Master Levels for Doom II CD from the Depths of Doom Trilogy collection, which also contains Maximum Doom.
Maximum Doom is the name given to the bonus content distributed with the Master Levels for Doom II expansion pack on December 26, 1995. It consists of 1,830 amateur custom PWAD files of varying quality downloaded from the Internet (191 for Doom, 1,629 for Doom II: Hell on Earth, and 10 for Heretic). Many of the files are still available, for example on the idgames archive. Some of them contain copyrighted material, such as audio from television programs like The Simpsons, Beavis and Butt-head, and Monty Python's Flying Circus.
In total, Maximum Doom had 3,493 levels. Some of the levels that were created by the contracted designers for Master Levels for Doom II did not make it into the add-on, though they were included in Maximum Doom.
Criticism
Like many similar commercial Doom compilations, Maximum Doom has received its share of criticism. Many of the levels for Doom II were originally Doom levels that were converted over. Since those levels were not originally designed to be played with Doom II, they suffered occasional problems.
Like many shovelware Doom collections, Maximum Doom has been criticized for containing levels that are of poor quality, as many contain entry-level errors, even for their time (for example, unintentional HOM effects were abundant in several of the Maximum Doom maps). This is somewhat understandable considering the fact that these maps were mostly made by people who had had little to no experience with level design, the engine, and the overall game mechanics in general at the time they were downloaded.
External links
- Maximum Doom download link from archive.org
- ClassicDoom.com has an entire list of these WADs.
- The Unofficial Master Levels for Doom II FAQ has a section on Maximum Doom
- Template:Idgames provides authoring, title, play info, and download information on most of these WADs.