Doom II

aka: Doom II: Hell on Earth
Moby ID: 299
DOS Specs
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Description official descriptions

In this sequel to the original Doom, the protagonist is still the same hero - the last remaining space marine. After having single-handedly saved Mars from demonic threat, he returns to Earth, only to find out that the demons have already invaded it, killed most of its inhabitants or possessed them. It's his task to bring down the force field around the last operational star port to allow the remnants of mankind to escape to the stars.

Doom II looks and plays very similarly to its predecessor, utilizing the same 3D graphical engine with 2D sprites for enemies. The gameplay once again consists entirely of navigating the hero from first-person view through 3D environments and shooting at the demons while attempting to find the way out by flipping switches and looking for keys. Unlike in Doom, which is divided into three episodes, the 30 levels of this game (plus the 2 secret levels) form one long episode.

The game adds one new weapon to the player's arsenal; the super shotgun, several new demon types with more advanced attacks than those of the predecessor, such as the chaingun-toting Heavy Weapon Dudes, the skeletal Revenants who launch homing missiles and the sinister Arch-Viles who have a highly damaging fire attack.

Spellings

  • ドゥームII - Japanese spelling
  • 毁灭战士2 - Simplified Chinese spelling

Groups +

Screenshots

Promos

Credits (DOS version)

21 People (19 developers, 2 thanks)

Biz
Programming
Music / Sound Programming
Level / Scenario Design
Graphics / Artwork
3D Modelling
Music
Sound
Support
Biz Assistant
Special Thanks To
Cover Illustration
French Translation
  • Art of Words
German Manual Translation

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 82% (based on 45 ratings)

Players

Average score: 4.0 out of 5 (based on 403 ratings with 19 reviews)

More DOOM!

The Good
Doom was the first shareware game that I actually went out and purchased. After playing it over and over, I was ready for Doom II and it didn't disappoint. You had more weapons, more monsters, more levels, and even 2 secret Castle Wolfenstein (sp) levels! This game was a good improvement over the original Doom and certainly took many hours of my life back in 1994!

The Bad
The bobbing motion of the character as he ran always made me sick after a long time of play. Ugh. So after I solved this game, I never went back to play again.

The Bottom Line
This is the sequel to the first-person shooter that started the craze. The object of the game is to kill everything that moves, clear levels, solve puzzles (usually to get out of a level), find secret passages and hidden monsters, and just go nuts! You start with a 9mm and a few rounds but can immediately find a chainsaw! Later weapons are the shotgun, the super shotgun (double-barrel), the chain gun, the rocket launcher, the plasma gun, and the BFG-9000 (not sure about the number) gun. Plenty of levels to play (30) and more difficulty settings including one that continuously spawns new monsters to attack you. Fun, fun, fun!

DOS · by AstroNerdBoy (35) · 2002

A rare moment in the gaming history when a sequel could even be called better than the original

The Good
Everything which was good about Doom 1, was the same good and some stuff even better in Doom 2. Enough said about Doom 1's decent graphics and lovely sound effects, lets talk what was even better in Doom 2! The new monsters where very kick-ass, the new weapon, though the only in the game, became the favourite of fans instantly, also must be noted the improvement in level design, which was even less linear than in Doom 1, and larger environment's. Also the soundtrack kept being kick-ass just like in the original.

The Bad
What can be bad about Doom 2? Only the fact that you may get tired after playing through it a couple of hours, but whats so special in that? :)

The Bottom Line
If u find this game in any place available, no matter where, the internet, or a shop, this is a must play game forever, and if you haven't played Doom 1, its not worse to start with this game, like i did in my time. :)

DOS · by Medicine Man (328) · 2009

You can't even get away from demons on Earth

The Good
What's good about this game? Well, this is the sequel to id Software's popular first-person shooter. There is no real plot involved, only that you return home only to find the demons that you battled before have invaded your home planet. The game has 32 levels, and as usual, you run through the level, destroying any demons that get in your way, finding the keycards needed to open certain doors, and making your way to the exit.

All the elements are there – the original monsters, power-ups, flip switches, you name it. Joining the original monsters are some new ones, and they take quite a lot of pounding before they die. The Arch-Vile is the most deadly enemy I have ever encountered in the series. Once he sets you on fire, you are thrown back several feet, and to make matters worse, he resurrects any enemies that you already killed. When you manage to nuke him, he makes a nice gurgling sound. There are also the Anachnotrons, which I like to refer to as the children of the Spider Mastermind.

