DOOM II - DEAN OF DOOM - S1E10
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- Опубліковано 5 жов 2024
- Welcome to Dean of Doom, the show where we give grades to classic and contemporary Doom wads. Why? Because ranking things is fun. Today’s episode will be dedicated to Doom II, id Software’s 1994 follow-up to one of the most groundbreaking video games of all time. I only missed it by about a week, but happy belated birthday, Doom II! Also, confession time: I first played Doom II in 2017, through DOSBox on Steam, keyboard only, on Hurt Me Plenty. Since then, I’ve been on something of a Doom pilgrimage, learning about the community, playing a plethora of fan-made wads, and using my freaking mouse. What I’m trying to say is that I don’t have as long of a history with this game as probably most of my audience, but I’ve spent a lot of time with Doom II, it’s a huge part of my life now, and this series wouldn’t exist if I didn’t love it to death. So, how does the legendary work of Petersen, Romero, McGee, Hall, and Green hold up today? Let’s find out.
To skip the intro: 1:47
Quick question: if a wad is so consistently good that you can't pick out a nadir in quality, would you be willing to not hand out any dunce caps?
Dinner-fork tongue I think every wad has a worst level. Given that I put the dunce cap on a level in Ancient Aliens it would be hard to find a wad that’s perfect enough to avoid it. I won’t rule it out though, especially for shorter wads like Lunatic (hardly enough levels there to pick a Dean’s list from)
@@MtPain27 your cool
Nirvana.
Thanks so much for sharing this guys stuff! its great!
Decino more like decihoe 😳🤪
decino hi doom boi :D
The chasm.
Hello,
Hello,
Hello,
How low...
Fun fact: Doom's level designers didn't plan out each map in order until after the maps were complete. Then they tried to roughly order them by scale and difficulty. So map 11's disappointing archvile reveal is likely because the mapper didn't know he was revealing the first archvile.
That's a really interesting approach to arranging the levels, for better or for worse lol.
For what it's worth I don't think Circle of Death's Archvile was necessarily bad. It was revealed with relative focus on it and it wasn't a super hard encounter either. A rather controlled way to let you get used to him, actually.
@@RacingSnails64 It certainly could have been worse. I think people mostly consider it disappointing because it was a great opportunity for a miniboss, but instead it's toward the beginning of the level and just guards a key.
@@42percenthealth I never saw anything wrong. I always saw it as a way to introduce the character, much like how Phobos Anomoly (E1M8) introduces the Barons to a new player. Sure it's easy, almost trivial in hindsight, but that's the point is that it's intentionally not too bad this first time out so the player can get a feel for this new monster. You can even look at the Crusher. There's one Revenant in the beginning, who sounds and looks terrifying, but really you have a lot of cover which gives you the advantage. A good way to introduce the enemy. Even when you see him again later, you have plenty of rockets and cells that make it taking a couple of them out not a problem.
@42percenthealth: That's interesting, and it makes sense (to my) why the game always felt so disjointed and random at times. Like 32 individual levels without any sense of progression nor connection to one another. And it probably explains how we ended up with Map01, like sure it gets the job done just fine, but compared to E1M1 it feels so half hearted 🤔
"If you're finding underhalls too easy, try doing it pacifist" 🤣
I made an audible snicker at my desk at that line and had to pause the video to make sure someone already called attention to that. So thank you.
You're going to need grades lower than F when it comes to the Master Levels.
TEETH. Grade: A
Are they really that bad?
WHAT
Why? I love the master levels!
@@nemtudom5074 I'll get to them soon. Decino doesnt seem to like them and no one really talks about them. Its weird.
@@basiloregano It really is! I hope Civvie covers it soon! They are interesting and cool. Not always fun, but ALL of them are unique and none feel like 'yet another X'
mom, the funny doom man is on again
Sweetie your tendies are ready
I'm of the opinion that Doom 2's highlights are better than Doom 1's, however Doom 1 is more consistently good. I'd say they're about the same in terms of overall mapping quality.
Same average, different standard deviations. Doom II has more extremes in both directions.
I can agree with that but the key difference between doom 1 and 2 is that doom 2's bad maps never drag down the game's overall pace the bad maps are just bumps in the road. Inferno kills my desire to finish doom one and while thy flesh consumed is better. You also have to go through the 2 most frustrating doom 1 maps to get to the good stuff
@@anonymouskaiju9101
...
(looks at The Chasm)
@@DinnerForkTongue while the chasm is annoying it's not game ruining. Also perfect hatred is worse
@@anonymouskaiju9101 same except swap doom 1 and 2
Haha, even as a mapper of 19 years, I still love the d_runnin solo! This video is great, I share many of the opinions you state here, particularly in regards to D2's soundtrack.
