WARNOCK'S DILEMMA
Another reason I probably will never implement a commenting system here is that I am just the sort of person who would obsess over replies, or the lack of them. This is not interesting in itself but what is interesting is that it actually has a name.
PEDANTIC NOTE
Last time I said "full replacements of Doom or Doom 2 would have over 30 maps" which, after it was posted, I realised was only true if you include the Ultimate Doom's fourth episode. Whether or not you do this is open to debate; its plot (if Doom can be said to have a plot) is so unpleasantly grafted on to the original that it is much easier to just think of it as a PWAD. It's not like you can play straight on into it from the end of E3M8.
Let's flesh this out - Doom's plot is that you're stationed on Mars with the UAC, who have discovered "gates" on Mars' two moons and are experimenting with teleporter technology; unfortunately the "space between the gates" is Hell. Deimos vanishes, Phobos is overrun by monsters. You fight your way through to Phobos' gate and enter it, finding yourself on the lost Deimos base. This it turns out has been dragged into Hell, which you must now pass through.
At the end you kill the spider which masterminded the invasion of the moon bases, and are rewarded by being transported back to earth - you are told this at the end of episode 3, after which, you see the famous "bunny scroller" and a teaser for Doom 2. It's clear you're meant to be back on Earth.
Once you play episode 4, whose sky texture is from the bunny scroller, you get more text. It says the spider sent out its legions before you could reach it, but like a true hero, you killed them anyway. Also, it implies that you did this because "someone was gonna pay for what happened to daisy, your pet rabbit."
The problems are that where all of this is meant to have taken place. Supposedly it must be some kind of a small old-fashioned town or something, situated right by where you appear when returned from Hell. Furthermore the part about the rabbit can't be anything other than a daft joke. Come on, pet rabbit?
The point is, every way I try to think about it, I can't make E4's plot fit with the previous three episodes, and Doom 2, and it is much easier to think of it as "just a PWAD", and the original Doom only really has 27 maps.
THE UNREVIEWABLES
There are some maps - quite a lot of them, in fact - for which I put off writing my little "summaries" for as long as I can, which basically means forever. This is usually because I know that writing a review that does the WAD in question justice would take so long as to be prohibitive. These tend to be:
- Megawads - full replacements of Doom or Doom 2 would have over 30 maps, and writing a summary of each one would take all day and end up with a post so long nobody would read it (not that they do anyway)
- Wads that have a large number of replacement graphics, or a complicated DeHackEd patch, or some other complex internal construction that uses the linedef actions in a unique or otherwise impressive way, etc. I know it'd be impossible to mention absolutely everything notable about such a wad, so it gets put off too.
So having said that here's a bunch of wads I should have written about ages ago. It goes without saying that you should play all of them.
- Suspended in Dusk Four maps for Doom2. Theme is a base, with some outdoor rock and grass areas. A texture obsessive's delight, this thing looks absolutely flawless. Broken pipes hanging uselessly. Force fields. Crates suspended from grappling hooks. A million point bonus for using the Doom alpha console flats. Map 3 is a reworking of Ruma and contains the funniest monster teleporter I have ever seen. The wad is apparently vanilla compatible as well - this is hard to believe, although its a bit cramped (you can have detail, or openness, but not both) The only obvious criticism is that it is so complex it's quite easy to get totally lost!
- Scythe 2 29 maps for Doom2. Six "episodes" of five maps each, after which it takes all your guns away and changes theme. The themes are: gothic/castle; egyptian/aztec; techbase/underground; earth/outdoors; "doom gardens" (bricks covered in vines, metal, grass...); and hell (which was never finished, map28 is a blank map) Half the maps are similar in size and population to the original Scythe, the others larger, more detailed, and a lot more populated. Also it has two new monsters, an evil red-suited plasma marine, faster than an archvile, too fast to shoot; and a majestic flying baron of hell, with a huge spam of fireballs and a ton of health.
- Mordeth 6 maps for Doom2. Castles, mansions, swamps, towns. Tons of new graphics, one of the most complicated DeHackEd patches ever, new monsters, floating fog, booby trapped candles, statues that come to life, etc. Mordeth is a very well known wad, it came out in 1997 and we're still waiting for episode 2! I don't think it's as atmospheric as some people say it is though, it contains the default episode 1 sky texture, which is too bright for a supposed "town lit by gaslight". Also, the version in /idgames only works with doom2.exe, the source port compatible version is unfortunately only on the crime against humanity that is 3ddownloads
Okay that'll do for now. There are dozens more, obviously, but I'm not really getting on very quickly here...
Joke wads
Joke wads come in many forms, from deliberately and thus ironically bad, to creatively wacky. These two are from 2002, nowadays making joke wads is a bit played out and they all seem to be for ZDoom which you can do more with, what with scripting and that.
