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    Doomkid

    Doomworld Multiplayer Digest #39

    By Doomkid, in News,

    ZDaemon Thursday Night Survival #272 - Requiem (Part I revisited)
    Date: 27th October 2016
    Euro session: 19:00 BST/14:00 EDT at [L@P], Germany (usually lasts over 6 hours)

    Zandronum Friday Night Fragfest #346: Internal Conflict & Ghouls vs Humans
    European FNF: October 28th, 2016, 18:00 UTC
    American FNF: October 28th, 2016, 20:00 EDT

    ZDS #478 - Halloween 2016 II
    Date: Saturday 29th October 2016
    Euro: 19:30 BST / 14:30 EDT
    USA: 01:00 BST / 20:00 EDT Keen an eye on the multiplayer forum for information about events, match scheduling and more. Happy fragging!
    Bloodshedder
    VeryHard - yaqxsw
    Doom 2 - Single Player - ZDoom - 7.07 MB -
    Reviewed by: gaspe
    VeryHard is a seven-map wad with a not very creative title, and as it says these levels will be very hard. If you remember yaqxsw some time ago released a single level, I'm Going to Hell, which is a long sequence of hard set piece encounters, and this wad is basically the same thing. I started to play on HMP and switched to HNTR after making some progress in MAP01; still, I couldn't finish a single level. The wad starts with a level set inside a subway; it's rather easy to start, but you have to mow down tons of enemies with the SSG as the most powerful weapon; later on you'll fight in tunnels that get filled with revenants.

    MAP02 start requires a lot of strategy; there's a group of cyberdemons, and you have to press two switches that open side hallways full of hell knights and barons. Them you can teleport to the other area, and after some good old circle-strafing, archviles start to teleport in everywhere. MAP03, you are confined in a central area with monsters that keep teleporting in, with tons of imps at the borders of the map that fill the sky with fireballs and massive lag. For some reason the author decided to put on MAP04 his previous work, I am Going to Hell.

    On MAP05 we start in an elevator with a cyberdemon, a plasmagun and few megaspheres. Then get ready for the next area where monsters teleport in followed by lots of archviles. On MAP06 you start to fight archviles without having cover or health. Shame that the map looks rather cool, albeit basically a ripoff of Deus Vult II's cathedral level, but I quit this level after I teleported to the first horde of archviles, and there are like 1600 of them in that level. The last level is a boss fight with giant recolored hell knights that shoot tons of projectiles while three IoS fill the map with monsters. To sum it up, this is ridiculous. I understand that this is probably supposed to appeal only the uber-hardcore players that speedrun chillax and the like, but even if I can see the strategies you have to find, sometimes on the whole this wad relies too much on luck. Another thing is it that the skill levels are implemented very badly. The archviles are really overused, and many times you can't even notice that they teleport inside all the mess, and randomly you start to get hit by them. "I tested on level UV and it passable"; this is taken from the text file and this is probably bullshit unless the author uploads videos where he plays savescumming all the way. But in all seriousness I saw a guy on YouTube that beat MAP01 and MAP02, so who knows. I don't know what else to say exactly; you'll find huge ridiculous set-ups here, and visually overall it isn't bad, or good actually; so I'll leave it up to you.

    NH5 - TimeOfDeath
    Doom 2 - Single Player - Limit Removing - 1.92 MB -
    Reviewed by: yakfak
    NH5 comprises three vicious maps which demand concentration, a high degree of accuracy, and a rather specific plan of attack that the player must work to discover, this brain overload only enhanced by its soundtrack: semi-improvised extreme metal that feels rooted in grindcore. Certainly not for the faint hearted!

    The opening two maps begin in relatively fair ways, providing a slaughter arena or kill corridor along with your favourite demon-fumigating machine, the BFG9000, and simply let you run wild for a moment. From that small victory onwards, however, the BFG is used frequently to prevent ambushes rather than fight through them - either you're firing a burst directly into the latest ambush closet or all hell breaks loose, usually in Arch-Vile form. The game-play becomes rather scary for that reason and it keeps you on your toes.

    The third level is more of a feast, providing all the heavy weapons and a variety of encounters, some grindy, some absurd, some bloody, all asking the player whether they should be firing from the spot they entered from or dashing further along - can the arachnotron horde be dragged towards the revenant horde, saving me plasma, or will they spend the whole map blocking my progress? It's easy to get stuck or overwhelmed here, but TimeofDeath has kindly provided walk-through demos of all three levels. The skill demand is dizzyingly high at times, but if you can reproduce these feats then it'll feel very satisfying indeed!

    The gimmick here is that these slaughter puzzles are entirely bereft of health, so you'll see no megasphere antidote to any of these encounters - if you take a revenant rocket to the ear then that's where it'll stay lodged until you either exit or perish, a gambit that really raises the stakes and hopefully encourages you to master the encounters rather than just shoulder-barge your way through them. A good challenge to master players and an eye-opener to the rest of us; No Health Five is a set I recommend to all.

    Noirlab - ChekaAgent
    Doom 2 - Single Player - Boom Compatible - 128.5 KB -
    Reviewed by: gaspe
    Noirlab is a single map that uses only the textures of Noirpack, which is also required to run the wad. Interesting choice, but it didn't turn out very well; everything is dull in this map. It tries to give some creepy feelings, but you just go through a bare empty room to another empty room, and the lightning is really lacking. Music was too repetitive after a while. The action is always frontal, and you are always well supplied with ammo. At least it tries to make something, but it's full of bad decisions and the result is bad.

    From Home To Hell - Carlos Lastra
    Doom 2 - Single Player - ZDoom Compatible - 931.86 KB -
    Reviewed by: gaspe
    Carlos Lastra isn't a new face in the recent /newstuff Chronicles, and this time instead of a single level he released a little episode of seven maps for Doom 2. This mapset is done in a rather interesting style as there's no SSG in all the levels, and they follow a style that's very close to the Ultimate Doom. The start in what is our apartment was reminiscent of Hellbound's first level, and from there we will progress through some tech/industrial level which in the end start to get corrupted by hell. Visually it looks good and it has that mood of a Doom 1-like level done with Doom 2 assets. The gameplay relies a lot on the hitscanners, and the maps have plenty of closets that will create some nice ambushes, as the released monsters will come to many different directions. I have to note that MAP04 is unfortunately broken, as there's a door that won't open. My only complaint is that there could have been some more rockets on the way. All in all it's a pretty good wad, and the maps aren't really long.

    END POINT - Alexander "Eternal" S.
    Doom 2 - Single Player - Limit Removing - 1003.98 KB -
    Reviewed by: gaspe
    Alexander S., better know as Eternal, doesn't really need an introduction around here, but just in case you don't really know, he's a quite prolific Russian mapper that released really cool WADs, which unless you are really out of touch with the Doom community you should have least heard of: Epic/Epic 2 or Hell Ground. Now to the wad in question, END POINT is a little episode for Doom 2 with seven maps. We are quite far from the grandeur of his previous works, and the maps go for a more simple vibe in their themes and structures, though Eternal still shows that he's a master of mapping.

    The visual style of the colors and textures combinations are really cool; the stock textures are largely used, but there's also lots of custom stuff. The action was pretty good and the monster placement can be described as very precise, though I don't feel that there are some moments that really stand out except for the MAP05 start.

    The most interesting thing about this wad is the feeling that it conveys; it seems like it's a sort of a tribute to the good wads of the 90's, or that it refers to the styles of that era. There aren't actual homages, but the whole wad is filled with places that seem to be, or to have, hints of very old works that Eternal used as inspiration. But we can only guess, and for now you should play this wad if you haven't already. Probably you will have some great expectations from this author, but this isn't something that will blow your mind; it's a more comfy work, almost intimistic, but nonetheless really good.

    Blueworrior's MIDI pack - Lewis "Blueworrior" Harvey
    Doom/Doom 2 - N/A - MIDI Support - 46.87 KB
    Reviewed by: Not Jabba
    This pack contains 17 MIDIs created by Blueworrior for Freedoom 1 and 2. All of the tracks are on the shorter side (with the longest ones clocking in around 2:30), and they're generally fairly simple. They don't have the narrative arcs of Mark Klem's music, the strong refrains of Jimmy's, the moody beauty of stewboy's or Alfonzo's, or the consistent heart-pounding energy of Doomhuntress's. What they do have is a basic Doomy feel that will work well for many classic-styled wads. Most of them are driven by rock instrumentations, particularly electric guitar chords, and they emphasize power over melody (but without getting super galloppy, thankfully).

    The only real problem with this selection is that many of the songs are significantly under two minutes long, which is almost always too short for a good Doom MIDI, and none of those tracks ever quite get off the ground. My favorite tracks were generally the longest ones. D_E3M1 has a bit of a Tom Mustaine vibe, with some nice organ riffs backing up the guitar. D_E3M7 has more of a narrative to it than the other tracks, with a shift from hard guitar to a more creepy, hellish mood around halfway through. D_E3M8 is the one slower, broodier MIDI in the pack, and it's a good song for either Doom or Heretic. I didn't find any of the others particularly memorable, but most of these MIDIs would be good choices for short, classic-styled levels (one of them was already used in Echelon, for instance), especially if you want to take a bunch of them and put together a whole set of levels with a cohesive soundtrack. Worth checking out if you're looking to add to your MIDI library.

