Final Doom

THE BAD:
Nothing new besides levels

SUMMARY:
Final Doom was the last game on the PC to use the old Doom engine. It was a bit dated by the time this game was released, but I do like this game a lot. It doesn’t actually offer anything new except new levels so if you expect anything more from this game then you’ll be disappointed. There is a storyline to go with the new levels but I can’t remember it to be quite honest. All I want to do when I play this game is blow some aliens to pieces.

This game pretty much takes everything from Doom II and puts it in 64 new levels. The levels are divided up into two episodes of 32 levels each with 30 core levels and 2 secret levels accessible from level 15 of each episode. One thing about this game is that the levels are very big and complex. It’s one of the few games that requires me to think a lot and makes me feel mentally tired after playing it for a while. The levels are so big that it is very easy to get lost if you don’t pay attention to where you are going. Because the auto aim only works if you are close enough quite often you will be hit but not able to return fire. In that sense this game requires a lot more strategy fighting than just going in guns blazing.

When I said everything from Doom II returned I meant it. Every single enemy and weapon is back including the almighty BFG. But in terms of weapons and enemies there is nothing new to surprise you. However, whereas before you might have found it hard to beat one Arch Vile, there’s one level that is full of them and nothing but them. Because there are no new enemies or weapons it means that all the thought went into level design and to be fair, some of the levels are quite frankly brilliant. Some are brilliant for strategy, others are brilliant for the sheer number of enemies you have to fight. One of the secret levels has you fighting about 7 Cyberdemons, about 30 Reverants, 15 Arch Viles and countless other enemies. You release them in waves as you go through the level, but the number of enemies I had to beat in that level took me by surprise the first time I did it.

The final level for one of the episodes not only requires the ability to beat a lot of enemies, but also tests how much you pay attention to parts of the level because unless you do, you’ll never get past a certain part of the level.

Basically this is an expansion pack with a whole lot of levels to play through. Normally that wouldn’t excite me by ID seemed to do something right and add an extra challenge to the game. This is one of the few games that has made me feel like I was sitting an exam in terms of how mentally tiring it was at times. There aren’t terribly many short levels here and the game is essentially twice as long as Doom II as it has twice the number of levels. The combination of large levels and actually having something to fill the large spaces is what kept me playing this game for quite a while.