Doom II

"It's Okay..."

Doom is one wicked FPS. I even have the Dooms on my laptop! Doom is the greatest FPS I've seen in a while, but not as good as Unreal Tournament. Still, Doom is a wicked awesome game. When I asked for GBA Doom II for Christmas, I thought it would be just like the first one but with all the Doom II stuff. Well, I was off. Still, it's an okay game.

Story 10/10
You are a marine the just returned from Hell. But when you get out of your escape pod, Earth is really messed up. Demons are everywhere. Thousands are dead. It's up to you to save the Earth from total destruction.

Gameplay 10/10
No crap. Doom II has awesome gameplay. Just like the other Dooms, you run around and shoot monsters, solve little puzzles, then go to the exit. Sounds boring, but it's really fun. It's just like ID gave it the touch it needed to rock the world. Doom II has some great gameplay.

Graphics 8/10
Good. The graphics are actually pretty good for the GBA. They cleaned up the monsters so now they look a little less pixelated. But, when you close in, they're the pixel gods. But, these changes really slow down the game, but not too terribly bad. Everybody's here this time. Spider Mastermind, Cyberdemon, ect. No one's missing. Crushing ceiling are here. The level 'Industrial Zone' and 'The Chasm' are split up because the GBA doesn't have enough memory space to handle those huge levels. But, the graphics are pretty good. The blood is green and dead bodies disappear, but that's just to get a lower ESRB rating and to cut down on the sprites. The graphics are good overall, though.

Sound 6/10
This is were it starts going downhill. The sounds are right, but they're lower pitched than the DOS version of Doom II. But if you're a Doom 95 player, they should sound normal. There are a few missing sound effects. The gibbing sound, the spider walking sound (both of them), and the Cyberdemon walking sound. But every other sound is here.

Music 9/10
They did a nice job of matching the PC music to the GBA. It sounds really good. But there are missing songs. 'Between levels' and 'Getting tense'. Otherwise the music is here and accounted for. They did a great job.

Buy or rent?
Rent it, if you can (I wanted to rent it, but no video stores had it) and see if you like it. Then buy. Or just buy it if you're a hardcore Doom fan.

Overall
The game is great, but those low-pitched sounds just bug me, but I got over it. Still, this game is good and you should get it if you like doom.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 01/12/03, Updated 01/12/03