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?
**
The plot takes place immediately
after the first game, specifically after the expansion. Doomguy has returned to
Earth after only to find the planet overrun with the very same hell-fiends that
he faced when he was on Mars. Evacuation is halted as the demons have
surrounded the starport holding the ships with a force field. The remaining
soldiers lead a desperate assault on the starport and the majority of them are
killed. Doomguy (being the only survivor of the attack) manages to shut down
the force field, allowing what’s left of humanity to evacuate the planet;
though where they go afterwards isn’t stated. While quietly waiting for death,
Doomguy receives a message from Earth Control locating the source of the
demons: another portal to Hell in his hometown. Doomguy fights his way through
Hell once again and closes the portal to Earth – leaving Hell in ruins.
**
From a gameplay perspective, Doom
II isn’t much different from the first game. Just about everything from the
previous game makes a return here along with some new additions:
The Megasphere is the only new
special item and is one of the the better ones, maxing out both your health AND
armor!
New to the arsenal is the Super
Shotgun, acting as an alternative to the regular shotgun. A double-barreled
shotgun; it fires two shells at once, forcing a reload after every pull of the
trigger. This is my favorite weapon in the game, not just because it’s twice as
powerful and has a higher spread as the regular shotgun, but because it also
just feels satisfying to use against enemies both old and new. Yeah, the reload
animation is slower than the regular shotgun; but the damage output more than
makes up for it.
**
The new enemies range from okay to brutal!
The Hell Knights aren’t too bad –
smaller and weaker versions of the pink Hell Barons; neither are the
Arachnotrons - which are essentially the same thing only with respect to the
Masterminds and sporting plasma guns. Even the bloated Mancubi aren’t too
difficult to deal with, though their dual flame cannons pack one hell of a punch
(Okay, I’m not even going to try to stop anymore)!
It’s the next few that always cause
me grief whenever they appear!
Zombie Chaingunners, much like the
Arachnotrons, won’t stop firing until you hit them. The difference being that
the former uses a hit-scan weapon, so you can’t dodge their shots. They also
have disgustingly long range so you may find yourself taking hits and not
knowing where the damage is coming from until you notice the flashing at the
other side of a map.
Pain Elementals are constructed
similarly to Cacodemons only they don’t attack you, instead spawning Lost Souls
to do the job for them. They’ll keep spawning these tiny abominations until and
even AFTER you kill them! This makes
them very troublesome to even deal with or even hit effectively, especially if
there are multiple enemies or Elementals in the general area.
Revenants are tall living skeletons
that utilize shoulder-mounted launchers that will most likely home-in on you.
Their shots track you to an angering degree and can only be blocked by level
architecture or other enemies; they can also punch you if you get close enough.
There’s always a sense of dread that occurs whenever I run into these bastards
in anything that isn’t a wide-open area because I know that, more often than
not, their shots WILL home in on me and I won’t be able to evade them!
…and then there are Arch-Viles -
these incredibly fast moving and emaciated demons that can engulf the player in
flames via line of sight and can revive any dead enemies, that is, if their
mangled corpses are present; though I’m not sure if they can revive any of
their own kind. The fact that they can continuously revive everything from a
regular zombie to a Revenant is the main reason why I can’t stand these guys!
Couple that with the strength and speed attributes that I mentioned earlier and
their flames blocking your vision when they appear, preventing you from seeing
where you are going, and you have the makings of an incredibly irritating
enemy!
The enemies, in-general, also
teleport in and out of rooms more often, seemingly at random; though most
likely whenever you pick up an item or hit a switch. As a result, you’re WILL
find yourself taking a lot of potshots in a number of situations during your
first playthrough! Granted, this was also present in the first game, but the
degree present here is almost painful!
As you may have guessed at this
point; dealing with these new creatures, in addition with the greater emphasis
on teleportation, can be extremely frustrating at times; more so on the higher
difficulties!
