DBP78: Ghost Riders of Christmas Past | DBP78.WAD
Doomer Boards
There's a special tradition in the Doom community: going back as far as 1994 with the notorious Simply Silly Software's Xmas Doom and their 1995 follow-up H2H-Xmas, Doomers have occasionally celebrated the holidays with themed wads. The lion's share seems to be by the Doomer Boards, with a whopping six Christmas-themed wads (plus a seventh by the Doomer Bards Krew spinoff group.) From humble origins with DBP07: The Merry Christmassy Doom Project, DB has managed a Christmas themed wad for five out of their eight years of existence. The most recent one came after the Christmas theme fell out of fashion for a few years; its arrival, apparently, has heralded a lengthy hiatus, making DBP78: Ghost Riders of Christmas Past the last of the Doomer Boards Projects for now.
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| Flashlight++ (lantern preset) Rain Remixed (for more snow) Blood Fixer (customized for wad) |
Ghost Riders seems to be an amalgamation of a couple of different ideas that the Boards (and the community at large) have done in the past. While the Old West theme is pretty rare in Doom mapping (with 1995's Boot Hill and A Fistful of Doom being the only extant examples until DBP30: The Magnificent Five), combining it with a Christmas theme naturally calls to mind snowbound western classics like Sergio Corbucci's The Great Silence. Jon "40oz" Vail steps back from project leader duties (an early sign that the series was going to come to a halt) to let DBP veteran matador run the show, and it's clear that Ghost Riders is his baby. Three out of the nine total maps are his; the rest are one-and-done contributions from six others. Included with the wad is a text file written by matador illustrating the wad's cinematic inspirations, specifically citing The Great Silence as the primary influence but also name-dropping Corbucci's more well-known Django and Anthony Mann's 1954 classic The Far Country (another snowy western,) among others.
DBP as a series has often been hit or miss. Its status as an all-are-welcome speedmapping franchise often means uneven design. Readers will recall how angry I got at Ilya "joeilya" Lazarev for his MAP14 in DBP75: Patagonian Pilgrimage; Ghost Riders has no such issues. If anything, it's actually quite easy by DBP standards, leaning heavily on the gentlest of horde combat. Most maps are full of Doomcute, really helping establish an atmosphere of festive cowboy fun. matador's two playable levels (the third is a credits map) are pretty straightforward. 40oz's sole contribution is like most of his intro levels, with clean design and a gentle, if slightly rocky, ramp of difficulty. joe-ilya surprises me with a map that is actually pretty nicely done, with plenty of Doomcute and sensible combat. LunchLunch's contribution is on the smaller side, but I found it entertaining. J. Wesley "thehockster" Hockster seems to enjoy the urban snowy theme, as his map is a clear followup to his contribution to Patagonian Pilgrimage. Nockson returns with another concept piece, very different from his previous outing with "Hotel Patagonia" (also from Patagonian Pilgrimage, natch.) JadingTsunami returns to DBP after a lengthy hiatus with an abstract offering for the final playable map. If I had to pick a favorite, it'd probably matador's second map, "The Big Snowdown," a hectic shootout across a snowy little town. I think more than any other map in the set it most demonstrates what's possible with this theme.
While the Boards are usually pretty good about putting together partial conversion wads, there's unfortunately something a little incomplete about Ghost Riders. Most of the enemies are the western-themed edits and replacements introduced in A Fistful of Doom and Magnificent Five; but some, notably the revenant, aren't touched at all. The weapons have been redone, sort of, in that the pistol is now a revolver, the chaingun is now two revolvers, and the plasma rifle replacement is, in fact, a gatling gun that nevertheless uses pistol ammo. I used the twin revolvers and the gatling gun a lot and other than the latter having a higher ROF to make up for being a projectile weapon (with the attendant spindown delay inherited from the plasma rifle) I really couldn't tell you whether one was better than the other. The rocket launcher is now a bundle of dynamite (recognizably sourced from Blood) but it still travels in a straight line (and uses the rocket sprite!) And while some of the music choices are solid, I found a lot of it to be grating and, dare I say it, altogether too cheerful.
I liked Ghost Riders. It's not the most taxing wad out there; I'd put it on par with Doom II or perhaps Evilution; you'll burn through most of the maps in pretty short order, especially Nockson's little art piece. It left me wanting more, if only because I like winter westerns and also have fond memories of the second episode of Blood. Hopefully Ghost Riders of Christmas Past won't be Christmas last.
MAP01: Poker Shooter
Jon "40oz" Vail
It almost wouldn't feel like a DBP without 40oz. He might not have led the project, but his one map is nevertheless classic 40oz: short, compact, and nice-looking, a little mountain lodge with a courtyard and a back area. He keeps a steady drip of mostly trash mobs, but the big finale is a mess of imps, a couple of revenant snipers and some mancubi on artillery duty. Mind the squads of chaingunners, too. Short and sweet.
MAP02: God Forgives, Santa Don't
matador
This little follow-up map by matador isn't particularly difficult; if anything, it's easier. It's a compact journey through a spot of wilderness, icy caves, and mines, with a stop at a ranch currently being burned down by the Klan, and culminating in a large Spanish mission, where the fight for the gatling gun is. Finding the exit means revealing the bell, which a note on the wall earlier in the map helpfully tells you to ring.
MAP03: Ball and Chain
Ilya "joe-ilya" Lazarev
Whaddya know, sometimes he can make good maps. You're trapped defenseless in a prison, though fortunately you won't need to wait long before you're armed again. The rest of the map is a rampage through the prison, from a foodfight in the mess hall to crashing the prison staff Christmas party. You'll be running from one end of the prison to the other trying to find a way out the front door; while Ilya sometimes throws some big groups at you, it's nothing you can't handle. The only real pain point is probably the jailblock ambush with a bunch of hell nobles and imps. Just remember, you're not locked in with them, they're locked in with you.
MAP04: Cut-throat Pass
LunchLunch
LunchLunch gives us a snowy journey through a festive mountain camp with some nearby caves. Imps lurk atop the rocks and buildings throwing fireballs at you and bandits wander the streets and passages, but things rarely get more dangerous than the odd revenant or mancubus, usually after trapping you into an enclosed space. Cool caves.
MAP05: The Big Snowdown
matador
You come upon a cute little town all decked out for the holidays. The bad news is that it's swarming with varmints, mostly of the humanoid type but there's a few mid-tier baddies too, including an arch-vile in a connecting passageway trap. It's a pretty open layout; LunchLunch leaves keys out for you to grab, which opens up more of the map. Pay your respects to Arch Stanton, crash Christmas dinner at the great hall, and raid the wine cellar, complete with shattering wine bottles if you shoot the racks!
MAP06: Dead Man's Landing
J. Wesley "thehockster" Hocker
Thematically it's similar to "The Big Snowdown" but executed very differently, consisting of a single wide street with some large — perhaps oversized — interiors, including a hotel, a saloon, and so forth. A jail sits amidst a valley behind the town and somewhere is a wine cellar where angry brutes lurk in wait. It's not the rollicking running gunfight of "Snowdown," but the Hockster nevertheless won't let you leave the level without probably the biggest fight in the entire wad.
MAP07: Return to Hill Valley
Nockson
This is borderline an art piece; it's a very tiny map with all of 37 monsters on UV, and you have one mission: gather together money, music and decor so you can do some caroling in this tiny little town. You don't need all the keys, but if you're diligent you can get yourself some goodies behind the jail. Cute concept map.
MAP08: Grim Overture
JadingTsunami
In a wad that so far has been pretty suffuse with Doomcute, "Grim Overture" is classically abstract, the trail generally leading you through vague approximations of a saloon, an ice cave, some kind of cabin den, a prison, a train station, and finally back into the burning graveyard you started in. Encounters are hectic but not crowded, with the sole cyberslinger leading a gaggle of baddies in the train station where you have plenty of room to maneuver.
MAP09: The Ecstasy of Cold
matador
Just a credits map, very small in fact, but nevertheless beautifully appointed as you'd expect from matador. That was fun!
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