What is your favorite "chapter" in Doom II?

[Psychagogue]

Been playing this a lot recently and would be curious to hear what others think. Personally, I'd probably go with city levels.

Edited October 22, 2023 by Psychagogue

[DankMetal]

The first "episode" is the most consistent set of maps from doom 2, there are more good maps than "bad", and the "bad" ones are not that terrible.

The city episode has some of the most ugliest and boring levels (i don't care if jhon romero made it, Gotcha! looks horrible as shit).

And hell is a mixed bag, it has some good levels like catacombs or the living end, but it also contains Nirvana, what a level to start an episode, man.

Edited October 22, 2023 by DankMetal

[Lila Feuer]

Second half of Doom II has the best ratio of good to meh, while the first and third parts have some straight up duds, the latter especially.

[RHhe82]

1 hour ago, DankMetal said:

The first "episode" is the most consistent set of maps from doom 2, there are more good maps than "bad", and the "bad" ones are not that terrible.

The city episode has some of the ugliest levels and most boring levels (i don't care if jhon romero made it, Gotcha! looks horrible as shit).

And hell is a mixed bag, it has some good levels like catacombs or the living end, but it also contains Nirvana, what a level to start an episode, man.

 

This would be my assessment too; First episode is consistently decent, so I voted for that. Hell episode comes close, though; Nirvana might not be a great map, but at least it's a short one. Barrels of Fun is my least favourite of the hell bunch, and even that's not as dull as some of the city maps. Icon of Sin is a major letdown. Was back in the day, and still is, so Starport episode wins.

[TheCarsEdge]

entryway:

[Cutman 999]

The mcgee maps in doom 2 where really good, made the first stretch of doom 2 enjoyable. After that in map 08 starts to be a bit more questionable, but still good until the factory shows up.

[Individualised]

MAP01-07 and 08-11 are two separate episodes to me.

[TheMagicMushroomMan]

Starport is the most consistent, although it has a couple "meh" maps in it none of them are outright bad. City is the weakest, in terms of gameplay and visuals. Hell has the highest highs and the lowest lows.

[Maximum Matt]

5 hours ago, Individualised said:

MAP01-07 and 08-11 are two separate episodes to me.

"Episode 1(b): The Tricky Pit Fuel Circle"

Spoiler

^{of destruction.}

 

[Individualised]

Dead Simple is pretty clearly supposed to be the boss level for the first episode and story-wise MAP01-07 and MAP08-11 are in different locations.

[RonnieJamesDiner]

Starport has Underhalls. Easy peasy. 

[Maximum Matt]

So? It's an average level and takes seven hours to complete in Pacifist

[ReaperAA]

Starport. Overall the most consistent and the most enjoyable of the 3 episodes. Even Map08 (which might be my least favorite map of the episode) is fine in my eyes. Map12 is the first "bad" map of Doom2 imho.

 

The city episode is my least favorite episode. I think I only really like the The Inmost Dens and the rest are kind of okayish to mediocre.

 

The hell episode has some bad maps (Nirvana), but also has some great maps in the form of Abandoned Mines, Monster Condo, The Living End etc.

[Catpho]

The Hell episode has the most evocative theme in the classic games, that being an abstract impression (with heavy emphasis on "impression") of Earth filtered through Hell. It gave the episode a unique atmosphere, what DotW described as "(a) subtly melancholy aura of ruinous decay". It also had some of Doom II strongest levels (23, 24, 26, 27, 29), but also some of the weakest (21's disconnected boxes, 22 the weakest of the McGee levels, 25 being a barren Shawn Green level). 

 

The city episode is consistently strong on a thematic and conceptual level. Being set in a city gave the designers many liberties in designing vertical, scaled-up spaces with a sandbox element, stuff like maps 13, 15 (maybe Romero's best map in the entire game), 16, 20, parts of map 12, while also containing some fun action packed levels like 17, 18. The pretty 14 doesn't hurt. No real weak levels, maybe 19 I don't care for that much since it feels like a dungeon crawl holdover from Petersen's overall weaker UDoom days. It can be argued that the highs of the hell episode is worth more than most of the good city episode levels, but for me the gap isn't big enough to find it to be immersive atmospherically and engaging on a level by level basis.

 

Starport levels get low points from me mostly because I'm not a fan of Doom II McGee. Too safe in level design (not obviously bad like the worst Petersen moments, but doesn't contain the ambition and mad inspiration when Romero and Petersen get serious), rather mediocre visuals (yeah his texture and lighting niceties are ok, but the architecture and layout are mostly undramatic) and restrained in combat (which is an early game thing, to be fair) for me to like them, but the episode improves massively when Petersen craziness and Romero's map 11 steps in at the end. Petersen + Romero is Doom II for me.

