ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 23 เม.ย. 2023
- Welcome to Dean of Doom, the show where we give grades to classic and contemporary Doom wads. Why? Because ranking things is fun. Today’s episode will be dedicated to Perdition’s Gate, a megawad developed by Wraith Corporation and published in 1996 by WizardWorks, who controversially retailed it and the partial conversion Hell to Pay without id Software’s permission. Wraith Corporation was led by TNT Evilution and Master Levels veteran Tom Mustaine, and rounded out by his father Bob Mustaine, Memento Mori contributor Mackey McCandlish, H2H_Xmas project leader Jim Elson, and TNT alum Jimmy Sieben. The Wraith Corp wads inhabit the no man’s land between Doom’s lucrative period and its current status as an outlet for passionate hobbyists. For the most part, Perdition’s Gate remains a stranger to popularity: it doesn’t live on the idgames archive, presumably for legal reasons, and its lack of formal map titles don’t help its cause either; we didn’t even have concrete designer credits for the set until recently (*thanks kmxexii and Doomwiki). Despite its black sheep reputation and the factors working against it, Perdition’s Gate has a lot going for it, including new textures, an original soundtrack, and a unique take on Doom storytelling.
Link to the megawad:
Sorry folks, this one is commercial, so you're going to have to go pirate it yourselves.
Special thanks to @DCG Retrowave for providing the MIDIs! (Channel link: / @dcgretrowave )
Patreon:
/ mtpain27 - เกม
![อาจารย์ยอด : พระเตะผี [ผี]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/zusDOIFasaE/mqdefault.jpg)
Perd. Gate is not SO commercial anymore. Tom Mustaine write a topic in DW a long time ago, asking the moderstors NOT to delete the direct download link to the wad, saying that it was more than 20 years old, so not "commercial" anymore. In the Mustaine's page is a download link to the complete version of the wad
Fascinating information you've got there. Got a link or two to back it up?
@@protostar5946 i've answered you, but my message got erased :/
@@federicobrunner9420 A trick that sometimes works is to post the link with the word "DOT" instead of an actual period.
I don't know if the spam bots ruined that or not, but hey... Worth a shot.
Now if only Hell 2 Pay can be re-released as freeware.
@@wadmodderschalton5763 it is in the web... just make a deep search and you'll find it for free ;) But i think you have it, am i right?
I don't know why it started today but every time I hear Difficulty: C I just picture "Difficulty: si" and laugh
for 1996, this looks amazing
i especially like the secret levels
edit: "it's too bad sieben couldn't build a full-size map this propulsive" no that's good, i love short maps
theres too many maps that will have a cool setpiece and 20 minutes of aimlessly walking around when it could be just the cool setpiece
Although it didn't age well for today's standards, I can see that this wad must have been pretty impressive back in 1996. Those Doomcute™ moments were good enough to made me smile. 😄
14:54 the over-explained Charlotte's Web joke is goddamn hilarious. Such a shame about the 3rd episode of this wad, it seemed pretty darn decent aside from that...
Excellent work on the video!
Yeah this joke hit me hard
Here we go, this WAD finally gets some more attention! 🎉
Wish to see Bethesda add this to the Doom Unity port as an official addon to give it more recognition.
Don’t know if they’re even adding anything anymore, nothing for 6 months
I heard of this wad in passing and had no idea it was even a commercial release…still, after a while it does look like it loses a ton of steam after a while.
Also, “Grasping the gun of Big F***ing” is the quote of the season, and it’s beyond glorious.
20:51 That's my son and we love him no matter what he looks like.
What a treat to watch MtPain's video while on a crowded bus.
ah damn, map18 deserved at least a B for that self-assembling room, few maps today completely transform a room's original space and premise like that. Very memorable and dramatic to me, and not simple from a mapping perspective
Since you've done Perdition's Gate, it would only be natural to cover Hell 2 Pay as well, some day ;)
Gonna be honest: this megaWAD is my TNT Evilution in terms of nostalgia. I didn't have Final Doom back in the day, but my old man did bring home a copy of Perdition's Gate he found jewel-case only at a local Crazy Irving's. I assume because it was cheaper than Final Doom.
