WADs: Most Overrated/Underrated, Most Surprising/Disappointing

[T-Rex]

Yeah, I can agree that it's a bit of a letdown. I wish there were more music tracks and Team TNT could have either made a new status bar or use the same one from Icarus since it's a sequel. In my opinion, even though I liked Daedalus for it's visual and innovative ideas, I still prefer Icarus since it focuses more on run n gun action than the adventure genre used in Daedalus. Still, other wads that followed that style before Daedalus like Tei Tenga and Trust were pretty decent. Daedalus felt more like Doom crossed over with Quake 2 and Half-Life, by the way.

[DeathevokatioN]

lupinx-Kassman said:

Most Underrated: Insertion. If you liked classic wads like memento mori and requiem, you will probably enjoy this 11 map episode created by the mappers involved in said megawads. This episode is surprisingly unheard of.

Awesome, I'm downloading this now. Gonna store it to play at a later point. :)

[Phml]

Biggest disappointment: Scythe X

Explain yourself, sir.

Or don't if you don't want to, but seriously, I'm curious. Is there something you didn't like with the wad itself, or is it because it stopped after 10 maps?

[Rizera]

Most Overrated: MM8BDM.pk3
How the HELL is every server with this game always full? Jesus Christ, this is DOOM. Anything that radically changes it will be an instant fail to me.

Most Underrated: Phmlspd.wad
I love every level on this wad. MAP12 and MAP13 are amazing. And for some reason, most people I talk to have never even heard about it. Also, I barely hear anyone talk about it. People are definitely missing it.

Most Surprising: Sunder.wad
Obviously I'm not mentioning "surprising" as in getting surprised while playing since every map on this wad is pretty linear. Anyways, the hellishly hard and amazingly looking maps, a lot of times ressembling nightmares, makes it feel like the maps were designed by Satan himself. This wad will definitely not please every Doomer out there but in my opinion, everyone should have a deep look at it. MAP14 is masterpiece.

Most Disappointing: Vanguard.wad
The reason? It was at first intended to be a 32-level megawad but ended up in being 13 amazing maps. That was one huge disappointment to me, at least.

[DuckReconMajor]

1ntru said:

Most Overrated: MM8BDM.pk3
How the HELL is every server with this game always full? Jesus Christ, this is DOOM. Anything that radically changes it too much will

I think this thread might clear it up a little. It's a separate entity from Skulltag, and is separate from a lot of the Skulltag and Doom community.

That said, I'm loving it to death, and I can see why it gets full.

[gun_psycho]

@T-Rex - The feeling that I'm playing a different game than Doom while I played Daedalus (not that I got very far) didn't exactly sit well with me to be honest.

Anyways, here are a few more to my list

Most Underrated: Fragport, though the maps were open and not-so-detailed, at least they provided quite a bit of fun for me, with a few annoying switch hunt levels (and switch hunts are the absolute bane of my existence for making me take too long) here and there; the supersecret level is one big shout-out to Crystal Maze. (I remember that game show back when I was little) I understand the megawad's not perfect, but the levels at least tend to be nice and short when it comes to speedruns most of the time. (Though Map32 WILL take a while to complete)

Most Surprising: Speed of Doom, Alien Vendetta, and Kama Sutra. Despite the schizophrenic difficulty curve, Speed of Doom's maps were mostly fun all around... though Map28 and Map30's monster counts can grind many a system to a halt. (Moreso the central area of Map28) The only bad parts I could think of were certain maps which kill you before you get sent to the next level. (Especially the map20 exit. Not! Cool!) Alien Vendetta's Map20 took a while to complete since finding the exit was a little... cryptic at best, but Map25 (Demonic Hordes) was one of the longest maps I have ever braved by far, and every bit as hard... though Dark Dome was even harder because of being attacked on all sides and having little cover. After that, the difficulty petered down as Map30 drew close. Kama Sutra had plenty of cool architecture here and there, with Map15 being somewhat like a gymnasium-esque area. Map27 was also a rather nice little representation of a mini-golf course, which progressed at a relaxing pace until about halfway or so where it got tough... though nothing compared to maps 28 and 29, where they were just brutal from start to finish. (ESPECIALLY map28, which is Hell Revealed's Post Mortem's monster count multiplied by 3.5 or so)

[Malinku]

Since I didn't have a overrated wad in my earlier post I'm going to put one down. (which I forgot about at the time of my last post.