    Glass Rubberband - CorndogScammer
    Ultimate Doom - Single Player - GZDoom - 389.78 KB -
    Reviewed by: lil'devil
    Glass Rubberband is the author's first map, and it can be best described as an ambitious, but quite poorly implemented map.

    The premise is simple: there are two buildings connected with a huge outdoor area. The building you start in has a blue key door (behind which is the exit) and the key to that door is in the other building. All you have to do is go to that other building, pick up the key and return. Unfortunately, for such an easy concept to implement, the map has many, many flaws.

    First of all, you will have massive framerate drops if you play this map on a weak computer like me. This is most likely caused by that huge outdoor area I mentioned earlier.

    Secondly, the gameplay is really bad. The main issue here is the ammo - there's not enough of it, and I'm sure it's impossible to kill all the enemies on the map (quite a lot of them are barons, by the way). The monster placement is also bad, as most enemies are just stupidly packed in groups. Skill levels don't change anything aside from increasing amount of monsters in said groups and changing amount of ammo. Also, on easy skill levels the amount of monsters is way too low, usually one monster per encounter (yet there's still not enough ammo to kill all the barons).

    Lastly, while the map has some cool features like slopes and 3D bridges, it overall feels pretty minimalistic; there are almost no decorations, and many places feel quite empty. There are also many questionable design choices: for example, on easy skill levels the exit to the map is blocked by marble columns, so there's no way to exit the map on ITYTD and HNTR (it's probably a joke, mocking the player for choosing an easy difficulty). There's also a teleporter that moves the player 10 meters away and serves no purpose at all. This map is pretty bizarre.

    Anyway, in conclusion I would like to say that I do NOT recommend this map, unless you're looking for something weird to play. I hope the author will learn from his mistakes and his next map will be more playable than this.

    Blueworrior's Terminator MIDI Track - Lewis "Blueworrior" Harvey
    Doom 2 - N/A - MIDI Support - 2.83 KB
    Reviewed by: Not Jabba
    The author refers to this as a "Terminator style" MIDI, but what they actually mean is that it's a remake of the Terminator theme. A good one, though. The Terminator theme is a great example of how powerful a very simple melody can be, and it fits pretty well in many Doom wads. The instrumentation in Blueworrior's version would work particularly well for colorful tech levels like the ones found in CC4, Mutiny, and many other modern wads. A good choice if you're willing to use the movie song but want something different than the standard version.

    Thria Complex - Gunsmith
    Doom 2 - Single Player - ZDoom Compatible - 973.98 KB -
    Reviewed by: Not Jabba
    Thria Complex is old-school, but not Romero old-school. It plays like one of those mid-2000s AgentSpork-era levels with gratuitous ZDoom features, SNES-style music, and almost all of the action coming at you from the front in a very arcadey style. It even has that one palette -- you know the one I'm talking about -- with the aqua blues and the more washed-out green range. It's hard to tell whether the whole level is intended as an homage or if it's just the author's preferred mapping style, but my impression from the music and other added elements is that this level thinks it's a bigger deal than it actually is. But maybe that's part of the fun?

    Most of the basic ZDoomisms are here: slopes, translucent glass windows, spontaneous enemy teleport entrances. No particle fountains, thankfully. The level of detailing is lower than you'd see in a Tormentor667 or AgentSpork map, and truth be told, Thria Complex looks kind of flat and generic. The action is fine for what it is; there are no surprises whatsoever, and it's pretty easy to play. For what it's worth, it does not end with a melodramatic Cyberdemon battle. This is an okay map, but I would skip it unless you have a particular type of nostalgic itch that needs scratching.

    Spidersilk - Zan-zan-zawa-veia
    Doom 2 - Single Player - Limit Removing - 988.1 KB -
    Reviewed by: Not Jabba
    Zan-zan-zawa-veia (better known to forumgoers as yakfak) is known for creating weird, challenging levels with somewhat puzzle-like gameplay, and Spidersilk is no exception.

    In some ways, however, this map is a lot less extreme than yakfak's Cacoward-winning Sheer Poison. It can be tough to know where to go next in the large, interwoven dungeon, but there's never a spot where you literally hit a wall and can't go anywhere until you've solved some obscure puzzle; keep hunting around, and you'll find everything you need without much trouble. Ammo is pretty plentiful, though the placement is intended to keep you moving; it sometimes feels tight if you try to fight every monster as it comes, but there's always a small cache of ammo around some nearby corner, allowing you to stock up quickly and return to the fray.

    The real challenge is in the enemy placement. The level is full of windows and fencing that give you a view into nearby areas, which means that monsters have plenty of opportunity to shoot at you from multiple directions as you try to run the gauntlet. The major areas are populated with Mancubuses, Arachnotrons, and a couple of Spider Masterminds, and you'll start encountering these high-tier monsters very early on, when you don't yet have the resources to deal with all of them. The most profitable strategy is to clear out the weaker monsters (Sergeants, Imps, and Cacodemons) as you make your initial push through the level, let the more powerful opposition get softened up a bit through infighting, and then deal with them as you return through the main areas later with better weaponry and more ammo. The Spiderdemons in particular will help you by killing some of the other enemies, but yakfak's use of them is excellent, and I was never able to eliminate them through infighting alone; they remained a constant threat as I moved through the level until I was finally able to kill them.

    There are a couple of modified enemies that add to the challenge as well. Cacodemons are faster and shoot two balls at a time, but they only take a single SSG shot to bring down. As a result, they're a more immediate threat than ever, but you can combat them without having to slow your pace. There's also a spectral version of the Arch-Vile that has lower health and no ranged attack, but basically just runs around the level resurrecting enemies. These guys will be a thorn in your side until you manage to kill them all, especially since the layout allows them to travel all over the level.

    If you add up everything I've said so far, you'll realize this level is all about constantly moving around, trying to stay ahead of the threats, collect resources, and figure out how to progress. It's exactly the sort of puzzle I like to see in Doom -- the kind that makes you examine the big picture rather than just staring into every corner trying to find tiny switches.

    The wad also has an alternate gameplay mode ("Painful and Stupid") in place of skill 2. This variant makes the level even more open by removing some decorative obstacles, ditches the spectral AVs and spiders, and completely overhauls the enemy balance. It's full of difficult or meaty enemies that weren't used (or rarely appeared) in the regular version of the level, including chaingunners, Hell Knights, plenty of Pain Elementals, and at least one Cyberdemon. I didn't go very far in this mode, but it looks quite tough, and it seems like it's even more focused on forcing you to collect ammo and weapons at the start in order to get your feet under you. Many people may enjoy this mode more; personally, I prefer the strange and spider-infested UV.

    Big Trouble at Deimo's Base - Carlos Lastra
    Ultimate Doom - Single Player - ZDoom Compatible - 84.5 KB -
    Reviewed by: Not Jabba
    This is the first Carlos Lastra map I've played, but anyone who follows The /newstuff Chronicles is probably already aware of him, as he's been building a strong reputation as a Doom 1 mapper who's been making progressively better maps. Sure enough, I really enjoyed this one. It has nice E2 visuals with a couple of very good looking main areas, and the gameplay is simple and fast-paced. The layout is somewhat nonlinear, but very compact, with essentially no backtracking. There's plenty of room to move around and lots of weak enemies to fight, making for a quick, easy playthrough using mainly the shotgun. Somebody on /idgames mentioned that the map has only E1 enemies, but maybe they played on a lower difficulty; I fought three Cacos on UV, two of which were at the center of a fun, mildly challenging final battle. The optional blue key area is interesting in that both the key and the door are clearly visible, but figuring out how to get the key is a secret.

    There's not much else to say, but what this level does, it does well. Based on what I've seen from this map, I'd love to play a full E2 replacement from Lastra, or to see what he can do with Doom 2. Recommended.

    The /newstuff Chronicles is a usually-weekly roundup of new items uploaded to the /idgames archive, and it is written entirely by community members like you. If you wish to contribute, the /newstuff Review Center is the place to do so. Register on the Doomworld Forums first if you don't already have an account, because you need one to submit reviews. Special thanks goes to the nearly 300 users who have submitted reviews over the past several years.
    snapshot
    The Doom team is preparing for a Reddit AMA on the DOOM SubReddit tomorrow, 10/21 at 2PM ET, with Marty Stratton, Hugo Martin, and Kevin Cloud. If you have any questions or are curious about anything DOOM related, here's a chance to get answers! Details on the DOOM SubReddit.
    Doomkid

    Doomworld Multiplayer Digest #38

    By Doomkid, in News,

    ZDaemon Thursday Night Survival #270 - Arxangels
    Date: 13th October 2016
    Euro session: 19:00 BST/14:00 EDT at [L@P], Germany (usually lasts over 6 hours) Friday Night Fragfest and Zdaemon Sessions have not been announced yet for this week, but stay tuned to the multiplayer forum for any updates. Happy fragging!
    Bloodshedder
    Absolutely Killed - Ryath/scwiba
    Ultimate Doom - Single Player - Limit Removing - 697.33 KB -
    Reviewed by: gaspe
    Absolutely Killed is an E1 replacement for Doom, though it isn't the stuff you can expect from the usual E1 remakes, or from Doom in general. It's a mapset of levels based upon concepts and gimmicks. The visual style is rather old-flavored, with detailing that seems made with vanilla in mind, and the themes go for totally abstract stuff, and it offers a quite varied experience. E1M2 and E1M5 are close to being normal levels. Then you have E1M1 where you have to use barrels to kill the barons, and maps based upon lighting and damaging floors. E1M4 has a pretty cool red colored lighting that's damaging and will restrict your movement a lot. I guess that many players will dislike E1M7, which is a pretty big level mostly covered with green toxic slime, and you have to be careful to remember where you left the remaining radsuits.