The Citadel's design choices make it feel like the first "1994 map", not that it was the first map made that year, but that so, SO many old maps from 1994 commit all the same sins it does. I also gotta disagree with Barrels O' Fun, I love it's MIDI and hectic nature! Running past that initial Pain Elemental trap shit as fast as possible and getting through the pinkies asap is the best way to deal with it.
I love the Icon of Sin as well. The map itself actually does suck pretty hard - It should look better and have an actual freaking level leading up to the finale.. but I love the "threading the needle" battle. It actually required me to put in effort - I always felt so ripped off by the "2 seconds and it's done" bosses in Doom 1, which were more like "upper middle tier baddies" than real bosses. This one felt like a real challenge, something you couldn't just push over with a BFG ball or two.
Great video, keep it up. Loving the series so far.
All of the other maps were made on the same year that citadel could've been more complex like the chasm!
This is probably one of the most important series to the community ever. There is nothing wrong with _most_ ways of being introduced to Doom. My first copy that I owned was on the iOS port before Bethesda updated all the non-PC releases. It was fucking terrible, but it let me understand that there was so much more. If you’re making content like this, I wouldn’t care if you played Doom on the Donkey Kong bongos, the end result is worth the journey.
Again, I am pretty shocked by some of the opinions, but they’re still well put together enough to be valid. It seemed like most of the description of Barrels O’ Fun was based around that Pain Elemental fight, which I didn’t feel was very fair. The gimmick run sections were satisfying to get through, and the Mastermind + Arachnotron infighting was a spectacle.
I also don’t feel like the Icon of Sin can be compared to the average Doom level. Just like the bosses in Ultimate Doom, it gives you a bunch of weapons, and challenges you with a singular target rather than an exit. I’m not thrilled by the mechanics of the fight, but the pieces that make up the Icon have been irreplaceable building blocks for community content.
FUCK these videos are good.
Thanks man! In retrospect I was probably a bit hard on Barrels, I let myself get caught up in that first fight probably because it's one of the only rooms in Doom II that gives me trouble. As always, thank you for your thoughts.
@@MtPain27
Sounds like it puts a braid on your tail for sure. We all have those. So if you take out the meatball room, what would be the grade?
Dinner-fork tongue C or C+. Better looking and more enjoyable to play than maps like Downtown or Nirvana, but lacking that intrinsic fun that I mentioned some of Romero’s levels having. Minus that first fight it breaks even.
PLEASE play doom with the donkey kong bongos pain, that'd be a great video
@@MtPain27 Having watched this video, and considering Barrels O' Fun is a level I liked but never did play from pistol start, I figured I'd give this level a try on UV pistol start. I did find a somewhat reliably safe way of dealing with those painful rooms though but it requires a bit of setup.
At the start, run through the barrels, wait until the mancubus blows himself up then retreat and grab the shotgun, fire a pistol shot while you're down there to awaken the monsters above you. Using your shotgun, infighting, and some of the barrels up there, take out every single monster up there including the hell knights, pain elemental and any lost souls it spawns. However leave the barrel closest to the doorway down below alone.
Go through the next room like normal and grab everything there. In the elemental hallway, kill the elemental behind you, and the closest elemental in front of you. then quickly but carefully run through the remaining lost souls and elementals, blowing up barrels in front of you if you must, and quickly hit the switch in the back. Then either make your way back though the hall and make your way across the now raised platform to the next hall, or if it's too crowded then jump down lower the platform and teleport your way back up and rush across to the other hall.
In the other hall the wall behind you should close while a flood of pinkies start racing towards you. At the point from when you jumped into the hall you should still have that barrel you left alone near you. Put your back near (BUT NOT AGAINST) the closed wall and try and situate yourself with the barrel on your left and a wall on your right. You should be able to safely punch all the pinkies to death.
As you're doing so the wall behind you should open but the army of lost souls shouldn't be able to touch you. That line between the starting hallway and the pinky hallway is apparently a line that no monster can cross. Meaning you're safe from the lost souls and elementals (even if it doesn't seem like it). From there you should have the ammo you need to safely destroy all the remaining elementals as well as the lost souls they spawned. From there you can complete the rest of the level as normal. Hope this helps in case you ever decide to reevaluate this level!
The quirky puzzles and overusage of brown textures in Doom II feels like a foreshadow of Quake.
Everybody's got an opinion on the level design in Doom 2. Surprisingly, your take is close to my take. However something more: There's an element about Sandy Petersen's background that is very relevant and not discussed enough. He helped with Chaosium's Call of Cthulhu paper and pencil roleplaying game series, so he brings to doom mapping the sadistic glee of a Keeper (and not a dungeon master for dungeons and dragons). I believe he (as an older and well established gaming gentleman as well) had an influence on Romero and co. A bigger influence than is shown just by his inconsistent mapping style. The 'hell on earth' theme isn't just a tag line for Petersen, he took the concept of the demon's infecting our reality with their hellish logic to a much more interesting direction than just 'hell is red and fiery, dude' that I think Romero would have stuck with on his own. Doom II is kind of funny too (Petersen is funny) it's all about subverting certain expectations set up by Doom 1. Even if it doesn't make for a better game at all times, it makes for a specific surreal and irreverent and, honestly, a little bit mad mood that features on most if not all far superior community map sets that came after.
