LadyMistDragon

Fear City (1984)

I first spotted the link on Laz Rojaz's site around 2003 but forums intimidated the hell out of me and it kind of seemed unnecessary. It wasn't until the middle of 2007 that I looked into it but upon seeing the stupid "search before you post anything" intro message, I followed through but made zero attempt at posting. It should be noted I had no idea how to play wads at the time but ZDoom was more convenient to me than the command line bs I didn't understand. Like I literally had no clue click and drag was a thing with that port.

Guess Who - Heartbroken Bopper

Looks like the other one but some more nightmare stuff

Checked it out. It's pretty good. Sort of like Faithless but much less emphatic on being impressive in a number of areas. But the design is pretty good and there's plenty of potential here!

Kersplat.wad (1995) by Neil Berg (Crispy Doom) Plain-sounding wads with zero detail tend to get skipped for the most part. And these should have really been skipped. Simplistic and empty maps with clashing textures and a monster setup that really only works with more than one player on E1M2. E1M4 is oddly the best due to its rather intricate layout and perhaps it's plainess serves it to a degree. All these other maps aren't worth talking about. Well, the skull gate at E1M1 was kind of cool, and actually is one of the better ones visually. 2.5/10 Wanda.wad (1996) by Eric Simon and Paul Alexander Key I'm not an expert on this stuff. I can say these random voice lines are just about as annoying as one might expect. No, this does not help playing crappy maps, and in fact, I'd rather not hear these people ever speak again. I did get another hit, but I dunno the length so it'll wait til tomorrow.

Map 19: Subduction by Mike Alfredson @Use UV, pistol-start, Nugget Doom The second map in a row with a soporific midi, though perhaps it was inevitable. I may have complained about Waterworld but it actually goes well with the right map such as Map 10 of Hellbound. This one on the other hand does little to add excitement to the map. No fancy boom effects but there's 2 secrets we can cut ourselves off from if we take the wrong actions. It certainly presents several different areas, like the crypt, the generic base, the less generic security gate and several collections of ruins. But combat feels overly routine outside a couple of rooms containing large monster amounts for seemingly no reason and like other Use maps, we're expected to do things in a certain order. Like the crypt for instance should really be visited first because there's a Super Shotgun in a room there that needs to be accessed by pressing a few switches. Speaking of which, besides the exit door, the red skull key opens a location where we'll navigate through ruins and a security station before teleporting to an isolated hilly location with blood flowing from the top where we're assaulted by Imps. I guess it's an optional fight since it doesn't seem to accomplish a whole lot besides granting access to a plasma rifle and Megasphere that are kind of useless unless you haven't acquired the blue key, because nothing awaits us at the exit. It might be just the midi but I was basically bored after leaving the crypt. It's certainly better than Mike's other map in CC3 but it's almost more meh than Atlantis Rising.

Psi-Com - Xiola This entire EP is excellent. Dare I say it's more my taste than Jane's Addiction.

Not too bad! Maybe things were a bit on the cramped side and especially at the beginning but the ending was hilarious.

The Eagle (1997) by David Donze (Crispy Doom) A map that's shaped like an eagle....and really has little else. Lots of backtracking down linear paths from switches to find more switches and most enemies are basically avoidable. Shotgun ammo declines in favor of plasma ammo, for no real apparent reason that balances things out. Not good 2/10 Trans (1996) by Dr. Bombay (Crispy Doom) I can't say Doomed is a wad I have any familiarity with. But this map is definitely something else. We start in something of a high-rise textured building in some sort of security office....and from there, it's kind of pointless to describe all the changing themes. The usage of slime proved to be particularly charming, even in a bottomless pit. There's also a crusher that made me want to crucify the author before seeming to forget about it instantly. Then finally, there's the large fireblu cube room. This isn't much for intelligent enemy placement but on the other hand, Dr. Bombay was making an attempt at something genuinely dangerous here, which can't be really said for the rest of the map. In the same room is a curious round crusher that's probably meant to pound something down. The only real technical issue is once again, Bombay's failure to mark keyed doors. Why was this so common? Was this just to make things even more cryptic, even though that basically never happened in the OG product? I REALLY don't get why that happens. There's also a well one can get stuck in if they're not doing a running jump already, making the suit kind of useless and suggesting with some other bugs that the map may not have been playtested so vigorously. But oddly enough, the map 15 midi from MIDTWID goes with this map rather well in accentuating aan already quirky character with energy. 5.5/1o- in the end.

I spent far too much time here to spend many words on this but in any case Map 18: Godforsaken Hole by James Cresswell @Phobus UV, pistol-start, Nugget Doom Here arrives one of the most celebrated maps of the set, at least back in 2007. At this point, I'm pretty sure Phobus was still a relative unknown but he'd go on to contribute to many other wads, culminating in 2020's 25 Years Later. He doesn't appear to have had an especially prolific mapping career since then and has had at least one significant period of absence from the community, which usually happens when one gets older and has to juggle more adult responsibilities. But in general, this can be said to lay out Phobus' mapping philosophy: generally open maps with decent interconnectibility, enemy placement that forbids recklessness, along with an uncanny ability to make vanilla rock textures look good. This is also one of two maps where the default music hasn't been replaced. I suppose that's because it actually kind of works here. But "Waiting for Romero to Play" tends to come across soporific more often than not unfortunately. Nevertheless, it's decent enough as a hellish underground map with some incredibly tasteful attempts at design. Also the path to the yellow key is basically linear and due to a Baron in a narrow tunnel, sort of requires one has picked up the Super Shotgun from the back of a particular wooden structure, which is located behind enough Mancubi and pinkies that there might prove trouble. Though there is a Plasma Rifle on a platform with an Arachnotron but there aren't really a whole lot of cells starting out. Once the red key is found, we then have to engage with a Dark Dome-esque design choice and hit a number of switches that are located throughout the map. Thankfully this map is much smaller and there's only 4 of them, although there is one whose location wasn't so obvious. When each switch is pushed, a respectable amount of enemies will get teleported in nearby. A zombieman bringing up the rear in the first one qas quite amusing. Once the red key bars are lowered it becomes important to save ammo. Punch pinkies, punch Imps, punch Revenants and there should be enough for everything else because things get quite claustrophobic. At least the secret BFG is not terribly difficult to access. The room with what I presume to be Phobus' signature was actually pretty nice. One brain fart later, we're at the exit and taking out the single Hell Knight and Mancubus placed awlwardly there. Not one of my favorites really but arguably is one of the least grindy maps for those who play it correctly.

I have no idea if I can come up with something before getting bored a fifth of the way through....but you know what, it's fine. If I can make something, expect texture themes to shift a lot though, for no reason than to stave off such boredom. The smoothness of said switching can just be worked out later if it might be necessary (though probably not too much given the inspiration gets a little bit, well, crazy).

Guess Who - Friends of Mine

Scythe Possibly Kama Sutra Fava Beans The latter Chord maps.

Amnesia: The Dark Descent The Suffering SOMA The Evil Within Devotion Honestly, I still need to play a lot more