Doom II: Hell on Earth

Take the excellent base game of the original DOOM and add more weapons, new levels, new soundtrack, enemies and basically everything a good sequel needs to create an arguably perfect shooter with everything being balanced and improved upon to make a even more fast paced and better experience. Often seen as "Just more of the original", my personal favorite of the two, it shouldn't just be ignored whichever one is your favorite of the two however, they are both equally worth playing for fantastic games with once again incredible mod support and you have a duo-logy of games that have became a staple of video game culture for very good reasons.

This was one great game! The soundtrack keeps you motivated to fight. The level design kind of makes up for the limited number of creatures to fight. This is kind of uneven. Some of the middle levels were harder than the latter. It could have been spaced more evenly. But the experience is gritty. Considering that this was the early 90's, I'm surprised they pulled this off. The quality is astounding for what they had to work with. All the controls are tight. The way the sprite bobs when you walk. The ending was disappointing. It just became a very hard 3D platformer, when they could have just added another character.

I was about 10 years old when I hold grasp to this game... It was like an epiphany for me. I have never played the first "Doom", but when you are a 10 year old, you don't care, let's just play the game. I just couldn't get enough of this game. Every time I played it, I was possessed! I was pretty much an insane gamer just for "Doom", and when I got the cheat codes... how delightful was that. But, enough about that part of my childhood, let's dive in.

According to the story, you are the same marine as before... the Doomguy, as we call him, finds himself on planet Earth, and he finds out that the Earth itself was taken over by demons and turned it into a hellhole. So, you take your guns and... just go to save the world. It's basically simple stuff, really. There isn't much you can do. Just run around kill monsters (with various weapons, for every occasion, of course), finding key cards to progress through the level. You have boss fights on the end of every episode (episodes are continuous), or you have a multiple large opponents. The Doomguy could just walk, or run fast and that's it. In later years, they added a jump and crouch.

So, what is exactly so good about "Doom 2", or "Doom", or "Doom Ultimate"? Why is it still holding up, even today? Well, almost 24 years ago... graphics were top notch, but today, they are just bunch of cubes... without any real, rendered form. The edge that holds even today is that graphics team were very dedicated and imaginative and they designed monsters, demons, weapons and levels the best way possible at that time. The sound effects were just awesome and they are holding up even today. Gameplay is amazing. It's dynamic and simple, and it's doesn't have time to explain itself. That's what I like about these old early 90s PC games... they were not that big and not that pretentious to give us a bunch of story details at the beginning of the game for example... and to move your character through an endless tutorial, or "story mode", that you need to follow. It was a time when games just cut the crap and start shooting. AI for the time was nothing special, it was about to get more perfected as the time goes by. So, that's it... nothing more. Everything else is so simple that is not even worthy of mentioning. We have aliens, monsters and demons... I don't know which inspirations were used for them, I think it's something from the Bible... when it comes to hell monsters and demons and other things.

That is just fascinating, that there was no some good explanation for the demons with whom are you fighting. Who are they? Are they aliens from some deep space and they came from some space hell? Did demons showed to us in the form of hellish creatures from Christian bible? Who knows. And that's what I like the best about this game. You just have to use your own imagination. The same thing goes for the level design. You just can't tell if you are on earth. There are maybe few levels that suggest that you are, in fact on earth. But the others... well not that much. And I love the design of levels in the game, just great. It also set you in the imagination and questioning yourself... "where the hell am I?"... There are of course some new weapons and enemies and they are good.

In conclusion, what to say? It IS one of the best FPS games ever made from that old time when the things were simple and it holds today far more better than you realize. How do I know that? Just look at bunch of modes and various other "Doom" versions on line. People enjoy making them and other people... enjoy playing them. Doom is one of those games that just never gets old. Play it and enjoy it...

Doom-2 was a unique game in the sense that it was really a direct addon or extension to the original Doom game without changing much of the original settings and engine, weapons or enemies. However, with some great level design, a creepy soundtrack and very challenging battle sequences, I would still maintain that this game was actually more fun and scarier than Doom-3. Doom-2 offered only one new weapon, the double barrelled shotgun but it included a huge load of new and tougher enemies. As with the Doom, there was very little story but this was excusable since one really didn't expect much of a story during those times. If you grew up during the late 80s or 90s, you would have surely played this game but for the guys who have'nt, I'll just say that you've missed out on a big gaming experience.

My favorite game of all times! May be Doom or Ultimate Doom would've been my favorite of all times, but it just happened that I played this before the original Doom. It was the first ever FPS game, first ever action game and first ever horror/demonic game I ever played, so I may be quite biased towards this game. Yeah, maybe games like Call of Duty and all are "better" than these games. But had it not been for Doom, none of such games would've existed at all. So, you may not like it, but you can never deny it's legacy.

There are new monsters, a very cool Super Shotgun (which is my favorite gun in an FPS game, together with the BFG) and some improvements in gameplay experience. I personally liked the continuous gameplay rather than the episodic approach of the original. The levels look better in terms of design and some levels (Map 13: Downtown in particular) do become a great experience after playing a number of times, even if they are too tedious in the beginning. Also, it has less number of mazes compared to the original Doom. Since I hate mazes, I take that as an improvement. Arch-Viles are perhaps my favorite enemy in classic Doom, which first appears in this game. Some levels require a well-planned strategy to get through it properly. Not really the primary element of the game, but it's also a strategic game sometimes. The strategic part of the game is often overlooked. One major issue people bring up is the lack of storyline. Yes, it doesn't have a whole lot of cutscenes and scrolling and reading. And considering it to be one of the earliest games of its kind, it might have been horrible to look at the cutscenes in retrospect. So, it puts gameplay above the storytelling but it doesn't mean that the game has no storyline at all. It has very minimal storylines and setups and buildups. The minimality adds to the charm of the game. Even though they're in minimal amount, they're sufficient for the players to make some sense out of the gameplay experience they get. That's some weird brilliance. The continuous gameplay makes things a little easier than compared to Doom/Ultimate Doom - especially Episode 4 of Ultimate Doom (Thy Flesh Consumed). But, playing each level from a pistol start will make some of the levels ten times more difficult.

My favorite levels - Entryway (1), Dead Simple (7), Tricks and Traps (8), 'O' of Destruction (11), Inmost Dens (14), Suburbs (16), Tenements (17), The Courtyard (18), The Citadel (19), Barrels o' Fun (23), Bloodfalls (25), Monster Condo (27), The Spirit World (28), The Living End (29). These are my favorite levels out of any classic Doom games and the millions of other wads created by the people who loved and played these classics.

My least favorite levels - The Pit (9), Refueling Base (10), The Chasm (24). Not at all the worst levels out there in the original ones or the customized versions. But, it's either their gimmick and the lack of ammo which made me like these levels less.

Score : absolute 10/10 Grade : golden A+