Doom 1 or 2?

[kinker31]

I've said this before around these forums, but I prefer the richer gameplay of Doom 2, and the more bite-sized episodes of Doom 1. Put both of them together, and you'd have my ideal dream IWAD!

[Kwisior]

On 8/12/2023 at 9:57 AM, kinker31 said:

I've said this before around these forums, but I prefer the richer gameplay of Doom 2, and the more bite-sized episodes of Doom 1. Put both of them together, and you'd have my ideal dream IWAD!

Try Tarnsman's Projectile Hell, Valiant and Scythe II.

Edit: Speed of Doom as well.

Edit 2: Eviternity as well.

Edited August 13, 2023 by Kwisior

[St. Mildly Annoyed]

12 hours ago, Individualised said:

The reason Doom 2 doesn't have the same atmosphere is because it uses generic textures for most of the levels, whether or not they're supposed to be techbase or hell, if you didn't know about the game's story you might not even be able to tell. It wasn't always like this, the reason for them changing the texturing to be like that is unknown but we know that they were having issues with storage limitations. It might also have to do with them shifting around the level order late into development.

Yeah that's kind of what I was trying to get at as well. Doom's use of textures had more purpose and added to the environment in a way that made it feel like an actual techbase or circle of hell, while doom ii had a much weirder flow and blander design.

[Darkcrafter07]

I voted for Doom 2 for it being my first Doom game when I was a kid, later on as I discovered the original game, it felt worse because it lacked SSG and newer monsters like archvile, chaingunners and so on. I've got to admit Doom is really good too and in my opinion, has more hellish feel to it than Doom 2. Episode 4? Also cool. Also I hate Doom 2 ending and it seemed as a really big disappointment and gimmickly made.

 

Well, Doom 2 is bigger, badder and better and places felt to me like real (Doom is NOT about realism though) and more atmospheric. It's a bit more boring game though due to more thinking involved into solving these level design puzzles. Doom 2 also requires a better machine in order to render fast enough. I'd say Pentium 60 or DX4-75 is where it gets playable instead of DX2-66 for Doom and Pentium 75, 90 or 100 are needed to make it really enjoyable.

 

Spoiler

Map01 - you step out in the first met tech base in the evening;

 

Map02 - underhalls is how you make your way throug under ground sneaky so you're not seen;

 

Map03 - is the installation you have to beat as you crowl out of that dark pipeland;

 

Map04 - probably inspired by some military fortified checkpoint;

 

Map05 - underhalls 2 with more traps and "street fight";

 

Map06 - a huge underground warehouse with a crusher to dispose of waste, luckily, some stupid monsters crawled it, crush them, get the blue card and find out a techn maze that has red one, something is behind that red door resembles a fortfied zigzag pathway, another checkpoint but way more fortified than Map04 one. it's like a real bunker full of monsters that prepared to unleash all they have on you just to stop you from entering the spaceport;

 

Map07 - the spaceport fight, the switch that lowers the orbit shield over Earth in space, is guarded by big fat flamethrower assholes and reinforced by plasmagun spiders, all around you, kill them all so all shields drop and you can lower the last and main one that blocks human spaceships to leave the Earth;

 

Map08 - this room is a hub full of traps and monsters, a really tight fortification, the exit room is also fortified with a trap, once passed through, becomes unattainable because the pathway is drowned in chemical wastes and maybe there was a teleport somewhere that could still help you get in there but hush.

 

Map09 - another massively vertically and horizontally fortified structure;

 

Map10 - refueling station they say it is but it's so big and mazed that it becomes a really hard fortification;

 

Map11 - this one is round with pathways here and there, the central block is secure thoroughly and contains that little and shining red card, something you can not get without if want to cross the bridge towards the massive pit full of flying dirt bags that love BFG shots, it's also has two switches that lower bars that block way to the exit, go to the right one switch it and rush towards the other side;

 

Map12 - big open outdoors map with some sort of facility, you can see the city is burning bright in the background, this one will need you to become a little bit more agile when taking a cover from plamsa spiders patroling ways inside the main facility which is also full of surprises;

 

Map13 - city alike map, also big open spaces and maze like structure so your life won't appear very easy, it forces you to think vertically more this time, what teleport to step on in order to get on the roof and jump at a bulding with a color coded door that will also lead you somewhere;

 

Map14 - oh, it's a couple of cobblestone made fortifications and also connected with their water draining system, some wall, somewhere, the exit door is hidden, hmm, obviously it's behind those color bars, look for keys and don't get shot by chaingunner watchers around every corner, an archvile wants you to attain their courtyard so bad with its company of hellish friends, BFG and plasma time;

 

