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Two levels by TOD, created for true Doom experts only. Both of them are competently executed with functional, but pleasant visuals. The music is rather odd, but it's not really grating either, as for the most part you're too focused on the action to truly pay attention to the soundtrack. The first map is a gantlet of challenges (hope you know how to two-shot cyberdemons) that are very tough, but each one feels ultimately fair, although the pain elemental horde can really kick your ass. There are no health pickups whatsoever in the mapset, so there's no room for mistakes; you'll probably end up saving and loading a lot, but it's satisfying to finally complete a battle without a scratch. The map is based around the rocket launcher and the BFG. It feels odd to kill single lost souls with rockets, but there's ample ammo provided. The second level, based around the SSG and the rocket launcher, is more disappointing. It mostly revolves around revenants and arch-viles, thrown at you over and over and over again in very cramped quarters. It feels more tiresome than anything when you kill a crowd of revenants after several attempts, make a step forward, and immediately have to fight revenants and viles AGAIN. Play the first map if you're looking to hone your BFG skills, and the second if you can't get enough of skeletons and their skinny pals. [Originally written Dec 2018 for The /newstuff Chronicles]

An improvement in every aspect that made Memento Mori an unique classic. A great example of a truly creative, fun and mindblowing abstract level design (learn from 'em, Sandy). I don't think there was a single bad level in all 32 of these, just some that are worse than others. Its mid and late levels take the spotlight. It's clear how well this project was handled and organized: each map feels like a Memento Mori II map, although MM2 contains various contributors. I'm sure the textures and original soundtrack helped out a lot in this. And about music, this wad has some of the coolest original midis ever present in a megawad -- an aspect which was also part of the original Memento Mori, and that does not disappoint. Memento Mori II has aged well, although it's clear it is a project bound to its time, for its unique style and avant-garde design decisions. Good art does not age. The amount of love put into this project is phenomenal, and that's clear from the point of view of someone with knowledge of Doom modding history. 5/5, some of the best the 90s has to offer. Most of all, it's fun.

Quite specific wad of the russian doom community, consisting of 13 levels (no secrets onces). Attention to details and atmosphere is often "compensated" (in a bad sense of the word) by bad gameplay and a lot of dead-end branches. Maps are different and generally do not have a common style - the wad, which begins as pure surrealism, which was interesting choice, turns into a kind of collection of typical locations. After level 13 picture ends without any specific epilogue. Settings and other: * GzDoom. * Complex Doom. Wad has his own weapons, inspired by Duke Nukem, but I didn't like them. * Difficulty - "Ultra-Violence". * I did not collect 100% of secrets. * On M2 "Doxylamine Moon" you can find 3 keys, more precisely the yellow skull, red and blue keys. The latter must be used in the location with the clock, then in this place you can go to the exit. To get to the clock you can guide which is marked by the brown arrows on the road. The map indicates that there are 53 enemies available, but I've met only 9... Update: I see that it's marked as a bug in the description. Pros: + Atmosphere and sometimes soundtrack. + M6: Pandora's Box. + M7: Arena resembling a colosseum. + M11: Seaport. Contras: - New weapons sprites. - M2 "Doxylamine Moon" looks more like an arthouse object than a playable map. - Beside it's pros wad looks more like a "hodgepodge community pack" of random maps, designed completely by different people, rather than some complete/finished work. Wad was featured in "Top 25 Missed Cacowards"... But in my opinion there is no point for potencial Cacoward material here in such condition - you can find less/more good maps in long list of "fogotten for good" wads, but this isn't enough to take them back from the dust.

Just awesome. The best 90s Doom wads had to offer, but certainly not for everyone. Gameplay is fun. Very fun and well-thought out. Some maps can be a bit too easy, but mostly, Eternal Doom certainly doesn't lack in challenge. There is no "shooting huge walls until the sun begins to shine", only well-made, dynamic encounters, with well-balanced ammo for your entire arsenal, so you can get to use the right guns for the right guys, when it's time. The action, however, is sometime given a break for the sake of puzzles, and while sometimes -- so few that it's excusable -- they rely more on sight than smarts, they're certainly acquired taste. You have to expect a few certain tricks, and this adds to the megawads' overall timeless uniqueness; it doesn't take more than it gives. The levels look absolutely gorgeous, and this fact is made even more impressive considering this is work made to be in line with the original engine limitations. Some areas can be pure eye-candy, you can tell these maps were given much attention to, in all aspects. Is this really a 90s wad? Featuring one of the best original soundtracks made for a Doom wad. When music is so good and fitting for the setting it's put in, and there's not much more needed to say other than "It's great", or, "Amazing". As I said in the first line of this review, this megawad is certainly not for everyone, and this is fault of its puzzles -- Still, I'd say it's a must-play, for anyone to at least try. Skilled Doom players won't have a problem with most of its puzzles; such tricks are something expected, that such have grown accustomed to, and it's experience acquired from having played hundreds of levels. You have to go in with a certain mindset, more alerted and attentive than usual. I'd say, it's not a bad thing for a video-game to try to get the best of your skills in more than just the combat aspect. 5/5.

Repetitive maze-like level design mixed with dull, linear and uninspired gameplay that can be described by either "shotgunning Barons in a corridor" or "running out of ammo while shooting hitscanners, Imps and Pinkies in a straight line". The gameplay stays mostly the same from the beginning to the end of this megawad, monotonously. It never reaches a territory close to Plutonia's mercilessness, but rather closer to Doom 1's repetitive loop of shotgunning Pinkies and other walls of meat coming from a single direction. Most of the difficulty comes from a lack of ammo, and having you wander around very long, cramped maze-like layouts in a search for resources, which, in my opinion, is very boring and leaves too much up to luck. The realism that the author tried to achieve really hurts the levels overall, mostly from a gameplay point of view. The attempt at logic into level progression and layout lead to repetitive patterns visible throughout the whole journey. The harsh management of resources lead to unsatisfactory progression, as played from pistol starts. That was not 'challenging', but annoying and repetitious. There was a desperate attempt at innovation, but when the general idea is no more than a copy, there's not much originality here. The lack of a new soundtrack may as well have hurt the atmosphere of levels very much, for so often the music is unfitting to the level's flow. And, damn, did the author really think we had not heard these midis enough, after Doom 2 had been released for over a decade by the time of this megawad's release? At least try to have personality. This is a wad that took me months to quit procrastination and decide to beat a bit over half of the amount of levels featured, and with every completed level I'd sigh at how much of a waste of time it felt, a feeling which came a few levels before the end of the first episode. The definition of "monotonous". 1/5 would still rather play over Doom 2.

For some reason, I always looked at Requiem as one of the more 'weird' and forgettable of the popular 90s megawads. However, that doesn't mean it isn't good fun and doesn't feature mindblowingly good levels, with an amazing soundtrack all the way through. For the most part, Requiem was certainly very advanced for its time, much like Memento Mori II and Eternal Doom. Its first two episodes contain the most fun and beautiful levels of its package, with a grand variety of themes, from techbases, to temples and caves, to the most wonderful and memorable city levels of 90s megawads. However, it doesn't go without featuring many bad apples, mostly seen on its late episode. MAP20 and forward certainly features some of Requiem's worst levels, resorting to hitscan hell for their difficulty and featuring weird, confusing progression, downgraded visuals and other weird issues: MAP24 for example being one of the most infamous for being near impossible to complete through a pistol start, and the last level featuring a laughably easy to kill Icon of Sin with some weak, uninspired battles beforehand. I can give a shout-out to MAP28 for being an unique and fun level, much like the early and mid episode levels. Requiem is a very good megawad which everyone should give a try at some point, but personally, it wouldn't be one of my first recommendations when it comes to the 90s.

