Doom: Awesome, Episode 1 A deliberately simple episode 1 replacement (the author goes off on a long rant on this topic in his text file) Some maps achieve this simplicity while still being good - it's surprising just how much of an improvement a bit of attention to lighting can be - but others aren't so great. Difficulty varies quite a lot too, E1M9 is nasty from a pistol start, E1M8 pits you against 12 barons in quite a small room with only a shotgun and chaingun (this is more annoyingly slow and repetitive than outright difficult) and E1M4 was textured entirely in COMPBLUE, a bit too dark and full of spectres for my taste. Overall the wad achieves its aims of simplicity but its gameplay could be less cramped and more free-flowing.
Defragmentation Factor This is apparently an entry in a freak mapping contest prior to freak4. That is, it's a highly modified Oblige map. It's all right but I found it somewhat cramped and low on resources. Pretty confusing layout with more backtracking than I would have liked as well. Maybe I would like it better if I played it again, but I don't feel like it.
The Horror Collection (eden.wad) The good: this single map looks good, uses Boom effects expertly, and is generally well made. However, it's a horror wad. This means, darkness, very little ammunition, and monsters appearing right next to you or behind you when you least expect it. I dislike this kind of gameplay. I also dislike those plasma marines from Scythe 2, yet here they are. So for me this map was not a great success, but others might love it.
Phobos Reloaded E1M1 E1M1 remake. Rather colourful. Obviously made with Doom Builder, borders on sectors and wall indentations everywhere. There are extra sections beside the standard E1M1 stuff; the remnants of a mining operation in some caves, and an outdoor secret area. A couple of issues: there were secrets but they weren't marked as such, and the platform with the chaingun on it was a damage sector for no good reason. There is also an obviously incomplete E1M2; this project was abandoned. Unfortunate, because it shows promise.
The Gudla of Hell A fairly decent map by the author of Spell of the Archvile and therefore exceeds expectations. Its style is rather repetitive, textured entirely in red bricks. It's not overly cramped. Ammunition is plentiful. It could do with a super shotgun and more care with monster placement; despite the presence of both plasma weapons and lots of cells, you kill most of the monsters, which all wake up at once, with a single shotgun and chaingun. Also, the mass wall lowering was vaguely reminiscent of Maze of Frustration.
Hurry! This is a concept wad, made in one hour with Yadex so you can imagine what it looks like. You must run round the edge of an enormous square box. It's made entirely out of damage sectors so your health constantly decreases, so you must hurry to the next megasphere etc. There are of course monsters in the way. If you manage to run around all 4 sides, the middle opens up and there's a mass of monsters, which you must run past to the signposted exit. I didn't manage to get past the first side of the box; it would be good to see a demo of this map.
Freak4.wad is the result of a contest to edit an Oblige level. The results are impressive. For example map05 is like two maps with a huge cleaver stuck between them, it really has to be seen to be believed. Maps 07 and 08 are almost completely unrecognisable compared to the original (which is map01) They also do lots of clever things with Boom features that you don't often see*. Map06 tries to be a bit too clever and is rather fragile as a result. Also its author can't spell. "YOU'R DOOMED" indeed.
Play this now, it's easily one of the wads of the year.
* Be careful that the dying cyberdemon doesn't get stuck on a wall; it's meant to float over a linedef when it is killed, if it doesn't you either have to start over or save the game and edit it. Savegame editing is not trivial.
Developed in a single, huge Doomworld thread over the course of a year or two, this is 25 maps with a gimmick; each map only features one type of monster. It was roughly inspired by the Congestion 1024 project ("okay, we've done everything inside a 1024x1024 area, what other restrictions can we come up with")
Unfortunately I don't think it is a great success. The problem is simply the initial design restriction. In C1024, nearly all the maps were extremely cramped; they had to be. Here, we have highly repetitive gameplay. Killing the same monster over and over again is boring, no matter how pretty the surrounding level is.
Furthermore, none of the maps suggest that you would only find the one type of monster on them; these look like regular maps, just with inexplicably bizarre monster placement. Compare it with Equinox map10. This was set on an enormous flying saucer, so it made a kind of sense that the entire crew are archviles.
They try to play like regular maps as well. Somehow I was expecting more Cyberdreams-like puzzle levels. There are a couple, the one with the three spiders was good, although I never quite managed to finish it.
In summary, we have here a large body of high-quality work but ultimately misplaced effort; the initial idea was... well, let's put it this way. Do you think a map with nothing but 350 chaingunners is a good idea..?
This appears to be one map split across several. The thing overall is a number of tech/industrial building interiors around some natural rock formations. (The style is vaguely reminiscent of Vae Victus 2)
In map01 you clear out a few of the buildings on one side of a fence; there's a red door no key. In map02 you get outside of that one compound and find some others, eventually finding the red key and re-entering the first compound. It's quite clever and takes that old trick of making the exit of one map look like the start of the next one to a whole new plateau.
