The /newstuff Chronicles #4

[AndrewB]

Here's your weekly update of new DOOM-related WADs, found on CDROM.COM.

• Darkening Episode 2 by Various Authors - This is a re-release of a 24-level megawad launched earlier this year. Twelve deathmatch levels, and twelve multi-purpose levels. This WAD comes with a whole whack of new textures, as well as a bunch of new musical themes. If you haven't already downloaded this megawad, well, now is the time.
  
• The World Of Deth by Morten Stromsvold - Behold! A 32-level megawad for Doom 2. While the level design in this WAD is rather simple, with lots of emphasis on green stone, it isn't all that bad for 32 levels. Not very much in the way of eye candy, although each map is rather large. If you like WADs with lots of levels, then this is an okay pick.
  
• Grinder by Thomas Bringle - A single multi-purpose map for Doom 2. The level design isn't very complex, but does use the game's textures in a colorful way. Lots of monsters in this one. With room after room being wide open, with no doors, there's almost nowhere to hide in this map. For a level that doesn't care about eye-candy, this is one of the nicer-looking ones.
  
• Snake Doom by Miffe - Here's something different. A once-popular video game known by such titles as Snake, Serpent, and Crescent, has been ported to ZDoom! This 2-player game is meant to be used on one keyboard. One player controls the green snake, one player controls the blue snake. They both go after the red dot, and well, you'll figure it out from there. Very interesting!

[Guest Anonymous User]

I now have these two hard to find MegaWads. vh5150_d@hotmail.com

[Vorpal]

Andrew, you forgot a whole week's worth of wads, one of which was mine and i was anxious to see your opinion of it.

[Hyena]

Yeah! I didn't bother to download the majority of the wads because I wanted to read AndrewB's reviews, and judge which were worthwhile.

[Guest Firebrandt]

I found the first 10 or so levels to be very enjoyable but the rest felt a bit uninspired. They still played pretty good though. Personally I think it's one of the better MegaWADS out there.

[Linguica]

You already played ALL THE WAY through The World of Deth? Normally 32-level megawads take some time to beat.

Anyways, I think world.wad is quite good -- sort of oldschool, but it still looks quite nice, and has excellent gameplay. I think this is the sort of WAD that would make for some really good speedrunning.

[Guest Firebrandt]

I played all the way through it because I downloaded it last week. ;p

I agree though, they would be perfect for speedrunning.

[Lüt]

Man, I thought AndrewB had disappeared so I wrote reviews of the stuff for TI but now he's come back... augh, I'll post those reviews in a bit anyways. I have a slightly different opinion about World of Deth being entertaining ;)

[Andy Johnsen]

Seems like a few levels slipped by Andrew this time :) Anyone have a clue which ones? I forgot to DL them...and now they are lost in the largest wad-maze in the world :/

[Guest Anonymous User]

I thought World of Deth was pretty good. The only thing I have against it is the wood and green stone theme gets old, I wish there had been several themes, not just one for 32 levels.

[Guest peroxyd2s]

you speak of speedrunning... try DANG or Compet-N :)))

[Guest Firebrandt]

Holy sh*t! Lüt you weren't kidding!
A 2.5? It wasn't that bad. 8o

[Lüt]

On a single-level basis, no it wasn't. But 32 maps in a row??

[Linguica]

Lüt, I completely and totally disagree with your review of world.wad. Is it beautiful? No. If the levels are played consecutively, is it particularly hard? Not really. But The World of Deth has some of the most fun gameplay I have ever experienced, especially when played on a per-level basis. Did you notice that all the levels are balanced so you have a chance when starting from scratch? You seemed more intent on dissing the mostly stone-and-wood level themes and the "redundant" gameplay. Seems to me that pretty much all Doom megawads are "redundant" if they consist of 32 levels where you find keys and kill monsters over and over. Personally I would probably give this WAD a 7/10 or so. It's too bad that this WAD will probably be overlooked and soon forgotten, because it has some really great stuff in it.

[Lüt]

Hm. True, I don't think anybody could play through 32 levels of anything no matter how well they are designed or how much they differ. The point about all the maps being balanced so you have a fair chance starting from scratch was another reason I knocked, not upped, the overall: there isn't much continuity throughout the 32 maps except that they all seem like an overextended first level. And if that's what floats your boat, great. (Seriously :P ). I know there are occurances where it happens like that, and usually I wouldn't expect to be able to warp to any map of a TC or game and have the previous maps completely negated in terms of importance, whether in gameplay, storyline or anything else. You know if I am ever going to give a perfect 10, the package will be perfect. And that's that :)

[Linguica]

The point about all the maps being balanced so you have a fair chance starting from scratch was another reason I knocked, not upped, the overall

What? Every map should be balanced so it can be started from scratch; otherwise if you ever died and restarted a map, you wouldn't have any chance whatsoever.

If you don't like The World of Deth, fine; but you gace it the second lowest score of any WAD ever reviewed on Team Insanity, and that is simply ludicrous to me.

[Lüt]

I haven't played many Doom episodes, TCs or Megawads where you can just warp to any map and finish it. I've gotten better so it might have changed just a little bit, but a lot of times you just need the weapons and ammo left over from previous levels. That's how it's supposed to be, I thought. At least that was the general impression I got from playing all those megawads and full episodes over the last 5 years. I don't think it's the 2nd lowest score in TI, but, remember I haven't been review for them until recently and also I wouldn't have given it any extra points just to fit in better with the rest of the reviews. I probably would have given a lot of the other reviews different scores but I don't feel like going through all the old reviews (most of which weren't done by me) and updating them with my current opinion just yet. I probably won't ever, but who knows, one day I might get really bored and do something like that.

[myk]

I think it's a plus that all the maps in a megawad be doable by warping in, not only that... its a FLAW if it's otherwise. The individual maps lose their worth if you can only play them in succession ("oh i'd like to play that cool map27 in blah.wad... ugh, I'll have to play through over 2 dozen levels first"). Of course, this individual playability should not interfere with the overall challenge of the megawad.