Today is the 24th anniversary of Doom 2. Coincidentally, recently I just finished up Doom 2 Hell on Earth on UV difficulty (100% kills/items/secrets on all levels, where applicable) in DOSBox 0.74 and last month I also finished Ultimate Doom on UV difficulty (again DOSBox 0.74, 100% kills/items/secrets on all levels, where applicable). I must say I still enjoyed the original Doom games even after all these years, Doom (along with Duke3D and a few other popular old school FPS games) have stood the test of time and they will continue to be amazing even after all these years, thanks to the communities that keep the games alive! Here is a rundown of my thoughts about both games:
Of the original Doom, Knee-Deep in the Dead is the best episode of all 4 episodes in my opinion. It's not only because it was the shareware episode and the only episode I played as kid. But also because it's the most polished of all the other episodes (nearly the whole episode was made by John Romero who knew to design levels, with exception of a level in E4 which we will get shortly) and the most iconic. The Shores of Hell and Inferno, while were cool, some of the levels were a confusing mess in my opinion and much harder to navigate, so there were situations where I was lost and had to keep looking for a certain keycard or a certain door to progress. Maybe it would have helped more if I played these episodes as kid to have them printed in my memory as opposed to experiencing them first time. Thy Flesh Consumed, while was also new to me, it was much less confusing to navigate but suffered from balance issues, which I will get to right now.
Now I'm going to talk strictly about Thy Flesh Consumed. To me it felt like a compilation of levels made by various authors (which is actually true, as opposed to the other episodes that made logical sense of progression to some degree) to form an episode without putting much thought into balance of the levels. For instance, the first 2 levels were the most frustrating levels (and the only ones!) of both Doom games, while the rest episode was either challenging or easy. I understand that E4 was made in mind for veterans of the game, who thought the first 3 episodes were easy. But honestly having the first 2 levels (at least on UV skill) to be that hard is unacceptable for me. The first level Hell Beneath (on UV skill at least), has ONLY 9 health bonuses and NO health pickups at all. Though it does also have a green armor but that's all you will ever get in this level. Initially I made past the first few rooms with only minimal damage (I had 91% health left, which then with bonuses I got back to 100%) since I tried to play as carefully as possible but after I picked up the red key, everything went downhill with bullshit monster spawning (including a Baron) and some enemies shooting me THROUGH the walls (not kidding here). I died a few times here and I tried to go fast past enemies (using a secret door) to access the other room, just to be able to access the NIN (Nine Inch Nails) secret to press the torch which will reveal about 5 barons (seriously???) so I can get all the enemies behind the fence and blast them with the rocket launcher that I got from another secret, so I can get all the kills without running out of ammo since ammo is very scarce in this map. This of course also took me few tries but once I got them all I managed to 100% this level (although I initially had trouble triggering the secret in NIN room, so I had to walk over that sector several times to make sure to register the secret, since there is no way to tell in original DOS EXE that you've found a secret, unless you look at stats at end of level) and start the next level with relatively low health (only 26% health and about 70% armor) and oh boy, this fucking level.
Perfect Hatred, along with Hell Beneath, are the most unbalanced levels of the both Doom games (and possibly the other classic Doom games, yes I think both levels are even harder than TNT and Plutonia levels, since at least those levels give you enough supplies to survive). This level starts you immediately under attack against several enemies (imps and cacos) with 2 shotgunners in front and 2 medkits. You will be thinking that it's not that hard but you will probably soon change your mind and rage like I did at part when at least 5 cacodemons start surrounding you at start or a bit later when you are facing against several Barons at once (so much fun!) while all you have is a shotgun (with plenty shells but it can't handle several tough enemies at once), rocket launcher with few rockets and probably plasma gun with limited ammo, with very little space to dodge and very little health. Much like the previous level, I have died like 10-15 times. The trick is to run to start (ignore these first barons for now) and then you will be fighting against more barons and lost souls and so on. This level is a huge clusterfuck and there is almost no space to dodge, you will have to CONSTANTLY save and load to be able to beat this level, much like the previous one. I'm sorry but this is not how you design levels, by putting tons of dangerous enemies and very little cover and/or supplies. And I thought Wolfenstein 3D and Spear of Destiny had some frustrating as fuck levels (at least some of the levels) but these 2 levels were really AWFUL for Doom standards! At least you get to telefrag a Cyberdemon at end which reveals a BFG and the secret exit in this episode, if you know where it is located.
The rest levels aren't too bad in terms of difficulty, they are all much easier and give you some room to breathe, although the difficulty spikes up once again in...surprise surprise, the other level designed by Romero, Against Thee Wickedly. I will give that this time the level didn't frustrate me with all those lava floors and the Cyberdemon at end and I carefully followed a walkthrough for this level on YouTube (yes I watched a walkthrough, especially to 100% the levels since I suck at discovering most of secrets by myself) and was able to complete the level without too many problems, which allowed me to start next level with decent health (around 85% health) and be able to handle the next level fine until I start finding more health/armor supplies. Sadly I have died once in E4M7: And Hell Followed due to a crusher trap I didn't see but otherwise these were all my deaths in this entire episode (and entire Ultimate Doom and Doom 2 combined, yes I did Doom 2 without dying this time, see more below). Otherwise this level wasn't too bad and the Cyberdemon was easy to kill with the invulnerability secret. E4M8: Unto the Cruel was surprisingly easy with all the supplies you get, in that the Spiderdemon at end and all those enemies are no threat to you at all. I actually finished the level with full ammo on all weapons, 200% health and 200% armor. It was a bit anticlimatic but otherwise a much better designed level. I will say I enjoyed E4 slightly more compared to E2 and E3 only because of some levels being better designed but in terms of balance, it was all over the place and first 2 levels are the perfect example of how NOT to start an episode.
