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Even after playing many of the well known more modern wads this is still my favorite megawad. I've played through the entire megawad in both gzdoom and crispy doom. So far I've only been able to finish it on UV once due to its high difficulty level (although I've come pretty close to doing it again) The maps are highly details with overall good layouts and architecture. (However some of the larger maps are quite confusing without the automap. The wad inherits many features from the original iwad such as the intricate monster placements and common use of traps. Many of the maps are directly inspired by maps from plutonia and even doom 2. The music is very well composed and does a good job at complimenting the map. Most maps in the megawad give a good supply of health between encounters which helps stop the maps from dragging out. Ammo can be semi-scarce on some levels but can still be beaten without running out of ammo even without infighting. Enemy encounters are set up so that the levels always keep the player on their toes, while still giving out enough supplies so that the maps don't be become too unfair. A lot of maps will also start with several enemies creating a fast paced experience. Overall, plutonia 2 is one of the best megawads I've ever played and definitely my personal favorite. Favorite map: map 09

Awful megawad, lots of big areas with no interesting design or texture design, many lowering or going up platforms, awful monster placement, dropping chaingunners and hellknights at you even on map01 with very few ammo. No monsters with "deaf" flags, you just have to lower a platform, make a shot and wait for all the monsters to come at you to shoot them down one by one at the bottom of the platform. Secrets are ridiculous, not enough clues to find and if you find one is only to be ambushed by monsters only for a couple of shotgun shells. Monsters hidden under transparent wall/wood textures, they can see you, you can't and when you realize where they are, they've already shot you down. 2 stars for the effort of doing 30 long maps. Edit: as a regular rule in Doom mapping, locked doors should give a hint which color key is needed to open them. In this wad I only saw 1 map doing that, all the other maps didn't have any clue for the locked doors making navigation really painfull

I liked this megawad, but this one surely plays better in co-op as it is designed with that gameplay in mind. Also, i made a dehacked patch for it so i can read how the story goes while playing this excellent megawad This is the most Doom 2 megawad that i played so far. The maps are similary abstract like Doom 2, but this are far better. They are interesting to look and play, but some become a little too long making the experience to drag a little. Its interesting to note that this was release before The Plutonia Experiment, but there are some maps that shows it quirks and i'm not talking about the maps made by Milo And Dario Casali, there are a lot of maps that are designed around the challenge the different monsters in the map will offer. And that shows that the community was heading that way before the great Casalis made their beloved megawad. H2H-Xmas and Memento Mori are megawads (the firsts even) in the style of Plutonia, this is centered around offering an interesting ad challenging experience to the player. This makes TNT: Evilution, the third contender to the be one of the first megawads, the only one that is centered in a more atmospheric and chilling experience with good sparkles of good gameplay. Of the three megawad, Memento Mori is the one that plays better, but TNT: Evilution looks more interesting, while H2H-Xmas offers a great challenge. Aside from that, this megawad gives me the chance to make a custom dehacked patch with new story and also a custom status bar that maybe i will release someday.

I played this megawad a lot, really, maybe too much, like five times in a row while helping Datacore vanilla-fying his work and while making a custom dehacked patch for him. Anyway, this mapset is really enjoyable, and one of the few complete Ultimate Doom megawads out there. The first episode is kinda cramped and with a slow progress, but midway around episode two Datacore start to make the maps a little more bigger, making them a lot easier to navigate. Episode 3 and 4 are the best of the whole set. The maps are short, easy and really abstract in nature, with the right challenge, but a little too saturated of spongy monsters sometimes, so it become tiresome if you play complete episodes on one sit as they are a little too linear. I like the story that i wrote for this mapset, its not marvelous at all, but i always liked the idea of a mentally damaged and traumatized soldier fighting his inner demons. Maybe i love the movie Jacob's Ladder a bit too much hahaha. Protip: The names of the maps of the fourth episode can be read as a poem when put all together. A little easter egg for those who like trivia and insight on works :) Thank you, @Datacore85, for giving me the oportunity to work with you in this megawad, i only made the dehacked patch, but this was my first contribution to the community and i really enjoyed it ;)

ETERNAL DooM is not a megawad, its an experience that had to be lived to be fully undertanded. This is the megawad of the 90's for me in terms of exploration and atonishing sightseeing og the marvelous structures around. This megawad its one of the few that awakes in me a sense of wonder like no other. And to make things better, i played the incredible dehacked patch that @NightFright made, that adds maps names and new text screens with a custom story. This is the ultimate way to play this outstanding work. Now to the flaws: the first two levels are what really define if you would play this megawad or not. The first maps is corridor after corridor, with a little puzzle for the keys to enable the exit, after that, the second map is something completely different, with a very big puzzle map that will catch everybody unprepared. If you can reach map three, your surely are at it now, and after that, is a big alley up, a pretty big mountain ahead full of wonders. Thanks team Eternal and TNT for this amazing work of art. This possibly is the best megawad i played soo far and the one that i most liked. It has almost everything, new textures and graphics, new way of thinking maps, extremelly clever puzzles, a lot of exploration and a full experience. What it lacks? Maybe a proper graphic for the end boss, a proper BOSSBACK also, and some new monsters would be cool, but for a megawad from 1997, this is almost perfect. And the soundtrack! God, thats a marvelous soundtrack!

