Released: 26 July 2019
Originally Released: 10 October 1994
Developer: Bethesda Softworks
Original Developer: id Software
Also Available For: Android/iOS, Game Boy Advance, MS-DOS, Nintendo Switch, PC/PC-98Mac, PlayStation, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, SEGA Saturn, Tapwave Zodiac, Xbox 360, Xbox One

The Background:
Although the first-person shooter (FPS) genre existed before Doom (ibid, 1993), it was largely defined by this heavily ported and much celebrated title, which popularised online “Deathmatches” and improved upon mechanics established by its forefather, Wolfenstein 3D (id Software, 1992). id co-founder and lead programmer John Carmack created the game alongside designer John Romero and lead artist Adrian Carmack; after a troubled development, Doom proved immensely popular (despite its controversial violence and Satanic imagery), so much so that it was banned from workplaces and met with widespread critical acclaim. As if Doom’s many ports weren’t enough, a sequel was released just ten months later; many of Doom II’s levels were designed by Sandy Petersen, and they proved far bigger than those of the first game. Additionally, Doom II was much faster and more focused on action, with more enemies appearing onscreen at any one time, and the developers even included one of gaming’s most notorious Easter Eggs when they hid an image of Romero’s decapitated head behind the game’s final boss, the “Icon of Sin”. Like its predecessor, Doom II was an incredibly successful title upon release; critics lauded the game for refining everything that worked in the first, featuring far better map designs, even if it was essentially a glorified expansion of the original. Speaking of which, Doom II was accompanied by two expansion packs, the “Master Levels” and “No Rest for the Living”, which added additional maps and challenges to the game, and also received its fair share of ports over the years. More recently, Romero created an entirely new level for the game in a bid to raise money for Ukraine following Russia’s abhorrent invasion.

The Plot:
After a secret Union Aerospace Corporation (UAC) teleportation experiment opened a portal to Hell, a lone marine (popularly known as the “Doomguy”) was able to stave off the invading demons. His victory is short lived, however, as the forces of Hell begin invading Earth and he’s forced to venture into the bowels of the underworld to save what’s left of humanity.

Gameplay:
Like its predecessor, and as you’re no doubt aware, Doom II is a first-person shooter. Unlike other FPS games, Doom II retains the exact same control scheme, mechanics, and limitations of the first game, meaning there’s no jumping or awkward first-person platforming required, no strafing options, no quick turn, auto healing, or cover-based mechanics, and you still can’t aim the crosshair anywhere except left and right. As before, this isn’t really an issue, however, as the crosshair will change from yellow to read when you’re in range of a viable target, no matter how high or low there are, and this version of auto-aiming is great for picking enemies off from a distance or while safely on the high ground. If you want to make things harder on yourself, or clean up the heads-up display (HUD), you can turn the crosshair off from the options menu, which also allows you to activate or deactivate the auto-run function (I recommend leaving it on, especially as Doom II is much faster and more action-packed than the last game). Otherwise, everything’s exactly the same as it was in Doom: you still don’t need to worry about reload times (with the exception of the game’s one new weapon, the Super Shotgun), and you can still carry multiple weapons at once, the Right Trigger fires your current weapon, the Right and Left Bumpers or directional pad cycle through your arsenal, Y brings up a basic wireframe map (which is still incredibly confusing but better than nothing), and A allows you to open doors or activate switches. There are five difficulty settings to choose from, all of which change the aggressiveness and number of enemies in a level, and you’re able to select any level you wish right from the start but you’ll only pop those Achievements if you play through each level in turn.  Unlike the last game, Doom II isn’t divided into individual story chapters in quite the same way; there’s no longer a central hub to worry about and the game’s different arenas are separated by story text, which is actually in your benefit as you’ll now keep your current health, armour, weapons, and ammo between chapters and only lose everything if you die in a level this time around. You can once again keep track of all these in the HUD, which also indicates when you’ve collected the coloured key cards or skulls you need to open certain doors, activate certain lifts, or remove certain pillars and blockades to progress.

You still don’t have to worry about doing any swimming, but poison, lava, crushing traps, and teleporters continue to be prominent stage hazards. Thankfully, enemies can still attack and kill each other, which is extremely useful and fun, and there’s still a lot of explosive barrels around to help take out larger groups of enemies. The bulk of your time will be spent exploring Doom II’s far bigger and more complex levels; areas are much more likely to take on a maze-like quality and it’s easy to get turned around since everything looks the same and it’s often not clear what switches have activated. You’ll need to make use of rising platforms, elevators, and extremely narrow pathways (usually over poison or lava pits) to progress, and traps and areas are often activated by you walking to a certain spot, which can make things confusing when you don’t go where you’re supposed to. Another big improvement in Doom II that’ll quickly become obvious to you is just how many enemies can now swarm the screen. Picking up keys or skulls or entering certain areas often triggers the spawning of dozens of imps and demons, and many enemies are now capable of teleporting in and around the immediate area to really get under your skin. Enemies will pop out from behind hidden walls or cages, and you’ll often encounter a far greater variety in far greater numbers than was ever possible in the first game. Since a lot of Doom II takes place on an Earth overrun with the hordes of Hell, you’ll find a few maps infused with urban trappings like buildings and libraries alongside the usual gothic castles and Satanic dungeons; this adds a decent amount of visual variety to the game, but also makes navigating a bit of a chore as it’s easy to just run around in circles with no idea of where you’re supposed to go. This time around, the game asks you to take running “jumps” to cross gaps or tiny platforms and crates to reach keys, and you’ll often go out of your way to grab a coloured key only for it to open a door to a virtual dead end. You’ll need to look for switches, some of which open secret areas but only for a short time, but some doors and switches need to be shot to activate and it’s not always clear when this is the case. Teleport puzzles, areas filled with explosive barrels, traversing dark corridors, and crossing lava and poison bodies are commonplace tasks the game throws at you, and you’ll find your exits soon change from doors and switches to holes that lead deeper and deeper into Hell.

