Doom WAD Logbook

Posted on 2025-02-11

This is not an ordinary blog post and it will not interest most readers. But for me personally it serves to record which Doom WADs I have already played and what my verdict is on them. Having already played a few WADs, I’ve unfortunately lost track of them and would now like to take a more structured approach.

It’s worth mentioning that I’m a casual player with a mediocre skill level. I started playing a few MegaWADs and was very enthusiastic at the beginning, but the game became so difficult towards the end that I lost interest and quit. I play to relax, I have enough challenges in real life. I also like simple oldschool maps. If the flow is right, I have fun with a WAD.

The following table lists all WADs in the order in which I have played them and describes whether I have played through the WAD and if not, why.

#	Name	Doom	Port	Year	Maps	Ended	Verdict	Rating
1	Doom the Way id Did	1	Vanilla	2011	27	✔	as the name says: It’s like the original and therfore great	****
2	Doom 2 the Way id Did	2	Vanilla	2013	33	✔	as the name says: It’s like the original and therfore great	****
3	Hell Ground	2	Boom	2009	7	✔	needs GZDoom or similar, fun	****
4	Brutal Doom	2	GZDoom	2010	??	no	gameplay mod, it’s a must play but in the end not my cup of tea	****
5	Hellbound	2	LR	2013	32	✔	excellent megawad with replay-value	*****
6	SIGIL	1	LR	2019	9	✔	Must play, made by Romero	****
7	SIGIL 2	1	LR	2023	9	✔	Must play, made by Romero	****
8	5till L1 Complex	2	LR	2012	1	✔	one huge map with lots of places to explore	****
9	Pirate Doom	2	GZDoom	2012	18	✔	Monkey Island meets Doom. Excellent!	*****
10	Ashes 2063	2	GZDoom	2021	16?	✗	Need to replay this. I think it is excellent but I wasn’t in the mood for it back then.	*****
11	Revolution!	2	Vanilla	2003	32	✔		***
12	Crumpets	2	Boom	2015	9	✗	excessive amount of overpowered monsters	*
13	The Ultimate NMD	1	Vanilla	2009	27	✔	lots of fun. Easy in the beginning, moderate in the end	****
14	Lunatic	2	Boom	2011	5	✗	excessive amount of overpowered monsters	*
15	Valiant	2	MBF/MBF21	2015	32	✗	excessive amount of overpowered monsters	*
16	One Humanity	2	LR	2022	1	✔	Buy it, it’s for a good cause	***
17	Death in the a$$ of the Universe	1	Vanilla	2003	27	✔	Starts easy and gets more difficult but nevr unfair. Plenty of ammo.	***
18	RTC-3057	2	ZDoom	2003	7	✔	A brilliant space themed 3D adventure like Doom II partial conversion	*****
19	Suspended in Dusk	2	Vanilla	2005	4	✔	Four big, complex and beautiful levels	****
20	UAC DEAD	1	Vanilla	1994	1	✔	very enjoyable	***
21	Serenity	1	Vanilla	1994	8	✔	relaxing and nice gameplay, quite easy	***
22	CROSSING ACHERON	1	Vanilla	1994	1	✔	confusing but fun	***
23	ETERNITY	1	Vanilla	1994	8	✔	Kinda easy, nice flow, lots of fun	****
24	Trinity College	1	Vanilla	1994	1	✔	Nice textures, quite easy, kinda strange	**
25	Return to Phobos	1	Vanilla	1994	8	✔	Sometimes a jump and run but very fun. Low monster load, plenty of ammo/items	****
26	Slaughter Until Death	1	Vanilla	1994	9	✔	Lots of moving floors, hurt floors, plenty of ammo/items	***
27	The Evil Unleashed	1	Vanilla	1994	9	✔	Good enemy/ammo balance, nice level design	****
28	Fava Beans	1	Vanilla	1995	9	✔	Good enemy/ammo balance, lots of fun to play	****
29	Infinity	1	Vanilla	1995	9	✔	Good enemy/ammo balance, annoying moving floors, strange ending but nice gameplay otherwise	***
30	Fistful	2	Vanilla	1995	2	✗	I respect all the work and love that went into this WAD but the Western theme is just not my thing	**
31	H2H-Xmas	2	Vanilla	1995	32	✗	The Christmas theme is not very appealing, not much ammo but powerful enemies from the beginning. Sounds become annoying after a few minutes.	*
32	The Final Gathering	2	Vanilla	1995	5	✔	Disliked it at first, then had loads of fun. Lots of action, lots of ammo/items, interesting levels	***
33	The Artifact for DOOM II	2	Vanilla	1995	3	✗	Unfair, pain floors, unavoidable hits, fake walls, annoying level design. Made it to map2 and regretted it	*
34	Nostromo’s Run	2	Vanilla	1995	1	✔	Loads of enemies, loads of ammos/items, loads of fun!	****