Keep up the good work, MtPain!
This is so true. Even his map names when non-descriptive are just here to taunt the player instead of going "so metal, dude!". I love his experimental and somehow deviant touch, and I guess he loved to play the role of the naive scholar playing with cursed Lovecraftian relics, here known as wads.
agreed fully, im not a doom loremaster but i dont think wads would have been as creative as they are if doom 2s level design was saner
@@mkge7206
Ribbiks and RottKing would have driven his sanity all the way down to 0 had he kept up with the community. Well, maybe not, Jimmy and skillsaw would have blessed his poor mortal mind.
I think that's the thing I like about Sandies maps. Not all of them are winners gameplay wise, but all of them are visually pretty interesting, portraying how the mere presence of hell warps the environment around it. Which; if Episode 2 and 3 in Doom 1 were inversed, it would have been a much more interesting experience. Even Navada, which is just a weird map in general, really sells that vibe that Hell is really a mashup of concepts then an actual location; the only universal constant is that hell is hostile to any who dwell within it's environment and that not everything follows the expected norms. All the rules you have learnt up to this point should be forgotten, and in many a sense this old style Doom has creativity that I don't think have been seen in the mainstream titles since; though the new games are fantastic.
Basically, Doom is almost like a prepatched release game that somehow managed to be exceedingly charming.
Fun fact, one of Sandy's Doom II "Hell on Earth" themed levels was actually based on the real life house he lives in.
"If you find you're having too easy a time with Underhalls, try playing it pacifist." lmao "try" being the key word
(In case you weren't aware, Underhalls was the last level in Doom II to be completed pacifist. Yeah, it's that tough.)
That's the joke, friend :)
@@MtPain27 don't worry, I'm more than aware. just making sure others also know in case they actually take your suggestion seriously
Yeah i laughed at that one.
Difficulty: X+
Refueling Base (Map 10) is Tom Hall's lasting legacy to Doom, and in parts the sprawling design evokes his Rise Of The Triad - but it's strengths are definitely in its 'open world' feel, the ability the player has to tackle parts of it in virtually any order, and the little short cuts that let you come up with different plans of action. I love that if you take a specific path, you can actually sneak around the big room with the arachnotrons entirely, duck in through a back door, and grab the keycard and exit without even waking them up. I remember the first time I did that I felt a great sense of personal accomplishment, like I'd broken the game even though the level design makes that an option if you find it.
After a recent replay, i think my favorite map in doom 2 is easily refueling base. The non-linear maps really take the cake for me, and i think its the best example. I love how the maaaany hitscanners can end up wandering about, making areas you've already cleared surprise you with a forgotten threat on return. Secrets that make shortcuts are always a great surprise over closets with a gun or megasphere as well. Good midi too
I totally agree. This one I can replay with glee everytime. I liked Chasm also, very memorable.
I like to think that the crusher room is some sort of prison for the demons, and the spider mastermind is using the platform as a podium to command their troops- too bad she has no idea what that platform is actually used for until it's too late
I'll be honest, in my mind I love Doom 2. But every time I play through the entire thing half the maps start with me thinking "ugh.. this one". Doom 2 is definitely superior to Doom 1 with the much needed expanded roster of monsters and of course the super shotgun. Doom 2's levels are definitely a mixed bag, but it lays a great foundation for the modding scene. Some of the stuff people make these days with Doom is ridiculous.
I love how long it took me to find all the secrets in "THE GANTLET" 🤣
I have recently learned that Gantlet is an entirely separate word from Gauntlet and the use in Doom is completely correct
I know everyone gets a kick out of mocking map03 for supposedly misspelling the name, but it’s actually correct and possibly a clever bit of wordplay.
Although homophones, and frequently used interchangeably, Gantlet is the appropriate spelling when referring to a pathway one runs down while beset by attackers; Gauntlet on the other hand (pun intended) is the spelling to use when talking about an armored glove.
Furthermore Gantlet is also the word for a location where two or more sets of railroad tracks overlap, and the critical path through the level crosses over and overlaps itself through the use of teleporters.
you missed the opportunity to cover back to saturn x and call the episode "episode x" »»»:(
Sorry!
naw i'm just messing with you, keep up the great work :D
Now he's gonna leave BTSX to episode 30. It's a trilogy after all.