**
The final boss, the Icon of Sin,
operates differently from the bosses from the first game; which (to go off on a
quick tangent) are far more common than they used to be. The only way to damage
it is to hit his exposed brain with rockets (which you have to do five times,
by the way, and they can only be rockets). However, in order to reach it you
have to flip the switch at the far end of the map to lower an elevator centered
in a pool of acid. The platform itself raises past the designated area, meaning
that you’ll need to time your shots well or you’ll have to wait for the
elevator to lower again.
Aside from requiring a greater
degree of timing and strategy than the dynamic duo, what makes this boss so
difficult (aside from the lack of free-aim) are the enemies that it spawns
during the fight or rather that fact that it’s constantly spawning them throughout
the fight. I don’t mean just regular zombies or Imps; I’m talkin’ Cacodemons,
Mancubi, and the God-forsaken Revenants! In addition to keeping both your
health and ammo in check, you also have to worry about keeping your balance on
the elevator because of projectiles that you can’t meaningfully avoid and the
knockback that accompanies it. Bear in mind that the arena itself has almost no
items to replenish any lost ammo or health so try not to lose too much of
either.
**
The level design has become far
more spacious and complex, the latter being understandable given that this is
supposed to be a follow-up. Though, there are those stages that just feel like
the developers just felt like messing around with the mechanics; like a
Cyberdemon facing off against a Mastermind or sprinting off of a ledge to cross
an acid pool because of a lacking jump mechanic.
It’s also because of the enhanced
level design that I found myself getting lost more often. The wider-open areas
make the automap less useful, given that it doesn’t show the entire stage even
when it’s fully zoomed out. Still, this wasn’t too bad as I was still able to
navigate through the level with relative ease thanks to notable landmarks
within the level itself; although, the keys and switches on display here took
me far longer to hunt down and just as long to find what they affected in the
level.
Finally, it’s worth noting that
this game supposedly required slightly more powerful hardware due to the more
complicated maps and larger amount of enemies. Chances are, if your computer
can run the first game (and it was made some time during the new millennium),
it should be able to run this one just fine.
**
Different from the first game is
the lacking episodic structure. The game is still split into several parts, but
progression from one part into another is more streamlined and simple; just
level-to-level through the entire game. Luckily, this means that you can keep
any previously obtained weapons and permanent upgrades throughout the entire game
– just remember to load a previous save file upon death or you’ll have to start
from scratch.
This simplification also shortens
the number of secret stages available. Whereas the first game sported three
(one for each episode and four if you include the expansion) this game only has
two which are accessible around the mid-game. The levels themselves act as
homages to Wolfenstein 3D, being that they are the first and final levels
ripped right out of first episode of that game. The secret stages come equipped
with their respective aesthetics and even the SS Guards with their iconic death
screams. It’s the equivalent of playing Wolf 3D with Doom’s physics, lighting,
items, and control and (in my opinion) offers a much better experience than
Wolf 3D as a whole.
In order to access the second
“super-secret” level, you have to find the secret exit in the first one;
located in the exact spot as the one in Wolf 3D. Oddly enough, it’s the only
secret stage to incorporate a music track from the respective game; the first
level only plays Doom II’s ending theme. The second secret level itself is
pretty disappointing given that it IS built from the boss stage in the first
episode of Wolf 3D, with the boss here being a Cyberdemon instead of burly Hans
Grosse.
After the boss is another Id easter
egg; four Commander Keens being hung by a rope – as if the developers wanted
the franchise to die in the most literal way possible. You have to kill all of
them to reveal the exit, though having their bodies melt away leaving only
their heads in a pool of blood and guts is just visually disturbing; well, more
so than usual.
**
The visuals are almost one-to-one
identical to those in the first game and this is where I started noticing how
gruesome the death animations and sounds were for all of the enemies. This is
mostly because of the scene at the end of the game - which is essentially a
slideshow of all of the monsters, including your player model, complete with
moving and dying animations. Aside from the ‘Keen’ example that I mentioned
earlier; there are also things like Chaingunners heads exploding and Mancubi
given the same treatment, this time with their backs partially melting off just
to let you know how dead they are.
