doom episode 2 :(

[Chezza]

On 1/16/2019 at 10:54 AM, roboticmehdi2 said:

Ok, Ok, I like e2 now and always :)

*Takes hand off holster*

 

Good choice.

[Nancsi]

Episode 2 and episode 3 should have merged together for better impact.

 

Deimos Anomaly (terrible level, but it's good for a start)

Containment Area

Spawning Vats

Deimos Lab

Hall of the Damned

Pandemonium

Mt. Erebus (gate to secret)

Tower of Babel

House of Pain (secret level)

[insertwackynamehere]

All these threads about things people hate in Ultimate Doom are so foreign to me. I’m not trying to dismiss others’ opinions but for me I can’t feel anything but warm memories for all of the levels even if I can acknowledge that objectively some of them had flaws. With Doom 2 on the other hand I guess I feel some dislike for the levels so I understand where everyone is coming from since it’s all subjective, but it’s weird, I cannot feel any recoil towards UD levels even when flaws are pointed out to me.

[CyberDreams]

I kinda have the same feeling about Episode 2. I always start up Ultimate Doom and just instantly play Episode 1 as that is still probably my favorite of the bunch. Then by the time i finish that and start up EP 2 i'm kinda like "ughh do i really wanna play this?". Lately i have been playing the main episodes more though instead of pwads (i'm still not that familiar with EP 4 Thy Flesh Consumed).

 

For me i think its just the first level of EP 2 that kinda throws me off. The teleporters and shit. It's not that i really hate The Shores of Hell or anything. It's just that i remember the first couple times that i played Deimos Anomaly (had to look up how to spell that one correctly) i was so confused haha. So i always remember that experience and end up missing something.

[SirJuicyLemon]

I'm not sure if I have to replay Episode 2 and pay close attention to it, but surely Episode 2 is a great episode.

In my opinion all of the original 3 episodes are freaking good. The one I have problems with is Thy Flesh Consumed. Is not bad but I don't usually recall the levels and it doesn't attracts me as other episodes do.

 

I can feel maybe that Episode 2 in comparison to Episode 1 and Episode 3 feels a little awkward (maybe?) as it's designed to happen in Deimos and sort of a transition from Mars' satellites to Hell so the aesthetic and the designs are weird but unique at the same time.

 

I wouldn't say Episode 2 is my favorite (I like E1 and E3 more than E2) but it's still awesome.

[unerxai]

Episode 1 - Knee Deep in the Dead: Awesome

 

Episode 2 - The Shores of Hell: Pretty good

 

Episode 3 - Inferno: Most disappointing thing since my son

[Lila Feuer]

The Shores of Hell is IMHO the quintessential Doom 1 experience. Atmospheric, fun, scary, lots of surprises, exploration heavy, and the best theme in the game: infested techbase, the sweet spot between ep1 and ep3.

[Mister Xiado]

I don't remember much, if any, of Shores of Hell, and I only played through it like last week. Conversely, I found Thy Flesh Consumed to be an angry, un-fun chore. Like Plutonia and TNT. The maps feel like they belong in another game, or in a prank WAD competition. They're not badly made, but lacking in the essence that makes you want to play again.

[Kira]

doom episode 1 :))

doom episode 2 :|

doom episode 3 :|

doom episode 4 :0 :)) :) :| :| :| :D :) :|

doom 2 :))

tnt :((

plutonia d8D-/-<|:

[Hellbent]

doom episode 1 :)) :) :)) :)) :)) :)) :)) :)) :)

doom episode 2 :) :)) :| :)) :)) :)) :) :)) :)

doom episode 3 :)) :) :)) :)) :) :) :)) :| :)

doom episode 4 :) :)) :) :( :) :)) :) :) :(

doom 2 :| :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :)) :) :| :) :) :)) :) :) :) :) :) :| :) :) :) :| :) :) :)) :)) :) :) :)

 

I'm pretty sure Refueling Base is the level I play the most from Doom 2. It basically has everything and does everything well: easy navigation, intense battles, set pieces, easy monsters, medium monsters, tough monsters, toughest monster, secrets.

