A41_COOP.WAD is an episode designed for 4 player co-operative play. Many of the puzzles require 4 players. A41_SPDM.WAD is the same episode, but with the puzzles modified so that it can be played single player or deathmatch, or co-op with less than 4 players.
The episode has a good storyline, with you starting on a space ship, trying to regain control from the monsters. The levels fit into the story, with new textures added that give you instructions about what you are trying to do. These were really good, adding real purpose to the early levels, but were not used at the later levels, which was a shame.
The levels are designed to fit in with the plot, with the early levels being high-tech space ship style, then the space station, and later the planet below. There are some very interesting structures at the early levels, like the reactor core, and going out of an airlock to fix a hull breach.
But the levels lacked attention to some details, such as texture alignment and ceilings on doors. The rooms were often large for no reason. The puzzles were nice, but clearly some were designed for more players, and lost their interest when modified for single play.
The levels had lots of ammo, and lots of health - too much. The author warned that UV was designed for 4 players, so hard for 1, but I found it fairly straight-forward. There were too many hordes of troopers and such that made the fighting tedious.
The later levels seemed to magnify the faults of the early levels, as they became larger, and less consistent. Also, E1M6 crashes if you try to save. There were still nice mazes and puzzles at later levels. However, the levels move away from the high-tech and industrial styles, so the theme of the episode was lost.
Overall, an episode with lots of long puzzles, large mazes and large rooms. But large rooms for no reason, tedious puzzles and endless mazes don't capture the player's interest. The early levels have some good puzzles and features.
Some good puzzles, and interesting features at the early levels.
This is a level centred on a large octagonal courtyard. This contains a few buildings containing switches, and some pillars. There are a few isolated rooms which are accessed by teleports, and a small exit area.
There are plenty of opposition, so there is only just enough ammo to go round - literally, so you will be pistolling monsters quite often. The health and ammo and mainly provided in very small bits lying around the courtyard, which make them tedious to collect.
The main courtyard is quite stylish, with its pillars with lights on; the buildings in it are just plain gray boxes though. The small side areas are more Inferno styled, with nice low light levels; they are too small to really show off their style though. Overall, a level with no bugs, but with no real structure either.
This is a fairly small level, based around a courtyard containing a building. There is a small acid maze, and a couple of other courtyards.
The level has lots of mismatched and misaligned textures. Door textures are poorly chosen, with textures often little or no different from their surroundings. In order to complete the level, you have to find several unmarked doors and secrets.
There are monsters, but far more ammo than necessary and plenty of health. Mostly the monsters pose no problem. There is a cyberdemon, but you can run past him. The main nasty fight is with a few barons, but you have ammo to spare, so it is not really hard.
This is a medium sized Shores of Hell style level. The level has a strange mix of areas, with some modern areas, some marble halls, some wooden corridors and some acid tunnels - often with little or no transition between them (some SUPPORT textures to delimit them at least would have helped).
The main problem with this level is the lack of attention to detail. The textures are often misaligned and poorly chosen; ceilings on doors were sometimes badly chosen, and all the doortracks were unpegged. Secrets often showed on the map, and none of them were marked as secret (so don't count to the secrets ratio at the end of the level). There was also some minor HOM on moving platforms.
The level is quite hard - health was well judged, I was frequently using all the health in a room to get back up to maximum. There are quite a lot of cacodemons, and a few barons. Ammo is limited early on, but toward the end there are plenty of shells at least. There are some nasty tricks and traps, and a few secrets too. The fights are very varied too; there is a particularly good fight with cacodemons behind cages, where you have to grab ammo from around the cacodemons to have enough to complete the fight. Perhaps my favorite fight was a small square room with 4 cacodemons that you teleport into - you have to use the pillars and dodge pretty fast to survive.
Overall, this level has some really good fights, but it let down by lack of attantion to basic details.
I was surprised to find that this is only a replacement for E1M1 - considering the size of the file, I was expecting an episode at least! The level consists of a collection of joined rooms, and an outdoor area.
The rooms are oddly shaped, and poorly decorated, with mismatched and misaligned textures. The doors are odd, with even the normal doors given a texture only slightly different to the surrounding walls, so look tacky. There is lots of tutti fruiti, and even the Medusa effect.
The level has far more ammo than is needed, thanks to the outdoor area, which contains hundreds of human enemies. There are no traps, only a few barons to add interest. Most of the enemies are just sergeants.
BUTT.WAD contains some new sounds - these seem to be roughly the original sounds, but overlayed with people shouting and swearing. Perhaps some people will like this, but personally I don't see the point. GREATMUS.WAD contains new music for the entire 1st episode.
A huge download for a poor level.
This level consists of a castle with a couple of towers, surrounded by a moat. The castle has lots of turrets, connected by corridors. The level looks well constructed; the author has clearly mastered doing all the complicated structures involved, making the castle look imposing. There are a lot of texture misalignments though.
The opposition are shotgun men and cacodemons mostly, and a baron. There is limited ammo and health, but enough. The difficulty is consistent throughout, but careful play and saving should see you through. The only real difficulty is fighting in the often narrow corridors, and avoiding the sergeants sniping from other turrets.
Skill levels are implemented only as far as adding a few cacodemons and the baron at UV. Otherwise, the skills are the same. There are no multiplayer starts - a pity, since with some extra weapons deathmatch might have been interesting.
A nice level, though it would have been better if it were a little larger and more varied.
This is a smallish level in the Shores of Hell style. It is based around a hallway containing lots of teleports, most of which do nothing. This hall is quite impressive,
The architecture is well done, with no glaring texture errors, and some good rooms. However, some of the rooms are a bit large and empty. For insstance, there is a large auditorium. The author resists the temptation to fill it with imps and such, but instead puts almost nothing in there - a baron or something at the front at least would have made the room more interesting.
The opposition are sparse at first. All the serious opposition are focused on one room (the room contains an acid lake which the player must bridge, and they are in the lake). The rest of the level becomes little more than an extended ammo gathering exercise against weak opposition.
A good WAD for beginners to try.
This is a medium sized level in the Shores of Hell style. Fortunately, it is more memorable than the author's e-mail address ;-).
