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Man, I could really use like a bunch of writers to do this for
me each week - especially when I've been really busy and I find
alot of stuff to update you all on. And there is a bunch, so
let's get to it....
In an effort to NOT provide the idiots
who put Terry Wads on the archives with any attention, I am
completely ignoring them - so there will be no mention of
this here today.
P.S. All of the maps are direct linked in my personal back up
of the archives (except for the stupid joke/terry wads) along with GOD KNOWS how many others for Doom,
Doom2, Doom3, ROE, Wolfenstein 3D, Castle Wolfenstein, Duke 3d,
Strife, Hexen, Heretic and more
here
=============================================================================
The first map up for your
consideration is called
Switcheroom and replaces all 4 episodes of Doom.
You can find other megawads for Doom in
this directory.
Description : The idea
was to remake a map from one episode, but as if it had appeared
in
another episode.
Additional Credits to : id software, Death Egg for creating the
project
& leading for most of the development. Jaws In Space
for taking over development when Death Egg got busy.
Magnusblitz for coleading the project during the final
months of development.
===========================================================================
* What is included *
New levels : 36
Sounds : No
Music : No
Graphics : Yes
Dehacked/BEX Patch : Yes
Demos : Yes
* Play Information *
Game : DOOM
Map # : E1M1-E4M9
Single Player : Designed for
Cooperative 2-4 Player : Designed for
Deathmatch 2-4 Player : Designed for
Difficulty Settings : Yes
I'm not really sure what the description
means but a quick look at the first level definitely gives you
that old skool feeling and the gameplay seems pretty solid.
Check it out.
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The next wad is called
AIMT and seems to be pretty basic - one room. A never ending
swarm of enemies - the idea being to see how long you can
survive (I guess). The text file is a complete mess because the
author didn't user word wrap and I'm not going to bother
attempting to clean it up. I'll just provide a screenie for you
and some quick thoughts. The author does state that you need to
use Zdoom and Ultimate Doom or the map won't work.
Looking at the
pictures, I can see where you would think - what? Why would I
play this? Well, I found it to be somewhat addictive, actually.
If you don't kill the initial wave, then the next wave just
comes, so it definitely behooves you to kill them off quick. I
think you might find, as simple as this seems, that this is
something you could get hooked on. A more detailed map would
have been nice, though. :-)
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Screenie from Bloodworks:
Screenie from
Mitnal:
========================================================================================
So, after being completely
disappointed by the archives this week, I wandered over to the
Zdoom forums in the hopes of finding something INTERESTING to
talk about. And I came across
this thread about a
project called "A
Doomers Requiem" (download
directory). Here's what the author has to say about
it:
ADR contains short sections in the
story of a certain mans life, told in a highly esoteric,
metaphorical / symbolical, and unconventional way. Keep this in
mind as you play; and give an attempt to understand things
rather than signing it off as ubiquitous drivel, and you may be
able walk away with something special.
It is fairly short, and should only take about 30 minutes to
complete.
I have spent roughly 3 years making this, and you will see
things that you have never seen in any other doom mods in this
project. No, I am not boasting about my talents, and I know you
will understand once you play through this. Please leave a
critique in the following link if you feel led to do so.
Well, on the upside, it at least
SOUNDS interesting. Here's a screenshot for you to check it out.
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Over at
Realm667,
Tormentor continues to tweak the new website with a Chat System,
ala Facebook with all kinds of cool features.. So be sure to
check that out. Tormentor is a legend in the Doom Community and
has a really nice setup over there.
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Also, in
case you're interested - If you go to
THIS
THREAD, you will find a fellow Doomer who is looking for a
few good playtesters for a project called "The Fallen:
Dark Ascension" which he describes thusly:
The Fallen: Dark Ascension
is an 8 map Dark Hellish/Gothic theme re- imagining of Ultimate
Doom's Episode 3 and 4 this time using the capabilities of the
Gzdoom engine. Some of the features that brings new life into
this hellish theme includes: slopes, new decorate monster types,
dynamic lights, and various scripted events.
