Alien Vendetta is a 2001, 32map mega WAD given the title of “most influential PWAD of all time.” It’s also one of the VERY few PWADs eligible for Competn speedrunning, which it was selected for in 2002. That Competn version of Alien Vendetta is the one we’re going to be playing, and it received quite a few updates. Most notably, it gets rid of the original Map 25 (Valley of Echoes) and banishes it to the shadow realm, puts the original Map 24 in the newly vacant Map 25 slot (Demonic Hordes), and slots in a brand new Map 24 (Clandestine Complex). I haven’t played much of the original 2001 mega WAD, but I’ll happily stick to this version because it’s most likely the superior version in every way imaginable.

Alien Vendetta’s influence can’t be understated or ignored. It’s the tipping point for our little corner of game development history. You see Alien Vendetta in the DNA of nearly every single PWAD to have come out after it. It’s one of the earliest examples of a WAD that combines aesthetic beauty, atmosphere, and high quality, brutalizing combat with success. More specifically, Alien Vendetta puts Eternal Doom and Hell Revealed into a blender, tops it with some classic references and callbacks to the IWADs and other classic WADs, and blends it all together.

We’ll also be using the Alien Vendetta MIDI Pack for this play through. While a good majority of the maps have different MIDIs, there are still many maps that use stock IWAD MIDIs. While I do regret letting go of the MIDIs in map 8 and 10, I believe that overall, the MIDI Pack is a much better fit for the WAD.
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IWAD: Doom 2
Port: DSDAdoom 28.2
Compatibility: Vanilla (comp level 2)
Mapper(s): Madani el Hariri
MIDI: Deadwing Lunar Outbreak
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Alien Vendetta: https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/lev...

Alien Vendetta MIDI Pack: https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/mus...

DSDAdoom: https://github.com/kraflab/dsdadoom

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Madani delivers a pretty typical Alien Vendetta offering. It looks great, with the attention to detail and nice lighting, but the combat in most of the areas doesn’t excite me at all. Most of it is just slowly taking out hordes of demons with the SSG while you stand there and hold down the fire button. There are some neat encounters, though, like the Hell Knight and Baron ambush, the Cacodemon and Arachnotron ambush, and the whole penultimate area in general.

The first half is definitely a bit disappointing compared to the rest of the map. Things really start to pick up once you get the BFG. You get plenty of ammo to mop the floor with all the shit that teleports in.

Other than that, and the Arachnotron prison cells, this map kind of passes by fairly quickly but shouldn’t be taken lightly. Props to the new MIDI by Deadwing. While Heretic’s MIDIs are generally used pretty well in most Doom maps I just really like this one a lot more. It adds a ton of value to the gameplay of the map and makes the experience overall much more enjoyable.