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revan1141

Looking for some Ultimate Doom Megawads

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So I just finished playing through Doom The Way ID Did It, and I REALLY enjoyed it. Usually I don't like megawads/conversions like that, but I was really pleasantly surprised.

I think the gameplay I look for in mods are close to what the original Doom feels like. So are there any other wads like that?

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http://www.doomworld.com/vb/wads-mods/65408-thy-flesh-turned-into-a-draft-excluder-ep4-replacement-on-idgames/ = an excellent E4 replacement by cannonball that won a 2014 Cacoward.

http://www.doomworld.com/vb/wads-mods/67198-shotgun-symphony-e1-public-beta/ = a good E1 conversion by SteveD, which I think he finalised some time back.

http://www.doomworld.com/vb/wads-mods/54849-double-impact-release-thread/ = Double Impact by Rottking and Ralphis (E1 replacement), the best Ultimate Doom megawad I've played so far.

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These are worth mentioning:
megawad by Nathan Lineback (at least partially a compilation)
ultimate (technically for Doom2, but totally Doom1 in style)
Extremal - stylistically further removed from the original game, but well worth a look. It was the subject of a full demo-pack.

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2002: A Doom Odyssey, just finished the first episode and it really good so far, feels like the Ultimate Doom allover again. My only complaint is the music, its terrible IMO.

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No idea about music, but if you want more compilation wads, then you should download the big file GreyGhost posted here (127 wads).

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Doominator2 said:

2002: A Doom Odyssey, just finished the first episode and it really good so far, feels like the Ultimate Doom allover again. My only complaint is the music, its terrible IMO.


Couldn't you just open up the wad in XWE and remove the custom music though?

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revan1141 said:

Couldn't you just open up the wad in XWE and remove the custom music though?

Yeah, if you dislike some wad's custom music or sounds, you can always remove or replace them using an editor. And if you dislike custom graphics, you can also remove or replace them the same way. And if you dislike the maps, you can remove and replace them with better ones as well. And if you dislike the wad's name, you can easily change the filename.

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scifista42 said:

Yeah, if you dislike some wad's custom music or sounds, you can always remove or replace them using an editor. And if you dislike custom graphics, you can also remove or replace them the same way. And if you dislike the maps, you can remove and replace them with better ones as well. And if you dislike the wad's name, you can easily change the filename.


:^)

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scifista42 said:

Yeah, if you dislike some wad's custom music or sounds, you can always remove or replace them using an editor.



TBH, I do this sometimes. There's just something about Doom 2's music that adds to maps.

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Officer D said:

CRUSADES - An Unholy War
Maps : e4m1 - e4m9
Link : Download

Great mapset, specially for the time when it was made. The levels follow the E4 theme, they're well detailed, compact while complex in structure, interconnected and they play well, they're balanced rather tightly (even on continuous playthrough), but competently. All levels were good IMO, except E4M5 which throws too many Barons + Cacodemons at you since the start and only gives you a shotgun. Thanks for the link, I didn't know about these maps till now.

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Kansam’s trial (whatever version you find), Inferno and Crusades.

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As somebody else has already mentioned Vengeance, and we seem to be posting single episode replacements, I suggest Dinner. This is an E2 style replacement, with oldschool looks, elaborate layouts and numerous clever barrel traps.

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Sui Generis said:

As somebody else has already mentioned Vengeance, and we seem to be posting single episode replacements, I suggest Dinner. This is an E2 style replacement, with oldschool looks, elaborate layouts and numerous clever barrel traps.

Briefly played through, not in its entirety and using cheating, I admit. The level structure was too Wolfenstein-like, heavily maze-y and orthogonal more often than not, it was like playing Wolfenstein with Doom features. The maps were gradually getting better at utilizing these Doom features, but the principle stayed, and I only got massively overwhelmed by monsters in the later levels. Gameplay itself was very slow. Aesthetics looked okay for an oldschool wad, more or less, but rather less. The start in E2M4 featured a nice idea where barrel explosions were chasing the player forward, it was poorly executed though, escaping was trivial, just go forward.

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Dinner is not a pretty mapset, that's for sure, but I found the gameplay fun and hectic with all those hitscanners around. Haven't played it in years but I still have fond memories. Looking forward to playing it again.

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scifista42 said:

Briefly played through, not in its entirety and using cheating, I admit. The level structure was too Wolfenstein-like, heavily maze-y and orthogonal more often than not, it was like playing Wolfenstein with Doom features. The maps were gradually getting better at utilizing these Doom features, but the principle stayed, and I only got massively overwhelmed by monsters in the later levels. Gameplay itself was very slow. Aesthetics looked okay for an oldschool wad, more or less, but rather less. The start in E2M4 featured a nice idea where barrel explosions were chasing the player forward, it was poorly executed though, escaping was trivial, just go forward.