If you like your Doom levels to play out like a series of intense combat puzzles, then this is certainly up your alley. BG throws a lot of enemies but not a lot of resources so if you do want to play on UV, I'd recommend playing continuously. Pistol starting every level may turn BG from a challenging megawad into a punishing one. To keep the player on their toes, BG likes to ambush the player with monster closets and teleport spawns. Unfortunately, BG likes its teleport spawns too much as there instances when the player is ambushed by sudden imps while a pinkie teleports behind them. Even for a Doom megawad, BG plays this card too often. While the levels never really wowed me, they deftly elicit that vanilla Doom vibe without becoming a DTWiD clone or repeating structures from the IWADS. They're also on the smaller side, which means that they don't meander and getting lost is never a problem. Although BG likes it crowds, I never saw the monster count ever exceed the high 200s. Tough fights in smaller levels is BG's bread and butter. If you can overlook its overreliance on teleport ambushes, BG is a worthwhile megawad especially for vanilla Doom fans. It's vanilla compatible, feels like Ultimate Doom without being a lookalike, and plays much tougher. While it may not suit everyone's taste, BG is sure to have its fans.

Team TNT, when making their first megawad, TNT: Evilution, brought the innovation, at silly as it sound, of big maps, really big open maps. Something that people didn't know was possible withing the engine limitations. But they went even further after that, making Icarus: Alien Vanguard and Eternal Doom. In both, they showed us that maps not only could be big and long, they could also be puzzle-ish and challenging. On the other side, Yonatan Donner and Haggay Niv brought the idea of harder maps with a lot of monster density. Maps specifically designed by a speedrunner to speedrun. And with a lot of ingenuity, this couple of mappers make something that to this day is regarded as a breaking moment on map making. Years later, a little team of mappers combined those two branches of mapping into one monstrous megawad. Led by Anders Johnsen, some first timers and some veterans make a megawad that to this day, and possibly forever, will be regarded as the best megawad ever. Starting with a low key that promises a lot of fun to come, the megawad blend the different mapping styles perfectly on every map with a cohesive look of orange, brown and green, with a few touches of different textures here and there. What can i say that it was already say abouth this megawad? it has everything!!! Good map design with godly ideas, awesome encounters, awe inspiring visuals, and most important of all, its really fun to play. The story of the megawad is a bit there just to not use the original text screens, but it works and, even if not the better out there, it feels rewarding when they come. Something about a double cross the aliens make to the UAC and now they make a last attempt to invade us. Anyway, the highlight are all the maps maybe, there is no weak map o the mapset... but i found some uncohesive desicions here and there. For example, going from techbase to medieval to techbase, to medieval, then egyptian, then medieval, then techbase and then kinda medieval hellish is rather strange, but it works...not at a narrative level, but it works somehow. more specific highlights: EPISODE 1: -map04: Seclusion shows a good starting where previous map ends, and thats a neat touch, also the maps is really awesome. -map05: Crimson Tide has an awesome feel to it. I only see something similar to it on TNT:R map04: Blood Factory, but here it works a lot with a kinda Doom2 map14: The inmost Dens feel to it. -map06: Hillside Siege awesome episode ending map, and the Hillside is wonderfully made. -map08: Beast Island the first explorative map and is an awesome really inspiring map with a lot of height variations. -map10: Toxic Touch the waste tunnels of the castle we found on map08, simply amazing design with a great use of lightning contrast. -map11: Nemesis. Gigantic map, remind me a little to Joe Pallai's 2002: ADO E4M6: Dementia. But where that map fails, having an obscure progression and being a slog to kill all those barons, Demesis made it good with all the Doom 2 bestiary use at it full extent. Great experience. And awesome episode ending. EPISODE 2: -map12: Entropy is a great opener for sure, the starting area is awesome and the rest of the map is wonderfully made with a lot of teleport traps that make for a good challenge. -map13: Suicidal Tendencies, probably one of the most round up maps of the set. Looks good, plays good and have a lot of challenge. -map15: Bulls on Parade, awesome map with a lot of interesting details like the computer area, or the garden outside. The elevator down is a highpoint on tension for the map. -map31: Killer Colours. simple and amazing use of recolored textures that make one hell of a map with some neat encounters and color coded enemies, too. -map19: Alien Resurrection, starts simple, but gradually unfolds into a wonderfully detailed map. Highlight the end corridor with thoose hanging bodies over the bridge. -map20: Misri Halek, deemed as the best map ever made, it is for me a great achievement, especially under vanilla limits. The starting area is just mesmerizing, and the mountain climb is just awesome. But aside from that, it is a little oppresive, as most action is took underground, and it goes a little longer than one would expect. Aside from that, yes, i haven't see any map like this anywhere else. EPISODE 3: -map21: One Flow over the Caco's Nest. Linear and fun map with hellish touches and nice rooms to look at. -map23: Blood Sacrife, starts like a followup to map10: Toxic Touch, and then unfolds into a great castle like map. The castle area has awesome details, like the fake 3d bridges that could make for a confusing progression, but its beyond awesome. -map24: Clandesite Complex, ehhh totally out of nowhere tech base map. Fortunatelly, its the best tech base map on the set, with a lot of height variations, good encounters and nice visuals. Love when you have to take the route down the sewers. That part is simply amazing! -map25: Demonic Hordes a map divided on different areas, all of them awesome looking. Starting hellish looking then going for a more Heretic styled area, with a nice building that kinda looks like a graveyard, and then a town square that leds to more side areas. The hillside chaingunner encounter is one of the best looking secrets i have seen ever. -map26: Dark Dome. Sincerelly, i hate Post Mortem style of maps, supposely they are inspired by Doom2 map29: The Living End, but they don't play at all like it, and Dark Dome is a really hot take on that style. there is almost no safe space, and one could run into a lot of ammo waste. But well, it is fun and really challenging. -map27: Stench of Evil, linear and fun, with a totally lovable Thy Flesh Consume aesthetic and even an easter egg referencing it. -map28: Whispering Shadows, long and sprawling map that comes and goes back and forward but is fun and totally good looking. -map29: Fire Walk With Me, probably my favourite map on the set, a lot of great visuals, and awesome encounters. The hanging imps, just that, just that make this map awesome. -map30: Point Dreadful, even for being a simple IOS map, it have some interesting things, like the strange sound that plays when you reach the portal, and the totally evil Romero speech that sounds at the IOS. Aside from that, hell, its really hard to find the timing to shoot it, and that fucking elevator is really far away. This mapset proves and stood to time like no other. Awesome adventure, awesome challenge, awesome visuals. Every mapset that come later tried to be the next Alien Vendetta. But to this day, no mapset dethroned the king of all megawads. Thanks to all the AV Team for this marvelous megawad. You guys surely spend a lot of time on these maps.

