Maximum Doom

Maximum Doom is the official name for the massive collection of 3201 levels id and GT Interactive released to compete directly with WizardWorks’ boxed user map collections. It’s technically part of The Master Levels for Doom II – included on the same disc – with the backstory for this setup in that review. I recommend you start reading there. We’ll be reviewing the WAD collection in this article, because I didn’t design this site very well.

The WADs run from Feb 1994 to the end of May 1995, with folder dates of Nov 13, 1995 (supporting a late December release). Some curation appears to have taken place. Referencing Doomworld’s Top WADs of 1994 and 1995, a number of notable releases aren’t here. Some of the famous ones, namely Aliens TC or Trinity College, are surely out for legal reasons. I also think it’s interesting that none of the major groups, like TNT or The Innocent Crew, have any of their maps in here. Was id already holding some work and mappers aside for more commercial deals? Either way, it’s not the pure dump of /idgames you might have heard.

Maximum Doom installs to a separate directory than the Master Levels and uses its own copy of Doom-IT to navigate the disc. Let’s also set some expectations. These levels are from a period where mapmakers were still trying to figure everything out. id’s episodes are held as the gospel, while any authors that aren’t trying to outright duplicate their style are at least influenced by it. Available tools are also limited. This is just two years after Doom was released, so a lot of this shit is basically hacked together.

To cover the collection, I want to hit some of the best-known maps, then try a few more totally at random. For time purposes, I want to avoid the episode replacements – by 1995, many notable releases were combined maps from multiple different authors (or a couple especially prolific ones). They offered great exposure for the mappers and better value for your time as the player – but if I’m trying to review multiple “megawads” in a few paragraphs, then we’re gonna be here all year.

 

UAC_DEAD (Doom)

I’ve never played “Doomsday of UAC,” so it seems like a great place to start. It’s from fairly early in the mapping scene and frequently cited in the Top 100 WADs of all time.

You start in an overturned truck trailer, with demons in a large area outside. As you run around collecting gear, you realize this is supposed to be the UAC headquarters on Earth. The WAD is credited as one of the first maps to seriously try for realistic environments, which you pick up on right away. There’s an underground parking garage, a courtyard complete with gaudy 3D logo, a reception lobby, men’s and women’s bathrooms, and more. The scale is startling, making me wonder what kind of beast you had to have to run this in ’94. The starting area alone is massive.

Combat is furious, but fair, with plenty of angles to use for cover and some generous powerups. The wide variety of monsters quickly start fighting each other – especially in the Dr. Strangelove inspired war room. A switch takes you down some red rock tunnels, implying the UAC has a secret backdoor into Hell – complete with a fantastic set of invisible stairs marked by floating candles. There’s similar tricks in here (like the coming Cyberdemon fight) that the official levels never tried; probably because you can get away with a whole lot when you throw compatibility concerns out the window. I see why it gets the praise it does, and it already shows there’s even more potential in the Doom engine than anyone expected.

 

INVADE12 (Doom II)

This is a great example of one of Maximum Doom’s biggest flaws. By all accounts, Invasion (Level 1  – Contamination) is a fantastic level and a highlight of 1994 user maps. It’s got custom textures, a new metallic status bar, and even a starfield outside the windows to sell that you’re trapped on a massive spaceship. But that’s not what’s here in Maximum Doom. What’s here is “INVADE12.WAD,” which is a conversion of the original WAD to Doom II.

Scripts to automatically convert Doom maps were rampant in 1995 – with many conversions done and released without the author’s consent, or even knowledge. Here, the custom textures are cut, while it seems like both replacement textures and monster placement were arbitrarily decided by the program. A zombie sergeant gets replaced with a Chaingunner here, a Pain Elemental gets thrown in there. It was also somewhat common for these conversions to break textures and scripting. I don’t see misaligned textures here, but there do seem to be many more enemies teleporting in than it seems like there’s supposed to be.

I’ve read that most of the Doom II maps in Maximum Doom are conversions (even UAC_DEAD has one, which breaks the Cyberdemon fight), but I can’t say if that’s true or exaggeration. I don’t see the point of these conversions, beyond just a simple-minded “Doom II = better,” or making it so you only had to keep one game installed on your hard drive. There’s the super shotgun and more monsters, but if you’re just dropping them into maps that weren’t designed for them, that stands to cause problems.

