Doom II Retrospective Review

By: Nik S

What does a company do when it creates a massively popular shareware game? Create a sequel and commercialize it, of course. After the massive success of Doom, id Software decided that they had to up their game with a sequel. The game came out the following year and came up against some tough competition in the first-person genre, though most of them Doom clones. It's safe to say that Doom II also feels like a Doom clone.

When you first pick up Doom II it looks and feels like its predecessor, as controls remain the same and the graphics aren't too different (just a few touch-ups here and there). The game is set immediately after the first and starts you off on Earth. You can tell it's Earth because they used green texture on the ground to represent grass, otherwise, you couldn't tell the difference between it and Mars/Phobos. 

Despite numerous similarities, there were a few additions and changes. The levels this time around are much larger in scale and way more complex than they were in the original. It was easy to get lost in the first, but at the same time, it was easy to get yourself back on track. The sequel can make you run around for quite some time before you realize you forgot to look behind a pillar for a staircase into the next room. There are more wide-open areas to explore than narrow hallways, and you can tell id was trying to keep up with the rapid change in computer technology.

Now that there are more wide-open areas, id felt the need to pack each and every corner with demons ready to slaughter you. There are also more joining the fray, as with your regular demons from the first game (like imps, zombieman, cacodemons, etc.) you now have Chaingunner, Hell knight (which is a recolored Baron of hell), revenant, mancubus, arachnotron (a smaller version of the Spiderdemon boss from the first game), pain elemental (a redesigned cacodemon that shots lost souls), the arch-vile (an enemy that can lock onto you and revive demons), and lastly the Icon of Sin (final boss).

All of the original weapons make a comeback, with a new addition: the Super Shotgun. The classic shotgun from the original seemed to be the overpowered weapon everyone was drawn to and it's really no different in the sequel. The newest weapon is more powerful, as it takes two shells to fire if you're at point-blank range. Unless you're dealing with a baddy up-close-and-personal, you're rarely (if ever) going to use the super shotgun.

The ports still have a few issues with them, which are easily overlookable. The odd frames every now and again, and enemies looking super blocky if they get too close. The borders do seem to squish the aspect ratio, but it's if you're dealing with the Switch version. Also, as stated in the first review, Bethesda is still having you log into a Bethesda account for DRM purposes.

Bethesda still claims they are going to remove it, but currently, we haven't seen any progression on this promise.

The Doom II version ported to consoles contains the Hell on Earth (the original 30 levels) and the Master Levels if you want to prove your merit to the game. Some fans are upset that the expansion No Rest for the Living (originally released for the Xbox 360) is nowhere to be found.

Overall, the game isn't better or worse than its predecessor. This one boils down to your own preferences. There are times where it just feels like a giant expansion to the original, and then there are some levels that give you a new challenge. The game overall feels harder and depending on if you thought the original was too easy this can be a good or bad thing. Personally? I could have done without the pain elemental as that basically became my arch-nemesis throughout the game. However, I did have a good time with it despite my numerous deaths, just not as good of a time as I did with Doom. Regardless, you're still going to get what you paid for with this game: running, gunning, and killing demons.