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.

Normally, I don't like DooM (1 or UD) WADs because I tired shooting baddies with shotgun as most of them tend put a lot of shotgun guys/ammo and I have shot those full of shotty shit...well, this one can't escaped from that but I found author's tricky as I didn't found many of them(or they placed when I needed to use shotty), also the monster placements(with middle-tier ones) in this megawad helped too, even E1 doesn't suffers low-tier ammo-droping-fest unlike IWAD and most PWADs. Level layouts and theme are interesting, some E3 levels just a little mazed but I feel okay, never get lost...many levels I feel plays like IWAD but better and larger, you'll found middle-tier monsters in E1 levels and it helps the gameplay, unlike the IWAD you'll have too much ammo in every level even pistol start, if you wasted too much and will out of ammo for sure(at least in UV). All I can say about this megawad is...fun, vanilla fun. Except E3M8, the yellow key area with platforming when all enemies + 4 cyberdemons are try to kill me and battles-of-deal-with-4-cyberdemons-or/and-other-powerful-monsters are nasty to me, on top of them, the final "BOSS"...I feel trolled...really? IoS-style?? IT'S ****ING DOOM, NOT DOOM 2 WHY USE IOS-STYLE AS FINAL BOSS?! :P (At least there is no respawning monster cubes just annoying cyberdemons and barons...but they're still give me a lot of headaches as the battle area isn't very huge and a little cramped I think...) But at least IDMUS11 helps me dealt with those problems all, for some reasons I feel the main theme of Power Ranger does fit DooM...don't know why but I keep switch to the theme with IDMUS11 cheat if I don't like the level's music, helps me blast through this megawad and the nasty E3M8. :P

most of the forgotten megawads tend to be the ones in the main megawads section not made by well-known community members. however, this one is an interesting exception, as it is a forgotten megawad made by the one and only Kaiser, way back in 2000 even and NOT in the megawads folder but rather in the TeamTNT return folder of all places, yet if people were to play something in the TeamTNT folder, they might not stumble on this one. DSV is one of the more complex wads I can think of judging by the download alone, with several packets that encompass several different source ports, like Boom, MBF, and ZDoom, and there are some subtle changes between the different versions of this megawad. some reviewers have noted stealth monster usage, which of course only applies to the ZDoom version. I only played the Boom version for this wad so this is what my review is based on. Also for those of you guys saying that there's missing textures, load the wad with RETRES.wad since it solves everything in that regard. first and foremost, the weapon sprites are hideous as hell, especially the pickup sprites. they're also not too different from vanilla weapons. from what I see, some monsters only get sprite replacements from Heretic/Hexen enemies and that's it for them. rather lame. and level design? honestly, if you are familiar with Kaiser's most famous work, you'd see some pretty intricate design and gameplay, the kind that weaves back and forth between nasty techbases with some pretty difficult combat. just look at the Internal Reaches levels (two of which are in Community Chest 1-2) as well as the levels in CIF3 if you want examples of what I'm trying to say. those examples? they aren't like this wad. DSV has boxy layouts and not a whole lot of good detail, with some levels approaching 1994 levels of detail, primitive, monster placement seemingly puts one type of monster in rooms and hallways, and some rooms and hallways are oversized and easy. supplies given are also abundant, pretty much voiding difficulty in a lot of places. most levels are generally medium sized, but only because of some padding which honestly isn't necessary in most places. there's some bad moments of backtracking too, which doesn't really help matters too much when enemies come in since some teleporter closets are not constructed right. MAP31 is an appropriate example of what I'm talking about, it's even called "First Level" owing to the fact it is Kaiser's first level, blatantly oversized, Nirvana MIDI, humongous and somewhat ineffective teleporter ambushes, and almost Maximum Doom levels of detail. by judging some of the other levels though, we can tell Kaiser back in the day was still the console Doom fan he is now, since many levels share both names and similar designs to Doom 64 levels, also including PSX Doom's Twilight Descends and the Mansion as MAP17 and MAP25 along with a version of the console Hell Keep (MAP13 I think). it's not on the same level as Absolution or Doom 64 in Doom 2, but it tries. I wouldn't want to say it fails though, because the levels tend to be just bad at the very worst but not excruciatingly bad as in I don't want to play it again. the levels don't reach the stride of good maps of course. of course, the best I can say is it's average, and it shows. we should be glad Kaiser's best levels don't look anything like these.

