Sacrifice is the second WAD I’ve reviewed by a creator who is no longer with us. And that’s two too many. Just this past Sunday, news made it to Doomworld that Ty Halderman, one of the most prolific and beloved members of our community, had died on July 31st. I never knew Ty myself, but everyone knows just how vital he was to Doom’s legacy — and to the longevity of its modding scene. If not for his efforts to archive and catalog Doom WADs over the last twenty years, who knows where we would be now? I almost certainly
Tag: Doom
Oblivion
Oblivion is a Doom 1 episode by Stormwalker, who last year gave us the spectacular and surprisingly underrated Flashback to Hell. This is a lighter, more bit-sized release than Flashback was — one that you can probably finish in an afternoon, especially since it’s nice and easy on the challenge. It plays pretty casually, even on Ultra-violence, until the last couple maps, where the stakes rise, and rise quickly. In Oblivion, like Flashback to Hell, Stormwalker’s mapping style is unmistakable. Every room he creates is polished to perfection, without getting caught up in unnecessary details or going nuts with sector
Favillesco Alpha Episode 2: Desecration on Thebe
Favillesco Alpha Episode: Apostasy on Amalthea was my personal WAD-of-the-Year in 2014. I came for the promise of a WAD made entirely out of Doom alpha textures, and I ended up staying for Nicolás Monti’s one-of-a-kind mapping technique and bizarre stylistic sensibilities. This year he returned with an unexpected sequel, Favillesco Alpha Episode 2: Desecration on Thebe, and I had to know if lightning could strike twice. How does it measure up to Amalthea? For starters, Thebe ekes out a victory over its predecessor in the Length of Title category — one character longer! But seriously, as soon as you
Thy Flesh – Turned into a draft-excluder
A draught excluder or draft stopper is used to eliminate cold draft and slow heat loss. It is placed in the bottom crack of doors and windows. – Wikipedia All of a sudden, so much of my life makes sense… Like what the heck that long, sand-filled thing was in my parents’ hallway, that I used to pretend was a scary snake. Also what the heck the title of Thy Flesh – Turned into a draft-excluder means. The only remaining question: how the heck is this WAD so good? Matt “cannonball” Powell nabbed a Cacoward last year for draft-excluder, and
Tower of Lies — A Doom WAD by Yours Truly!
Tower of Lies is a single hell-themed map for Doom II where you start in the bowels of Hell and scale your way up a tower and to salvation — or so you hope. It’s an experiment in making the player feel as though he or she is going up and up the floors of the tower without actually using 3D floors. Instead, it’s all done with teleporters and visual tricks. General consensus is that the experiment didn’t work, but that it’s an atmospheric map (largely thanks to Mark Klem’s “Simple Solutions”) with some cool visuals and fun set-piece moments.
Memento Mori II
Doom turns 21 tomorrow. That’s right — my baby is gonna be old enough to drink. Before it turns to a life of debauchery and sin, though, I thought we’d take a look back at the baby pictures. Or the toddler pictures, more like. This is Memento Mori II, one of the earliest — and greatest 32-level megaWADs of all time. What can I say about it that hasn’t been said before? I have to confess that I didn’t play the Memento Mori twins when they came out in ’96. I didn’t touch them until 2002 when I first got
Deneb Colony
Lainos won a Cacoward back in 2012 for his massive, atmospheric WAD, 5till L1 Complex. He’s back this year with a semi-sequel called Deneb Colony, a much smaller, more straightforward level that inherits almost nothing from its predecessor other than its visual style. That said, if you’re one of the many Doomers who loved 5till, there’s a good chance you’ll enjoy Deneb. If you didn’t, though, definitely don’t dismiss Lainos’ new work as more 5till. I was in the minority as someone who didn’t really care for 5till, but Deneb Colony had me enthralled from beginning to end. Doom has few
Bedlam
Oh, Episode 3. You poor dear. They shower Episode 1 with nostalgic reverence. They love the clashing themes and weirdness of E2. They praise E4’s difficulty; its polished, masterful design. But what about you? What about the colorful, the clever, the outlandish, the otherworldly E3? They just don’t understand you, Episode 3. But I do — and so does Bedlam. Bedlam is one of the best E3 replacements I’ve played. Spearheaded by Memfis, the episode is the work of seven different mappers — Memfis, Antroid, C30N9, NoneeLlama, purist, Dragonsbrethren, and Sokoro. You might expect that many hands to result in
Loathsome Cleft
If you ever decide you want to send a little something for my birthday, I’ll say this: forego the greeting card and go right for the baked goods. Handmade, if you can. Those are what really take some time and dedication. And it’s personal; you do it with your own two hands. Who would pass that up for the cleverest greeting card in the world? Anyway, James “Phobus” Cresswell’s Loathsome Cleft… It’s a Doomworld tradition: One prolific WAD creator builds a map to celebrate another prolific WAD creator’s birthday. It sounds like something that could go one of two ways.
Favillesco Alpha Episode: Apostasy on Amalthea
Enough of a mouthful? Favillesco Alpha Episode: Apostasy on Amalthea, henceforth referred to (for your sanity and mine) as Amalthea, is the third release in the Favillesco series — though, as I understand it, something of a side, spinoff project and not part of the main series. In any case, I haven’t played the other entries in the series, nor any of Nicolás Monti’s previous WADs, unfortunately. That background information is interesting to know, because this… is an odd mapset. It’s obvious, even without playing his other stuff, that Amalthea is something of a departure from Monti’s norm: the weird