I wanted to like this since it purports to be Doom 64-inspired (a game I love), but unfortunately it doesn't hit the mark at all. Very few stock Doom 2 textures have been replaced. The monster sprites are all D64 rips, but only some of the sounds have been changed. The weapon sprites are rips too, but their animations are pretty poor. And overall it fails to capture the atmosphere of D64, having a rock & roll MIDI soundtrack and almost all bright lighting. Beyond the failure to emulate D64, the level design is simply not fun. There are way too many doors, half of which require a switch yet have zero distinguishing features - meaning you'll constantly be stopping to open doors, half of the time not even being able to progress. And the switches to open those doors are in completely random locations, meaning you never know exactly where to go next - just that you have to backtrack somewhere. Overall not at all an enjoyable experience.

What can I say. This is the first custom wad I have ever finished. This is the wad that got me interested in Doom community levels. This is the wad that made arch-viles my second favourite monster. The textures are beautiful, the soundtrack is amazing and the gameplay has variety and is a decent challenge. I recommend this wad to everyone, whatever the difficulty you choose may be. It's a work of art and you seriously need to check it out.

High-rated WAD with 32 levels in sci-fi style with a corresponding soundtrack. There are two versions. One is compatible with custom modifications. The other is not. I passed the first one. WAD combines well with Complex Doom. Settings and other: * GZDoom. * Passed in combination with "Complex Doom". * Difficulty - "Ultra-Violence". * There are not many secrets at the levels and often they are not too hidden. I didn't bother with collecting 100% of them, still. * Large-scale maps. * Most of the levels are huge fortresses. * Each episode has its own style. * On MAP31 there is an easter egg which refers to an unfortunate poster with a phrase from John Romero. * Chained switches and portals moved directly from Hexen. ? When MAP18 starts 118 opponents for some reason immediately die. It is not clear whether this is a bug, it is planned so or something like a bonus for certain achievements on previous maps. * MAP07 - "The Mancubian Candidate" has a large number of archs. Combined with Complex Doom and difficulty it may seem overwhelming, but it is not. After exiting the teleport to a circular location, where soon those will also appear, you first need to clear the top of the point with the help of BFG from the archs that appear, then, ignoring the rest on the hills, press the button, go into the passage that appears with two revenants. Further there should be no special problems. At the end of the level a cyberdemon awaits. If you play with Complex Doom it will be the most dangerous version of it. * MAP08 - "Bushwhacked". It is also a fairly challenging map in the mountains with a difficult start. Ignore most of the opponents - you need to consistently pick up the blue and yellow keys. Until you get a rocket launcher spending ammo and time on mancubuses or spiders, firstly, makes no sense, and, secondly, it will be possible to deal with both of them later at a much closer distance. * MAP10 - "Candlecove". there will be a moment where you need to fight the cyberdemon in the pit. I recommend using energy weapons and running left / right. Occasionally you can hide in small nooks and make shots from a four-barrel gun. After some time the pillar will rise and the task will be simplified. In the case of Complex Doom there is a black and green version of the cyber, quite dangerous one. Pros and notable maps: + Style. + Soundtrack. + Of the good maps, you can note: MAP09 - 14 Angrier Archviles, MAP10 - Candlecove. * On MAP13 - The Netweaver there will be a lot of imps, particularly at the end of the map. BFG will help. + MAP14 - Impolsion. Compact map. ~ half of 201 enemies attack immediately after the start. A large number of imps and exploding barrels. For staying alive the best strategy here is the highest ground where the enemies, if they can climb, will climb one by one. + MAP15 - Screams aren't crime ... yet. There are 487 enemies on the map. Most of them are zombie soldiers that teleport to one location. In combination with Complex Doom an ordinal meat grinder is obtained, in which all that remains is to hide and shoot from around the corner where part of the teleports is located. There is also an exit to the secret level 31. To get to one you need to turn a series of switches which will open several gates. * MAP31 -Cyberwar 7734. ~ 1625 enemies. Fortunately all of them do not attack en masse, but are divided into groups by sectors. The level is still difficult. The number of enemies can float depending on the number of lost souls. The idea of shelters and hills also works here. However, in cases of things like it's better to have charges for BFG + keep invulnerability nearby. In this picture several dozen (and maybe much more than a hundred) revenants are captured. Behind them were a few dozen more cacodemons and a few barons, not counting also a number of other opponents. A small part of the results of the carnage. To open the secret passage to level 32 you need to collect 3 keys. Yellow in the cave is easiest. Red is closer to the end of the level, can be obtained by jumping into an inconspicuous teleport, which is marked simply by a white cell (highlighted in orange on the map) and blue, which is also at the end of the level and is guarded by 2 cyberdemons. In the case of Complex Doom - their most dangerous variations, black-green and flying onces. From second one you can pick up the best variation of BFG and invulnerability. The last one I used at the beginning of the MAP16. + MAP32 - The Ghosts of the Old Kindgom. A compact level-easter egg in the ancient Egyptian style. 119 opponents, no secrets, divided into 3 sections. At the end there are several arches that will attack one by one, playing the role of a kind of evil mummies. + MAP16 - Toxic Traverse. + MAP17 - Precipice. + MAP19 - The Popes of Roam. Complex. E3M1. Start with a pistol. Immediately after the start 4 cyberdemons await, not counting a number of ordinary opponents, with the amendment that they are several times more dangerous in Complex Doom. You need to turn right and then break through to the stairs with several zombies. Flip the skull switch and move on to the next one. You need to be able to run across the map by pressing several switches so that opponents begin to attack each other. Be distracted by them is useless - they will kill with one or two shots + there are no places where you can sit out. For some time, after dealing with the switches, you can hide here: But I do not recommend staying in this location for long because after some time 4 cyberdemons will completely block the passage. There will be enough ammo to kill one only. It remains to maneuver around the map - the most sparsely populated point will be in a place where it was possible to release revenants. There is a door at the same point which requires a blue key. I took the plasma gun from the secret after the destruction of the cyberdemon and, as a result, I didn't have enough ammo left to deal with all the opponents, including the remaining barons of hell - I settled on the number 178/202. + MAP27 - Rocket Zone II. On the map you can find a secret teleport which will lead to a location where you will need to fight ~ 401+ enemies while listeting to "The Final Countdown". The timer, which can be seen on the wall, displays 10. It will gradually decrease and after some time new sections will open in the location. * MAP30 - Electric Nightmare. It is required to hold out for a sufficient amount of time until a teleport appears. The transition to such completes the level. In my case for it's appearance it was necessary to destroy ~ 148 out of 154+ emeies. Contras: * As such there are no one exist if you do not take into account some of the maps are the same in case of their type - fortified fortresses, fairly linear passage.