Judging by that
screenshot - I'd say this might be worth checking out!
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Over
on the
Doomworld Forums, Toxie
Rocks brought this WIP to my attention via pm.
Looks interesting, there is a download (of course) as well as a
shit ton of pics, so be sure to check that out!
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ALSO on the
Doom World Forums, I ran across
THIS THREAD for an as yet incomplete Megawad called "Swift
Death".
From the author:
I present you Swift Death, an extremly
hard megawad.
Compatible for Boom, The concept is that you have to survive
monsters, which attack you as soon as you begin. This megawad is
adapted for speedrunners.
In fact, certains maps ending in a few seconds, there are some
trick :) Fortunately, I created a reasonable difficulty for
novice players. (Toilet Break - "IMTYTD", and "Soft Event" -
HNTR).
This maps was created in speedmapping sessions. That's why they
are not very detailed.
Ah, Memfis and JCD are guest mappers of this megawad, I thanks
them for their maps :)
So, if you're up for a challenge -
this looks like it might be interesting to play with and the
forum regulars seem to be enjoying it.
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Over on
One Man Doom Blogspot,
I see that he posted up a new review last
week for a set of speedrunning maps called "Resurgence".
Here's a bit from the review (the wad was released in 2012 so
I guess he's not finding much to review lately either).
Joshy released
Surge in early 2012. It
was an unfinished collection of speedmaps built upon the idea of
forcing the player to "surge" forward through the level's action
in order to clear a spot that was safe enough to stand in. After
a hiatus from mapping, Joshy picked it up again and finished the
set for release in 2014, re-branding it as
Resurgence. Like its
progenitor and
Speed of Doom, this is
a megaWAD for Boom-compatible ports that emphasizes gut-busting
action and intelligent, fast-on-your-feet decision making.
Unlike Surge, there's actually something of a story, with you
waking up from the oblivion of death and having to fight your
way out of Hell and back to the realm of the living on Titan
before you can put a stop to Hell's invasion.
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Over at
Wads in Progress,
I see three new entries, including the aforementioned "The
Fallen: Dark Ascension" and two others -
The
Dungeons and
The
Never Ending Arena.
The Dungeons:
The Never Ending Arena:
I must say - those are both looking pretty
sweet. It looks like we have some good stuff to look forward to
here shortly!
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It appears that there has been an
update to the Chocolate Doom port which you can download
here.
To get a look at the changes - you can go
here.
There is also this
development page that you can go to if you want to look in
on that.
A note from my desk on this one.
I chose one of my Doom2 maps - in this case,
Elevator for Doom2, and dragged and dropped the file onto
the chocolate-doom executable. It didn't load (It IS map01). So,
I went another route and opened up a command prompt in the
Chocolate Doom directory I created and loaded it with the -file
command. This worked fine and I was able to load the map without
issues. In case you DON'T know what Chocolate Doom is - here is
the breakdown:
In 1998 the Doom source code was
released. Since then, there have been a large number of Doom
source ports created by programmers who have extended the code,
adding new features and removing some of the limitations of DOS
Doom (which is now often referred to as "Vanilla Doom"). These
efforts should be commended, and many of the modern Doom source
ports are truly impressive pieces of work.
Chocolate Doom, however, takes the opposite approach. It instead
aims to accurately reproduce the experience of playing Vanilla
Doom. It is a conservative, historically accurate Doom source
port, which is compatible with the thousands of mods and levels
that were made before the Doom source code was released. Rather
than flashy new graphics, Chocolate Doom's main features are its
accurate reproduction of the game as it was played in the 1990s.
Originally just a port of the Doom source code, the purpose of
the project has evolved to include ports of Heretic, Hexen and
Strife, commercial games that were based on the Doom engine.
The source code to Chocolate Doom is Free Software under the GNU
General Public License, and is portable to a variety of
different operating systems. It therefore preserves the gameplay
of the original game for modern computers, many of which are now
unable to run the original.