The most memorable levels for me (in a good way) were the entire E1 (except the secret level since I didn't find it as kid), E2M8 (Cyberdemon battle), E3M8 (Spiderdemon battle) and E4M8 (final level). The memorable levels (in a bad way) were E4M1 and E4M2 only for being poorly balanced, the former could have benefited for having a bit more health (making the same amount of health on all skills instead of making all medkits not appear at all on UV skill) and a bit more ammo added, the latter could have benefited for having way LESS enemies (less cacos and barons) attacking you at once and probably a bit more health added.
Now speaking of Doom 2, I know this might be an unpopular opinion but I overall preferred Doom 2 over Doom (ultimate) simply because of the new additions and superior level design, in my opinion. The levels weren't that confusing anymore (except Level 19: The Citadel, that is the ONLY level that I get confused every time I play Doom 2) and were more open ended and more memorable than a simple maze from episodes 2 and 3 (and episode 1 to some extent but those levels were much more memorable). Now I know that some people say that some levels in Doom 2 don't reflect their title (example MAP12 not resembling a factory or MAP13 not resembling downtown). I think with the resources they had at their time, they did a good job. But nothing beats the city levels from Duke3D which actually resemble a real place.
The Super Shotgun, Megasphere and the new enemies added into Doom 2 are a welcome addition (even if I admit chaingunners, pain elementals and archviles can be really annoying) and they increase the game's replay value, which is also one of main reasons why most mods are made for Doom 2. Plus it was annoying how in first Doom (at least in E4) you had to fight several BARONS at once (often with minimal resources), while right now not only we get the weaker Hell Knight variant (so you can use multiple Hell Knights without being cheap at times) but also the Super Shotgun that is strong against pretty much any monster. So we no longer have to fight stronger monsters with just the single barrel shotgun, except in rare cases and maybe in custom maps/wads.
I have said above that I have beaten entire Doom 2 without dying. Yes this is true, although I admit I did reload saved game few times in the final level Icon of Sin, when I was getting hurt/surrounded by many monsters or the rocket missing the brain, as I didn't want to die right at the end.
The most memorable levels for me were Entryway, The Crusher, Dead Simple, Tricks and Traps, Circle of Death (it's in the opening demo after all, though I wish they didn't re-record the demo in v1.9 and kept the same demo from v1.666 which was longer and player played better), Downtown, The Inmost Dens, The Industrial Zone, Gotcha!, Barrels o' Fun and Icon of Sin. Still I enjoyed pretty much any level in Doom 2 (yes I enjoyed even The Chasm, which most people hate, although I also disliked that part with the thin ledge which I had to carefully walk to not fall, while fighting cacos and lost souls) as opposed to only E1 and a few of each other episode in Ultimate Doom, therefore I enjoyed Doom 2 a lot more, despite the trickier level design of some levels.
If you are wondering about the maps where you can't get 100%, here they are:
In Ultimate Doom, only in E4M3 and E4M7 you can't get all secrets. In former you can get 90% secrets, in latter 50% secrets.
In Doom 2, maps 14, 21, 29 and 30 don't have any secrets at all, so they will display as 0% secrets at end of the level (at least in original DOS executable, in source ports like ZDoom based ports it will display 100% secrets instead).
Maps 15 and 27 have a teleporter tagged as a secret but it's impossible to tag the secret when crossing a teleporter, so you can't reach the secret unless you use IDCLIP (which I didn't, since I didn't want to use any cheats, even if it's just for getting an inaccessible secret), so the maximum secrets you can get is 90% in map 15 and 87% in map 27. However a while ago it was found that you can somehow tag the secret in map 27 using some linedef skip method and recently (just the last month I believe) it was found that you can get the inaccessible in map 15 using a pain elemental to push you into the secret (by lowering you into the secret sector) or something like that.
Map 27 also has a problem (at least in the original DOS exe) where there are 2 automaps present in the level and once you picked up the first one, it's impossible to pick up the second one. So you can only get 98% items in this level. Source ports like ZDoom based ports allow picking up multiple automaps, so you can get all items.
I'd also like to thank very much for Youtuber known as BigMacDavis for his wonderful 100% walkthroughs of Doom games. You can check his channel here, in case you also need to complete a Doom level 100%:
https://www.youtube....acDavis1/videos
Interestingly he is doing a Duke Nukem 3D 100% walkthrough currently, using the 20th anniversary World Tour edition, so it's worth checking out!
Soon I will be playing Master Levels, Final Doom and No Rest For The Living, when I get around playing them. I was thinking to also play The Lost Episodes of Doom, Perdition's Gate and Hell to Pay since they were semi-officially released (at least in that they were commercial wads) and they seem interesting.
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axl, on 30 September 2018 - 09:27 PM, said:
