Doomed Speed Demos Archive
http://www.doomworld.com/sda/doom_sda.htm
ftp://competn.doom2.net:8002/pub/sda/

Pwad:      WADPAK1A.WAD by various
Location:  idgames Archive; http://www.doomsearch.com/
Pwad name: Wadpak1a.wad
Maps:      E1M1 - E3M9 
Skill:     4 
Category:  Max Kills/Secrets
Exe:       Ultimate Doom v1.9 

Times:

e1m1 - 0:34
e1m2 - 4:57
e1m3 - 2:21
e1m4 - 3:18
e1m5 - 4:19
e1m6 - 5:48
e1m7 - 5:40
e1m8 - 9:34
e1m9 - 1:41
e2m1 - 1:45
e2m2 - 9:27
e2m3 - 4:10
e2m4 - 6:30
e2m5 - 4:58
e2m6 - 9:37
e2m7 - 3:18
e2m8 - 6:07
e2m9 -11:58
e3m1 - 2:12
e3m2 - 3:11
e3m3 - 2:57
e3m4 - 0:33
e3m5 - 2:50
e3m6 - 4:56
e3m7 - 1:17
e3m8 - 0:52
e3m9 - 4:00


Author:    Chris "Ryback" Ratcliff
Email:     jaranbue@yahoo.com.au

Comments:  
I like playing old wads. And this level pack is fairly representative
of them. The WADPAK series was meant to collect the 'best' of
current pwads and put them into one big megawad. There were four
that I know of, each gradually getting better as the general level
quality improved. When you play some of the levels from this one
you wonder what could have been worse that it didn't make the cut,
but overall it's not bad.

Interesting to see what counted as good design back in 1994.
Generally most levels are much larger than necessary, with
rooms that are bare bones simple, and monster placement is much
more straightforward. Very few ambushes, or tight areas packed with
monsters. Weaponry is also more basic too, you rarely need the plasma
gun and never the BFG.


Individual level comments:

e1m1 - TNCROSS.WAD:
Fairly insignificant level to put in a best of, but the wads weren't
just chosen randomly, some thought has been put into how to combine
them into an episode. Can't say that much about the level - nothing
bad, really, but it's not set up well as a single player and there
would be far too much blocking scenery for a good deatchmatch. Feels
very much like a first level - there's no *point* to anything.

Pushed the demo for time a little, but not much, there are tons of
other maps to record.


e1m2 - TREE1.WAD:
Now this is more representative of individual level design. Like a lot
of wads back then, the rooms are far too big - it's okay to make big rooms,
but you have to give the player something to do in them, otherwise it's
just too much running around. Generally the rooms in this level are okay,
though. Gameplay is good. In fact it's pretty good all round, for 1994.
Played this through a few times, I wanted a sub 5-min demo.


e1m3 - HUH.WAD:
Fun level here, easy to optimize. All the monsters stay right where they're
supposed to and you can just run around picking up the weapons. There's
no theme to the level, but individual rooms are designed well. The invuln
later on is entirely unnecessary, though.


e1m4 - FOREST.WAD:
Now we're starting to get onto the familiar stuff. If you've played
a fair number of '94 era wads, you'll recognize this one. A green brick
mansion with a couple of grey stone areas and an outside slope. Gameplay
wise, there's a distinct oversupply of rockets, which makes things
a little less interesting (no closeup fights!). Secrets are all easy to
find, all the necessary items are supplied, and about all you could complain
about is that it's all too easy.


e1m5 - FOREST.WAD:
More FOREST.WAD action, this similarly-themed but much larger level
has quite a few long mazy passageways, reminiscent of TNT27. The route
took some finding but I think it optimizes the level fairly well. In the
demo I miss a jump to the supercharge - this is possible with strafe50,
but hard to do. It's quite fun to play through, lots of opportunity for
SG work, but the end is a disappointment - what's all that cell plasma
for?


e1m6 - FOREST.WAD:
A lot more variety in here than the last two FOREST.WAD levels, but I
think it combines together well. The level is very multilply-connected,
non-linear, and that's why this one takes the longest of the three to
run through - I'm just shuttling back and forth and back and forth.
This makes the big rooms seem more of a problem in this level... or maybe
it's just the comparative level of detail. Some areas we've got stuff
like a detailed kitchen-dining room combo, compared to a flat 512x512
square. The outdoor stuff is fun - somehow Doom levels are always more
enjoyable when there's a sky above...


e1m7 - EVIL_E.WAD:
This one's *really* good, take my word for it. There's not much of
a structure to the level beyond connecting rooms together, but individual
areas are well designed, and some are fantastic - the Viking ship is
a triumph of minimalist design, and the Death Star area is pretty funny :)
Must also give plaudits to the fact that there's enough ammo in the
level - this one was designed to blast lots of enemies with the big guns,
and the big guns are thankfully in supply.


