Doom II: Hell on Earth

Doom II: Hell on Earth
The cover artwork for Doom II: Hell on Earth, painted by fantasy artist Gerald Brom, depicts the Doom space marine firing a double-barreled shotgun at a Cyberdemon.
Developer(s)	id Software Nerve Software (XBLA)
Publisher(s)	GT Interactive (DOS/Windows), Activision (Game Boy Advance, Steam), Tapwave, Inc. (Zodiac), Bethesda Softworks (Xbox Live Arcade)
Distributor(s)	GT Interactive, Valve Corporation (Steam), Virgin Interactive Entertainment Ltd. (Europe)
Designer(s)	Sandy Petersen, Shawn Green, American McGee
Programmer(s)	John Carmack, John Romero, Dave Taylor
Artist(s)	Adrian Carmack, Kevin Cloud
Composer(s)	Bobby Prince
Series	Doom
Engine	id Tech 1
Version	1.9
Platform(s)	DOS, Linux, Microsoft Windows, Amiga 1200, GBA, Macintosh, Sega Saturn, Tapwave Zodiac, Xbox, Xbox Live Arcade
Release date(s)	DOS NA October 10, 1994 EU October 10, 1994 Macintosh NA 1995 Game Boy Advance NA October 28, 2002 EU November 15, 2002 Zodiac NA May 11, 2004 Xbox NA April 3, 2005 Xbox Live Arcade NA May 26, 2010
Genre(s)	First-person shooter
Mode(s)	Single player Multiplayer
Rating(s)	ELSPA: 18+ ESRB: M, T (GBA) BBFC: 15 OFLC: MA15+
Media/distribution	3½" floppy disk, CD, Downloadable Content

Doom II: Hell on Earth is an award winning first-person shooter video game and second title of id Software's Doom franchise. Unlike Doom which was initially only available through shareware and mail order, Doom II was a commercial release sold in stores. Master Levels for Doom II, an expansion pack that includes 21 new levels, was released on December 26, 1995 by id Software.

Due to its popularity and success, Doom II has been released for numerous platforms, including the Amiga, Apple Macintosh, Sony PlayStation, Sega Saturn and Nintendo Game Boy Advance. The release of the original Doom source code has facilitated ports to many other platforms, including the Apple iPod, and several types of cellphones. On August 13, during the QuakeCon 2009 media conference, it was announced that Doom II would be ported to Xbox Live Arcade, and was released in May the following year.

Plot

Immediately following the events in Doom, the player once again assumes the role of the nameless space marine. After returning home from Hell, the marine discovers that Earth has also been invaded by the demons, who have killed millions of people.

The humans who survived the attack have developed a plan to build massive spaceships which will carry the remaining survivors into space. Unfortunately, the only space port that's capable of launching said ships has been taken hostage by the demonic invaders, who have placed a "force field" over it, causing it to malfunction. The marine then battles through thousands of demons, and is able to deactivate the force field, allowing the remaining humans to escape. Once all the survivors escape Earth, the marine is the only human left on the planet.

Just as he sits down to await death, knowing that he saved mankind, the marine then receives an off-planet transmission from humans in orbit, who have managed to find out where the armies of Hell are coming from. The message reveals that the alien base is in the center of the marine's own home town. The marine then fights through the city until he reaches the base, but sees there is no way to stop the invasion on this side. He then decides to step into the portal to attempt deactivating it from the other side.

After fighting through the hordes of Hell, the marine reaches the house of the biggest demon (he has) ever seen, called the Icon of Sin. He kills the Icon of Sin by firing rockets into its exposed brain. The Icon of Sin's death results in the destruction of the Hellish portal. Now with Hell in ruins, the marine joins with the other humans in an effort to restore life on Earth.

Gameplay

The double-barreled shotgun in use

Doom II was not dramatically different from its predecessor. There were no major technological developments, graphical improvements, or substantial gameplay changes. The game still consisted of the player negotiating large non-linear levels. Each level is infested with hellish daemons that can be killed with a variety of weapons that can be picked up throughout the game. Levels are completed by finding an exit, weather it be a door, elevator or whatever, the goal is simply to advance to the next area. The levels in Doom II can be competed in a somewhat linear fashion, however, because the levels are non-linear players can wander off the beaten path, and those that do are often rewarded with bonuses, like health pickups and more powerful weapons. Due to the larger and more complicated maps with larger groups of monsters, the game had somewhat higher system requirements than the original.