It's quite disappointing that there isn't a map03 but according to the text file the author never planned that far. Oh well. On map02 there is a super shotgun on a crate. Don't spend ages trying to get up there like I did. There's a teleporter but it's not accessible until much later, by which time the map's just given you an ssg already. Pretty stupid really.
The monsters are generally quite small and not in hordes, but you're not granted much health and ammunition either and the traps can catch you off guard, so it's quite a tight challenge. Detail level is very high, slightly overdone perhaps. Despite seeming unfinished, very good and worth playing.
Others
Bold as War Green marble castle and surrounding canyons, feels E4-ish with maybe a bit of Doom2 map17 thrown in. Decent architecture, fairly well interconnected. It's quite easy as long as you're careful.
Station 12z Really nice E1 map, but too short, and the secrets were pointless - when you get the soulsphere everything is dead. However, it's good-looking and has great interconnection. Should be map1 of an episode.
The Arterial Fortress E3-style map that manages to feel hellish and organic. It's not often you see decent E3-style mapping. However, gameplay is cramped and awkward.
ONE-LINERS
I've missed a lot of wads this year and have been going through the 2007 uploads. Here are some of them. Hopefully I can get through this lot without being too verbose. Famous last words...
Ode of Resurrection Single map for Doom 2 in the style of the Master levels. Quite complex and nonlinear, lots of initial choice about where to go; that makes it quite top-heavy, so just use savegames the first time you play. It is excellent and fun, and worth playing more than once.
The Abandoned Base 2 Bejiitas_Wrath makes a welcome return to mapping, producing a wad for TNT:Evilution. I really like his instantly recognisable style; huge, rather spartan architecture, high ceilings, and great amounts of interconnection. However like most of his maps there is an obvious lack of polish and testing, and a number of elements that don't fit at all. It's like he starts off making a map and then has all these ideas and just puts them in without thinking about it. Here we huge areas of water you can get stuck in and need to jump out of, and what I believe are stealth monsters. Thus like Hellpak it kind of needs ZDoom, but I could run it anyway.
The Outer Darkness E4 map, mostly wood, marble and lava. Excellently themed. On the difficult side but not impossible. Somewhat top-heavy. Contains the interesting possibility of missing out the middle half of the map due to an apparently deliberate speedrunning trick. Recommended.
The Hazard Variation Another E4 map. It's almost as if one Abrahim says, "I'm making an E4 map" and the other says, "OK, so will I!" This one is a lot smaller and easier, with less than 50 monsters. Lots of detail, and the theme is best described as "noisy". That is, it mixes up many different types of Doom texture. So, old-school, but not ugly. Also recommended.
Fort Knocks This is from 1994 but apparently new to the archive. However I know I've played it before, as I recognised it instantly. It's definitely one of the better 1994 wads, it has actual architecture and plays well, even if the theme varies wildly between hell, castle and tech. Worth a play.
Toxic Cove A map based on Alien Vendetta map10, it was originally a speedmap, but then was tarted up a little. Has typically modern levels of detail, happily lacking too many obvious Doombuilderisms. UV is balanced for extremely good players so I recommend turning the skill level down, but nonetheless very much worth playing.
Scanning Electron Microscope Tiny base in a cave by the sea. Good scenery, good detail and lighting. The base is so tiny it only contains two rooms, one of which has the titular complicated machine in it. Odd monster placement - what's with the entrance corridor filled with sergeants? Then the map is over before you know it. Nice, but rather pointless.
Hell Keep Remake Yet another one. The fifth this year, I believe. Very nicely detailed but hardly changes the gameplay at all.
Happy Hour Fun Time Gameplay Four maps which look nice and are quite hard. The worst thing about them is that the author doesn't give you any of the larger weapons. As it is, he has the right idea but it's just frustrating.
Little Tiny Level A small cave, quite well made, lots of effort obviously made on making the interior "natural", sadly one sector has SKY4 on the ceiling instead of F_SKY1 which means you have to hack it to get it to load in PrBoom, otherwise not bad.
Entry A remake of the first level of Doom 2. Everything is about twice the size, which I liked. However, the monster count isn't increased so it feels rather empty. The secrets aren't very good. Probably not worth the bother unless you like remakes.
CYBERFIGHT 10 maps. The first 8 give you a BFG and 200 cells and ask you to kill a single cyberdemon in a smallish arena. The ninth has a couple more. The tenth is just a single tiny room that appears unfinished. The maps aren't ugly and the first eight are quite fun if you have the trick of killing cyberdemons quickly.
Mattbratt's level pack A 32-map megawad made by one of Doomworld's most infamous idiots. I'm only mentioning it because some of the maps have been lifted from other wads and I wondered about their original sources.