    Overall it's a very nice episode that plays with the Doom mechanics to create interesting gameplay scenarios rather that just being a collage of gimmicks and puzzles. Recommended for sure, though if you are looking for something with more emphasis on action this won't appeal you so much I guess.

    Terror Tomb - Claudio Sapere
    Doom 2 - Single Player - ZDoom Compatible - 90.82 KB -
    Reviewed by: gaspe
    Terror Tomb is a single map for Doom 2, and it's allegedly another first map. It doesn't look terrible; it would be almost acceptable, but the visuals are really bare. The layout wasn't really bad, but this map has the problem that all the places are oversized; it would have been better if it was down scaled a bit. The gameplay is on par with the visual department: it's uninspired. Near the end there's a horde of hell knights, and with the monsters ahead you will certainly run out of ammo if you don't find the "optional" BFG. I have seen worse, but this is a forgettable level at best.

    Wolf O'Donnell - Michael Jan Krizik (valkiriforce)
    N/A - N/A - Skin Support - 255.2 KB -
    Reviewed by: Not Jabba
    Continuing with the theme of wolf-related skins created by valkiriforce, here's a player skin based on Wolf O'Donnell, the villain/rival/antihero from the Star Fox series, with graphics ripped from one of the Smash Bros. games. It doesn't seem super well optimized for the Doom palette, but it looks OK, and if you really like the character, you might have some fun with it.

    Back to Thunder Road - ZaBigBoss
    Doom 2 - Single Player - GZDoom - 1.22 MB -
    Reviewed by: gaspe
    Back to Thunder Road is a small episode with six playable levels plus an ending map. It's actually made in Boom format, but to play you'll need ZDoom because it uses music tracks from Genesis games, and I must say that those were pretty cool and added a nice touch to the mood of the level. There's a nice use of the stock textures with a great emphasis on the orange, green, and grey colors, and in combination with the lightning it creates a very warm atmosphere to the maps. On the gameplay, the author isn't afraid to throw in traps and put you in tough but fair situations. Most remarkable moment is the big swarm of Cacodemons in MAP06 which will require the player to act in a more unusual manner, and I guess that it will turn off many people, but personally I really liked it. Overall it is fresh and interesting and I hope to see more from the author. Definitely recommended.

    Tapperoo - Overstory_Lover_63
    Doom 2 - Single Player - ZDoom Compatible - 119.98 KB -
    Reviewed by: mrthejoshmon
    Tapperoo is clearly a newbie's map, no doubt in my mind about that.

    A very bad newbie map.

    The map starts by throwing you into a square SHAWN room where you are surrounded by active low level enemies and 90's mapping furniture; not a good start.

    From there you seem to just enter large bland square rooms with bad sector furniture for detail and loads of randomly picked enemies. There is not really much going on with this map that really deserves talking about except two particular rooms.

    The first room I'd like to talk about is the giant room that's just one big damaging sector filled with enemies. This room is absolutely horrible to be in and is nothing more than constant frustration; luckily the author has provided many rad suits for you to survive in this room (most of them are hidden and will actually trigger more enemies most of the time, which makes them not worth it at all) so it is not completely unplayable.

    The second room is without a doubt the worst part about this entire train wreck. The second room is a large and vacuous pitch black mess of high damage enemies that you can't see, leading to painful and miserable gameplay. There is a pair of light goggles in the room but they are behind a horde of said high powered demons making them somewhat more of a hassle to get than just blindly firing into the dark. My favorite part about this room is the secret in there which rewards you with nothing more than an Archvile being added to the mess and some backpacks (which is absolutely not worth it).

    All in all this map should just be avoided. I'm sure you'll regret it if you don't.

    Emerald Bathhouse - MorbidBrute
    Heretic - Single Player - Vanilla - 94.13 KB -
    Reviewed by: Not Jabba
    Emerald Bathhouse is a simple, smallish-to-medium Heretic level with a nice green and blue watery setting and a few new textures that help set the tone. It was intended as an episode starter and fits the E3M1 slot, so pretty much all of the combat is with the wand and gauntlets, unless you find the secret shot... er, crossbow. To balance the low firepower, you're mostly fighting the weakest enemies in the bestiary (Gargoyles, Golems, and Knights, with almost no ghosts), with a couple of other enemy types added toward the end to keep things spiced up. The combat is quick and easy, and the small selection of armaments doesn't get old or feel tedious; in a few spots, you're handed a Tome of Power and pitted against larger mobs of enemies, which helps to vary the pacing. It also helps that the level looks really nice for Heretic -- I don't think there are a huge number of custom textures, but the few that are used really work wonders, and the architecture has a good classic feel to it.

    This level definitely feels like the start of an episode, with just the right amount of challenge to get your blood flowing, and the gameplay and general flow of the level make it feel like it could have been perfectly at home in the original game. It's pretty basic, but well designed and fun to play.

    Vanished Colony - Abe87
    Doom 2 - Single Player - GZDoom - 6.27 MB -
    Reviewed by: gaspe
    Vanished Colony is a 10-level episode for Doom 2 to play with your ZDoom-based port of choice. It's split in two halves where the first six levels are set in techbases while the last four levels are hell themed. It's also the first wad by the author, and for some thing it shows. Especially in the first maps you can notice how the unpegging isn't used, and the author uses a weird manner of making his buildings: instead of deleting the gaps in the editor to make the completely solid sector he uses raised ones, and most of the walls are 2-sided linedefs. Though there's nothing really critical, apart a bug I encountered on MAP03 that will get you stuck.

    A thing that is done rather well is the non-linearity, and even in the most straight maps there are always some optional areas sometimes you can explore. The maps mostly consist of corridors, rooms, and corridors, and the gameplay unfortunately stays a bit too much on the flat side. The places look a bit bare sometimes but at least there are some attempts at detail that looked good. MAP03/04 is where it starts to pick up better. While MAP06 has a nice mood, it's probably among the worst of the bunch with its room after room approach, and MAP08 and 10 suffer from that too. MAP07 was rather nice; it's like a sort of a remake of Mt. Erebus and with MAP09 is the highest point of the wad. The skies are replaced by some very high quality ones; at first they clash a bit with the stock assets but they are really cool, I must say.

    Overall despite its flaws and the fact that the visuals and the gameplay don't offer anything that's really remarkable, it's a rather interesting episode. Worth to play at least once.

    Trap - CokeTheAyyLmao
    Doom 2 - Single Player - ZDoom Compatible - 52.37 KB -
    Reviewed by: mrthejoshmon
    Let's not beat around the bush here and just begin by saying that this map is absolute garbage.

    You begin in a really ugly interpretation of Plutonia MAP01's starting room except this time you are surrounded by active enemies and you have hardly any ammo. After you die over and over again to the over abundance of hitscan enemies you are then ambushed by Chaingunners whilst a Chaingunner and a Revenant watches from a high balcony (I hope you like Chaingunners, CokeTheAyyLmao does).

    This is just the first area of this single map wad; it actually gets even worse than this.

    Every encounter in this entire ordeal involves a room textured with obvious trap.jpeg all over it (which then fills with Chaingunners and usually hell nobles). Every single room in this wad is just a "spam high damage enemies out the walls at the player" situation. I could honestly describe one more of the rooms in this wad and that would describe the rest of this miserable waste of kilobytes.

    Anyway, if I were to come up with any points of "interest" in this wad then they would be the raising floor that never comes back down that leads to the exit room (making the map unbeatable if done wrong, which is great because there is a Chaingunner ambush up there and the instant response is to jump down), and the chainsaw pickup which warrants you six Chaingunners, two Hell Knights and a Baron all around you.

    So yeah, avoid this.

    Alpha Accident: Terra Nova - Wraith777
    Ultimate Doom - Single Player - Limit Removing - 2.99 MB -
    Reviewed by: Not Jabba
    Alpha Accident: Terra Nova is a 9-level partial conversion that replaces E1 of Doom. I didn't follow its development, but judging from the title and the types of new resources used, it looks like it's one of those projects that takes its inspiration from the Doom alpha (and is the only one that's ever been completed, to my knowledge). The story takes place at the same time as Doom 1; all your comrades are sent to deal with the distress call from Phobos, but you somehow end up stranded on Mars itself and start investigating the invasion there.

    The episode includes a host of new textures and a bunch of cool Dehacked-driven features, such as supply boxes, a more powerful armor bonus, empty nukage barrels that fall over instead of exploding, and a couple of different types of destructible pillars (make sure you figure out how to recognize these, as it will often be necessary to progress; one of them can only be taken down with rocket splash). They're the same sorts of goofy faux-realistic features you could have seen in any of the mid-90s FPS games that tried unsuccessfully to one-up Wolfenstein 3D and Doom, and they give Alpha Accident a distinct old-school feel. The soundtrack adds to that classic aesthetic with a set of mostly obscure tracks by Paul Corfiatis, NMN, and others, most of which I had never heard before (the tracks in E1M4 and E1M7 were particularly good).

