I first played Doom II when I was around 8 or 9 years old and it scared my cousin and I right from the start. The first level where you would hit the switch in the EXIT room and the Imp would appear on your computer monitor ready to attack had us jump everytime. A little older now this doesn’t frighten me as much but in return I can appreciate the level design and enjoy playing through this classic game.
I won’t bore you with a walkthrough of how great the “Hell on Earth” campaign is because if you haven’t played it you must have been younger than me, which I have a hard time believing.
Developer id Software created a 9 mission campaign that doesn’t disapoint. I started playing it forgetting what Doom was really like. Some people call it the “father of first person shooters” and I can see why.
When you first start playing it feels a bit odd mostly because the right thumbstick is used to turn but not to look up or down. So most of the gun fighting revolves around you strafing and moving your gun onto the area of enemies and letting the auto-aim take care of business for you. It might just be me but I can’t get into old FPS games when it comes to versus because when you can’t aim up or down it just seems like you aren’t trying to see who is a better shooter but rather who can shuffle in front of someone faster.
That being said though while running through enemies with a shotgun or various other tools of destruction the gore level makes up for letting the game kill everything for you real easy. I felt such a joy from giving a buckshot into an enemy’s chest and watching the chest almost explode with blood and him fall to the floor. It was weird to feel such satisfaction from delivering death in a 1994 bad graphics game, but I did.
Around half way through the campaign about mission 5 and further is where the game gets difficult. Minor puzzles (suprisingly good balance where you don’t get lost but you also have to think) and harder enemies(larger quantity also) amp up the difficulty, but makes it more exciting (frustrating). All ending with the last mission which is shorter but without spoiling anything it may be your longest mission.
The co-op is a nice touch to the game allowing 4 players to man up and fight all the way through both campaigns. The maps have different weapons on the maps sometimes and it is noticeable difference than if you play through it alone. A downfall though is they offer no achievements for playing with people. All of the achievements offered are single-player campaign achievements except one which asks you to kill 20 people in Xbox Live death match.
The last thing I loved which could just be me but Avatar Awards make me so happy. It is like getting a gift for being nostalgic and wanting to experience a game you did when you were younger. This game offers 2, one for beating the first level and one for beating the new campaign.
Overall DOOM II is a good game to buy for any fan of the old game and it is bound to keep you playing for awhile. For example I played the whole campaign and it took me over 3-4 hours minimum. So on top of the 32 original missions this is a hefty purchase. Sprinkling in multiplayer really brings this game back to life.
A copy of Doom II for the Xbox 360 was provided to us for this review from Bethesda Softworks/id Software.