Map15 - oh, it's like some factory again but blocked by lava rocks moat, you can jump right on their heads like a true marine, it's full of puzzles;

Map16 - some sort of living area, flats and streets full of shit, that amount of monsters that ambush you is kind of one of the first slaughter fights took its place ever in Doom, an exit is hidden somewhere in the black blocks;

 

Map17 - once there were tenements but hell invaded, floors fell down and lava came through, monsters spawned, it was like if eartquake occured but overall structure left untouched, there are quiete a lot of traps;

 

Map18 - the courtyard, big open space surrounded by monsters rushing at you from all the corners;

 

Map19 - literally a citadel, was it like humans made it or hell, doesn't matter, in order to proceed, you need keys hidden there;

 

Map20 - a whole big lake of blood, these suckers drink it and it must be that a portal to hell is somewhere nearby. Oh, you want to close it? Impossible? Jump there and give them hell;

 

Map21 - congrats, you're officialy in hell, as it consumed that part of the city you can still see it, albeit, red hot hellish bones above you instead of sky and surrounded by huge stone formations looking like mountains;

 

Map22 - you begin in a dark, torch lit room and there is a wall right to you that has fishures in it and lots of chaingunners there, too watch you "behave". Look like jail? Who cares when you're armed to teeth, get over the surface hub to get into different sections like these and get a key leading to the exit door;

 

Map23 - my favorite map, you find yourself standing among lots of highly explosive barrels, as soon as you step out of the projector lit floor, there is a wall behind you, with a fat flamethrowing asshole gets triggered immediately and kill itself and you by shooting those barrels run and don't stop until you reach safe space behind the door. Fight the army of pain elementals and lost souls and you'll see the hub that connects different sections of the map. Here is a thing, as soon as you see lots of barrels, run until they end and you reach safe space to blow them up, that will kill other inhabitants and keep you untouched, with ammo reserve unfired;

 

Map24 - you teleported into a strange tech base full of acid, wait, Sandy Petersen once told he had a dream of him walking over a thin ledge fearing not to fall down and thus he came up with the level. You either make it through like crazy or love those ledges in order to calm down;

 

Map25 - you start up in the attic where blood flows on the floor from somewhere and drops to sections down below, yeah, it's a hub again. Jump down the first one, kill them all then get back via the teleport and jump the second one. That way you'll clear them out easier before getting the blue key. If you got a BFG it's going to get a hell of a fun to say your hello to the crowd of monsters located behind that door;

 

Map26 - the map title says these are abandoned mines, but monsted loved this place, it's time to make them unlove it back, let SSG, rockets, bullets and plasma be your tools to do so;

 

Map27 - also one of my favorite maps, you see a really dark area tiled out of yellow bricks and cobblestone, some bulbs add up to the atmosphere nicely and there is a lot of dirt secrets in this map, it has a library packed with surprises and also some rooms where victims were placed, make them all regret badly for what was done. A couple of pain elementals that supposedly ate their souls can't wait when you blast a couple of BFG balls right in their face so they can finally release everything they have and experience nirvana;

 

Map28 - it's a hub again, you look at the walls and find out they're all grown with dried weaved branches, hmm, the color match between them and pain elementals are incredible, they were all standing gathered in crowds and waiting specially for your SSG and BFG charges, feed them all and don't forget about archviles hiding behind some secret walls, they also love it;

 

Map29 - the ground beneath your feet slowly falls and you situate right behind the bad guys backs. A big stone platform is in front of you and bad guys firing at you in all of their hatred. This one is tricky one that you shouldn't always fall down to the lake full of blood, step on gently before you reach that platform and climb it;

 

Map30 - it's a mixed theme of tech and hell. You begin in a small room filled with ammunition, power-ups and weapons, there are a couple of humans that were executed violently signalise it's a really bad place, there is a wall right in front of you depicting literally faces of tortured and suffering sinners like if they were trying to penetrate it but became stones. You teleport on a steep platforms and see the big goat mug, smiling evilly, it infinitely spits skull sealed cubes that spawn monsters everywhere it wants. Somebody made a lobotomy in is forearm and this is exactly the place whence those cubes come out, what a really nice idea to shoot rockets in there to find out whether it likes it or not.

 

I couldn't finish this level when being a kid, as it was pretty hard to direct rockets in there. Later on, I found IDCLIP cheat and I was really shocked by seeing a human head impaled on a stick and it was John. What a fucking gimmick bullshit, it would have been better if I haven't ever knew this. The ending of Doom 2 sucks so much that they couldn't come up with anything better than getting a cheap John joke in it.