    You'll also be dealing with a few new monsters. The main two, which you start fighting around E1M4, are a stationary turret and a fairly fast-moving floating brain drone. They're both hitscanners that fire twice in a row and never flinch, so they're basically the same enemy except that one has very versatile movement and the other doesn't move at all -- which also turns out to be pretty dangerous, because if you're keeping an eye out for enemies in motion, you may not see the turrets before they start shooting you. There's also a nice boss battle in E1M8 against several plasma-shooting ghost marines that can only be hurt by hitscan weapons (and possibly splash damage?). Wraith777 created all of these enemies in Dehacked but managed to do so without replacing any of the Doom bestiary, so you'll still face Lost Souls, Cacodemons, Barons, and even a few Cyberdemons alongside the usual E1 fodder and the new additions.

    The levels themselves are enormous and highly nonlinear, with branching paths in just about every room you enter. These complex layouts often allow you to do strange things, like enter another main area through a secret passage that doesn't count as a secret, or completely bypass a locked door without getting the key. I got the sense that all of this "back door" stuff was intentional, and it gave the map a very sandboxy feel, since there are multiple ways to accomplish objectives. The real secrets tend to take their cues from Wolfenstein 3D; they often have very little visual indication of where they are, and they're frequently stacked one inside another.

    For the most part the layouts feel natural, albeit mazey, and you can find everything just by keeping an eye on your map, but there are also many places where the levels start to feel confusing. Wraith does a good job of giving every room a distinct shape, but since the texture set is relatively limited, it can still be hard to remember where you are, and, more importantly, how to get back to where you want to go. The levels are very much switch-oriented, too. It's not exactly a switch hunt, because the switches are always in clear view, but getting to the exit often requires you to hit switches all over the level, and it's easy to miss some small side room and then get lost for 15 minutes while you try to figure out where it is. Many levels are full of cramped spaces, and in spite of the size and complexity of the maps, the author doesn't do a very good job with interconnectivity at all. Most really refined mappers ace this test; in a nonlinear map, they'll always have teleporters, lifts, and lowering walls to get you right back where you want to be. In Alpha Accident, however, you constantly find yourself having to take the long way around to get back to a part of the level you haven't explored yet (sometimes you hit a switch and can actually see where the bars lower but there's no good way to get back there), or falling off a crate while trying to take a secret path across the top of the crate maze and having to spend a couple of minutes re-navigating the whole maze to get back to where you started. This can be incredibly frustrating, and it's by far the biggest issue that keeps Alpha Accident from being one of the best Doom 1 episodes I've played. Even if all of this drives you crazy, though, it's worth playing the last two levels in the set, which are easily the best. They're both nonlinear like the earlier levels, but they utilize much larger hub-type spaces and have much more comfortable layouts with a lot of really interesting ideas. They also look very different from the repeated alpha-style setting of the previous levels, which starts to get a little old by the end of E1M6. E1M7 is a very open city-style base complex with many individual buildings to explore, and E1M8 is set in a hellish cavern.

    There are a few other minor issues in addition to the layout problems mentioned above that make Alpha Accident feel a little unpolished. I frequently found myself coming up behind enemies that didn't know I was there until I shot them. I'm not sure if the author considers this to be a feature rather than a bug, but it's not something you normally see in a level that's been fully playtested, and it didn't feel right. There are also some spots that just don't seem like they were thought through completely; for instance, when I grabbed my first chaingun from behind a storage crate, it unleashed a Demon trap in the hall where I had come from, but the Demons couldn't reach me through the most direct path, the narrow gap between the crate and the wall, and I was able to pick them off easily.

    Although these issues can be annoying, they don't create major problems, and if you want, you can see them as adding to the classic aesthetic. Alpha Accident feels a bit like Nicolas Monti's work in some ways, but the intentional weirdness is less extreme and therefore will probably appeal to more players. The new resources and the hugeness of the levels really makes this set stand out from a lot of other basic E1 replacements, too. If you like exploration-focused levels and have a lot of patience, you'll get a lot out of playing this episode, and I'm sure you'll feel like it rewards the time you put into it. However, if you hate cramped hallways, mazey layouts, and constantly running around looking for every last switch, you may want to seek your fun elsewhere, or just skip straight to E1M7.

    Hell Returns for Last Time - CaptainManiac
    Doom 2 - Single Player - GZDoom - 1.24 MB -
    Reviewed by: gaspe
    How beautiful, it's time for another review. Here we have Hell Returns for Last Time, a small wad with five maps designed to be played with Brutal Doom. I thought that this is a nice chance to try something different in the review, a little experiment, because the words won't be enough to make you understand how this is, and most likely I don't know how many of you will actually play this crap after you read this. So to make you suffer at least a bit you'll notice later that in the sentences there will be numbers, like this (1), which will refer to the corresponding screenshot.

    "This mapset has good story and good graphics..." this is taken from the text file. I don't know what the author means by "good graphics"; there aren't custom textures, the two custom monsters appear only one time, and the look of the level is at the opposite of being good. The story doesn't seem to be really special: We are on the Earth, year 4599, in a deserted land. Maybe it's something post-apocalyptic, I don't know; probably the wad will explain all later, but let's begin our journey... ...inside our house, that is burning (1). Before the door there's a pit full of weapons which I though it was inescapable because the ladder doesn't really work well. Look at your house (2)! That red lava strip you see on the right is a little pit from where monsters start to spawn if you make noise. You don't have to fight here, instead we have to move to... a car? (3) and finish the level. The next map is like MAP01, a big flat area with a building the middle. After we kill an unfriendly marine we can enter the building (4), yes the key is placed in front of the door. Or we can just exit the level, to the left there's a truck I suppose, it's like the car of MAP01 that's twice the size, but let's go explore inside what is a military base supposedly. There are some enemies to fight, finally we do something. The place is made of big monotextured rooms; I really wanted to enjoy the good story but the dialogue seems messed up (5). There's also a bunch of friendly marines that appear (6), you can also admire how the inner areas are now. Next level: we are in the truck now (7), and it's moving, at least the floor is scrolling but what remains of the enemies keeps following us (8). I thought that this map was bugged; after you kill everything nothing happens for a good while, but suddenly you are teleported here (9), where endless hordes of monsters start to spawn, but don't worry, to end the level you just have to sit in the lava and wait to lose almost all your health. The next map is the closest one to being something acceptable (10). Then follows the last map, a boss map. After a boring cyberdemon fight we get to fight an afrit (11) which is the real boss; good thing that you can step into the teleporter and finish the level without having to kill it.

    And it's over. If I have to force myself to find some good things in this mapset, it is that least it was short, and it was rather entertaining although for the wrong reasons. Even if you are interested because it requires Brutal Doom, leave this wad alone; you deserve better than this.

    The /newstuff Chronicles is a usually-weekly roundup of new items uploaded to the /idgames archive, and it is written entirely by community members like you. If you wish to contribute, the /newstuff Review Center is the place to do so. Register on the Doomworld Forums first if you don't already have an account, because you need one to submit reviews. Special thanks goes to the nearly 300 users who have submitted reviews over the past several years.
    Bloodshedder
    Battle for the sphere of chaos - Kenon
    Hexen - Single Player - ZDoom Compatible - 6.11 MB -
    Reviewed by: Not Jabba
    Battle for the Sphere of Chaos is a pretty interesting idea -- it's essentially a Heretic wad that you play in Hexen, based on the premise that D'Sparil was the one who took over the world of Cronos instead of Korax. It's a set of four Heretic-style levels with Heretic monsters, textures, and music, but you play as the Hexen classes with Hexen items, mana, and weapons (although both the Porkulator and Morph Ovum are present for some reason, which is strange but entertaining). The set is presented as a sort of hybrid hub; the first half lets you choose the order in which you play the two "spoke" levels, and the second half is a linear progression -- although the levels themselves are fairly nonlinear, and the last one plays like sort of a mini hub with multiple separate areas that you can tackle in any order.

    These levels are designed as though you're playing Heretic, which means fast-paced gameplay with high enemy counts, but there's also a lot of mana to go around, and the Hexen weapons stack up pretty well against the Heretic bestiary. I did my main playthrough as the Mage, so I was able to counter the many ranged enemies pretty easily. Even if you do run out of mana, it's pretty easy to fight through with the wand, which feels like somewhere between the Elven Wand and Dragon Claw in terms of power and is highly effective against enemy hordes because it goes through multiple enemies in one shot. Sabreclaws are quite deadly, but the Mage's flechette is fairly useful against them. The Fighter is definitely tough to play as, since most enemies have ranged attacks (this is also true in Hexen, but again, BftSoC pits you against larger numbers), and many of those enemies are set up as hard-to-reach snipers. On the other hand, the Fighter is better at dodging projectiles, better at escaping when hemmed in by many enemies, and better at dealing with Sabreclaws. It's definitely doable, but I'd recommend only playing as this class if you specifically want the challenge posed by fighting Heretic enemies with melee weapons. I didn't really try the Cleric, but since the second weapon is available almost immediately for all classes, it's probably similar to the Mage. Since the Cleric is slightly faster and better armored, and his higher-level weapons and flechettes are the best for crowd control, I suspect he's actually the easiest class for this mapset.