e1m8 - FORTRESS.WAD:
A real behemoth of a level to end an episode on. There's one trick worth
noting - early on, I use a strafe50 jump to pick up the plasma gun and
red key, rather than the more difficult intended way. The rest of the level
is okay, if nothing special, but there are far too many design ideas in
there, and far too much connective tissue. Working out a route was almost
impossible. And, of course, the maze. Its not such a bad maze really,
as you run around you keep finding new areas, as if you're being guided
to the exit. But in maxkills demos we want to destroy everything. So,
some frustration here. I do a fair bit of automap checking at this point.
Mostly I'm relying on my natural sense of direction here though, so that's
why I keep getting lost :)

And of course, no status screen at the end. So maybe I didn't kill
everything. But I'm not heading back to check... :)


e1m9 - TEK.WAD:
The textfile notes: "Fixed numerous level problems." Well, they certainly
didn't fix all of them - there's a blatantly obvious trapped demon,
for instance. Still, since the main problem is the level design, perhaps
it was best just to let things be. Crappy secret level.


e2m1 - MAZE1.WAD:
An ominous filename - in 1994 people were still designing like Wolfenstein
designers, and the maze was the bane of any Doomer's existence. Nevermind
the fact that the automap had rendered the one challenging aspect of
mazes (that they're *mazy*) trivial to overcome, leaving nothing but the
tedium of actually having to run the damn thing.

Fortunately the maze here isn't too bad, though the level is boredom
personified - no character at all to the rooms, no challenge from the
monsters, just a dull key-grab-and-exit.


e2m2 - LEWIS21F.WAD:
This is one I left till later to record, as it looked terrible. Stupidly
fucking enormous design with monsters scattered every which where, WAY
too many trees in the outdoor part, and not much difficult to worry about.
And that's pretty much the level. You have to get all three keys, and then
run to a series of locked doors which leads not to the exit, but to an
unmarked linedef that makes a sector on the other side of the level lower.
And to get 100% kills you have to run PAST the exit, kill some more
monsters, drop down, and run all the way back to the exit again. As a
level - this needs some work.

Oh yeah, can't forget the teleporter grotto. You'll see what I mean.
This part is played with automap and a level editor open at the same
time (eventually I memorized which square goes where). And I *really*
have to question the wisdom of having a group of soldiers firing
at you at this point.

Incidentally - that berserk pack I pass fairly early on, it's possible to
jump to it from the hill beside, but there's no point and you need the
health later.


e2m3 - 11BONES.WAD
A wad I'm sure a lot of people have played (mainly because it's at the
start of a lot of collections :) Pretty good design, the central columns
at the start work really well. And all the chaingun-on-trooper fights
are fun (why is this weapon on that bad guy so enjoyable? Dunno.)
The caco-imp battle in the grey-brick area is fairly boring though.


e2m4 - LONGMTCH.WAD
Any guesses what the theme of this level is? Any guesses at all? Bueller?

This level has more problems than just the rampant randomness, however.
For starters, why isn't there a rocket launcher? We get rockets, and
Barons in groups, but no launcher? It makes no sense. And some rooms might
look okay, but in total it's just a thrown together mess. Secrets present
a difficulty too - if you play with autorun on like I do, then one in
particular will cause you some problems. You'll see which one - I miss it
and have to run around the whole level again.


e2m5 - 666.WAD:
The perfect filename. This should also be familiar to some. Early gameplay
is quite bland, but it gets more interesting later on.

Er, and that's all I have to say about this level. Certainly I wasn't
wanting to spend too long recording it.


e2m6 - CORTYR_B.WAD:
A golden oldie that I hung off recording for a while for some reason.
Some decent lighting effects, especially the lamppost at the beginning.
Stuff gets placed a little too far apart though... certainly the
red key at least could have been put in a better location. Another problem
with the level is that it is very hard to get 100% kills here. I
don't know why. And eventually I got tired enough that I just decided to
do it and finish it. Hence this demo has just 99% kills. Some
strangely placed secret sectors too, particularly one in the spot
where I punch out that first Baron.


e2m7 - BEHOLDER.WAD:
Pretty buggy level, the architecture is a bit of "whack some vertices
in here and draw a few linedefs". Hardly any regular structures to be
found. Also, this is a good example of the disappearing secret sector
bug. There's a point in the level where a floor segment lowers and changes
texture. This sector is marked as secret. And when the floor texture
changes the secret flag somehow gets lost too. The only solution is to get
on the sector before it finishes lowering. Interestingly the same
thing happens in Boom 2.02. Was this not considered a bug by TeamTNT, or
did they not notice? (Or do my Doom compatibility settings need changing,
he suddenly remembered).