The level has some nice rooms, which are the right size (most add-on levels have every room at least twice as large as needed, but not here), and never too dark. There were some poor texture choices, and some misaligned textures, but on the whole it was OK. The rooms were perhaps a little bare early on.
Navigating through the level took some getting used to, due to the use of teleports needed to get around. You also have to be careful of acid pits, since most of these are inescapable, so you will have to save from time to time.
The opposition are well done. There are some good tricks and traps, and plenty of more powerful opposition. There are powerful weapons to balance though, and an invulnerability to face the cyberdemon. The level is puzzling at times, but fits together well.
The level is structurally sound, with no glaring defects. However, the level has no overall style; indeed, even some of the rooms use combinations of textures that I didn't think went together. But some of the areas were quite good.
You could decide to try to clear the level. This would be tricky in places, but not too bad even at UV. Skill levels are implemented, but only differ by a few monsters. There is plenty of ammo, and enough health. The opposition are mainly shotgun men, imps and cacos, with a couple of barons in cages. There are no traps or secrets.
A Deathmatch only PWAD. A pity that the author did not even try to accomodate single and co-op play.
I don't know what to think about this one. The accompanying TXT states that AHIDE.WAD contains an entire episode, new music, and is for single play only. In fact, AHIDE.WAD contains only 3 levels, no new music, and has all the required multiplayer starts.
The levels each consist of a number of large rooms, connected by doors and teleports. The rooms are just cubes, painted with a single texture, often with poorly chosen ceiling textures. There are no interesting features, just a few keycards to get and switches to hit.
The levels are very easy. There is a vastly more ammo and health than necessary. Normal health (stimpacks, medkits, green armour) can be ignored, and I left half the health potions and helmets at every level. I also left at least a blue armour and 2 soul spheres behind at E1M2 and at E1M3.
There are plenty of monsters, only weak ones at the first level. At later levels there are plenty of cacos and barons, but with the rocket launcher available at E1M1, and the BFG9000 available in E1M2, and tons of ammo, even half a dozen barons get barely a few shots in. At E1M3 there are 3 cyberdemons and 2 spiderdemons, but 4 of these are in a single trap, and the other can be run past. There are 2 computer maps at E1M3, and once you have one, the trap can be avoided, and a secret exit located which avoids half of the level. And if you play at below UV, it will be even easier.
Bizarre.
This level is an island prison, surrounded by water. You start inside the prison, clear the buildings, and finally clear the entire island.
The level is impressive. New textures have been imported which give the level a unique style. These also include signs that add to the prison atmosphere, and tell you what the different rooms are supposed to be. There were few errors that I noticed.
However, the level has few traps, and while there are a few interesting fights, the opposition are not all that strong. There is plenty of ammo and enough health. The blue keycard is awkward to find, and accessed in a silly way.
The end area is quite funny, but again too easy. There is plenty of decoration throughout the level to add interest, and the odd secret.
New sounds are included, at least some of which are sensible. There is also new music.
PWAD | Episode and Mission |
F-HOLD.WAD | E1M1 |
T-BASE.WAD | E1M2 |
P-PLANT.WAD | E1M3 |
ARMORY.WAD | E1M4 |
OPS.WAD | E1M5 |
STATION.WAD | E1M6 |
DIVIDE.WAD | E1M7 |
R-DENS.WAD | E1M8 |
PALACE.WAD | E1M9 |
These 9 WADs each contain a level, which go together to form an episode. Really the author should have merged them all into a single WAD, but it is easy enough to do it yourself.
The episode is in the Knee-Deep style, with industrial and high-tech areas. Overall, the structure of all the levels seemed sound, but there were lots of mismatched and misaligned testures. Also, many of the rooms were either tacky or frustrating. Light levels could have been chosen randomely - some areas were OK, but others were just pitch black.
Individual levels seemed incoherent and patchy; indeed, I'd say that the only overall style of the episode itself is tackiness.
The opposition come in two sorts. There are the hordes of troopers and shotgun men - tedious to fight. And there are the thinly spread monsters in mazes, which are normally too thinly spread to be effective at the earlier levels, and the mazes too dark to fight in anyway at later levels.
The start of E1M1 is one such area - you have to fight a horde of troopers, shotgun men and the odd imp in the pitch black :-(. Wonderful, NOT.
E1M2 has an interesting start, with a maze based on concentric circles instead of straight corridors. There are some interesting rooms here. But there is still no overall style to the level.
E1M3 starts with a red maze (red walls, red lights floor and ceiling). This looks very tacky - the floor and ceiling lights and terribly aligned. Besides, I hate red rooms. There is a strange exit area, and no overall style.
E1M4 has the most coherent design of all the levels. The main area is at least complete and fairly consistent with textures, and has some good fights. It might be interesting for deathmatch, with the large number of viewing points and interconnections. It is let down by a stupid end area, which is totally mismatched with the rest of the level, and too dark.
E1M5 consists of a few large areas connected by teleports. With a maze where most of the internal walls were lifts, and a large open courtyard full of pillars of STARTAN1 to be navigated between, the areas all looked a bit tacky.
E1M6 is a dark computer maze. I lost patience with this level - it is just too dark. You probably could complete it in the dark, there is loads of health, but staggering around waiting to be shot so you can see your opponent to shoot back is no fun - the idea of Doom is too aim and shoot, not stagger blindly. I used the IDBEHOLDL cheat and after that the maze was fairly straight-forward.
E1M7 is just stupid. The level is much too slow, and its central area consists of a set of pillars in an open area, with hordes of troopers and shotgun men milling around their bases, making getting around even harder. I gave up in frustration at this point. Looking in WinDEU revealed the level would get no better, with one room containing a maze of red torches (the walls of the maze are red torches - serious THING overload).
The difficulty increases through the episode, with early levels easy and frustrating, later levels hard and tedious.
A large download for a tacky and frustrating set of levels.
ALLROY is a complete replacement for Knee-Deep in the Dead, in the same style as the original. The levels are all in the same style, all being based on three types of feature:
There are lots of texture misalignments, some tutti fruiti, and some rooms seem to have deliberate texture mismatching. There was some major HOM at one level.