Either way, I love Perdition's Gate and it's been the WAD I compare all others to, for better or worse. Good to see you do this one.
I believe this was intended to be the third final doom wad, it definitely lines up in terms of quality, and I’m sad we live in the timeline where this isn’t more well known outside of the Doom community. Also, love those custom textures, they’re kind of cartoony but work really well together.
I am ashamed that I didn't discover this WAD until recently.
Oh boy, the lost final doom episode, I really enjoyed this episode. Kinda sucks that it was never included in final doom.
P.s Can we get a freedoom episode some day? It needs more love.
I first played Perdition's Gate around 2012 and liked it at the time but remembered it really falling off in the second half. Replayed it after a decade some months ago with fast monsters and only some vague memories of it, and man, you can really feel how much the devs started rushing everything after Map 16. Through the first half, I found it on par with Plutonia, but that second half is as bad as the Master Levels, with only a few gems like Map 16 and 27 keeping it at all worth playing after the secret maps. Also maxing the last map on fast monsters was hell, it was even tougher than Map 12, happy I pulled it off though (and then later found out from a 4shockblast video that you could just cheese one of the Cybers from a spot they can't hit you from instead of having to matrix dodge them both...)
I found myself mostly in relative agreement with your map ratings, though I was harsher on the bad maps (but nice to see we agreed on Hell's Park being irredeemable trash). My four favorite maps were:
The gold: Map 15 Teleporter Central (also the only PD map I gave a 9 out of 10 to)
The silver: Map 16 The Alien Shrine
The bronze: Map 05 Sub-Basement Entry
Just missed the podium: Map 31 Planet Of Living Rock
"Keep calm and hump walls" will be my grave's obituary message when I die
There it is. The long awaited (for me at least) Perdition's Gate DoD. I was expecting map32 to get an F with the teleporting rooms. Can't wait for catching up to this video!
Dear Dean of Doom,
Thank you for reviewing this WAD. While the level design seems interesting, the levels do not contain enough rectangular rooms for my liking. If you could exclusively review WADs that exclusively contain rectangular rooms from this point forward, I would greatly appreciate it.
Yours truly,
Gene Bird
Coming from Civvies Hexen II review to watching this made my day very great today
Definitely feels like this review feels pretty fast, maybe it's the fast pacedness of this episode that made it pass by fast
Same brain
Heck, Civvie's been having his mind broken by TNT lately, I want to see him do an episode on these "unofficial" Doom releases.
@@universalperson He's not as far ahead as The Dean; and if he were as limited to a gimmick, I'm sure he would've by now.
@@universalperson Honestly I'd love for him to cover other famous doom WADs either they're both amazing or awful, hard or average
I've been really enjoying his 30 day TNT series lately
As a note, Moonlit District is a small mapset that uses a lot of Perdition's Gate textures, and it came out recently. Definitely do recommend, probably also for Sawed-Off WADs
PG's commitment to narrative consistency and progression makes it one of my favorite wads ever, even if it overstays its welcome by the last maps. Even then, it has a level of polish that was unheard of at the time for an unofficial wad, and I don't blame the Mustaines for wanting to commercialize it. It's absolutely well-thought and planned and made with a lot of love for Doom, making it age like fine wine even among contemporaries like Ancient Aliens. It's easy to take PG for granted today when comparing it to other, modern wads, but it's dedication to consistent design is commendable and certainly not something you see much today. It reminds me a lot of Hadephobia, except even better. PG can be easily described as excellent due to the sum of its parts, which is more that can be said for most wads made today, with a few exceptions (e.g. BTSX and Ozonia). Now I really feel like playing it again. I wish you had liked it more but I understand if it isn't your cup of tea. 😊
Tbh, I thought Perdition’s Gate was ok but I loved Hell 2 Pay even more. It wasn’t just the goofy sprites that I found charming, but the doomcute spread throughout and the exploration in the maps. Everyone should at least check it out to brighten up your day or play it to relax since it’s really laid back.