Good wad with consistent visuals, soundtrack and difficulty curve. A decent spin on the first 11 Doom 2 levels but nothing mindblowing. The 3 Hell levels are much better. 4/5

Sverre makes a megaWAD of mostly small levels, in stark contrast to his Eternal Doom / Plasmaplant stuff. It'll go even faster with carryovers. It's a retelling of Doom II with some liberties taken. His city theme, the more intimate areas having a sort of space-age modularity about them, are my favorite. The balance of some of the later levels - namely MAP24-26 - is pretty tight on UV. Plus, you get to save a dog from a burning building! I dig the Ribbiks / Jimmy soundtrack.

This is a bit of an interesting one to revisit for me: Whispers of Satan was a mapset I played fairly early in my mapping career and it's influenced my approach to level construction and visual design more than I initially realized. At the time I ran out of steam around MAP22, but recently I decided to take another stab at it and finish all the levels. Which I did! Having done so, these are my thoughts. Gotta start with the big one: Whispers of Satan is a damn good-looking mapset. Excellent texture usage and attention to detail were big draws for me when I first played this years ago and I ended up mimicking it a lot in my own work: to some degree I still do, honestly. Maps like MAP10, MAP16 and MAP28 stand out as particularly good examples of this school of design, with all the detailing work coming together to craft an excellent sense of place. This is bolstered by the custom soundtrack, which has some absolute bangers in it (in my decidedly unmusical opinion :P). I also gotta shout out the fact that Paul and Kristian undeniably had fun putting this together, as can be evidenced by the silly little easter eggs and gags that are present throughout. There's the secret and super secret maps of course, but you can also spot a little bit of silliness in the main lineup and it's a touch I appreciate in the way that it gives a mapset life and charm. Again, it's something I was inspired by in my early mapping career and you can thank WoS for any gaff or joke you find in my own maps. There is however an elephant in the room that I have to address and that is the map design itself. Other reviewers have pointed out the excessive symmetry that plagues a lot of the map architecture, but there is also a general sense of formula that can wear on you as you progress through the megawad: by the time you're in the final third of the main block of maps, you can distinctly see them falling into the same gameplay pattern and it starts chafing in a big way. MAP25 and MAP29 are two big culprits in my eyes, but there are plenty of early maps that follow the same formula and get a pass simply because of their placement in the megawad and (relatedly) the length of those experiences. This formulaic approach also creeps into the gameplay and monster usage and serves to make the latter half of the megawad something of a slog to get through, which explains why I didn't progress past MAP22 all those years ago. I ain't gonna say that it doesn't deserve its Cacoward or anything though: I can appreciate the work that went into creating Whispers of Satan and the influence it had on what came after. It definitely has its flaws and as a gameplay experience it doesn't really hold up, but I can still admire it as a piece of Dooming history and I wouldn't be the mapper I am today if it didn't exist.

Our current Doom community loves to look into itself, to support the creative work of its members, and it sometimes dares to ask for more, despite an output that surpasses any reasonable playing capacity. It did not always go that way: the community used to be smaller, internet connections were slower, and not every piece of work got the exposure it readily receives nowadays. I cannot see any other reason for Angelo Jefferson to be such an obscure author, considering the originality of the WADs he submitted to idgames archive, in times when the database was overfilled with amateurish works. Angelo Jefferson believed in himself enough to create his own franchise, the Number One Kill series, and to advertise it as “built to be challenging with the quality you would expect from Id, playability, and beauty in mind”. He even arranged the now defunct email address N1Kill@aol.com to collect comments and tips from his audience. When he uploaded The Next Generation he was longing for feedback, he expressed his will to fix any bugs people might report, and he looked forward to releasing a full 32-map version called The Final Frontier, planned for Christmas ’97. Sadly, nothing of this happened, so we are left with a mutilated work lacking the entire third episode, and most notably a comprehensive quality check. I do not know what happened; I can only assume Jefferson did not receive the expected attention, so he moved on from Doom to never come back. After his disappearance, his body of work quickly fell into oblivion, put in the shade by the combat scale of Hell Revealed, by the teamwork of the Innocent Crew and their comrades with the Memento Mori series, and by the engine trickery and graphic prowess displayed in Requiem. That was a shame, since The Next Generation displayed great combat fundamentals, rooted in the IWADs but filtered with a gameplay vision that was way ahead of its time. Not only Angelo Jefferson was probably the first solo author to submit a 23-map megaWAD to idgames, but he was also an early student of Plutonia’s encounter design, that he successfully emulated and expanded beyond the safety guidelines. Thematically, The Next Generation showed little or no continuity, jumping between disjointed locations that matched the classic IWAD design tropes: tech-bases, mines, buildings engulfed by the natural landscape, evil strongholds, urban sandboxes, and the rest belonging to the abstract mixture of demonic shrines, surreal places, corridor mazes, and battle yards that shape the familiar world of Doom II, culminating in the weird puzzles of MAP12. TNT: Evilution was always present as a source of inspiration, both in the visuals and in the occasional exploratory segment, but the combat was based upon the Casali’s legacy and sustained by Jefferson’s creativity. He had a penchant for tough encounters featuring small groups of monsters, rarely giving in to the temptation of slaughter. The great difference in map scale and the opposite approach to resources suggest that he never played Hell Revealed, published only a few months before The Next Generation. If Chaingunners and Arch-Viles were essential ingredients in his recipe of challenge, Revenants were seldomly deployed in large numbers, with Cacodemons and Pain Elementals becoming Angelo’s jacks-of-all-trades. Barons were preferred to Hell Knights on UV, and many situations used Arachnotrons, Mancubi, and Pinkies with an efficiency that was quite unexpected in a 1997 map set. I first played the megaWAD blind and continuous, then from a pistol-start for February 2023 DWMC; both runs were on Ultra-Violence, with savegames mid-level (not during encounters to cheat the RNG or to facilitate anything) because I knew that I should not underestimate the design of certain encounters. Pistol start made me realise that resources were not plentiful, it forced me to conserve the powerful weaponry for the hardest fights, and encouraged me to avoid damage, as healing items were at a premium. It also confirmed that every map was beatable, with only MAP07 and MAP08 being too stingy with ammo. It must be observed that all skill settings had been implemented, with notable differences in the monster composition and quota, and especially in the health distribution. The maps were not only balanced in their difficulty, but it appeared that also length had been taken into account; most entries required between 20 and 30 minutes to be thoroughly UV-maxed. Angelo Jefferson loved the official Doom products, and he disseminated nice homages in his work, including a soundtrack that tastefully remixed midis from Doom, Doom II, and Evilution. At some point of the development, he learned to edit textures and replaced the ZZWOLF and ZZFACE library with his own resources, mostly obtained through palette changes. The levels that made wide use of custom textures were quite memorable, especially the streak preceding and following the secret maps. The Star Trek references might have been implemented a little more, instead of being limited to a simplified rendition of the Starfleet logo that still works as the series’ hallmark. I hold The Next Generation in high esteem, but I cannot ignore the technical flaws that plague many of its levels: missing textures, misalignments, slime trails, HOMs, clunky sector effects, haphazard secret marking, abuse of 20% damage floors, stuck monsters, unreachable items, soft locks, inescapable pits, and a few encounters that were unfair at best. MAP13 crashed in the modern source ports and even required to be fixed with the editor. The lack of technical polish might have discredited Jefferson’s work among the community, inducing most people to give this megaWAD a wide berth and to put the less flawed Hell Revealed in the spotlight, which featured a notorious speedrunner as the main creator instead of an outsider with exotic ideas. If only Angelo had released a complete, controlled, and bug-fixed version of The Next Generation, he might have changed the history of hard WADs. This happens to be wishful thinking, so I can only hope that as many Doomers as possible will rediscover this flawed half-masterpiece, give it a proper DSDA coverage, and enjoy it as a wonderful journey from the rudiments of mapping to potential excellence, if they can get past its raw and rushed appearance. Best maps: MAP 09 – The Pit MAP 10 – The Wicked Metal Garden MAP 15 – Lair of the Baron MAP 31 – On Earthen Soil MAP 32 – Arsenal Other standout maps: MAP 01 – Entryway MAP 04 – Country Side MAP 11 – Circle of Death MAP 16 – Fortress of Fire MAP 17 – Fortress of the Damned Special mentions map: MAP 12 – Stra(n)ge Universe Detailed commentary of each map can be found in the February 2023 DWMC thread.

