CyberDoom (CYBER.WAD)

CYBERDOOM

by John Bye

1994-1996 was a watershed period for the Doom user community. A significant minority of folks in the games industry got their start making mods during this time. Heck; as of right now one of them is running id software! John Bye started out by reviewing PWADs before delving into a level editor himself. He would go on to publish a large solo project, Cygnus IV, as well as his idtech1 swan song in 1997 (The Talosian Incident). Bye kicked off his authorship in 1995 with the relatively reviled Sacrifice but his /idgames career opens on CyberDoom, a MAP01 replacement for Doom II. The core of his person is evident in its construction but if you only knew his levels for their careful sector-based lightcasting then this may come as a shock.

The plot is set one hundred years after the events of Hell on Earth. Cyberspace is all buggered up and it isn't just affecting data but the people who are jacked in. The whole event kicked off with anomalous signals from the region of space around Alpha Centauri. The Earth protectorate figure that it's Hell trying a different avenue of invasion. You are the grandson of Doomguy and in a fit of magical thinking the government volunteers you to oust the Inter-lopers. The infected portions of the Net are sealed away so it's only a matter of sponging the bad actors from quarantine.

For a few seconds after the map loaded I had absolutely no idea what I was looking at. When I made my first jump, though, it became crystal clear. CYBER is actually constructed like a block of science-fiction cyberspace and it works between the blue tech walls and the water floor. The starting area is a large square with six different structures in it and each one has a distinct texture scheme. These represent the isolated databases. Stepping up close to one will hyperlink you to the actual site. The .TXT spells this out and also tells you what each one of the pages is actually supposed to represent. It gives you a few hints, too. From it you'll find out that a Fascist organization assisted the forces of Hell in accessing the web. At least, such is Bye's justification for making a swastika structure using Wolf3D textures and populating it with SS Nazis.

John was an author who definitely appreciated the atmosphere of Doom and was not one to just sprinkle enemies everywhere. You could go long spans - even entire levels - without running into a monster. This design trait is in full force with CYBER. The web overworld is completely devoid of opposition and the only locations to sport a fairly regular stream of monsters are the Fascist League HQ and Doc Solomon's Anti-Virus Site. It's mostly the former, really. All of the other encounters come as big surprises, one of which causes an entire maze to erupt from the ground as an Icon of Sin activates. It's a wicked cool moment and it's not even the boss fight!

You can tackle four of the websites in any order you like but the important portions of Nicros Information Software and the alien database that drives the infection are sealed off by keys. The author strongly suggests where you can find the stronger weapons but you'll easily get some decent armaments in all of the unlocked locations except for the anti-viral site. None of the combat is all that difficult, either. There is a ton of health, armor, and ammo and neither of the boss monster setups are tough to tackle in TYOOL 2019. There are admittedly two mazes which is a lot to ask from modern players but neither is as challenging as the shifting labyrinth of Cygnus IV's MAP13.

I had zero expectations going into this apart from Bye's lighting detail and I was pleasantly surprised. Doom's stock textures are probably the least ideal resources with which to render a cyberpunk narrative but John's execution is charmingly DoomCute. It's way closer to 1994 than the later-90s style that the author would go on to develop so keep this in mind if you're looking for something other than Hacx to slake your neurothirst.

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