Psychic (XA-PSYCH.PK3)

PSYCHIC

by Xaser Acheron

My reintroduction to Doom is tangentially related to Psychic. A friend gifted me a Something Awful account back in '09 and one of the forums that I gravitated toward was the Let's Play forums. They had a Doom mods thread going on at the time and I think that they were playing a combination of Psychic with B.P.R.D.'s Equinox. I saw so much cool stuff going on with Doom (my previous dips in user-created content being limited to whatever I found on my Dad's Doom 1 & 2 Collection shovelware CD as well as Kaiser's Doom 64: Absolution TC) that I wanted to dive right in. Of course, if you're a long-time reader you know that I don't spend a lot of time playing gameplay mods, but fourteen years to finally load up Xaser's Psychic seems, in retrospect, a bit excessive. At least I had planned it out back in 2019 to play it after The Abyss! That's got to count for something, right?

Russian Overkill (RO_PB_2.5.PK3)

RUSSIAN OVERKILL

by "Pillowblaster"

Gameplay mods are wicked cool things. I don't use them when I play PWADs for review because I prefer to explore the way in which authors balanced their levels. There is something cathartic, though, in blowing through super-tough mapsets that consumed hours of my life (e.g. Sunlust) with a heinously overpowered weapons mod. Enter Russian Overkill. This GZDoom institution was originally released in 2011 and saw several feature updates until 2013, after which it undergoes the occasional under-the-hood retuning. Pillowblaster received 2012's Best Gameplay Mod Cacoward due in part to the convergence of two community developments as well as the mod's specific style.

Smooth Doom (SMOOTHDOOM.PK3)

SMOOTH DOOM

by "Gifty"

Hundreds if not thousands of increasingly complex Doom mods have been made since the advent of ACS and DECORATE in ZDoom. Many of them offer significant gameplay changes but others are of a more aesthetic variety, "polishing" the game's appearance. Smooth Doom was born out of a proof-of-concept from SgtMarkIV. Gifty took the cue and pursued the idea to its logical conclusion, first releasing it on Doomworld in 2014. It remains one of the community's most beloved mods, particularly for those folks who still enjoy the look of the stock resources but can't stand the staggered animations. Since ZDoom's retirement, Smooth Doom requires a current revision of GZDoom.

Shadow of the Wool Ball (SHADOWO*.WAD)

Designing a full-fledged Doom clone with all new resources... Well, that's hard. Making a Wolf3D-style game, though, is a different story. It still wouldn't be easy but the simpler level design sets the bar much lower and not having to make full rotations for monster sprites (since they only have to be focused on you) ought to be a boon for working sprite artists. 2016's Shadow of the Wool Ball is a passion project from MSPaintR0cks featuring retro Wolfenstein action rendered in a clean, cartoony art style. A ZDoom release, it's three episodes of six levels for a grand total of eighteen that's meant to run with the Doom II IWAD but can run just fine in the original trilogy excepting a surprise guest appearance by the end text from Doom's Inferno.

InstaDoom (INSTADM.ZIP)

INSTADOOM
by Andrew "Linguica" Stine

If you bore witness to any aspect of the InstaDoom craze back in 2015, it was probably its included add-on, Selfie Doom. Given the mod's title, it's clear that the selfie stick wasn't the original focus, but for awhile it was One Hot Topic. I was right there, too, taking a number of Doomguy selfies for the Doom WADs Tumblr until some people became especially tired of them. Like Vuvuzela Doom, the star burned bright, searing its place in the big book of Doom history as one of the more humorous footnotes, to be resurrected for a laugh when the need presents itself.

Extreme Weapon Pack (EWPACK.WAD)

EXTREME WEAPON PACK
by "Doggo120"

Simply not telling anyone about Extreme Weapon Pack would be the worst offense I could commit. Explaining it before you get a chance to see it yourself would be the second worst. So, gentle reader, before you skim any further, ask yourself: "Do I want to spoil the surprise for myself?" You could load this mod up in ZDoom, very quickly, and discover on your own the twisted secret behind Doggo120's 2013 masterpiece. I guess if you're allergic to ZDoom mods, you wouldn't care to try. However, I IMPLORE you to load Extreme Weapon Pack up and experience it before you take a peek at the man behind the curtain.

Random Deaths & Decoration v1.5 (RDND15.PK3)

RANDOM DEATHS
& DECORATION
by Chris "Glaice" Pisarczyk

Glaice - aka Mr. Chris - has long been a fixture in the Doom community. For awhile, he was one of the loudest proponents of Brutal Doom, popularizing the mod with the Brutal Doom Video Vault, among other things. Five years of feature creep have brought him back into the fold, though. Random Deaths and Decoration is his takeaway from the experience, a Doom mod that brings some of the spectacle of Brutal Doom without any of the gameplay changes. This is (almost) a purely visual gameplay mod, so there isn't a whole lot of concrete stuff to talk about, and I feel that an explanation of the changed elements in pornographic detail is outside of the scope of this blog. That being said, there is plenty worth summarizing that may tantalize prospective players.

Zero Tolerance (ZP-ZEROT.WAD)

ZERO TOLERANCE
by "Zero Prophet"

ZDoom modding entered something of a renaissance after Xaser's release of Zen Dynamics, which showed just how far the ZDoom engine could be pushed in terms of weapon mods. The engine has come a long way since then, with even crazier gameplay mods and concepts (and surely more to follow). Zero Prophet released his Zero Tolerance in 2008. It's mostly a weapons mod as it doesn't fool with the properties of any of the monsters higher than and including the demon, but it does mess around with the rest of the Doom II trash. The weaponry is far more futuristic than Doom's, as you're playing a rogue android who stands alone against the infernal invasion.

Mayan Mishap (T-MAYA.WAD)

When he's not a jetsetting playboy fighting Nazis and curing cancer, Doomworld Forum superstar Tango messes around with Doom, and on rare occasions he actually finishes Doom maps. Mayan Mishap isn't just a collection of Doom II levels, though. Released in 2014, it's both the rare instance of a complete Tango project in the wild plus an attempt at a new yet familiar take on classic gameplay. The end product spans MAP01-04 plus MAP31 and is targeted at BooMBF ports but had the MBF BEX code converted to DECORATE so that it would run in stuff like Zandronum. As far as story goes, well, there isn't one. You don't really need an excuse to slaughter demons in a vaguely Mayan environment, though.

Fractal Doom (FD_ZD_V0.2.4B.WAD)

Fractal Doom is... interesting. It's an unusual gameplay mod from Doomworld Forum superstar Scroton that debuted in 2013. I'm reviewing the ZDoom version at rev 0.2.4b, so I expect this summary to become eventually outdated. I like surprises, though! Fractal Doom is rooted on the concept of fractals, something I'm completely unqualified to discuss. You might be familiar with fractal imagery, where a large pattern is iterated upon by itself on a smaller and smaller scale, creating wonderful, complex imagery. This is the crux of Fractal Doom, played out in enemy and weapon behavior. This review documents a snapshot of the 0.2.4b release for ZDoom, so if something is different, it's Zrev modding.