Computer Station (CMPSTATN.WAD)

COMPUTER STATION

by Mike Alfredson aka "Use3D"

Doom Beyond started out as a replacement for the Hell levels of Doom II, which Alfredson thought were lacking in Hellishness when compared to "The Catacombs" and "The Spirit World". He seems to have had a sympathetic soul in Chris Lutz, who executed a project similar in sentiment with 2017's Hellscape. Doom Beyond eventually ventured beyond its original scope, however, becoming a limit-removing megaWAD with more or less classic-style gameplay. Along the way he removed some of his older levels from the running and published them independently. So far I've taken a look at Hell Pit, Deep Core 1, Chaotic Grounds, and Temple of Sin. This review is for Computer Station, a MAP04 replacement for Doom II, originally crafted in 1997, that was stationed earlier in the megaWAD along with Deep Core 1. 

Temple of Sin (TMPLOSIN.WAD)

TEMPLE OF SIN

by Mike "Use3D" Alfredson

On the subject of Use3D's rainy day classically-styled megAWAD, we don't appear to be any closer to seeing a full release than we were when I posted my review for Chaotic Grounds. However, Alfredson DID see fit to grace us with a stealth-release of Nilla Doom's second episode (MAP08-MAP11)! That's awesome! I don't think that this, Temple of Sin, was cut from that project, but rather a megaWAD that was originally, nominally based on the story of the Doom II: Hell on Earth novelization. It's a MAP21 replacement for Doom II that should theoretically work in any source port given that Use3D tested it in doom2.exe.

Chaotic Grounds (CHAOSGRD.WAD)

CHAOTIC GROUNDS

by Mike "Use3D" Alfredson

Use is probably best known by word of mouth from his fantastic Nilla Doom episode, not to mention his fantastic contributions to community projects like the Community Chest series. To my total confusion, Alfredson has had two different megaWADs in the works. One of these is his rough and tough vanilla megaWAD, of which Nilla Doom was an excerpt, while the other is for limit-removing ports and a little easier ("classically-styled") and goes by Doom Beyond. The cut maps that he has released to the archives are all from Doom Beyond as they were all crafted before 2004, when Nilla Doom started production. This includes both Deep Core 1 but probably not Hell Pit as it predates Doom Beyond's genesis in 1997. 

Deep Core 1 (DEEPCORE.WAD)

DEEP CORE 1

by Mike Alfredson aka "Use3D"

I have long-assumed that Nilla Doom was Mike's in-progress megaWAD and that most of his solo-outtakes are rejects from the running order as development progressed. I was incorrect, to say the least. Beyond Doom was - and remains - Use3D's rainy-day megaWAD. It initially began life as a more difficult replacement for Doom II's Hell episode (MAP21-MAP30) before Mike rebooted the whole thing. Deep Core 1 is the original iteration of this level as it appeared in what I assume the first reboot of Beyond Doom; Use3D subsequently remade the level in 2005, hence the numeric designator on this release. DEEPCORE was originally crafted in 1997 and is a MAP02 replacement for Doom II in keeping with its original slot in the Beyond Doom project.

Gestalt666's Town of Heresy (666TOWN.WAD)

GESTALT666'S

TOWN OF HERESY

by John "Gestalt666" Bye

By mid-1997, John was pretty much done with Doom. He would still contribute a few maps to The Darkening E1 but he had gone over to the Quake side after seeing Black Star Coven's first team release, The Talosian Incident. When the time came to open a relief valve, then, he opted to design something for a different idtech game - Heretic. Thus became Gestalt666's Town of Heresy, an E1M1 replacement. It's Bye's final solo release and caps off a career characterized by atmosphere more than anything in its level design. He also had a wild, unpredictable streak with bits like the computerized domain of CyberDoom and "The Living Maze" from Cygnus IV. 666TOWN is - for the most part - unlike any of these things.

Doom 64 (DOOM64.WAD)

Doom has been ported to a staggering number of platforms but a select few of the commercial releases hold a special place in the hearts of a generation. The Playstation and the Nintendo 64 each got their own version (two in the case of the PSX's Final Doom). Both were created by Midway games and used the talents of three of the same authors: Randy Estrella, Danny Lewis, and Tim Heydelaar. They also featured haunting, atmospheric soundtracks from Aubrey Hodges. I am reviewing the 64 iteration first even though it was released later. Roughly a year and a half in 1997, to be exact. No offense to the PSX fans; there's just way more meat for me to sink my teeth into.