There is plenty of ammo (the start room contains weapons 2-6). The opposition are poorly placed, and rarely cause a problem. But health is very tight, and with few secrets you can't afford to become careless. There are cyberdemons at several of the levels. These are usually in large areas, with invulnerabilities provided, except at E1M5, where it is in an awkwardly small room with just a few obstacles to help. But with tons of cells available this isn't too bad. There are quite a few traps.
New music is included, different for each level of the episode. Also, some of the credits/help screens, and the title of the Doom menu are replaced to give the episode name, and the authors.
The mazes and teleport rooms are boring and tedious.
This is a collection of 4 levels. There is no real overall style to the episode - the first level and-a-half are plain SHAWN2 (shiny metal), the rest are a strange mix of textures.
The levels have terrible architecture. There is a lot of tutti-fruiti, particularly at E1M3. Textures are mismatched and misaligned - some rooms seem to have been deliberately done with as many mismatched textures as possible. Floor textures are also poorly done. Doortracks were misaligned, unpegged and poorly chosen.
There are some good fights - at one point you have to run a narrow walkway overlooked by a cyberdemon. There is plenty of health and sufficient ammo for all the monsters, and invulnerability for the really tough fights. Some of the traps are very odd though - several seemed completely empty.
The lighting at the levels is frustrating. Often the rooms are just too dark for fighting. The author has made a lot of use of the 'lower lights to 0' effect, which makes it a pain to fight some areas. But with patience the areas should be possible (my patience cracked a few times and I cheated).
Rarely has anyone bothered to create 4 levels all with such poor architecture.
This is an 8 level episode, completely new (not an updated ALOHA911, all 8 levels are new fortunately). The levels are mainly in the Knee-Deep style, with much improved architecture from ALOHA911. There are very few texture mismatches and tutti fruiti problems.
The first few levels are quite good, with some interesting structures. The levels are fairly consistent in style. There are interesting traps, and no serious texture errors. There are texture mismatches though. There is plenty of ammo and health.
The later levels are not as consistent. E1M4 consists of a number of areas, each containing cyberdemons - each area consists of dodging between covered areas to complete tasks like hitting switches. E1M5 is mainly a large open maze, with imps and tauruses spread throughout it - but all are deaf, and typically only one round each corner, so the chainsaw can be used throughout. This saves even more ammo, leaving you full of most ammo types.
E1M6 is centred on a large hall, overlooked by viewing points connected by teleports, with some bizarre features in side areas. E1M7 is a large marble complex, with lots of shoot-through-walls for traps. E1M8 is a large, long, winding open corridor full of all sorts of enemies.
The levels from E1M4 onward are less consistent; they don't form a great episode. Several of them are not as good as the others (E1M4, E1M5, E1M8 are poorer than the rest IMHO).
There is plenty of ammo and health throughout. The traps at the early levels and E1M7 are the only real dangers, providing you dodge the cyberdemons at E1M4.
Some of the later levels could be considerably improved.
This single level is basically a large complex of wooden rooms connected by wooden corridors. These use some nice tricks, but are architecturally dull, with little variation in textures. There are few major errors, but nothing that interesting either.
There is also a side area in the Inferno style. This area is a bit patchy, and has some noticable texture misalignments, but makes a change from the rest of the level.
Ammo is tight to start with, but once you enter the main area of wooden halls there is plenty of ammo, although only the basic weapons are available. There is plenty of health. The opposition tend to be just a few to a room in the wooden area, and there is always plenty of room to fight in. The side area has some more interesting fights, but there are still too few opposition to give much trouble. There is a cyberdemon in the side area, but he can be ignored.
No challenge here.
This is a small E1M1 replacement in the Knee-Deep style. There are only basic weapons and enemies around, so the level is easy. I completed it in 5 minutes. Health and ammo were properly judged.
The level is OK architecturally, if a bit bland. There was the odd texture mismatch, and some texture misalignments, but nothing major. The maze itself is a stone maze open to the sky; perhaps I am wrong, but the point of a maze is that it is dark and oppressive - bright mazes like this rather miss the point IMHO. The author does vary the height of the maze, which helps to vary it a bit, but more decoration would have been appreciated.
OK as an E1M1 replacement, but no challenge on its own.
This is a level based around a maze (no prizes for guessing that one :-). It is a very good example of a maze - the author has used the same textures throughout, giving it a consistent style, but has cleverly added features like barrels, lights, and ceiling openings to keep the maze interesting and varied.
There is a large courtyard containing a cyberdemon and spiderdemon on a raised floor - you can let them fight each other, then finish off the survivor easily enough. The only other area is the exit (I liked the scrolling exit sign). There are only a few texture misalignments, though the textures used in one area are a bit odd (green marble covered with vines at a Knee-Deep style level).
The level has only one trap, and the opposition are all basic except the cyberdemon and spiderdemon. There is plenty of ammo and health. There are a few secrets, though at least one seemed to be unmarked.
A nice example of a maze.
This is a single level in the Inferno style. The architecture is bizarre, with a curious mix of Inferno areas with STARTAN in places. But as an Inferno style level it probably gets away with these. There were few major errors noticable in play.
The level is cleverly done. Going in guns blazing will not get you very far. You have to decide when to fight, when to run, and when to let them do the fighting. If you are doing the puzzles the right way, then ammo and health are well judged. Conversly, if you don't do them the right way, you will struggle to complete the level - this could annoy people who save, only to realise they are too short of ammo to continue.
You have to do some thinking to get through. There are nicely placed traps to keep you on your toes. This level keeps an excellent balance between puzzles and fights, and is well recommended.
A nice, short, challenging level.
AMFDOOM is a complete replacement for Knee-Deep in the Dead. It includea a number of small graphic patches, which add "AMF" to the Doom menu, and highlights the letters A, M and (you guessed it) F in the in-game messages.
The first 3 levels are in the Knee-Deep style. They are small and simple, with few traps or secrets, and little troublesome opposition. There are display errors either due to poorly built nodes or the above errors. The rooms are usually strangely shaped, with mismatched textures; little attention has been payed to detail.