 

Edited August 12, 2023 by Darkcrafter07

[Alfiq]

Doom 2 definitely has a better enemy selection and the SSG is a really iconic, important addition, but nothing can beat Doom 1's maps. They feel like they have a better overall quality than Doom 2's. I also prefer the episodic format that 1 has over the second games format of just 32 maps. Both are great and have their place, but Doom 1 is better (imo)

[kinker31]

On 8/12/2023 at 8:09 AM, Kwisior said:

Try Tarnsman's Projectile Hell, Valiant and Scythe II.

Edit: Speed of Doom as well.

Edit 2: Eviternity as well.

I've seen that point made a lot, but I dunno.

1. I'd rather I not have go go through a mandatory death exit when exiting a level. Mechanically, it does make sense, being there's no other way in the vanilla engine to actually 30 levels back to back. If I may cast my vote on this, doesn't it kinda seem cheap when you manage to beat a map... only for it to blow your sorry rear end up instead of simply just going to the next level? Or ending the episode?
2. I kinda like being able to select an episode proper without needing to use IDCLEV. Or "map ExMx/xx" if more ZDoom inclined. MAPINFO and the more port-friendly UMAPINFO does solve this issue, but even then, most mappers use it to disable ZDoom's crouch and jump. No proper episode or branching shenanigans. Not in Doom 2, anyways.
3. Every mapset you mentioned (save Evilternity, perhaps, ^{I dunno about Projectile Hell, never played it}) only uses episodes to mark thematic changes (and maybe hikes in difficulty), it's still an unbroken campaign through and through. Most likely designed for Pistol Starts only, per level. I'm not entirely opposed to the concept, but I personally like having each episode be it's own little thing, a-la Ultimate Doom.

[Darkcrafter07]

On 8/12/2023 at 10:57 AM, kinker31 said:

I've said this before around these forums, but I prefer the richer gameplay of Doom 2, and the more bite-sized episodes of Doom 1. Put both of them together, and you'd have my ideal dream IWAD!

 

This is a really nice idea, maybe we should focus around doing something like this. Just imagine one big IWAD where story begins since E1M1 and ends up like Map30 from Doom 2 if not even later. The Doom 2 arsenal and monsters could really make some of Doom maps shine if made from scratch being richer visualy and gameplay wise.

[Garland]

Maps got a bit weird in Doom 2, but the core gameplay was certainly enhanced by the SSG and new enemies. I don't mind the 32 map format on principle, but I do look forward to some adherence of episodic level groups. I also enjoy seeing efforts of continued terrain from a preceding map within the same group, e.g. Jenesis and Eviternity.

[Kwisior]

2 hours ago, kinker31 said:

2. I kinda like being able to select an episode proper without needing to use IDCLEV. Or "map ExMx/xx" if more ZDoom inclined. 

When played with GZDoom, Valiant, TPH and Eviternity (as well as Ancient Aliens) have episode selections.

 

2 hours ago, kinker31 said:

3. Every mapset you mentioned (save Evilternity, perhaps, ^{I dunno about Projectile Hell, never played it}) only uses episodes to mark thematic changes (and maybe hikes in difficulty), it's still an unbroken campaign through and through. Most likely designed for Pistol Starts only, per level. I'm not entirely opposed to the concept, but I personally like having each episode be it's own little thing, a-la Ultimate Doom.

Valiant and Ancient Aliens end their episodes with a text screen, after which you must choose the next episode (if you play with GZDoom), just like in UD. I don't know about the others since I never really played them.

Edited August 14, 2023 by Kwisior

[prfunky]

On 7/16/2023 at 6:22 PM, openroadracer said:

If anyone knows of a good, well-made mod that replaces a good number of DooM 93's Barons with D2's demons(maybe even thin the number of former humans by sprinkling in a few Chaingunners), I'd appreciate it.

 

Well, it's a partial solution because what I have to sell you here only works in

ZDoom-based ports. I tested good in Zandronum. All magic accomplished

because DECORATE. The code is documented so I recommend you read it.

 

fleshyMission.zip

[Noiser]

On 7/16/2023 at 4:17 PM, daydreamer said:

I agree, the amount of Barons in Doom becomes a bit too much at the end, some variety in monsters would have been better (maybe PSX version fixed this? Haven’t tried it yet)

 

But overall, I’m finding I’m more likely to think “I wish Doom had more monster variety” than “I wish Doom II had better maps”. The atmosphere and level design/flow is just better in Doom which is why it gets my vote.

 

On 7/16/2023 at 8:22 PM, openroadracer said:

If anyone knows of a good, well-made mod that replaces a good number of DooM 93's Barons with D2's demons(maybe even thin the number of former humans by sprinkling in a few Chaingunners), I'd appreciate it.

