I play viddy game

Not going to lie, I thought I was just getting a cool scythe when I first found it Later in the mines, I realized what I had unknowingly signed up for...

@noumasblog ┻ ʕ⁠´⁠•⁠ᴥ⁠•⁠`⁠ʔ ⑅ ༎ຶ⁠‿⁠༎ຶ

Br1: It Only Gets Worse

Main author(s): Wills

Release date: July 6th, 2007

Version played: ???

Required port compatibility: ZDoom

Levels: 19 (14 regular ones, 3 secret ones, a cutscene one, and a hub one according to the textfile)

Once again, we welcome Wills, who, once again, won the Mockaward for the funniest WAD of the year. Winning two of these in a row makes him deserve some respect, not gonna lie.

This time, instead of adapting one of the Monty Python’s sketches, we are going to have something completely different. Something much more nonsensical – It Only Gets Worse. In-making for almost half of the year since January. And with the plot about you ending up as a scavenger for a dude that you own money.

Let’s see how far the rabbit hole in this WAD goes.

Starting with how this WAD looks – basic and zany at the same time. While it does sometimes look like the WAD from the mid-1990s, it does come up with the style of the location. Once you end up somewhere that feels like you are under lava, and after that, you are standing next to the U with umlaut.

The same can be said about the music. Almost all of the time it’s something that surprisingly fits to what’s happening on the map. We got speed-up versions of the original tracks, MIDI covers from other games/media, and some original stuff among others.

This WAD plays like nonsense (as it should be). You never know what will happen next; what the next map has to offer.

Now, I won’t be talking about what happens in every map like in TurboCharged ARCADE, because we will be here forever. Instead, I will take a slightly closer look at four regular maps and one secret map (three of which you can access from the hub map).

So, for instance, we have:

the map where you seek out a treasure while checking the toilets,

the map where you look for the crack pills in Mancubus’ apartment,

the map where you are suddenly small,

and the map where you end up shopping.

As for the secret maps, one of them takes place in a bowl of soup that will kill you as soon as you step your toe there while getting bombarded by Cyberdemons.

As for the other stuff in this WAD, you can... sigh... I can't believe that I’m saying it...You can find an Impse Easter egg on almost every map. Look people, if you want to look for these, prepare four gallons of bleach just for sure.

Also, if you have epilepsy, skip Technoseizure Mountain. It’s what you can expect from a map called like that.

Usually when you reach the hub map, after playing the secret maps you can go back and start the WAD all over from there by entering the exit dedicated to it. But if you manage to find a secret switch in Final Battle of Awesomeness (it’s near the Megasphere before taking the portal) you will unlock the real ending.

And now for the most important question in this review – how funny is It Only Gets Worse?

Uhm... I don’t know. I mean, I think it’s funnier than TurboCharged ARCADE, but at the same time, I don’t think I laughed even once while playing this WAD. Maybe it’s due to me not being interested/sharing no nostalgia towards the Internet culture before 2008/2009 since this is when my family got access to the Internet. The closest map concept that feels like it’s the funniest is Wormhole Laxatives. At least there is something positive to say there.

It Only Gets Worse is easier than TurboCharged ARCADE. Is it hard? Maybe? Is it fair? Most of the time, I guess, despite being a joke WAD.

And since this WAD is zany, we also need some new, zany enemies.

Like bigger versions of Zombieman, Imp, and Caco that have twice as much health as their regular versions. Or floating heads made in MS Paint that are tougher variants of Cacos (bigger heads) and Lost Souls (smaller heads). Or Baron of Hell called Bob Nimwich, who comes in two flavors; the regular one and the shadow monster one, and you can only hit the latter variant with hitscan weapons. There is also Sjasface... I guess it’s the floating Burger King’s head that you encounter in The King's Woods.

I ain’t gonna talk about bugs in the case of this WAD since I think that any bug you will encounter was probably placed there on purpose.

And... that’s it for It Only Gets Worse. More ambitious than Wills’ previous Mockaward winner; probably better than that. But if it is funnier than How Not to be Seen or not, I think I’ll leave that decision for you.

And since this is the only WAD from the bronze league, it won’t be surprising that it gets promoted to the Platinum Revenant section of the Revenant Awards.

As for me, time to take a day-long break from the WADs. Good thing it’s Saturday tomorrow. Hopefully, I’ll finish the last magazine I have to read (for now).

See you all next time.

Bye!

One reason being because of when people had predictions for Doom 4 and assumed they'd do a "boring father plot".

Specially in that period of "realistic" military FPS games where some had some sort of family related plot point, like a soldier having a daughter to care about.

Mostly as a way to humanize the player character before you go back to shoot faceless boring enemies in a linear FPS game.

When people made copypastas and memes predicting how a modern Doom game would be in the 7th generation, the "father plot point" is something people expected.

But with the direction of the series, it seemed like Doom went the opposite direction of trying to be more "fantastical" with sci-fi and fantasy elements.

That and how Doomguy having his tragic backstory involving a rabbit instead of a family making him more unique in that regard.

(I guess something similar can be said to Ranger because of QC when in Q1's manual, he had to wake up at 4 AM when the main events happened).

This point is also tied to the Sentinels in general and how Doomslayer can feel like a different character.

Because even with confirmation that he is Doomguy (And the behind-the-scenes/fanservice/meme reasons for it), the focus on the Sentinel makes it seem like Doomguy doesn't really care for his origins as an Earthling (But he still focuses on saving Earth obviously).

Besides Daisy references, it's not like Doomguy seems to have flashbacks to his UAC days or even characters people assume would get along with Doomguy like Crash and Phobos from Quake 3.

Maybe it's because there's actual lore behind why the Sentinel get to have ghostly figures of themselves.

Or the fact that the new people at id are used to their version of Doom, so they don't feel the need to explore classic Doom that much (Specially in case someone would complain they didn't do something right and bring up fanmade content as some examples).