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.

Maximum Breakdown (MB01.WAD)

MAXIMUM BREAKDOWN

by Brad Spencer

Brad is probably best-known in the community for his single-player contributions. They figured into the 2000 Cacowards with Atomic Tomb as well as a portion of the legendary Alien Vendetta. I get the feeling that deathmatch was his real passion back in the early '00s, though. This is mostly due to how much of his pre-AV work was focused on multiplayer. Maximum Breakdown actually began life as the kickstarter for an 11-level episode for Doom II but Spencer found that he loved it too much in DM to make any more. The end result is a MAP01 replacement for ZDoom, originally released back in 1999.

Warehouse (WAREHOUSE.WAD)

WAREHOUSE

by Pablo Dictter

Dictter's WADography is kind of a pain to sort out. He shopped some of his PWADs around online before uploading them to /idgames so the dates of creation are less than clear. Forget the fact that his first ten or so levels never found their way to the archives! This particular release has its own curious detail. Pablo notes that Warehouse won a Doom WAD Station contest. I can't find anything mentioning it on the current iteration of Larkin's site, though. While there are a few archive.org snapshots of DWS back when it was hosted on the now-defunct NewDoom they are pretty much identical to the way it's currently laid out. Minus the garish background, of course. Whatever the case, it's an E1M1 replacement for The Ultimate Doom. The author suggests that you use a Boom source port but Varun Abhiram was able to play it in vanilla.

Industrial (INDUSTRL.WAD)

INDUSTRIAL

by Kevin "Magikal" Reay

When I decided to do a deep dive into the depths of the original Community Chest there were three things that I was dreading. The first was the sheer magnitude of single level releases from authors like Alex Parsons and Gene Bird. Second and opposite, I knew that Kaiser's back catalogue would involve most of the megaWADs of the DSV series. Last but by far not the least was Kevin "Magikal" Reay's levels. His entries have been the most consistently derided element of CCHEST but it's not hard to see why having finally played this level. Every author has their own design language and Kev's is somewhere in the realm of mid-'90s cryptographers like Jim Flynn and Bob Evans. His 2002 solo debut was Industrial, a very large and long MAP01 replacement. It was originally tested in Legacy but will probably work in any Boom-compatible port that has complex Z-collision, e.g. Eternity or (G)ZDoom. This is almost entirely due to a couple of instances toward the level's end, most notably a torch that you will have to ledge-crawl over. The author's only real caveat is for you to not jump.

800 Reviews and a Happy Doomsday!

When I posted the 700 review milestone back in January I wasn't expecting to hit 800 at the end of the year. Close, maybe, but not within ten months! This was a crazy year, my most productive since 2012. I've been writing a lot about a twenty-six year old computer game.

In review (with a repost of my mid-year state of the blog to start):

10 Sectors Part 2 (10SECTO2.WAD)

In 2000, Doomworld hosted a contest inspired by an Unreal community challenge. 10 Sectors took more than 120 submissions from authors looking to create the most interesting Doom II level they could using - you guessed it - no more than 10 sectors. The premise actually allows for fairly complex levels as demonstrated in the official 10SECTOR megaWAD. It collected the thirty highest-rated entries plus two special mentions. 10SECTO2 is then the first and only spillover release. 27 of these levels were part of the top 32 for at least one judge. The illustrious Linguica hand-picked the remaining five to round the collection out to the mythic "complete game replacement" status. Like the primary release, this 2000 PWAD should be played with Doom II in a Boom-compatible port.

Blind Alley M., The Citadel (BNDALYM.WAD)

BLIND ALLEY M.

THE CITADEL

by Gene Bird

G.B. had been mapping since 1998 but he was one of those authors who kept his works to himself. Until 2002, that is, where he started to publish them as he finalized each entry. Most people who are familiar with Gene know his entries in the original Community Chest and CCHEST2. He still hangs out on the forums as Searcher, though, and appears to be primarily interested in watching the speed demos of other players. All of Birds's works are part of a series called Blind Alley, each one having a letter designator to signify where it would have appeared in the running order of the finished megaWAD. The Citadel is situated before the previously released Nukage (O) and The Boardwalk (P), probably occupying MAP22. As an individual release in 2002, though, it's a MAP01 replacement for Doom II.

Dark Tide (DT-LUTZ.WAD)

DARK TIDE

by Chris Lutz

2017 was Chris's biggest year to date. He could have just ridden the high from having helped to flesh out 2016's No End In Sight but he also finished off his ambitious Hellscape, a re-envisioning of Doom II's final episode. His last surprise was a single level release - Dark Tide. This MAP01 replacement is meant for Boom-compatible ports but as with DHS Lutz recommends an engine that has more complex Z clipping. Vertical mouselook is also a nicety to make the gameplay considerably less frustrating. As far as WADs go, you can't get by with just DOOM2.WAD. DT-LUTZ also requires Team TNT's resource package for The Return.