Why do so many people dislike Doom II?

[Looper]

RUSH said:

I think the later Doom II levels (20-30) are generally the best. Some are exceptionally great, especially the last four.

I think Map28 (The Spirit World) isn't that great. Good music, looks great but there's just too many invulnerability spheres, megaspheres and energy cells. Takes away ALL the fun D: I wish there was only 1 invulnerability and 1 mega.

[Spectre01]

Graf Zahl said:

MAP21 is the second worst of the IWAD maps, only topped by the sheer pointlessness of the non-boss fight in MAP30.

Worse than TNT's Habitat? Pretty sure there are other stinkers there as well but I haven't played through it in a decade.

[VGamingJunkie]

What about the aptly named Mount Pain? Also, unlike The Spirit World, at least Nirvana is straightforward and doesn't have any trickery.

[yakfak]

what's the virtue of a map that far into the set being "straight-forward"?

[VGamingJunkie]

I mean in the sense that it doesn't spring anything out of the ordinary on you like, say, being forced to shoot a symbol to get to the exit room.

[RUSH]

Looper said:

I think Map28 (The Spirit World) isn't that great. Good music, looks great but there's just too many invulnerability spheres, megaspheres and energy cells. Takes away ALL the fun D: I wish there was only 1 invulnerability and 1 mega.

That is a good point actually. Although on ultra-violence I recall it being pretty challenging still. But then again I'm not really a great player. Hmm... I'll have to give it another play through now. I agree too much invulnerability isn't fun at all. I also hate having my screen turn black and white.

EDIT: Never mind you were right it was way too easy. I agree there should have been half the health. Or 1/3 even.

[snapshot]

I Dislike it because it's not as colorful as the First Doom .

[Noiser]

Fonze said:

Yeah or a map based on spaghetti, right?

Maybe not the theme itself, but the health thing, platforms.. yeah. :-)

[Fonze]

Noiser said:

Maybe not the theme itself, but the health thing, platforms.. yeah. :-)

;D The theme totally was. Tbh, the platforms were the least gimmicky thing, to me, as it just made me think of that room in E2M3 and the other thousand times it was repeated throughout the iWads.

I'm still pretty sure that this is my favorite piece of sector art.

Spoiler

[kb1]

Fonze said:

;D The theme totally was. Tbh, the platforms were the least gimmicky thing, to me, as it just made me think of that room in E2M3 and the other thousand times it was repeated throughout the iWads.

I'm still pretty sure that this is my favorite piece of sector art.

Spoiler

http://i.imgur.com/mcjfDdRl.png

BUMP..What wad is *that* from?

[Doominator2]

MetroidJunkie said:

The abundance of Medikits at the beginning was weird, though, like they expected the level to be more brutal than it actually is.

Nirvana by definition is like a place that is free of pain and suffering, kinda like heaven in someway right?

I believe the beginning is sort of like the Nirvana Zone, where your safe and can relieve your pain with the medkits.

Thats what I think anyways.

[scifista42]

kb1 said:

BUMP..What wad is *that* from?

Spicy Evil Spaghetti

[Flesh420]

I dislike D2 because the ammo balance is terrible on UV, especially if you're playing coop with no respawn.

[Li'l devil]

^^ The ammo balance was kinda terrible in certain parts of Doom 1, too. Specifically, the beginning of episode 3 and also maybe episode 4.

[mrthejoshmon]

I don't dislike Doom 2 anywhere near as much as Plutonia but I still think many of the maps in it are really naff.

Whilst Nirvana, Bloodfalls, The Spirit World, The Crusher and The Citadel are some of my least favorite of all Doom games, Doom 2 does have some of my favorite maps like; Monster Condo, The Courtyard, The Focus, The Abandoned Mines, Gotcha and Industrial Zone.

It is love/hate sometimes.

[VGamingJunkie]

It's probably because of the demo loop but I have a certain nostalgic fondness for O' of Destruction and Abandoned Mines.

[DoomzRules]

I like the first 10 maps. After that I probably only like Nirvana because of the PSX version of it.... :3

[Spectre01]

Flesh420 said:

I dislike D2 because the ammo balance is terrible on UV, especially if you're playing coop with no respawn.

That's why you check the "double ammo" flag if the wad doesn't adjust item spawns for coop.

mrthejoshmon said:

I don't dislike Doom 2 anywhere near as much as Plutonia but I still think many of the maps in it are really naff.