@@DinnerForkTongue Or WILL be a trilogy if Episode 3 is released sometime before the heat death of the universe
@@eduardodiaz9942
One of the things holding E3 back was E2, which, according to essel, is well underway. Now that E2 is out, they can focus on the rusty time machine.
doom 2 feels like the mechanics of doom turned into a toybox fo the developers, and that's for better and worse. sandy gets a lot of flak for his work on doom 2, but i think the playful visions he brought to his levels were an absolute godsend and really laid the groundwork for doom mapping to come. the amount he had to do clearly led to some "fuck it, who cares", and that chaos is kind of infectious. i'll take "interesting and maybe bad" over "uninteresting and technically good" any day of the week. and yes, the chasm is fantastic.
also agree regarding the music - none of doom 2's atmospheric tracks come anywhere *near* something like dark halls. kinda feels like table scraps.
Wow hating Icon of Sin has got to be the weirdest take I've heard. It's always been (for me) the BEST boss battle of ANY id software shooter, 90s or present. Mecha-Hitler? Tower of Babel Cyby? Quake 1's final boss battle might be a close second, but it's not that difficult once you figure out what you're supposed to do. Doom II's Icon of Sin is terrifying because you never see the full size of the demon, just his face. If his face is big enough to take up the entire room, you can only imagine how terrifying the rest of him must be. Then that iconic demonic message, which was cool even before I knew the famous line. The actual battle is one of the most creative, imaginative final boss fights. Most boss fights often amount to boring bullet sponges, just keep shooting at it till it dies. Not Icon of Sin. It requires skill, precision, good timing, and a healthy dose of luck that some mean enemies don't spawn in and ruin your day. Unlike most other boss battles in id shooters, it remains a challenging level to beat to this day, no matter how many times I've beaten it. The only possible criticism is that on UV the Revenant's "I spotted you" sound plays over the Icon of Sin's, so you rarely hear the creepy message on UV.
I've always thought Doom 2 was overhated. Most of the maps have concepts that many modern megawads still use (Just better executed) Although the experimental nature of Doom 2 is its strongest point it's also what makes a lot of map shit (Besides the fact that some maps were definitely rushed). I don't expect everyone to like this as a game but at least to get some respect to it.
And the ssg is cool. Doom 2 is a 8/10 for me
Great video. I have to say. Your voice ... it's like listening to a Doom II review by Francis York Morgan. And that is glorious. Please make more.
The Chasm is like Kama Sutra
It's always known as "the one with the ledges"
American McGee made by far the best maps. Concise, well-paced, challenging, and aesthetically pleasing - all without the use of dumb repetitive gimmicks.
Then again, he also made The Crusher (which I really dislike), so...
I absolutely love the format, the pace, the amount of knowledge you provide on each level, your narration, and your editing. I am one of the many subs you are going to get in the following months. Keep it up!
Oh my god, that Filthy Frank bit really caught me off guard, funniest thing I saw today XD
My personal favorite of Doom 2 maps used to be map 15 Industrial Zone. It had this city under siege feel with zombies roaming around and the huge crack in the center of the map. I used to move from vantage point to vantage point in that central building with the BFG and admire the views of the city area I completed and the castle like area where I will soon venture into. The map has a nice sense of adventure in my opinion. However, my opinions formed when I was 6/7 years old when I used to play keybord only in ITYTD difficulty. I just loved any maps that let fight hordes of zombies. Refueling base was my other favorite map for its large number of lower tier enemies. I used to dread playing Tricks and Traps back then. The cyberdemon and Barons room had 4 invulnerability spheres in ITYTD but I still remember doors locking behind me when I tried to nope out of that room. A huge shock to the system for me there. It was also my first experience with the Cyberdemon since I only had shareware episode of Doom 1. Obviously my opinions and preferences have changed since then but I still hold on to nostalgia from those days. Some maps took me days to figure out where to go.
Even though to me Industrial Zone really just felt like a bunch of poorly placed blocks, it's really cool reading your experience of it, it just sounds so epic. I have similar memories of the first game, in that being a kid I really bought into the story concept of the last marine fighting not only Demons but your former friends.
I'm kinda surprised it you so long to tackle Doom II. The Spirit World is Sandy's magnum opus in terms of map design... It is divine in it's grotesque look and I absolutely love it, it may be pretty easy but I really don't mind it that much.
And the music track “Getting Too Tense” is awesome as well!
Nice to see Sandy Petersen's work getting a reappraisal, I've long felt he's underappreciated considering how many of the levels he was responsible for in both Doom and Doom II. His influence on Romero is obvious not just from the latter's Doom II maps but also Sigil- E5M5 in particular feels like an advanced iteration of Petersen's design sensibilities.
And for as much hate as The Chasm gets, those narrow walkways sure turn up in a lot of WADs made in the years since... 😝
I've been waiting for this one! Excited to see it! I shall edit this when I finish it!
Edit: I finished it! JESUS did you give Icon of Sin a flogging! I'm pretty sure it deserves it, though.
Great video as always, Dean.
