Authors: Who was involved in creating the wad.
Release Date: If any dates are given in the text file they will show here. All dates are given in British format DD/MM/YYYY. E.g. 23/12/1993 means 23rd December 2003.
Download: If there is still a place to get hold of the wad, you'll find a link here. NOTE: Most Download links take you to the wad's Archive page. You can read the text file and comment on the wad as well as simply download it.
The opening comment goes here. This introduces the wad and gives any relevant background that I could find. Note that for older wads and wads without text files, this section will be brief and/or inaccurate! I'm not a clairvoyant wizard.
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Difficulty: All reviews are subjective. Even Mr Spock has got to have an opinion of his own, and I'm no different, except that I'm human and I exist of course. Face it, Trekkies, Spock is just a man in a costume pretending to be an alien. I usually play wads on the Ultra Violence setting (UV). If I tried the map on multiple difficulty levels, for example wads which are almost impossible for me to beat on Ultra Violence, I'll rate each difficulty level. Hurt Me Plenty (HMP) is probably the only one you'll see. If it's too hard at that level it's often because the maker didn't support difficulty settings!
Ratings are Easy, Moderate, Hard, Very Hard and Extreme. Extreme usually means I couldn't beat the wad on Ultra Violence. (Remember that reviews are subjective!)
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Gameplay: This is the part of interest to all Doom players. Again it is only my opinion. I find that ugly maps tend to be less fun to play. Sometimes I am able to try playing a map on co-operative mode using Doom Legacy and if so, this is mentioned here. There's nothing like a co-op adventure. I don't play Deathmatch.
Categories are Terrible, Poor, Average, Good and Excellent.
Highlights: A quick summary of my favourite bits from the Gameplay aspect.
Lowlights: A quick summary of my least favourite bits from the Gameplay aspect.
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Aesthetics: The overall appearance of the wad including any new textures, monsters etc. The map's styling and cleverness of design fall somewhere between aesthetics and gameplay since they affect my feelings towards both categories, but are usually summarised here.
I prefer scary, hell-themed wads. Castles are another favourite of mine. My least favourite style is the nukage base as I see too many of them. I am indifferent about Episode 1 themed maps although I often find them too easy or too ugly.
Categories are Terrible, Poor, Average, Good and Excellent.
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Overall Score: Given out of 10. Scores are whole numbers: a wad is either worth seven or eight, not seven point five. Some review sites only seem to review maps that get 9 or 10 out of 10. Sometimes I wonder whether a "buddy system" is at work.
I review whatever makes an impact on me. So you'll see plenty of high scores as well as a few bad ones. I'm not here to make enemies but I'm not here to bumlick the Community. Come to me for my honest, unguarded opinion.
Pros: A summation of the best points of the wad. These are basically the overall reasons why you want this wad.
Cons: More than just nitpicks, these are flaws that I feel so strongly about that they almost count as fatal errors. Every wad has its low points as well as its highlights, and dial-up users in particular will want to read this section before committing to a 9MB download.
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SCREENSHOTS
A new feature of Major Rawne Reviews, mainly because I hate reading reviews that don't have cool screenies to ogle.