Area 51 (AREA51.WAD)

Area 51 is - what else? - but a conspiracy theorist's wet dream. Released in 1997 by Keith Hickman (contributor to Squadron 417) and Garth Donovan (aka Ziggy Gnarly of Twilight Warrior fame), it's a two-map minisode for Doom II, replacing MAP01 and MAP02. If you didn't know, Area 51 is shorthand for a notorious US Military Air Base in Nevada, aka Groom Lake. Since Doom's release, it's been pretty common for authors to take the sci-fi route and throw all of the wonderful monsters we've come to know and love under the banner of aliens from another planet. It's no surprise, then, that someone would come along and put them in the one place they're suspected to be in popular culture.

Hostage Rescue 3 (HOSTAGE3.WAD)

Before banging out the now legendary Twilight Warrior, a somewhat realistic FPS conversion for Doom II to be played in the then budding Legacy engine, Sidearm Joe and Ziggy Gnarly made the Hostage Rescue series, culminating in Hostage Rescue 3. HOSTAGE3 was released back in 1998, a three-level minisode of sorts. The hook is the same, an attempt at simulating real covert ops activities in the Doom engine, starting out with a shooting gallery before moving on to two distinctly different missions. If you've played Twilight Warrior but haven't touched their salad days, you're not missing much, as MAP03 is a much easier version of Twilight's MAP04 ("Navy Seal") and MAP01 is barely a glorified shooting gallery. There's some cool stuff, though.