November 2, 2011

Consider DoomRL Instead.

Let’s see what’s on the list of unused blog ideas… Doom II RPG, huh?

I really loved Wolfenstein RPG. Like, a ton. It was a lot of fun, and surprisingly strategic in its combat. Thus, when I saw that Doom II RPG was a thing, and it was on sale, of course I was there. I’d like more of that, please.

In a lot of ways, Doom II RPG is much more robust than Wolfenstein RPG, but it just doesn’t feel as fun to me. Is it because I’ve already played it? I don’t think so. It just feels less inspired.

Unlike Wolfenstein, you get to pick between three dudes this time. “Sarge,” who is more appropriately known as Doomguy, a lady, and a scientist. They all have different stats, so that’s different. I went with the lady because she is a lady. I didn’t really feel like my choice affected the game much. Maybe I had less HP? I’m not sure. The game also tries to throw a lot of more “interesting” weapons at you. For example, you early on get a Sentry Bot which you can send out and control separately from you and shoot guys with. However, it’s just not practical to use that stuff often, for reasons I am about to explain.

One of the weapons you get pretty early is a Holy Water Pistol. This refills at any sink or toilet. You can drink from it to heal yourself, or shoot enemies with it. It hurts demons, and inflicts a fear effect. Now, think about this: all enemies in Doom, except the basic zombie guys, are demons. This weapon clears rooms, keeps you safe, and you always have ammo for it. It just kind of breaks things wide open. Until you get to a boss, where it just doesn’t work, and you realize that without it, you really have shit for weapons! This weapon makes normal combat trivial, but then the bosses become a huge leap in difficulty. It’s just strange.

Similarly, all these stats are strange. You didn’t really have much in the way of player-changed stats in Wolfenstein, but in this game, you’re doing things like a dumb treadmill mini game to up your speed stat. The game wants you to grind, and the benefits for gaining one point are kind of minimal, as far as I could tell. I’m not going to sit there and grind until enemies don’t get two turns to my one or whatever. Not going to do it.

Yeah, I dunno. I would suggest you getting Wolfenstein over this one. They’re both very similar, in general, but I just felt like I found a lot of flaws with this “expanded” version. Maybe I’m just stupid though. I don’t know.

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