Jeeeze Louise can you be any more negative dude?

It's a Doom v1.2 episode released in 1995 (probably started in 94), made with DEU. It's obviously not gonna look like 2015 map made with modern editor, fancy engines and new school aesthetic...

You're expecting too much from these old maps. Nobody back then would have any idea wtf you're ranting about. We would have just played the maps, shot the monsters, searched for the keys and ways to access other parts of the level, waded through nukage in search of secrets, and shot barrels (and tried to not get blown up in the process), and had a fun time.

Actually if you compare these levels to many from 1994, you'll see it's pretty well made. There is a whole lot worse, some that have random textures and no alignment, areas you can get stuck, and complete lack of care for game balance. Some of that is due to the tools being hard to use. Some is due to lack of knowledge that is commonplace today. This guy actually did a damn good job, all things considered.

Heck, I fucking challenge you to make half as good a wad as this one in DEU 5.21 and targetting Doom 1.2 engine. I bet you can't! :->

Btw if you read the TXT file you'll see the author tried to make the maps easier than some of the ones that were being released at the time, because he considered them too hard. And being a keyboard player myself (although I use custom bindings, not the default ones) I have to agree. I don't enjoy the Plutonia and HR style wads. Some harder wads are okay, but I never even managed to finish Alien Vendetta on skill 1. So it's really nice to have something more relaxing to play. Not everybody is doomgod, playing with mouselook and fancy port.

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hex11 said:

Jeeeze Louise can you be any more negative dude?
You're expecting too much from these old maps.
This guy actually did a damn good job, all things considered.
Heck, I fucking challenge you to make half as good a wad as this one in DEU 5.21 and targetting Doom 1.2 engine. I bet you can't! :->
Not everybody is doomgod, playing with mouselook and fancy port.

Just quick thoughts about a wad I've just tried. (but well, I've used them as my /idgames review too)
I live in the present time, and my preferred way to rate wads is honestly and from my current standpoint.
If I point out negative sides, it doesn't mean that I disapprove author's effort.
I probably couldn't. My own maps were always either average, or generally disliked.
I'm a lame player and a keyboarder myself, up to this day. I simply like playing wads. I have nothing against oldschool wads, I can enjoy them as much as any other. But when I speak about them, then better fairly. This one (Dinner.wad) wasn't entirely bad, it just didn't suit me well. I've noticed why, and said it.

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But these thoughts are shallow, if you can't consider the time and way the thing was made. It's like you want to analyze everything according to a static criteria (your idea of an ideal wad today) and hand out demerits for any deviations.

If someone made that exact episode today, with Doom Builder, for ZDoom, then you could legitimately judge it as you have. But if you had ever tried to make something with DEU, you would realize why so many old levels are either highly orthogonal or have unaligned textures. Yes, it really does come down to that... The tools weren't advanced enough to make it easy to construct your ideal kind of level: one that's highly non-orthogonal and yet still has perfect texture alignment. You get to pick one of the two (unless you're total masochist and love to spend lots of time calculating texture offsets with calculator).

To take a more extreme example, look at origwad:
http://doomworld.com/idgames/index.php?file=levels/doom/m-o/origwad.zip
According to you, this is absolute garbage. It's totally orthogonal! It's not even challenging! The exit is like, right in front of you... And yet, it's still pretty damn good work for the time and method it was created.

So how can you judge things the same way, no matter when and how they were created?

But, that's not even the worst part of all this. No, the worst is that you're ruining your own fun by adamantly choosing to view everything through the same lens. It's like those who complained about the starship level of System Vices:
http://doomworld.com/idgames/index.php?file=levels/doom2/a-c/aboosysv.zip
All they saw was the boxy, orthogonal layout. They didn't notice the strange alien textures, the melancholic music, the exploration of an alien ship looking for something or some clue of what's really happening in this story... And they didn't even remember putting on the suit and going out the airlock to find whatever was in the center, in between the outer parts of the ship.
Their own preconceptions didn't allow them to really get into the wad, to enjoy it to its fullest. But for me, this was one of the best experiences ever, completely surreal and something I'll never forget. I didn't go in with the burden of all those expectations that they did.

Anyway, the rest of this conversation happens here:
http://doomworld.com/idgames/index.php?file=utils/level_edit/deu/deu521.zip

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