What could you possibly not like about the greatest megawad of the 90's?

[valkiriforce]

No item respawn on coop is always a drag, because you're left sharing ammo and taking turns shooting monsters with hopefully just enough ammo if one of the other players haven't already taken the items with them in their death. I don't think there's any WAD I've played on coop where that wasn't the case, in my experience anyway.

[miketheratguy]

I never hated Doom II but I always did prefer the first game. It's been a while since I played Doom II but my memory is that the level design felt a bit more random and the monster design, while good, just made the game feel "different". In general I much preferred the aesthetic, tight coherent themes, and smoothly increasing complexity of the first game.

When coupling this with the fact that I started this series with the first game it's clear to me why Doom II will always be the lesser of the two.

[Blastfrog]

I'm pretty much the same way, the first game is just tighter and more coherent. Doom 2 feels like "whatever, here's some new levels with new stuff in it". Atmospherically, it felt too self-aware that it was just a game, the first game really felt more serious.

[NorkasAradel]

the only reason i prefer doom 1's levels over doom 2's is because doom 2 has tricks and traps.
trick and fucking traps.

[Cupboard]

Back in the day, that was a badass fight, a cyberdemon waging war against his disloyal Barons. It was an iconic fight scene for me, I had a saved game slot dedicated to it when I was kid

Other than that, yeah it's not an imaginative level and it starts off very oddly. "What did I do to deserve all these doors?" I only just started!"

[Azazel Bloodfucker]

Just played through DOOM 2 to remember, it's fun in the beginning, pretty boring throughout the rest of it. But it had some fun moments and maps throughout it. That is all.

[Spectre01]

Tricks and Traps is a great and memorable level. One of the best from the first episode. It's non-linear and has some cool slaughtery sections like the 50 Imp room, the Cacoswarm and the Demon horde near the BFG. Not to mention the iconic Cyber/Baron room which is still a widely used setup in modern wads.

[VGamingJunkie]

Tricks and Traps seems to be more memorable if you go in on a pistol start, then you have to brave the traps to gear up so that you can actually proceed with the level. Otherwise, the majority of the level is completely redundant.

[valkiriforce]

I loved using the plasma gun in the caco room; that was always a highlight moment for me whenever I played Doom 2. But then again Doom 2 is chock full of highlights for me when I think back to playing it for the first time in 1998.

[Avoozl]

Flesh420 said:

I dislike D2 because the ammo balance is terrible on UV, especially if you're playing coop with no respawn.

Well there's always melee weapons such as the chainsaw and your fists. ;)

[Koko Ricky]

I remember being a bit turned off by how dull much of Doom 2 looked compared to the original, but then again id kinda jumpstarted the brown trend, for better or worse. As for the layouts themselves...they were sometimes gimmicky and poorly organized, but I remember getting a kick out of quite a few maps, most notably The Focus, Tricks and Traps, Suburbs, Industrial Zone, Downtown, Monster Condo, The Living End, etc. It was more expansive than D1's maps, even if they were less elegant.

[Cynical]

janvknn said:

The frequency of plasma bullets is much higher than Baron fireballs, so you're likely to get hit by 2-3-4 bullets at a time.

L2P. You can cut through a stream (or even multiple streams, if you're familiar with the basic movement concepts of arcade shmups -- look up "streaming" on the Touhou wiki sometime) without taking a single hit fairly easily. Taking 2, 3, or 4? What are you doing, just standing still in the stream?

If you got your head out of your ass, you'd realize I'm not talking about difficulty but about balance. They are related, but different things.

The balance is fine if you don't suck. L2P.

(Plutonia > Doom 2 > Doom 1 > Evilution. This is undeniable fact.)

EDIT: Also, the way most people use the word "gimmicky", it's pretty much a synonym for "novel, thoughtful, and cool". "Oh noes, a Doom map did something that wasn't exactly like the basic 'run 'n gun' E1 standards, better complain about the game having the audacity to throw something unusual at me!" The complaints about the end of map 28 are the perfect summation; you know there's a wall in that room that can open (thanks to automap), you see an unusual wall, you use it, nothing happens, so you try hitting it or shooting it. You're not having to make a cat-hair-mustache-disguise; it's a basic bit of puzzle solving, something that the engine is reasonably well suited for. But instead, everyone cries about it because it's not the exact same bland comfort food of "kill a steady trickle of enemies" that they were expecting. Bah.