I also like the addition of the super shotgun, which pumps two bullets in your target instead of one. Now it only takes three shots to dispose of the Cacodemon instead of six. The shotgun also works for the minor demons. You can also take out some of the new monsters with just three shots.

There are two secret levels in the game, and both of these play tribute to Wolfenstein 3D, id's very first first-person shooter. and they respectively center around the first and last levels of “Escape from Wolfenstein”, and the layout is exactly the same. There are monsters that we haven't seen in the original game, including the pink demons in the first secret level and the Cyberdemon in the second. I don't know, but maybe someone at id thought that it would be too hard to draw guard dogs and Hans Grosse. What's funny about the secret level is that there are actually blue SS guards, yet they yelp in pain if you shoot them.

Almost every level in DOOM II is more challenging than the last, and they can take you about 30 minutes to complete, or a little bit more if you get lost and have trouble finding things. I did not have trouble finding my way around because I referred to the level map occasionally.

Graphic-wise, some of the backgrounds look good, and they blend in with whatever theme that the level takes. One level, for instance, takes place in the suburbs, so the background represents a series of burning skyscrapers. All the new enemies and they are animated nicely. I like the way that that level is so open.

The music in the game is twice as good as the original, and there are some cool sounds coming from the new monsters, especially the Icon of Sin (the final boss, whose picture is seen on some walls in the game). When you get to the level, you teleport to the same room as him, and you hear a scary voice coming from him. You won't understand him, but you will be able to if you record what he says then play it backwards.

When I completed the game, I enjoyed flicking through the monsters that feature in the game and listening to their sounds as well as that Wolfenstein-like music. Before, I always forgot what the names of each monster was until I do this. Those funny messages appearing when you choose to leave the game are still there. My favorite is “You want to quit? Then, thou hast lost an eighth!” I read in the Trivia section that this is actually a reference to the Ultima series, but I am not a fan of RPGs.

The Bad
Anyone who thinks this game has anything bad needs to flush their head down the toilet.

The Bottom Line
In DOOM II, you do the same thing that you did in the original game, only this time you battle it out on Earth. There are some improvements like new monsters and the super shotgun (which is better than the original shotgun). One monster that I liked over most is the Icon of Sin. Each level of the game has its own theme, and they are good enough that you have to play them again. The background music on most levels is excellent. If you were impressed with the original game, then you should be impressed with DOOM II. Like the original, there are user-created maps out there ready to be downloaded by those that completed the game but just want more action.

DOS · by Katakis | カタキス (43092) · 2009

[ View all 19 player reviews ]

Discussion

Subject By Date
Original floppies just sold by Romero for $3150 on eBay Cavalary (11445) Jun 28, 2017
The ultimate DOOM weapon chirinea (47504) Jun 26, 2010

Trivia

1001 Video Games

Doom II: Hell on Earth appears in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die by General Editor Tony Mott.

Arcade Version

In the 1997 film Grosse Point Blank a store clerk can be seen playing on a DOOM II arcade cabinet. An arcade version was however never released and the game seen in the film is a film prop with a PC inside.

Boss' Sound File

If you play the boss' sound file backwards, it says "To win the game, you must beat me, John Romero." John Romero is one of the developers.

Columbine High-School Shooting

While it's a well-known fact today, it is worth mentioning that after the much-publicized Columbine high-school shooting, DOOM II became a showcase for media finger-pointing and for a collective lawsuit by parents of teenagers killed in the shooting. The reason was that the shooters, Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris, were both into DOOM and Quake; Harris even made some amateur levels for DOOM II. He went under the names RebDooMer, Rebldomakr and Rebdomine, and hosted a set of WADs on AOL. In his AOL profile he listed himself as a "professional DOOM and DOOM II creator", although all of his WADs appeared to be for DOOM II, mostly deathmatch, and he was not paid for them. The most polished one is uaclabs.wad, a simple pair of levels. They are short, crude but entertaining, and give no clue as to Harris' later actions. Also of note is that the text file for Bricks.wad credits "My good friend Dylan Klebold for helping me play-test this WAD".

Harris' AOL directory, which was mirrored at http://columbine.free2host.net/aolhp.html, also includes what appears to be a menu image reading "Quake Files", although no Harris-designed Quake levels have surfaced; he seems to have hosted a Quake level designed by another person, and a utility for viewing and altering Quake sprites. Harris seemed to lose interest in DOOM at the end of 1996.