    I noticed a few minor graphical glitches due to the palette change, especially the pale gray sky used in one level, which has some strange black patches in areas that look like they're supposed to be white. A few other things don't work quite like you expect due to engine changes, but they're not really bugs. When you defeat a Maulotaur, it disappears in a puff of smoke (like the Dark Servant summon) instead of dying, and D'Sparil can't teleport around in his final form (he makes up for this with higher health and increased Disciple summons). All in all, though, the hybrid gameplay is fun and gives you plenty of opportunities for experimentation, like seeing what happens if you freeze ghosts or making Dark Servant Maulotaurs fight D'Sparil. The architecture, texturing, and level design are also very solid, with challenging combat and many areas that feel very explorable. BftSoC isn't the best set of maps I've played for either Heretic or Hexen, but it's a neat idea that's well executed.

    Ultimatum - Riding on the Backs of Giants - Death Egg, Dragonfly, joe-ilya, Libor_john66, Olroda, Pinchy, walter confalonieri
    Ultimate Doom - Single Player - Limit Removing - 557.62 KB -
    Reviewed by: Not Jabba
    Ultimatum is a small community project that aimed to bring together all of the major mapping limitations from throughout the community's history. The end result was seven maps, each by a different author and each created under a different limitation. One thing that's interesting about this set is that it's for Doom 1, even though all of the restrictions it uses were created for Doom 2 mapping projects, so the mappers had the added challenge of a smaller bestiary, and players get a slightly different perspective on each challenge than they normal would.

    Level 1 is a one-hour speedmap. The layout is good for an hour, and I didn't see any errors in the standard E1 base texturing. Basic shotgun and chaingun combat, nothing terribly exciting.

    Level 2 (this is E1M9, incidentally; the mapset automatically skips two slots so that it can have just 7 total and end on E1M8) uses the 10 sector restriction. As a non-mapper, I have only the most general sense of what this challenge represents in practical terms, but the map seems to make very good use of its limited resources. It looks pretty basic but has a nice grand sense of scale, especially when you get a view out over the lava sea. Combat is very light, but it's fun to hunt through the castle for keys and unravel its slightly convoluted layout.

    Level 3 uses the 50 Shades of Graytall texture limitations, and it doesn't make very creative use of those textures. You start out in a big square room surrounded by tons of enemies, and later a few small side rooms open up. I kept getting hung up on stairs, I had to randomly hit walls and find secret doors to access most of the required teleporters, and the way to progress was generally just too unclear for my taste. I didn't enjoy this one.

    Level 4 was limited to 50 monsters. I feel like this was one of the easiest restrictions to deal with in the context of Doom 1, because the number of monsters doesn't have much effect on possible combat setups, and the limited bestiary means that a concise level is generally a good thing. Even so, Pinchy manages to make things interesting by turning the interconnected, roughly circular base map into a hunt for weapons while fending off Sergeants and other weak enemies and avoiding the small groups of Cacos or single Barons that periodically block your way or teleport in to put pressure on you. Once you have the rocket launcher and plasma rifle and all the ammo you need, it's a fairly simple matter to make another round of the level and take out the enemies that vexed you before -- though the Cyberdemon is still a tough customer due to his rather tight confines. The door marked as red actually requires the yellow key due to an oversight, but otherwise this is a very nice map.

    Level 5 is limited to a 64 x 64 grid, which in practise mainly means it can't use super fine detailing. This is another map where I think the author responded to the challenge very well -- instead of detail, they relied on an abstract, surreal environment with empty sky floors and well-executed shifts from more basey rooms to fleshy Hell areas, each with subtly different construction styles to help heighten the distinctions. It has great music too.

    Level 6 is a 1024 map, and it's puzzley and atmospheric -- sort of like a teleport maze, but a very manageable one. Things get interesting when more enemies are let in and start teleporting around the little complex, with them hunting you and you hunting them at the same time and everybody getting shuffled around somewhat randomly by the teleporters.

    Level 7 uses the Five Rooms of Doom restriction, and it suffers the same problem as the original wad, which is that "a room" can basically mean whatever you want it to mean as long as you don't add doors. That said, this is a good map. joe-ilya effectively had no limitations on how many monsters he could use, and there are about 550 of them packed all around the main outdoor area and the fourish smaller interior spaces that you have to access to get the three keys and exit. Combat is intense and fast-paced; you have to constantly watch out for enemies charging or firing at you from every direction, but it doesn't become frustratingly difficult because of the large amount of space you have to move around in.

    To make a long story short, this is a pretty fun mapset overall, and most of the maps did a good job answering their respective challenges. The speedmap is pretty dull and the Graytall map is annoying, but I enjoyed the rest of them. If you're thinking about playing this, it's probably worth your time, partially because most of the maps are very quick to play.

    Liberate 1024 - Philip "Liberation" Brown
    Doom 2 - Single Player - Boom Compatible - 313.51 KB -
    Reviewed by: gaspe
    Liberate 1024 is a wad with seven 1024 maps for Doom 2. As you can expect from a work that was made under the 1024 limitation, it's a mapset that you will end in a few minutes. Also every map has a low monster count (the highest was 44), and mostly you'll find low-tier bestiary with some appearances of tougher stuff. Visually it is kinda basic but with many nice touches to give it a more pleasant appearance. It's easy and very short; play it if you are looking for something very quick and simple.

    Union Aerospace Computers - OverStory_Lover_63
    Doom 2 - Single Player - Vanilla - 133.68 KB -
    Reviewed by: gaspe
    Union Aerospace Computers is a quite big single map for Doom 2. To put it briefly, this is like something that could have been taken out of Maximum Doom. I don't know how effective that comparison is, as people might have different feelings on Maximum Doom, but this map really reminded me of the 90s amateur works: shapes that are either squares or random, and texturing with some coherent things but still a mess. If you play on UV there's a "Good Luck" message made with marine corpses, but to be honest I have another message for the author... There are many hitscanners put in big and open areas, health is quite scarce, and for quite some time you will have only the shotgun and the chaingun.

    The gameplay is kinda uninteresting and the look isn't really appealing (and if you really want to play this I suggest you to use a GL port, as there are some HOMs in software mode). I like some ideas behind the progression sometimes, but there are too many wrong things in this map to justify it.

    Porn (of which your mainstraem idea is laughable) - RaphaelMode
    Doom 2 - Single Player - Boom Compatible - 142.89 KB
    Reviewed by: Csonicgo
    You know, I have played a lot of crap. Ruba maps, Terry maps, Gamarra maps, edited SLIGE maps by DoomWadStation, LA Worlds... you know, the premium crap. The stuff that makes you go, "Why waste the time?" Well, I'm debating if I should throw this on the crap pile. An interesting concept that doesn't execute well at all.

    Ech.

    Let's have some fun reading the text file...

    This doom mod i am presenting you here contains all that pornographical work would, besides sex. this not mine or any other specific person's fetish, it's Doom's. More or less. What porn would be feasible, raesonable and compatible with a Boom-compatible Doom mod? The possibilities are limited, but in those possibilities, there is a fairly decent array of options.

    'scuse me?

    That's the most absurd thing I've heard in a long time.

    The map's not much better. No monsters to kill, just switches to hit. There is a garbage "language" on multiple whiteboards that you're supposed to follow, but because it looks so stupid and unintelligible, it's not going to help anyone playing. If I'm supposed to write those symbols down, that's not happening. So let me tell you right now, this is trial and error switch hitting. Hit one bad switch, you die. It's really that simple. If that entices you to play, go on ahead. For the rest of us, this is just an exercise in patience. And given the content, I really didn't have any.

    Also, the last area is intentionally broken, so I'm going to spoil it because it's really that dumb: sit in the chair, face the computer, and press use. There. Level complete.

    To avoid spoiling the rest of it (even though I just spoiled the ending), I'm not going to provide any screenshots, but if you want screenshots, you can make your own! Here's how: Take a whiteboard and scribble on it with a red marker. Be sure to make lots of grids and bow ties. Go football coach all over it with some arrows. Then stare at the corner of a white room. If that's not enough, find a treadmill and stumble on it for a few minutes. That should do it. You'll probably have more fun doing all that than playing this level.

    Must i reinforce this horror? - RaphaelMode
    Doom 2 - Single Player - ZDoom Compatible - 129.85 KB -
    Reviewed by: fr0gm4st3R
    If you don't want to read the review, just check out the screenshots I took. I am pretty sure that whatever you are about to witness will allow you to craft and formulate some type of negative conclusion before you even give your eyeballs and brain the task of coming in contact with what I say.

    Anyways, to the review... I'm sorry, I couldn't do it. I couldn't put up with this map. It was absolute garbage. Complete utter garbage. All of the textures were gray, blue and green grid patterns. Occasionally, random quotes were placed on the walls to make the map seem almost inspirational, but that failed greatly due to the horrible design of this level. In the middle of my playthrough, I was teleported in front of a horde of sergeants and instantly killed. I didn't bother to try again. The map just sucks. Don't try this level unless this review makes you curious.