35	The Enigma Episode v2.0	2	Vanilla	1995	9	✗	I tried to like it but I failed. It’s a violent puzzle platformer with no game flow. Gave up in map04	**
36	Memento Mori	2	Vanilla	1996	32	✗	Everyone loves Memento Mori like I did in the beginning. Quit playing in map18. Levels are great but it’s full of traps, overloaded with strong enemies. It just sucked.	**
37	Memento Mori 2	2	Vanilla	1996	32	✗	Didn’t bother playing it after MM1 already sucked.	**
38	Dystopia 3	2	Vanilla	1996	11	✔	Love the level design and the game flow. Challenging but never unfair. Huge replay value	****
39	All Hell is Breaking Loose!!!	2	Vanilla	1996	5	✗	It’s cheesy and I don’t like custom weapons/enemies. Wasn’t fun at all.	*
40	Icarus: Alien Vanguard	2	Vanilla	1996	32	✔	Lots of puzzles, map24 is horrible (ghost Imps and Shotgun Guys, uses fake walls but in overall an excellent Megawad. Was more fun the second time playing it.	****
41	Polygon Base	2	Vanilla	1996	1	✔	Very nice WAD, larger map, not linear, you can search for keys in any order. Enough ammo, good enemy placement.	****
42	99 Ways to Die	2	Vanilla	1996	3	✔	nothing extraordninary but entertaining fun. Not too difficult, not too easy.	***
43	THE TROOPERS’ PLAYGROUND	2	Vanilla	1996	8	✔	also here: nothing extraordninary but lots of fun. Lots of item, hard to fail.	****
44	A Hidden Mountain Factory	2	Vanilla	1996	1	✔	A solid and fun map	***
45	Requiem	2	Vanilla	1997	32	✔	Liked it in the beginning, started to hate it from map14 on. Realized that I played it before and never finished it. So much hate for map23 with unkillable blue uniform solders, unfair traps, stupidly overpowered monsters. IDDQD the last 2 map to make it stop.	**
46	Eternal Doom	2	Vanilla	1997	32	✗	Beautiful textures, great levels but becomes very diffult. Also lots of puzzles, had to watch YT videos a lot to be able to continue. Stopped playing at map014 but will come back to it later as it is a pistol start map.	****
47	STRAIN 1.0	2	Vanilla	1997	32	✗	Started nice but got annoyingly hard later on.	**
48	Mordeth - FEB'97 version	2	Vanilla	1997	6	✗	stopped playing in map03. Powerful enemies and crappy weapon situation.	*
49	The Talosian Incident	2	Vanilla	1997	20	✗	stopped playing in map06 or so. Confusing, annoying.	**
50	Dawn of the dead	1	Vanilla	1997	9	✔	Fast paced fun, balanced enemies, nice levels	***
51	Hell Revealed	2	Vanilla	1997	32	✗	It was great fun until map14. Why would you enjoy slaughter maps? Could have been 4 stars.	**
52	Hell’s Eventide	2	Vanilla	1997	1	✔	Lots of fun with this single map.	****
53	Cyberdreams	2	Vanilla	1998	32	✗	32 small maps fighting against Cyberdemons. I hate it but I get that others might love it.	*
54	Phobos	2	Vanilla	1998	4	✔	This one is a lot of fun. Enough ammo, fair amount of enemies, nice levels, especially the nuclear plant	****
55	Earth	2	Vanilla	1998	10	✗	First 2 maps were nice, the rest is just horrible: dark mazes with disabled automap with the goal to annoy the player. Stopped playing in map08.	*
56	Venom	2	Vanilla	1998	1	✔	This one was lots of fun! (map01)	****
57	Tantrum 2	2	Vanilla	1998	1	✔	Very challenging but fun (map01)	***
58	Dickie10	2	Vanilla	1998	1	✔	Short, fun, stressful (map10)	***
59	Run Buddy	2	Boom	1998	1	✔	Three Cyberdemons and over 400 enemies. Normally not my cup of tea but this was very fun (map03)	***
60	Odessa Level 14	2	Vanilla	1998	1	✗	It could have been great if the radioactive slime pool wasn’t there. Interesting puzzles but unsolvable when you have to cross hurt floors. (map14)	**
61	Crestfallen	2	Vanilla	1998	1	✗	Nope	*
62	Batman DOOM	2	Vanilla	1999	32?	✗	I don’t like the style, feels like a fever dream. (TC)	*
63	The Darkening	2	Vanilla	1999	11	✔	Fun wad	***
64	Crusades	1	Vanilla	1999	9	✗	Some level were nice, others not.	**
65	CHORDG	2	Vanilla	1999	1	✗	One of those maps where they try to be hardcore. (map29)	*
66	Jägermörder	2	Boom	1999	1	✔	Fun map (map01)	***
67	Twilight Warrior	2	ZDoom	1999	10	✗	Most TCs with their weapon replacements etc. are crappy - like this one (map01 - map10)	*
68	Demonfear	2	Vanilla	1999	32	✔	A Megawad with quite small levels, very balanced difficulty and fast paced action. Really enjoyed it.	****