 

So I like Doom II's Hell as a setting better and some of the game's strongest levels are in there, but the city level's highs are not that far behind and that episode is much more sustained in quality and I like the city theme nearly as much. I guess one's assesment of the game highly depends on whether they think the combination of the squalid, gritty art direction of the textures, combined with the whimsical level design style where weridness is embraced resulting in a highly tricky tone between the grim and the playful is a good thing or a bad thing. Doom II is a video gamey-y video game with a  mournful, subtly lovecraftian cloak. Weird game, but that's why I like it.

[Lila Feuer]

@Catpho I won't deny that The Chasm is borderline liminal space because of how fucking strange that level is, this massive place exists but for what purpose? Monster Condo is also pretty creepy.

[idbeholdME]

If I go simply by the percentage of the maps I consider good/like playing per "episode":

1 - 8/11 - 72.7%

2 - 7/9 - 77.7%

3 - 6/10 - 60%

 

So City barely ekes it out with a better ratio over Starport for me. Bonus levels are left out.

 

Detailed dive would probably be different and I'd have to weigh the highs and lows of each episode to land on some "definitive" personal score.

Edited October 23, 2023 by idbeholdME

[spineapple tea]

I'm tempted to say episode three because its strong maps are stronger than the peaks in the other two episodes (MAP22, 24, 28, and 29 mostly), but the consistency of the maps surrounding them brings the entire thing down as "the episode with Nirvana" or something similar. I'll still vote for it though if only because the boredom I get from replaying episode one again can easily allow me to undermine its quality (and episode two is far too boring and mostly unlikable for me to consider in the first place).

[Sonikkumania]

I reconsidered everything and I seen to like the City levels the most. There are great levels like the Inmost Dens, The Citadel and The Courtyard. I don't even mind Downtown.

[Maximum Matt]

18 hours ago, ReaperAA said:

Map12 is the first "bad" map of Doom2 imho.

Yeah, me too

 

17 hours ago, Catpho said:

22 the weakest of the McGee level

 

17 hours ago, Catpho said:

I'm not a fan of Doom II McGee

Aw HELL no man c'mon

 

16 hours ago, Lila Feuer said:

The Chasm is borderline liminal space

I've heard that term before, what does it actually mean?

[OniriA]

None.

 

Atleast not how they're represented in Doom 2 that is.

[DankMetal]

33 minutes ago, Maximum Matt said:

I've heard that term before, what does it actually mean?

Taken from Wikipedia:

Quote

In internet aesthetics, liminal spaces are empty or abandoned places that appear eerie, forlorn, and often surreal. Liminal spaces are commonly places of transition, pertaining to the concept of liminality.

I think that's why i like the chasm, it feels so eerie and weird, i would love to see more maps with this kind of aesthetic.

[Kwisior]

11 hours ago, DankMetal said:

I think that's why i like the chasm, it feels so eerie and weird, i would love to see more maps with this kind of aesthetic.

Regarding the poll - I played Doom II's maps enough times that I've grown to like or at least appreciate all the of them (except 10 and 21) so it was hard to choose. However I picked the city maps because of their replayability as a result of their exploration-based layouts.

Sure, they kinda sucked at first and I didn't know where to go, but at subsequent playthroughs they're fun and still didn't get old. The Chasm grew on me similarly.

Still, even the linear maps from E2 (like The Inmost Dens and Tenements) are awesome.

 

Edited October 24, 2023 by Kwisior

[Amaruψ]

Easily the Star Port, because of the consistency when it comes to art style and design that it has over the rest of the "episodes".

 

The city and hell levels, apart from generally being lackluster for the most part, seem to lack in consistency when it comes to the design. It appears that every single one of them at Id who was designing the maps had a different interpretation of what the city or hell might look like. Of course, a majority of them are... why's this in a city, what does this has to do with hell, etc, etc. 

 

A good example of this confused design direction would be the inclusion of the Inmost Dens, Tenements and Citadel in the city levels. The Inmost Dens, while a pretty good level, doesn't actually have any place to exist within a city. Tenements is Tenements only in the name and is John's typical "abstract as heck" level design. (now'd I think of it, people always call Sandy's designs "abstract", meanwhile John here literally playing Picasso with his maps). And Citadel is a strange one in itself, because Sandy for the most part nailed down the concept of a "city" more than the others.

