Endless Random /idgames WAD Adventures #076

Year 2 Month 10 Day 07

I play until I die or intentionally stop. I don't comment the wad where I died/stopped.

[1] Apocalypse by Rob Berkowitz (1999)

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A single-level Doom2 PWAD.

If this IoS map looks familiar to you, it's normal. Apocalypse is the last level from "Realm of Chaos" by  The  Macintosh Team released as a stand-alone.

In order to unlock the lift allowing you to reach the brain, you have to press a serie of three switches scattered in the map. However, the monsters appear slowly and they don't have the time to take control of the huge marble arena.

I don't like it but it's so harmless that you can beat it without shooting one bullet (except to kill the Ios of course !).

Grade : C- (8/20)

[2] The Courtyard by Carlos Lastra @Carlos_Lastra (2017)

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A medium sized level that plays around a guarded courtyard.

"The Courtyard" could either be presented as "Doom 2 lite" or "Advanced Ultimate Doom" because it keeps the spirit from the first Doom while using some of the Doom 2's assets. The music accompanying this nukage-filled tech-base comes from E1M6 and matches with the small hectic combats involving mostly low-tiers enemies and occasionnel mid-tiers.

Talking about the bestiary, it seems that Carlos restricted himself to use the less exotic enemies from Doom 2 so that "The Courtyard" still plays as a Doom 1 map. For instance, you'll meet some hell knights instead of barons or chaingunners in order to strengthen up the military forces. However, no arch-vile , pain elemental or arachnotron. Moreover, the SSG is absent but you"ll not miss it because Carlos gives you a rocket launcher and rockets for the buffier enemies.

I instantly think about Doom 2's map 18 when I read "The Courtyard" for a map title and Carlos's version has several common points : it serves as a hub for the different sections, a combat zone with numerous teleporting enemies and of course as a visual landmark.  This vast expanse of grass provides a satisfying sensation of freedom.

At the end, this map doesn't show any desire to innovate on the part of its author, but it's still a good classic map.

Sidenote : This map is presented as a gzdoom-compatible but it plays as a limit-removing one. I didn't notice any special effects requiring particularly gzdoom. I guess Carlos lacked knowledge of the different ports and their limits. I'm 99% sure that the map runs well on crispy-doom, but I could be wrong.

Grade : B (12,5/20)

I stop here for today.

Europa 3: The Dark Side of Vrack (2002) by Erik Alm (From Doom with Love)

Here we have a map in the "Europa" series conceived in specific emulation of the celebrated VRACK space station wads by Fredrik Johanson, clearly borrowing both their architecture and their noted difficulty at the time, though Erik does add in these curious little flat cross-shaped openings in certain locations. Odd as it is, the monster count bears more in common with the later third of Scythe 2 than the first Scythe. Thanks to the copious amounts of cells and not exactly ungenerous rocket placement, it's also far easier. Although there aren't too many bullets available at first due to the rather small count of former humans and by the time more becomes available, it just ends up as irrelevant.

The Mastermind in the outer courtyard is probably more likely to die from infighting than from anything else, although maybe you can shorten things if you find the early BFG. In either curious, Erik shows no hesitance in throwing claustrophobic ambushes into your face at certain points with a ruthlessness that may well have surpassed Frederik Johanson. The first major one that also renders a couple of secrets inaccessible if you haven't been looking for them for instance killed me probably once or twice and only seems to be solved by kind of backing out to one side? The other ambushes are thankfully much easier to evade effectively, although good luck on killing the Arch-vile near the red key platform with the Revenants also bearing down on you without a plasma rifle.

Probably the next encounter worth commenting on would be the one in the yellow-accessed hangar. At this point, we were starting to run low on rockets so after a failed attempt to charge the hitscanners and grab some of the line of rocket boxes here, we hung back and suffered as the Pain Elementals at the far end spewed out their infernal payload, alll while Mancubi fired everywhere. Thankfully, there's plenty of health in side closets, but you've got to get the blue key at the end of that interestingly-shaped corridor first.

And be prepared when you use the blue key because the subsequent encounter throws a vast murder of Revenants, along with some scattered Mancubi, Hell Nobles, and most gloriously of all, THREE Cyberdemons hanging out near the exit. Thankfully, an Invulnerbility can trivalize this part to a large degree.

Which is something I really like about the secrets after having looked them up on Doomwiki. They're kind of unnecessary on the whole, but their rewards (Invulnerbility, Berserk, early BFG, chaingun) are certainly "nice to haves" I can't believe Erik didn't provide a way back up for the first two though. Did I miss anything?

Look, the difficulty isn't quite top-tier and the review that claimed this was slaughter was really only referring to a few sections. But it's a fun ride with some fun encounters and nice staging. The cooked fight around the plasma rifle's location when returning from the blue key did feel a touch self-indulgent though 9/10, 

PS. Erik sure knew how to pick midis!

Fountain of Myth (2003) by Daniel Carroll (Zandronum)

This was made for Legacy, which I guess might be part of why there's no player 1 start like Skulltag maps. But in any case, there's not a whole lot to see. It's just your basic temple-style DM map, albeit with some cool secrets if one pokes around and the sort of transparent floor effect used is pretty cool. Honestly, it kind of brings back memories of Goldeneye 6/10

Alien Hideout (1997) by Kicker55 (Crispy Doom)

The reviews of this one are quite harsh and honestly, they're r not exaggerating too much. Kicker seems to use only one ceiling texture for much of these maps and they indeed have Wolf 3D-esque height variation (which is to say, none at all). The backtracking in Map 02 is annoying and it's only in Map 03 where things actually show some improvement with the opening hallway having some carefully considered design if basic, along with stairs. But that stupid end basement is large, bloated, and just bad. So bad that I couldn't be bothered to record how little I gave a fuck. Pointless monster cells and an overly dark beginning to Map 03 round out this one. 2/10

Greatest sounds .wad ever by mallo - Vanilla Doom games, Sound replacement, 2015, played with GZDOOM 4.10.0

A weird sound replacement similar to decino.wad but without the music replacment and more silly sounding door sounds. I played this map long time ago, for this reason i recalled the title before playing it! My review for this was simple: "Funny"  - 3 stars. My feelings are the same, but more verbose this time. Funny map indeed.