Really great adventure!!! From the get go you are greeted with a pure Ultimate Doom experience. The .txt said it is a boom megawad, but there are no boom features, it was made in the time when PrBoom was the limit removing port, along with ZDoom, and thus being made with them in mind. But in fact, all maps are almost vanilla, and it is just recommended for zdoom because of the extra maps acceded via mapinfo lump, but it can be played on Crispy Doom, for example, without problems at all. The maps have a good balance between abstract and realistic architecture, making the experience really good as the adventure unfolds. Love the atmosphere here!!! Really good maps, really good music, interesting story, and fun gameplay... almost! Yes, from Episode 1 to Episode 3 we get one of the best Ultimate Doom experiences, but in Episode 4, things start to get out of balance a little. I know that UD's Thy Flesh Consumed is a great step up on difficulty from the previous maps, but 2002: A Doom Odyssey's Torment Ultimaa grant us not a ramp up on difficulty, but on tediousness! Almost all maps suffer from cramped spaces and spongy monsters encounters, taking a really long time to end this episode. Ok, Barons spice up the difficulty, but not because they are hard and heavy hitting, but because there are not much ammo per map, it takes almost 100 ammo from the chaingun, and almost 10 to 12 shotgun bulls to end this suckers, put almost 15 per map (I hate you E4M6: Pallai's Dementia, is totally awesome map in layout, but the boring and repetitive gameplay and being really large in comparison to previous maps, makes it a borefest!) and you need a lot of ammo... thats not good at all. Aside from that, this mapset is a great classic! Thanks Paul Corfiatis, Kristian Aro, Virgil The Doom Poet (badass name, pal!), Joe Pallai, Chris Hansen. Sam Woodman, Rory Habich and Vick Bobkov. This megawad for UD is surely the best one!!!

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.

chances are, you've probably seen Dal02 by the same author, it was a megawad of mostly small arena levels which was made for some specific playstyle that nobody really uses. and the author of this was also the author of NeoDoom, honestly one of my least favorite wads ever. this is somehow not in the megawads section of idgames, or actually because of what I had to do, ports/megawads. but then again, this is somehow, somehow worse than I had ever expected. i'm not sure where to start. the levels are of course big, but almost all of them are big for the sake of being big. it takes a lot of the fun factor out of the levels if you're not killing anything for minutes while you try to figure out what you're supposed to be doing. it's not just speedrun-unfriendly or max-unfriendly, it's just unfriendly maps that don't really have much purpose or direction. and that's one of the reasons they are so bad. these are maps that have huge expanses of land, with MAP03, MAP22, and MAP25 probably being the worst overall offenders, as you're expected to head around the level's perimeter in these maps, and staying on the high ground is more troublesome than you'd be led to believe. it takes FUCKING FOREVER PLEASE DON'T MAKE LONG MAPS FOR THE SAKE OF THEM BEING LONG GIVE SOME ACTUAL GAMEPLAY THAT IS FUN TO GO THROUGH. nearly every Eternal Doom level is easier to solve than some of these maps. if you want to really start this megawad, skip to MAP04. why I say this is because the first three maps have serious balancing issues in gameplay, you'll fight no hitscanners in the first map, and you'll only get a shotgun and chainsaw but they're actually quite late while you pistol imps, and you don't see shotgun guys (or get their weapons) until late in the next map. also these three maps all require jumping to complete. again I mentioned MAP03 earlier but it is the "jump around perimeter map" that really sucks. you don't start getting good weapons until MAP04, which while only average is somehow one of the better maps. the maps that follow it aren't actually too bad gameplay-wise. Daniel's detailing of cities really shines in the sandbox city maps that are MAP14 and MAP16 (a resort town), they are HUGE but actually quite wonderful. his monster and item placement overall however leaves quite a lot to be desired. prepare to fight every type of monster in every map, expecting some really nasty gameplay only at times since Daniel saturates the player with pickups, so you're liable to run into invulnerabilities right before cyberdemons (there was even a map that has a room full of soul spheres). the quality of the levels in the middle is fantastic but is brought down by all the rest, the maps that are long just to be long are awful and completely ruin it, and yes you need jumping for some of the maps which should have been specified in the textfile.

This is a renowned community project that brought together prominent authors of the first decade of 2000s. As many have noticed, the cumbersome name Plutonia 2 aptly describes the visual outcome and the fact that this mod is based on PLUTONIA.WAD. It should not imply that the design or the gameplay follows the style set by the Casali brothers. In fact, this is an ambitious megaWAD made of sprawling maps, gradually increasing their size and monster count, presenting a good degree of detail and complexity, with quantity often surpassing the quality of the offering. Expect most maps to be open, disorienting, with a few progression choices that are not so obvious and destined to waste your time. Nothing extremely puzzling, just very long, and often tedious since every area contains a lot of enemies, sometimes placed effectively, but sometimes just there waiting to be killed. I played the easy way, continuous with saves, but I was surprised that the ambushes on UV did not kill me more often, since I was going in without any prior knowledge. I was also baffled by the ammo scarcity, which often left me without rockets and cells, despite the carryover ammo. In general, most of these levels were big and overstuffed with opposition that rarely managed to trap or surprise the player. On the positive side, there are lots of great-looking areas and scenarios. The first 15 maps were the sweetest part, with the size kept smaller and thus easy to navigate. I thoroughly enjoyed that part of the ride, except on a few occasions. The Doom Community must have a penchant for big epics to nominate MAP11: Arch-Violence as the most memorable map of this set (placing 20th in the 2018 poll), with MAP29: Ticket to Eternity following in popularity. While they had interesting areas and ideas (the "Escher Dome" in the first and the Keen puzzle to find the credits room in the second), they were both overstretched and never seemed to reach the end. I prefer smaller maps and adventures; among my favourites, I mention MAP10: Cosmodrome, MAP20: Lurking Fear, MAP25: Black Ice, MAP 26: Plutopia. All maps by Gusta and Thomas Van Der Velden were enjoyable somehow, and those two authors deserve praise for bringing the never-ending development to completion. On the other hand, I felt that the older submissions by Metabolist and others dragged for too long without going nowhere. Plutonia 2 is not a sequel to The Plutonia Experiment, except in the storyline. It goes further from there, increasing the size and complexity of the levels, but losing the peculiar use and efficient placement of monsters along the way. It still managed to be challenging at times (I confess I gave up the boss fight because I cannot hit the hidden brain, great Gatekeeper visuals though) and some levels felt quite an adventure. The problem is that too many levels want to be like that, going for a quantity over quality approach that I came to dislike in the second half of the playthrough. It was worth playing, but its high rating and name might suggest a closer affinity with the IWAD prequel. If you look for that type of gameplay, you will probably be disappointed; if you are familiar with community output from those years, this PWAD has some real epics to offer.

