This Week in Doom: 11.22.15
Oh it's gonna be such a good week in Doom... I haven't played any of
these but the first, but this week's submissions to the archives are
maps I've been keeping a big eye on. To see them all come to the
archives on the same week is a little exciting. (Just a bit)
This week we have 7 new wads coming into the archives and over half of
them I have been greatly looking forward to! Let's jump in head first!
The first submission is called "NH3" by a great mapper, TimeOfDeath, and
is a map I've played before (and recorded a crappy failed demo)... Let's
see if I do better this time around:
Link to
my lmp
Nope! Fail at 6:42, heh. Still didn't make it half way through >.< For a
better demo to watch, watch TimeOfDeath's flawless demo in just over 10
minutes; it's so good I'm speechless!
nh3-1011-TOD-maxreality-pr2513cl2.LMP
This map is a fairly big map at 314 monsters, but it goes pretty quick.
The map's main gimmick, hinted at in the title, is that it has no health
(it is also the third in the series).
The greatest thing about this map to me is that it is much like a
puzzle; you just gotta figure out what moves to make and when to make
them and things become much easier. The good thing about Doom, though,
is that some things will always be random, so even knowing what to do
you must still be on your toes.
This map somewhat eases up after the first main section has been
cleared, but then comes back with a few big battles that'll keep you
running like the headless chicken you are. After going through the first
half twice, you enter the second outside area where sh*t really hits the
fan. A few erratic moments later you find youself back at the start
(again) facing a puzzle that I could only solve through trial-and-error,
which is kind of a crappy way to end such a difficult, unforgiving map,
but nonetheless, it was fun all the way through.
This map is made for limit-removing ports such as Boom (-complevel 2)
and runs with the Doom 2 iWad. Download it right away! Find it here:
http://www.doomwadstation.net/idgames/doom2/Ports/m-o/nh3.zip
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Up next is a mod from Samuzero15th called "Final Fantasy Spells!" found
here:
https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/combos/ffspells
Unfortunately I just couldn't figure this one out, aside from "z" is
mapped to switch spells. There is no way to change or even look at the
controls for this mod, so I guess until then it is broken. Shame.
This mod is made for Zandronum 2.1.2 or Zdoom 2.7.1 with the wad of your
choice.
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The third submission this week is another good one, the "Abyssal
Speedmapping Session 23 (XXIII)" found here:
http://www.doomwadstation.net/idgames/doom2/Ports/a-c/abyspe23.zip
For this Halloween session Jimmy is the project lead, with maps from a
bunch of great mappers! The Abyssal Speedmapping Sessions are maps made
"in the space of about 3 hours, with 20 minutes for music and texture
selection and a bunch of time after for bugfixing. This session was held
in two "rounds" for the convenience of folks who couldn't turn up to one
or the other. Each mapper had 3 themes to choose from: - Monster count
exactly 75 (discounting lost souls) - Locked doors that can be opened
with any key - Use of Commander Keens and tag 666. Plus a bonus theme
for those who showed up to round 2: - Voodoo dolls out in the open. A
spooky resource WAD was provided."
This fun set of maps is what happens when you give 13 mappers 3 and a
half hours... and then 3 and a half more hours for the second round, to
create. Oh baby did they produce! These maps were just a ton of fun to
play and I for one keep a big eye on the ASS series. This wad is good
proof of why, too.
The aesthetics of the vast majority of these maps were fantastic and the
relative shortness of them makes them perfect for coffee breaks.
Everything I played felt well-balanced, too.
This wad was made for Boom format with the Doom 2 iWad. Download it
today!
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The fourth submission this week comes to us from DoomWorld's Atlas,
Linguica, is titled "Dooms day of SJW" and can be found here:
http://www.doomwadstation.net/idgames/doom/s-u/sjw_dead.zip
This map was made for the Ultimate Doom iWad under E1M8 and runs in
Vanilla! No new sprites, so time for some Simpson Doom for me!
Some people may find this map a little farmiliar... that's because it's
a retextured version of an older map, "UAC Dead" by Leo Martin Lim. The
only real difference is that this wad is totally PC...
Moreso it's what I imagine a SJW base looking like in the distant future
after Hell takes over. Or today, whatever. Hey, the important thing here
is that it was a nice little blast from the past with a funny twist to
it.
Give this wad a download!
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In the fifth slot this week we have a map coming into the archives
titled "Double Apocalypse" by Damson, found here:
http://www.doomwadstation.net/idgames/doom2/d-f/dbl_apo.zip
This wad contains 7 maps for the Doom 2 iWad and it runs in Vanilla!