Trick & Traps is also a fantastic map for purposes of demon in-fighting. Sometimes it's more fun to just intentionally trigger every room's enemies all at once, and try to simply survive the ensuing carnage, also put a wager on which demon species comes out on top!
I guess if you can be the only person in history who likes The Chasm, I can be the only one in history who likes Downtown
Neither of us are the only ones :)
I think downtown is pretty good as well. :D
Oh I love The Gantlet, love all of McGees maps honestly, E4M1 being my favourite Doom level ever actually
13:50 does anyone else who played ps1 DooM remember the “Texture Cache Overflow” glitch from this level? Lol
Concerning Map 20 Gotcha! That string of secrets at the beginning very much serves a purpose contrary to your complaint. It offers an easier alternative route through the first halve of the level. At the end of the stone fortress of elevators you'll find a second, secret exit marked by the berserk on the floor that teleports you behind the main structure where you'll telefrag the Pain Elemental on top of the pillar. From there you pick up the second rad suit, run through the lava to get to the building with the teleporter that leads to the BFG and when you teleport back from there the awoken Arch-Vile will be right around the corner, up the stairs; easily taken care off with one fatal BFG blast. I disagree that this Arch-Vile doesn't pose any threat if you encounter it via the normal route through the Cyberdemon/Spiderdemon arena. Maybe your skill-level was higher than what most people have when they first play through Doom 2 on UV but killing the Arch-Vile with the rocket launcher while he quickly runs along the perimeter of that room can prove quite troublesome for new players especially with the Baron shooting at you from the side as well. Also the BFG is again very helpful for the Caco/Pain Elemental ambush in the final room. That's another trap that beginners will struggle to handle with just the rocket launcher because of the likelihood of blowing yourself up in tight quarters against fast approaching Cacos and Lost Souls. I think Romero's placement of secrets in this level creates a very nice, organic flow once you uncover them. A nice reward for being thorough. Overall, the layout of the map with it's numerous structures to explore, pathings to figure out and secrets to discover lends the level a genuine adventure feel. A shame that it apparently didn't connect with you on your playthroughs. But I think this level objectively deserves better than a C-. It's your show but as you said: disagreeing is part of the fun. So i respectfully disagree. ;)
yea i dig Gotcha - its obvious gimmick is actually fun, you mentioned the variety of routes available, and its MIDI is one of my favorites when it finally gets going after 5 minutes or whatever
What grade would you give it?
@@DinnerForkTongue I'd give it an 'A-'. One of the stand-out maps in the set. Probably my favorite. Measured by the community's modern standards you can't really give it anything higher than B+ though. So objectively a B- to B+. But anything lower than C+ is just silly. MtPain didn't get this one but even then his judgement seems overly harsh and exaggerated like something in this map really annoyed him (maybe the staged arena fight) and made him think of the entire thing as cheap and badly designed. We'll never know. But, yeah, good one. 10/10 ;)
I'll say it again, man I love this show
Also, "not a doom God"...you can pass plutonia with pistol start, and UV, I was only able to beat it with guncaster. So yeah.
Great reviews. It's funny how divisive Barrels o' Fun can be; personally I love it. The sadistic challenge on pistol start or nightmare, the right amount of Pain Elemental spam while surrounded by the flame barrels, and the innovative level design for its time (we never had seen a map like that before in 1994). And the music is A+ IMHO; Alice in Chains' Them Bones is the perfect tune that just ups the tension.
When I first played the game, Barrels o' Fun was one of my favorites, and it still is. Memorable level and interesting concept for a level. I think it encapsulates what Doom II excels at: taking the Doom 1 engine and coming up with interesting, creative, abstract ways to challenge the player, both in terms of gameplay and what one can expect from a level. A lot of people just look at Doom II as 1 new gun and a map pack, but that's all wrong. The style of level design in Doom 1 is much more grounded, with levels aiming to represent real bases and places (though that's not to say those don't require a bit of imagination either at times), whereas Doom 2 levels are much more abstract, and really try to push the engine to see what kind of cool things they can do with it. There's a lot more outdoors areas, far more height variety than you'd ever see in Doom 1, and lots of cool scenarios like Barrels o' Fun, the Pit, the Citadel, the Chasm, etc. The game starts out in the starport, which quickly becomes a more intense, non-linear version of Doom 1's tekbases, but the later levels are where the game further embraces its other-worldly standard of design, which it would reach a pinnacle of in Quake 1, before going back to a more grounded design philosophy in Quake II.
@@UnchainedEruptioninteresting take on the abstract level design of D2 transitioning into Q1. I agree 100% on all your points.
I really appreciate how chill the music in Doom 2 is. I also appreciate you and your videos. Have a Merry Christmas!
Big thanks for mentioning Memento Mori 1 and 2. Those were the very first custom megaWADs I ever played. I'd love to see you review them along with Requiem one day. Requiem for a long time was my favorite megaWAD of all time.