The Rebirth is a one-man megaWAD from an era when such big efforts were no commonplace. Nowadays the editor utilities have been upgraded with user-friendly features that facilitated both testing and troubleshooting; in 2003, half his lifetime ago, the German author Björn Ostmann (a.k.a. Vader or Bobjet) had less sophisticated tools at his disposal. He was not short of ambition and determination though, as he did not settle for stock resources and predictable IWAD homages, but he wanted to add something new and personal to his first submission to the community. He used a DOS programme called Doom Construction Kit (DCK) to build the maps, WinTex utility to edit textures and sprites, and an obscure software named Capella800 to compose his own MIDIs. I have tried building Doom levels with a DOS editor myself, and I know how difficult and time-consuming it can be. The language barrier from German to English was another obstacle that Vader overcame quite proficiently, despite his disclaimer in the info file and a few oddities in the level names. I am not forgetting that he started working on The Rebirth when he was 17 or 18 years old, which is undoubtedly an adequate age with lots of free time that you might dedicate to modding, but it neither implies the maturity to bring such a long and cross-disciplinary work to completion, nor does it guarantee that it will feature consistent quality and solid gameplay. The young Ostmann showed his talent by uploading a full megaWAD of small to medium-sized levels, sure to not overstay their welcome while featuring a nice challenge, at least on continuous play. The awkward weapon, ammo and resource distributions on most maps suggest that pistol start was not considered a standard approach, ideally reserved to speed runners that wanted to record demos. Beating The Rebirth on pistol start requires foreknowledge of map layout, encounters, and secrets, and it promises to be a miserable experience for contemporary Doomers facing it blind and with a casual attitude. June was a short month with not much free time, so I opted for a relaxed continuous play on Ultra-Violence, with savegames mid-level (not during encounters to cheat the RNG or to facilitate anything). I got pistol-start sensations by self-restraining my weapons (I used only weapons provided in each map, after acquiring them), and sometimes I found myself in trouble because of this choice. Some maps in the second and third episode hid crucial armaments out of sight or in the secrets, therefore I ran out of ammo just like a blind pistol starter. The Rebirth was set 12 years after Doom II: Hell on Earth and the defeat of the Overlord of Hell. While humankind slowly repopulated the planet, a small part of the Overlord’s brain had survived and reanimated itself. Our Doomguy woke up one day in Starbase Omega2 (maybe a reference to Space Station Omega released in early 2003), he learnt that a new invasion has begun, so he grabbed his pistol and got ready to kill some ugly creatures from hell. His journey followed the customary progression through a first episode consisting of different types of tech-bases, followed by a streak of urban maps that was diluted by brown and abstract/generic settings in the second half. These entries might have been influenced by The Plutonia Experiment, although they did not strike the same balance between fair challenge and wickedness, due to scarce and unevenly distributed resources. The third episode brought the protagonist to hellish places, offering a decent variety of settings, gradually increasing the complexity of the layout and the use of the beautiful textures created by Vader himself. The custom artwork, dominated by grey and vibrant red hues that reminded me of Quake, must have raised some interest in a time when quality textures and sprites were not plentiful. His accurate touch up of the Baron of Hell, called Lord of Heresy, is still used today in the Doom community, and the headless Former Human was both silly and creepy. I enjoyed the exaggerated sound of the pistol, replaced by a loud shotgun blast without the pump action, also turning the chaingun into a badass weapon like the Commando’s. Other audio changes included an unsettling Arch-Vile alert noise, and a few midis composed by Vader himself (used on MAP 03, 10, 12, 15, 30, 32) that add a unique feeling to the megaWAD. Despite having a nice midi pack made by the community, I chose to play with the original soundtrack lo listen at the author’s music selection, and to have the bespoke tracks stand out a bit more. Considering that each map took between 5 and 20 minutes to complete, I never got bored of a song, even if it was D_RUNNIN. The whole playthrough lasted 6 ½ hours, one of the shortest experiences I had with a 32-map megaWAD. Beyond the graphic adjustments and the sound personalisation, The Rebirth shapes up as a classic Doom II megaWAD, a journey down the memory lane to an era when standards were still set by the original games, and not by ground-breaking community projects released after 2010. The monsters were used adequately, but still followed the IWAD tropes and mandates; the maps were suitable for both exploration and incidental combat, but they lacked a few big and fast encounters to spice up the routine; the secret design was traditional, and the only innovation was that they were often mandatory for pistol starters. Vader was surely aware of the Doom modding scene of his time, as proved by the Toxic Touch-y looks of MAP09 and by the involvement of none less than Vincent Catalaà in the playtesting, but he chose to stay true to his original ideas. A glaring first attempt with the editor like Operator was not a proper introduction for The Rebirth and in hindsight it should have been replaced, but the author left it there and chose to show everybody his humble beginnings. I appreciate this kind of artistic honesty, and the amazing technical gap between MAP01 and MAP29 is the true abyss that Björn Ostmann crossed on his own, working for more than one year on a solo project. For contemporary Doomers, The Rebirth has less appeal than recent, more streamlined releases, especially if pistol starting is a must. Sticking to this approach will probably sour the blind attempts; on the other hand, pistol starting with foreknowledge was an interesting challenge that I tried on a couple of times, just to confirm my impressions. While it had not been forgotten by the Doom community, as proven by The Rebirth Midi Pack compiled in 2019, Vader’s debut was not included in any shortlist of relevant PWADs from 2003, maybe because that year featured fundamental opuses such as Scythe, Phobos: Anomaly Reborn, and spectacular ZDoom mods. The Rebirth might have felt old-fashioned even at the time of its release, but it still has some historical significance as an attempt by a single author at modifying all the game features at the same time. Probably Vader did not plan everything since the beginning and he added new features as he gained expertise, resulting in a slightly incoherent work from the thematic standpoint. The player clearly perceives the author’s progress as they advance towards the end of the megaWAD, and I find it a fascinating way to establish a connection with another individual from another time and place. If you like the IWADs, you do not expect to beat the maps on first try when pistol starting, and you have always dreamed of making your own vanilla megaWAD with custom resources, The Rebirth is well worth a few hours of your time. Best maps: MAP 09 – The Depot MAP 14 – The Undertown MAP 20 – The Gateway MAP 27 – Wired Hive MAP 29 – The Abyss Other standout maps: MAP 11 – Teleport Center MAP 31 – Snowed-in Mansion MAP 16 – The Musty Ones MAP 22 – Withered Fields MAP 28 – Netherworld Detailed commentary of each map can be found in the June 2023 DWMC thread.

