Cynical

Possibly the best megawad ever made.

Definitely a future classic.

A vast improvement over Stardate, Swim With the Whales sees Ribbiks improving both his sense of aesthetics (this one isn't entirely brown, and features much more contrast than Stardate), and his sense of layout and flow (SWTW doesn't feel like "Painkiller in Doom"), while maintaining his trademark Death-Destiny inspired encounter design. Just do yourself a favor and play it on HMP (again, just like a D-D map).

This is pretty dire. The maps are the poster-children for the "follow the detail guide with no sense of architecture" school of aesthetics, there's tons of crap on the walls to get caught on, enemies are frequently misused (Spectre usage is particularly bad), items are placed into little tiny nooks where they can't be grabbed effectively (particularly egregious with Stimpacks). Many fights can be chokepointed, and much of the layouts is basic room-corridor-room stuff. Bleh.

As of the current date (towards the end of 2013), I have no qualms in calling this the best wad ever. It's gorgeous. The combat scenarios are the best that have ever been seen in Doom, yet the author resisted the impulse to become so focused on individual scenarios that the maps become "sequences of fights"; the flow is never broken. Close to perfect.

I wish I could give this 5-stars. Most of it is brilliant. But there's a spot near the blue armor where if you jump down to the ice, you're stuck. Given the layout of this area, I can't imagine players not wanting to have a look down there, given that the map has already established that jumping down to the ice reveals secrets- this is an incredibly egregious error that should have been caught before release.

"Legendary" in every sense of the word. Amazing map with well-implemented skill levels to appeal to a very wide range of Doom players. Incredibly well thought-out fights with a surprising amount of variety in the action despite the reliance on a few familiar monsters - geometry and layout here are brilliant. Despite the texture alignment (or lack thereof), the level also looks excellent, with a striking color scheme and amazing architecture. One of the best.

Amazing. Plutonium Winds was the most fun I've had with a Doom wad in a very long time. The maps are tough as fuck, but fair, and they're short enough that retries don't become a burden. Visuals are surprisingly good for speedmaps. Encounters are interesting, and the layouts flow like butter. Download this.

Map 01- Chaingunners in open areas, and "nonlinearity" that's really "pick the right route or die because you don't have ammo". Map 02- Endless boxing with Pinkies that can't attack you because of wonky level geometry. Map 03- Chaingunners in open areas, then a Mastermind that you don't have any way to kill guarding a key and a switch. That was all I needed to see. Plutonia 2 wasn't great (aside from Gusta's maps, of course), but it was miles better than this.

Whether you like this or not will largely depend on how much "incidental" vs. "setpiece" you like in a map. Stardate has setpiece battles where monsters either pop-in, teleport in, or come from closets, and stretches of doing nothing but wandering- the overall style actually reminds me a lot of a harder Painkiller, built in Doom. If that sounds appealing, you will like this. I personally prefer maps that lean more towards the "incidental combat" side of the spectrum, so the stop-and-go pacing left me dry.

Amazingly pointless, but somehow amusing.

There's no denying that Punisher was influential as hell; before that wad, no one had ever made a "hordes of monsters with Viles and Cybs every three feet" map that was actually playable. But holy hell, is it hilarious to look back on these days. Most of the map consists of shooting at enemies that can't fight back because of lulzy monster-block lines, and the rest is simply BFGing whatever is in front of you. 5 Stars as a historical document.