69	The Darkening Episode 2	2	Vanilla	2000	12	✔	Awesome WAD! Love the textures, the atmosphere, the crates as additional level design. Not plenty of ammo but also not too rare. The last map was brutal.	*****
70	10 Sectors	2	Boom	2000	32	✗	Stopped playing in map07. Not much ammo and every level is full of overpowered enemies. No joy.	*
71	Chord 3	2	LR	2000	1	✔	Stressful but manageable. I don’t really liked it but I’m proud that I made it through (map27)	***
72	The Classic Episode	1	Vanilla	2000	9	✔	This is a perfect example of a 5 star full episode WAD. It’s not fancy, it’s just Doom. Well balanced difficulty, enough ammo mot my shotty, Cyberdaemon at the end and not 3 of them in the start room. Doom as it should be.	*****
73	Bring Back The 90s!	1	Vanilla	2024	9	✔	Short but very fun and relaxing. I love the theme, the speed, enemy choice and difficulty. I didn’t like the sound effects so I removed them from the WAD.	****
74	Painful Evil	2	LR	2000	1	✗	Too extreme for me. (map01)	*
75	Atomic Tomb	1	Boom	2000	1	✔	I would categorize this map as a slaughter map which i normally don’t like but this one is fair and quite fun. (map01)	***
76	The Hell Factory Hub One	2	ZDoom	2000	4	✗	I have mixed feelings here. I love how innovative it is, adds lasers, CCTV, etc. and it feels like an action adventure. What I didn’t like are those ghost style enemies silently spawning in front of you in narrow areas and that you have to press buttons all the time which then trigger actions but you don’t know where. In the end I was backtracking all the time back and forth looking for changes in the environment or I needed to load my save because of stupid traps (map01-04)	***
77	Containment Area v1.1	2	Boom	2000	1	✗	500 something enemies in one map. I don’t play to suffer. (map12)	**
78	Sin City	2	ZDoom	2001	1	✔	This was fun. Good difficulty, nice level layout. Still not sure if I like these ZDoom gimmicks	***
79	DooM Resurrection Episode I	2	ZDoom	2001	5	✔	Still not so fond of the ZDoom extras but this one was a great WAD with interesting puzzles and fair difficulty. (map01-05)	****
80	The Darkest Hour	2	ZDoom	2001	7	✗	I won’t rate this because it would be unfair. I think it’s technically excellent but I don’t want to play Star Wars and I won’t go anywhere whout my shotty.	-
81	Vrack 2	2	Boom	2001	1	✔	Over 400 enemies in one map. I normally don’t like these kind of maps but I loved this one so much that I really tried. Had to IDDQD somewhere in the middle and enjoyed the rest of the map until the end.	****
82	Assault on Tei Tenga	2	ZDoom	1999	6	✔	Really neat idea, nice textures but quite short and cut scene heavy.	***
83	KZDoom 1	2	ZDoom	1999	1	✔	Absolutely love this one! The sounds, the tech atmosphere, difficult but with enough ammo and well placed health kits. A reason to finally get used to ZDoom.	*****
84	KZDoom 2	2	ZDoom	1999	1	✔	Same as KZDoom 1: The atmosphere and balance between everything is on spot. Enough ammo and health, lots of fun, dense gaming experience.	*****
85	KZDoom 3	2	ZDoom	2000	1	✔	see above	*****
86	KZDoom 4	2	ZDoom	2000	1	✔	Didn’t like this one as much as the other ones. Complete different setting und sometimes quite unfair.	***
87	KZDoom 5	2	ZDoom	2000	1	✔	This one was just stressful	**
88	KZDoom 6	2	ZDoom	2000	1	✔	Challenging but not unfair. Solid map	***
89	KZDoom 7	2	ZDoom	2001	1	✔	Enjoyed this a lot. The finale was a bit too much with two Cyberdemons, a mastermind, many Mancubus, some Revenants and a horde Imps.	****
90	2002 A DOOM ODYSSEY (V2)	2	ZDoom	2002	32	?	I’ve already played this WAD in the past. I can’t remember if I liked it but I don’t feel like replaying it right now.	-
91	CONGESTION CONTROL	2	Vanilla	2002	1	✔	No idea how to beat the Spider Mastermind after the Cyberdemon in such a cramped space without enough medikits or ammo. Had to cheat to kill the Mastermind.	***
92	Dark7	2	ZDoom	2002	7	✗	Stopped playing in map5. I like the setting and everything but I don’t want to fight igroupds of arch-viles, revenants and pain elementals in every new room	**
93	Dark7: Mission Pack (The Special Edition)	2	ZDoom	2012	7	✗	Not even started playing as I had my problems with the base WAD	-

