Crap From The Past: WADPAK3.WAD (1994)

Might as well share this crapware WAD for Doom from 1994 (so very early on in the life of the game) that goes by the very catchy title of "WADPAK3.WAD" by Gary Karnik, who writes in the README file "[t]his is my third attempt to take some of the best shareware PWADs for DOOM available and combine them together into reasonable new episodes, and for 1994, Karnik might have been fairly right, as the majority of PWADs (as in custom maps for Doom and its sequel) from the 1994 era kind of weren't the best in terms of level mapping, I mostly blame this due to the lack of experience in making levels and also the tools to make said levels were basic and tricky at best.

The first few levels of the WAD can be ridiculously easy, all you need to do in the first three levels of episode one is to run around with a plasm gun, gunning down demons, in total, you might not even break the 30 second mark, while E1M5 can be finished under one second if you know what you're doing.

The screenshot shows the start of E1M6, taken from a WAD called "UCA.WAD", quite a fun map for the time, although it can be a bit of a mess at certain points; Hell one moment then the UAC labs the very next. Sadly due to it's generic name, I couldn't find-out who made the original WAD.

This particular map has its ups and downs, mostly downs due to how cramped the whole environment can be during the hell-ish parts, copy 'n' pasted rooms, also the starting area, while looking kind of cool, can be a bit confusing if you don't know what you're fully doing.

In total, Gary Karnik would make four WAD packs; WADPAK1a.WAD, WADPAK2.WAD, our WADPAK3.WAD, and finally WADPAK4.WAD. As RainboWarrioR saying in a review for WADPAK3; "these 'wadpacks' are really only worth the download for their historical value being technically the first '"megawads'".