Graphics and Sound:
Graphically, Doom II isn’t really doing anything new that wasn’t seen in Doom; the game runs faster, certainly, has bigger and more complicated level layouts for sure, and is capable of rendering way more enemies at once (with former sub-bosses regularly cropping up at the worst possible times). Like its predecessor, Doom II makes great use of lighting to create a tense, horrifying atmosphere; some areas are in pitch blackness, others are partially lit by flickering lights or candles (with these light sources doubling as arrows pointing the way), but many are fully lit, showcasing the advanced technology of UAC’s outposts and facilities. The Satanic imagery and demonic influence is stronger than ever since you venture deeper into Hell, resulting in eviscerated corpses hanging from hooked chains or splattered across the walls, beating hearts on alters, pentagrams and demon skulls painted everywhere, and even rivers and waterfalls of blood, poison, and lava amongst crooked trees and an ashen Hellscape. Sadly, other areas aren’t quite as impressive; the urban environments are very bland and simple, with exteriors appearing like something out of Minecraft (Mojang Studios, 2011). Doom II is at its best when rendering interior environments, especially when the walls are pulsating with flesh and viscera but, even then, you’ll come across these weird glitchy blue and red blocks and platforms that just look ugly.

The soundtrack, while suitably foreboding and a fantastic expansion on the original game, is also more of the same; like everything in the game, it’s been supped a little but is, essentially, the same kind of thing you experienced from Doom. Similarly, enemies and objects continue to be comprised of 2D sprites to continue that diorama-like presentation of the first game, and still howl and snort from the darkness to keep the adrenaline pumping at all times. While the game gives the illusion of having far bigger areas, especially in urban environments, many of the assets are recycled from the first game and, due to the claustrophobic and similar nature of the game’s many levels, it’s easy to get lost since everything in a UAC facility, Hellscape, or urban environment looks the same. Darkened areas, hidden passageways, and twisting pathways only add to the game’s increasing maze-like layouts, though the gothic, Satanic dungeons and sheer number and variety of enemies make the game far more action-orientated as you’re often beset by huge lumbering demons while frantically searching for the next door or key. The HUD continues to be one of the game’s most entertaining features as a pixelated representation of Doomguy reacts when hurt or picking up power-ups, though the game’s story is still told entirely through text. Considering how simple Doom’s story is, it never fails to surprise me just how much text is spewed at the player between chapters and you’re not really missing much at all if you simply skip past these interludes.

Enemies and Bosses:
Those who have played the original Doom will be more than familiar with the vast majority of Doom II’s demonic enemies as everything you encountered in the first game makes a return here, with some of the larger and more formidable demons appearing as regular enemies across Doom II’s levels. Pistol and shotgun-toting zombie marines are plentiful, as are fireball-tossing Imps, monstrous Pinkies (which can also be invisible), bulbous Cacodemons, and the ever-annoying Lost Souls, flaming skulls that fly right in your face with a hideous screech! The hulking Barons of Hell and mechanically-enhanced Spiderdemons frequently crop up as regular enemies, often guarding keys or exits but also randomly tossed into wide open and enclosed areas or behind doors when you least expect it, and you’ll even find a more formidable version of the Cacodemon, the “Pain Elemental”, which spits and spews Lost Souls at you!

It’s a good job these tougher enemies are so prominent as Doom II is disappointingly short on actual boss battles; instead, you’ll usually have to fight past some of these bigger, tougher enemies to reach the chapter’s exit and progress to the next, but there’s only really one actual boss battle in the whole game. To make up for this, Doom II does feature some new enemies: rotund grunts packing chainguns are commonplace, as are Hell Knights (weaker versions of the Baron of Hell), and you’ll often jump out of your skin when the armour-clad, skeletal Revenants scream from afar and fire missiles right at your face! The Mancubus is equally grotesque; this hideous, semi-cybernetic blob plods about blasting its arm-mounted flamethrowers at you, and you’ll also have to contend with the Arachnotrons (smaller, faster versions of the Spiderdemon) and the tall, eviscerated Arch-viles, which can heal nearby enemies and engulf you in flames. If you manage to find the game’s secret exits, you’ll also get to battle enemies from Wolfenstein 3D but the only boss in the entire game is the Icon of Sin, a titanic biomechanical demonic goat head set into a wall of flesh and wires. The Icon of Sin constantly spawns every enemy in the game to protect itself, meaning the arena quickly becomes awash with projectiles, roars, and danger, and the only way to damage and kill it is to fight your way to a switch to activate a central column. Ride this up, making liberal use of the invulnerability power-ups to protect yourself, and desperately fire rockets at the Icon of Sin’s small brain port to try and cause splash damage to the hidden sprite of John Romero’s severed head while monsters scream, fire, and backwards words erupt all around you in this thrilling, if a bit frustrating, boss encounter.