WADs to play

Here are the next Doom WADs I plan to play:

#	Name	Doom	Port	Year	Maps	Ended	Verdict	Rating
?	Slayer	2	Vanilla	2001	11	✔✗	-	*****
?	Null Space	2	Vanilla	2001	1	✔✗	- (map01)	*****
?	Equinox	2	LR	2001	13	✔✗	-	*****
?	Phobia	2	Doom Legacy	2001	1	✔✗	-	*****
?	Alien Vendetta	2	Vanilla	2002	32	✔✗	-	*****
?	Caverns of Darkness	2	COD Engine	2002	10	✔✗	-	*****
?	Ni’mRoD - IXNAY on the HOMBRE	2	Doom Legacy	2002	10	✔✗	-	*****
?	CH Retro Episode	1	Vanilla	2002	9	✔✗	-	*****
?	Ruma	2	LR	2002	1	✔✗	-	*****
?	007: Licence to Spell DooM	1	ZDoom	2002	9	✔✗	-	*****
?	Rip it, Tear it, Smash it!	1	Vanilla	2002	18	✔✗	-	*****
?	The Gateway Experiments	2	ZDoom	2003	1	✔✗	-	*****
?	PHOBOS: ANOMALY REBORN	1	MBF	2003	9	✔✗	-	*****
?	Void	2	ZDoom	2003	1	✔✗	-	*****
?	Scythe	2	Vanilla	2003	32	✔✗	-	*****
?	The Brotherhood of Ruin	2	Boom	2003	11	✔✗	-	*****
?	MassMouth 2	2	ZDoom	2003	17	✔✗	-	*****
?	Doom Raider:Crypt of the Vile	2	ZDoom	2003	1	✔✗	-	*****
?	Helpyourselfish	2	LR	2003	1	✔✗	-	*****

Template for new Entries

#	Name	Doom	Port	Year	Maps	Ended	Verdict	Rating
?		2	-	2000	32	✔✗	-	*****