While these weren't the most beautiful maps, I really liked the concept
of revisiting old areas later on in the wad and found a lot of really
cool effects here, especially for Vanilla. I really liked the general
use of teleports to give areas a connected feel while being physically
separated. One in particular I liked was the sewer system in one map; it
had a very old-school feel to it. The longest part of these maps were
getting to the next fight, which many players may not like, but I found
it to be a nice change of pace. Full-on exploration, I suppose.
This semi-short wad was a lot of fun to play, so give it a shot today!
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Up next there's a gigantic mapset called "2048 UNLEASHED (Pcorf
community project 2)" which is headed by Paul "PCorf" Corfiatis,
found here:
http://www.doomwadstation.net/idgames/doom2/Ports/megawads/pc_cp2.zip
This set of maps is for Boom format under the Doom 2 iWad.
This massive set of maps contains a whopping 49 maps by 31 different
mappers! Good gravy that's a lot of people! The best part is that many
of them are mappers I keep a big eye out for.
Now the numbers 2048 in the title are not referring to a far off,
distant year 33 years from now after Hell has taken over and we start
injecting our babies with gatorade, but to the size of each of the maps.
They are all limited to 2048x2048 map units (pixels) in size. This is a
really good thing because it forces most maps to be fairly quick, while
still giving mappers enough space to draw things out with things like
dynamic architecture and plain-old revisiting old areas.
These maps were awesome and guaranteed to please! Give them a download
right away!
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The final submission to the archives is a big ole map called "The
Warlock's Hearth" by Adam "Khorus" Woodmansey and can be
found here:
http://www.doomwadstation.net/idgames/doom2/Ports/v-z/warlh.zip
This map was made for limit removing ports with .ogg support and runs
with the Doom 2 iWad.
This map comes in at just under 800 monsters, but it only takes about
30-45 minutes to run through. The monster placement of this map reminds
me heavily of the iWads. Monster progression built up nicely and Khorus
is not afraid to use small mobs of imps and other trash mobs to break up
the encounters with the big guys. I was happy to see that every monster
made an appearance (minus Commander Keen and the impaled head of John
Romero, who I thought was gonna wind up being the final boss of this
thing). Speaking of the end of this thing, it was very well done and
absolutely creepy as Hell on the approach...
I really liked the way that health and ammo were generally forgiving,
which lent more to the feeling that this felt like an iWad map. Speaking
of iWad quality, the visuals were out of this world...
The secrets in this map varied in their difficulty, though I felt like
all of them were fair. Gun progression was also nicely done and meshed
quite well with the monster progression. There were tons of really cool
effects in this map as well. My only real gripe was that at times it
felt like a massive switch hunt, though I will say that as long as the
player uses their brain (which I often do not, heh) it is not difficult
to figure out where to go next for long as Khorus does a great job
repopulating areas and providing hints that something has changed and
what general direction it is in.
All-in-all, this map was a ton of fun to play, look at, and litter with
the bodies of my enemies. But what really stood out about this map was
the sheer atmosphere of it. Khorus stepped up to bat on this one and
really struck a home run! I could go on for days about how great this
map was, but the best use of your time would be to just download it
already!
This week in Doom has been so great I'm at a loss for words as to how
excited this has made me. It has also been extremely time-consuming,
which can be a great thing if you're looking for awesome maps to play. I
would highly recommend damn-near every wad this week. They were all so
fantastic; in the spirit of Thanksgiving I'd just like to say excellent
job to all the mappers that put out their work for us to enjoy! Thank
you all and God bless!
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I've been keeping my eye on a couple treasures I spotted over on the
DoomWorld forums:
First up is a 15-map set called "Xarathustra" by "psyren777" JSGraham.
Check the dev thread here:
https://www.doomworld.com/vb/wads-mods/84615-xarathustra-map-set/
This set of maps was made for limit-removing format (such as Boom) under
the Doom 2 iWad in map slots 01-14+31.
While not being the most beautiful maps, these maps were a lot of fun to
play and did have more than a few cool-looking spots. I really liked how
some levels were massively intertwined too.
They also quickly became slaughtermaps, haha. One map had 999 monsters
in it and every one of them, minus the secret level, had 300+ monsters;
most were over 400 though.
Still, the massive monster counts aside these maps did go fairly
quickly, considering everything. Perhaps that was only because one room
would go by and there just went 50-100 monsters, but even still, don't
expect any map (aside from the secret one) to be small or doable during
a coffee break. That aside, this was a very fun set of maps to play, so
give 'em a shot today!
