G-B-Arch.wad

Randomly downloaded this random file form the Doom 1 archives. I really like it! Really nice gameplay--excellent design. And the levels provide a wonderful sense of place, even though they are abstract like Doom. A lot of time and skill was put into this. Love the classic Doom 1 gameplay! :)

Download: http://www.doomworld.com/idgames/index.php?file=levels/doom/g-i/g-b-arch.zip

They've worked on the wad from 1996 to 1999, interesting. The maps are full of visual glitches, or sometimes the texture combinations are just plain ugly. But on the other hand, there are many very nice and inventive usages of the stock textures - for example the bed and kitchen equipment in the first map, trees with leaves, a vineyard, then street lamps and a gas station in the second map, etc. Gameplay was okay, I've enjoyed it, but then my enthusiasm stopped. I've got stuck in the third map, unable to figure out how to access the mandatory southern part, and I've used it as a good excuse to quit. But nice wad. Also, it has good, slightly cheesy soundtrack, which helps making the experience enjoyable.

That's a pretty interesting barely unknown episode...

Wow, it's been a while since I played a genuinely old-school episode of Ultimate Doom. If it's a "feast for the eyes" then they were serving cucumber sandwiches, and most of that music should never be heard outside of a peep show, but the maps improve noticeably as the episode progresses and the final space rocket room is well worth visiting. How come Doom 2 never gave us that same sense of location that we seem to get with Ultimate Doom?

The difficulty is pretty high for small maps with fewer monsters, certainly higher than other wads of that era. I mocked the music but most of it is genuinely uplifting - another old-school trait that died out years ago. This definitely seems worthy of people's attention.

Map 2 was the best, I loved the petrol station and the sense you're climbing a mountain.

scifista42 said:

They've worked on the wad from 1996 to 1999, interesting.

The wad timestamp inside zip file is 04-28-1997, so it probably only got uploaded to idgames archive a couple years later. Plus, he lists DEU 5.1 as editor, and mentions Doom 1.666 has HOM bugs, so he must have started working on this in 1994 or something. That would explain the large amount of visual glitches like tutti fruti.

I played this a couple years ago and also got stuck on 3rd level, what a coincidence! It's on my favorite wads list though, so I'll finish it someday...