Hell 2 Pay's level design has more effort put into it, but God I hate those stupidly amateurish custom sprite/sounds. Thankfully the gameplay behavior is unchanged, so I can just rip out those assets which honestly make the wad much better imho.
Yes! I love PG. The only reason I ever played it was because I was reading an old Doomworld thread about converting PSX Doom to PC, and somebody joked that someone ought to remake Perdition's Gate in the PSX engine. For some reason this intrigued me as to what on Earth PG was. And it turns out it was awesome.
Oh Yeah, Perdition's Gate..
I played this game and it was a breath of fresh air immediately after a terrible experience playing Memento Mori, and the game didn't disappoint, cool music, really underrated wall textures that I've never seen anyone uses sadly, maybe because of commercial issues back in the day.. a shame the game wasn't included as a third entry of Final Doom.
it gets some aspects better than TNT and Plutonia, their techbase is a lot more polished and more pleasing to look at than TNT, and their unique texturing was more interesting than Plutonia, sadly the game comes short overall in the final result thanks to the weak third half.. it's not as good as TNT or Plutonia because the maps were lacking strong challenges like Plutonia or some interesting places to explore or a doom Atmosphere like TNT, but it has a unique visual style at least..
Another Dean of Doom Thank you for these vids when I’m bored I watch your content.
Honestly, if it weren't for the legal problems, this megawad would probably be a hell of a lot more popular. Maybe even considered a Doom classic.
An interesting dive into the history books of Doom. Just when you think you know most of the "high profile" WADs from years past, another one shows up out of nowhere to prove you wrong. All in all it doesn't look like a bad WAD all things considered.
The team also made another semi-commercial WAD, called Hell to Pay, which is much better in my opinion. Definitely one of the more ambitious WADs of its time.
My personal favorite Doom Wad Map Pack, i love the textures, new midi music, atmosphere, and the after level text dumps setting up the story. I put it up there with Sythe 2, back to saturn episode 1, and russian overkill (not a map pack but god it's so fun).
what an interesting wad, and to think I never even knew about its existence. I imagine it being mindblowing for those who played it back then
UAC Experementation looks a lot like the UAC offices in Doom 2016
What a great stuff! Thanks for a making those epic videos!
9:31 Those textures look a lot like the red blocks from the first two levels of Episode 2 in Hocus Pocus, just recoloured to blue. Amd the grey are probably from there aswell, but i cant recall right now
Map 31 is a definite A honestly, like, that was so cool AND it was in 1996!!! Insane
For a 90' wad, this was better than i expected. Just a tad bit dissapointing that the wad looses it's momentum in episode 3. Nice video
This looks like the .WAD I was looking for! I like pacing, detail and balanced fights.
Another excellent vid MtPain, kudos! Hoping to see you cover Haste soon. Am busy working my way through it. Tough as heck but good fun.
The info on whether Wraith published its two megaWADs without Id's consent is... conflicting. There's no solid proof either way, but the "who do you trust more?" consensus is that they did in fact pay for permission to release the WADs commercially. The total conversion Hacx did the same thing. Also, the single-level WAD known as "Kick Attack" was created after the makers of the titular soft drink paid Id for permission to use a WAD as advertising for their product. Said payment was made in the form of a truckload of said soft drink. These are, as far as can be determined, the only "Id-licensed-but-not-Id-published" WADs. That technically makes them... well, "official Doom releases" seems like an overly strong phrase, but they're at least official-adjacent.
I remember watching Sandwedge play through this wad chatting with other Doom players. It was a fun time. Thanks for shining a light on less known works! You do a good job verbally dressing up and showcasing all these equally.
Loving this vid so far, can't wait for your episode on Eternal Doom.
Much love, eh? From a Canadian Doom hoser
You are the best doom review channel I have ever laid eyes upon. Well edited, well written, and chalk full of passion. When you get to a million subs within a few years, just don’t let it get to your head! Keep focusing on doing what you love and not the numbers!! ❤
Finally, an episode on a Doom wad I've already played! Gotta love that original soundtrack!