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.

more or less another standard Doom 2 megawad, with mostly standard gameplay. the things you must watch out for are how some of the encounters are laid out. things can get quite sneaky, like when a monster opens up a closet on its own to attack you. not a whole lot of this megawad is memorable to be honest, as most levels took between 3 to 6 minutes to play and most got down quickly. but it's fine. you can get mixed up with some puzzles, be sure which lift does what when playing. and definitely mow those chaingunners down because they will make your life a mess here.

Yonatan Donner and Haggay Niv's Hell Revealed was about as hard a megawad could get back in 1997, but you never would believe so looking at the first few maps. Maps 1-8 and 10 are cordial and pleasant enough levels which aim to make you feel powerful and almighty, slaughtering many foes into claustrophia enducing layouts where you won't have much room to move. Hell Revealed likes its tight corridors and hallways and they will be a recurring motif until the very end of the level set. Starting with Map 11, Underground Base, HR finally reveals its hand. Prepare to fight off waves of beefy enemies like barons, mancubi, revenants, archviles and cyberdemons, all with very little supplies and weapons at your disposal. You have to be expected to have a good eye for secrets to even get the basic tools you need to do your job, at least when playing on Ultra Violence difficulty. Levels like Last Look at Eden (MAP13) and City in the Clouds (MAP14) almost play like puzzles, where you must figure out what the developer intends you to do. Fail to figure out the correct route? Have fun killing hordes of mid-tier monsters with just a shotgun and chaingun! Even then, following the correct path usually just gives you a super shotgun, which only slightly lessens the tedium factor. Throughout all of Hell Revealed, you will be constantly circle strafing in square or circular rooms, slowly shooting down hordes of beefy monsters with the SSG until several minutes later, everything is dead. This prospect gets even worse when level layouts are often devised to make infighting more difficult to happen than it should and the overbearing presence of Barons of Hell, which rule this WAD with an iron fist. Maps like The Path (MAP16), Hard Attack (MAP18) and Judgment Day (MAP20) commit to a grind-heavy mindset where battles are very slow, meticulous and painstakingly boring to win, which is the one factor that likely ages this WAD the worst. Hell Revealed is often criticized for its very crude looks, but I find it oddly charming and it has a strong visual identity. For better and for worse, you all remember the searing pink skies, Arachnophobia (MAP7)'s layout, where you fight spiders inside a giant spider, the heavily fortified areas and courtyard of Last Look at Eden, the circular ramparts of Gates to Hell (MAP15), the Doomcute flourishes of The Siege, where you start inside a cozy house that demons can't invade. It also has some stunning looking maps, like the future base of Ascending to the Stars (MAP23) and the experimental Afterlife (MAP26). It does make up for some of the more flat and brown maps like Chambers of War (MAP10) or Hard Attack (MAP18). The music of the WAD is taken straight from Rise of the Triad, but its soundtrack runs out around MAP20, where the rest of the journey must be undertook with the default Doom 2 music (with the exception of some ROTT reprisals at MAP27 and MAP29). While Hell Revealed mostly commits to grindy gameplay, the script does deviate a few times throughout the level set and these moments tend to be the most memorable. MAP9, Knockout, will give you a boxing tutorial where you will be expected to punch out over 200 imps, saving the shotgun and chaingun for emergencies and monsters you can't punch out. It sticks out in a weird way in the MAP 1-10 stretch, being the only big challenge in an easy lot of stages and its gameplay never gets replicated. Mostly Harmful (MAP32) hints toward the slaughter gameplay that would get perfected by the community years later and finally allows you to go nuts with the firepower, which is needed since an unreachable Icon of Sin will be spawning new monsters constantly, forcing you to stay on the move. This remains one of the better uses of the IoS in a WAD and the concept would be reprised much later in Ancient Aliens' MAP18. Everything Dies (MAP19) is an easy gimmick map to like: you get all weapons, ammo, health and armor at the very beginning, but nothing else after that. You need to stay resourceful and minimize risk to reach the end, but its encounters shy away from cheap gotcha! moments and are fun to plow through. Resistance is Futile (MAP22) is a great fast-paced slaughter map that gave birth to many imitators throughout the years and might be HR's single most influential moment. Post Mortem (MAP24) is half puzzle, half brutality incarnate: you will be cremated at the seems until you figure out where to carve a footstep through this Living End homage flooded with Hell's worst of the worst. The main difference between Post Mortem and maps like Last Look at Eden is that Post Mortem doesn't shy away from giving you supplies and ammo, you are given all the tools you need to reliably succeed and it's up to you to get them and methodically chip away at this hell cave scenario. Dead Progressive (MAP25) builds around Dead Simple and makes it a much more compelling compact level with tight and snappy combat. Afterlife (MAP26) features a dream world where you walk through space and find some distorted pockets which warp you to hostile arenas. Once you're past them, don't relax yet; archviles will resurrect ghost monsters that will keep hounding you until you can finally find the exit... So Hell Revealed can be great when it wants to, but it also can leave really bad impressions. The Descent (MAP31) is... an elevator descent that lasts way too long and can easily be cheesed by standing on the teleport marker. The rest of the level is so flat it could have been made in Wolfenstein 3D and features cyberdemon fights in tiny rooms, which always are a big gamble. Hard Attack offers some thrills with the teleporting cyberdemon duel, then wastes all of its goodwill on its fort rampart section which is packed with so many barons and revenants (and not remotely enough ammo to take them on). Judgment Day (MAP20) emphasizes the worst of HR's grindy gameplay mentality, making you fight so many heavies with just a shotgun and chaingun (the super shotgun is hidden away in a secret area). Ascending to the Stars (MAP23) is likely the cheapest map in the whole set, piling in ambushes where you either can't do anything to protect yourself (that elevator ride down in a chaingunner filled room is all based on luck) or the tedium required to power your way through them will make you want to tear your hair out (the penultimate archvile room is the worst the whole WAD has to offer, as backing away from the archviles will force you in a teleporter pad you will have to teleport through roughly 500 million times). Hell Revealed (MAP 30) is the worst Icon of Sin fight there could be and likely will ever exist. Featuring a quad-demon spawner, several archviles in the back, a cyberdemon patrolling the lift you need to ride and hordes of revenants on platforms, you'll be lucky to even be able to land rockets in the Icon's brain and not kill yourself trying to pull the trigger. Hell Revealed was a very inspirational megawad for its time and some of its lessons were put to good use by other contemporary mappers, especially for projects like Kama Sutra or Alien Vendetta. Thankfully, the lessons that were pulled from Hell Revealed had more to do about how maps like Resistance is Futile, Post Mortem and Mostly Harmful were great map concepts that needed to be revisited at all costs and less emphasis on "super shotgun kills baron good eventually yay". As a full project, it's very uneven. The first episode is mostly on the easy side and isn't favored by most Doom veterans, but later on, the grind and dedication required to beat some of these maps can drive people up to the wall. Hell Revealed has lots of value as a historical artifact but has too many sags throughout its running time to be equally enjoyed gameplay-wise. It's a difficult WAD, but its difficulty often stems from resource depravation and grindy encounters, which is a tough sale today.