AOL Girls Museum (AOLGIRLS.WAD)

AOL GIRLS MUSEUM

by "Capone"

Duke 3D mods were popular dumping grounds for smut but Doom wasn't entirely innocent given themes/x-rated/i_am_old_enough_to_look_at_this. It just didn't kickstart horny nerds by including strippers and other things that seem really cool when you're a teenage boy. Capone released a handful of levels from very late '96 to '98 but the one that he will probably be remembered for is AOL Girls Museum, a MAP01 replacement for Doom II which was made in '97 but released during the following year. My intro implies otherwise but AOLGIRLS is not in the /x-rated /idgames directory because it lacks any nudity unlike, say, SPACIA.

Dock 69 (DOCK69.WAD)

DOCK 69

by "Capone"

This author didn't make a lot of levels but of the four he released, three were based on previously-published maps. The only one that I could find for a before and after comparison was Ryan Hilman's Fortress of Doom which revealed how little work Capone had put into the map when it came to linedefs and thing placement. Whatever differences there are between Dock 69 and the level it was edited from probably amount to a paint job. It's interesting to think that the main draw of the one level he made with apparently original geometry - AOL Girls Museum - is essentially copy and pasted photos from the internet. Like the author's first two releases, DOCK69 is a MAP01 replacement for Doom II and was uploaded in early 1997.

Fort Scar (FORTSCAR.WAD)

FORT SCAR

by "Capone"

If Capone has any sort of claim to fame it's as the author of AOL Girls Museum. A dubious measure, to be sure, but it beats his previously released material. The author's pre-AOLGIRLS modus operandi appeared to be editing relatively old maps. I couldn't gauge the level of artifice involved in Capone's Pit because ol' Scarface had apparently forgotten the source material. Fort Scar, on the other hand, comes from 1994's Fortress of Doom by Rylan Hilman. Both levels are MAP01 replacements for DOOM2 but this one was published in 1997 during the author's brief flurry of activity. Metallica fans may note the inclusion of a "Fade to Black" MIDI.

Short and Hard (SHRTHARD.ZIP)

SHORT AND HARD

by Malcolm Sailor

Quick is Good

Baron Gate

Center

3PACK_1 and DS-61-2 (later updated to DS-61-3) were among Malcolm's earliest releases in 1995. Both consisted of ZIP packs containing multiple, separate PWADs. In 1997 he released Short and Hard, the third and final of his collections prior to the largely archival MSSCRAPS. SHRTHARD has one thing in common with 3PACK_1 in that it contains Quick is Good, which was released nearly a year earlier in 1996, but the overall experience has been streamlined. There's only one .TXT for all three PWADs and none of them occupy the same map slot so they can be loaded together. They don't follow any sort of serial pattern, though. QUIKISGD occupies MAP01; Baron Gate has MAP27; and Center can be found in MAP31.

Center (CENTER.WAD)

CENTER

by Malcolm Sailor

SHORT AND HARD
Quick is Good	Baron Gate	Center

SHRTHARD was the last of Sailor's "compilation" zips prior to dumping all of his unreleased material at the end of 2000 as well as his last non-CHORD series release. The 1997 package includes the considerably older Quick is Good as well as two new deviations, BARONGAT and CENTER. This one is a MAP31 replacement for Doom II and like the other two was grouped together based on Malcolm's perception of their relative difficulty as well as their length. It definitely qualifies as short when placed up against NOSUN and 3, both of which the author had under his belt before uploading this .ZIP.

Baron Gate (BARONGAT.WAD)

BARON GATE

by Malcolm Sailor

SHORT AND HARD
Quick is Good	Baron Gate	Center

Whatever the final release order looks like on /idgames, it appears as though Sailor hadn't made NOSUN5 before compiling Short and Hard. The 1997 collection of three individual PWADs - much in the spirit of his earlier 3PACK_1 and DS-61-3 - gathered 1996's Quick is Good and threw in two new punchy, pint-sized Doom II adventures. CENTER will be covered in a different review; this is all about Baron Gate. Sailor was very happy with the way his MAP27 replacement played but felt self-conscious about its appearance based on the layout as drawn from the top down. I can agree with him that the automap is not the important thing when it comes to levels.

No Sun Series

THE NO SUN SERIES

by Malcolm Sailor

as featured in Super Serials

NOSUN	NOSUN2
NOSUN3	NOSUN4
NOSUN5

Malcolm is much better known for his CHORD series - specifically CHORD_NG, CHORDG, and CHORD3 - but he had another span of single-level releases that spanned from 1996 to 1997. The NOSUN levels are an interesting bridge between his early works, which felt increasingly aligned with the authors of Master Levels for Doom II, and his time spent working as part of Black Star Coven and John Bye. I assume that both Bye and Anderson served as an influence in the way Sailor approached lighting as detailing. While the location / adventure-oriented level design did not survive through to the final stage of his authorial career it's an interesting period to consider.

