Doom II
- Doom II (2010 on Xbox 360, 2015 on Xbox One)
- Doom II (2017 on Android, 2019 on PlayStation 4, Xbox One...)
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)
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3D Modelling | |
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Cover Illustration | |
French Translation |
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German Manual Translation |
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Reviews
Critics
Average score: 83% (based on 47 ratings)
Players
Average score: 4.0 out of 5 (based on 419 ratings with 19 reviews)
The Good
The game sports an impressive framerate with slowdowns absent most of the time, so you can play the game at a comfortable pace. Some of the limitations that reduced the sizes of the maps, altitude of the higher places and the lack of lighting are more welcoming than they are disappointing as they make the game easier. It's satisfying that the Nightmare difficulty is actually the Ultra-Violence mode.
This port does include some new surprises, particularly the Industrial Zone and Chasm both being divided into two levels. The fact that corpses disappear means it's impossible for an Archvile to bring the monsters back to life. As a nice touch, the notifications at the top tell you when you found a secret area, something the original DOS version did not. Another thing you can only do in this version is kill the Icon of Sin with a BFG 9000. Very intriguing.
The Bad
The weapon mechanics seem a little off compared to the computer versions, especially the inability to properly shoot a row of zombies and imps with a shotgun, which eats up your ammo and makes the fire fight last longer than it should. It gets worse when you try to use hitscan weapons to snipe your enemies from far away; you'll hit the walls more often than your intended target. The other irritating problem is that at the start of each level, your armour value is ignored until you collect an armour pickup.
Other little problems present are that you can only save in-between levels, there are two missing music tracks and it's hard to select the weapon you want. However those are forgivable and don't really do anything to ruin the game, just add to difficulty, which balances the easiness in the levels.
The Bottom Line
It is amazing that the entire game could fit in such a small gaming device, I haven't the heart to criticise the sacrifices that needed to be made to the game's design to get it running. Apart from a few quirks, this port captures the elements of the computer versions rather well. This is just the game to take on any road trip. It really would have been nice if Torus Games had applied the same treatment to the first GBA game.
Game Boy Advance · by Skippy_Chipskunk (38394) · 2021
Rather a expansion pack than sequel, however still playable.
The Good
There's 32 brand new maps, 9 new monsters (including annoying Arch-Vile), completely new music, and one new weapon - a very useful double-barreled shotgun. And like its prequel, it's incredibly fun to play.
The Bad
It's too similar to original Doom! Weapons, pick-ups and decorations are taken directly from Doom, graphics remain unchanged, no tweaks like looking up and down or jumping are introduced, and multiplayer is unchanged! And those two bonus maps are converted from Wolfenstein 3D - lack of ideas? Laziness? Or it's just an attempt to make some easy money - by throwing new maps and selling them as sequel?
The Bottom Line
Maybe I'm exaggerating a bit, but it's rather a mission pack than a sequel. However, when we'll stop carping at the game, it's getting incredibly fun to play, just like Doom. So let's stop carping and start to annihilate those demons...
DOS · by Sir Gofermajster (485) · 2009
The Good
When I first saw Doom, I couldn't believe it. Great graphics, great sound. It was amazing!! I played it and I loved it.
Then it came the obvious sequel. And, far beyond my expectations, it was even better than the original one.
Now you don't have three episodes, you must take a long journey to save the Earth from the alien guys that you fought in the martian moons.
And, this time, they are coming with a couple of new friend, like the Mancubus, or the Arch Ville.
The game was great for its time, with very advanced graphics, an improved gameplay from the original Doom, and in some places, very huge levels.
And the sound!! I still remember the giants footsteps of the Cyberdemon, the shots from the spiders, the bullets from a nearby room every time I managed to start a fight between the enemies.
Doom 2 was one of the best games in history, absolutely.
The Bad
Not too much to say. The only bad thing it was that there was only one new weapon.
The Bottom Line
Totally surprising!!
DOS · by Emepol (212) · 2011
Discussion
Subject | By | Date |
---|---|---|
Original floppies just sold by Romero for $3150 on eBay | Cavalary (11610) | Jun 28, 2017 |
The ultimate DOOM weapon | chirinea (47536) | 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.
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Related Sites +
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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 +
Contribute
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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 November 5, 2024.