Thy flesh consumed and master levels next?
Doom 2 to me is both better and slightly worse then doom 1 because for multiple reasons, doom introduced the super shotgun, but some of the levels in doom 2 are worse then the doom 1 like the city levels to me are some of my least favorite levels in the entirety of commercial doom. But i still like doom 2 more then doom 1.
I don't know if it's just me, but I really find Doom 1 to be a chore to play nowadays. Obviously all the respect in the world to the pioneering force it is, but I find the fact that it was the beginning and they were just figuring out how to map this stuff really shows.
Feels really weird to say that Doom 1 didn't age well, but I guess more accurately the mapping style in Doom 1 didn't age well for me. Really like what they did with Doom 2 a lot more, although obviously not all of the new ideas they tried landed (like, to your point, the city levels).
@@J0000OOOO
For me, Doom II feels more experimental than 1. OG Doom has a more cohesive style to its aesthetics and progression design, and much more engaging music, but I wouldn't consider it daring as a video game like II is. With Hell On Earth, id really put their faces on display in an effort of throwing lots of stuff at a wall to see what stuck and what bounced straight back in their mugs, and I respect this attitude, it takes some cojones!
Hi frappe
@@someguy1716 hiya :D
Always super fun to watch your videos man. Keep it up!
0:20 so relatable that it's creapy.
0:19 I played Doom 1 and 2 for the first time probably in like 2010 or like 2011, came back in 2019 after a rush of nostalgia, marathoned those (as well as playing Thy Flesh Consumed, TNT and Plutonia for the first time) And beat the Bethesda add-ons, I knew about other megawads from decino but this series pushed me to go out and play some
Don't worry, I've played Doom 2 since 1995 and have never done a UV max run on it. There are still secrets in these maps I've never found and monsters I've never killed.
I only recently finished Doom 2 for the first time and I kid you not it took over an hour of attempts to get the kill on The Icon. It was a blur of obscenities but once it was done I felt an incredible sigh of relief for I was finally free from that hell. Now to go and try out some of the WADs on Doom 1+2 after a well earned break
Love the Nirvana references. So heavy handed lol
Favorite episode so far, not necessarily for the subject, but mainly for your style. Damn, now I really feel the urge to play Doom 2 again...
Love your channel, love the show to death. I do think Tricks and Traps deserves an A+ for how jarring and weird and monster packed it was if you played the games in order for the first time. But for real, love this show so much and I hope you keep going after the season 1 graduation :D Awesome work!
i'm waiting for that Extermination Day dean of doom video
I remember map 07 as a huge difficulty spike when I first played Doom 2 as a kid. Map 24 was also quite hard since I kept falling off the ledges. At this time I played exclusively with mouse movement, and didn't know how to strafe.
The G A N T L E T joke made me die on my floor from laughing
I was 9 when this came out. Good stuff!
11:35 I walk in similar shoes, onlky with Refueling Base. I never made 100% kills, and I always attributed it to missing some surviving Lost Souls that could even get inside the walls in vanilla Doom2. Then a couple of months before I accidentally discovered that in one of the first halls (with a handful of hitscanners and one Pain Elemental) there is a thick coloumn that can be raised, with four Specters and a chaingun, and it's not an official secret.
Forgot to mention last week, that you totally nailed the Icon of Sin. Went back to rewatch your video on my off day and can't get this analogy out of my head.
It wants to be the Death Star trench run so bad, you are 100% spot on!! Instead, it feels like you are shooting basketballs and constantly bricking the shots. I hate that map so much and the entire design of it that so many times, I won't even finish it after blasting through map 20. For as much as some people hate on TNT (myself included), they did a much better job at the Icon of Sin design in map 30 (and that map 30 is fun. The torch puzzle is annoying at first, but it grew on me over the years). I've seen many MegaWADs over the years that will position the lift so you don't have to time the rockets. This is one aspect I feel the Doom community went on to do better things with than the original games.
My first introduction to Doom 2 was back when I was 8. Mom bought it at Price Club. I thought it was great until her friend at work was fixing her computer and downloaded Doom 1 for me and man I played Doom 1 way more after that. The maps are so much cooler in my opinion and I always liked seeing
The map of the different locations you were at in between levels.
Doom II's maps aren't great but they're all heavily steeped in nostalgia and because of that, for me at least, I find it hard to hate any of them. Even the icon of sin. Each level brings back great childhood memories when I used to just take all of it at pure face value and get totally immersed in the fantasy before that loss of innocence.
I think the comparison the Icon of Sin to the trench run from the original Star Wars just made me like icon of sin levels more, because that's like one of my favorite parts of Star Wars and gives me a raging tech-boner every time I rewatch it.
This show is getting cooler and cooler.
Thanks for the video .i just waiting to see another games and old school shooters on this channel.
