Monday, August 29, 2016

Somewhere in Time (INTIME.WAD)


At the risk of repeating myself... Plenty of Doom authors have opened up the editor and, imagination brimming, set out to make a full megaWAD. Sometimes things work out but they often don't. In Katamori's case his vanilla magnum opus - Somewhere in Time - suffered a major setback when he lost some of the work around the MAP15 hump and beyond, I believe due to a computer malfunction / hard drive failure / something of the like. After attempting to muster enough gumption to push through, Schmidt gave up instead capping off the work he had finished and released this fifteen (well, sixteen) Doom II map set in 2016.

Wednesday, August 24, 2016

Nex Credo (NEXCREDO.WAD)


Lots of Doom authors set out to craft a megaWAD. Many never make it to replacing all 32 levels and the half-finished works oftentimes languish in obscurity, something to be worked on a rainy day. The author occasionally sees fit to put the finishing touches on it and shove it out the door, grateful to be clean of it. The audience may despair of the squandered potential (as was the case with Vanguard) but they at least have something to play. Released in 2016, Jay Trent's Nex Credo follows in that grand tradition. It's an 11-level episode for Doom II and he apparently intended to pattern the final product after its starbase / city / Hell themes, just sketched by Jay's hand.

Sunday, August 21, 2016

Sins of the Flesh (A_SOTF.PK3)

SINS OF THE FLESH
by "zrrion the insect"


When I committed myself to reviewing zrrion's back catalog in preparation to the curiously strong Mouldy Old Void, I did not know that he had another release languishing somewhere in a half-assed (but well-intentioned) community project. Thankfully, he was kind enough to pull this level back out for a solo publication and gently notified me of its availability. Sins of the Flesh is a MAP01 replacement for Doom II to be played in GZDoom. Made sometime in 2014 but released to the archives in 2016, it's also sort of an aesthetic sequel to his previous The Blood of Virgins.

Sunday, August 14, 2016

Japanese Community Project (JPCP_V1*.WAD)


The Doom community has a distinctly international flair. It isn't immediately obvious since many of them are pretty good English typists but a considerable number have their own personal forums like the massive Russian website and the smaller but no less treasured French message board. Enter the Japanese Doom community, a group of individuals who I assume must be tightly knit. I'm no games historian but I understand that PC gaming is a relatively niche activity in Japan. While Doom has been ported to what seems like anything and everything the tools used for content creation - specifically, levels - are an entirely different matter. The JDC is no less passionate for it, though, and from them comes one of 2016's biggest surprises: the Japanese Community Project, a full-fledged megaWAD for limit-removing ports.

Tuesday, August 2, 2016

Flay the Obscene - Part Two (FLAYOBS2.WAD)

FLAY THE OBSCENE
PART TWO
by Christian Hansen


Hansen eventually collected the pre-2014 portions of Flay the Obscene into one concrete episode but he originally released its maps as separate, discrete entities. The publications spanned from 1999 to 2001 and were interspersed with his work on 2002: A Doom Odyssey and his own CH Retro Episode. The first outing involved a little introductory level to set the scene and transitioned into the main event in devil-land. Part Two is a MAP01 replacement, originally released in 2000 but only uploaded to the archives in 2013. It had been kicking around as part of Chris's Flay the Obscene compilation but for whatever reason he elected to make it available on its own. He moved it from the MAP14 slot, though, which means that you'll hit the ground D_RUNNIN.