    Geneva Convention-compliant medikits - id; uploaded by Simon Howard (fraggle)
    Doom 2 - Single Player - Chocolate Doom - 4.8 KB -
    Reviewed by: Not Jabba
    This wad replaces the graphics of the stimpack, medikit, and berserk pack with versions that use a red-and-white pill graphic instead of the red cross symbol. The issue at hand is the Geneva Conventions, which establish this symbol as a means of identifying medical personnel and other neutral noncombatants who in accordance with the conventions should not be attacked. As a result, many governments do not allow the red cross to be used for any other purpose. It's the sort of decision that people wouldn't think twice about and might even firmly agree with if it didn't imply modifications to their favorite classic video games. Specifically, the reason many people hate these graphics is that id Software used them in the Doom 3: BFG Edition to replace the graphics in the classic Doom games that were packaged with it.

    I'm pretty sure no one is implying that any government or organization, including the UN itself, really cares whether you, in your own home, use these graphics to play mods for a 22-year-old game, much less that anyone is going to bash down your door and do something about it. The one entity that could actually be considered responsible or held accountable for Doom's medikit graphics is id Software itself, which is why the company used these very sprites in the BFG Edition. Depending on your viewpoint, this graphic change is either a big deal or completely insignificant; some will ask why anyone would bother changing the sprites over an issue that feels so insignificant in the context of Doom, and others will ask why anyone would bother complaining about such an insignificant change. In any case, these graphics are now available on the archive in the event that you A) feel strongly about the relevant issues, B) like the pill graphic better, or C) just feel like switching things up every now and then. I don't think I'll be getting much use out of them personally, but it's nice that they're here as a resource.

    Chip The Wolf - Michael Jan Krizik (valkiriforce)
    N/A - N/A - Skin Support - 128.96 KB -
    Reviewed by: Not Jabba
    Have you ever thought to yourself, "I wish I could play Doom as a cereal brand mascot"? Of course you have. Duh.

    This player skin allows you to play as Chip, the current mascot for Cookie Crisp cereal (and, if you're my age and don't have kids, probably not a character you're familiar with at all; I remember the '90s commercials with the dog and the burglar as the cereal's mascots). It's pretty cartoony -- as in, it has no shading at all -- but it's easily the second best cereal-related player skin of all time, and it could be a fun way to vary your multiplayer routine. The skin mod also gives you a new set of HUD face graphics, including a pretty funny one for god mode where the character's eyes are replaced by cookies.

    If you think this skin has no use outside of multiplayer, I'd point out that it's not the first time the Doom engine has been combined with breakfast cereal. With a small amount of modification to the art, I could see this character working reasonably well in a Chex Quest mod.

    Teleport Outpost - René "Xeotroid" Fiala
    Doom 2 - Single Player - ZDoom Compatible - 43.55 KB -
    Reviewed by: Memfis
    Teleport Outpost is advertised as a Boom-compatible map, but you will need at least ZDoom to finish it and to see the sky correctly. It is the author's first work and it offers 2-3 minutes of simple shotgun action in small rooms of a typical Doom base. Some furniture is present as well. It is mostly hardcore fans of newbie wads that will enjoy this.

    JPHOUSE.WAD - JP LeBreton
    Doom 2 - Single Player - GZDoom - 6.36 MB -
    Reviewed by: gaspe
    JPHouse is single level that requires GZDoom; it's a recreation of the author's house he used to live in back in 1994. I wasn't really sure what this actually was when I started it; there aren't any monsters in the level, and there's only an easy puzzle that leads to a secret and to the real purpose of this wad. This is basically a trailer for an upcoming wad. To be honest, I was quite surprised to discover that the author is a professional game designer who worked on the BioShock series. Autobiographical Architecture is the title of this mod, in which JP LeBreton will create an interactive story about his life. For sure this sounds really interesting, and the stuff showed in the trailer looked rather promising, I dare to say. It will be released in more volumes, and the first one should be ready by this year. You can also visit his site to see the information about this wad, but there isn't much revealed other than what I already said here.

    WadSmoosh - JP LeBreton
    Doom/Doom 2 - N/A - N/A - 3.33 MB
    Reviewed by: mumblemumble
    Wadsmoosh is a wonderful utility which does a very simple, but helpful thing. It combines all base IWADs into one gigawad, so games can be changed on the fly!

    It takes Doom 1, Ultimate doom, TNT, Plutonia, Master Levels, No Rest for the Living, and combines them all into one package, with an episode selection at the "new game" area for the episodes of Doom 1, then picking Doom 2, TNT, etc. Textures and maps for TNT, Plutonia, Master Levels, No Rest for the Living are renamed (obviously you cannot have multiple map01s) and reorganized so there is no conflict, same with music.

    This may not sound like much, but the simple fact that you can play Doom and not have to boot down and boot back up your source port just to switch between Doom 1 and 2, TNT, and Plutonia, and Master Levels are MUCH easier to run, makes this incredibly useful.

    The only thing I didn't like, which might be partial to my system, is it refused to read my wads if they were marked "read only". So if the EXE launches but does nothing, that might be it.

    What else is there to say, really? It's a utility which joins all the base wads up, and makes switching games much easier. Recommended that everyone give this a try, as playing with "Doom complete" is very handy.

    Doom 2 Minor Sprite Fixing Project v1.7 - Revenant100 aka Marphy Black
    Doom 2 - N/A - Vanilla - 2.52 MB
    Reviewed by: Csonicgo
    Are you the kind of guy who is annoyed by a painting hanging just a little to the right of center? Do you take apart your dashboard five times to stop rattling noises? Did the stray pixel in a torch you saw in MAP10 bother you? Well worry no more, friend; put your mind at ease with Revenant100's Sprite fixing project, where that stray brown pixel on the SSG won't stare you in the face anymore!

    The beef of this mod is that sprite offsets are fixed, so the chaingunner doesn't dance at certain angles, and the revenant loses a little of his "agitation". Some other subtle changes include: touching up transparent pixels in the "model" monsters, removing the magenta pixels on the SS Nazi sprites, and even the status bar face has been touched up a bit. So presumably, if the id dudes had more time to polish things, we might have gotten this - or not, because most of this I had never noticed. So this is for the more "attentive" of us, I guess. There are also the new Romero-provided sprite rotations for the monsters that didn't have them previously. So if that makes you happy, download this.

    Now knowing me, I always have to find something to piss me off. I didn't have to look far, because I can't stand the lost soul fixes at all. He looks "lost" in more than one definition. I hate to bring this up, but if I wanted to use this mod seriously, I would rip those particular sprites out completely. This is my only serious gripe to this.

    Some monsters didn't get touch-ups of things I knew about, or if they did, they weren't enough. Examples are the demon's toes when biting versus walking, one of the angles of the demon's biting attack really makes his left leg look terrible, and the missing toes on the revenant when attacking didn't get addressed, but that's probably me trying to find something to pick a bone at.

    I really like the idea, but some things are "up to interpretation", which is an arena I really don't like walking into. If you don't care about such things, but do care about "sprite offsets" and other miscellanea, this is for you. Just be aware that this will break in any mod with a radically redesigned PLAYPAL, which is becoming more and more common these days.

    The /newstuff Chronicles is a usually-weekly roundup of new items uploaded to the /idgames archive, and it is written entirely by community members like you. If you wish to contribute, the /newstuff Review Center is the place to do so. Register on the Doomworld Forums first if you don't already have an account, because you need one to submit reviews. Special thanks goes to the nearly 300 users who have submitted reviews over the past several years.
    Doomkid
    ZDaemon Thursday Night Survival #269 - The Journey
    Date: 6th October 2016
    Euro session: 19:00 BST/14:00 EDT at [L@P], Germany (usually lasts over 6 hours)

    Zandronum Friday Night Fragfest #342: IDL201x Instagib CTF & UDM3 Deathmatch
    European FNF: October 7th, 2016, 18:00 UTC
    American FNF: October 7th, 2016, 20:00 EDT

    ZDS #474 - Catch The Chicken
    Date: Saturday 8th October 2016
    Euro: 19:30 BST / 14:30 EDT
    USA: 01:00 BST / 20:00 EDT Head on over to the multiplayer forum for discussion about clans, multiplayer WADs, match scheduling and other fun events! Happy fragging!
    Voros

    OBLIGE 7.5 Released

    By Voros, in News,

    Oblige is the ultimate random Doom map creator, and this new version takes the cake!
    I have just released version 7.50. This is a major rework compared to 6.20, introducing a new system of generating levels based on the concept of Shape Grammars (a somewhat rudimentary application of that concept, anyway). The results are definitely better than previous versions, though it still does some stupid things sometimes.
    You can download it at the OBLIGE homepage.
    bradharding

    DOOM Retro v2.3 Released

    By bradharding, in News,

    Version 2.3 of the DOOM Retro source port is now available. This release brings with it a great number of improvements, and several new features, such as motion blur when the player turns quickly, the ability to draw the player's path in the automap, and even more player stats. Visit www.doomretro.com to download and for the full release notes.
    Bloodshedder

    The /newstuff Chronicles #514

    By Bloodshedder, in News,


    Sawdust - Paul "skillsaw" DeBruyne
    Doom 2 - Single Player - MBF-compatible - 13.35 MB -
    Reviewed by: Not Jabba
    Sawdust is a set of seven maps that didn't make the cut for skillsaw's Valiant. Outtakes mapsets like this one are becoming fairly common these days -- see Summer of '69, for instance, or valkiriforce's Pulse. And why not? Creative minds always feel that completionist urge to release their cut material, and players are always eager for more levels to play from their favorite mappers. It's a win-win.