I disagree a lot with what maps are good and bad, like Spirit World is my favorite Doom 2 map and I think Abandoned Mines and Gotcha are great, while I am a Chasm hater, think Tenements is boring as hell, find Catacombs miserable, and also thought Industrial Zone was an awful ugly confusing hitscan hell, especially without freelook (I really can't forgive it for its far off hitscanners in a large open area that are too far for autoaim to work while they can still shoot you when the RNG decides to). At least we can agree though that Barrels O' Fun is Barrels O' Shit and its song is absolutely grating.
Also a huge shame that Into Sandy's City only got used once on one of the worst maps, did we really need to hear The Healer Stalks and In The Dark three times instead of reusing Sandy's City? It does make The Pit a lot more bearable though.
Suburbs was always one of my favorites to warp to and pistol start, and I liked it even more when I didn't know that megasphere secret existed. A great challenge with lots of monsters. The map itself looks like a real group of houses/homes but the world outside has gone to hell. One of my favorite "hell on earth"-themed maps. I always associate the music more with this level than Map 10, and I didn't find out till recently that the song is based off of a Black Sabbath song "After All" from the Dehumanizer album.
The Gantlet.
26:01 techies be like: a doom level is a bunch of lines and sectors that have data in them, usually stored in a wad file. And things as well.
I was doing pistol-starting The Factory recently, and I discovered something which many others undoubtedly found out before me, but it didn't catch my eyes until now. In the lowering bridge room with the shotgunners and the cell pack, there is a hidden switch that lowers the walls of the "BS" imp ambush, so doing this, you can chaingun-camp them with no effort. It's kinda satisfying to do this, because that ambush always destroyed me without the plasma gun. I never knew what that switch was for, because in single-segment playthrough, I always entered the factory building through the imp ambush. It actually makes The Factory more enjoyable.
I've been binging your videos. I'm a newer classic Doom fan myself and am discovering and playing all sorts of amazing WADs and creative efforts by the community. These reviews videos are a fun and great addition to the community I feel, and I look forward to your future submissions that help give more exposure to deserving WADs!
My take away when you said it was older than you . .OH god I'm old :(
"All barrels, no fun." 💀 savage
It just occurred to me, and is irrelevant to Doom, but I think the reason why I find your videos so appealing is because Tako the Octopus was my favourite web series when I was a kid.
You're informative, funny and the flow of the video manages to keep my attention which is difficult given how distracted I get most of the time, and your intonation and prose are practically the same as my favourite octopus chef.
I love Doom 2. I was waiting for the coverage, and you didn't disappoint!
Bravo, MtPain27.
You just made my day
Was waiting for you to say "Psych!" after all that unwarranted praise you gave The Chasm
You gave Icon of Sin a fucking F?
@@ranger5274
I wasn't, and yes he did. One thing you should know about the Professor here is, dude is not the least bit reluctant to speak his mind and go against the majority's opinion if he disagrees with it. He is based like that.
Well, it doesn't matter how late you arrived at the party, we're always glad to have you. :D Kudos to you for giving it the old school treatment with the DOSBOX and Keyboard only run.
3 suggestions for next SOW:
* Kick Attack
* The Sky May Be
* All Hell Is Breaking Loose
Thanks to Civvie, I can't think of Barrels O' Fun without calling it Barrels O' Fuck Off Sandy
The extent to which each level's chosen music enhances or detracts from it is something a lot of Doomers know intrinsically, but can't often articulate. While Doom 2's soundtrack being objectively worse than Doom's might be controversial, I also think it's pretty fair. Each level soundtrack in the original game feels like it's evoking a mood for that level. Every track sounds individual and brings the level into focus. Doom 2's soundtrack, while containing a few good ones, feels a lot more sterile in my opinion. If I were being charitable I'd suggest Bobby Prince was doing this on purpose, trying to suggest both an 'after the end Earth' and also a more "grounded" sound to go with Doom 2's more ground Earth tone-y pallette and feel. But in any case, the end result still doesn't hit some of the highs of Doom 1.
The reference to pappa franku gave me a whole new appreciation for you.
I want to give a small rebuttal to your review on Icon of Sin, which is my favorite commercial final level. For your sentence about how it doesn't involve budgeting of resources and acquiring of new guns, that's not what the level's about. You're supposed to go all out, and not worry about ammo. As for the environment, I think that it's the best one out of doom 2, Plutonia, and Evilution: The delay from you being spotted by the Icon of Sin, and you being able to attack it means that it can start to get some Demons in, and the elevator is positioned in a way that many of the monsters' attacks can reach you, so you actually have to deal with them. I love how hectic it gets, and with fast monsters on, it's one of my favorite commercial doom levels.
