30/09/2010 @20:24:48 ^21:15:21

Here's a couple of wads I played years ago and recently redownloaded. I seem to have done this a lot recently. Indeed there's more of them in the "queue".

DoomTown

Three maps for Doom2 from Russell Pearson (Blastem2, Ogre Labs etc.) - the first ones he designed:

  1. A remake of Doom2 map01, a bit harder than the original. There's no chainsaw at the start, for instance, although there's a berserk box if you know where to get it. You will probably need it too because the map is quite low on ammunition and also because shooting all those imps with the pistol is boring.
  2. Some sort of underground base I guess. You have a few tech rooms connected by earthy tunnels, anyway. There's a bit of backtracking to do and it could do with more interconnectivity I think, it's a bit disjoint as it is. But it's not too hard and it's fun so whatever.
  3. This is probably the best one to play, although most of it amounts to one long looping corridor. You start in the middle on some kind of wooden platform in the sea and go off into the rest of the map which is mostly made of wood and stone with metal supports.

Notice how all the corridors have carefully-erected metal supports and stuff. I think I read somewhere that he's an architect by profession. In fact I think these maps, along with Blastem2 and maybe one or two others, were all supposed to be in one megawad that he never finished making and just dumped in /idgames, having realised that he'd never finish the project. There's a few silly bugs like inaccessible secrets and monsters in closets that never open but it's mostly a good play. Not too frustrating and worth playing.

King Of Pain

A four map replacement mini-episode for Doom 2. Memorable to me because of the author's obvious sense of humour*

Much like Let It Roll they're designed to be played one after the other; 1 is easy, 2 is just about doable from a pistol start, and 3 and 4 just don't have enough ammunition at all. Plus 1 and 3 have soulspheres right at the end that you're obviously meant to carry forward because they're useless otherwise.

In summary, they don't look like much, there's not much in the way of detail and so on, but I don't care about that stuff. They're decent simple maps with no pretension and I enjoyed playing them.

* The first room has a thing on the wall that says "OBVIOUS SECRET DOOR". And right underneath, there is! I don't know why that should be so hilarious but it is. Also, let's not forget "MICROSOFT DOOR CONTROLLER FOR DOS"