Doom 2

 

Doom 2 needs no introduction, it released just around a year after the first game and the basic idea was to just give more of the same, more levels, more weapons, more monsters, same great gameplay and engine.

This time around the game no longer deals with episodic content, but one straight slew of 32 back to back levels. Frankly I prefer the first games episodic style, its nice to have distinct broken up parts that give you distinct premises to each part of the game, but this is fine too. Its interesting because in the first game, you couldn't carry your weapons to the next episode so you had periodic total weapon resets, whereas in Doom 2 once you get all the weapons, its basically impossible to lose them as you'll be quicksaving so much so very shortly into the game you have every weapon and you never get rid of them which is an interesting gameplay change.

Doom 2 introduces a new weapon: the Super Shotgun. This is one of, if not the most iconic weapon in all of video games. Its a double barrel shotgun with a loud clacking reload sound effect, and an extremely satisfying "BOOM!" sound effect when you shoot. The original shotgun shoots something like 8 pellets per shot, but the Super Shotgun shoots 20 something pellets. This means with just one pull of the trigger you can clear out almost an entire room of lower tier enemies, which is both extremely fun but also effective. The other new additions are the monsters.

Doom 2 introduces the most engaging, iconic, and action packed monsters that in hindsight are kind of sorely missed in the first game. These monsters are, the Arch-vile which is a very threatening humanoid monster that both resurrects other dead enemies, but also targets in a flame wall at you and if you dont break line of sight within a few seconds, deals massive damage. This monster when clever placed by map makers can completely change a dynamic of a room/map and adds for lots of jumpscares and challenging moments.

Another new enemy, the chaingunner is a bane of many players existence. It is this hitscanning shot (meaning it doesn't shoot slow moving projectiles, but once it fires the bullet will automatically guaranteed hit you after a successful RNG check) spray of automatic gunshots that if you stand out in the open will absolutely shred the player in a few moments if theres more than one of them on screen. They can shoot you across the map, too. Personally, I really like the chaingunners, they add so much new interesting dynamic encounters to maps, it allows for map makers to make open areas intimidating and it adds even more things the player has to watch out for to not take chunks of damage off his health.

The Hell Knight is another 'new' monster. It is basically just a reskin of the red Baron of Hell, just with half health, in order for this monster to be commonly placed around maps without being a giant bullet sponge like the Barons are. This is a smart addition, it allows for fun projectile based fights to happen more often without relying on the overly tanky barons.

Then you have Revenants. This is a monster equipped with rocket launchers on his back that shoots rockets at you that even follow you around the map! These rockets are homing missles that do not let up, unless you cleverly guide it into a wall or another monster. These encounters are really fun and engaging, it especially makes open areas even better because now you can do this sort of dance back and forth with the rockets really utilizing the speed and intensity of Doom's movement controls. Couple the Revenants rockets with Chaingunners or even an Archvile and you have yourself a really challenging, exciting, and fast paced combat encounter thats only possible in Doom 2.

A few other new monsters are Mancubus, which is this big blob monstrosity that also shoots multiple rockets at you, but aren't homing. Then you have Pain Elemental, which i call "Spawners" - these guys periodically spit out Lost Souls that can add up quickly, so they can be a real challenge if you dont deal with them as soon as possible. Another really fun addition and much welcome challenge added to the maps.

And last bot not least you have the Arachnotrons, basically just mini baby spider versions of the last boss of Doom 1. A very smart addition, it allows for fast firing projectile shots to be introduced to the map to force you to use mobility and cover even more than before.

The new monsters are brilliant, it adds so much challenge and gameplay opportunities to the levels that were not before possible. Its not just a few new gimmicks thrown in because they had to, it feels really well crafted and thought out and each monster serves a distinct purpose and adds very fun dynamics to each area.

Doom 2 mostly has a brand new Soundtrack, as well. And most of these songs are timeless classics, although a few of them lean more on the goofy/silly side reminiscent of Commander Keen stuff. Some silly sounding trumpet/flute solos or weird phrases of the midi instrumentation which sounds kind of lame and stupid. At times makes you think of clown carnival music more than intense scary threatening soundscapes. I mean I wouldn't really change a thing about it, it is what it is, it certainly adds character and charm to the game, but it must be noted nonetheless.