Civvie releases a hexen 2 video, you finally release this episode which I have been waiting for since the trailer. Tonight Im eating GOOD
Edit: After watching the video, I mostly agree with the deans analysis but I would have given everything a grade higher I think. I have to mention tho that PG was the first wad I played after finishing the iwads and it was able to give me what none of the iwads could, which was some kind of continuous narrative, so PG definitely has a special place in my heart.
I recall reading somewhere (Doomworld I think?) that the reason why so many of PG's maps are really short and low quality is because they were essentially just rushed by Wraith Corporation to get the wad out for release. WizardWorks might've also been involved in development of couple maps with map 26 being made by them (I think).
My memory might be playing tricks on me again though so please correct me if I'm wrong.
Also, if that was released commercially today, then ZeniMax will call their lawyers.
The music in Perditions Gate is just so damn good, happy to see you review this one on the show! Hope it gets more Doomers to check the wad out ^^
i've always been curious about the Wraith wads. I never got far in either of them so I was excited to see this episode.
Another great video! I remember not really liking Perdition's Gate all that much when I played it a year-ish ago, but this video made me realize it was probably Hell to Pay I was thinking of, which tends to be a bit more of a drag if what I remember of it is correct. Being twins and all, the wads merged in my memory since I played them back-to-back. I should revisit PG, you've sold me on a second playthrough (despite your intent :P).
This wad has always been floating around in my head as a prime MIDI pack contender, along the lines of the TNT pack since it'd allow for a nice mixture of covers and original work. Maybe some day!
Im glad you mase this episode i was always curious if this and if hell to pay were any good. I hope that one will be coming up soonish. I will download this one tho!
Perdition's Gate is really easy but other than that I actually really enjoyed it and was sad I only discovered a few years back as I think it deserves more attention. Really solid WAD
There are a lot of bizarre, cringeworthy, and even blatantly racist parts of the Doom community, but I have to say Dean of Doom is one of the greatest things I have seen, because it provides a service a lot of people probably need: quality WAD reviews. I can't count how many times I have seen people ask for WAD recommendations only to get told to look through the cacowards, of which there are many. Giving people a preview of a WAD certainly helps to find something to try a lot faster than grabbing random things from the Cacowards. What if there's good stuff out there that didn't win a Cacoward? I hadn't even heard of Perdition's Gate until now. The Doom community definitely needs more stuff like this, and less of the political drama I've seen floating around these days.
Sounds to me like this WAD is Evilution's finely tuned cousin. Instead of the levels being boring and too expansive, the level design is tightened and the monster selection in each ramps up appropriately instead of being a a slog of low-tier hitscanners into the second round of double digits.
Finished this WAD myself recently, currently tackling Hell to Pay after that.
What a nice treat!
Ah yes, my favorite wad staring Tom Hanks
Oh nice, I've been hoping you'd cover Perdition's Gate. Just starting the video, looking forward to this one.
Decided to give this megawad a whirl thanks to this video. I find it quite enjoyable so far despite how poorly a few things in it have aged, but of course this is just my opinion.
By the way, I'm unsure what source port you use these days, but I happened to see a link in the DOOM wiki for a ZDoom patch that fixes the intermission screens/ text, and the mapinfo. So now you can read the story and the map names display correctly in the automap. It's a minor change but a welcome one. For anyone using ZDoom derived source ports reading this, have a look at the wiki for the link to the patch if you're interested.
I still really hope we're gonna get an episode Hell to Pay as well. It's very much like Perdition's Gate, but has so, SO much more _soul,_ with the wackiness and creativity going through the roof compared to it's big bro PG.
This Monday is now better.
Hey, you took my recommendation! Thank you very much! :)
Dude, you can't be doing this to me on a Monday morning. (JK, I'm jazzed. :D I'll watch after work)
I like how this WAD and Hell 2 Pay has story text in between the levels.
Even today this wad looks good. It have 90-ish style but.. if I imagine we are in 96', this is pretty amazing wad for sure. Saved for playing soon!
Gut video as always ♥
I don't know how, as I didn't have Doom (or even a pc) back in the 90's, but somehow, I remember this wad. Or at least it being talked about/advertised.
