Doom II: Hell On Earth (Game) / Bobby Prince – Doom II: Hell On Earth OST (1994)

October 27, 2021

Due to the success of Doom, id quickly followed with the now legendary Doom II: Hell On Earth. Personally, I prefer the original, and I find some of the levels, especially in the middle, to have really bad designs, but you cannot deny that this not only expanded, but perfected the Doom world. How can I love a game where I think the levels are shit, I hear you ask?

Well, for starters, and anyone who has played this game will know this, I have two words for you: super shotgun. This is the daddy of video game shotguns, and is nothing short of a pure and utter pleasure to shoot. Its so goddamn satisfying, blasting gaping holes into virtual demons with this thing, that I can wholly overlook the crap level design (well, not crap as much, but definitely rushed!). The second reason of course would be the monsters that were introduced in Doom II, such as the Revenant and the Archvile, which made the game so, so much harder (you had others too, but these were the utter bastards, those and the chaingun commandos, yikes!).

Lets not also forget that Doom II is the base on which countless incredible custom Doom .WADs have been created. The levels may lack inspiration in the base game, but all the great, quality ingredients were here. The Doom community is continuing to mine these even today, so that should say it all, really.

Soundtrack wise, there’s nothing really to write home about. In fact, I’m pretty sure Bobby Prince plagiarised a bunch of metal tracks for this one, almost as if he was running out of steam. There are some iconic sounds in this, but there’s also a bunch of boring ones too.