while i will admit that there's some genuinely good maps in here, the majority of icarus: alien vanguard is very 'meh'. maps that i'd consider to be good or bad are in a rather small minority, with the vast majority of the megawad being comprised of mediocre, rushed maps that are visually bland and fairly mundane gameplay-wise. even for the standards of the time, i'd say that a lot of these maps are outshined by their contemporaries; there's a multitude of maps of that era both more visually appealing and more fun to play. it's because of this that its rushed development is quite apparent when playing through the maps. however, despite this, there are some gems to be found in here. some of the maps in the set are much more competently made than the rest, and they stick out like a sore thumb. unfortunately, if you're planning to play the wad front-to-back, most of them only appear in the second half. it's a shame, because if the entire megawad was of this quality then i would've really enjoyed it. what i will say though is that the number of good maps is higher than the number of downright terrible ones, so icarus does have that going for it. one positive aspect of the megawad that i have to mention is how great its music is. icarus has an absolutely fantastic soundtrack full of distinct songs that, while not saving the maps from being mediocre, does help immensely with giving each map a unique identity. some of them - especially that of map08, which sounds like it was ripped straight from 1975 - don't fit with doom in the slightest, but they still help to break the monotony and are still great to listen to. the entire ost has a distinct sound to it as well, one that i haven't ever heard anywhere else. even if you don't wanna play the wad, i highly encourage you to at least listen to some of the songs in it. overall, icarus really isn't that great. i wish i had more positive things to say about it as many people do find it to be quite good, but i simply don't see what many others do in it. for the most part it's rather mediocre with a few highlights to go along with it, and doesn't hold up as well as many of its contemporaries have. with that being said, i do still encourage to anyone reading this to at the very least check out the second half of the wad as it has the highest concentration of decent maps, and has far less of the bland silver spaceship theming that icarus tends to be associated with.

Awful experience. I'm giving it two stars due to nice visuals & decent map designs but this is where the positives stop. The quadruple shotgun's controls suck. Primary firing mode fires barrels separately while secondary fires all four simultaneously. If ONLY one shell is missing in the shotgun, pressing the secondary button will reload the gun instead of firing the rest three shells inside. Also, firing all four shells with a primary button won't actually reload the weapon. In fact, the game will tell you to reload, so you have to press the secondary fire button just to reload it. Regular shotgun has a huge spread. Heck, no weapon is good at taking enemies down from a distance in this mod. Pistol is absent & the weapon keys are oddly placed. '2' slot is a regular & super shotgun, '3' is quad shotgun, '4' is a chaingun & chaingun with rocket launcher mounted on it & '5' is a plasma rifle. Most of the time, I got confused with these buttons & at the worst moments, like places with hordes of enemies, I took quite a punishment for switching weapons nonstop due to the weird design, causing large annoyance. The author stated that it is basically Doom 3 with classic gameplay. Well, I assure you that the mod's amazing ambiance & atmosphere is destroyed by so much enemy spam, cheap moments & strange weapon keys, it's ridiculous. The AI's behavior is also modified. Zombies have sliding attack to surprise you & some new attacks are implemented into enemies. Not a bad thing but combined with the flaws mentioned above...yeah. Not fun. Enemy spam or hordes are usually either frustrating to fight or just plain tedium & borefest. I'm not too keen about the regenerating health but since the gameplay is so poorly designed for the most part, it did help ironically. The way demons teleport is also questionable & there are lots of arena battles. Lots of them. There are some pointless cutscenes & Painkiller soundtrack killed it for me. I like that soundtrack better in the Painkiller itself since the game isn't a horror game. Automap is useless. Nothing is displayed except for the player indicator. The reason for such thing is unknown. In conclusion I don't recommended it. Doom 3 had perfect ambiance & atmosphere, so this could've been amazing fan-made thingy but instead, we got basically salt & sugar mixed together or in this case, horror/ambiance & slaughterfest. They just don't go together.

A tense, smartly designed mapset that's absolutely dripping in atmosphere. This basically feels like a Quake mapset (albeit much more colorful), and that's no bad thing. Level are compact, moody, and make great use of GZDoom's 3D floors to give a sense of vertical space not found in most Doom maps. The mapset's atmosphere dovetails well with the gameplay: extensive use of colored dynamic lights against dark interiors, creepy custom ambient sounds and an extremely moody soundtrack compliment the close-quarters, high-stakes combat. Apart from the final boss arena, you'll spend little time running full speed anywhere. There are precious few wide open spaces, and YukiRaven much prefers to surprise and alarm the player with up-close ambushes of few monsters rather than giant battles. Whether you like this style of gameplay or not is entirely a personal preference. Personally, I loved it, but I also played the wad on HMP, so perhaps experienced fewer of the annoyances other reviewers did (not nearly as many meat-shield Hell Archons for example). For first time players, my advice would be to play with the lights off, headphones on, and take it slowly: lap up the atmosphere, read the intermission screens, and be ready to take things a little more cautiously than the usual Doom map. Presuming that appeals to you, there's a lot to like here.

Quite simply the best mappack ever released. The level design is (almost) always of extremely high quality, with designs clearly influenced by the first Doom but also by other mods and games out at the time. The gameplay is fun and varied, the fights always interesting and the soundtrack is amazing as you would expect. Memento Mori 1 should be the bible of FPS level designers. I wish most modern mappacks were as good as this one. Don't miss out on it.