 

tnt :)

plutonia :)

 

What's wrong with TNT?

 

 

[Kira]

 

4 minutes ago, Hellbent said:

 

What's wrong with TNT?

 

 

 

I've just never been into it except for a few maps. Everything just feels empty, then there are the long corridors... That said, I've never done a saveless pistol starts run of TNT, and it might change my opinion, like it did for many id maps back then (I was too lazy to do a detailed rundown for e1 to e3 but there are bits in e2 and e3 that I enjoyed way more by taking this approach).

[Lila Feuer]

5 minutes ago, Hellbent said:

I'm pretty sure Refueling Base is the level I play the most from Doom 2. It basically has everything and does everything well: easy navigation, intense battles, set pieces, easy monsters, medium monsters, tough monsters, toughest monster, secrets.

It's my favorite 'test map' for trying out gameplay mods.

[Hellbent]

I recently did a pistol start of E4M2 and it was a blast. I made it to E4M6 where I died in the slime because by the time I figured out how the center lift worked for navigation I was out of health waiting for the lift for the third time. On E4M2 I nearly died a half dozen times in the first three minutes, and a couple times fully expected to die. E4M2 has everything as well, except easy navigation! 

 

TNT had good music; the track on wormhole is probably my favorite track after Ultimate Doom. 

[Maser]

My only complaint about E2 is the secret level.  If you enter that level before saving and don't have a good supply of cell and rocket ammo, you're fucked! 

[Hellbent]

7 minutes ago, Maser said:

My only complaint about E2 is the secret level.  If you enter that level before saving and don't have a good supply of cell and rocket ammo, you're fucked! 

Wait, what? I beat it on pistol start all the time. You do know how you are supposed to play the level, right? 

[Maser]

1 minute ago, Hellbent said:

Wait, what? I beat it on pistol start all the time. You do know how you are supposed to play the level, right? 

 

Nobody knows how to play a map when it's their first time playing it. 

[Hellbent]

In that case, welcome to Doom! :)

[Loud Silence]

On 1/7/2019 at 6:40 PM, roboticmehdi2 said:

I can't be the only one who thinks that episode 2 is just...plain...I don't know...bad?

You CAN, believe me.

[Liberation]

I'm not a great fan of ep2s texturing to be honest, but the levels play fine. 

[Kira]

1 hour ago, Maser said:

 

Nobody knows how to play a map when it's their first time playing it. 

You can quickly learn the ropes if you do a few pistol starts. You adopt a mindset where you run around monsters and scout the map to grab the proper ordinance (which is always there because the maps have been created with pistol start in mind). It's thrilling, I recommend! And E2M9 is a good, bit-sized, case in point of that way of Doomin'.

[Mister Xiado]

2 hours ago, Hellbent said:

In that case, welcome to Doom! :)

First three episodes of DooM don't put you anywhere you have to really prepare for. Even if you level skip, even the boss maps give you weapons, ammo, and armor suitable for beating them. Beyond a player wasting ammunition like a fool, there should be no unrecoverable situations in DooM that require a player to start over. Even a simple berserker pack and some fancy footwork can turn a bad situation around, in many cases.

[Hellbent]

1 minute ago, Mister Xiado said:

First three episodes of DooM don't put you anywhere you have to really prepare for. Even if you level skip, even the boss maps give you weapons, ammo, and armor suitable for beating them. Beyond a player wasting ammunition like a fool, there should be no unrecoverable situations in DooM that require a player to start over. Even a simple berserker pack and some fancy footwork can turn a bad situation around, in many cases.

Once you know the levels well, but even E3M8 is not easy on a pistol start. E2M2 is also pretty challenging in the ammo department if you are not comfortable relying on the berserk pack and you don't know all the secrets.

[Mister Xiado]

I played through all of the episodes from their respective first levels with a pistol start, and no memory of anything but like the first half of E1 from playing it on nearly every console port. The last time I played through episodes 2 and 3 was back in like 2006. I never hit a point where I had to go back to an old autosave and scour a map for ammunition to return to somewhere. I don't remember having a rough time on E2M2 after E2M1. Then again, GZDooM makes the game tremendously easier than playing on a 486 at a tenth the frame rate and at one-sixteenth the resolution. It just feels more fluid, like you can dance between the hitscans or something.