But, it’s certainly accurate for 1995. It was common to download a level that was just a broken clone of another one, or at best, a slight iteration. People didn’t really respect copyright at this point in the scene, maybe because maps were free so they thought it didn’t apply, maybe because it was anonymous so who was going to stop them? See also, the megawads made up of disparate authors’ “borrowed” maps.

 

SCREAM (Doom)

I’ve seen this credited as the first puzzle map, but I’m not sure there’s any way to back that up. It is definitely from early-1994, with some clever level design and a number of creative traps. There’s still a slaughter room – you can’t escape all the tropes – but it’s well above just drawing out some corridors and filling them with bad guys.

The first area sets the stage, asking you to figure out and pull off a perfect sequence of steps. Don’t outrun the bars and you’re stuck in a cage. Miss the switch and you’re stuck in a room with no exit. Miss the trigger to lower the floor and you can’t get back to that trigger again. id had traps similar to this in their maps, but those would have some way out. Here, it’s restarts for all mistakes.

The next major trick is a checkerboard teleporter blocking access to the yellow key. It seems like a patternless game of “how do you keep an idiot busy for hours?” until you find the fairly blatant clue semi-hidden nearby. The yellow key is surrounded by explosive barrels, but look around and you can punt your own barrel into a teleporter to set them off safely. Later, you’ve got a bank of 12 wall switches where you’ll want to wait for clues. Hitting them randomly includes releasing twin Cyberdemons behind you, and that does not go well.

There’s 148 enemies in this level, so there’s still no shortage of combat. Ammo is limited, with the best supplies hidden, so there’s some value in triggering monster in-fighting. You can also just trial-and-error a lot of the puzzles through quicksaves – there’s few actual enforcement mechanisms within the engine. But hell, you could just cheat too. Overall, I like this one, and it’s a great example of the clever things you could do in Doom beyond just filling rooms with demons and blowing ’em all up.

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These are hardly all the popular – or even the most famous – maps in Maximum Doom. I’ve really limited myself by sticking to single-map WADs, but you can check Doomworld’s “best of” lists to find the better level packs, like Infinity or Return to Phobos. I also skipped over maps from Dr. Sleep’s “Inferno” series, Jim Flynn’s “Interdiction Zone,” and Tim Willits’ “Raven” series, because these guys’ work was already showcased in The Master Levels. They’re all great maps, check ’em out.

Now, some random levels. I’m sure there’s proper ways to mix up these choices, but closing my eyes and holding Down in Doom-IT works just fine. Again, I skipped any multi-level WADs, or any whose readmes said they were Deathmatch-only. Otherwise, it’s honest random selection:

 

AGMAX (Doom II)

This level is pitched primarily as a Deathmatch map. The readme says it’s supposed to replicate “Assault” from the show American Gladiators. I mean, there are areas of cover and there’s a central platform. But the cover is full height to the ceiling (an engine restriction) and weapon placement doesn’t make a lot of sense. I guess if you and a buddy could take turns on who was the “Gladiator” and who was charging the stage, you might be able to make it work. But it just feels like you need a differently-designed arena to make this concept fun in Doom-space. Doomguy runs too damn fast out in the open like this.

This one claims to support single player, but it’s just a cornucopia of all demon types thrashing about like a mosh pit. No sense of challenge, no real hope to beat it, just demons populating the level everywhere and killing you in seconds. I never made Doom maps myself, but I’m guessing this was just 10 minutes of picking a demon type like a paint color and clicking randomly all around the map. Why bother claiming it supports single player at all?

 

IDBEST (Doom II)

This is kinda neat, but there’s not much to say about it. The author has taken sections from Doom’s first episode and pieced them together into one huge level. You start in E1M1 and find a new extended hallway to the left. Opening a door there puts you right into the start of E1M5. So on and so on. I don’t think the monsters were rearranged in any way – this does seem like copy/paste lifts from the commercial levels with limited extensions and doors added to make them connect. Neat idea, but ultimately just a remix. Don’t need to play many of these before you start looking for something actually new.

 

LEWIS21F (Doom)

A middling sophomore effort. Clearly not his first map, but doesn’t feel like much thought or design went into it. Feels like structures and monsters were placed by vibes. The main area is a wide-open canyon with lots of trees and regular zombiemen taking potshots. Texture alignment doesn’t seem to have been a real concern. There’s some raised areas with darkened sectors that don’t seem to have much of a point, other than he liked the effect.