So, essentially, what they are trying to do is give you the
ability to play the game the way it was originally created and
intended to be played. A pretty cool idea since, as they
say, you can't play vanilla Doom/Doom2 on modern operating
systems. Here's a couple of screenshots from the map I loaded.
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Not that it means much, but when I hit my strategy informer
links to see if there was any new Doom 3 goodness, I discovered
that it is no longer Strategy Informer but is, instead,
Gamewatcher.com. Ah - progress.....
Here
is the link to the new website.
Update those bookmarks!
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
I know how anxious some of you are to
see new playthroughs on Youtube, so let's go.
Coming from Cyberdemon531
Doom:
Memento Mori UV Speed Single Segment in 1:17:32
I guess that is the only one this week. There is on last
thing today though - something fun to play with.
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I'm certain by now that all of you have heard of "Oblige"
- the map generator that, really, does a rather nice job. And,
you may have heard of the "Random
Monster" Generator (No?). Also, maybe
Brutal Doom?
Hmmmm? And - Doomzone by
Zorah? Well, I wanted to have a little fun with an Oblige map
and decided to put this together for shits and giggles. I've put
everything in one zip file so that you can pick and choose how
you want to play it but I'll tell you exactly what I'm doing,
post a screenie or two and you can see how the different stuff
effects the appearance, gameplay, etc....
Ok - so, first off, JUST the Oblige map - I set it to
lots of monsters with normal weapons and health with a "hell"
theme.
This is the OBLIGE map ONLY (oh - and here's the
zipfile)
DEFINITELY, a "hellish" looking map. Next, I added the
"Monster Randomizer" to the mix.
As you can see in the 2nd pic, the monster mix changed - no
imps to be seen but sargeants and Former Human Commandos have
now taken the place of some of the other creatures - a nice,
effective change for a difficulty change. So, now I'm going to
see what it looks like in Brutal Doom.
Oh ya - bring me that Brutal Doom goodness! :-)
Next, I wanted to try it with Zorahs Doomzone, which provides
you with not only new weapons and such but also
player classes so depending on which class you choose, you will
get to use different weapons plus all the other attributes of
your character (health, etc...) will be changed.....
I'm telling you - if you HAVEN'T checked out
Doomzone, you are denying
yourself the opportunity to play with a GREAT mod! I
attempted to run Doomzone with Brutal Doom but Brutal Doom ended
up being the male alpha in that battle and Doomzone was pushed
to the side. Anyway, here are a few more screenies, using that
map, the monster randomizer and Doomzone. Feel free to download
the zip file with all 4 of those things included and play around
a little bit. I think you'll like it.
Finally, because I can and it's my website - I also had
Oblige throw together a megawad (also for Zdoom) that I had it
include 3d floors and all kinds of craziness - went to
town on the settings - so we'll see how THAT turns out - lol.
A few more screenies for you - this time using Brutal Doom and
without the monster randomizer. Think about the possibilities
with all the weapons mods, etc... and if I can ever get the guy
to who created Oblige to implement the ability to add customer
texture wads - look the fuck out! lol. That WAS something you
could do in SLIGE (the predecessor to Oblige which wasn't nearly
as good). But how can you beat creating a whole new game out of
user created mods and a random map creator in like, literally
minutes? I mean, as you can tell - it can't compare to a good
mapper - lack of detail being one of the noticeable things about
these maps and it lacks the intelligence that goes behind
setting a good trap but let's face it, good maps are scarce
these days and sometimes you just wanna shoot something!
Fair warning - this "megawad" has lots of stealth monsters so
you're in for a fight if you decide you want to play
around with it.
And, once again - just because I own the site, and I can -
here are a couple shots of the same Oblige megawad in Risen3d -
which, if you haven't used it - shame on you! Best engine EVER!
Of course, you do lose the zdoom effects but it looks AWESOME!
And these pics REALLY don't do it justice.
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