Also lurking around the DoomWorld forums is a Heretic mapset called "Elf
Gets Pissed" by RottKing, found here: https://www.doomworld.com/vb/wads-mods/84752-elf-gets-pissed-a-new-heretic-episode-beta/
This Heretic full episode-replacement contains 8 levels for the first
episode of Heretic (E1M1-E1M9) to be run in zDoom.
Man I love Heretic. Playing it always brings back memories of starting
up the old IBM, saying hello to Ms. Dos, and trying to figure out which
extension I was supposed to use. I suppose for that alone I'll always
feel a certain nostalgia towards Heretic, even though I played Doom at
the same time. Perhaps it's because Heretic isn't as popular, so playing
it feels like a blast from the past whereas modern maps for Doom are so
plentiful (and beautiful). I think there's also a higher bar set for
Doom maps than for Heretic, as I tend to see more detailing in Doom
maps, though that could also be attributed to both being capable of the
same things visually (with enough work) along with Doom being more
widely used and Heretic's unique, more immersive, yet less controlable
gameplay (which I would think would attract more gameplay people than
detailing/visual people). Or maybe it's that detailing is done
differently in Heretic because the stock textures just look that good.
Then again, all that's speculation; who the Hell knows? Point is, it's
nice to see someone like Rottking make a Heretic mapset because all of
the maps look pretty darn good, with many really cool-looking spots, and
play like a well-done, modern-day Doom map, only Heretic.
Assuming that makes sense, these maps had a lot of really cool mechanics
and dynamic architecture, which I always like. Each encounter was
different and felt well-designed, though there were a few slaughter-ish
moments reminescent of modern maps (just imagine the tall, skinny undead
warriors as tall, skinny revenants, heh) and a few non-treatening,
can-be-ran-through encounters, though that usually came around to bite
me in the butt, which is a good thing. The opening encounter of the
mapset was a nice, gory surprise, but as with many of the encounters
similar to that I wouldn't have minded seeing a few more ghost mosters.
Another great aspect of Heretic, the powerups, were handled expertly in
this wad and I loved their usage. Great job across the board here.
All things considered, these maps were absolute fun to play and I would
recommend them to any Heretic fan! Give them a play right away!
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Over on the Zandronum site there's a mod called "OP Weapons, when
balanced weapons just won't do" by Empyre, found here:
http://zandronum.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=6593
That's about all you need to see right there. Give this awe-inspiring
mod a shot today!
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Over at One Man Doom there are a couple cool reviews up:
The first is of a really cool puzzle map called "Sheer Poison" by yakfak.
Read the full review by KMX E XII here:
http://onemandoom.blogspot.com/2015/11/sheer-poison-shpo1wad.html#more
"Sheer Poison" was a very tough map to play through, but to me it was
worth it. I loved the ways puzzles were presented and the combat felt
right to suit it. Check out the review and then download the map today!
Just don't read too far into it if you don't want any spoilers, heh.
The second review is of a map that I had the chance to play a few weeks
or so ago called "dead.wire" by Xaser. Check out KMX XII's fantastic
review of this beast of a map here: http://onemandoom.blogspot.com/2015/11/deadwire-xa-dwirewad.html#more
"dead.wire" was just about one of the most interesting maps I've ever
played. It runs in GzDoom under the Doom 2 iWad and it certainly uses
some of those features! The atmosphere alone is just flat-out creepy,
but add to that specterized versions of a few of the monsters and you'll
be checking your back every chance you get. It really makes the map
tense! But don't let that put you off, nothing was cheap; all fun. There
were also new weapons to shoot, which were pretty fun to get a hold of.
Not always much ammo to shoot them with, but enough to make it through
the level. Get on over to One Man Doom and read the review, then give
this amazing map a try today!
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There's a new post in the blog of the Doomsday team, talking about some
more upcoming changes to their webspace. Seems like they got a good plan
to put into action; check the blog here:
http://dengine.net/blog/2015/11/consolidation/
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"Nova" is such a fun map set to play through. I was thumbing around the
forums and turned up a thread dedicated to demos for this great set of
maps. Grab them here: https://www.doomworld.com/vb/doom-speed-demos/84547-nova-demos-complevel-2/
Fantastic job on the demos, gentlemen; let's see some more for these bad
boys!
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Doom 3 is playing the waiting game. But waiting is the hardest part, so
that next demon of a map should be a breeze compared to this, right?
Yeah, I don't know what I'm talking about anymore, either.
I hope everyone had a happy Thanksgiving and remember, it's not about
the food, but the spirit of being thankful that we all celebrate. Still,
no reason to stop that spirit now; keep it alive in your hearts every
day and be thankful for what we have and to those who do good things. My
thanks to the Doom community! Take it easy :)