Things don’t really kick off until you disturb a nest of Cacodemons hoarding the red key, hopefully after you’ve collected enough ammo to try and deal with them. The other major area is a sudden teleport grid, a lot like the one in SCREAM, that bounces you around as you try to escape. Unfortunately, this one has zombies shooting at you around the edges, leading to a quick, confused death.

I’d call this a pretty average effort. A competent map, but not exactly a creative one. Lots of running through wide areas and featureless hallways. “Single-player support” just seems to be some token monsters scattered around the map. I’d say I’m disappointed, but honestly, I was expecting most of the maps in Maximum Doom to be hall-of-mirrors levels or a couple rooms lazily thrown together.

 

RIP5 (Doom)

Now we’re talking. This is what I was expecting – one single texture over the entire level, with some scattered weapon pickups and a MIDI version of “Eye of the Tiger.” No enemies because it’s built for Deathmatch, but the readme still claims single player support. Based on what? Because you can walk around in it? There’s seven of these WADs (RIP1 is conspicuously absent) and I bet they’re all like this.

I’m being a little harsh, because it reminds me of my own days of downloading user levels. I would guess the vast majority of all user maps ever made – not just from Doom, but also from my time with Half-Life and others – were Deathmatch maps. It seems like it was far easier to build a simple arena than it was to populate it. That making a cool sandbox was more fun, but trying to balance out smart challenges against the monsters was a hassle.

This always annoyed me as someone looking for more single-player levels. They felt increasingly rare, while finding out I’d wasted time downloading some boring Deathmatch arena was always frustrating. It also wasn’t fair to actual Deathmatch fans. I recognize there’s real talent in creating a good arena with natural chokepoints and funnels into common areas where battles could spark up. This isn’t it. This is lazy.

I will give them credit for a teasing BFG blocked by a teleporter. No matter how you try, I don’t think you can actually ever grab it. If so, that’s pretty funny.

Build time: 4 hours. Never woulda guessed it, fellas.

 

SAMURAI2 (Doom II)

It’s a ninja star? You fight some isolated, simple monster groups around the edges. A thin strip of a one-way wall lets a Chaingunner snipe at you from the central area. When you open the center room, they’ve packed every nasty enemy but the Cyberdemon inside. I’m not sure you have enough ammo to handle this methodically, but you’ll be dead before you can find out. There’s a BFG in there, though, if you’re fast enough.

This one’s worth highlighting as the final common point of this collection – no readme. Most of these designers didn’t even bother to fill one out, because reading’s for school. I’ve talked about how you could download maps and not realize what you were getting – well, this is how. You’d check for new maps that had been uploaded, and often, it was just the WAD with an 8-character DOS filename to go by. I guess MRDRPR0N.WAD sounds dope.

This means I just have to guess at what the goal is here – likely a Deathmatch level with some token enemies thrown in for single player. Stop me if you’re seeing a pattern. Like RIP5, there’s a random wall that acts as the level exit. I assume these are because you need an exit to trigger the next map in a Deathmatch playlist. Maybe level editors also required one before it would let you compile/export/whatever? It sure feels placed like someone begrudgingly checking a box on a list.

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That’s probably a good spread of Doomage to get the point across. If you actually want to check this collection out yourself, there’s great resources like FunDuke’s Maximum Doom Reference, Maximum Matt’s short reviews of levels, and Asbadagba’s attempt to connect every single level into a mega-mega-megawad, complete with hub areas. If you’re mental enough to want to play all of these (and honestly, I still sorta do…) this would be a more fun way to do it.

Maximum Doom has historical value as an minimally-filtered time capsule of late 1995 PWADs. But even at the time, no one really wanted a CD of 3000+ user maps – just 100 good ones would be incredible. This is a real rogue’s gallery of unlicensed MIDI recreations of popular songs, sloppy Deathmatch arenas, pixelated tiddies, and seeing how many enemies you can fit into one room until your computer explodes. If the Master Levels are supposed to show the best of Doom mapping, Maximum Doom shows… everything else.

 

The Good

If you’re willing to dig for rare gold, here’s a great big bin of levels that you don’t have to download individually. Pretty true to the experience of loading up random maps you’ve downloaded and hoping for the best.

 

The Bad

Curated levels would have been much preferred to just pulling up the truck and dumping it on your driveway. None of these levels are exclusive and all could be downloaded for free – you’re paying for the convenience. Running Doom-IT still triggers Doom II’s “modified copy” warning every time – if it’s official now, you’d think they could have worked that out.