Overrated: Doom 2 Reloaded. This is one of the few wads I really ever raged over.

[Grain of Salt]

[Rizera]

Grain of Salt said:

Mose surprising: Newgothic. My only experience of this wad before downloading was a video of MAP04. That wasn't adequate preparation.

Good mention! This wad is great! Every map is a new slaughterfest.

[Tango]

the thing about Scythe X that disappointed me was not just the lack of maps, but that it didn't feel nearly as grand as everything in Scythe 2 did. i love Erik's style here just as much as i always have, but it didn't feel as memorable. each map feels too much like the last one. a big part is certainly the visuals; each episode of Scythe 2 was so distinct but Scythe X doesn't have the same charm.

guess it's not exactly fair to say this given that there are only two episodes. but visuals aside, each level feels too much like the last to me. even in the first episode of Scythe 2, it felt like the maps were building up to the conclusion of the episode. doesn't feel the same way here.

also, however much one might complain abour Crucified Dreams' gameplay (which i personally don't understand anyway?), it is the most beautiful thing this community has ever produced

[Grain of Salt]

[wildweasel]

Overrated: Aeons of Death. It puzzles me how this is more popular than other similar (but better compiled) stuff like Scalliano's 667 Shuffle. The amount of effort the team has put in to adding more and more stuff could just as easily have been put into making the existing resources work together better. As it stands, we have weapons from many obviously different sources and not a single ounce of effort put toward making sure they all look roughly the same graphical style as each other.

Underrated: Mars War. Despite a decided lack of detail and a rather silly backstory that hearkens back to the days when hating Microsoft was the most awesome thing a geek could do, Mars War has consistent level design where most of the levels transition together well, level design that isn't too horribly obtuse, and a good difficulty progression, which is something I notice a lot of more modern megawads seem to forget about in favor of just making sure every map can be pistol-started.

Most Surprising: Brutal Doom. When I saw the gameplay videos on Youtube, I didn't really expect it to be anything more than one of those "it's the basic Doom guns but ENHANCED" mods. When I finally gave it a try, I was pleasantly surprised. The addition of headshots to the gameplay, as well as the ridiculous over the top blood effects (not to mention the fatality animations when you're under Berserk or get melee'd to death by a monster) really add a massive visceral thrill to your average mook hunt.

Most Disappointing: Really, I'm going to have to go with Daedalus as well on this one - it looked great, it sounded great, had good textures, good ideas, nice looking maps...what it didn't have, though, was good gameplay. Was having some pretty bad 'Nam-style flashbacks to the days of Hexen and those endless switch hunts where I'd desperately try to figure out exactly what the game wanted me to do, or what that last switch did, or which of the near identical looking receptacles wants that key item I just picked up. This kind of puzzle gameplay really belongs in something like Myst, not Doom - not unless there's a better clue/hint system to go with it.

[tempun]

Phml said:

Biggest disappointment: Scythe X

Explain yourself, sir.

Or don't if you don't want to, but seriously, I'm curious. Is there something you didn't like with the wad itself, or is it because it stopped after 10 maps?

I agree! Scythe X maps are downright ugly.

[Phobus]

Seeing all of the mentions of Daedalus has reminded me how dissappointed I was with that .WAD, after having played Eternal Doom III, Final Doom and Icarus. I was hoping for the best yet, and ended up horribly disappointed. Similar experience with Eternal Doom IV too, actually. Never got round to checking out the later maps because that massive hub level with the custom monsters just killed it for me.

@kmxexii: If you're talking about the '94 XMas Doom that I think you are, I made use of the resources in a 2006 (I think) ZDoom .WAD, downloadable here: http://www.phobus.servegame.com/doom/ph_dac.zip

Might appreciate that if you liked the bauble cacodemons and santa-hat demons!

@NaturalTvventy: Seems like you had a similar experience with ZPack as I did with ZDCMP#1. You step out of your time bubble, see what ZDoom can do and suddenly you're well into Doom and editing for it again.

[Daiyu_Xiaoxiang]

1ntru said:

Good mention! This wad is great! Every map is a new slaughterfest.

Actually map04 is the most famous map from New Gothic. This wad is quite hard since there's so much monsters in every corner. But a good thing is BFG and rockets spams everywhere(Except map14)

[DoomForever]

Overrated: Not quite sure...I seem to have a wide range of likes so I generally like just about anything the community likes in general.