E1M4 is styled on Doom ][ MAP31 (Wolfenstein). Lots of Doom ][ textures have been used to make it (a clear breach of iD's copyright, and I doubt iD will appreciate the textures from the commercial game being brought down to the older game somehow). Most of the rooms contain swastika layouts, usually an arrangement of lamps, torches or goodies in a swastika pattern on the floor. It is nice to see a clear style being adopted, but using 50-100 things in each room is likely to overload some versions of Doom, makes the level slower, and means the level suffers the savegame bug (just another to add to the list :-) - so don't try to save at this level (unless you want a loud bang to be played through your headphones when Doom crashes).
The later levels continue to have bizarre architecture and bugs, including the occasional tutti fruiti. They become more interesting at least, with traps and puzzles mixed in. There are more new textures, which are usually either from Doom ][ or something looking like a beginner's Paintbrush image.
New music is included for all the levels, which is mainly classical - personally I don't mind classical music, but it loses too much in the conversion to MIDI, and ends up sounding silly in Doom IMHO.
A tacky episode.
This is a large, complicated level replacing E2M1. It is a level of 2 halves, with one half in the Shores of Hell style, and the other half in the Inferno style.
At the start you are given a supercharge, backpack, 200% armour, and a computer map. I thought "Another one of these give 'em everything and let them blast their way along happily" levels; I went down the first corridor, found myself surrounded by sergeants, and quickly died. This level has a lot of traps, mainly with enemies teleporting in to attack you. Don't believe the map either, since some areas don't show up on it.
The architecture is fairly good, with box rooms, cages, and balconies in the Shores of Hell half, and lava tunnels and caverns in the Inferno half. The author clearly knows quite a bit, and has used all sorts of things to add interest, including a glass wall (see through, but cannot shoot through). But the level is not very consistent; not only do the 2 halves differ, but within those halves there is no consistent style. Also, the author notes that there are slitch graphic glitches - odd vertical lines appear in some areas.
There are plenty of traps to worry about, and plenty of variety of traps. Also, you can't even rely on the level, since corridors get blocked off and new ones open up from time to time. Perhaps the main problem with the level is that the traps are often rather hard to survive first time - you will have to save fairly regularly.
You may get a large bundle of goodies to start with, but you get very little else - most ammo comes from former humans, and most health is in the 3 supercharges, so you may have to battle for long periods with no health boosts. There are a few secrets to help now and again.
A large, challenging level.
This is a small level replacing E2M8. It consists of a start area, containing some sergeants, 4 superchargers, lots of blue armours, a backpack, 95 rockets and a rocket launcher. The second area is a large yard containing a few cyberdemons and spiderdemons, and an invulnerability. The exit is on the far side of the yard, so you just grab the invulnerability and walk past the spiders - you don't need to fire a shot.
The architecture was plain and simple - a few square rooms. There was nothing interesting or complicated. There was little scope for bugs, but there was a wafer thin ceiling. The music for the level is replaced, which if you like cat-strangling sounds may interest you.
Trivial.
ANDYTRIG is a single level in the Shores of Hell style. It is a puzzle level, where to find the keycards and open doors requires you to search for secrets. These are often unmarked, but at least the level is small, so searching the entire level is not too long-winded.
The level is a mixture of wood panelled corridors and marble halls, keeping fairly well to this style. There are odd textures used in places, like the burning fire texture used behind a wooden lift! There is a lot of tutti fruiti.
The WAD includes completely new status bar graphics (taken from TREE3.WAD) - where the original Doom status bar is a stone texture, the new one is a shiny metal texture, and looks quite good too. New sounds are provided, mainly short clips from films like Terminator. Some of these are a bit long (e.g I promise not to kill anyone
is one of the monster siting sounds - when you see several such monsters, the sounds don't overlap well). The music from E1M1 in the original Doom is provided for the new level at E2M1. I think iD would rather the author had used textures to protect the level against use in the shareware Doom, and made the level E1M1, instead of copying their music.
A big download if you don't want the new sounds.
ANNEX is a single level in the Inferno style. It is very small, with just a few rooms linked by an acid tunnel. Apart from a single decorative feature in the start room, the rooms are just abstractly shaped, designed and textured caves, with no interesting architecture or design. There was HOM on one doortrack.
The level is simple. The opposition are mainly demons and spectres, but shotgun and shells are provided. Skill levels are implemented, but I finished UV easily in under 5 minutes. You have to find secrets to get a keycard, but they are not hidden on the map.
The rooms are too simple for this to even be a useful E3M1 replacement.
This is a level in the Shores of Hell style, supposedly depicting a nuclear power plant with a river running by it. The level consists of 2 areas - an industrial area, and an outdoor area with the river running through a ravine, overlooked by firing points.
Neither area is very convincing. The industrial area has a nice control centre, with banks of computers, and windows looking out on the river. But the other rooms inn this area include the main hall, with a few technical pillars and cages (nothing like a nuclear power station), a marble chapel (?), and only a box room to redeem it slightly. The river area is little better - in one place, the river has a deep pit in it, which makes no sense. Both areas have mismatched textures and tutti-fruiti.
The level is strange to play. Many keys are hidden, accessible only by finding secrets, which are often unmarked. The opposition are resonable, though there is a complete excess of cells and rockets (there is no plasma rifle or rocket launcher until late in the level), and of shells. There is loads of health too. You have to be careful, however - there are lots of places where you can get stuck, including one place by just falling off some stairs in the main room to the floor (the high stairs on one side, 2 walls, and a marble altar which looks passable but is not - :-( why me?).
The main difficulty in the level is the cyberdemon, in the aforementioned pit in the river. You have to get into the pit (that's the easy part, jump), lower the far side (it is a lift (in a river !?!)), rise up the far side and go onward. The tricky bit is the 3 second wait, during which you are sharing the not-too-large pit with the cyber, and the 3 rockets he will have undoubtably have fired. Perhaps with all the rockets you are intended to kill it - if anyone can do this once in the pit, I'd like to see it; I tried shooting down into the pit from the near edge, but either I shot myself in the foot while dodging the cyber's rockets or I failed to dodge :-). I'll leave it up to you to decide whether to kill or dodge (as I managed to after a few tries).
A tacky level in places.
This is a level replacing E2M1. The level is basically 5 zones; you start in the first zone, and that is connected to the other 4. The level has no overall style, since each zone has its own style.