Fair share? I'll ignore the fact I keep rage quitting because of map 28. Scythe is taking everything too much to the extreme. I liked the first 20 maps and from then on... Yeah. I played it even once on HMP and still 28 frustrated me. All because of one revenant. I'm not gonna say too much. It was a big dilemma if to give 3 or 4. But I'll give 4. Why won't I give 5: Combat is unfair. Lots of monsters in cramped spaces aren't my thing. If you think it's the difficulty, read my HR and AV reviews. Seems like I can handle difficult stuff. In Scythe I simply don't enjoy it and it simply made me give up on megawads. That, until that infamous @Nine Inch Heels comment came as a slap in the face for me. On HMP it's at least more manageable. Not that much grinding and I can breathe a bit calmer. It sems like short maps aren't my thing either. Also the majority are the player thrown in one arena and fight. That's not how I like playing Doom. Lots of fighting must be done in a forceful way. Like in so many fights, especially map 26, the way to go is "use the BFG well or die." There are 6 other weapons. Let the player use them if they want! Can there be more cover in a few maps? Like I said, everything is taken to the extreme and I'm not a fan of extremism. But still, this won't make me give 3 in the end, because this wad doesn't deserve it. I'm talking on my behalf only. Some maps make me want to just go into another wad and simply go through a maze of corridors, just to take a break from Scythe. These are my two cents and I'd rather be banished from the community forever than playing this ever again! Erik, you had to take some lessons from Yonatan Donner if you wanted to make hard maps. He seems to be the best at that. Oh wait, @Andy_Johnsen actually is better. No matter, just get out of my head!

I remember playing this when it first came out. What I don't remember is what led me to not save it in my collection of WADs to play through. When ESP2 was released on the forums, I decided to go back and play through ESP before I tried my hand at ESP2. Well, now I remember why I didn't save ESP in the past. These are some very hard levels. While many of them consist of slaughtermaps, I found more often than not the reason these maps were difficult is because they're navigational nightmares. It's Eternal Doom levels of "where the fuck do I go" and not the good kind. It gets irritating to clear out a room full of monsters then spend the next 15 - 20 minutes figuring out what to do or where to go next in order to move on. Some levels seem broken as well though this could be because I was using GZDoom with compatibility settings set to Boom. I don't know if it was intentional to use a rocket jump to reach the yellow key room in map 21 but that was what I did in order to finally get up there. Map 30 doesn't work at all in (G)ZDoom because of the need for thingrunning but even then it's the most puzzle oriented of the maps. There's a YouTube video of map 30 being done and that's well beyond my abilities. Map 33 seems to rely a lot on platforming but even then I was lost as to where to go. Some levels have inescapable traps and/or pits, which I'm not a fan of. Anti-shout out to map 15 (Drown in Blood) for having not one, not two, not three, but a lot of fake paths that will crush you to death if you choose them. I know it seems like I'm coming down hard on this megaWAD but I did enjoy it. Just not in the usual sense. I did cheat. I used God mode and eventually used sv_infiniteammo 1 just so I could observe the construction and flow of the levels. Despite the fact that this megaWAD isn't my cup of tea (and I don't think it's gonna be for most people either), the amount of time and thought and work that TimeofDeath put into these levels shows. They're not randomly constructed and the monster placement isn't just blobs upon blobs of monsters. There's a method to the madness and admittedly I only slightly understand it due to the fact that I'm an average player. I feel like one needs to be on the skill of level of TimeofDeath to fully appreciate what he's made. Ultimately, this feels like a set of maps made for him. And you know what? That's okay. I'm glad he shared these levels with us for us to try out anyway, even if most Doomers will get roflstomped by them and/or need some absurd overpowered gameplay mod like Russian Overkill to progress.

