Sunday, April 23, 2017

DooM Resurrection Episode One (DOOMRES.WAD)


When Doom's source ports started incorporating "advanced" features like scripting, I believe that there was a sort of fevered excitement as though these things would "elevate" it from a 1993-era FPS to something more in line with at least the late 90s, like Quake, its Stroggy sequel, and Half-Life. Over time the enthusiasm for expanding Doom's gameplay beyond the niche it rather robustly occupies waned and we are now up to our knees in vanilla and Boom-oriented maps and mapsets that continue to mine new depths beneath its rugged exterior. There's still a solid brace of people making highly inventive things with source ports, of course, but the days of authors like Kurt Kesler churning out little ZDoom mini-adventures appears to be gone, its peak madness left back in the early '00s.

Sunday, April 16, 2017

Trust (TQTRUST.WAD)


Tommie Quick made a couple of vanilla maps back in 1997, took some time to tour with TNT and their deathmatch megaWADs, and then jumped into ZDoom modding for several releases in 2001. Trust came first; it's a Doom II mapset boasting what technically amounts to seven levels but the opening three are pretty much just iterations of MAP01 that I assume exist due to ZDoom's technical limitations at the time. Trust shares a few details with 2000's Paranoia as both of them crib some ideas from Half-Life, then still hot on the minds of FPS fans, but Trust remains much more grounded in Doom's universe.

Sunday, April 9, 2017

UAC Headquarters (TQMAP02.WAD)

UAC HEADQUARTERS
by Tommie "Fatal" Quick


Tommie Quick slid in at the end of Doom's Golden Age, releasing a few levels in 1997 before hitching his wagon to Team TNT and helping to crank out a few deathmatch megaWADs. UAC Headquarters is his second publication, but I get the feeling that it's actually kind of old, perhaps a relic of an unreleased portfolio - one he simply felt good enough to push out the door. Like his Flood Mines, it's a MAP01 replacement for Doom II. His first publication was sort of an underground earth / tech split, though, where TQMAP02 is all electronics and while the vast majority of the level does not take place outside, most of it occurs within the titular UAC Headquarters. Why you're clearing out another UAC installation isn't mentioned but any reason should come fairly quickly to the imagination.

Sunday, April 2, 2017

Flood Mines (TQMAP1.WAD)

FLOOD MINES
by Tommie "Fatal" Quick


Flood Mines is Tommie Quick's (aka Fatal) first published level, a MAP01 replacement for Doom II released in 1997. A member of Team TNT at the time, it wouldn't be until their later deathmatch WADs (Pursuit and Reclamation) where he would establish himself as a contributor. If he's known for anything, though, it's probably his 2001 ZDoom projects, TRUST and Doom Resurrection Episode 1. Where those horsed around with stories and setting there is nothing establishing the narrative of Flood Mines. It's just an ordinary extra mission for Doom II, prestigious by association.