Each zone is quite well done, in particular the box room zone with air vents, and the Inferno zone. One major defect I noticed was that the huge circular staircase in the first zone has been painted with STARTAN, which looks ugly since the lines are not nice lengths. There were also poor doortracks and some mismatched floors under doors.
The level is varied and interesting, with a range of traps and puzzles. There are lots of secrets, some easier to find than others. There are some good fights too (watch out in the Inferno zone, that is a tight fight). There is a fair supply of ammo, and plenty of health. Toward the end I felt there was too much ammo, with rockets, and in particular cells, helping take the sting out of several fights. There was also an invulnerability which I did not need, but would have made one fight much easier.
A pity the level is not all in the same style, then its rating would be higher. An interesting level nonetheless.
This is a level in the Knee-Deep style, supposedly based on the student center and campus pub at the University of California. It is basically a building with different areas connnected by lifts and stairs, surrounded by an outdoor area.
While the level has some nice viewing points and windows, it suffers from a lack of attention to detail. There are mismatched and misaligned floor and ceiling textures, often for no reason.
The level is quite interesting to play. There are lots of secrets, though you have to find some of these to be able to complete the level. There are some good fights, if few traps. Health is very restricted early on, but if you survive to get a few keycards health becomes readily available. There is a steady supply of ammo throughout. Toward the end there is an excess of cells and rockets - probably intended to kill the cyberdemon. He is standing high up overlooking one side of the building, but can be ignored providing you run through the affected area.
A level that someone should take as a base and improve upon.
This is one episode that I downloaded a long time ago, and some of its areas provided the ideas for my own levels. Unfortunately, its ideas are not matched by good texturing, leaving it legging behind more modern WADs.
APOCALYP is an episode going through all 3 Doom phases (Knee-Deep style, Shores of Hell style, and Inferno style). The levels are designed to all fit together and match the story provided. This is done well, including things like seeing the end of the previous level at the start of the next one and visa-versa.
There are plenty of traps and secrets, and extra features to strengthen the storyline. The opposition are fairly strong, and ammo can be tight at times, but generally there are no real sticking points.
Unfortunately, all the levels (though particularly the early ones) suffer from lack of attention to detail. Textures are often mismatched and misalignned, and there is a lot of tutti fruiti and some occasional HOM. Also, several of the levels are very slow.
You start at E1M1 in a prison cell, having been captured when your shuttle crash landed. It is hard to tell if it is meant to be a dungeon or some caves (ASHWALL was used), and the red torches look a bit out of place when you reach the more industrial areas. You can go outside and see your crashed spacecraft, but this area has a lot of mismatched textures. The oil leaking from it is nice though. The level ends with a bizarre throne room with a baron, which looks totally out of place.
E1M2 is a collection of buildings. There is a lot of tutti fruiti at this level, and the buildings are not really consistent in style. There are some good fights that make up for this a bit.
E1M3 depicts a sewage system, and has some really stylish acid corridors (I modelled acid tunnels in one of my own levels on these some time ago). The centre of this maze is rather slow, though. There are some caves that the sewers lead into which give the level some variety.
E1M9 (the only exit from E1M3 is to E1M9) is in many ways like the 4th level of Duke Nukem 3D - a large chasm with various caves and outcrops to be explored, with the odd bit of human development around too. Unfortunately, the level is hugely beyond the capabilities of Doom - when I first played this level Doom crashed consistently falling into the chasm. Even once further in, there is a huge (100's of steps) staircase leading up one wall of the chasm, which makes the level extremely slow, and falling off of which can cause Doom to crash. A nice idea perhaps, but Doom cannot really cope with it. The author has also used a lot of impassable lines to prevent the player reaching the walls, which would apparently cause even more errors.
E1M4 is a bizarre level. The main area is a HUGE square room full of BROWNGRN blocks, making a huge, complicated, and atmospheric maze. This is very slow - I went through optimising my version when I played it, deleting sectors which represented solid blocks and combining adjacent identical sectors, which speeded up the level greatly (though it was still slow). The later area is a clever Indiana Jones style series of traps to escape to the exit.
E1M5 is a nice Shores of Hell style level, containing lots of nice prison cells and marble halls. E1M6 is a clever level, with a lot of interesting areas and puzzles. There is no consistent style to the level though.
E1M7 is a level with a few large marble halls containing ammo and goodies, and a couple of spiderdemons (easy with all the ammo). All these goodies prepare you for E1M8, where you face a few barons and a cyberdemon (you don't need to kill the cyber).
Some new graphics are included, which are just the animated blue water used as a wall texture for a waterfall.
If anyone has produced an improved version of this, correcting the graphic problems and perhaps improving the slow levels, I would very much like to see it.
This is a Shores of Hell style level, based in a dark building lit by torches. There are no major graphic errors. The lighting is well done to give the level some atmosphere. The level keeps well to a style.
There is a cyberdemon in a courtyard, but you don't have to fight him, you can run past him. Later on, you meet a spiderdemon, but a horde of cacodemons deal with him for you.
You start in a large courtyard, which is packed with ammo. You grab as much as you can carry, then teleport into the building. With only the shotgun to start with, ammo can get tight, but once you get a few weapons there is tons of ammo. There is plenty of health and armour too. The level has few secrets or traps, but some tight fights (especially the spiderdemon fight) make up for this somewhat.
There is an interesting variation on this level if you select co-op play. Players 1, 3 and 4 start in the normal start, with only a shotgun but tons of ammo. Player 2 begins in the building, with all the keycards and weapons, some invisibilities and invulnerabilities, and access to a network of (keycard accessed) tunnels allowing him to ambush the other players. Obviously the other players will die a lot, hence the huge ammo dump at the start (though the author could have made most of these appear at multiplayer only). The other players will have to try and catch player 2 out, or sneak through and get some decent weapons.
If you can find a few friends, try this co-op, and let me know how it goes (and hope you are player 2 :-) ).
This is a level designed to look like a mine. It is the best attempt at a mine I have seen in Doom 1, with a nice mixture of rough caves and cut/dug tunnels walled with cement. As you get further in a sucesssion of lifts take you deeper and deeper into the mine. The light levels have been properly judged to make the level atmospheric.