Stephen Clark, a.k.a. @The Ultimate DooMer, is one of the key figures of the Doom community in the early 21st century, an author that is best known for his important ZDoom contributions and for amazing creations in the worlds of Heretic and Hexen. I had no chance to examine his extensive body of work, but his Boom-compatible entries in the Community Chest series allowed me to experience his technical competence and design habits. When the DWMC chose his first vanilla megaWAD for March 2023, I approached it with a mix of curiosity and concern. Fragport was Clark’s debut on idgames, and it was no humble beginning. Not only it was a full 32-map replacement, but it also included custom sounds, additional textures of practical purpose (most notably the revolutionary ALPHABET used to write signs and marks in maps) and sector tricks that must have been innovative for their time. Another exclusive feature was the seamless progression between levels: the starting zone of the next map was always seen before hitting the exit line or switch, and in the same fashion the player could turn around from the start and get a glimpse on previously traversed areas. Surely it was an expedient to break maps that were too large for the vanilla engine, but it also improved immersion and storytelling. The player impersonates the top marine Jody Russell, sent to the remote city of Fragport to investigate after communications with the local military bunker suddenly ceased. His ‘call sign is 'Kill Crazy' because (he) kill(s) like crazy and love(s) every minute of it’, so he was the best choice for a dangerous mission into the unknown. The protagonist is shot down by demonic alien invaders, is captured and moved to a desert prison, presumably for execution. He escapes instead and begins a long trek through the brown stone mines and wastelands surrounding Durncrag town. He leaves with a motorboat and manages to sink an ironclad ship carrying monster reinforcements. After a detour on a remote island, Jody crashes his second boat on barren shores and slowly approaches the military installation, disarming the demon-operated defence system and then navigating the sewers into Fragport. Fighting from district to district, he discovers that the invasion started on an artificial moon hosting a tech city, which he promptly reaches by boarding on a spaceship. He resists the assaults of the hellspawn and their vicious traps, until he finds the reactor core and blows it up. He barely escapes the moon and returns to Earth to be celebrated as a hero. I could not omit a plot summary when presenting Fragport, since the unfolding story and the adventures of Kill Crazy were a prominent feature. A lot of effort has been put in creating a plausible journey, building varied places to explore, and providing realistic connections between them. I admire The Ultimate Doomer for the method, the rigor, and the creativity he put in his Doom efforts: the progression in his maps tends to be a little obscure, but ultimately it becomes clear thanks to the visual hints, achieved by writings and colour codes. Nevertheless, Fragport could not cancel my bias against his lack of restraint. Sometimes he could not realise that too much was too much, and that a stale part of a level could act like a ball and chain. The megaWAD had a few exciting combat moments and an outstanding construction for 2001, but for the most part its gameplay was grindy and repetitive. Despite a brown palette dominating 20 consecutive maps, there was enough variety in the environments and nice Doomcute props to make the exploration interesting, but when I reached MAP13 I was sick and tired of searching for three keys in every level. The mechanic stayed firmly in place until the end, with coloured switches being added to string out the progression even more. Maps tended to last 18 minutes on average for less than 10 hours of total completion time, placing Fragport in the vanilla age that preceded the sprawling limit-removing creations of the following years. I played continuous on Ultra-Violence, with savegames mid-level (not during encounters to cheat the RNG or to facilitate anything), and I spared myself the ammo deprivation issues reported by pistol starting DWMC members. Still, I found myself nearly out of ammo at the end of MAP24, and levels like MAP30 did not accommodate for a wasteful behaviour. Besides a resource distribution favouring continuous play, the difficulty seemed rather flat throughout the megaWAD, with only a few harsh monster deployments taking place in the third episode. I felt more challenged by the exploration and the occasional puzzles, especially on MAP29-30 and during the unconventional trial that was MAP32. The author invested all his skill in the super-secret level, based upon a British gameshow and reproducing both its challenges and settings with the Doom engine. It must be noted that Stephen remade this map for GZDoom in 2016, inspired by “The Crystal Maze” new live attraction in London, and that it counts as his last submission to idgames. This meticulous undertaking perfectly represents The Ultimate Doomer as a mapper, showing his pros and cons, and it aptly stands as the current alpha and omega of his successful career. If the secret levels were worth seeing, and their uncovering process on MAP15 was one of the nicest moments in Fragport, the standard secret compartments seemed casually placed. The statement ‘for those of you who like secrets, there are at least 3 in each level’ confirms they have been added just for completeness, and it surprised me that some were nearly mandatory in the later maps. The original megaWAD used stock music, but I chose to play it with FragportMidiPack_v1.0, released for the 20th anniversary. The compilation included popular songs, mostly rock and heavy metal music that predates Fragport’s release, with only a few tracks being an exception. I do not mind the soundtrack very much, except when it feels created exactly for the maps, but I generally enjoyed @P41R47’s choices. They usually matched the pacing of the map or had a thematic connection with the environment that got a smile out of me. Fragport was a bold experiment in 2001, an attempt at bringing Doom on the same level of more advanced games like Quake 2 and Half-Life. Stephen Clark compensated for the engine shortcomings with his own creative solutions, bringing a huge one-man project to completion where most people would have given up. A 32-map megaWAD is an exhausting effort for a single author though, as confirmed by the lack of fresh ideas in some parts of the second and third episode. In retrospect, the boxy level design, the monotone texturing of large areas, the repetitive mechanics, and the copy-pasted encounters caused the experience to become less and less engaging as Jody Russell progressed towards his objective. This should not discourage vanilla enthusiasts from giving Fragport a try, since there are small wonders to be seen in addition to the highlights listed below. A super-solid first submission from a staple of the Doom community, after more than 20 years it shows its age and limits but also the power of method and resolve, two qualities that The Ultimate Doomer possesses aplenty. Best maps: MAP 11 – Military Bunker MAP 13 – Pipe Factory MAP 15 – Freight Depot MAP 23 – Monad Other standout maps: MAP 01 – Desert Prison MAP 19 – Dockside MAP 22 – Tech City MAP 28 – Sub-Level 05 Special mentions map: MAP 32 – The Crystal Maze Detailed commentary of each map can be found in the March 2023 DWMC thread.

Ancient Aliens is one of those WADs that, once you play it, you'll understand exactly why it won a Cacoward. Skillsaw designed this 32 MAP masterpiece, a HUGE step up for me since all I've cleared besides stock Doom and Doom II was Eviternity. The WAD starts with a quiet desert day and a peyote pipe, and launches you into a hectic level set filled with Archviles, Cyberdemons, annoying Arachnotrons, and a couple of new enemies: the Stealth Alien who runs around cloaked until it stops to shoots bolts of plasma at you, and the Alien Guardian which looks like a floating skull-cube that pumps a triple barrage of Revenant missiles at you. The HP on these guys is thankfully low, but the monster placement is (mostly) so well placed they don't become as much of a pain as you might think. The environments are extremely pretty to look at; the first episode has you in a sort-of New Mexico/Egyptian vibe with stone structures and sunset skies. The second takes you to the stars as you explore massive alien structures and study strange hieroglyphics. And finally, the last has you starting on a distant planet, exploring the landscape to discover who the aliens are and what they want with you. Skillsaw's use of textures is fantastic. Deep purples and blues really sell the vibes, and some borrowed bits round out a great space for the player to fight in. Another great factor is the music. Stewboy lays down some great tracks, with everything from upbeat techno to Native American sounds. One of my favorites is The Incessant Flow of Time, paired with MAP 02 it sets a great tone for the WAD. You can find the soundtrack on Bandcamp and I would highly recommend listening to it, even if you don't play this WAD. Finally, the levels are top notch. Skillsaw has a style you soon learn to recognize. He gives a little and demands a lot out of you with interesting traps and tricks to make the player adapt to new conditions and really consider their next move. The rocket turret of Ancient Navajo Wolf Warp, the frantic arena of Wormhole Junction, the berserk-fueled rage of Crash Landing, and the mini levels from Leave Your Sol Behind. Ancient Aliens has fantastic level design with fair fights and great surprises. There are a few notable outside contributions: Joshy puts up two great levels (even with one having a very nasty Archvile trap), AD_79 comes in with Code later in the third episode, and the famous Culture Shock by Chris Kassap with some changes by Skillsaw. Stewboy even throws in a great MAP 31. However, there are a few poor maps: Acerola-Orion by esselfortium is great except for the inability to explore the level again after entering the final arena (something that Skillsaw always seems to remember for those of us who want to kill first and find secrets later); Trinary Temple by Pinchy is a slog for the first half, having to deal with distant hitscanners and a nasty final room with 2 Cyberdemons in an enclosed space; and Egyptian Metaphysics by Tarnsman is practically Plutonia with the Ancient Aliens skin, as there are WAY too many chaingunners for my tastes. But overall, this WAD is a masterpiece. A fantastic challenge for both new and old players, this WAD will test your abilities and force you to improve or die. What's the best map pack of 2016? I'm not saying it's Ancient Aliens, but...

