Back to Saturn X E2: Tower in the Fountain of Sparks (BTSX_E2X.WAD)

It's been a little more than a year and a half, so it's about time that we saw the Back to Saturn X Episode II beta. BTSX started out as a single megaWAD, but an abundance of contributors caused an internal split into what eventually became three "episode" megaWADs. Get Out of My Stations, the "shareware" episode, made its public debut at the tail end of 2012. It got a lot of flak for its techbase stylings, but it's one of my favorite releases of the 2013 season for its impeccable visuals and light speed gameplay. Tower in the Fountain of Sparks looks to be one of the top releases of 2014, and for good reason.

Quadruple Threat (QTHREAT.WAD)

QUADRUPLE THREAT
by Eric "The Green Herring" Baker,
Jon "40oz" Vail,
"Super" Jamie Bainbridge,
and Joonas "Jodwin" Aijala

Don't touch that dial! Yes, this level has four authors. Quadruple Threat was an exercise in collaborative speedmapping, which is to say that each contributor made a section of the map in roughly 100 minutes, after which the pieces were sown together. Some of these Doomworld Forum superstars may look familiar to you. The Green Herring is of course none other than the current curator of the Community Chest series. 40oz and Super Jamie published UAC Ultra. Jodwin I know as the creator of Jade Earth, yet another highly-regarded map that I haven't played. Together, they've made this map, which is half marble fortress and half built into the earth. There's no story, just around 300 demons to kill.

Year 22 - A Rock and a Hard Place (YEAR_22.WAD)

YEAR 22
A ROCK AND A HARD PLACE
by Eric "The Green Herring" Baker

Eric Baker busted out his Year 21 speedmap in 2008 to celebrate his 21st anniversary on This Island Earth. Year 22 was made in 2009 for the same purpose, but due to a comedy of errors wasn't released until the tail end of the year, much like the third and as of this post final entry in the trilogy, Year 23. 22, aka A Rock and a Hard Place, is another single map replacement to be played in Boom-compatible engines. This time, though, it fills the MAP02 slot, with the intent that the levels can be loaded together and played back to back to form a cohesive narrative. Year 22 picks up where 21 left off. You've stepped through the still-active warp gate at a military installation thought abandoned only to find it quite inhabited and the gate fully functional, sending you to some Godforsaken canyon in who knows where. To add insult to injury, the trip seems to have been a one-way ticket.

Year 21 - The Vanishing Point (YEAR_21.WAD)

YEAR 21
THE VANISHING POINT
by Eric "The Green Herring" Baker

Back in 2008, Eric Baker started what he hoped would be a yearly tradition, celebrating his birthday by making a speedmap and then sharing it with the Doom community. Years 22 and 23 did not enjoy the same speedy timetable, with 22 suffering from a series of unfortunate events and 23 turning into an epic, and there have been no followups since. Maybe Baker will see fit to give us a little minisode to update things to a more current timetable. Anyway, this is Year 21, the first level in the series, a MAP01 replacement for Doom II to be played in Boom-compatible ports. The story is simple. As a marine, you locate an abandoned warp gate facility in your free time only to find out that it isn't exactly devoid of inhabitants, and must thus get to killin'.

Year 23 - The Belly of the Beast (YEAR_23.WAD)

YEAR 23
THE BELLY OF THE BEAST
by Eric "The Green Herring" Baker

Year 23 (The Belly of the Beast) is the third map in Eric "The Green Herring" Baker's YEAR series, preceded by Year 21 (The Vanishing Point) and Year 22 (A Rock and a Hard Place). YEAR_23 occupies the MAP03 slot for Doom II and targets Boom-compatible ports, with PrBoom-Plus and Eternity being recommended. The story follows the adventure of a marine who, in Year 21, tracked down an abandoned warp gate facility, only to take an active teleporter to a rugged canyon (Year 22), where you find your way to Hell itself, where 23 begins. Though you're trapped underground, stepping stones emerge from the lava channel, as if beckoning the marine. You're in for one crazy trip.