There are minor glitches. The level is slow; very slow in complicated areas, though the mine tunnels themselves are OK. There some tutti fruiti away from the tunnels. There were some misaligned textures. The author says there may be some texture problems when stepping off the tall lifts, though I noticed none.
The level is a good fight. The tunnels are tricky, with a lot of awkward junctions to negotiate, and the constant threat of nooks-and-crannies in the caves containing hidden enemies. There some nasty traps later on, and the odd secret. You'll need the rocket launcher for some rooms (and when I say need, I mean dozens of rockets). There are a good range of fights, from picing off monsters round corners in the tunnels, blasting apart a solid charge of enemies in a cave, to running around in the entrance courtyard dodging shots. There are plenty of shells and bullets, and a fair few rockets (though you'll need most of those). Health is well judged; there is a supercharge, but for a change I actually needed it badly!
This level is a bit spoilt by being rather slow. If you've got a fair computer, the tunnels make it worthwhile IMHO.
This is a small Knee-Deep style level designed for deathmatch. It is based around a circular courtyard, surrounded by viewing points, and containing a small, tall tower. The less powerful weapons are held in the side rooms, while the rocket launcher is in the tower, and the plasma rifle and BFG9000 are down acid tunnels.
The level is fairly consistent architecturally, but while some textures have been properly aligned, in other places there are ugly features like the switch-and-a-half texture. There is some tutti fruiti, and some textures are poorly chosen.
Ammo is limited early on, but once you find a few weapons there is plenty. There are not that many monsters, and the courtyard gives plenty of space to deal with them. The exit does not take long to find.
A deathmatch only level.
This is a single level, designed to be like an evil church, mostly done in marble.
The level is visually impressive. Several of the rooms are excellent - I had to resist the temptation to include several screenshots. All the rooms are well done, with textures properly aligned (except where concealing secrets). Lighting was also superbly done, giving the level atmosphere. The only area which I did not think was well done was a bizarre corridor with scrolling green marble walls.
The level is slow, however. The author has done quite a lot of detail, and this slows the level down. The author also notes that there may be some graphic corruption on early versions of Doom - my v1.9 gave no problems.
The level is fairly tough. There are a fair few barons, and lots of irritating skulls - these are made more difficult by the slowness of the level. There is a cyberdemon, but he can be defeated easily if you find a particular secret. The level finishes with a spiderdemon, in a great fight (he is on a raising and lowering floor, and while the floor is up you can see his shots hitting the edge of the wall above you). You can get him by finding the couple of places where you are covered from his shots but can just see him (the fun way), or battling a side area to reach an invulnerability (the chicken's way).
There are some good new graphics used to liven up the central area. New music is included too.
If every add-on Doom level had graphics and attention to detail like these, no Doom clones would have stood a chance. A great pity the level is slow.
This level is, well, an arena. It is a huge square open air yard, with a catwalk around the outside. The players start behind the 4 lifts in the corners. The level has lots of bugs, including mismatched and misaligned textures, and serious graphic errors (see above).
Each corner of the yard has a weapons, lots of green armours, partial invisibilities, and ammo. There are a fair few monsters, but in the huge yard they are very thinly spread, and easily defeated with the ammo and weapons available. There are no traps, secrets, puzzles, or even an exit.
Definitely a deathmatch only level, though the many bugs make even its use there doubtful.
This level is a large square room, with a tower in the middle. The room contains 2 cyberdemons, 2 spiderdemons, and a horde of barons, cacodemons, and demons. You start in one corner with hundreds of ammo boxes, dozens of armours and superchargers, and some weapons.
The level is a bit of light entertainment really. You let a spiderdemon kill off the fast demons, then let the cyberdemons fight it out with everybody else. Eventually you finally open fire with a few BFG rounds to finish off the cyberdemons. The health and ammo are completely over the top. Besides, the exit switch is readily available on the central tower, so even if you do get battered, you can always just run for the switch. I left with everything dead on the first try in under 4 minutes.
Considering the simplicity of the level, there are terrible bugs - tutti fruiti on the exit switch wall, mismatched and misaligned textures (yes, even in a dark, green marble room the author has managed texture errors).
A tiny download for some light entertainment.
This is a single level in the Knee-Deep style. The level has a style about it, with lots of barrels, and consistent textures, except for some odd green marble areas, which look out of place. There are a lot of texture mismatches and misalignments, but no reported bugs.
The opposition are thin on the ground in the main areas, and where there are any strong opposition there are usually strategically placed barrels to help. There are some rather obvious traps, usually not too dangerous. There are some very good secrets, leading to side areas where the powerful weapons can be found; these are not necessary to complete the level, and these side areas are harder to fight.
This is an Inferno style level replacing E3M9. The level is basically 3 main areas, connected by a room containing a teleport to each. Each area contains a keycard, and you need all 3 to access the exit.
The zone you start in is the weakest of the 3. The computer room is out of place in this level, and this room also contains a lot of deliberately mismatched textures. The second zone is better, with some stylish green marble rooms. There are a few minor texture mismatches and misalignments, but nothing much.
Ammo is limited until you have completed the first area, after which there are plenty of shells and bullets. There are some traps, and a few well-concealed secrets.
The last area was my favorite. The area starts in a red-hot brick courtyard, with a stylish red overhang. The object of the area, the red key, is on a lone small pillar in a deep pit with an acid floor, and a cyberdemon standing on it - just about every obstacle I can think of really! There are lots of barons shooting down from a ledge behind the pit, so cool players will line the cyberdemon up with them, and get them fighting each other, which leaves a pretty good fight to watch. This area is only spoilt a little by a complicated system of switches to raise walkways to the keycard, and the computer textures used in the siderooms.
A nice cyberdemon fight, but not all up to the same style.
This is a complete episode replacing Knee-Deep in the Dead. Apart from a couple of levels that look a bit out of place, the levels are in the Knee-Deep style, but harder. It comes with a long story to set the scene in the accompanying TXT file, though I don't think I ever quite related it fully to the levels.
