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Blazkowicz' grand-son

People who are familiar with the id software universe already know that Commander Keen, Doom Guy and B.J. Blazkowicz are somehow related to each other. For anyone else not in the know: Billy "Blaze" Blazkowicz aka Commander Keen is William "B.J." Blazkowicz' grandson.

It's obvious that this fact is the perfect hint when it comes to the question: "What kind of secret levels does Blade of Agony offer?". Ever since the Chapter 1 release, there was a game console prototype in Professor Gutenberg's lab, but it did nothing. For the release of Chapter 3, you will finally be able to do something with it. In all 3 episodes, the player can find a single, unique prototype of a game cartridge that can be put into the console, and you will be able to do the impossible: Play a game based on your future grand son's destiny. Sounds crazy, doesn't it?

For the development of these levels, AFADoomer analyzed the reverse-engineered source code of Commander Keen - Goodbye Galaxy, and with the help of the dedicated and skilled community of the Public Commander Keen Forum, we were able to replicate the look and behaviour of all the items, enemies and game mechanics from the Shadowlands, and implement these into our game using ZScript. After making some mapping magic happen, we believe it truly feels like a 3D Commander Keen title. We are proud of what we've achieved by working with the Commander Keen fandom, and we can't wait to hear your feedback on the secret missions. Stay tuned, it's closer than you might think.

Blood Lives...AGAIN!

##### Blood Lives...AGAIN! If you enjoyed Caleb Versus Nazis 1.1, or you're a Bloodite after some more, you'll be pleased to know that version 1.2 is on its way. This is the ultimate WAD compared to 1.1; it has patches for the minor glitches here and there; more speaking and one-liners; interesting new enemies like Cerberus and the dark green abomination known as the Nightmare Spectre; difficulty balancing for a more challenging experience, and FIVE full chapters of horror and fun! 

Combining all the DeathMatch maps (also playable solo or co-op) and Campaign maps as well (along with the new Credits map, taking a SIXTH chapter slot), that's 51 great maps! Excellent quality, combined with a few ports from ZBlood with permission for nostalgia.

Stay tuned! And if you want to review version 1.1, that'd be interesting to see. Even some playthrough clips on YouTube might be interesting as well - but remember, it certainly isn't the end for Caleb and the Cabal - he's got some more evil to wipe out! 

Bloodicide

This is RonnieJamesDiner's fan 8 level WAD for Doom 2, exclusively for the GZDoom port. This has been in the works for about a year (with several hiatuses), and marks his first real attempt towards a serious, cohesive, multi-level project. It features difficulty settings, gameplay changes and few other surprises. For a download link, check the official Bloodicide development and release thread at Doomworld.

Bloom Demo

Just perfectly for Halloween, the first demo of Bloom has been released. Bloom is a project that merges Doom with Blood (clearly BlooM takes its name from the fusion of the words BLOOD and DOOM). Bloom's lore fits into the universes of the games Doom and Blood, story is situated between a temporary space during Blood events and 10 years after Doom II events. There has already been spent a huge amount of work into the project and it looks very promising what has been done so far. Screenshots, features and videos can be found in the ZDoom dev-thread.

Bloom released

Our story begins 10 years after the events of Doom II. Earth governments try to recompose the remnants of civilization after the war with demons. Meanwhile Cabal co. remained latent, waiting for the right moment to be able to take over the old laboratories of the UAC. The goal of Cabal co. is to build its own portal generator, for the sole purpose of not only bringing back all Cabal co. members who fell in combat against Caleb, but also Tchernobog himself.

Breach @beta3

Breach by vigglesThe mapper viggles has just released his third beta of his singleplayer map Breach. It is a large Doom2 singleplayer techbase map for limit-removing ports (ZDoom, PrBoom+, Eternity etc.) and from what you can see now, it looks highly impressive. For more screenshots and a playable version check the development thread at Doomworld and make sure to give viggles what he wants: Detailed, critical, nitpicky feedback!

Brutal Doom - It's worse than plague!

Brutal Doom sucks!The worst mod ever released is without any doubt and further discussion: Brutal Doom. Not that it's a random mix of feature overusage, blood and gameplay-flow-breaking fatalities but even worse, it's a pestilence that spreads totally uncontrolled. "BD Johnny Version", "Brutal Wolfenstein", "Brutal Doom SE", "Brutal Doom Voxelpatch", "Brutal Doom v19" and on and on and on. Sure, people don't have to play what they don't like so from a players' perspective everything is fine and it's just a matter of taste. What's definitely annoying from a modder's point of you are pms and e-mails like

  • "Plz update ur mod, it doesnt work with BD!"
  • "Can u add brutaldoom to ur wolfendoom mod?"
  • "Shuld add fatalities like in BD, ur gore looks unrealistic!"
  • "ISNT WORKING WITH BRUTALDOOM, FIX!"
    (all of these are real quotes!)

To bring this finally to an end here as well, none of the mods here will ever be updated, redesigned or edited to make them fully compatible with Brutal Doom. If you want compatibility, ask Sgt. Mark IV instead - Knee-Deep in ZDoom, Ultimate Torment & Torture or The City of the Damned 2 have been there before anyway. Next to that: No future mods will ever be compatible to Brutal Doom out of the box ever - ever! I don't like Brutal Doom, I don't like McDonalds, I don't like porn with children - I don't support things that I don't like.

Brutal Wolfenstein

Even though people know that I am not a big fan of Brutal Doom and its derivations, I have to admit that the dedication ZioMcCall puts into his Brutal Wolfenstein is really impressive. Brutal Wolfenstein 3D is a TC for Doom 2:Hell on Earth which aims to recreate a new experience of the original Wolfenstein 3D,with new gameplay mechanichs such as new enemies, new weapons, interactive enviroment and - of course -blood. A huge amount of blood. Next to remade maps you will find a large arsenal of weapons and enemies to spice things up. A demo of v5.0 can be found at ZDoom.org.

Bury My Heart Knee Deep

Since John Romero announced his very own 5th episode for Doom, people tend to be highly interested in classic style megawards to celebrate the good old times. Recently Ryath has released his approach on an episode 1 style replacmeent called Bury My Heart Knee Deep with a twist. It is a huge, vanilla, E1-style map for Doom II that takes cues from Metroidvania game progression. It's bursting with optional areas, secrets, and potential sequence breaks. You can follow the "intended" path or make your own way through. You can even complete the whole thing without picking up a single key. If you like the map, he hopes you'll play through two or three times and look for different ways you can beat it! 

In true Metroid fashion, "upgrades" like the rad suit and light amp goggles are "unlocked" at certain points. There are also barriers scattered throughout the map that can only be opened using rockets. These are never required to progress, but they usually provide valuable ammo, health, and gear. Rockets are a precious commodity, so it's up to you: Do you fire all your rockets off to survive a tough fight, or save them to blast open a cache of healing items later? 

 

Cacoward winner releases new map, Mutabor

Is it often that a legitimate Cacoward winner releases a new work afterwards? Probably it is, but Mutabor by Cacoward winner Tourniquet has something special. A large map, Mutabor targets vanilla compatibility so it should even run on your oldskool DOS executable for those who want that. Immediately it is apparent that the looks of Mutabor are quite different from regular Doom's, and so are some of the monsters. Several texture packs and recolorizations have been put to use here, giving the unique look that Mutabor possesses.

According to Tourniquet, it should be a little less demanding than his previous works. So put yourself into your seat, and have a go at Mutabor - You know you want to.