It doesn't change the barons, but you may like this as well: 

 

[Yousuf Anik]

Doom 2, because this is where I began and learned how to open a door or flip a switch!

[SealSpace]

I'm mostly familiar with Doom 1, but Doom 2 looks a lot better and more awesome. Still have yet to beat it Doom 2 despite watching vids of Doom mods for the past several years and mixing and matching Doom iwads and pwads on my GZDoom myself, since I didn't have the time to beat the rest of Doom 2.

[Astar]

Of course, SSG is very cool and there are more monsters, but... I prefer Doom 1 because it had far less surreal maps than Doom 2.

 

[Andromeda]

On 8/12/2023 at 4:06 AM, St. Mildly Annoyed said:

Worse yet, it even has one level I would consider to be genuinely hatable and posterchild of this games level problems, The Citadel.

 

the one that stands out the most to me is that one key, which you supposedly need to complete the level, is one of the tougher to access goddamn SECRETs, that you fucking DON'T NEED if you just try and squeeze through the bars, which no other level allows you to do, making it completely COUNTERINTUITIVE AND IRELLEVANT TO ANY OTHER PART OF THE GAME AND IT'S MECHANICS.

All three keys are inside secrets and you only need two to get to the exit (not counting speedrunning tricks). This is intended and not counterintuitive in any way, besides a similar scenario exists in Nirvana just a couple of levels later where you don't need the blue key to exit.

[St. Mildly Annoyed]

2 hours ago, Andromeda said:

All three keys are inside secrets and you only need two to get to the exit (not counting speedrunning tricks). This is intended and not counterintuitive in any way, besides a similar scenario exists in Nirvana just a couple of levels later where you don't need the blue key to exit.

Wait, really? I feel like that makes it worse. Besides, in Nirvana the keys have a less bizarre placement that makes it so you're almost certainly going to pick up all of them without needing to scope around.

Edited September 9, 2023 by St. Mildly Annoyed

[Andromeda]

34 minutes ago, St. Mildly Annoyed said:

Wait, really? I feel like that makes it worse.

Well they're secrets technically but the only one hidden as such is the blue key which is optional.

[Lucius Wooding]

Good news: Citadel and Nirvana are both entirely optional maps. It's not just the keys, you can roll up your windows and lock your doors and just cruise past them. My enjoyment of Doom 2 went way up when I realized this.

[Andromeda]

Yeah, playing Doom II is completely optional.

[Shakariki Heisenberg]

doom 2 has better gameplay and its just more fun to play but doom1 has better midis

[Naarok0fkor]

A love to do both at the same time...

[Async Unicorn]

Monsters and weapons - Doom 2

Level design, atmosphere, and overall style - Doom 1

 

(at first I disliked citadel like everyone else, but now it's one of my favorite maps actually; it is fun, it has an interesting concept, overall it's a cool map, though you need to learn and understand it to like)

Edited September 9, 2023 by Vanilla+Unicorn

[Xfing]

It's impossible to overrate the gameplay additions that Doom 2 introduced, with the Super Shotgun, Megasphere and so many new monsters. 

In terms of texture choice and atmosphere though, both were way better in Doom 1. Not only did it have prettier looking textures and levels across the board, the atmosphere was better too. One possible exception might be level 28: The Spirit World, which felt much more disturbing and depressing than any hellish level from 1. Those felt welcoming by comparison, I'd even say. Which is not to say of course they were worse, just felt different, a more "friendly" Hell if you will, which I also appreciate very much. I really enjoy fanmade WADs in the style of Inferno, much more than any Hell on Earth inspired ones, in fact.

And yeah, The Citadel was one of the best Doom II moments, precisely because of how Doom 1 it felt. It was clearly a repurposed leftover level and it shows. 

Edited September 9, 2023 by Xfing

[Raith138]

I could pass on having to shoot the random wall behind the imps.

[Project H]

Doom II along with its awesome mods

[Lila Feuer]

Doom 1 has the better atmosphere and music and nostalgia factor, but Doom II has the better gameplay and level design.

[Dreamskull]

Doom 2 if I was forced to pick between 1 and 2, but Doom 1 has better maps and a better sountrack.

 

I simply cant give up the new beastiary. The SSG is nice, but the original shotgun is a benchmark weapon.

Edited September 13, 2023 by Dreamskull

[Maël slayer]

My favorite stay doom 2

[Donowa]

I prefer doom 2's enemy/weapon roster (especially the revenant and archvile) and higher amount of enemies, while preferring the better level design and theming of doom 1. playstation doom adds in a couple new enemies to the doom 1 maps but it still doesn't up the enemy count that much

[Orchid87]

What is it about Doom 1 level design that some people here love so much? Doom 1 is full of flat narrow halls.