Soon after the shootings, rumors surfaced that Harris made some levels which bear an uncanny resemblance to Columbine High School. According to the rumor, Harris and his friend Klebold modeled the levels after the school, filled it with enemies meant to represent students and teachers, and played through it again and again... until the day they decided to do it for real. However, if such levels ever really existed, they have not surfaced on the internet and none of Harris's known levels bear resemblance to real-world architecture.

Development

MAP10: Refueling Base, was originally started by Tom Hall as a level in the original DOOM, and even appeared as E1M6 in DOOM 0.5, but did not make it to the final game. Instead, it was completed by Sandy Petersen for this game. This game took 8 months to make (unlike its predecessor which spent a year in production).

DOSBox Controversy

The Steam download version of the game is listed as running on Windows 2000/XP/Vista because the executables are modified to use a DOSBox variant (v 0.70); additionally the traditional setup.exe is missing. It is confirmed that neither Valve nor id Software contacted the DOSBox project staff and initially the game didn't even include the txt files that must be present under the GPL license (so they failed to fulfill 2 points of the GPL license). Two days after the launch, there was an update that included COPYING, AUTHORS and THANKS.txt of DOSBox 0.71.

ESRB Ratings

DOOM II was the first game to be rated by the ESRB, as its predecessor naturally inspired it due to the violence controversy.

German Ratings

On December 31, 1994, DOOM II was put on the infamous German index by the BPjS. Indexed products by the BPjS/BPjM are illegal to sell or make available to minors in Germany and it is illegal to advertise for it in any form. But there is absolutely no law forbidding any adult to buy such a product. The only exception is when a game was in addition also confiscated (or put on the so-called "List B" for BPjM games), but this is rather seldom the case. In this particularly case here, DOOM II was just indexed, but not confiscated. However, due to the fact that advertisement also means the presence of a product on the shelves of a store, the product will disappear from the public. But it can be bought in supporting stores "under the desk" (per request).

DOOM and the German version of DOOM II were removed from the German index on August 4, 2011 following a request of the license holder of these games. The BPjM board of 12 did not secure a 2/3 majority vote to prevent the removal from the index. The board justified their decision stating among other things that "Due to the distancing effect of the graphics the player is no longer emotionally engaged in the combat action. There remains both on the visual as well as on the auditory level the impression of abstract depictions, which are therefore also bluntly recognisable as fictional and unrealistic." This decision does not include the US version of DOOM II. This version remains on the index because it includes two levels from Wolfenstein 3D which has been banned and confiscated nationwide in Germany.

The Game Boy Advance version is the only one not banned in Germany, as the color of blood in that version was changed to green in an attempt to preserve the GBA's kid-friendly reputation.

References

  • Like in its predecessor, some soundtracks in DOOM II are similar and were likely inspired to be created after songs by famous heavy metal bands. For example, the soundtrack for the first level, Entryway, is similar to Megadeth's Hangar 18, the soundtrack for MAP07: Dead Simple is very similar to South of Heaven by Slayer.
  • DOOM II has a few references to Ultima games. One of the quit messages is "You want to quit? Then, thou hast lost an eighth!", which is a reference to Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar, and the automap title of MAP11: Circle of Death is The 'O' of Destruction, which is a reference to the Ultima VII weapon Hoe of Destruction.
  • In MAP13: Downtown, a very big black building can be seen. id Software's offices in Texas are in a building that looks like this one.
  • MAP21: Nirvana may be an homage to Kurt Cobain and the band Nirvana. Cobain committed suicide the same year DOOM II was released and used a shotgun to do so. As a possible reference, the level starts out with a double barreled shotgun in front of the player.
  • The final boss of the game shoots out cubes, which contain demons, from his brain. This is similar to how Satan gives birth to his daughter Sin in John Milton's Paradise Lost, where she is born out of his head (a parthenogenesis based on Zeus and his daughter, Athena).

Retail Release

DOOM II actually preceded the retail release of its predecessor. While the shareware version of DOOM was available before DOOM II's box release, it wasn't until the release of The Ultimate DOOM in 1995 that the full version of DOOM was finally available on retail shelves.

Secret Levels

DOOM II features two secret levels. Both pay homage to earlier id Software titles. MAP31: Wolfenstein (accessible from MAP15: Industrial Zone) is a recreation of the first level of the first episode of id's Wolfenstein 3D using the DOOM engine. The map layout is almost identical. Even the secret areas from the original game can be found in the same places, and some additional secret areas have been added. The brown-uniformed guards from the original are replaced by blue-uniformed SS troopers (complete with re-recordings of their original exclamations "Schutzstaffel!" and "Mein Leben!") and dogs are replaced by pinky demons.

