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roadworx

Why do so many people dislike Doom II?

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I get that it had a very different style of levels and was nowhere near as colorful. I get that it introduced some extremely annoying enemies that were tedious to kill. And I get that the music wasn't as good as the first Doom.

But it was still an absolutely amazing game, with has given me some of the most fun experiences a 15 year old could have. It brought new ideas to the table, and I think that it was executed very well.

So why do so many people think that it's not very good?

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I've never had a problem with Doom 2 - I think it made a great game, the greatest game, even better.

OK, many of the 32 levels included with the game are not my favourites, but many are still a blast gameplay-wise.

One of the main gripes is that Earth didn't look as good in the Doom palette and engine as Phobos and Deimos and even Hell had in the original - fair enough, the design was a bit iffy in places.

But I think it's splitting hairs. Games will always be criticised for being too similar/different to predecessor - that shit is still going on with Far Cry 4 etc. to date, but it is what it is.

Ultimately Doom 2 gave us the game and iwad structure, the monsters and extra weapon that made modding the game really worthwhile and full of variety.

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A lot of people liked the episodic structure and the natural level progression that Doom 1 had. Doom 2 can often feel like a bunch of different maps that share a common sky texture but have little else in common. The Hell levels also blow from both a visual and gameplay perspective compared to Doom 1. I enjoyed the city levels the most as there was some originality in their design. Downtown just blew me away when I first played it with its scale and non-linearity. The new monsters were a great addition though which is why everyone makes Doom 2 maps. There's only so much you can do with Barons and Cacodemons. I think Plutonia is still the best overall IWAD though.

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When I got upto MAP19, I went mad and felt like throwing my PC off the roof.

Same for Doom 64 ("I'll never forget that anger after seeing that stupid 'i suck at making maps' texture").

Doom 1 feels more aesthetic to me for some reason. Right number of monsters, weapons and casually sized maps. Feels very balanced. Maybe that's why there is some "hate" for Doom 2.

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Straw man argument: so many people don't dislike Doom II.

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Jon said:

Straw man argument: so many people don't dislike Doom II.

Technically, that's a statement, not an argument.

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Voros said:

Right number of monsters, weapons and casually sized maps.


I kinda feel the same way. I like Doom II but I enjoy the first game more. But I don't think most people agree with your statement, even if they claim to out of some twisted sense of being an originalist, because most people map for Doom II to utilize the extra monsters and weapon, and possibly the textures.

That being said, I don't get the OP's point.

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Doom 2 is actually used for that MP experience, while Doom 1 has a nice SP experience, for me.

Doom 2 has what Face said, extra stuff modders and mappers can use for a wider experience.
And its the game where the iconic SSG was introduced.

OP: everyone has different tastes. Long live UDoom.

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in short:

Doom 1 level design > Doom 2 level design

Doom 2 gameplay > Doom 1 gameplay

So, they're equal, imo.

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Face23785 said:

But I don't think most people agree with your statement, even if they claim to out of some twisted sense of being an originalist, because most people map for Doom II to utilize the extra monsters and weapon, and possibly the textures.

It's a different thing to claim a dislike for Doom2's extra stuff and claim a dislike for Doom2's stock maps. I believe that threads about "liking or disliking Doom 2" have people claiming so varied opinions because everybody has a different idea of what's the object of the discussion, whether Doom2's extra stuff, Doom2's stock maps, Doom2's historical/level-design influence on later wads/games, or some kind of "summary" of them that gives Doom 2 a certain "universal rating of good-ness".

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Map-wise it's subjective but Doom 2 has the SSG and the extra super-interesting monsters. Without Doom 2, what we call "Doom" would be less interesting/powerful.

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What bothered me most about Doom 2 was the inept texture use in the city levels.
Making a city out of some ill-fitting stock textures was just one big fail. They should have invested a bit more effort here.

Sandy Petersen and supposedly realistic locations also didn't work and added to the disappointment. He was fine for some abstract environments that are not supposed to resemble anything that really exists - but none of his Doom 2 levels did the level name much justice.

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I think why people dont like Doom 2 as much is because when they hear "Hell On Earth" and "32 new doom levels" on a cover with doom guy in a duel with a cyberdemon in a burning city, they expect urban city scapes. They want to fight demons on rooftops and shoot cacodemons with rockets through the windows of skyscrapers and fight a cyberdemon on top of the head of the statue of liberty, and instead they got some otherwise good level designs that did not convey a sense of realism that they probably thought they were getting. Especially when they see map titles like suburbs, the factory, industrial zone, downtown, tenements, catacombs, etc., they felt cheated out of their expectations.