The levels have some good fights, and a few (not many) traps. There is plenty of ammo, since many of the opposition are former humans, and large cell boxes are provided at regular intervals later on. Health is not as excessive, but there tended to be supercharges at each level, so health was not too tight either. Altogether, the episode had some tough fights (e.g 10 barons in a room the size of the start area at the original E1M3) but plenty of rockets, cells, supercharges, and lots of green armours to see you through.
The first few levels were not very impressive. There was some HOM and tutti fruiti. E1M1 to use plain grey cement and shiny metal for a lot of rooms and corridors, leaving them bland. E1M2 was better, using barrels to add decoration to rooms; but these invariably got blown up, after which the rooms were again left bare. The areas were more varied, but didn't really have a consistent style.
E1M3 was better, but the METAL texture was used for the well-lit main area, which pixellates badly at a distance. Metal textures rarely work well in bright rooms, since they cannot reflect, and show up Doom's lack of true light sourcing. The side areas were better; however, the start area doesn't fit the high-tec style of the rest of the level. This level was rather strange in that each keydoor led into a tiny room containing the next key - these just forced you to go through the area to reach the door. This was a bit of an anticlimax.
E1M4 was better. While is reverts to the all-gray style, the light levels are better done, giving the level some atmosphere. There were no noticable architecture errors (plain gray hides many of these anyway), except for tutti fruiti on the exit sign - but since I liked the way the sign rose up when you entered the room, I can forgive it (a nice idea, having the line at the entrance to the room tagged to the exit sign with type Raise Floor 24, so the sign pops up - I like it). The secret level exit is well hidden, but there are no other secrets.
E1M5 was a bit of a mixture. The central and start area is excellent, with 2 great fights, and some nice architecture. However, the level is rather slow, since this area is rather complicated. There is an excellent area containing a cyberdemon, which consists of 2 wide passages crossing, with the cyberdemon wandering round them, and lots of small passages linking them to allow the player a chance to escape when trapped. However, the other main area consists of a number of plain rooms full of former humans, which look poor compared to the other areas. Also, instead of giving keycard doors the stripes, the author has used the stripes as the door texture - this looks tacky, and the texture pixellates badly at any distance.
E1M6 is a series of marble hallways and rooms, and looks rather out of place in this episode. Personally, I think the marble is overdone - almost the entire level is marble. Some of the rooms are impressive, and there are no major graphic errors. There are some good fights, but few traps and secrets.
E1M7 is another large, complicated and slow level. There is lots of detail, including box rooms, and floor markings (some of the detail is important too...). This is probably the best of the levels, with no bad areas, a consistent style, a few good fights, plenty of traps and awkward places, if few secrets.
E1M8 is basically an arean with cyberdemon, spiderdemon and invulnerability; an easy fight for an experienced Doom player. E1M9 is as one would expect a real fight, though the hot-red brick walls make it look out of place in this episode.
This was a very hard episode to judge. If it were just E1M5 with the naff area removed, E1M4 with the tutti-fruiti corrected, and E1M7 as it is, the rating would be much higher. But the poor early levels, HOM and tutti fruiti, out of place E1M6 and E1M9, low number of traps and lack of secrets throughout all contribute to a very mediocre rating.
A few good (if slow) levels.
This level is a large Shores of Hell style level. I was rather worried when I unzipped the ZIP to discover CRASH.WAD, but fortunately it defied its name and played fine.
Obviously a lot of effort has been put into the design of the level. The lighting was very well done, with the level never being too dark or bright, and there are lots of lighting effects (though some are a bit odd - like a light fixed to a wall shining only off at a sharp angle). The rooms are well decorated and interesting. The only defects I noticed were poor horizontal texture alignment (but never serious enough to be even noticed if you weren't looking) and a minor patch of tutti fruiti.
There are also a number of special effects, including a walkway in air (invisible steps), and a number of deep acid rivers (you seem to sink into them).
The level does have some secrets and traps; however, there aren't that many considering the size of the level. The opposition are very weak. There are quite a few barons, but none absolutely have to be killed. A rocket launcher, and much later on plasma rifle, make the cacodemons easy enough. There are very few shells, and not too many bullets, so ammo can be tight until you get the plasma rifle. There is a beserk pack though, which since the minor opposition are fairly thinly spread helps save ammo. But there is always enough ammo, and so the weak opposition are easily dealt with.
A good level to download if you are looking for ideas for your own WADs. Good lighting and special effects. But no challenge for actual play. A good WAD for beginners maybe.
This is a level based on the author's workplace. It is a large building, containing lots of rooms. Most of these are very small, just enough room for a monster and the occasional bonus. These are reached through a number of corridors and large rooms.
The level has the odd trap, and some secrets, but mostly it involves exploring lots of small rooms, each containing a monster or a small ammo bonus. There is not a lot of real interest throughout the level. There are some barons to give some backbone to the opposition, but thinly spread. There is a cyberdemon in one large room, but can be ignored (though an invulnerability and lots of rockets are available). There is plenty of health, and some good weapons, available to make the level straightforward. Skill levels only affect whether the cyberdemon appears.
The architecture was not that good. There was tutti fruiti, texture mismatched and misalignments, and some bizarre areas in wood and green marble (and even SKULWALL - does he work as an undertaker or something?
This is a single level, supposedly representing a high-security prison. The level consists of two large, deep pits containing water, connected by a maze of tunnels. There are lots of cells, each of which is an empty plain stone room. The tunnels all have the SKULLWALL texture, which destroys the prison theme.
The opposition are all in the pits, on the edges of the pits, and outside the prison. The only goodies are in a couple of the cells. The other rooms are empty except for a few keys (2 of each!), making exploring the level dull and fruitless. The only weapons are the shotguns of former humans - ammo and health are very limited, so while the opposition aren't that bad, fighting them with limited ammo is a bit tricky.
There were many bugs - several cyberdemons and spiderdemons appear to have been deliberately embedded into the sides of the pit, which makes walking around them strange (they block your movement even though they are below you in the pit). There are graphic bugs - holes in walls and floors appear sometimes. These all wreck what little quality the WAD has.
A dull level with bugs.
