. Well... I'll tell you. With today's modern ports it becomes increasingly easy. you can...

1) Drag the *.wad file onto the port exe to run it

Provided the wad file is in your doom2 folder you can...

2) go "run" X:\path to doom\xport.exe -file xxxx.wad

3) follow the directions the author has in the .txt file accompanying the wad in the .zip

There you have it... you may now quench your dooming needs until Doom3 is released... at which point you can return to the world where doom is just a relic and forget about playing crappy old mods for a 10 year old game ever again. But if you're like me and countless other members... you'll be downloading Mordeth Episode 3 and Action Doom 4 in the year 2015, despite repeated attempts to leave, have sex and raise a family.

-Scuba Steve

[Ralphis]

Doom Kart - An amazing Racing mod for doom involving Karts. New physics and sprites make this a must! Requires ZDoom.

Thanks

[Combustable]

Well, im not new to doom, but I still came here to see all the goodies. If somone could give me a bit of support on caverns of darkness though, I used Zdoom to run it, like I do with everything, and for some reason, theres missing textures. I ran it using "Zdoom -file codlev.wad cod.wad" but soem stuff seems to be gone. Strange.

[leileilol]

You forgot to mention Mock2, to show "What TO avoid and what NOT to make".

Very entertaining wad though!

[Captain Red]

Scuba Steve said:
Fist Full of Doom - Oldie but goodie. Sadle up partner, you're headed to the old west. Not the lame old west with gun dissease and gingivitis, but the awesome old west of Spaghetti. You'll fight cowboys and spaniards in a very convincing town, over two levels.

is there ever a deh seprate from the exe for that one?

[myk]

Combustable said:
If somone could give me a bit of support on caverns of darkness though, I used Zdoom to run it, like I do with everything, and for some reason, theres missing textures. I ran it using "Zdoom -file codlev.wad cod.wad" but soem stuff seems to be gone.

You must use the included engine; anything else won't work right. For that you'll need DOS support (DOS, Windows 98, etc.) If you're on Windows XP or Windows 2000 you're fucked until Murdoch and Quasar release the version of Eternity that supports it.

[DaniJ]

I guess I must be the only one who thought Doom Raider sucked ass.

[NiGHTMARE]

You guess correctly.

Nice list Scuba, though it could maybe do with one or two classic megawads.

[Grazza]

Well, this is his personal list, and if he has no enthusiasm for classic megawads in general, then it's best if someone else makes those recommendations.

[NiGHTMARE]

Surely there isn't a single Doom fan in existence who doesn't love at least one traditional megawad?

[ellmo]

Scuba Steve said:

Doom: Rampage Edition - Heh, just kidding avoid like the plague.

^_^ lmao

[SyntherAugustus]

Ah man you didn't add my fav. Squadron 417! :(

[Jayextee]

NiGHTMARE said:

Surely there isn't a single Doom fan in existence who doesn't love at least one traditional megawad?

Personally, like but not love any. IMHO a MegaWAD is too much.

[NiGHTMARE]

You do realize that a wad doesn't have to have 32 levels to be classified as a megawad, right? IIRC 11 levels is enough.

[Cyb]

rofl, I can't believe DNWAII is on this list... everything else is good fun though, Cyb approved! (tm)

[Scuba Steve]

I don't really like Megawads. They were pretty fun to play in 1998... but they're just more mission packs for doom2 to me. The architectre is nice sometimes... but it's just more bland levels for me. It needs something unique to set it apart for me, and most don't do it. The few that do are things like Dystopia 3 or Orla Bjorling's DM maps (But I didn't feel like including a deathmatch map). Strain bores me, Hell revealed, even Hacx after level 3 makes me yawn.

DaniJ said:

I guess I must be the only one who thought Doom Raider sucked ass.

Yes.

[Graf Zahl]

Well, I didn't particularly like Doom Raider either. But then, I didn't like Tomb Raider to begin with so it's hardly surprising!

[NiGHTMARE]

Scuba: you don't even like the Darkening E2?

Graf: Doom Raider is more akin to Indiana Jones Doom than Tomb Raider Doom :).

[Scuba Steve]

What's Darkening E2?

[Use]

:/

[DaniJ]

Doom Raider is more akin to Indiana Jones Doom than Tomb Raider Doom

Heh. Can you explain the difference?

[cyber-menace]

Cyb said:

Cyb approved! (tm)

Now that's a trustworthy approval.

[NiGHTMARE]

Scuba Steve said:

What's Darkening E2?

OMG! Only one of the best set of maps ever :).

http://www.doomworld.com/darkening

DaniJ said:

Heh. Can you explain the difference?

One's a series of superb films with a couple of equally superb spin-off games, and several more rather crappy spin-off games. The others's a series of incredibly crappy games with an equally crappy spin-off film, and a second, okayish spin-off film.

[188DarkRevived]

How could you not know what the Darkening E2 was?
It was like one of the most anticipated WADs back in 1999/2000.
I remember back in those days I was dying of impatience just to friggin see it...

[insertwackynamehere]

You need to include the 3 dwforums wads, along with the impsex wad, because that will also help n00bs understand this crazy board :D

[DarkknightXC]

EDGE - A port that was built with weapons mods in mind. Buggy, but powerful.

Thanks for the plug, dude. But your info is out of date: 1.28 is pretty stable (No ones told me otherwise) and EDGE you can do much more than mod weapons. Maybe you should check it out ;).

Fanatic might suggest you add QDoom to that list - it remains a pretty damn impressive project.

BTW, Nice job you made of Action Doom.

[DaniJ]

One's a series of superb films with a couple of equally superb spin-off games, and several more rather crappy spin-off games. The others's a series of incredibly crappy games with an equally crappy spin-off film, and a second, okayish spin-off film.

Doom Raider: Where you run around in an ancient temple avoiding annoying traps, solving puzzles and running away from boulders.

Indiana Jones Doom: Where you run around in an ancient temple avoiding annoying traps, solving puzzles and running away from boulders.

[Scuba Steve]

There's a 1.28 now!?

[Nmn]

DarkknightXC said:

Fanatic might suggest you add QDoom to that list - it remains a pretty damn impressive project

Considering one man worked 3 years on the same thing, and finished it, is really damn impressive.

[DarkknightXC]

Scuba Steve said:

There's a 1.28 now!?

My log says so:
http://cvs.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.py/edge/edge/log/andy.log?rev=1.125

...but I concede its possible I've been delusional since January :).