Underrated: KDiZD and Legacy of Suffering, maybe Tribute as well. I generally don't mind (G)ZDoom/even Skulltag stuff at all. And oddly enough, I can't say KDiZD disappointed me at all really.

Surprise: I'm for megawads, and for that I would say Scythe and Rebirth. Both fantastic megawads that quite simply appeared out of thin air.

Dissapointment: Stronghold, I thought it was actually going to be a good and very involving game given even the '09 caco's mentions it uses details well. But the gameplay style just doesn't "work" for me, especially being a solo-only player. Daedalus was a big dissapointment too, all that work and I couldn't even find my way our of the first hub, never to return.

[dew]

Tango said:

the thing about Scythe X that disappointed me was not just the lack of maps, but that it didn't feel nearly as grand as everything in Scythe 2 did. i love Erik's style here just as much as i always have, but it didn't feel as memorable. each map feels too much like the last one. a big part is certainly the visuals; each episode of Scythe 2 was so distinct but Scythe X doesn't have the same charm.

hmm... i've seen other people disappointed by the fact that erik started building a spiritual successor to the original and not the sequel. both wads are awesome, but i have to admit i prefer scythe, because i like battles where every monster matters and makes a difference. on the other hand when i look at s2 e5, i see a surprising amount of plain square rooms with copypasta'd hordes in those mayan ruins, that's where i see a low point in erik's designs. :p

that said, i was delighted by x and its return to "low end" gameplay, but i agree with you re: unimpressive visuals, erik's starports are certainly no vrack, hehe. perhaps it's the theme itself, but i believe this strongly ties to design - open from start and interconnective. many maps play like a sort of free for all with monsters, x's 07 is easily one of the best ever in that cursed boring mapslot. also 10 teased with a radical theme change at the end, perhaps erik will surprise us one day.

[DeathevokatioN]

dew said:

erik's starports are certainly no vrack, hehe.

You need to go play Map19 of Scythe again. ;) For me that level had a very inspiring atmosphere, and the gameplay flowed naturally. But then again I haven't played Vrack yet, been eyeing it out though and will probably try it in the next few months.

I stated my reasons for not enjoying Scythe X before, but I can't find the thread... the levels weren't distinct enough for me and the theme + texturing started getting tedious to the point where it felt like I was playing the same level again and again with just a different layout, the gameplay felt like it was going through the motions and didn't really have the same energy that the first Scythe did, which is my favorite, and was also the Scythe which I found to be the most aesthetically pleasing.

[TheDarkArchon]

Let's see here:

Overrated: Legacy of Suffering. This WAD plays like Painkiller but without the neat weapons that made that game somewhat tolerable and with cutscenes that do nothing but kill any sort of pacing the WAD may have.

Underrated: Zen Dynamics. Rarely mentioned, but I really enjoy this one. The weapons feel good and the gameplay is generally fun.

Surprise: Brutal Doom, for more or less the same reasons Weasel mentioned.

Disappointment: Again, Legacy of Suffering. I was actually looking forward to it. Then I got hold of the final product.

[gun_psycho]

@WildWeasel - Speaking of Aeons of Death, even I got sick of it after a while. (Weapon-wise, I think the mod had gone WAY too overboard with the weapon count) Nowadays, I stick with Scoredoom.

[Archi]

TheDarkArchon said:

Underrated: Zen Dynamics. Rarely mentioned, but I really enjoy this one. The weapons feel good and the gameplay is generally fun.

Agreed.

[Tango]

Grain of Salt said:

Some of the grandest maps of Scythe II (MAP30 and MAP24, essentially) just gave me a headache. I really prefer his short, razor-sharp ones -- like maps 10, 18, 21, 22, 23 and 26 -- and ScytheX is full of maps in that style. Moreover, none of Scythe II's most "grand" maps appeared in the first 10 maps.

no, maybe not, but in terms of design, i see a lot more in the first two episodes of Scythe 2 that lean more towards "grand" than anything in Scythe X. Already in map02 of Scythe 2 you have areas like this, which to me, spatially, is already a hell of a lot more interesting than anything in all 10 maps of Scythe X.

or areas like this, this or this, all of which are really quite memorable areas from the first two episodes, areas that i distinctly remember. granted, i've played Scythe 2 a number of times more than Scythe X, but even just look at the difference between the automaps. with few exceptions, Scythe X maps consist of the same neat, condensed layout types, with nothing nearly as large as anything in the first two episodes of Scythe 2. i suppose it just feels too compact.