I stopped watching this video after the beginning because the work stroke me so hard I forgot about it until now, popping up in recommendations. Great work, man! BTW, it was the first WAD I guessed right what was gonna be next.
Mount pain I kid you not, yesterday I was like "Hmm what's one wad that mount pain hasn't reviewed, I haven't played all the way through yet, but I totally should? Oh yeah, perdition's gate!" and I started a playthrough, got all the way to map 16. Maybe I'll replay fragport to get you to review that next lol.
Hey dean, thought it was time for another "you did this for me" type message, hope these don't get annoying or grating after so long but oh well. Your content always seems to reignite my love for doom when it's in a valley, and you've helped me see doom as something even more powerful and transcendent than what I thought already. Before your videos, almost all of my vanilla experience with doom was forced when I was younger playing it on the doom 3 resurrection of evil edition. After half a decade of playing the same stock ID levels and gameplay, as soon as I got a PC I modded the game to hell and never looked back. Your videos finally inspired me to return to vanilla and enjoy doom at its most exact and precise, although you'll never catch me without mouselook, autoaim's randomness and fallibility is a feature I will never grow to enjoy. I'm addicted to pistol starting now, it's crazy it took me this long to realize just how badly and how often continuous play can stagnate a mapset. I'm even considering a return to mapping, I made a couple back in my late teens and enjoyed the process but the feedback was simply too harsh for me at the time. While I know the show is more just for sharing what you did or didn't enjoy about some maps, I really do think I've learned a fair bit from your videos more than I knew before in terms of doom level design. I don't know if I'll return to it right now, but doombuilder's siren call stirs me every couple of years, and I know I'll for sure bite one of these times, especially if I'm still watching dean of doom, or at least some other doom-themed show you create in the future. Thanks for everything, dean.
Oh, and as a little side note, you should review akeldama! I don't hear it mentioned much despite seeing it played fairly frequently back when it released and some fairly big names attached to it. So far some of my favorites include chill well and make believe, but there's plenty of great maps and some pretty tasteful midis to accompany them.
Duke Nukem: I've got balls of steel!
Doomguy: I have a gun of big fucking.
DN: Damn...
I like that we are getting easier WADs lately (and I'm not counting the april fools video XD)
Looks like the episode starting at MAP12 would make Mike Matei proud, with all of the brown bricks.
a new video? This day keeps getting better and better,
also, you should play 200 line massacre, or Emerald city, they are very good wads, 200 lines even features gibbable pinkies
Ah yes, The GoBF. My favorite weapon.
Didn't know this wad existed but it looks pretty dang cool for its time.
We're going old school with this one, it seems
I remember searching and downloading this wad because I heard all the legally dubious shenanigans surrounding it and I got curious. It's definitely a mixed bag, but its best maps are really good for their time.
Maybe we can convince you to cover Hell to Pay this coming season. I really enjoy these older projects.
I'd certainly be willing to try it!
You are the person I refer to when the argument if games are art comes up.
Surprised no mention of the music
It's real cool
As someone who played the crap out of the PG and HTP demos back in the day, I was ecstatic to actually get the Hell to Pay disc off ebay in the ealy 2000s. PG holds up well after the demo section ends (map11), and the new music tracks are all really cool too.
Would like to see your take on HTP, despite a several maps in the last stretch being even smaller and easier than PG's Map24. Thre are some damn good setpieces in there.
PERDGATEEE ONE OF MY FAV MEGAWADDDD
Map 20's music is reminiscent of Smells Like Burning Corpse. Wonder if it was also Sieben's work.
Man, this wad seems like it would be great to play once, however, I personally think that the best WADs have replay value.
Also, if you haven't, a megawad that I think you should check out and review is Chex Quest 3, which is a total conversion WAD that was made by General Mills to make the game more kid friendly, despite this, it's suprisingly good.