Done with these settings: - Crispy Doom 4.2 - Hurt Me Plenty. - Continuous combined with double fists start mindset. - Saves every 10 minutes or so. This is an interesting old megawad. Looks and feels different from the usual Doom. That is to say, it's a partial conversion, there're a lot of new textures, new monsters, new weapons, new sounds, and a new character. All of these are combined with a gameplay that is focused not only on killing monsters, but on exploring too. So yeah, Strain is pretty unique, and I liked this change of pace. There are a lot of nice visuals and detailing, not very polished but that's fine. As something that clearly claims to stay away from the ordinary Doom style, what predominates here are puzzles, lots of puzzles, some are good, some are obscure, and some are the entire level (map 21 ahem...). Also, labyrinths, switch hunts, corridors, lift after lift, and the incidental hordes of monsters to remember you're actually playing something alike Doom. I'm not saying the mapset is boring, no no no, it brings a lot of cool battles, brutal starts, and makes you work your brain, again not in a popular Doom-ish way, to find the exit or grab something important. In many maps, progression is far from intuitive, sometimes you'll cross a linedef and hear something opening or closing, or you'll flip a switch that opens a cabin of monsters that has a wall with different texture that you must open to progress. In other maps, it's quite simple and relies on the typical key hunt. Backtracking is heavily present in this mapset. About the new monsters, of all of them I liked the Minister of Pain and Dopplegangers the most, mainly because I found them quite funny, specially the mini-cyber which is adorable. Holo-bots are fine, their stealth version can be a pain in the ass. Red demon isn't more interesting than the original, it just consumes more ammo and time. Demon Lords are dangerous, I found that I could exploit their attack from a certain distance, but from close it's best to treat them as a hitscanner, that is to say, covering yourself everytime he shoots. Polydrones are another dangerous enemy, their corpses are damaging and I found myself inevitably stepping on them and aching. They might replace the mastermind but their chaingun is not the super one. Second class imps are creepy. Finally, BFG Troopers are just cheap, specially on map 30, at least they are not that common. About the new weapons, well the rapid pistol and shotgun are more useful, the double fists are good, the NFG is ok but I didn't like that the maximum was only 100 cells, it runs out so quickly. It also has a safety pin for whatever reason. I didn't understand the BFG replacement, it apparently functions like a slower rocket launcher, and why does it shoot stealth balls? Idk, I barely used it anyway, all I know is that it's powerful. Secrets, there are a lot of non-secrets in the maps, almost all of them contain a megaarmor (which equals 300 not 200). The midis are good. My favourite maps are 04, 18, 22, and 24. The IoS map is acceptable, but didn't feel like a truly boss map. Map 21 is all puzzles, some without hints, I didn't enjoyed this one too much. Overall, enjoyable, probably hasn't aged so well. If you're in the mood for anything that I said above, this is going to be your thing. One personal recommendation, there is no pistol start but fists start here, a lot of maps are very very tight on ammo and weird balanced (e.g. punching shotgunners at the start, tons of rockets and no rocket launcher, having to shotgun a lot of demons), so be patient, or try on continuous first... anyway, 6,5/10.

so it seems I have not actually written a full review of Eternal Doom yet, Eternal Doom is often touted as the classic megawad of getting lost, with people crying "SWITCH HUNT!" and completely obtuse progression no casual player can think of. yet if I were to have a say, I'd say it's the best thing TeamTNT ever actually made. by comparison, Icarus is a standard megawad with some weird bits, and the same for Evilution. Daedalus is all sorts of fucked up, and the deathmatch sets aren't memorable to the singleplayer levels. this means that Eternal Doom forever stands the test of time despite its age. you'll be happy for some of the shorter maps, which include MAP01, MAP06-08, MAP16-18, MAP21, and contrary to popular belief, MAP28. for the rest though, you'll get lost, that's the whole point. you'll likely cry foul at the obtuseness of several of the levels, in which knowing the author style really sort of helps. but when you're not hating it, you're liking it. some puzzles are actually fun, and combat remains serviceable in most locations. there's still loads of obscurity, so it helps to use that automap, especially for the memorable MAP12. from the looks of it, it looks like Chris Couleur and Dia Westerteicher were the two who's maps will likely be felt the most. Couleur's style is making generally expansive locations in medieval fields, so there's a lot of room to run around in and quite a lot of meat in every nook and cranny imaginable. I can perhaps think it would get old after a while, but MAP11 is a nice treat and easily the best map he's done. Westerteicher seems to be responsible for most of the shorter outings, all of which have at least one bit of obtuse progression that casual players won't see. MAP03 is his best work if I'm being honest, and one of the best ways to utilize six keys in a non-Boom fashion. for the other authors, we have Adam Landefeld, with two large and two short maps, usually similar in style to Dia, Alex Mayberry, with two very linear levels, and Paul Schmitz, who may have made two short maps by ED standards, but actually somehow manages to make their progression memorable by being quite perplexing. the showstealers are Sverre Kvernmo, Jim Flynn, and Bob Evans. it's likely these are the ones who's maps will be the ones you'll get lost in the most. Kvernmo went with MAP04, a large crate maze and sewer system, although progressing through it is generally just long, while MAP05 is actually quite short. MAP12 however is a certified magnum opus, a nicely done medieval castle with an interesting puzzle for the yellow key that still proves memorable to this day. the late Jim Flynn holds three rather notorious maps, the first being Monster Mansion (MAP31) a map that holds the most insane realism of a mansion with loads of crannies. the next is the appropriately named Beginner's End (MAP25) with numbers of confusing puzzles, and having to retrace your steps often, then right after that is the frantic MAP26, loads of ground to cover but hard to even go around. then there's Bob Evans; if MAP20 makes you squirm trying to figure out where and what is to be done, MAP30 will certainly be a true treasure hunt. these two maps are the ones where you'll need all the luck and patience to go through them. I've played Eternal Doom all the way through many times, and my opinion of stuff tends to shift constantly on each and every map, but I tend to enjoy what I play through as I go along and memorize where anything and everything is. Eternal Doom surprisingly has linear key progression throughout the entire set, something that I'd love to see done in level progression diagrams some time soon. its maps are made out to be both long and memorable and perfectly deliver on those fronts, standing the test of time to this day. of course, there are much longer and larger maps than even Excalibur, which shows how inspirational the whole set ends up being to make much longer creative children. all this makes this the greatest accomplishment TeamTNT ever made.