The NEW DOOM v1.0 (1337.wad) is 31 levels of bad mapping cliches made in 2002. There is a history behind it which explains why there is no MAP29 and MAP30 is called "you've been had" but it doesn't matter. The best things about this wad are the accompanying text file, which is hilarious for many reasons, and map 23, "Tribute to E1M3"
Spacia is 11 maps in a space environment followed by 11 maps in a nursery or something. The space maps aren't so bad, they're just a little, I don't know, exaggerated in some ways, like size. There's very few monsters and so on. The nursery maps are textured in childish drawings and stuffed with megaspheres and wolfenstein soldiers. The sounds are all replaced with daft stuff like samples of Kevin Bloody Wilson songs and the DeHackEd patch changes the message strings to stuff like "horse cock launcher"
Proper stuff
These are all from /newstuff 272.
Mad Lab replaces E2M1. With lots of demon faces, the grey-green STONE3 and those dark blue flats CEIL4_{1,2,3} being used a lot, it is mostly in the style of E2M4 although there are obvious inspirations from E2M7 and E3M3 as well. The exit is on the far side of a courtyard you can see from the start, and see from different sides as you progress. There are some barons in cages which are quite easy to telefrag if you know what you're doing. I don't normally complain about texture alignments but in this case the author doesn't seem to get how to use the upper and lower unpegging flags around windows, and it's very noticable. But it's still a fun map so who cares?
Fortress was apparently made in 1997. It is a castle with surrounding environment but it's pretty odd. There are over 400 monsters, many large, but it's easy because you get full ammunition at the start and there are several more huge caches available as you go. There is kind of a plot, which makes it slightly more interesting. The hardest part is the "magician's bunker where the hated wizards and their enchanted lackeys work their disgusting magics" (a bunch of archviles, basically) I found it quite enjoyable, it typifies that 1996/7 era "large Doom2 map with a half-arsed plot" style. The text file suggests setting aside an hour but it took me 24 minutes.
Sarin The text file is in UTF-16 if you want to read it. This is marble and wood map using a few Boom features. It divides up into four sections, firstly a small start area with an extremely fast monster teleporter (the chaingunners appear the instant you touch the key, it's great) Then there's a wooden octagon which I just ran round in a circle taking potshots. After that a small library lit by torches, spot the one that's a different colour, and finally an outdoor thing where you raise bridges to switches and things teleport in. Note the switches have to be pressed on both sides, except the last one which is a teleporter (Boom switch teleporters, yeah) It's one of those maps that's easy if you know how and hindsight, well, foresight, is everything. Pretty good.
The Last Fortress of Hell This is another castle thing which you start outside. There's two buttons on the front that raise the drawbridge but they're awkward and if you fall in you're stuck. Inside you must fetch the three keys in and around the courtyards, including a switch at the top of a thin, precarious climb that is fatal if you fall off. Ledges kind of annoy me but oh well. After the yellow door there's a couple more courtyards and mazes, one of barrels and another of tiny rooms. This map offers excellent opportunities to fight archviles with your fists, but was ultimately unsatisfying.
Horror in the Caribbean Sea I like this. It's an industrial complex built on a rocky island in the middle of an ocean. The architecture is built on a large scale or grid setting and, together with the openness of the level, is quite reminiscent of the excellent Moon 2000 in some strange way. This map is quite nonlinear and the best order to do it in is not obvious. There isn't a great deal of ammunition and there are cyberdemons guarding each of the keys, however there aren't a great deal of monsters other than that, indeed a lot of the map feels quite empty. Still, even if the gameplay is slightly flawed, it's one of those maps that just appeals to me for some reason I can't put my finger on. Excellent.
"Official" 2.4.0
Rejoice! A new Prboom, that compiles and runs out of the box on platforms that aren't Windows!
A few weeks ago an email from Proff to e6y was posted by e6y on Doomworld about the possibility of collaboration. The result, apart from the abandoning of the experimental branch, is that there is now an "official" Prboom 2.4.0, which has incorporated bits from Prboom+ and the old experimental branch.
I'm still going to carry on with my version, though. I'm used to it now, despite the problems. That's not to say I won't rape this thing for patches, etc. (RBoom hasn't been changed much recently, mostly because all the things that annoy me about it, I have no idea how to fix)
Rebirth
I mentioned Rebirth three years ago and then basically forgot about it. This was a crime. It's a megawad of small maps in the same vein as TVR and deserves a lot more attention. Usual plot, the thing you killed at the end of Doom 2 has come back to life, blah blah blah. You start on a starbase then go "home" (earth, town maps etc.) then back into hell. It features:
- Troopers with no heads (ugh)
- Barons with wings. They can't fly but they flap at you most angrily when they attack.
- You have to see map 31, it's hysterical. Evil snowmen!
- Lots of other extra graphics, creepy Buddha statues, you name it.
Like I said this thing seems to have been forgotten, and not just by me! That's a crime! Play it now!
