17 Years Later, Doom 2 Continues to Entertain
Doom 2 still kicks ass in the modern era. It's distinct style, balls-out arcade gameplay, and excellent music all create an atmosphere that has never been matched, even by Doom 3 and other Id creations of the present.
Doom, like Rise of the Triad, Duke 3d, and a lot of the other shooters of the mid-90s, still look really cool. In my opinion these graphics have withstood the test of time quite well, just like other exceptional sprite-based graphics present in games like Symphony of the Night and Starcraft.
The gameplay of Doom II is just as fun as ever, and there's something to be said for the old "pick up health and keys as you find your way" formula instead of the recharging shields and closely shepherded, linear style of the present. And damn, it's cool to play a shooter that isn't military-themed!
The new levels are not quite as clever and intricate as some of the novelty puzzles and urban levels of Doom 2. Instead, the developers have decided to take an "everything but the kitchen sink" approach to enemy quantity and placement. You fight loads of dudes at once, but at the same time you are given loads of ammo and health, even on Ultraviolence. The location of keys and their corresponding doors is usually fairly apparent to the player, but given the slug-fest nature of the gameplay here, this is complementary and not a detracting factor.
The sound is just gorgeous. Sound-effects like the whooshing of rockets and the great crunchy sound of the double-barrel shotgun being cracked open are perfectly recreated. The music is as good as you will ever hear it, utilizing the superb Gravis Ultrasound patches to give a great midi presentation. It is very cool that the developers went to the trouble to emulate this card's performance. These midi tones are only rivaled by the Soundblaster AWE 32, and much debate continues to this day over which card sounds better. All Doom geekdom aside, these songs are undeniably bad-ass.
Play on a pad is surprisingly intuitive. I made the leap from keyboard to controller in a matter of minutes, and I'm sure a novice player will pick it up with little difficult. Most action gamers are familiar with the type of dual-stick controls feature in this game. Weapon-switches are made with the d-pad. Admittedly, I was a bit bummed by this method at first and yearned for a nice 1-10 numeral system that most, if not all pc shooter utilize for weapon-switching. That being said, the new controller scheme is actually very well thought out and handled nicely once I was acquainted with it. I'm not sure why you cannot map actions to the buttons of your choice. This seems a bit lazy to me, but it's very far from being a deal-breaker.
Multiplayer seems a little laggy but I need to investigate more. I'm sure that with a decent connection and a private party of individuals who are geographically close, things will work out well.
This is the real deal, and a steal at 800 points. Why not leave those tired CoD and Medal of Honor titles on the shelf for a while and step up to a true classic?