No Sun 5 (NOSUN5.WAD)

NO SUN 5

by Malcolm Sailor

1997 was Malcolm's big year. It marked the release of The Talosian Incident, where roughly nine levels worth of his work made their big debut; the start of his CHORD series, responsible for three of the other entries in Doomworld's Top 100 WADs of All Time; and the end of NO SUN, a run of five maps that attempted to tell Sailor's most cohesive story. The whole thing wrapped up at the end of April with NOSUN5, a MAP27 replacement for Doom II. The author is pretty proud of it but acknowledges one if its potential shortcomings. If you're a fan of the works of John Bye, though, or enjoyed the narrative action of TALOSIAN, then you'll have no issue here.

No Sun 4 (NOSUN4.WAD)

NO SUN 4

by Malcolm Sailor

1997 was the year where it all started to come together for Malcolm Sailor. He was starting to get a lot more positive feedback, particularly on his No Sun material; he was working with John Bye as part of Black Star Coven to produce The Talosian Incident; and while he didn't know it at the time, his soon-to-be-released CHORD series would cement his legacy in the Doom community's history. Here, though, it's still early 1997 and he hadn't quite triumphed over his mortal enemy, Tim Willits ("Dumb Fucker"). No Sun 4 is - you guessed it - the fourth entry in the NOSUN series. The biggest technical changeup is that it occupies the MAP07 slot as opposed to MAP01.

No Sun 3 (NOSUN3.WAD)

NO SUN 3
by Malcolm Sailor

You probably know him best for the CHORD series but young Malcolm had quite the storied career from 1995-1997 before laying out the material that would enshrine him in Doomworld's Top 10 WADs for three different years in 1997, 1999, and 2000. It's almost all single level releases, though, even if a good number of them (13) were gathered together as separate PWADs in .ZIP packs. NOSUN3 is the third entry in a series that started in 1996. This release marks Sailor's first official step into the '97 era though I can only assume that he was also working on The Talosian Incident during the same period since it was released a few months later in June. Like the first two installations, it's a MAP01 replacement for Doom II.

No Sun 2 (NOSUN2.WAD)

NO SUN 2

by Malcolm Sailor

While he did most of his mapping during his early teens, MS is primarily known for his CHORD series because of its soul-crushing difficulty and gorgeous, detailed environments. If you forget about his contributions to The Talosian Incident then you might be surprised to find him responsible for another series, this one actually attempting to draw a narrative through its action across a grand total of five entries. NOSUN2 is understandably the second level and was re-released in 1997 though I strongly suspect that it was originally published toward the end of 1996. Like most of the levels released by Malcolm, it's a MAP01 replacement for Doom II.

UAC Headquarters (TQMAP02.WAD)

UAC HEADQUARTERS
by Tommie "Fatal" Quick

Tommie Quick slid in at the end of Doom's Golden Age, releasing a few levels in 1997 before hitching his wagon to Team TNT and helping to crank out a few deathmatch megaWADs. UAC Headquarters is his second publication, but I get the feeling that it's actually kind of old, perhaps a relic of an unreleased portfolio - one he simply felt good enough to push out the door. Like his Flood Mines, it's a MAP01 replacement for Doom II. His first publication was sort of an underground earth / tech split, though, where TQMAP02 is all electronics and while the vast majority of the level does not take place outside, most of it occurs within the titular UAC Headquarters. Why you're clearing out another UAC installation isn't mentioned but any reason should come fairly quickly to the imagination.

Flood Mines (TQMAP1.WAD)

FLOOD MINES

by Tommie "Fatal" Quick

Flood Mines is Tommie Quick's (aka Fatal) first published level, a MAP01 replacement for Doom II released in 1997. A member of Team TNT at the time, it wouldn't be until their later deathmatch WADs (Pursuit and Reclamation) where he would establish himself as a contributor. If he's known for anything, though, it's probably his 2001 ZDoom projects, TRUST and Doom Resurrection Episode 1. Where those horsed around with stories and setting there is nothing establishing the narrative of Flood Mines. It's just an ordinary extra mission for Doom II, prestigious by association.

Big Boy (BIGBOY.WAD)

BIG BOY
by Paul Corfiatis

Paul made a fairly big splash in 1998 with the original Twilight Zone megaWAD but it wasn't his premier production to be performed in an editor. I'm not sure whether Big Boy is, either, but it was among the first of his works pre-TWZONE that he deigned to release afterward. It also apparently began life as a big Doom II level featuring a ton of Wolfenstein 3D textures and SS Nazis. These latter features don't really surprise me given what I've seen from most of Paul's other, larger projects. As published, BIGBOY is a single level for E2M4 so all the Doom II resources are no longer present. Some of the Nazi stuff is still baked into the level's architecture but both details are easy to miss.