Quoting: XpanderI doubt it actually is but it sure feels like..Its all just super mediocre. dialog and voiceacting is pretty bad also.

Ahh! I see!

Quoting: Xpanderbut somehow the game manages to hook me.. i guess because its somewhat a MMORPG and i used to be a huge MMORPG player back in the days.. WoW and Warhammer Online mostly back when i switched to linux in 2007 and a bit before that also

It's always good to find something new that you click with in a genre that you like. You're lucky! (That doesn't happen very often with some of my favourites anymore - maze-chase in particular. )

Quoting: PenglingI have finished it now, and all that I can say is that I didn't enjoy it anywhere near as much as the first one - it's full of unintuitive and occasionally-contradictory elements, and there was only one stage whose design I liked, but I couldn't even remember its name by the next day. I'm really glad that this one's over...

I think it is obvious that the levels were created during a really short time. Although they generally have more enemies than in Doom, they feel emptier due to the architecture and less theme (although that is something that isn't that consistent in Doom as well).

Quoting: KlaasAlthough they generally have more enemies than in Doom, they feel emptier due to the architecture and less theme (although that is something that isn't that consistent in Doom as well).

Yeah, that was a big part of the problem; It felt very meandering and disconnected because of these things, and sometimes devolved into downright bad design - stages made mostly of tiny thin ledges immediately spring to mind...

Though the first Doom isn't consistent either, the overall throughline of "This marine is tracking down demons from Hell via a space-base." still works throughout because it always feels "alien" in that charming way that early 3D always does, whereas I didn't get that feeling from Doom II at all - Doom II felt more like they'd thrown a bunch of stuff together Because Sequel, and it's lacking in a lot of the visual storytelling found in the first game*.

*Standouts for me in the original Doom were the mystery of what happened to the base during the first episode, the visuals in House of Pain hinting at what the demons do to people, and the spooky expanses of fireblu contrasting with the vast sea of lava in Mt. Erebus. I also loved the ending images, particularly the creepy stinger of the seemingly-happy ending with the bunnies, that then foreshadows the sequel.

I can't tell at this point if not liking Doom II at all is a me thing, or that at the time A LOT of people wanted more Doom which then elevated the sequel's reception... Maybe it's a bit of both, I dunno.

Last edited by Pengling on 24 August 2024 at 2:18 pm UTC