14:55
I imagined the foot note in a “hey guys, Peter Griffin here to explain the joke” style
Perditions Gate has a real charm to it, and a lot of the maps are really decent for the era. But you are right, there is a lot of repetition and some maps really needed some more fleshing out. It was one wad that I did a lot of demos for back in the early 2010s, so I guess i hold fond memories for this one. Still it is a great recommendation for those who want something like TNT or Icarus and want their maps short like Plutonia.
Tbh my favourite Wad from Final Doom that is not from Final Doom
If that makes any sense
Edit: also i like how some of the maps are short. My attention span for megawads is kinda short (that's why i hardly ever finished any) so i am glad they are like that
Uh oh. I was putting off playing Sunlust out of fear until I caught up with the Dean of Doom on playing WADs. I just beat Perdition's Gate today. Guess it's time for Ribbiks and Danne to kick my ass for 32 levels.
wow map31 and 32 is straight up craaaazy
Despite it flaws, if PG had made it into Final Doom as originally intended it would probably be my favorite part of it - far more cohesive and polished than that TNT mess, but not as ball-busting as Plutonia while still providing some high-octane challenge maps. I've played through it three or so times now and I continue to enjoy it, though to be honest I was unaware of most of those boom closet secrets haha!
**counter strike voice** Bomb has been planted.
Hey MtPain, I've been watching you for 2 years now. Absolutely love your videos. I was wondering if you could cover "Anomaly Report", a WAD that was added to Doom's Unity Port about a year ago. Keep up the good work
I’ve played a good chunk of that wad: definitely a worthwhile set of maps but it’s too far down my list for me to safely guarantee I will cover it
I'm surprised You haven't made "PG-13" joke speaking about PG's difficulty 🤣
Never played this one since it was a commercial release that I wasn't aware of until sometime in the past 10 years. I never bothered to look into finding a copy of it, legally or not. Though I did find Tom Mustaine had the WAD on his personal website as a free download, so I just grabbed it from that. He said he has permission to post it. Now I just got to figure out which of the multiple WAD files in the zip is the right one to use...
PG-RAW.wad always works for me
I remember this wad consisting of pretty short maps but very punchy. It can be hard when you don't find the secrets, but the maps tend to be short so it sort of balances out.
Also, we NEED a video on Hell to Pay. It's the better out of the two sister wads (I consider them sisters at least). The only issue is the awful new sprites and textures, but overall it's a lot more ambitious and well rounded.
I've been waiting for you to cover this wad and glad to see you enjoyed it. There are some filler maps but overall I think it aged better than Evilution. BTW this wad was almost included in Final Doom, but it was already too late.
I'd likely grade these maps the same way you did and Hell's Park, more like Hell's Fart. Wow that midi was just awful.😂
Hell yeah.
map 31 looks so cool
I love ranking, and I love Doom. A happy marriage. It would be interesting to analyze these wads on a line graph to see how they flow. x-axis: map number, y-axis: 2 lines, difficulty and rating. Have you thought of doing anything like that?
It’s not quite that scientific :)
@@MtPain27 Fair enough! I love the content anyway.
I actually just visited your patreon and noticed the gradebook. What is that exactly?
Edit: In hindsight, I think this idea came purely because I've been watching so much computer hardware benchmarks. It's like the Tetris effect. Lol
I need a mod that changes the hud face into the face from the ending screen from Perditions Gate.
I initially ignored this WAD's existence because I thought it was just another one of those awful WADs pryed from 90s shovelware discs but it looks surprisingly decent. For 1996, this is something that looks like it could've come out of the 2000s era of Doom mapping. By the way I don't mean to pester but I'd love to know what you'd think of Chainworm Kommando. It's 10 maps long but the variety of settings, detailed environments, soundtrack, and tightly knit combat make it a damn good time. I think you'd really enjoy it
I've played Perdition's Gate last yeat and have similiar opinion. I enjoyed the first 6 maps, killing large groups of basic enemies with basic weapons is the Doom's equivalent of fast food - nothing groundbreaking, but always fun. The rest kinda runs together, with only the last two maps standing out due to their premise.
YESSSSSSSSSSS
18:54 I'm not gonna lie, "Grasp the gun of big fucking" sounds like something Doomguy would say if he had a bit of Johnny Bravo's personality in him.