Really entertaining little mapset. Pretty atmospheric, too. Greatly in line with the movies. -Starting on the cabin in the...woods? In this case in the middle of a broken road to nowhere, we search the little cabin in search for clues, only to find the necronomicon! and things go bad really fast. -Next maps we are on the past, on a castle, and we need to clean this mess Ash's way. An interesting open ended layout that let us tackle the map in almost any way we desire. Groovy! -Third map is kinda collector like, the first maze are could be stright from Wolfenstein 3D, as its is just a plain maze with just some enemies at almost every turn. Then we reach some kind of hub area where we need to fill the fountains with the bloods of all the enemies we slaughter on them. Groovy! -Fourth map is a boss map, not great design but interesting and atmospheric. -Fifth map is kinda filler, as is really short. Anyway, there are some neat details in this graveyard. I suppose there is a trap as the primary gimmick of the map, where we need to choose from three different nocronomicons whats the real one. Besides that, the trap isn't taht hard, and adds some interesting details to the map like skeltons piles on the ground and enemies here and there. -Sixth map is really huge medieval city like, kinda the residential castle, the details on this one are great, and the layout is really good. Secrets are neat and the map end with a boss encounter, so its probably the best map of the set. -Seventh map is kinda short, too. We are on our way to a portal that lead us to our own time again. It has a hot start with almost every kind of the regular enemies. The bridges are a neat touch. Besides that, theres no much to tell about this map... save that it has a secret exit. Playing it on DoomRetro it take me to the first map, thanks god i saved before. I think it doesn't work much on the Doom 2 version of the TC, it should be removed i think :/ -Eighth map is on the present, and we are on our regular job at the mart, but the deadites follow us through the portal home, and now we need to clean this mess, too. Thanks god there is a bed at the end of the map, we really needed. -Ninth map, in fact, we sleep for too long and we are now kinda on the past?, future? Anyway, final map, nothing great. I enjoyed it. Not as much as i expected but there are interesting details and layout to get inmersed on the premise of the TC. The sounds are funny and are taken directly from the films, so we can hear Ash's lines here and there to great effects. It has potential to be far better, but the dehacked work isn't that great, as its seems to be kinda just a reskin for the monsters. The weapons are OK, i think. They are in line for what is expected for the theme of the mapset. What i really like from the mapset is the moody soundtrack it has. Great midis for sure! Thanks guys for this Total Conversion, its plays like a charm!

