Pinnacle of Darkness (PINNACLE.PK3)

GZDoom WADs are few and far between, and the ones that really make full use of the engine are even rarer. Pinnacle of Darkness is one such delight, a MAP01 replacement released in 2015 by Nick Laurent, aka Hobomaster22, whose most recent contributions have been to Doom the Way id Did and Back to Saturn X Episode 1. Pinnacle has nothing to do with vanilla limitations and everything to do with embracing the aspects of GZDoom that make Doom feel less like the limited-geometry game that we know and love. I believe that this mapset should play nice with most mods since it doesn't change any of the gunplay or enemy behaviors, though there's one custom monster you'll have to deal with.

Back to Saturn X E1: Get Out of My Stations (BTSX_E1.WAD)

I hear whispers every month, people bemoaning a lack of output in the Doom community. It's like all the mappers have had their output drastically cut off, leaving only eager newbies to make the megaWADs of the future. Or, you know, some dastardly villain had many of the authors we know and love working in secret. But no longer! Now, we get Back to Saturn X. I thought it was going to be a slammin' Doom II megaWAD of stuff to blast through, but there's more. There's so much more. Back to Saturn X went from megaWAD to triple megaWAD, seeing release in three "episodes" filled by eager authors. This review concerns the first episode, Get Out of My Stations.

Doom the Way id Did (DTWID.WAD)

In the latter half of 2010, Jason "Hellbent" Root more or less kicked off Doom the Way id Did, a project that aimed to recreate the feel of Doom's original three episodes by mimicking the design traits of the authors. Mappers flocked to the project, with a total of 95 submitted levels. That's enough for three brand new OG Doom megaWADs! (Still waiting on the official releases of the "rejects".) DTWID represents the cream of the crop, as selected by the project leads. The original aim was that each map could be seamlessly inserted into the running with no one the wiser. Of course, to better flesh out the episodes, beginning and boss maps were created. I feel comfortable in saying that even these well-trodden concepts had some new life breathed into them.

Congestion 1024 (1024.WAD)

Congestion 1024 is a Doom II megaWAD released in 2005, born from the Exquisite Corpse project, in which a collection of mappers created twelve 1024 x 1024 maps and bound them together as a single, contiguous level. I assume either those involved or those observing found the individual puzzle pieces so intriguing that they made an entire WAD out of similarly sized bits, creating 32 levels of intense action. The rules: the player is bound to a 1024 x 1024 area. They are allowed egress as long as they die upon leaving the 1024 confinement. Monsters, of course, are allowed to be outside the area's bounds and frequently are.