    Sawdust's levels represent all of Valiant's first four episodic themes (Bluebase, Bloodgrotto, Nuketech, and Orangehell), though sadly there are no lunar bases to be found here. I only recognized one section of one level (map 04) from Valiant, so the levels are almost all "new" material rather than beta versions of levels that were in the megawad. The modified guns and the full range of new monsters are present as well (except for the final boss), though the more interesting niche monsters are usually just thrown at the player alongside the rest of the bestiary rather than being carefully choreographed like they were in Valiant. The levels themselves are fun and challenging, with architecture and layouts that are highly competent but not exciting. They lack that particular pro-quality smoothness and pacing that only skillsaw and Erik Alm seem to be able to produce on a regular basis, and there are few memorable battles. However, these flaws should be pretty obvious going in -- these maps are the *rejects* from Valiant, after all.

    Regardless, when a mapper of skillsaw's caliber releases a set of outtakes maps, you can still bet that they're going to be solid and enjoyable throughout. Map 04 is the best level in the set, even though part of it is identical (or close enough) to part of a level in Valiant E3. It starts off with a descending elevator battle where you really have to watch out for the suicide bomber zombies mixed in with the other enemies, and it ends with a sequence of nice battles on a set of high walkways where the enemies keep appearing all around you. As for the rest... well, the main thing to be said about it is that Valiant set the bar extremely high. You probably already know whether you want to play Sawdust, and you've probably already played it if you want to. It's a nice set of maps for anyone who can't get enough of Valiant's themes and monsters.

    Zis is KAOSS! - Kimota
    Doom 2 - Single Player - Boom Compatible - 1.18 MB -
    Reviewed by: yakfak
    Here's an oddity. kaoss.wad comprises eight modular levels which swing between feeling eccentric and almost procedurally generated, each sub-section in a map establishing a textural and geometric palette that appears only in that particular area and then never again! Texturing varies frequently along stretches of the same length of wall, but always sympathetically, rarely garish; corridor travel is made interesting in an architectural sense by whimsical pieces of micro-decoration, rarely as dull as just an inset panel or light-strip. There aren't hundreds of detail sectors in any of these maps, but "detailed" is still the word I'd use to describe the miscellaneous original finishing touches that Kimota has made; although no custom graphical resources appear here, good use is made of Doom 2's texture set, in a sparse style. To the author, I'd recommend more dramatic lighting!

    Gameplay-wise, expect a lot of corridor shooting on HMP, mainly against lower-tier enemies, with more and more Hell Knights and skeletons appearing on subsequent levels. The threat isn't great, but with the lion's share of the real armour pick-ups being locked away in secrets, you'll be finding yourself sneaking 'round corners you'd barrel around on a more arcade-like set. On UV, the levels are packed with meat and infighting occurs fairly naturally to offset the occasionally tightness of munitions. A few design naiveties crop up - some gaps can be sidestepped across with an SR50 sweep, some weapons can be snatched off their podiums - but this sort of thing is sort of touching in an amateur level set after all. The one negative I'd mention is that backtracking through the levels tends to be necessary, this complaint partially mollified by various monster cupboards which refill the map with zombiemen.

    Zis is KAOSS! isn't a must-see but nor is it a heavy downer of a level set - on Hurt Me Plenty it can be enjoyed in around half an hour. If the author Kimota decides to create future Doom works I hope they decide to include original music, which was lacking here; put a little thought into how a level can be made less modular, more interconnected; and that they revisit maps 2, 6 and 7 of this set, which had simple but beautiful visual moments! All in all, I liked the WAD!

    Another Shitty Deathmatch map - ButterflyGirl
    Doom 2 - Deathmatch - GZDoom - 8.86 KB -
    Reviewed by: Not Jabba
    Another Shitty Deathmatch Map is pretty true to its title. It's a single tiny room piled high with weapons and ammo near each player start, with a BFG and about a million cells in the center of the room. It's definitely ButterflyGirl's most playable map so far, and I could actually see people having some fun with this one if they were in the right mood, since it would end up being a huge fragfest with players dying every few seconds. Other than that, I can't really see it appealing to anyone.

    Giza Invasion - Saturn
    Doom 2 - Single Player - ZDoom Compatible - 181.72 KB -
    Reviewed by: Not Jabba
    Giza Invasion is a very simplistic, very weird level. You start out in a little town area where you can grab most of the weapons and a ton of ammo, and there are also a bunch of ally marines (the first time I saw them, I thought they were enemies because of how they were walking toward me with guns and there's, like, no context whatsoever; I feel like even a cheesy ZDoom cutscene or text explaining things would have been better than nothing). Even if you don't accidentally shoot them, don't worry, because they'll accidentally shoot each other for you when the enemies appear, especially if one of them tries to fire a rocket while they're still all bunched together. But anyway, after you've prepped yourself, you can walk out of the town's only entrance, where you'll meet the "invading army," which is basically two massive mixed mobs of enemies. If you kill enough of them, or after a certain amount of time has passed (I never figured out which), a couple of large stone structures will drop to reveal two Cyberdemons, and you have to kill them to reveal the exit switch.

    Due to the layout and enemy placement, you basically have two options: 1) skate past the hitscanners in the first enemy group (which is easy because they're far away) and run around until the enemies have wiped each other out with some small help from your allies, or 2) retreat into the town and funnel them through the entrance while you slaughter them (though the back of the city does come down eventually, letting in the other main group). Or you could actually fight them all in the enormous, completely flat space outside the town, but... why? No matter how you slice it, it's poor combat design, and it looks like no serious effort was put into designing this map. Skip it; it really isn't any fun.

    THT: Threnody - Various (see credits below)
    Doom 2 - Single Player - Boom Compatible - 13 MB -
    Reviewed by: gaspe
    Ty Halderman, the "Essential Pillar of the Community", doesn't really need an introduction here. But in case you didn't know, he was truly worthy of his title: he was the leader and founder of TeamTNT, was one of the main programmers of Boom, and was the maintainer of the /idgames Archive for more than 15 years. On August 16th, 2015 the sad news that Ty Halderman had passed away was announced.

    The forums proposed starting a mapping event in tribute to the memory of such an important and historical member of the community, and this is how the community project was born. The target source port was Boom, and additional resources were chosen: the textures from Evilution and The Return (the textures of Eternal Doom). It was really an admirable and wonderful thing to do to commemorate Ty Halderman, and the quality of the final outcome is almost on par with the intentions that were put into starting this.

    If there a thing that this wad nailed pretty well, it is having a varied and sometimes quirky vibe that feels a lot like TNT. It's also a really polished and refined mapset. All the maps are really good, and there are plenty of interesting things in their design. Even the gameplay is quite varied, as it ranges from classic to more modern styles. The usage of Boom features is particularly high. There are homages to maps made by Ty. In particular, MAP02 takes large inspiration from Icarus, MAP03 and MAP11 were a very interesting take on the concept of Wormhole, and MAP12 is a giant remake and crossover of TNT MAP04 and MAP19. Other maps in particular that interested me the most are: MAP08 with its totally unique and strange experience. MAP09 is another weird one and with quite crazy gameplay. MAP10 is a giant and gorgeous level made only with stock textures; words and screenshots don't do it justice, as you really have to see it. MAP15 and MAP16 are a couple of really cool maps made only with the textures of Eternal Doom. And the last map deserves a mention too, it's just beautiful.

    This is a really high quality release, and probably one of the finest megawads released this year. If you haven't already played this, do it, because it really deserves it.

    Black Magnetic (v1.3) - Angry Saint
    Doom 2 - Single Player - ZDoom Compatible - 6.99 MB -
    Reviewed by: Not Jabba
    Black Magnetic is a single level, but it's essentially a total conversion, with a wide array of new weapons and enemies, as well as a gritty industrial texture set by NMN. It was one of the six entries created for Tormentor667's "Doomja Vu" E1M7 remake contest (which also gave us last year's Cacoward-winning dead.wire by Xaser), and as with some of the other entries, it morphs the level's layout completely beyond recognition, so it doesn't feel like you're playing a remake at all.

    Black Magnetic's layout is probably the high point of the wad, in fact. It uses ZDoom's true 3D capabilities to create two levels of architecture, one above the other, and the whole thing is nicely nonlinear while still making your objectives mostly clear. That said, I found the level very confusing at many points due to the pervasive darkness, the similar colors of nearly all of the textures, and the fact that many doors and switches blended in with their surroundings and were very hard to spot. I think that more varied lighting, particularly spotlighting around the important switches and such, would have improved the experience by leaps and bounds.

