Wunderbar
Arcane
- Joined
- Nov 15, 2015
- Messages
- 8,818
replayed the original Doom, and also finished Thy Flesh Consumed and Sigil for the first time.
This was my first time playing it on Ultra Violence (last time I played Doom I was in high school, and i picked easy difficulty). Was using GZDoom, with freelook disabled, and perkristian's higher-quality SFX pack installed.
The OG Doom is a great game, I enjoyed it immensely. It's amazing how just cohesive and whole this game feels - the shooting, the enemies and the way they work together. Great soundtrack too.
Thy Flesh Consumed was a major letdown - other than the first two maps (which were ball-bustingly difficult), it was just an OK experience. Also a lot of annoying encounters and dickish traps made me use saves (I managed to finish OG Doom without saves). The flow was off too - the OG Doom had a such good flow i was breezed through episodes in just one sitting, but with TFC i did frequent breaks because of frustration.
I remember there was a minor controversy back when Sigil was released - some people (including major youtube reviewer Gmanshills) crapped on it for being too hard. I didn't find Sigil all that hard, after E4 it was almost a cakewalk. For the most part Sigil felt like "Thy Flesh Consumed Done Right" - it was fun, tight, challenging, and mostly fair. Mostly. Flows very similarly to E4M2 Perfect Hatred - the supplies are very scarce, and you are basically forced to use telefragging and infighting to get rid of enemies (I just googled and found out that e4m2 was also designed by Romero, not surprising). The only thing i didn't like about Sigil was the abundance of hurt floors with a very limited amount of hazard suits, had to ocasionally use saving.
Replayed Doom 2 and finished No Rest for the Living for the first time (it's a bonus episode made for Xbox 360 port of Doom 2).
I remember liking Doom 2 more than OG Doom back when i was a teenager - largely because it had a lot more monster types (and a super shotgun). After replaying the game, I think I don't like Doom 2 anymore.
OG Doom felt like a proper actual cohesive game, like journey you make from martian bases to hell and back. Doom 2 feels like a glorified mappack made by level designers of a very inconsistent level of skill. Some of the levels are pretty good (particularly Spirit world, the living end, refuelling base, etc), the rest of them are gimmicky, plain ugly, and a slog to get through. Downtown? Chasm? Barrels of fun? Get the fuck out of here.
New monsters are good and I can see wad-makers putting them to good use, but Doom 2 uses them in such way I was annoyed most of the time instead of being challenged. Picked up a key? A monster closet will open and a pack of chaingunners will torn you to shreds at a point blank range. You are walking on a narrow ledge? A monster closet will open and a pack of chaingunners will torn you to shreds at a point blank range. Picked up a supercharge? A monster closet will open and a pack of chaingunners will nulify your supercharge at a point blank range. Walked into a large open area? A monster closet will open and a pack of chaingunners will torn you to shreds from afar, and you won't be able to do anything because autoaim prefers enemies that are closer to you, or because chaingunners are elevated. Walked into a teleporter? A pack of chaingunners will torn you to shreds at a point blank range and you won't be able to react because you of a green teleporter sprite obscuring your view. Fuck that.
I know it's not fair to compare an original game with a wad, because a wad was made by designers with years of knowledge of how to use the engine and enemy roster, but. No Rest For The Living is like a masterclass on how to make Doom levels, this new episode blows Doom 2 out of the water. Distinct visuals, creative secrets, memorable level layouts, tough but fair encounter design. Chaingunners are used in a much tolerable way - they are almost always packed together with other enemies so it's easy to make them shoot their buddies in the back and trigger infighting.
Don't think i'll bother with TNT Evilution or Plutonia, from what i've heard it seems like those two expansions only amplified the worst parts of Doom 2 to meme levels. You know it's bad when even random youtubers make fun of chaingunners spam in Plutonia.
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