When using the secret exit (also present in the original), MAP32: Grosse can be accessed. This is a recreation of the last level of Wolfenstein 3D's first episode. The end boss Hans Grosse (hence the level name) is replaced by a Cyberdemon. In the room behind him, there is another reference to an earlier id title: four Commander Keens are hanging by their necks on ropes. They have to be shot and killed to reveal the button that exits the level. The sound effects heard when shooting at them are renditions of PC speaker effects from the first three Commander Keen games. According to John Romero (source), this gag was artist Adrian Carmack's idea, who never wanted to work on Keen again.

Both levels also feature music taken from Wolfenstein 3D, rearranged from the original FM sound to General MIDI.

The levels are included in the version of the game sold in Germany but are inaccessible during regular game-play. The secret exit in the game that leads to the secret levels has been blocked but it is possible to use the cheat code for map selection to enter these levels. This was probably done to avoid more controversy due to restrictions on the use of swastikas and other Nazi symbols in Germany, however all game graphics and sounds are in the German version as well.

The Game Boy Advance version also features the levels, but removes all Nazi symbolism.

Sound Effects

The shee-koufff noise heard when the final boss spawns a flying cube has been continuously used since the game's release, in TV shows, movies and commercials. This sound effect is the Fireball sound effect from the Sound Ideas General Series. id Software was the first game company to use that sound effect (unaltered).

User Created Content

  • The jDoom port features a 1024x768x32 resolution with dynamic colored lighting, completely customizable controls, mouselook, and 3D sound. See the related sites section for a link.
  • The US Marine Core created their own DOOM II WAD files for training in four-player co-op levels. More information was available at http://www.tec.army.mil/TD/tvd/survey/Marine_Doom.html .

Xbox release

In April 2005 a full port of this game was brought to Xbox as part of the DOOM³ (Limited Collector's Edition) special edition.

Awards

  • Computer Gaming World
    • 1994 - Game of the Year
  • PC Gamer
    • 1994 - Game of the Year
  • Power Play
    • Issue 02/1995 – Best Doom Clone in 1994

Information also contributed by ApTyp, Ashley Pomeroy, DarkDante, Dragoon, Emepol, James1, John Romero, jTrippy, Kalirion, Maw, MegaMegaMan, Sam Jeffreys, Scott Monster, Steve ., Terok Nor, The Cliffe, WWWWolf, Xoleras, Zack Green and theclue.

Analytics

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Related Sites +

  • ClassicDOOM.com
    Walkthroughs, cheat codes, passwords, demos, FAQs, reference files and more, for game-console and PC Doom games.
  • DOOMWORLD
    It is a site dedicated to DOOM, and especially to the total conversions of DOOM2, done with these marvelous wad editors. You need only DOOMWORLD if you want to be informed about the DOOM community!
  • Doom II EPK at archive.org
    Electronic Press Kit for Doom II: Hell on Earth. Features gameplay demonstration and developer interviews.
  • Doom Wiki
    A Wiki site for the Doom series.
  • JDoom
    Arguably the best revisited Doom engine. Take your original WAD files from Doom 1, 2 etc. and run them on this D3D/OpenGL and A3D enabled engine.
  • NewDoom
    A big fansite dedicated to the Doom series.
  • OC ReMix Game Profile
    Fan remixes of music from DOOM II: Hell on Earth, including the albums "Delta-Q-Delta" and "The American Album".
  • S&F Prod.'s Doom Page
    Here you'll find a Duke Nukem in Doom add-on and more.

Identifiers +

  • MobyGames ID: 299
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Contribute

Are you familiar with this game? Help document and preserve this entry in video game history! If your contribution is approved, you will earn points and be credited as a contributor.

Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Tomer Gabel.

Game Boy Advance added by Corn Popper. Zodiac added by Kabushi. PC-98, Macintosh added by Terok Nor.

Additional contributors: Optimus, Kate Jones, Ledmeister, Unicorn Lynx, Frenkel, Corn Popper, Guy Chapman, Alaka, Pseudo_Intellectual, Havoc Crow, vedder, Cantillon, Medicine Man, Patrick Bregger, Thomas Thompson, Éiregamer94, Rik Hideto, FatherJack, theclue.

Game added February 19, 2020. Last modified March 15, 2024.