 

Hell is mostly packed with levels that're, while for the most part passable, confused design and artistic choices. Sandy's Barrels O' Fun being a hell level for some reason, the Chasm's texture choices being completely confusing, McGee literally creating a massive compass in the middle of his map, etc.

 

I like individual maps from DOOM II, but if I'm forced to pick an "episode", I'll go with the Star Port.

[Individualised]

7 minutes ago, Amaruψ said:

Sandy's Barrels O' Fun being a hell level for some reason

Reading this activated my interest in Doom 2's development so I had a quick look at the early level order but to my surprise it seems it was always a hell level. Perhaps very early in development it had a different slot. It might have looked more like a hell level at one point before they started severely cutting down on the texture palette available towards the end of development.

 

As for Inmost Dens, that was originally a hell level before being moved to the city episode (it swapped places with Bloodfalls which was originally a city level - the version in the reconstructed prototype .WAD even still has city texturing in many places). Tenements was a techbase level originally hence why that one doesn't fit.

Edited October 24, 2023 by Individualised

[Amaruψ]

1 minute ago, Individualised said:

Reading this activated my interest in Doom 2's development so I had a quick look at the early level order but to my surprise it seems it was always a hell level. Perhaps very early in development it had a different slot. It might have looked more like a hell level at one point before they started severely cutting down on the texture palette available towards the end of development.

 

Given how much a few levels changed, it's a good possibility that they indeed cut down and changed the level around quite a bit.

 

I recall that in one of his YouTube videos, Sandy mentions that he immediately struck a chord with Romero over the fact that he was an avid gamer just as he was. Given that Barrels O' Fun simply revolves around being playful with the barrels at the beginning and the end, I'm sure that it would've been Romero's call to keep the level in the game. I don't know, I should perhaps email him or Sandy to see if that's true or not :P 

[DynamiteKaitorn]

Mainly voted for the city levels simply because I do find several of them to be fun. Starport's maps are solid and very memorable though I guess I just prefer the middle of DooM II's map design.

 

Less we speak of the hell maps the better. XD

[Individualised]

1 minute ago, Amaruψ said:

I'm sure that it would've been Romero's call to keep the level in the game. I don't know, I should perhaps email him or Sandy to see if that's true or not :P 

You're probably right, I think this was the case for the levels that had abstract names (Tricks and Traps, Barrels o' Fun etc).

[zokum]

I've said it before, but I think the game would have played much better with some of the maps moved around, and just dropping Nirvana. The maps were moved around, heavily, and McGee retextured/remonsterted his to fit the new order. Petersen most likely didn't care or had maps to finish. I've always held the position that Sandy's maps are of somewhat lower quality than the others, but a large part of that was due to him making many more maps than the rest, combined...

In Doom 1 it isn't hard to be the star designer when you are responsible for 7 maps while the other one is responsible for 20, which were in many cases unfinished Hall maps. In Doom 2 its slightly more balanced, but Petersen is still credited for 18 of the 32 maps.

The episodes were a feature in v1.666, but this was removed in later versions, I think id just retconned this as it made little sense to have those episodes, especially given the story line intermissions not quite matching up.

It's hard to pick a favorite third as there are so many highs and lows. I think I'd have to go with 1-11 as it has an ok overall quality, with not that many highs, but also not as bad stinkers as the other two. I've always disliked 12, 21 and 25. 25 is just so damn bland and the progression is lazy. The lighting and areas just don't make sense, even within the Doom games.

[Lila Feuer]

2 hours ago, Kwisior said:

Regarding the poll - I played Doom II's maps enough times that I've grown to like or at least appreciate all the of them (except 10 and 21) so it was hard to choose.

 

Aw, but Refuelling Base has so many BFG worthy mobs to blow away! It's a favorite of mine when testing out weapon mods because of the amount of low to medium tier monsters on display.

 

I hate 12, especially pistol start and with fast monsters, turns into a complete slog, but I agree with 21 for just feeling like a wasted slot.

[Kwisior]

21 minutes ago, Lila Feuer said:

 

Aw, but Refuelling Base has so many BFG worthy mobs to blow away! It's a favorite of mine when testing out weapon mods because of the amount of low to medium tier monsters on display.

 

I hate 12, especially pistol start and with fast monsters, turns into a complete slog, but I agree with 21 for just feeling like a wasted slot.

Refueling Base is one of my least played maps from Doom II, so maybe I'm just using the wrong strategy. From my prior experience it's a painful and ammo deficient level.

Edited October 24, 2023 by Kwisior