[scalliano]

Odd-o-matic said:

Underrated: Doomguy's Warzone, it's just a mix of crap, but it makes
you have to think of a strategy to beat the levels rather than kill
everything with a super shotgun and advance. Although some of it might
be annoying, there are multiple difficulties. The only thing I don't
like is the PDAs. They crash the game when you touch them.

If the PDA's look like this, then its original purpose was to autosave your game on pickup, in which case fuck knows what Doomguy has done with it ...

[rsl]

Overrated: both "Action DOOM" releases (1 and 2). Sorry, but even if I can see the excellent graphical work that's been poured into it, it's too different from DOOM anyway. I play DOOM to play DOOM, and this is not, er, enough DOOM to me. :-)

Underrated: "Stone Stratagems" by Zeratul. As obscure as it sounds, it's something that caught me immediately gameplay-wise as nothing else ever did.
Also, "Aeons Of Death". While it wasn't that good in all releases up to the 4.x series, I think it has clearly differed from version 5. And while I still don't like the many inconsistencies in terms of hands/orientation/graphical style that all weapons show, it's quite clear that the AEOD team has worked hard to pull out some very original weapon designs - that is, unique combinations of graphical appearance and behaviour that IMHO in many cases no other modification can offer - and this is the stuff that often _makes_ great gameplay, level design is not the only thing.
More than that, it abunds so much in resources that it can actually still give you RPG-style surprises (i.e. secret weapons, secret bosses, etc.). Overall, I would say the pros overcome the cons in my opinion.

P.S. Why I would prefer it over Scalliano's or ScoreDOOM or similar ones despite their greater consistency? Because of the great, detailed FX and the weapons feel that AEOD offers: a lot of little touches and cohesive arrangement that make it feel like a worked-on whole rather than a simple resource merge, while in my opinion the others are just a bit too bare/crude to be fully enjoyed. :-)

Most surprising: "Phocas Island 2". Although the gameplay is not perfect and gets tedious in some parts, it's probably the best recreation of a world - with its own atmosphere and sense of mistery - that I would always seek for in a DOOM partial conversion.

Most disappointing: I don't like to say this but... "Stronghold". Apart from praising the overall project quality, I think its development lasted a bit too much to really offer something new and surprising at the time of its release. Since the gameplay is not bad at all IMHO, had it been released before, it would have had a different impact on/reception from players.

[gun_psycho]

@rsl - I personally prefer Scoredoom because of its encouraging of fast-paced gameplay, add-on pack or not.

Overrated: Eternal Doom. I'm sorry, but I really don't quite see the appeal of cruel switch hunts at ALL.

[rsl]

@gun_psycho: agreed! ScoreDOOM or S667 Shuffle keep the gameplay simple. Yet I prefer tactics over instinct, and in this connection I think AEOD suits my tastes better.

[Megamur]

Phobus said:

Seeing all of the mentions of Daedalus has reminded me how dissappointed I was with that .WAD, after having played Eternal Doom III, Final Doom and Icarus. I was hoping for the best yet, and ended up horribly disappointed. Similar experience with Eternal Doom IV too, actually. Never got round to checking out the later maps because that massive hub level with the custom monsters just killed it for me.

Eternal Doom IV was terrible, yes. Pretty much all they got right was the status bar, and the fact that the maps were huge--ugly, boxy and a complete chore to navigate, but huge. I know apparently someone made some awesome map for it that everyone always goes on about, but there was no way I was ever getting that far to see it.

[esselfortium]

Megamur said:

Eternal Doom IV was terrible, yes. Pretty much all they got right was the status bar, and the fact that the maps were huge--ugly, boxy and a complete chore to navigate, but huge. I know apparently someone made some awesome map for it that everyone always goes on about, but there was no way I was ever getting that far to see it.

Dude. Just idclev27.

[Megamur]

esselfortium said:

Dude. Just idclev27.

Well, I didn't know what level number it was at the time. Regardless, no way I'm bothering to download that stinker a second time.

[esselfortium]

Megamur said:

Well, I didn't know what level number it was at the time. Regardless, no way I'm bothering to download that stinker a second time.

Your loss.