100% kills not possible because some monsters are hidden behind an
impassable line. Like I said, buggy level.


e2m8 - MEGAWATT.WAD:
There's something not right with this level - the ammo balance,
mainly. I have to punch out a group of cacos near the start (and
do fairly well here, I have to add). Not enough ammo early on.
But then, maybe I'm being picky and you were supposed to do this.
This is certainly one of the better designed levels in this set.


e2m9 - CASTLE.WAD:
Gee, I wonder what this level is gonna be. Lemme guess - a castle?
Well, to the give the author credit, it's not a medieval castle.
(Looks more like a warehouse, frankly). That's about all I'm going
to give him credit for, as it's also an annoying beast of a level.

First up, the bugs. Another disappearing secret sector (the one right
at the start which lowers to reveal a supercharge, and gets its secret
flag erased). Also, at a couple of spots we get shell puffs impacting
on blank air, which might be something to do with a bad node builder or
long walls or something. And we can't go past the weird crusher trap -
when a caco wanders in, instead of being crushed, the ceiling just
stops, imprisoning it, but causing no harm. Wacky linedef causes this one,
I think, I probably should check it sometime

Gameplay is so-so, right up to the end where there's a monotonous maze,
which tipped the balance for me into the 'this level sucks' category.
And what is the deal with these secrets? An invuln that's useful for
nothing, a supercharge at the end, and a blue armor even closer to
the end. That's three powerups, none of which does anything,
and each hidden behind a totally indetectable secret wall. Please authors,
remember to actually PLAY your levels.


e3m1 - STONES.WAD:
Ugh, STARTAN3 - the texture of evil. And of course it's not aligned
properly. But this is a pretty good level. Apparently it's one of the
earliest ever to be designed, too, which shows people were able to
design decent PWADS right from the start. Anyway, Albert Valls has
already done a great demo for this level, so you don't have to watch
this one.


e3m2 - MELANGE.WAD:
Odd filename, odd level. And far too big. But, it's really a whole
lot of fun. I have a sneaking fondness for this one.


e3m3 - MARX1_2.WAD:
Overly convoluted, spaghetti-like design... you WILL get lost. Also
an astounding lack of variety in the texturing - maybe a total of
TWO different wall textures get used? You're trapped in a vanilla
nightmare. On the plus side, the level is quite small, and you
eventually get to the end of it.


e3m4 - MARKROOM.WAD:
Another totally inconsequential deathmatch to single-player conversion
with a shitload of ammo-obstructing boxes and platforms. Did anyone ever
play in these sorts of arenas?

Tried to do my best to get the time down, but it's very much a luck-based
affair, hope the troopers show up in your screen and everything is
killed at the end.


e3m5 - MOONBASE.WAD:
This level shows you how far level design has come. If somebody today
released a wad called Moonbase, it'd be ZDoom only, have eighty thousand
linedefs, feature realistically designed lunar craters and an
impossibly grand spacebase structure, and make you feel like you
really were clumping around out there in space. Whereas this is
short, generic and, let's be honest, pretty crap. Bad ammo placement,
you finish with tons of plasma and rockets with nowhere to use them.
And more of that horrible STARTAN3. I'm starting to hate that texture...


e3m6 - OCTAGON.WAD:
This level defeated me. Poor secret placement means you can't get 100%
secrets, but there's a monster left alive in my run and I'm not sure if it's
possible to kill him or not. Couldn't see any way in the map editor, but
perhaps I wasn't looking close enough.

It's certainly a professional looking level - alone out of this lot, it looks
like something that might have been released recently. I think it's
the texturing. There's a nice outdoor area, and the labyrinth
at the start isn't as complex as it appears, and is in fact fairly fun to
run through. But overall the level is too big, too lacking in variety
(particularly with the monsters), too... *unfinished*.


e3m7 - FY1A.WAD:
Wonder what that stands for. This level is very short. Should have
been e3m1, in fact. What's it doing here? 


e3m8 - FY1A.WAD:
Short Cyber battle, with an invuln that's best saved for last.
I run up the stairs first so as to lower a sector leading to
the exit. Entirely unchallenging level.


e3m9 - CHRIS.WAD:
Hey, that's my name! This better be a good level. Unfortunately...

Sectors marked as secret for no reason, sectors behind teleport lines
marked as secret (three of them!), badly spaced secrets (on a narrow
staircase), badly marked and non-marked lifts, a BFG that you can't
get, not enough health. But the gameplay is all right.