The same critique can apply to the
audio and many of the issues that I had with the previous game. The preemptive
strike issue that I brought up in the original game is far worse because of the
greater emphasis on teleportation and, more often than not, I found myself
taking pot shots after teleporting into a certain room – which, needless to
say, frustrated the hell out of me on lower levels of health.
There was also one point when I got
stuck on the stage 'Dead Simple' because the platform that was supposed to
raise after killing all of the enemies didn’t raise at all.
**
Separate from the main game are the
Master Levels – a series of about 20 individual stages created by various
designers and released a few months after Doom II. As you can no doubt tell by
the title, these are significantly more difficult and complex than anything in
the base game. Personally, these were
the hardest levels that I’ve ever played so far and there were times that I had
to look up a guide simply because I didn’t know where to go; especially in the
Teeth and Vesperas stages which I absolutely hated because of the overall
layout and the enemy placement.
All of the stages here are meant to
replace levels in the base game and you are supposed to load each of them
individually – which I found odd, not to mention needlessly convoluted. I never
understood why the developers couldn’t either implement the expansion into the
main game similar to The Ultimate Doom in the first game or bundle all of the
stages for a separate, but still playable, executable file. Thankfully, I
managed to find a file that allows me to play the entire expansion in the same
manner as the original game.
The only other aspect that I will
bring to mention is the starry night skyboxes used for some of the stages which
I found to be a pleasant contrast to the usual blood red sky behind a range of
mountains or burning buildings.
**
Overall, Doom II is essentially
more of the original Doom only with new items, enemies, and more complex level
design. It’s far more difficult than the original Doom, especially on the
higher difficulties, so keep that in mind those of you who haven’t played the
original game.
Unfortunately, it was the last
classic Doom title to implement anything new mechanically, every following game
made use of the engine and assets used in Doom II. This also holds true in
regards to the modding community. There are A LOT of mods for this game; from
custom weapons to custom music.
My personal favorite mods out of
the bunch are both Brutal Doom and WolfenDoom:
The former, created by Sergeant
Mark IV, ramps up the violence to an almost disturbing degree! Enemies and
weapons behave differently along with there being more weapons to boot, there
are more visual effects like added gore, there are more difficulty
levels…honestly; I’d be here all day if I went into detail with everything that
this mod offers! The only other notable feature that I will mention is that you
can change certain aspects of the mod like disabling reloads.
WolfenDoom by Laz Rojas is, as you
may have guessed, is a recreation of Wolfenstein 3D using Doom’s engine. This
includes the main game along with the expansion pack, Spear of Destiny
alongside IT’S expansion pack, and several custom episodes. To me, this is the
definitive way to play Wolf 3D as it offers everything that its successor
improved upon while improving the foundations of the core game; just be sure to
go with the updated versions as they are more faithful to the original games.
Speaking of which, if you want to
run a specific mod(s) then you’re going to have to find a compatible source
engine as well as owning a .WAD file of whatever Doom title you wish to run
them on. Source engines were basically the community obtaining the Doom source
code and tweaking the hell out of it, not only allowing for a more modern,
uh…classic Doom experience but also some custom features that really enhance
the experience.
I recommend gzDoom as it offers so
much customization on just about every aspect of the game and running mods from
it is as simple as dragging the files into the executable file.
However, if you’re looking for a
bit of fast-paced online action then I would recommend checking out something
like Zandronum. In addition to supporting many of the same features and mods as
gzDoom, you can also participate in variations of online cooperative and
competitive play. Doom and Doom II came equipped with their own multiplayer
components at launch, but Zandronum makes accessing it much simpler. All you
really need to access it is a server browser, which you can download alongside
the engine, and the same mods and add-ons as whoever you are playing with.
**
More than anything else and much
like the original Doom, I heavily recommend playing this on the PC. It truly is
the best way to experience the game allowing you to fully customize your
experience to your liking. All of that said, this was still a great game that
reuses many assets from the previous game, but manages them alongside what
little it adds to keep the experience fresh and fun to play.