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.

"Straight into oblivion, full speed ahead! Forward, and demonspeed... This is the Ultimate Death... " (Excerpt from Demonspeed, by Craft). But is it fast enough? We shall find out soon enough. Or maybe not. Speed of Doom has been finished, played through PrBoom+ 2.5.1.5 on UV difficulty. Let's see what this is all about. Speed of Doom is a 32-level megawad designed by 2 guys with pistol starting in mind, one handled the first half, the other one the second part. It comes with new fonts, status bar, menu background, music, intermission screen, and textures. SoD takes places mostly on techbases and Hell, and features suicide exits at the end of the respective episodes. The gameplay is largely skill focused, relying on the player's ability to get the best out of the encounters due to their usage and placement. Although it was designed by 2 guys, there doesn't appear to be a whole lot of difference between the episodes, primarily because all maps play very similar and there isn't much in terms of design to create contrast between them, with one possible exception: The first half appears to strongly emphasize the use of the Berserk fist, as suggested by its presence at the beginning of most maps and the amount of resources placed in the level. This however, can be worked around on many occasions, as one can also rely on enemy infighting for instance and let the monsters kill each other, thus saving ammo and being able to kill the survivors with the weapon of your choice. This seems to change in the final episode, as seen on MAP21 where the player is tasked with punching a good amount of enemies after committing suicide at the end of the previous level. There are weapons, but you will not be able to kill much with them as there's very little to no ammo. This brings up the topic of difficulty. The difficulty curve in Speed of Doom is basically nonexistent. Despite starting relatively easy and getting more difficult as you progress, there are many difficulty spike down the road, so you might end up playing a map that's rather easy only to end up in an absolutely murderous map next, and then repeat. This is also the main problem of the megawad, the difficulty is pretty much all over the place. Some maps are very predictable, thus dealing with enemies does not prove to be problematic in general, while others go cheap on the player by having deadly enemies hidden in the shadows, resulting in easy and sometimes frustrating deaths as you might end up dodging projectiles and not knowing where do they even come from exactly. It doesn't help that sometimes enemies just pop up in front of you or behind you with no warning. The most frustrating maps are going to be MAP21, MAP22, and MAP27, for all the wrong reasons. In fact, all problematic parts of SoD could have easily been better if they weren't designed for a very specific gameplay style, the author thus forcing you to do them his way, not however you'd like to, sucking plenty of enjoyment out of them in the process. This sometimes works in SoD's favor, but once you're nearing the end the problem becomes apparent. Additionally, many maps can be done blind without putting a lot of effort into them, whereas those like MAP29 require previous knowledge due to the overall amount of ammo in them and nasty traps which will be very difficult if not impossible if you mismanage your resources, but by the time you realize this it will be far too late and your only choice will be to either skip the level, or redo it from scratch. After all is said and done, the journey ends with a slaughter kind of IoS map with 2000 enemies. A fitting finale, and yet, it could have done just fine without the IoS, but since it's more akin to blowing up a reactor, it presents a somewhat interesting take on the concept. My favorite parts are going to be the first 2 episodes, and MAP28. To sum up, the reputation of Speed of Doom is justified as it is indeed a high quality megawad, but due to its flaws (of which the most important have been mentioned above) it does not get a rating higher than 3/5 from me. It is worth one's time, especially for veterans and players who are into demo recording, but it proves to be pretty difficult to recommend it for players who are just looking for something fun and challenging to play as some maps are extremely frustrating with their encounters and traps. You are also forced to abandon your play style in SoD since the authors force you to do it their way, not yours. It explores many different types of maps and styles (slaughter and survival are only 2 of them), has a pretty interesting story, and it gets a lot of things right, but it could have been better. If you want to try it out, go right ahead, but know what you're getting yourself into.

Let's see, four stars, lots of favorable reviews. Unfortunately I was misled by the title. Was not really expecting thirty-two maps here, thought it was a Doom 2 MAP21 tribute (it has one MAP21-like map though). And then I was misled even further So it's a jokewad. A terrible one though, as I did not find anything funny in the 32 levels I played. Maps are intentionally made to be crappy, with loads of nasty monsters in almost impossible situations, yet not so impossible since this was made for demoers from the looks of it. Except for a few, the screenshot Philnemba took of MAP17's monster count is one thing, but the map itself was completely unplayable for me to the point I had to soft restart (and my computer is usually capable of handling most lag-inducing levels so shut the fuck up). MAP25 after some time had the same issue. However you put it, anyone who wants a good megawad MUST stay clear, for even if you god mode through looking for the good things it still isn't exciting. But those who never take the game seriously will love it of course. Or rather, anyone who doesn't take anything seriously will enjoy it. I prefer actually fun wads myself. You obviously expected this kind of review to come along, didn't you? Come at me.