Sadly its not all great new additions, though. While the first 10 or so levels are brilliant masterpieces, there are quite a few blunders and far too much experimentation with gimmicks in Doom 2. A lot of the times with these new maps, it feels like they were thinking "Just how far can we push the engine here with these map designs?" moreso than carefully wanting to craft interesting gameplay areas. For instance, the first questionable map, map09, The Pit, is a series of gigantic vertical elevators and series of switches that open remote walls elsewhere in the map that require constant back and forth, up and down backtracking, that can just get a bit frustrating and boring to navigate. Its like they just wanted to test how vertical they could make things. It only gets worse from here, mostly too. Then you have maps like #13 Downtime, which is an infamous Sandy Peterson map. This is Doom's attempt to make a city level, of all things. You have this big outdoors area with a dozen or so giant builing complexes you can enter, but the whole thing is laid out in such a mindfuck way none of it really makes sense and is a total pain in the ass to navigate. Its so bad that even the developer had to put a giant arrow on the ground trying to point the player where to go. Its just not a very fun map, and even after multiple playthroughs still takes me 30+ minutes to get through it, mostly running in circles not even fighting monsters but looking for the next cryptic passage I have to go through to progress.

There are multiple experimental outdoor levels too, map #15 is much of the same idea as Downtown, this time made by John Romero, but its equally full of cryptic bullshit. Like moments where you have to press a mandatory secret wall which reveals the blue keycard. Just why? It looks like a random ordinary wall, but is required to progress. Its just stupid and wastes your time. You even have to somehow know to jump into the pit of green damaging lava, to run across the map into a teleporter in the corner to progress. Its just nonsensical bullshit like this that wastes your time that makes the maps even more annoying than they should have been. Oh, and the maps are ugly as sin too. Since they are experimenting with the limits of the engine and opt for scope over fidelity and impressive well crafted environments, a lot of the maps end up looking like giant boxy ugly set pieces in order to accomplish these wild experiments.  Other maps like #19 Citadel is yet another attempt at this outdoors/indoors concept. This time its a giant castle, this map looks pretty cool and is conceptually a good idea just the execution sucks. Its more of this "Where the fuck do I go?" kind of thing where youll be spending more time running in circles doing nothing rather than fighting enemies. Mandatory progress routes hidden behind bullshit secret walls, random ass teleports, nonsensical 'platforming' sections...and so on. Some of the decisions with these maps are just mindboggling and just not fun to play through sometimes.  
 Map #24 Citadel is infamously shit, too. Another Sandy Peterson map (well, half the game is him). This map is a giant vertical tightrope over a pit of death. You spend the whole map slowly inching around these pencil thin tightropes all the while being attacked by Lost souls and hitscanners, having to jump into death pits for mandatory progress to find random teleports, more nonsensical progress routes and keycard locations, its just bad and obnoxiously annoying to get through every single time.

And then other maps like #28 Spirit world are full of more heinous bullshit. Like theres a wall in here that looks like every other wall, but you somehow have to know to SHOOT it (not press it) for it to open up the mandatory progress path. What the fuck? Why would anyone ever put that in the game. First time I played this map I ran around for literally an hour desperately trying to find out what to do. Eventually had to look it up, and when I found thats what you had to do I just facepalmed and stared in disbelief. Thats not the only shit part of the map either, the rest of the map is full of nonsensical stuff. Like the throne room part you also have to do some obscure cryptic shit to open a mandatory wall that I also forget. Maybe the map is called "Spirit world" because the basic laws of physics and logic dont apply, sure, but it doesn't exactly make for a fun gameplay experience. At least you have these epic battles with Cyber demons and all sorts of hordes of enemies coming at you and you can grab God mode to deal with them, its not all bad, just some of the progress routes are abysmally stupid.

The other maps are more or less average to okay. The first 10 maps are amazing, like I said before. If only the rest of the game was like that. It just feels like after those maps they lean hard into the experimentation side of design, and a lot of the experiments fall flat and suck to play. Still, Doom 2 is a classic game, if even for the new monster additions and the Super Shotgun, added great content for the modding scene and custom mapping scenes, it has to be praised for that alone. But the actual maps in the campaign are often times disappointing and downright annoying. The last 'boss' is iconic, though. The Icon of Sin is this arena stage where enemies keep spawning all around you by a giant cube flying out of a goat face on the wall, you hear a creepy demon voice (That when reversed is John Romero saying; "To beat the game you must kill me, John Romero" which is amazing). You have to grab the rocket launcher and go up on the elevator platform and shoot the rocket at just the right time to shoot the goat paintings head, beating the game. Maybe the first time playing this map it is another instance of cryptic bullshit thus makes for a stupid map, but its such an iconic and amazing concept and map design that I cant even fault it for it. Also the fact that John Romeros head is hidden inside the wall is just priceless, too.

7/10