Doom II: Hell on Earth

I was about 10 years old when I hold grasp to this game... It was like an epiphany for me. I have never played the first "Doom", but when you are a 10 year old, you don't care, let's just play the game. I just couldn't get enough of this game. Every time I played it, I was possessed! I was pretty much an insane gamer just for "Doom", and when I got the cheat codes... how delightful was that. But, enough about that part of my childhood, let's dive in.

According to the story, you are the same marine as before... the Doomguy, as we call him, finds himself on planet Earth, and he finds out that the Earth itself was taken over by demons and turned it into a hellhole. So, you take your guns and... just go to save the world. It's basically simple stuff, really. There isn't much you can do. Just run around kill monsters (with various weapons, for every occasion, of course), finding key cards to progress through the level. You have boss fights on the end of every episode (episodes are continuous), or you have a multiple large opponents. The Doomguy could just walk, or run fast and that's it. In later years, they added a jump and crouch.

So, what is exactly so good about "Doom 2", or "Doom", or "Doom Ultimate"? Why is it still holding up, even today? Well, almost 24 years ago... graphics were top notch, but today, they are just bunch of cubes... without any real, rendered form. The edge that holds even today is that graphics team were very dedicated and imaginative and they designed monsters, demons, weapons and levels the best way possible at that time. The sound effects were just awesome and they are holding up even today. Gameplay is amazing. It's dynamic and simple, and it's doesn't have time to explain itself. That's what I like about these old early 90s PC games... they were not that big and not that pretentious to give us a bunch of story details at the beginning of the game for example... and to move your character through an endless tutorial, or "story mode", that you need to follow. It was a time when games just cut the crap and start shooting. AI for the time was nothing special, it was about to get more perfected as the time goes by. So, that's it... nothing more. Everything else is so simple that is not even worthy of mentioning. We have aliens, monsters and demons... I don't know which inspirations were used for them, I think it's something from the Bible... when it comes to hell monsters and demons and other things.

That is just fascinating, that there was no some good explanation for the demons with whom are you fighting. Who are they? Are they aliens from some deep space and they came from some space hell? Did demons showed to us in the form of hellish creatures from Christian bible? Who knows. And that's what I like the best about this game. You just have to use your own imagination. The same thing goes for the level design. You just can't tell if you are on earth. There are maybe few levels that suggest that you are, in fact on earth. But the others... well not that much. And I love the design of levels in the game, just great. It also set you in the imagination and questioning yourself... "where the hell am I?"... There are of course some new weapons and enemies and they are good.

In conclusion, what to say? It IS one of the best FPS games ever made from that old time when the things were simple and it holds today far more better than you realize. How do I know that? Just look at bunch of modes and various other "Doom" versions on line. People enjoy making them and other people... enjoy playing them. Doom is one of those games that just never gets old. Play it and enjoy it...