Facebook – Top 100 FAVORITE Video Games: 27

27: Doom II: Hell on Earth (PC/a bunch of other places)
Developer: id Software
Year: 1994

If I had to sit down and write a list of games that defined my entire childhood and, by association, my entry into the world of gaming in general, few games would hold as high a place as id’s sequel to their biggest game. Doom II stands above almost every shooter I’ve ever played in the area of pure nostalgia, with its blood-by-the-buckets gameplay and wonderful design. In the realm of “if it ain’t broke”, Doom II takes the cake by not fixing anything, but rather making it infinitely better.

The game’s “story” is – admittedly – its weakest area. Taking place at the end of the first game, the marine (whom I will always refer to as “Fly” Taggart because of those awful and awesome novels I read as a kid) returns home to find that Earth has been invaded by the demons he’d just slaughtered on Mars and surrounding areas. He must deactivate a force field keeping the last of humanity trapped on Earth before eventually going straight into Hell to finish the demons off and close the portal for good. All of this plot is given to the player through text screens between the “episodes” (remember when THOSE were the way games were released?) so there really isn’t that much to go on, its true. But you have what you need to play a game designed around one simple idea: shoot everything to death.

And shoot you will. One thing that no one can say Doom fucked up was the ability to blast away anything that moved. The basic aspects of the game (explore rooms, pick up keys, open locked doors, solve easy puzzles) were simple enough, but it was the amount of demons and zombies that got in your way of doing those things that messed it all up. Seeing as how you can get the chainsaw in the first level, mind you, you had no reason to doubt that the colorful array of interesting baddies before you were going to get mowed down in some fashion. The guns in the game ranged from pistol to machine gun, with some plasma weaponry tossed in for good measure (the BFG, anyone?). But if the monsters weren’t fun to kill and do battle with, it wouldn’t matter. Thankfully, all the enemies from the first game return, with some new ones tossed into the mix. But my favorite thing in the game is to take the double-barreled shotgun to the chests of Imps and watch them eat it.

But let’s talk about the thing that really puts this game this high up the list; level design. Say what you will about it by today’s standards, but Doom II features some of the most innovative, interestingly laid-out levels in the history of FPS games. For an engine that couldn’t handle “second story” levels (that is to say, no stacking of rooms, no ceilings had floors above them, etc.), id did a fantastic job working with what they had. While the intro spaceport levels were basic and like anything from the first game, Doom II’s cityscape and downtown levels and – most especially – the Hell section of the game featured strange, outlandish designs that were impressive for their time. Are they shown up, now? Of course. But innovation is always shown up, eventually.

All in all, Doom II is the sequel to the game that changed how things were done. Doom will always be remembered as a title that showcased little care for being politically correct, but its sequel was the game to play and the game that should get the recognition. Its hard to imagine a world without it, because we’d never be able to blame video games for school shootings or what have you. Without the Doom franchise, some of the best games in the world wouldn’t have come out. And for that, I treasure this title.

Classic Moment:
One of the early levels of the game, “Tricks and Traps”, features rooms in which different kinds of monsters are secluded from each other (Pinky demons in one room, Barons of Hell in another, Imps in a third, etc. etc.). One of the coolest things in these games was the fact that many of these different guys hated each other. So the Barons would, if given the chance, fuck up the Imps. So, what do you do? Turn on God Mode and clip through walls, pissing everyone off. Then you drag them all into the middle room for a “Last Demon Standing” brawl. Can’t remember how many times I did that, or watched my bro do it…

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Added March 31, 2017
Every few years I dig these games out and play through them, again. They are all great, even the much maligned Doom 3, which I treasure as a hidden gem in the series. The lonely black sheep of the family with everything to prove but nothing to lose.
Doom 2016 was awesome, though, and so much better than Doom 3 that it doesn’t even need talked about, truth be told.