Everything about Doom Ii totally explained
Doom II: Hell on Earth is a
first-person shooter video game created by
id Software. It was originally released on the
IBM PC on
October 10,
1994. It is the sequel to
Doom, which was released a year earlier. In
1995,
Doom II won the
Origins Award for
Best Fantasy or Science Fiction Computer Game of 1994. Unlike
Doom which was initially only available through shareware and mail order,
Doom II was a commercial release sold in stores.
Due to its popularity and success,
Doom II has been released for numerous platforms, including the
Apple Macintosh,
Sony Playstation, and
Nintendo Game Boy Advance.
Story
Immediately following the events in
Doom, the player once again takes the role of the nameless
space marine who has proven too tough for the forces of
Hell to contain. After being teleported from
Phobos, and subsequently fighting on
Deimos which is hanging on top of Hell itself, the Marine is back home on Earth, only to find that it too has fallen victim to the hellish invasion.
The player progresses through 30
levels (32 including two secretly accessed levels), and on the way he learns that the remaining survivors of Earth's population are being held on Earth and the only means of escape is the space port with massive ships that can carry the remains of Earth's population into space. However the demons know this and have placed a fire force field over the space port, so that ships can't land or leave. The marine must battle his way through the infested space port and deactivate that fire force field. Once humanity is finally evacuated from the ravaged, infested planet, the Marine is the only human left on Earth. He sits and waits for death, content in the knowledge that he's saved his species, giving them a chance to continue on elsewhere. Only minutes pass before the Marine receives an off-planet transmission - humans in orbit have managed to find out where the armies of Hell are spilling from. If the Marine can reach this gateway, he can thwart the invasion once and for all.
The Marine wearily pulls himself to his feet and moves off to the portal, cutting a swathe through the demons in his path before finally arriving at the gateway. He sees no way to close it on this side, and so dives through to find a solution on the other side. In the game's own words, "what do you care if you've to go through Hell to get to it?"
After brutal battles with legions of Hell, the Marine finally reaches the home of the "largest demon (he has) ever seen." Once the player fires enough rockets into the exposed brain of the demon, dodging constant attacks from lesser demons the larger one summons, the demon (known as the 'Icon of Sin') explodes, devastating Hell in its death throes. When the chaos finally ceases, Hell is in ruins, the invasion permanently halted. The Marine wipes his brow and begins the long journey home, looking forward to helping to rebuild Earth.
Gameplay developments
Doom II wasn't a dramatically different game from its predecessor. There were no major technological developments, no major graphical improvements, and no real changes in fundamental gameplay. The game still consisted of the player negotiating non-linear levels, picking up keys to unlock new areas, and of course shooting down hundreds upon hundreds of monsters. However, due to there being larger and more complicated maps, with larger groups of monsters, the game required higher system specs than the original.
The main additions to the game were the additional monsters available for the player to fight. The new enemies are as follows:
- The Hell Knight.
- The Former Commando (a.k.a. Heavy Weapon Dude).
- The Mancubus.
- The Revenant.
- The Arachnotron.
- The Pain Elemental.
- The Arch-Vile.
- The end boss, called the Icon of Sin.
The SS trooper from
Wolfenstein 3D appears in the two secret levels, which are throwbacks in design (and music) to the Wolfenstein 3D and Spear of Destiny games. Also, a hanged
Commander Keen figure makes a cameo in the second secret level.
The only new weapon addition was the double-barreled
shotgun, which could fire out 20 pellets instead of the regular shotgun's seven, making it very useful in dispatching Demons, Cacodemons, and any form of medium-sized monster.
There was also one new item created: the Megasphere, a tan sphere that could give the player 200% armor and health.
A small change in gameplay was instituted. Instead of the player playing through three related episodes, gameplay takes place over one giant episode, albeit there are interludes for when the story develops. Instead of watching the player's progress on a map (as in the original episodes of
Doom), the screens between each level simply show a background. It also meant that the player wouldn't have to start over with a pistol every eight or nine levels (as was the case in
Doom, since each episode consisted of nine levels, including bonus levels).
The level design, much like in
Doom, was supposed to mimic the areas the player was going into. Now that the game was taking place on Earth, a real-world look was attempted, with some levels taking place in certain kinds of military installations, and others taking place in residential areas. Eventually level designs no longer attempt to appear realistic, but by then the player has left the normal non-warped Earth. (After level 21, the skies are crimson red with mountains, unlike previous levels which had apartment buildings.)
In general,
Doom II was well-received and went on to sell 2 million copies, making it the highest-selling id Software game to date.
Elements from the game would be used in
Final Doom.
Levels
A * denotes a non-redundant track
MAP30: Icon of Sin
Level 30 is the game's final challenge along the normal sequence of levels. The player must properly time firing rockets into the boss's exposed brain to win. Upon noticing the player, the final boss says the following phrase backwards: "To win the game you must kill me, John Romero." John Romero, the game's chief designer, has an image of his head impaled upon a stick in a small room behind the final boss, which is the actual "monster" that needs to be killed. This room is only accessible via cheat codes. The level's song is made so that if played that backwards, it sounds exactly the same as it does forwards.
MAP31: Wolfenstein
Level 31 is the infamous secret level along with its follow-on MAP32: Grosse. This level was created by
Sandy Petersen. The Nazi enemies were borrowed from
Wolfenstein 3D, a game by
id Software and published by
Apogee Software.
This level was inspired by the first level on Wolfenstein 3D except that there are parts of the level with varied altitudes and/or varied light levels. This level can be accessed via MAP15: Industrial Zone. It is missing in all
German releases of the game, as it features certain symbolism banned in Germany (
swastikas etc.).
MAP32: Grosse
Like
Level 31, Grosse contains Wolfenstein tilesets and isn't included in the German and Playstation releases; it may be accessed from Level 31 in other versions. Like MAP31, it's based on a Wolfenstein 3D level (Floor 09 of Episode 1), although it has extra secrets and varied altitudes. This map is based on the Wolfenstein 3D level containing the first boss, Hans Grosse (hence the name), although in Doom II he's been replaced by the Cyberdemon. Grosse is notable primarily for its inclusion of four hanging dolls of
Commander Keen, which the player must shoot to exit the level. While both of the secret levels appear on the
Game Boy Advance editions, the Nazi symbolism has been removed.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Doom Ii'.
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