Released in 2003, Hell Revealed 2 is a spiritual sequel to everyone's favorite excessive megawad from 1997, Hell Revealed. Yonatan Donner and Haggay Niv are nowhere to be found in this project, making way for a team of 14 people, such as Jonas Feragan, Sam Woodman, Yashar Garibzadeh, Martin Friberg and Andy Olivera, just to name a few. Their mission: make the hardest Doom 2 WAD ever made. They sure have succeeded, but will this result in you wanting to play it? As early as MAP02 (High Voltage), you will see that unlike its predecessor, Hell Revealed 2 is not interested in easing your way in the level set. On paper, these levels feel like HR: the levels are small and cramped, they're full of beefy enemies that you have no room or supplies to fight with, the levels also look very basic for their time, being full of tiny hallways and square rooms, but in HR2, the game feels way less interested in giving you leeway for your mistakes and it loves to spring gotcha! moments that will assuredly kill you in almost every map. The other major difference between HR1 and HR2 comes in the form of its signature enemy: HR1 abused barons of hell to an absurd degree, HR2 instead overuses archviles. Sadly, its use of archviles is often not even that interesting: instead of letting them loose in interesting arenas full of cover and corpses to resurrect, HR2 loves to spawn archviles in tiny hallways where they trap you and freely incinerate you unless you have a BFG9000 handy (MAP22: Sewer Slaughter has the worst encounter of that kind). And even then, survival is not always guaranteed. While Hell Revealed 2's mission statement is to be as hard as possible, it also does that at the detriment of trying to be original. There's a staggering amount of maps that are content to not only openly recycle concepts from Hell Revealed, but also other WADs as well. Look at some of the level names: Not That Simple II? The Siege II? The Path II? The Descent II? The Inmost Dens III? Some other levels go under different names but still wear their influence openly on their sleeves. MAP13 (Hardcore) is a straight remake of HR1's MAP 25 (Dead Progressive), but while the original level served as a break, Hardcore instead wishes to break you, making the gameplay much slower, calculated and grindy. It's likely one of the better examples of HR2's grindy gameplay because the map still is fun to play despite its intimidating exterior. MAP27 (Resistance Remains) is also a direct remake of HR's MAP22 (Resistance is Futile) and it barely tries to disguise the inspiration. Yet, the map fails because its archvile placement, it prevents the map from being the slaughterfest it wants to be and forces a much slower, calculated approach. Later on, the map devolves in you sniping away cages of archviles and revenants with a rocket launcher, stopping the pacing of the game dead in its tracks. While HR1 had a simple yet distinct visual identity, HR2 doesn't. There are no distinct themes in any of the episodes and the constant author switching make it so that about no 2 maps seem to belong in the same map pack. Maps like MAP16 (The Chapel of Black Granite) feature stronger visual chops than the average HR2 map but in turn, it feels like they belong somewhere else. Jonas Feragan mostly has a basic feel to his maps, but when you feel like you got a grasp on his maps, he also has crown jewels like the majestic hellish mountain of MAP29 (Hell's Cauldron) and nice setpieces like the lighting of the opening staircase in MAP21 (Conflux). Another thing you'll see a lot in HR2 are room over room bridges, which sometimes are nice and fit the scenery well, but other times they're used for the sake of being used and very often break (MAP12, Anti Static is a prime offender). Faring better is the soundtrack, entirely composed by Sam Woodman and Petter "Thyrbse" Mårtensen. The soundtrack is a nice mixture of ambient (MAP13) and metal as all hell (MAP15: The Path II). The failing point of HR2 is that the beginning stretch is almost all uniformly poor and punishing. MAP1 (IGNITION!) promises a fiery and fun beginning, but maps 2-6 all are clunkers, all favoring the most flavorless tiny corridor shooting where mistakes are not allowed, without any deviation to the formula. MAP7 (Not That Simple II) is the first inkling of fun you'll have in the WAD, all because it features an interesting platform switch mechanic and finally... IT GIVES YOU SPACE TO MOVE. Then you get MAP9 (The Siege II), which takes the opposite route, stuffing you in a tiny box, surrounded by hordes of revenants and flying foes you must drive back for over 4 minutes while you wait for the exit pad to be accessible. Out of all episode 1, I can only recommend MAP7 and MAP8 (Ballistics); the rest of the episode feels like a thankless chore. Episode 2 is not as aggravating and likely features the most fondly remembered maps of the set. MAP15 (The Path II) goes against all odds and is a brilliant re-imaging of The Path. It features the best MIDI track of the whole set and makes the concept of the deadly giant cave with a small safe pathway work, thanks to Jonas Feragan axing the original's baron of hell count and making each encounter more massive and varied. Whether you like it or not, you remember this map. Another winner is MAP32 (Playground), which was the king of slaughtermaps back in 2003. Packing a whopping 1651 monsters and no wimps, it's a fight for your life, only hindered by its somewhat cryptic out of reach 8 megaspheres which will constantly taunt you (HINT: after climbing up any of the pyramids, go down the stairs and go in a straight line for the other pyramid in front of you). Sadly, these successes are balanced by the usual grind and gotcha! encounters of MAP17 (Eye for an Eye) and the completely disjointed MAP18 (Excess Meat) which can't commit to a singular theme to save its life. Episode 3 is well... more of the same than Episode 2, but with bigger extremes. MAP29 (Hell's Cauldron) is the best overall map of the set, which sets a great climax to a megawad which sadly has no buildup or feel of progression. Its scenery is impressive and the fights often are a welcome change from the tear and grind in tiny hallways. It's massive, majestic and yet very oppressive. It only loses points for its completely random teleporting monsters at the very end. MAP23 (When the Heavens Fall) is ugly as sin, but features some of the best action in the WAD and features some very fun (and large) arenas. On the other end of the scale comes MAP24 (The Inmost Dens III), which takes HR2's claustrophia factor and multiplies it by 10. It's painfully linear and no fight in it can be postponed for later, while also mandating the player to find secrets to even have a fighting chance. Fighting archviles and mancubi with only a shotgun? Seriously? MAP26 (Dis 2000) is a lazy remake of Doom's E3M8, favoring similarly boring and grindy gameplay. MAP25 (The End is Nigh) comes straight in the middle with a map that both features steam-blowing slaughter gameplay in fun and roomy arenas and the usual, tiny hallways full of big monsters fare that plague most of HR2. It feels like wasted potential and it further shows the fractured identity of the pack; this map was devised by 3 people and virtually no effort was made to not make their disparate mapping styles violently clash against each other. Then you get hit with MAP28 (Beyond The Sea). This is the most asphyxiating map I have ever played, making you fight hordes of heavy monsters (which include 4 cyberdemons, 18 archviles and 57 revenants with nothing stronger than the super shotgun and a rocket launcher with only 87 rockets. No plasma rifle, no BFG9000 and no cells. Even then, reaching the super shotgun in a pistol start is a herculean feat which require dispatching many barons, mancubi and archviles with just a shotgun and chaingun. If this seems fun to you, then go ahead and play it, but there's no way this map can ever be remotely fun for me. This map actively hates you and shows the worst possible extreme of HR2's grindy gameplay. Thankfully, the Icon of Sin fight in HR2 is short and merciful. The demon spawner now shoots 10 cubes at once, but the spawning points are all marked so accidental telefrags won't be an issue and there's no finicky elevator to ride and time rocket blasts on. Kill the archviles, get their keys, kill the cyberdemon standing on the platform allowing you access to the brain, then get there and kill the icon. Just don't fall in the lava; there is an elevator granting you access out of this death trap but the monster spawning is so intense that climbing out of the pit is near impossible. So there's Hell Revealed 2. It doesn't have the same ruffian or happy-go-lucky charm that Hell Revealed 1 had. It's hard for sure, but it's not enjoyable and that well made in general. Too many of its maps devolve in a slow, methodical approach that often require an in-depth knowledge of the map to disarm and its fun moments are way too far and between big chunks of tedium. If you feel like you have something to prove, then play HR2 by all means. Chances are you will not like it, though. It feels too anonymous, fractured and charmless and doesn't have anything to offer to the player other than extreme difficulty.

A large city map for GZDooM that aims to transfer a real life location to DooM with an occult twist. The author has crafted a number of high resolution textures and sprites to create a credible realistic feeling. There are also many smaller details, such as everyday utensils, furniture, paintings etc. This all makes the city feel more concrete and believable. The theme is Lovecraftian horror and it's done with great taste. I especially liked the way the author used those flashback cut scenes to create the atmosphere. The background ambient/soundtrack was a crucial part of the theme too. When you enter the map the very first thing you hear is lightning piercing the sky. This perfectly instills the mood on the player right from the start. Gameplay is predominantly exploratory. Sometimes perhaps a bit too much. Although the level making is very admirable I found myself a bit frustrated at times. It felt like I had to try every single doorway in every wall (multiple times) to progress. One of the most annoying sticking points was the door that opened the barriers to the grocery store. That door closed too fast and I thought the button that opened it activated something completely different. Sure, I could have probably heard that the door opened but the cacophony of the nearby Arachnotrons walking suppressed the poor door trying to make its case. Well, eventually I did get past that. And it looks like the author did put in an effort to make the map not a Hexen-esque paingrimage. For example there were Duke Nukem 3D like video monitors that showed what the most important switches did.

If you could describe the general multilevel WAD of the early 90s, you would have experimental and very abstract level design and texture placement, a MIDI soundtrack of popular song covers and whatever else was readily available on the BBS networks, a handful of custom sounds and textures, and a difficulty a bit higher than base Doom, but nowhere near many of the WADs released today. All of this is present in Serenity, and it makes for a memorable and pretty fun jump back to the past and the basics. Serenity has some pretty good effort put into it, with much of its design geared towards quality in all of its aspects. The textures are placed with care and do well to compliment the unique theme each level has. Layout is pretty solid with a healthy dose of experimenting with the various sector effects like stairs, lifts, and crushers to add variety. A few simple traps and complimentary barrel placements help emphasize a more tactical approach to each level, and a few secrets can certainly change how you can engage a future room full of bad guys by opening windows and alternate paths. There isn't much aesthetic detail beyond what is absolutely necessary, but it doesn't take away from the main focus of its gameplay. It isn't a very difficult level set, so if you handled base Doom on UV just fine you will probably do the same here. Supplies are spread but plentiful and weapons are acquired slowly but surely through the 8 levels. Difficulty for me was fairly even, with action picking up in the last few levels in particular. This and the levels being fairly short meant that in most cases I didn't feel a worry to save more than once in a level, if at all. Enemy placement is pretty good overall, with most of the enemy types appearing early on but are often placed in ways that makes it engaging and fun to deal with most of the time. The whole WAD took a bit over an hour to finish with thorough exploring of secrets and close to full level completions. Overall I quite enjoyed this charming throwback to the past. It was engaging yet not overly challenging and most of the levels I quite liked. A few were a little subpar, with the 7th map being the most annoying with its many doors, switches, and stairways dragging it out longer than it needed to be. But overall it is an hour well spent with gameplay that certainly holds up after all these years and some interesting level designs. If you want a fun experience of early 90's WADs, Serenity should be one of your first picks.