The main additions to the game were new monsters to fight. Doom II doubled the number of non-boss monster types and started using bosses from the original Doom as normal level enemies. In addition, the multiplayer functionality was greatly improved in Doom II, including "out of the box" support for a vastly increased number of dial-up modems. The two player dial-up connection allowed one player to dial in to the other player's computer in order to play either cooperatively or in deathmatch style combat. There was also LAN functionality added, which was improved upon as patches and updates were released. This functionality was later incorporated into the original Doom.

The only new weapon addition was the double-barreled shotgun. In-game it is known as the "Super Shotgun", which uses two shotgun shells per fire, but could fire out twenty pellets instead of the regular shotgun's seven pellets. This made it very useful in dispatching medium-sized monsters. However, it takes slightly longer to reload and has a much wider spread which was less effective in medium to long range situations, this allowed for the standard shotgun to still serve a purpose in the game.

Other than the Super Shotgun, there was also a new powerup named "Megasphere", which gave the player, no matter how low his/her health/armor may be, 200% health and 200% armor. It resembles the "Soulsphere" but more brown, and the facial sprites have been altered.

A small change in gameplay was instituted. Instead of the player playing through three related episodes, gameplay takes place over one giant episode, albeit with interludes for when the story develops. Instead of watching the player's progress on a map (as in the original episodes of Doom), the screens between each level simply show a background (as in the bonus fourth episode of Doom available on The Ultimate Doom expansion pack). It also meant that the player was not forced to start over with a pistol every eight or nine levels, as was the case in Doom.

Online multiplayer

As with the original Doom, multiplayer games can be played across the internet using third party source ports such as Skulltag, ZDaemon, and Odamex, and are still popular today. The Xbox Arcade port of Doom II supports online multilayer via Xbox Live

Expansions

Master Levels for Doom II

Master Levels for Doom II is an expansion pack for Doom II which was released officially on 26 December 1995 by id Software. The CD contains twenty WAD files created by various authors under contract. The file teeth.wad contains a secret level, so there are a total of 21 levels. As a bonus, 1,830 amateur WAD files downloaded from the Internet are also included, collectively called "Maximum Doom". They were also included in the Xbox port of Doom 3: Resurrection of Evil.

Final Doom

Main article: Final Doom

Final Doom consists of two 32-level megawads (level files), The Plutonia Experiment by the Casali brothers, and TNT: Evilution by TeamTNT. Final Doom was released on May 31, 1996 and distributed as an official id Software product.

D!Zone

WizardWorks Software released the D!Zone expansion pack featuring hundreds of levels for Doom and Doom II. D!Zone was reviewed in 1995 in Dragon #217 by Jay & Dee in the "Eye of the Monitor" column. Jay gave the pack 1 out of 5 stars, while Dee gave the pack 1½ stars.

No Rest for the Living

No Rest for the Living is the title of a Doom II expansion set developed by Nerve Software for the release of Doom II on Xbox Live Arcade. It consists of eight regular and one secret level.

Reception

The reception of Doom II has been very positive, and it is widely regarded as a refinement of everything that made the original Doom good. The game was reviewed in 1995 in Dragon #216 by David "Zeb" Cook in the "Eye of the Monitor" column. According to Cook, "if mindless but intense carnage is what you want, you'll get your money's worth. It's not just a must-have game; it's a keep-on-the-hard-drive-forever game. If you need to have more Doom, get this." Doom II has continued to receive positive reviews form critics and gamers alike and each new re-release has been met with high sales form long-time fans of the game.

External links

• Doom II at id Software's official website
• Doom II at the Internet Movie Database
• Doom II (PC) at GameFAQs
• Playing the Game: DOOM II, a list of academic texts about the game
• Classic Doom Online - online multiplayer set up instructions
• Doom II article at the Doom Wiki