[Gez]

17 hours ago, Maser said:

 

Nobody knows how to play a map when it's their first time playing it. 

Sandy is big on environmental storytelling, so pay attention to your surroundings. Notice the caco corpses in the barons' cave. Notice the crucified barons in the caco palace. These guys hate each other. Run between both areas and trigger infighting, then finish off the winners of that fight.

[LordEntr0py]

Based on this thread I just replayed E2M4-E2M8 last night, and loved them.

 

On 1/14/2019 at 3:05 PM, Mk7_Centipede said:

Whereas E1 gave the impression that the humans were invaded, E2 sheds light on the fact that the UAC is flipping crazy.

Yes! I admit I didn't get this until much more recently (possibly after playing Doom 2016). I didn't understand what a research institution was doing with gargoyles and skin on the walls? Surely the demons hadn't had time to fully remodel sections of the Deimos base?

 

On 1/14/2019 at 3:05 PM, Mk7_Centipede said:

If I were to re-imagine it, I would use arachnotrons a lot, and purposefully have monsters teleport around to further out you on edge. And well, some additional sciency textures would be cool.

 

I played No End In Sight recently and to my mind, it did a great job of re-imagining Ultimate Doom. Episode 2 was my favourite for the sense of dread it managed to convey. Perfect mix of hell and techbase.

No arachnotrons, of course, but there are some masterfully-delivered WTF moments.

[KVELLER]

3 hours ago, LordEntr0py said:

Yes! I admit I didn't get this until much more recently (possibly after playing Doom 2016). I didn't understand what a research institution was doing with gargoyles and skin on the walls? Surely the demons hadn't had time to fully remodel sections of the Deimos base?

 

From Doom 2's MAP06 text screen:

 

"The monsters have brought their own reality with them, and the starport's technology is being subverted by their presence."

 

Their mere precense causes stuff around them to become corrupted.

[Kira]

51 minutes ago, KVELLER said:

Their mere precense causes stuff around them to become corrupted.

Doom 1's progression makes this pretty easy to understand I think, since it's a 3-parter with UAC, UAC + Hell, then Hell. In Doom 2 we have things like map15 which makes it pretty obvious since it's an amalgamation of this structure in a single level.

 

Then again I was nerding on Warhammer 40K beforehand so surely it did help.

[insertwackynamehere]

There’s something about the start of E2 from when video games still felt mysterious to a degree (perhaps just due to my age at the time) with knowing how E1 ended, the skybox behind you, and almost immediately this hellish yet still tech basey vibe that I think is great. So many parts of E2 I spent staring at creepy set pieces back when that stuff still made you uncomfortable but also mesmerized. I really am surprised it’s such a controversial episode.

[LordEntr0py]

13 hours ago, insertwackynamehere said:

There’s something about the start of E2 from when video games still felt mysterious to a degree (perhaps just due to my age at the time) with knowing how E1 ended, the skybox behind you, and almost immediately this hellish yet still tech basey vibe that I think is great. So many parts of E2 I spent staring at creepy set pieces back when that stuff still made you uncomfortable but also mesmerized. I really am surprised it’s such a controversial episode.

That scrolling SP_FACE texture towards the end of E2M4! First time I saw it I walked up in horror, staring at it and got chewed by the demon that charges you from down the hall. I'm certain it was designed that way.

[Gunstar Green]

On 2/20/2019 at 8:43 AM, Gez said:

Sandy is big on environmental storytelling, so pay attention to your surroundings. Notice the caco corpses in the barons' cave. Notice the crucified barons in the caco palace. These guys hate each other. Run between both areas and trigger infighting, then finish off the winners of that fight.

 

Yeah, even without that hint I had this one figured out, but that may be because as a kid I was always trying to get the enemies fighting anyway.

 

That may make it a boring, gimmicky level to a lot of people and taken on its own it kind of is, but in the context of the entire game I think it's a fun secret.