"L" X Doom II

About a year after the release of the original Doom, Id Software followed up with a sequel - Doom II: Hell on Earth.

I managed to watch what’s probably the only commercial made about the game and (in my opinion) I don’t think it did a very good job of promoting the game. It tries to sell the title as a fighting game which it clearly isn’t given the footage that’s shown;  we’ve already had 360 scrolling in the previous game so there was no need to emphasize it here, and a lot of what was shown looked very similar to what was in the original Doom. Then, I played the game and realized just why the commercial was so un-illuminating to me:

Doom II, despite having been labeled as a sequel, plays more like an expansion pack.

Mind you, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing given how much I enjoyed the original Doom because of how refined IT'S gameplay and mechanics were; but that still leaves the question of just how much does this game add to the classic Doom formula and is it worth playing?

"L" X Doom (updated)

*One month after the Wolfenstein 3D review and I finally managed to play through the entirety of the original Doom! Granted, it wasn’t the first time that I’ve completed the game (in fact, this was the third time), but it was these last two playthroughs combined with a number of other life events that really took their toll. However, I’m sure you all didn’t come here to read about my personal problems so let’s begin.

Wolfenstein 3D (Profound Carnage)

*Image Provided by Google; Property of ID Software

The 1990s could be seen as a major turning point for video games. Arcade machines began to vanish as gaming grew into a more ‘home-oriented’ experience and 3D graphics gradually became more and more prominent. This evolution also gave birth to whole new genres of games; one of the more popular being the First-Person Shooter (or FPS for short) with Id Software leading the charge with their release of Wolfenstein 3D (or Wolf3D for short).

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Wolfenstein 3D draws heavily from both the original top-down Castle Wolfenstein games and the Catacomb 3-D engine. Apparently, it was supposed to sport a heavier emphasis on stealth rather than action before it was dumbed-down to help speed up the game and simplify the controls. The result is a very simple shooting experience, focused entirely on moving and shooting. Considered to be ‘Grandfather of all FPS’, Wolfenstein 3D laid the groundwork for every other game in its respective genre to follow; much like what Super Mario Bros. did for traditional platformers. However, has it aged as well as other games in different genres?