    The gameplay is a dramatic departure from Doom's standard projectile-dodging arcade fest. Half the enemies are hitscanners, and the other half shoot projectiles so fast (and in such tight spaces) that they might as well be hitscanners too. Virtually all the enemies have high health, with the Zombieman equivalent taking a full shotgun blast to kill and the chaingunner equivalents taking more like two or three shells worth of damage. Everything else is basically a damage-sponging miniboss. Terms like "hitscanner hell" are sure to be bandied about by many people who play this wad, but it's worth taking a step back from the initial gut reaction and seeing if Black Magnetic works within its own terms. This wad requires you to rethink how you play, and I'm not sure whether extreme caution/corner strafing or throwing all caution to the wind and shooting on the move is the better tactic here. Doom's standard weapons are present with slight modifications, except for the rocket launcher, which is replaced by a pair of arm launchers that shoot mini missile clusters (don't miss these -- they're awesome). To some extent, the weapons feel more powerful to counter the high power of the enemies, but it only feels like partial compensation. Since it's such a different playstyle from what we're all used to, it's pretty difficult to say whether the gameplay is balanced, but I'm inclined to say it's tipped a little too far in favor of their enemies -- their health is too high overall, and the really effective guns appear too late in the level, as I only really had fun when I finally had the SSG and rocket clusters. As with the visuals, I feel like it's almost there but needs a few tweaks in terms of execution.

    Give it a try if you find the ideas appealing -- I have a feeling some people are going to love it and others will hate it.

    CthuluDoom - Andrew Loly
    Doom 2 - Single Player - Vanilla - 1.28 MB -
    Reviewed by: fr0gm4st3R
    With a name like CthuluDoom, I was anticipating some type of Lovecraftian Total Conversion mod. Unfortunately, this was far from it. The building in which the level takes place is very difficult to navigate and is far too cluttered, confusing, and dark for the player to smoothly maneuver from room to room. The textures used appeared to be a jumbled mess of random patterns and designs. Everything, from the walls to the furniture, has a very rough time fitting together. Frequently, models of enemies and weapons pop in and out of their modified and normal states. An example of this occurrence is seen when you encounter a butler in the dining hall who turns into a Baron of Hell every single time he activates an attack animation. This also happens when you pick up a note on a table that fires shotgun rounds when you pull the trigger. I can see that the author was trying to visualize and recreate a scene of H.P. Lovecraft's tale, "The Picture in the House," using Doom, but the quality of the level lacks what is necessary to offer a good experience for the player.

    Ice Prison (v1.0) - Angry Saint
    Hexen - Single Player - Vanilla - 83.67 KB -
    Reviewed by: Not Jabba
    Ice Prison is a single ice-themed level for Hexen. Hexen levels are rare and always have extra potential to feel fresh and interesting, but this map has a lot of faults that keep it from meeting that potential. The ice fortress idea is a pretty good one, but the spaces in this level are too linear and too symmetrical, often overly large and rather bland -- I can't recall if Hexen's stock resources include many ice textures, but it feels like there are only a couple of them on display here, wallpapered over some pretty immense spaces. These are problems that mappers in any Doom-engine game have to be wary of, but I feel like it's particularly bad in Hexen, which was arguably the most immersively detailed of all the original games, and which allows for a larger sense of scale due to the bottomless pit effect (an effect that's used frequently in Ice Prison, incidentally).

    The gameplay, unfortunately, is even weaker. Regardless of which class you play, you only get the starter weapon (have fun, Clerics!), and it's extremely difficult to make gameplay fun with nothing but the starter weapon. Ettin grinding is a simplistic chore, so most of the challenge in this level is introduced through distant sniper enemies (Afrits, Serpents, and Wendigos) that you can't immediately reach -- and since only one class gets a ranged weapon, it creates a huge imbalance. This level is easy (but boring) for the Mage, frustrating but definitely manageable for the Fighter, and an agonizing slog for the Cleric. The author has made some efforts to change the monster balance depending on the class (the Fighter faces the fewest ranged enemies; the Cleric fights fewer than the Mage but more than the Fighter, which makes things even worse given that he has a weaker melee weapon and no ranged attack), but no matter who you play as, you'll face a large number of the long-distance snipers I mentioned, simply because that's what most of the gameplay revolves around. I will note that I found a secret near the end of the level with the second-slot weapon, but there's no mana anywhere, so you only get the small amount of charge that comes with it -- not nearly enough to overcome the level's gameplay issues, especially since it's a secret.

    I wouldn't recommend Ice Prison, but I hope the author finds this criticism useful and is willing to have a second try -- there's clearly effort put into this map, the mistakes can be improved upon, and we can always use more Hexen wads.

    The Joy of Mapping #1 - Jimmy & Various
    Doom 2 - Single Player - ZDoom Compatible - 636.97 KB -
    Reviewed by: Csonicgo
    There's a lot to be said about the word "talent". Talent is a pursued interest. Anything that you're willing to do, you can do. This distinction should be noted in Doom mapping, so, may I introduce to you: "The Joy of Mapping", where Jimmy takes fifteen aspiring mappers and shows them... well, the joy of mapping.

    That sounds like a load of hogwash, but, having played a massive megawad made by "talented" people last week, I found myself wanting something different. Completely different. Well, here was this entry, and it looked very promising. All you needed for this project was a few mapping tools, a little instruction from Jimmy and a few session tutors, and a vision in your mind. The mappers were taken through the basics of mapping, such as creating connected areas, interesting layouts, and using thing placement sensibly. The result of two hours of that feels refreshing compared to a month's worth of maps from an expert mapper on autopilot, making a map just for a contest, or for a project, with little enthusiasm. I suppose it's because new/novice mappers always had these pent-up ideas they've wanted to see in a map, and with this project, they finally get a chance to make it reality. I can't describe it any other way. Oh, and, I had more fun in these 15 speedmaps than I did from the uber-detailed behemoth that was my last review!

    So let's get started!

    The good stuff: Amazingly clutter free. Thank you Jesus. Any ZDoom effects used were very subtle, for rocks and gentle slopes on lights. Some maps were boxy, some had a lot of orthogonal lines, but so what? I never knew orthogonal lines to make anything not fun. Just look at some of Tormentor's maps, which use nothing but orthogonal lines, and no one says a thing. Yet, if a newbie uses them, well that's just "lazy". It's funny, because in the long run, that doesn't even matter. You can have 32767+ linedefs in your map, but if it's not fun to play, I'm not going to remember your map at all. That's the truth.

    Detail to me is this: if you have to make an excuse for it, it doesn't belong there. Setting a scene is one thing,especially detail in the starting area, but when it's everywhere, why? If I mapped something, I shouldn't have to explain what it is. It should just make sense. If you can remove it, remove it, no one will know.

    Now I will make some shoutouts to specific maps that I really enjoyed.

    Speckygingerweapon's "Pure Jammin' Arse Burgers" really likes to "explore the space". It was silly, but it was fun! And next is Fulsy's AASHITTY, which reminded me of the early Doom alpha maps. Please keep it up, Fulsy, I really liked how that looked. Fuzzball's Little Green Base used a lot of height variation to keep the map fresh. That's one of the problems many novice mappers have - they're afraid to take that chance, when that's one of Doom's greatest features. I hope to see more of this! And then there's Kate's "The Horror of Mapping". I have no idea what the hell this is, but I managed to beat the level - this one felt like it was trying too hard to look bad. So, if that was the intention... nailed it (don't do this). Fonze's "Fut the Whack" whooped my ass a few times. Wasn't expecting that! Work on your monster setups and you definitely have something! Vbob's "Crap" is anything but. I really enjoyed the marble, and was inspired by how much those textures can be used in new ways. And then there was Jimmy's awesome map. Just. Awesome.

    Why aren't you playing this yet? Stop reading and go play it now, if only for the awesome MIDIs in it. I hope the next installment has more MIDIs. Just a tip. (And I ran out of Bob Ross quotes to crowbar/shoehorn/tireiron into this, so now you'll have to reread this and find them all.)

    Deimos Condensed - Crasger
    Ultimate Doom - Single Player - Limit Removing - 479.75 KB -
    Reviewed by: gaspe
    Deimos Condensed is a quite big map for Doom which takes a lot of inspiration from E2, and it plays on the E2M6 slot. This level reminded me a lot of the big limit removing maps, often made by Russian authors, which make those realistic-like and heavily detailed settings using only (or mainly) stock textures. Usually all the big levels are for Doom 2, and that kind of style is kinda new in a Doom 1 map (at least for me), though I couldn't say that this work is really successful. On UV there are more than 500 monsters, and the flow isn't really fast. Doom 1 has less enemies and thus less variety you can put in the encounters, but this map does nothing to compensate for this shortage. Pretty much all the combat is like this: you enter in a room, press a switch, and some monsters teleport nearby. There aren't any different situations that will raise your interest in the gameplay, and the map becomes predictable very quickly. Even if a bit messy and unpolished, visually the map was rather nice, and the feel of the corrupted techbase was quite good.

    Even if there are some good things about this map, the very repetitive gameplay is a huge drawback to the overall experience. I don't really feel I can recommend this, but in case you are interested, there are some toilets in this map.

    The /newstuff Chronicles is a usually-weekly roundup of new items uploaded to the /idgames archive, and it is written entirely by community members like you. If you wish to contribute, the /newstuff Review Center is the place to do so. Register on the Doomworld Forums first if you don't already have an account, because you need one to submit reviews. Special thanks goes to the nearly 300 users who have submitted reviews over the past several years.
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