When your game takes place on a distant planet and in hell, map titles like computer station, halls of the damned, and pandemonium, are all very surreal places that lend a lot to the imagination. You really don't go into the maps with any sort of expectations, so it doesn't matter if the maps don't look like what they are actually supposed to.

All in all, if you can abandon the thought that you were going to be killing demons in downtown New York and seeing known landmarks in your hometown, then you can really see that Doom 2 is simply a better and more challenging and dynamic version of Doom 1.

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There are some really good songs and maps from Doom II, but there are also a ton of shitty ones that aren't even playable/listenable for me. Doom 1 was perfect from front to back and was more memorable with the episode system. Better music, map design, cooler level themes and brighter colors. Perfect balance, and the berserk fist acted like the SSG. There's no comparison in my opinion.

But Doom II brought the SSG and new monsters which was great for modding life. But even then Plutonia had the better gameplay with those assets. Maps from Doom II like "The Factory" as well as all those city levels were just complete trash. Huge and boring, and a chore to explore. And even some of the better Doom II levels were paired with terrible music, like map 11: Circle of Death.

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Doom 2 feels a bit more gimmicky in its level design IMO, with levels like Tricks and Traps, Barrels o'Fun, O of Destruction, The Chasm and more.
I can imagine that some people prefer Ultimate Doom levels which gave more a sense of place over Doom 2's more abstract levels that revolve about certain gimmicks.

I like both games equally, Doom 1 for it's atmosphere and level design and Doom 2 for the action, the new monsters and the Super Shotgun.

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I mostly only like Doom II for the use of mappacks and mods, but there's still quite a few good maps in Doom II which I still enjoy if not all of them.

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I like Doom 2, possibly even more so than Doom 1, if only because it has the SSG and hell knights in it.

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Poor depiction of what are meant to be real world locations was the put off for most I think.

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Doom II is the lifeblood of the classic Dooms. Without it, I don't think we'd quite be where we are today. Although some of the maps suffered, it still contained a lot of memorable moments and probably defined the brand.

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I don't think I've ever disliked Doom 2, but I do have a slightly softer spot for the first game for probably all the reasons already mentioned in this thread.

I could possibly add that the ingame storyline feels a bit disjointed and incomplete. Simple as the story was in Doom, it was cohesive and had progression. You learned where the unstable UAC teleporters led, where the lost moon of Deimos went and you ultimately found a way out of Hell after kicking its ass.

Doom 2 never really explained how the Demons went from invading Mars through unstable teleporter tech to suddenly being able to create a portal to Earth, and it felt a little dissatisfying as a result.

It did, however, have an epic Final Boss battle (even if it is a wall texture) :D

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I wonder if the order in which people got/played the iwads colors their opinion. For me, I played doom2 first and to this day prefer its maps much much more than the other iwads.

My progression:

Doom1 shareware - played briefly, had fun, but moved on to other stuff
Doom2 retail - when it came out I "understood" what it meant, got totally absorbed for an unhealthy length of time

Then years passed, where if I wanted more doom I would just replay the iwad or check out pwads.

UDoom retail - finally got to see the original episodes. But by now it's 1997 or 1998 and I'm not overly impressed, though it is a very positive experience.

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Eh, people who hate on D2 just don't get it man. Doom II is art. The levels are pure expressions of the designers at their fullest creative output -- they didn't have to clean up a bunch of boring Tom Hallways so they could bust out two more lazy episodes in order to fill mail orders. Yeah I know about MAP10.

Doom 2 is easily the purest dooming experience of the Id iwads. It's harder, the levels are bigger and loopier and more creative, and it features MAP24: The Chasm which is the greatest map of all time. There's nothing more to say here.

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Sodaholic said:

Technically, that's a statement, not an argument.


The straw-man argument is the thread topic; the following sentence was my rebuttal.

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40oz said:

All in all, if you can abandon the thought that you were going to be killing demons in downtown New York and seeing known landmarks in your hometown, then you can really see that Doom 2 is simply a better and more challenging and dynamic version of Doom 1.



All in all, I strongly disagree with that statement. It's more challenging for sure, but overall the shit factor in the map design is so much higher than in Doom 1 that all the improvements do not make it a better game overall.

'better' is a very subjective term and if people who strongly react to visuals are put off by the maps, it doesn't help much that the new monsters allow better gameplay.

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