Favorite Boss and Icon of Sin levels

[Pure Hellspawn]

One of my favorite parts about DOOM (besides the shooting and the survival) is fighting bosses. These include the Icon of Sin, as well as custom bosses (such as a cyberdemon with both arms as rocket launchers).

I would like to know what everyone's favorite Icon of Sin level (it can be the original) and everyone's favorite boss.

Me:

I like the Demolisher (Spider Mastermind w/ duo chainguns and BFG). It is a challenge on it's own and it requires a strategy each time to kill it.

My favorite Icon of Sin level is Whispers of Satan "The Verge of Revelation". I can get the Icon to go off early and add to the eerie feeling of the level hearing the sound of the demon spawner every second.

[Terminus]

My favorite Icon of Sin level is undoubtedly Whispers of Satan's Map30. Truly amazing.
Favorite custom boss? Well, Eriance's Demon Eclipse had some brilliant battles (Spider Masterminds and then Cybruisers, 4 Cyberdemons and an Annihilator, That black Hellsmith, etc.).
I also loved Insanity's Edge's Inferno Demon battle.

There are a bunch of memorable battles and I wish I could name them all but that's all I remember so far.

[Super Jamie]

I hate Icon of Sin levels where you have to ride a lift up and shoot a rocket at the exact right time to hit the DBRAIN and kill the Romero Head. It's repetitious, stupid and not even fun.

Rebirth had a great Icon of Sin, you have to run around and unlock the passage up to the platform while monsters spawn all around you and in your path. The actual area where you need to fire rockets from is at the exact right height.

[Pedro VC]

AV map 30 have a very tense music and a good level design.
My favorite custom boss is Baphomet from Zen Dynamics. Scary son of a bitch ._.

[scalliano]

My favourite Icon fight was in Memento Mori. This was mainly because it had what Doom 2 was sorely lacking: cover.

As for the best boss, it's kind of a toss-up between Thamuz on TCOTD2 and the Chaos Elemantal from Ultimate Simplicity.

Also, CIF3 has a truckload of bosses, and all of them are pure win, but my favourite is zap610 with his two giant spinning wrecking-balls.

[Jodwin]

I don't care much for Icons, but I like the one in Claus since Romero is moving. (:P)

As for other bosses, something from Super Sonic Doom I guess. I'd rather fight armies than single huge baddies anyway.

[Whoo]

I loved Plutonia 2's Icon of Sin.

[ArmouredBlood]

I haven't played many, but WoS had a good one, and demons of problematique had an interesting twist to it. The original seems so basic now ...

BTW try this ep's MAP30 if you like slaughter maps (self-promotion ftl!).

[Mr. Freeze]

Plutonia 2's Gatekeeper was the only Icon to truly scare me. He looks positively terrifying (must be the soulless black eyes).

[Kyka]

Both of the boss fights at the end of each episode in Ultimate_Simplicity were really well done.

I really like bossfights that are an actual level rather than levels like the original doom2 icon fight, where it is just one room. And that's all there is.

Someone mentioned the Demolisher earlier, I really like that boss, and I actually really like the ZPack boss fight that had the two Demolishers in it.

The final fight in Scythe 2 was loads of fun, and tough, and notable coz it didn't have an icon of sin in it.

As already mentioned, Whispers of Satan had a good level 30.

Jodwin said:

I don't care much for Icons, but I like the one in Claus since Romero is moving. (:P)

I thought this was genius, I don't know why it hadn't been done before.

Also, the upcoming Claustrophobia 2 project has a pretty amazing level 30 fight. One of the most unique that I have seen. (Once we can get a couple of kinks ironed out. o_0.)

[Super Jamie]

Kyka said:

I really like bossfights that are an actual level rather than levels like the original doom2 icon fight, where it is just one room. And that's all there is.

I like this too, even E1M8 had a little leadup to the final battle. I think it makes for more of an enjoyable and atmospheric finale than just "here's a boss, get to work".

[Pure Hellspawn]

I'm an in-between kind of person. I enjoy levels with bosses, such as the Icon, but with a regular level too.

I imagined a good level would be one that plays like a regular level, but at the beginning a demon spawner activates and summons those cubes. However, no monsters would come out of the cubes, but the telefragging effect still applies (basically try not to touch the cubes or you die). Thus, not only do you have to worry about monsters, but the cubes as well.

[Stupid Bunny]

I agree that it's much better to have a lead-in of some kind before the battle at the end of a boss level, and interestingly enough the example of this I remember this is MAP16 of Scythe II, which isn't actually much of a "boss" level per se but does a really good job of building up atmosphere before the enemy finally shows itself.

[Philnemba]

Favorite icon of sin level: Plutonia map 30 "Gateway to Hell"
Trying to kill a cyberdemon thats blocking my way to destroy the icon of Sin has always been a fun challenge.

Favorite custom boss: The Dreadnought boss from Delta invasion.

