The most actionized sequel to ever be actionized. Yes, the original game was very much an FPS game where you were mowing down enemies but Doom 2 does the thing expected from a sequel and ups the ante when it comes to everything. I will admit that when I first played the game, my attachment towards it was non exisistent. I found it very disappointing compared to the 1993 original game. The level design was far too obtuse, the inablility to jump or look up felt more like hinderances than advantages and it felt like amping up the difficulty for the sake of it. Upon replaying the game a few years ago and now recently. I've come to like Doom 2 the more I play it. Understanding it's mechanical and level design quirks has come to make me love it. Doom 2 might be one of my favorite game sequels of all time despite me not feeling that way when I originally beat it.
I said before that Doom 2 ups the ante in every regard and two things it does this with is the weapons and the enemies.
With the former, you find many of the key weapons of the original game like the shotgun, chaingun, plasma rifle and missile launcher much quicker. You also spend the entire game with them upon accquiring them the first time where in original, starting a new episode means getting them all back again. Also, weapons like the BFG you might spend the whole game not even getting but in Doom 2, you will certainly get it.
Then there is the weapon the game is known for: the Super Shotgun. It's been stated how awesome this weapon is and it lives up to it's name. The powerful sound it makes when fired, the amount of damage it does to close range enemies like the pinky demons, it being able to wipe out multiple possesed marines at once with it's spread under it's crosshairs and the beautifully done reload animation and sound.
You would think this weapon would become the primary shotgun to use and the regular shotgun would have no use. It would be that in theory but one big difference is that the super shotgun is meant to be devastating up close. The regular shotgun is a long range hitscan weapon so. Close range use is super shotgun and regular shotgun is for furthur or ones places in higher elevation
Then there is there the enemies where the first game's early levels would place some Imps, some Possesed Marines but then slowly roll in the Barons of Hell, Pinkies and Cacodemons. Doom 2 follows the logic that you played the original already so these guys are already in the early levels and you'll be fighting huge swarms of them. Some of only one enemy types like the barons and pinkies or a mixture of many like the imps and marines.
There's also new enemies introduced in Doom 2 like Chaingunner Marines, Revenants, Archville, Mancubus, Arachnotron, Pain Elemental, and Hell knight. Many of them spice up combat like Chaingunners, Archvilles, Revenants, and Mancubus due to them changing up tactics. Like Archvilles with constantly breaking like of sight. Revenants with dodging the homing missiles. Chaingunners due to accumlated hitscan damage.
Some can be annoying like the Pain Elemental summoning so many Lost Souls that home in on you. However, most of these are hits rather than misses.
However there is one major elephant in the room and a rather divisive aspect of Doom 2 and that is the level design. Where Doom 1993's levels were all well made and do a good job at guiding the player around with the exception of Limbo. Doom 2 can get bizarrely obtuse and hard to understand where to go. First of all, many of the versions of the game has no jump button so the game never tells the player that sprinting from one platform to the next is an unofficial jump button. There is also the fact that teleporters don't teleport you to one place but stepping on them twice can lead you to a new part of the level.
Not understanding these quirks can throw many players off.
With that said, Doom 2 has one of my favorite and most memorable levels in older series and that is Courtyard and especially Industrial Zone. Remember how I said that switching between regular and super shotgun for long and close range is something Doom 2 does well? This is a great example. You need to use regular shotgun to take out the Chaingunners from afar and are higher up while using super shotgun to take out the enemies at your level.
There is some bizarre parts like you need to look down to know to land on a platform to progress in Downtown but you can't actually look down to know to land there.
Some levels like Citadel are just terrible and an all around stinker too. It's so bad that you don't even need all 3 keys to beat the level along with floor switch that is really hard to actually hear with the music playing.
Overall, with all this said, Doom 2 despite it's level design and mechanical quirks and not having levels as consistent in quality is an all improvement over the first game, you may need to play it more than once to fully appreciate the game with that said.
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