Hell on Earth: Super Tiny Edition

You know how I’m always going on and on about short maps? “I love short maps.” “These maps should be shorter.” “Why doesn’t anyone make short maps anymore?” Hell on Earth: Super Tiny Edition is like if someone pandered directly to me by taking “short maps” to their most ridiculous, comical extreme. And no surprise — I adore it with every fiber of my being. Super Tiny is a reimagining of Doom II, with all 32 levels condensed into a playable space only 64 map units across. For those not in the know, that means you’re stuffed into a box exactly

The Episode of Episodes!

To celebrate the 45th edition of this column, my plan was to take a look at some episode replacements I’ve always meant to play but never got around to. I’d heard good things about all of them (and in most cases, I’d enjoyed their creators’ other work), so I expected to play some pretty good maps… Instead, I played four of the most amazing episodes I’ve touched in years. I know I said just a few days ago that Mapgame was possibly my favorite ever Doom episode, but all four of these are in the running for that title now — and

Scythe X

Scythe X is basically two more episodes of Scythe II. That’s it. That’s the whole review. Thanks for coming, everybody. Alright, alright… Erik Alm made his triumphant return in 2009 with a quick one-two punch: the Scythe II re-release and the first release of Scythe X. It was a smart marketing move — filling out the famously empty three mapslots in Scythe II to reinvigorate interest in the series, and then jumping right into what were supposed to be episodic releases of the next WAD. Except that’s not what happened. We got the first two episodes of Scythe X at once

Mapgame

Gosh, can you believe it’s been over five years since I last talked about an rf’ map? 40 episodes after Wire Brush, I’m finally, finally doing that review of Mapgame I’ve wanted to do all these years. And hopefully it won’t be another 40 episodes until I get to do rf’s 1024 megaWAD… if I can find a copy of it somewhere. Mapgame has long been one of my go-to Doom WADs. I’ve held it on this pedestal, ranked it among my favorite WADs of all time, and any time the topic of best episodes for Doom 1 came up,

Avactor

2018 has been a heck of a year for Doom WADs. I can’t even keep up with the major releases: REKKR, Doom 64 for Doom II, Dimension of the Boomed, and now Avactor. And they’re all amazing. If Dimension of the Boomed hadn’t already taken its place as my WAD of the Year, the title would fall to Avactor. Avactor: End of the Fifth Cycle is a 12-level epic from Eradrop, a mapper who loves jungle maps as much as I love gimmick maps. Eradrop… drops (sorry) an entirely new textureset into Doom to turn it into a dark, murky, foreboding crawl through overgrown valleys,

Tower of WAR

Tower of WAR is not a good WAD; let’s get that out of the way right up front. It’s the only WAD I’ve discussed on this column that isn’t exactly awesome — and you can decide for yourself whether that means this whole thing has jumped the shark. I don’t enjoy playing Tower of WAR for the most part, if I’m completely honest, but I do actually think it’s worth checking out. But what is Tower of WAR? Why haven’t you ever heard of it? Well, it was a 32-map megaWAD designed by a little-known mapper named Net Nomad. It

Arcane Dimensions

Many of my favorite Doom WADs — STRAIN, Scythe, Apostasy on Amalthea — are a bit of a mess. They’re works of undeniable (if undisciplined) genius, yet full of strange creative choices and huge fluctuations in quality. The mod we’re about to talk about may not be a Doom WAD, but it follows in that proud tradition just the same. It’s a profound, landmark achievement for its respective modding scene… but at the same time, the edges could have used a good amount more sanding. I’ve wanted to get into Quake mods for a long, long time… but moving into a new mod

Dimension of the Boomed

Barring some shocking upheaval… I have found my 2018 WAD of the year. Dimension of the Boomed is Doom meets Quake — two of my favorite things together at last — but Boomed isn’t just Quake wallpaper pasted over the old Doom paint. And it’s not one of those uninspired “Game X in Game Y” conversions you used to see all the time either. It’s so much more than the sum of its two more obvious parts. It’s the perfect balance of the grim, haunting look of Quake, and the fast, violent action of Doom, sure — but those alone do not a good WAD

Griefless

For months now, I’ve been toiling away on a huge, multi-megaWAD retrospective — playing these epic WADs that each take weeks to finish, and then trying to make sense of my thoughts and put it all down in writing. (EDIT: Hilariously, this is referring to my piece on skillsaw that didn’t get finished until 2022.) And while I’m smashing my head against a brick wall on that project, little WADs like Griefless give me the will to live. Griefless is the latest from James “Jimmy” Paddock, the Doom community’s resident jack of all trades (and master of all of them). Jimmy’s mapping

Icon, Citywars, and Evilcore

Daniel Remar is better known for his standalone games — stuff like Hyper Princess Pitch, or two of my all-time favorite games, Iji and Hero Core. He’s so much more known for those that I didn’t even realize he made Doom WADs until a few weeks ago. If the dude makes such brilliant games, he must make some dope Doom WADs, right? Well, out of the six WADs he hosts on his website, I’ve picked out three that I’d consider awesome, if a little basic. They’re presented here in what I think is chronological order; unfortunately they aren’t packaged with documentation, so release