[gggmork]

map 4's boss of claust.wad (zdoom/ acs scripted projectiles).

Icon of sin never interested me much because its too obvious its just a wall texture.
If I remember, zen dynamics had cool bosses.

[Fletcher`]

!TVR map30.

[Ultraboy94]

hitler from turbocharged arcade. though i still cant kill its final form without cheating.

the plutonia 2 icon of sin is amazing, far better than the original icon.

[Kyka]

Khorus' "Base ganymede" had what i thought was a really original bossfight on E1M8. Really impressive. Actually reminded me of the final strider fight from Half Life episode 2 - the one in the rail yard.

[Vegeta]

IMO Plutonia 2 icon of sin is the best by far in visuals, but one of the worsts in gameplay. I see it as a great opportunity sadly missed.

I don't have a favorite boss, but the bosses from CIF3 are great. It's a pity that the best DECORATE coder ever now hates Zdoom.

I also like the Motherdemon and DOOM default bosses a lot.

[kristus]

Vegeta said:

IMO Plutonia 2 icon of sin is the best by far in visuals, but one of the worsts in gameplay. I see it as a great opportunity sadly missed

At least it did something new with the concept. Was pretty easy though.

[sonic_13]

StupidBunny said:

I agree that it's much better to have a lead-in of some kind before the battle at the end of a boss level, and interestingly enough the example of this I remember this is MAP16 of Scythe II, which isn't actually much of a "boss" level per se but does a really good job of building up atmosphere before the enemy finally shows itself.

This level scared me to death.

When the teleport first comes behind you, I screamed a little bit, sheesh.

Good call on that one, I'd consider it a boss, that bugger is tough :P

[40oz]

StupidBunny said:

I agree that it's much better to have a lead-in of some kind before the battle at the end of a boss level, and interestingly enough the example of this I remember this is MAP16 of Scythe II, which isn't actually much of a "boss" level per se but does a really good job of building up atmosphere before the enemy finally shows itself.

By far the best boss battle in doom i've ever played.

[vdgg]

Super Jamie said:

I hate Icon of Sin levels where you have to ride a lift up and shoot a rocket at the exact right time to hit the DBRAIN and kill the Romero Head. It's repetitious, stupid and not even fun.

Not to mention the inevitable pile of all the weapons at the start. I hate all those cliches so much that I never take MAP30 / last levels into consideration when judging/rating WAD quality.

The easy last level winners are those without Icon of Sin: Darkening 2 and Ruinbros.
In Ultimate Doom, unlike many others, I liked how Crusades ended (many former humans).

Best Icon of Sin level (when best means: all right, it's not terrible): Plutonia. But I never had patience to finish MAP30 from Eternal Doom, which I believe is very good, too.

On the other hand, there are plenty of WADs with exceptionally lame last maps: 2002ADO E2M8, MM2, Obituary, Icarus, Strain and, of course, Doom2.

[Lutz]

Level 30 from Eternal Doom III is pretty awesome -- it's an absolutely HUGE level that culminates in a VERY hard Icon fight. (Of course, you could say that, like much of ED3, that it's too big and too hard to figure out where to go next, and that the boss fight is tough due to the fact that the room is too small...) Anyway, it's definitely an example of a "level WITH a boss fight" as opposed to "the last level IS the boss fight."

[Talvi]

As sad as it sounds, my favorite boss level is E1M8. Nostalgia factor I guess, but when I played the software and all enemies got turned into ash with a single rocket, and you needed several shots to kill one Baron, I tought like WTF this is impossible. And then when the walls lower and you can't turn back, and you have to go to that teleoport just to "die". It was awesome.

[40oz]

That's not sad at all I think E1M8 is a fabulous boss battle. The music really sets the mood for it. More so than E2M8 and especially E3M8 too.

[Super Jamie]

Apart from the fact that it's easy to a seasoned Doomer, E1M8 is the best boss battle by far. The Cyberdemon is just a one-monster effort, and the Spider can be defeated in a few seconds with two point-blank BFG blasts.

More extensive E1M8-style battle with two Cyberdemons at the end, go :P

[Scuba Steve]

Kama Sutra.

[40oz]

E3M8 only has 17 sectors. I could make that in 60 seconds.

Then again im surprised Dead Simple has not yet been mentioned as a favorite boss battle. It's certainly the most inspiring by far. Sometimes I just run MAP07 just for fun.

[printz]

Let me mention KDiZD levels 8 and 10, thanks to tough combat and the gradual no-joke feeling that had been raising with each level, becoming increasingly darker. Also thank Starcraft and more so Warcraft (3) for the needed eerie ambience -- those HALO rocket and Undead sounds, right indeed.

Except for still having to borrow a few sounds from other franchises, the gradual eerie atmosphere is one of the things that was done well by the team.

I personally liked the final boss from there as well. Maybe I was using bad controls (keyboard), but the encounter was brutal enough, not wimpy (spiderdemon) or too short (big demon visage).