What are you playing now?

So I played through the much-fabled Mars Doom last night. Not to say too much about the .WAD itself, it's a late 90's affair, has it's issues and fair share of "where the fuck now?" moments, but anyone who's played it can probably guess where I'm going with this.

From a technical standpoint, I really do tip my hat to the authors. To effectively pull off an escort mission in Doom using only DEHackED is no mean feat, but as I led this poor girl to safety, all I wanted to do was this:

(work safe)
http://i.imgur.com/0aZS1nq.png

"There ya go, love, get that around ye. You're gonna catch your death running about like that."

I'm no prude, but that was just cheap and unnecessary. Why is her bap hanging out? Even Doom's stock zombies have a bit of clothing damage, but this is just ridiculous. Also, she's taller than me by a clear head.

Good work scalliano, iirc I gave up on map02 because all the death traps totally pissed me off. Then I opened the readme where the authors were making fun of me for falling for their traps. Boo.

The Real TC kind of fits alongside Roger Ritenour's "Earth" and "Phobos". I wasn't enamored of it considering just how short and linear the levels are but I liked the novelty of the jungle and Zona's use of ambient noises.

Went on to play Containment Area. It's a nice adventure-ish E2M2 in Doom II level but the health is pretty tight through most of the set, making things hard, and that first Cyberdemon you bump into on UV took me way longer than it should have to kill. Still, I had a lot of fun.

Played Hostage Rescue 3, or what's basically the genesis of Twilight Warrior. It's a lot easier than TW except for hostage situations; it seems like all it takes is one bullet for the hostages to die where in TWILIGHT they felt more durable. Of the three levels, only MAP02 is worth playing as MAP03 made it into TWILIGHT. MAP02 is an alternate take on that embassy level. They did some crazy DeHackEd work, but some of it seems broke in the three ports I tried it in (ZDoom, Eternity, PrBoom-Plus). Your slot 6 weapon is a "jump drug" which I assume blasts you into the air with an archvile explosion but restores health at the same time so you're not too badly inconvenienced. You're better of just using a port with jumping, but I'm still intrigued as to how to get the "jump drug" to work.

Just finished Soulcrusher. The graphics are cool and I love the weapons but the fights are usually either unexciting or just frustrating and the map design after the first few levels is boring. I also don't care about the story, which isn't executed very well, including the infodumps, so that the whole thing feels like another take on HACX. Alter-Zero just couldn't get me invested. It's still neat and worth horsing around in and the boss fights were mostly not frustrating / boring, so there's that at least.

Not sure what I'm doing next, I think all of Kurt Kesler - that is, the vanilla kmega, the limit removing khills series, kboom1-13, and kzdoom2-7.

Kama Sutra with Russian Overkill, I'm not good with that kind of megawads, but with RO is funny as fuck, my next stop will be Hell Revealed 2

gothic said:

Kama Sutra with Russian Overkill, I'm not good with that kind of megawads, but with RO is funny as fuck, my next stop will be Hell Revealed 2

Someones having some explosive Map 30 fun ;)

OT: I finished all of Doom 64's moonbase episode. Truly amazing stuff, really should have dedicated time to it much earlier. It's the only official mapset I have yet to conquer, so you'd think it'd be a high priority.

Plutonia Experiment. The original. I don't think it'll ever be anything but awesome.

Might seem to be a bit of an 'overwhelming' list but I haven't been this much into Doom for a long time. Here we go!

Most of Eternal's maps: Finished Hellground, Epic2 (all the levels), and getting started on Frozen Time / Voodoo Guns. I don't really need to compliment Eternal more than he already has been but sheesh, absurdly good maps. Gameplay is top notch too.

Currently running through these few 'slaughter wads', flipping between them at random:

Sunder: Up to Map 09 'The Cage' so far which as really put into perspective how much limited space affects difficulty (an obvious point, but one which is, in this map, thrust down your throat to a wonderfully absurd degree). Absolutely love Sunder, prior to which I thought Slaughter-maps were a waste of time.

Slaughterfest 2012: See above, some great maps in this, and really helped the slaughter genre shine for me in terms of balanced, tough as hell gameplay.

I might as well add in C-shock and C-shock 2 as part of this 'set', I've heard some call them 'Sunder-light' which is largely unfair. Though it isn't a bad thing to draw inspiration from those maps ;).

And finally, I'm up to map 22 of Speed of Doom. Having challenged myself to doing every single map on UV, pistol start with no saves. Well worth the effort, overcoming map 32 gave a particularly savage feeling of elation (standing victorious on top of the pyramid with over a thousand dead enemies surrounding you was great) and I'm looking forward to doing the rest.

Keep on at it fellow Doomers.

Ah Hellground, imo the best Doom mapset of all time.
If you ever read this Eternal, we need a sequel :(

Yes, one of my lurid DooMing fantasies involves Hell Ground getting a 32 map sequel the way Epic did.

just finished Putrefier

damn amazing map, had a Metroid vibe for some reason for me. Would love to see more like this, especially in newer FPS titles.

