By now you’ve probably noticed that I lean more toward bigger WADs and megaWADs to talk about in this column. As a result, I have a growing list of one-map WADs I’ve either enjoyed or been meaning to play that has just been getting longer and longer for years now… You know what the means! That’s right — it’s time for another special episode! Welcome to the One-Map WADstravaganza: eight single-level releases from the last five years or so. Let’s jump right to it, before I get wrapped up in some long, masturbatory introduction! Presented in alphabetical order: Big Woodchip
Tag: Chris Hansen
Monument
Chris Hansen is the God King of the single-map WAD, and virtually his entire two-decade body of work, outside of the occasional community project contribution or collaboration with Paul Corfiatis, fits that mold. Hansen has been doing what he does, and doing it brilliantly, for a very long time. So, of course, here comes Monument to change all that. Monument is Chris Hansen’s greatest hits album. Most of the Episode 2-styled maps he’s released throughout his career are assembled here as part of a nine-level episode. That includes last year’s award-winning The Wailing Horde (diced into three more digestible chunks),
High/Low 5
It was up in the air whether I would even write one of these thingies about High/Low 5. It’s no secret, I guess, that I wasn’t a huge fan of the later entries in Chris Hansen’s long-running WAD series. (Really, it’s been seven years since the first one!) And it just so happens that, despite my thinking High/Low 4 was the last of the bunch, a fifth and for-real-this-time final offering came out just two months after I played the other four. That may have been the reason I didn’t play it immediately; I don’t want to take up your
High/Low 2, 3, 4
Hey there! Welcome back to the program. In case you missed it, on the last episode, we talked about a little gem called High/Low 1. And I did intend to take a break from that series this month, but… well, I couldn’t stay away. Chris Hansen’s bite-sized maps make them really easy to tackle, and his light, airy style honestly is difficult to resist. So this month I’m back with the remaining three entries in his High/Low series instead of the megaWAD I was intending to show off. I’ll get to that next month. (It starts with an R!) Anyhow,
High/Low 1
I’m trying to keep a good balance on here between the kind of short, sweet WADs that can lure in new Doom players who aren’t sure if they want to get their feet wet yet, and the sort of massive epics that I live for. Chris Hansen’s High/Low 1 is firmly in the first category. This is the kind of WAD I probably should have started with: finely tuned and straight to the point — wonderful for testing the waters if you’ve ever been interested in Doom mods but haven’t taken that first step. I’ve never worked in a place