Extreme Weapon Pack (EWPACK.WAD)

EXTREME WEAPON PACK
by "Doggo120"

Simply not telling anyone about Extreme Weapon Pack would be the worst offense I could commit. Explaining it before you get a chance to see it yourself would be the second worst. So, gentle reader, before you skim any further, ask yourself: "Do I want to spoil the surprise for myself?" You could load this mod up in ZDoom, very quickly, and discover on your own the twisted secret behind Doggo120's 2013 masterpiece. I guess if you're allergic to ZDoom mods, you wouldn't care to try. However, I IMPLORE you to load Extreme Weapon Pack up and experience it before you take a peek at the man behind the curtain.

It says "Extreme", and this Weapon Pack is, but not in the conventional sense. There's nothing unusual at first glance, apart from the changed weapon totals, which might just be due to the EXTREME nature of the weapons. The pistol graphic looks a little different, partly because it's in the right hand instead of the left, but maybe that's the author's predilection. Then, you take one shot and open up Pandora's box, which treats you to a long, drawn-out gun-cleaning sequence that follows every pull of the trigger. These weapons are extremely ridiculous. Their actual behavior belies the presentation of the mod, but it's more apparent with the pickups, after you've already been let in on the joke.

Most of these weapons are impractical for routine use. Your normal fist attack, in case you thought the strange would be limited to the weapons themselves, is interrupted by a broken nail, which Doomguy then diligently repairs. Picking up the berserk pack doesn't change your damage, but you're assured that your fists are "manly but sensitive". The shotgun is now a Rusty Chotgun, which rarely fires when you pull the trigger, and when it does, sends you flying back a fair bit before a pained cocking while you reload. At least it does way more damage than the normal shotgun. The Chuper Chotgun has one barrel shorter than the other, which causes you to swing wildly after firing. It's still pretty strong, but like the rusty chotgun, it has a painful reload animation no doubt due to the irregular shape of the chewed chotgun chells.

The Fastest Chaingun In All the Creation is... something, for sure. You could have guessed the super-long windup time, but when it starts firing, it kicks you back in random directions making it impossible to aim or use effectively apart from hurtling backward across wide open spaces. The Chocketlauncher fires slow chockets that gently poke monsters before falling to the ground. Chockets eventually explode, but not after any predictable time delay. The plasma gun is supplanted by the Extreme Vacuum Cleaner, which has an interesting function that it's more of a leaf blower that can push enemies around and slowly grind them away until it fires a super-powered projectile. Just don't get caught up in the blast.

The BFG replacement is the WTFHSGLOL6283185!!! has the same premise as the chaingun except the build-up has more visual gags and it fires one of two projectiles on discharge. One is a large slow-moving orb that weaves back and forth as it makes its way toward its terminal point and... doesn't do a whole lot of damage. The other is a fast-moving ball that ricochets around the room and does some good damage whenever its hyper-ass manages to contact something, which depending on the shape of the room and enemy density may or may not be in your favor. Even the backpack has been malformed, granting a slight boost to your capacity for bullet and cell equivalents while not quite doubling your shells and rockets.

It seems that the ONLY weapon consistently worth a damn is the electric toothbrush, your chainsaw replacement. At first use, it seems like a weak punch equivalent, but if you keep using it long enough (whether or not you're actually hitting anything), you'll turn it on and into a rapid-fire melee gibbing machine that chews through monsters. With some precise use of the other weapons when needed and some persistence on the player's part, I imagine that there's a style of gameplay that might even be enjoyable as you madly dash around, electric toothbrush buzzing, slamming into what enemies you can.

The π edition of EWP, if you can find it, makes some changes to weapon behavior. The vacuum cleaner's functionality is reversed, moving you forward at breakneck speed in whatever direction it's pointed at, which makes it far more dangerous to the player than the vacuum cleaner-cum-leaf blower. The chocket launcher has a nasty habit of sending chockets spiraling up into the air at random, making it incredibly dangerous to use in Doom's low ceiling environments, not that you were going to use it at all. I kind of miss being able to push the monsters around with the vacuum cleaner; perhaps the author could be coaxed into adding a reverse-flow alternate mode?

Of course, every mod has its secrets. The Extreme Weapon Pack has two, one of which was added with the π edition. The first is the Chuper Chameboy, invoked by typing the Konami code (uuddlrlrba) in the console. It's an adorable handheld console that fires coins, fireballs, and flying turtles. Sometimes, it'll fire successions of star bursts. And sometimes, it will completely deck out your guns and ammo, not that that means much. The other is the BFG 9100, conjured up with "thefirsthero" in the console. The BFG9100 is a powerful single-target weapon that banishes its nuked monsters to another dimension; the X-Zone, perhaps?. It feels like there are still some bugs to be worked out in it, since the invisible slain are impassable in DOOM (STRICT) compatibility, and even with it off, I managed to get stuck on something, but it's a neat effect.

A lot of work has gone into making this one of the best practical jokes in Doom's history. Doggo120 is almost certainly laughing with the player, which is - at least nowadays - a rare treat. I hope you got a chance to experience Extreme Weapon Pack before anyone could spoil it for you, myself included. If not, well, I hope you can still find tons of fun in the good-natured absurdity of it all.

A MOST EXTREME WEAPON PACK

This post is part of a series on
Doomworld's 2013 Cacowards

The Top Ten	Best Multiplayer	Runners Up
Back to Saturn X: Episode 1	Eyedea	Interception
Doom 2 the Way id Did	Samsara	Hadephobia
Unholy Realms	Eon Deathmatch	Hellbound
ZDoom Community Map Project: Take 2	Best Gameplay Mod	High / Low 5
Fuel Devourer	Project MSX	Soulcrusher
Kuchitsu	Mordeth Award	Stomper
Forsaken Overlook	ZDCMP2
Stardate 20X6	Mockaward
Pirate Doom	Extreme Weapon Pack
Swim With the Whales	Mapper of the Year
	Ribbiks