Finished Slaughter Until Death. Saw it in the 10 years of Doom article, pretty neat E2 replacement from 1998.

Second last level is the sux so I ended up skipping it, last level makes up for it though with a Cyberdemon who owns his own little fort. Only complaint is too many areas with buttons that require backtracking to see what they unlocked\revealed.

First time using Chocolate Doom too, hated it at first but there's a creepy-ness to 320x200.

Finished The Evil Unleashed, sequel to Slaughter Until Death. Slightly better than the first, long ass shotgun battle with Spiderdemon at the end D:

Now onto ICARUS: ALIEN VANGUARD, in caps just because.

vinnie245 said:

Ah Hellground, imo the best Doom mapset of all time.
If you ever read this Eternal, we need a sequel :(

Heh, heh... 2nd!

"NeoDoom" and "Scythe 2". Playing it very often with ZDoom.

Currently on E2 of DTWID.

Stardate 20X6, oh how much pain to suffer :P
Great wad though.

Started playing Doom 2 the way ID did. I'm not very far into it yet, but design-wise some of the maps seem to be a lot more spacious and convoluted than I remember the first game being, and map 9 just annoyed the hell out of me with timed switch running - ended up having to noclip at one point. Still too early to judge the whole thing.

Definitely have to play the original after this to compare.

Now that it's finally been released, I'm going to be playing through the Monochrome Mapping Project. I'm apparently in for quite a tough time according to the project leader.

Finished NewDOOM Community Project and started part II. Map02 and I already needed noclip to finish a level because I've found no way to get out of a courtyard after fighting a Cyberdemon. Same thing happened in NDCP map09. But I like the super detailed look of the first two NDCPII levels.

Played KHILLS & KHILLS_2 and KMEGA1. KMEGA1 is a pretty cool look at something along the lines of Michael Krause's abstract digital playgrounds with a dash of intricate area reveals that for some reason remind me of Jim Flynn's levels. It's pretty solid vanilla gameplay but the difference between his vanilla levels and limit-removing (and ZDoom) is like night and day. The KHILLS levels look great and play great and are for whatever reason much tighter / organized than the KMEGA1 killing floors. I'm looking forward to KBOOM1-13 and the rest of the KZDOOM series.

Now pushing my luck with Combat Shock.

NewDOOM Community Project II... in map03 I had to idclip out of an area again because the doors didn't work. I don't know, I'm using GZDOOM with BOOM (Strict) compatibility so it should be fine. Three levels and two instances where idclip is the only option... not fun.

Other than that I started Speed of DOOM. I like it so far (but then again, I like most of the first episodes in Megawads).

Just finished Coffee Break. Wasn't really expecting to like it that much - I'm not such a big fan of short levels. However, it actually turned be pretty awesome - Matt is a genius at monster placement, and his visual style is very unique and cool, especially in all those outdoor areas with the Plutonia rocks. A few of the early levels were duds (03 && 06), but these were counterbalanced by the last four, which were by far the best. The way the layout loops the player through them is something really worth studying. Really the only major problem I found with the set was that most of the levels were completely linear.

I think I'm going to give Marswar a try after some single level WADs. Currently burning through Dannebubinga's E1.

Plowing through the third episode of Doom the Way id Did. So far I couldn't find a map I did not enjoy.

Finished Combat Shock. It was gorgeous and a pain in the ass but really cool with a lot of good fights and plenty of infighting opportunities. There were a few segments that felt like a chore but on the whole I'm satisfied, if exhausted.

Followed up with ASDOOM, a Doom episode from Andy Sheppard of ASD2 fame. It was a basic but decent E1 replacement, not KDITD but something trying to be more evocative of actual places, if married a bit to Wolf3D-ish layouts in segments. Gonna play ASD2 next, with some single maps in the interim.

Monochrome mapping project. So far it's been a mixed bag. I really hope the maps improve, currently up to map10

I've finally been able to try the first few maps of Hellbound ( along with map 21 just to catch a glimpse of the third episode, usually what I like the most in megawads ), and it's been awesome so far. Nice attention put to detail and lighting, and even the first maps are huge already. I can't wait to play the megawad in its entirety.
Great job, Z86 !

Knee deep into "Interception" at the moment. Playing with the Amazing Space Amazon gameplay mod, which rocks.

Played Mayan Temple, Paul Turnbull's only free single-player release. It's a decent map with some psychedelic textures that feels like it's more suited to deathmatch. Most of the opportunities for interesting fights are squandered.

Played ASD2. It's a nice little set of Doom II levels and in spite of the emphasis on carrying over weapons and ammo Sheppard still makes things challenging. The final map has some pretty neat scaling going on with that earth defense weapon.

Played Castle of Blood. Pretty good '95 level with some crazy reveals that transform areas you've just been through.

Recently played Rage Doom. Nice set of Doom levels; didn't blow my mind but they were a nice romp. If you liked Klie and Carter's Lost Episodes, you should try out RAGE20.

Now playing Plutonia 2 with RO, also Stronghold on Hurt me Plenty, it's just too hard to me on Ultra Violence