Power-Ups and Bonuses:
You might’ve guessed by now but everything that you had access to in the last game returns here; you start off with just a crappy pistol and your bare fists, but soon you’re nabbing my weapon of choice, the shotgun, a rapid-fire chaingun, a rocket launcher and plasma cannon, and you’ll of course find the iconic BFG-9000 to wipe out enemies on one burst of green energy. The only new weapon in the game is the Super Shotgun, a double-barrelled shotgun that uses twice the ammo, has twice the kick-back, and is the only weapon with an onscreen reloaded animation. Still, for close encounters, it’s tough to find much better than this bad boy. You’ll find stimpacks and medikits to restore your health, armours to increase your resistance to attack (and bonus jars and armour to take both beyond the 100% cap), special suits to let you safely walk over lava and poison for a limited time, the odd light amplification visors to light up dark areas, and the computer area map to uncover the entire map. As before, you can also pick up temporary power-ups like the Berserk, Invulnerability, Partial Invisibility (which never seems to work as enemies always attacked me regardless), Supercharge, and the one new power-up, the Megasphere (which maxes your health and armour to 200%) to cut through the hoards of enemies you’ll encounter at the cost of severely reducing your visibility with a glaring change of colour palette.

Additional Features:
There are nineteen Achievements to earn in Doom II, with three of these popping after successfully completing each themed chapter of the game and others being awarded for killing one of every enemy, getting one hundred chainsaw kills, killing yourself and an enemy with a rocket, or discovering first one and then all the secret levels. These secret levels are accessed through some elaborate means within specific levels of the game, which have you finding a secret exit and being transported to levels from Doom’s forefather, Wolfenstein 3D, which is a fun little inclusion. You’ll also get an Achievement for finishing every level on “Nightmare” difficulty in co-operative mode, and for killing your teammate in co-op, which makes a return here and can be a fun experience even with the odd split-screen presentation. Also returning is the famed deathmatch mode, which allows you and a bunch of friends to battle for supremacy on a variety of maps and with some customisable gameplay options. This version of Doom II also includes the twenty fan-created “Master Levels” add-on, which add a number of unique and creative additional levels to the game. These are accessed from a level select menu and are played in turn, meaning your weapons, health, and armour reset to the default at the start of each one and they can be very challenging as the layouts are much more complex and required liberal use of a guide on my part.

The Summary:
I found Doom II to present something of a quandary; on the one hand, it’s undeniably bigger and better than the original in every way, with more diverse levels and an impressive number of enemies swarming the screen at any one time. On the other hand, it offers very little improvements over Doom apart from being faster, bigger, and a more action-packed. One new weapon and one new power-up is kind of a disappointment, and the shift towards urban environments swarming with demons helps to mix up the sci-fi and Hell-based aesthetic but these levels are objectively some of the worst and most annoying in the game. The new enemies are a great addition, however, upping the ante considerably and making for an even more gory and twisted experience but the lack of big, engaging boss battles is a major drawback for me. Considering how many ports and revisions Doom got, it’s surprising how safe this sequel is; the game is more like another glorified expansion pack to Doom, offering a bunch of new maps to wade through and some new enemies to encounter and very little else. Adding a couple of extra new weapons and power-ups and maybe some new gameplay mechanics might’ve helped tip this one further up the pecking order in my eyes, but it looks, plays, and feels far too much like Doom to really rate much higher than the first game. On the plus side, the sheer size and action offered by Doom II make it technically more appealing than the first game and I’d absolutely recommend that you own this one if you could only own one of the classic Doom titles, but that’s simply because of how much faster it is and the impressive number and variety of enemies on show. Basically, Doom II is Doom plus one, if that makes sense; it’s everything you know and love from the first game, with some very minor new additions to spice things up, but maybe plays things a little too safe and therefore comes across as another expansion pack for the trend-setting original rather than being able to truly stand on its own merits.

My Rating:

Great Stuff

Did you enjoy Doom II? How would you rate it compared to the original? What did you think to the new levels offered by the game and the larger numbers of enemies? Were you also disappointed by the lack of new weapons and power-ups? Do you have fond memories of playing deathmatches on this one or did you put more time into the original Doom? What did you think to the secret Wolfenstein 3D levels and the final battle against the Icon of Sin? Whatever your thoughts on Doom II, or FPS games in general, drop a comment below.