Equinox (EQUINOX.WAD)

Equinox followed right on the heels of the ridiculous, engine-crushing Nuts toward the end of 2001. This implies that the former - a Doom II thirteen-level mapset for limit-removing source ports - had already been in development for quite some time. Both were created by the mysterious B.P.R.D. and while Equinox is much closer to traditional Doom level design there are enough instances of large areas and mixed monster packs to suggest that full-on enemy infighting was more woven into the author's Doom DNA than the casual silliness of Nuts (created to test the /idgames upload process) suggests. Looking at this and B.P.R.D.'s subsequent releases, including the magnificent yet maligned "Mucous Flow", it's clear that the author has enjoyed a considerable legacy of influence with today's level designers.

The Inquisitor 3 (INQSTR3E.WAD)

I played Shadowman's Inquisitor and its sequel back in 2014. Both are experiments originally begat by Russian "freakmapping" contests where a procedurally-generated layout is used as the foundation for people to make their own levels. The original INQSTR was controversial for its political / sexual undertones focused around a mysterious, metaphorical allusion that sullied an otherwise pretty cool castle adventure stylized after Hexen II. The Inquisitor 2 pushed in a different direction, attempting to channel the dungeon crawler combat of the Diablo series complete with an overworld town and quests that you could accomplish to further your power, exploring a fair variety of dungeons all within the space of a single level. Its bold aspirations were tempered by highly claustrophobic combat and boxy architecture.

maintenance mode III

CURRENT STATUS: 86% complete, backfilled through February 2012

I haven't played Doom in maybe three months and any notion of wanting to keep abreast of the cream of the community crop, when coupled with the time I've been working and wanting to spend time with my baby, has sapped me of any will to keep up with this hobby in my free time. It's been a long time coming but I officially withdrew myself from the Cacoward panel; I hope anyone who read the things that I wrote for the Cacowards appreciated them, even if they hated the piss out of some of the selections.

This blog is now bereft of any romantic notions of keeping up with weekly updates. My priorities are

1) finish the review for INQSTR3, maybe the biggest millstone around my neck if only because it's been half-assed for so long, but it's been mostly written (with a whopping 20 paragraph "overview" section... so far) DONE!
2) finish backfilling all of the screenshots so that the blog stands as a complete archive of my reviews, if nothing else
3) play and review WADs free of any imagined responsibility to the Doom community

(the original post)
(the squeakuel)

DooM Resurrection Episode One (DOOMRES.WAD)

When Doom's source ports started incorporating "advanced" features like scripting, I believe that there was a sort of fevered excitement as though these things would "elevate" it from a 1993-era FPS to something more in line with at least the late 90s, like Quake, its Stroggy sequel, and Half-Life. Over time the enthusiasm for expanding Doom's gameplay beyond the niche it rather robustly occupies waned and we are now up to our knees in vanilla and Boom-oriented maps and mapsets that continue to mine new depths beneath its rugged exterior. There's still a solid brace of people making highly inventive things with source ports, of course, but the days of authors like Kurt Kesler churning out little ZDoom mini-adventures appears to be gone, its peak madness left back in the early '00s.

Trust (TQTRUST.WAD)

Tommie Quick made a couple of vanilla maps back in 1997, took some time to tour with TNT and their deathmatch megaWADs, and then jumped into ZDoom modding for several releases in 2001. Trust came first; it's a Doom II mapset boasting what technically amounts to seven levels but the opening three are pretty much just iterations of MAP01 that I assume exist due to ZDoom's technical limitations at the time. Trust shares a few details with 2000's Paranoia as both of them crib some ideas from Half-Life, then still hot on the minds of FPS fans, but Trust remains much more grounded in Doom's universe.

UAC Headquarters (TQMAP02.WAD)

UAC HEADQUARTERS
by Tommie "Fatal" Quick

Tommie Quick slid in at the end of Doom's Golden Age, releasing a few levels in 1997 before hitching his wagon to Team TNT and helping to crank out a few deathmatch megaWADs. UAC Headquarters is his second publication, but I get the feeling that it's actually kind of old, perhaps a relic of an unreleased portfolio - one he simply felt good enough to push out the door. Like his Flood Mines, it's a MAP01 replacement for Doom II. His first publication was sort of an underground earth / tech split, though, where TQMAP02 is all electronics and while the vast majority of the level does not take place outside, most of it occurs within the titular UAC Headquarters. Why you're clearing out another UAC installation isn't mentioned but any reason should come fairly quickly to the imagination.

Flood Mines (TQMAP1.WAD)

FLOOD MINES

by Tommie "Fatal" Quick

Flood Mines is Tommie Quick's (aka Fatal) first published level, a MAP01 replacement for Doom II released in 1997. A member of Team TNT at the time, it wouldn't be until their later deathmatch WADs (Pursuit and Reclamation) where he would establish himself as a contributor. If he's known for anything, though, it's probably his 2001 ZDoom projects, TRUST and Doom Resurrection Episode 1. Where those horsed around with stories and setting there is nothing establishing the narrative of Flood Mines. It's just an ordinary extra mission for Doom II, prestigious by association.

The Darkest Hour (DARKHOUR.WAD)

Hexen II... Quake II... Half-Life... Quake III... Dark Forces. 2000-2001 was a pretty busy period for Rex Claussen and saw him play with a lot of different themes, adopting resources from an assortment of games as he embraced the ZDoom engine as more than just another limit-removing port. First designing Military Research Complex for jumping, he later incorporated scripting into Paranoia and hub systems in Temple of the Ancients, finally including actual monster modifications in this, The Darkest Hour (DeHackEd, I know, but work with me!). DARKHOUR, a Star Wars-themed 2001 release, was Rex's only publication of the year and consists of seven maps, one of them a secret requiring you to use the force... of a rocket. At your feet.