This is a small level replacing E1M1. It starts in a rather nice "atrium", which is a green marble hall covered in vines and full of twisted trees, with an acid floor and a safe path leading through it. The other main area is a computer room, with imps and shotgun men standing on computer banks. But little attention had been payed to detail - there were misaligned textures, ugly ceilings, and unpegged doortracks.
There is a small barrel puzzle, where you drop down into a small room containing barrels which block the way out. This is a bit awkward, but it is fairly easy to reduce the damage to less than 50% (the author says there is a way of escaping unscathed).
The level is not really hard, but awkward - you have to fight the computer room from down the foot of a flight of steps to start with, and the first room is tricky because the imps shoot through the trees. There is a nasty fight in the pitch dark against cacodemons though. There is enough health and ammo.
This is a pair of levels in the Knee-Deep style. There is a complicated plot to go with them in the accompanying TXT file - similar to StarTrek First Contact, in that you basically end up following and defeating time-travelling aliens. Rather a complicated plot for a Doom level really!
The first level is the aliens castle. It has a good plan, with turrets and dungeons, but the effect is rather spoilt because the towers are too tall for the areas they look out onto - you can see the sky tiling vertically, which looks ugly. The author should have replaced the sky by a night time sky (basically pitch black), so this would have been less noticable. There were also lots of texture misalignments, unpegged doortracks, and display errors (holes in walls, leaking ceiling and wall textures, missing textures). Also, if you did things in an odd order, I think you could get to see some serious HOM.
This level does contain a clever feature - shattering glass. You can shoot through the glass of the prisoners cells, and it shatters (he has made the line a G1 line, and given it a switch texture, which he replaces by glass - neat). A nice touch, spoilt by the graphic corruption around it (wall texture leaks into the floor - apparently unrelated).
The level is not very hard - just imps and former humans, and 1 baron. There are not really any traps, though there are some secrets. But the level is further marred by problems - you can easily get completely stuck. If you walk up to and hit a certain (necessary) switch in one of the cells with a glass wall, you will be trapped - you have to walk up to it, wait (!), then hit it. This is a pain, since the author gives no real hint to this problem (he mentions something about hitting switches too quickly , but walking up to a switch and pressing it is natural), and you have to load the level into an editor to work out exactly where it went wrong.
The second level is better; it is a large open plot of land containing buildings. The level has some new door graphics that give it some style. There are 1 or 2 good buildings. However, the level is again spoilt by HOM, and misaligned textures.
New graphics are imported specifically for some of the buildings. Some of these are nice ideas, but the new textures tend to be rather bright, well-defined images, and are used in light rooms. This means they pixellate badly at any distance, and make the rooms just look bizarre. The author probably didn't want to make these rooms dark, so you noticed the new textures, but it ends up looking rather tacky and spoiling them anyway.
The level is easy, though there is not much health. The author says "DO NOT ENTER THE ICKWALL BUILDING WITHOUT HITTING ALL SEVEN OF THE SWITCHES IN EACH
OF THE BUILDINGS! YOU'LL GET STUCK!"; how this helps, when there are at least 3 buildings in ICKWALL textures, I don't know, but I didn't get stuck.
Overall, these 2 levels have a number of good and clever ideas, but these aren't really done well enough to make up for other problems.
This is level in the Shores of Hell style. It consists of a large hall, and a few other large rooms. The main hall contains lots of former humans and a couple of barons, which (with the chaingun and shotgun already provided) are easy enough to fight. There are a few odd monsters in the other rooms, but nothing serious.
The rooms are large and empty, usually in a single texture. There are lots of bugs, including poor choices of textures, minor missing textures, and misaligned textures.
This is a level designed for deathmatch. There are no monsters, and no exit. The level is packed with ammo and weapons.
The level is a crazy mix of styles. Each room or short section of corridor has a style, but the styles change radically between rooms, or even as you walk down corridors. There are missing, mismatched and misaligned textures, HOM, and bad doors.
A deathmatch only level, and an architecturally poor one at that.
This is a level in the Shores of Hell style. The level is tricky in places; there are quite a few traps, and some secrets too. One nasty trap is a shoot-through wall down one side of one room, with a baron on a rasied walkway behind it (you can just dodge his shots if you are careful). Health and ammo are fairly well judged, but basically if you give the player a plasma rifle and chaingun, and only fairly basic enemies to fight, it isn't going to be hard.
The level is really let down by its design though. While some of the individual rooms are quite good, there are lots of misaligned textures and tutti fruiti. There are also some very tacky bits, where surfaces are unpegged that shouldn't be (or visa-versa). Ceilings over doors were poorly chosen. There is no real overall style to the level - bits of red rock rooms, wooden rooms, and high tech are mixed seemingly randomely. At least light levels were OK, and there was good decoration.
An easy level, with lots of design problems.
This level consists of a number of large halls. The rooms are misshapen, and usually fairly simple. There were lots of texture errors, including mismatched and misaligned textures, tutti fruiti (very serious, a lot of walls end up looking like black and pink stripes), and textures unpegged when they shouldn't have been (makes a change). The rooms were all extremely messy.
The level is densly populated with monsters. There are 11 spiderdemons and 5 cyberdemons, and hundreds of former humans surrounding them. However, 2 spiderdemons are stuck in walls (how could the author not have realised?), and 2 cyberdemons are in a pit you need never enter (and with 2 cybers in there you won't want to). There must be a dozen invulnerabilities, and twice as many superchargers. There is a huge amount of ammo, and all weapons except the BFG9000 are given early on. Most of the former humans will be killed by the cybers and spiders, and you get get them to fight each other to cut the odds still futher. In the end, this level isn't as hard as you might think. Now without the invulnerabilities - that would be a real challenge!
The level is slow, due to the huge numbers of monsters. There are over a hundred things in sight at once in places, so earlier versions of Doom may experience difficulty displaying them all. There are also lots of pacifist monsters (they don't shoot unless you get very close - this helps with several of the spiderdemons, you can shotgun them!).
A copy of DEHACKED.EXE is included. As far as I can see this is worse than pointless, since to use DeHackEd safely you really should read the manual first; in that case, you would already have a copy of DeHackEd. A patch to give a new weapon is included which I did not try. There is also new music, if you can here it above the near continuous cyberdemon noises.
A level to avoid.
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