While I'm here, why do so many people hate Nirvana? In this video, you basically just said that it's ugly, has a bad choice of music, and doesn't try anything. I don't feel like that's enough to give it an F and a dunce cap. For me, it's counter balanced (I'm neutral on the song and look of it) by the starting room's idea of a bunch of Health kits being interesting, and I really like the final room with the islands. It's fun to clear each of them out, and I love all of those projectiles flying everywhere, and using a yellow key door as cover. I also like its theme of teleporting to disconnected rooms.
Is there some controversy or meme that I don't know about?
Like that you included Tom hall in the intro
I often disagree with your opinions on each map (see: Abandoned Mines being bad, but the Chasm good), but your presentation makes up for it in every way. Great channel you have here.
@The Dinosaur Heretic I just find the gameplay tedious and it's quite an ugly map. Not sure what else to say about it, plus the poison that you can't escape from is unnecessary in my opinion.
American McGee is probably the coolest name anyone has ever had.
Great video! Love the Nirvana references. I had to watch it a second time as I didn't catch on until 'stupid and contagious' 😂
Doom 2 will always hold a special place in my heart for the sole reason of it was my first game. Doesn't matter if it isn't my favorite FPS anymore, that the wads being released after outclass it or that final doom is probably a better set of levels than II. None of that matters because Doom II wasn't just an FPS or another game to me, it was my childhood. Even if I had no idea how to turn off respawning monsters (Thank you windows 95) or beat the icon until I was 9
I feel like literally all doom songs use 12 bar blues
Thanks to my cousin, Doom II was the game that introduced me to the franchise when I was 10 years old. It was the first game in the series I ever played that would subsequently lead me down the ongoing road of discovering the Doomworld community, custom wads, and everything in between. Yet strangely, I've never had any kind of emotional attachment to it, and I still enjoy Plutonia and Ultimate Doom much more after all this time. On the whole, I do like it, and I appreciate the fact it exists (how else would we have so many great wads to play today if not for it?), but these days, it feels like a mixed bag. That said, I have definitely come around to liking The Chasm more, and The Courtyard is still my favorite level of the game. I know I'm late to the party, but awesome episode as always! I still don't how it took me so long to find out about your videos after you started this series, but I'm glad I did.
The GANTLET i always called it gauntlet
Also circle of death and o of destruction was funny
I can't believe it took me 2 whole years to catch all the pun references for Map 21
I have so much nostalgia for Doom II since it was my first Doom experience as a kid, so it's hard for me to rate it objectively. Though, I can definitely say I always dread playing maps 9, 13, 19, and 26. Maps 27 and 28 are my favorites with their dynamic enemy encounters and creepy, hellish atmospheres (which gave me plenty of nightmares as a young child).
THE GANTLET
i saw a video of Romero playing Deathmatch on Tenements and it was just as you said, on point.
Me too :)
This video made me try Barrels o fun on UV pistol start. I banged my head into the pain elemental room for a dozen times, but then tried it with berserk and did it on the first try. Third try did it without losing a single hp. All fun, no barrels.
Just to balance out my boasting: I still can't get through the second room of the Catacombs, even with the plasma secret.
Mt. Pain--"The first time I played Doom 2 was in 2007"
Me--😳
2017!
This is a great video.
23:53 I just love how differently you approach some maps than me. "Why not make them infight?" I think it's the best part of Monster condo to make the Knights&Baron and the Revenants infight, it's kinda like a final reward after cleansing all other parts of the map, before entering the exit. :-) Monster Condo is one of my absolute favorite Doom2 levels.
"Make the Nazis aim like stormtroopers" is an A grade joke
I see what you did there with Nirvana... smart!
I really look forward to these videos, this is some grade A content
Imagine
Doom Eternal: Exists
Pain: imma do what's called a pro gamer move. *Slaps Doom II's roof*
I just realized about my recent Doom 1 revision comment perhaps give Doom+/Maps of Chaos(overkill version of course) a shot to see if that changes things about the grades for Doom 1 and 2 though Doom 2+ isn't complete currently
The year is 1995, my parrents gave me my first PC. At the time I was not even sure what computers were used for but I knew they had games. Mine was a 486 with 4mbs of ram, incredible. It came with some games and one was a weird game called Doom 2. I was completelly taken aback, mind you, at that time I was quite familiar with videogames, but I have never seen anything like that before. It is safe to say, this game somehow changed me and shaped my youth, I am extremelly nostalgic to it. Thanks for this video, a great celebration of this fenomenon that is Doom. At a side note, the only other experience I had with Doom at that time was a weird megawad called Obituary (or Obtic) by The Inocent Crew. A friend who had internet at the time brought it to me on God knows ho many floppy disks, if one day you can, please cover it, it is kind of obscure. Thanks!!!
You've got some balls to share such controversial point of view, my personal favorite of this WAD is 100% inmost dens
It's in my top three!
Dude, Professor Pain has proven from episode 1 that he is *based as f**k.* Gotta appreciate a Doomer that is not afraid to speak his mind and go against the consensus of the majority.