Review: Doom II (GBA)

Doom according to the Oxford English dictionary means; death or destruction or any terrible event that you cannot avoid. Having survived the terrible, hellish and unavoidable events on Mars, our space marine hero returns to earth for a spot of gardening leave.

On leaving his space pod however, he notices a fire where once his home city stood. People have been turned into flesh eating monsters and hellish beasts walk the earth intent solely on destruction. Welcome to Doom II more death and destruction, and yet another terrible event, but could you avoid it this time? Doom II is the sequel to id's genre defining Doom, almost a decade on from its arrival here it is on the GBA, can a 32 bit handheld succeed where a 64 bit console failed?

On loading it is amazing how quickly you recognise the graphic set of Doom, hard to believe then that it has been nearly 10 years since our PCs creaked under the strain of this game. No intro to speak of, just select a profile and you're off. The skill settings haven't changed at all, they are all here exactly as id intended, "I'm too young to die" through to "Nightmare" and all perform exactly as their titles might suggest, with the latter being almost impossible. Its worth having a look at the option screen too before the game starts proper, it presents you with the by now standard first person shooter variables to play with, although sensitivity stands out as a very nice touch when you consider the medium that is playing host to this game, the ability to tune your characters turning speed is well received especially as the default setting is slightly too slow.

As soon as you enter the first level the action starts, no time for thinking just fire and run and fire some more, there will be time for exploration when everything is dead. The controls work excellently, having much more in common with the PSone version of Doom II than its biological PC father, the D-pad moves you in the four directions needed to navigate the various levels and your character spins in a small circle rather than on an axis point in practice this doesn't take more than a couple of minutes to get used to; the B button fires the chosen weapon and the A button coupled with either shift button changes to next or previous weapon, the shift buttons also facilitate any strafing that you may need to do as the hordes grow in ferocity.

The levels are inhabited with some fantastic and brutal characters, all armed to the teeth, like Former Humans the typical grunts throughout each level, they act like ducks at a shooting range and are just waiting for you to quicken their journey toGod. The other characters are much more intelligent and are seriously heavily armed variations on a Demon theme, they are definitely not former anything. Some fly, some are invisible, they have chain guns, plasma guns and missiles and they want you dead, sooner rather than later.

Fortunately there is a rather large arms cache available for you to utilise, all the usual fare from shot guns to rocket launchers, the weapon of choice as ever though is the chain gun, not because of its power but the sense of satisfaction it gives to you, as bullets fly at an incredible rate into your foes you do feel rather vengeful. Excellent. Littered around the levels are various armour and weapon upgrades, these will usually appear before a massive fire fight to even things up a bit. Also you will find stim packs, these help you to keep your armour topped up and can increase your speed and firing rates. For those unlucky enough to find themselves on a level with radioactive rivers, environment suits can be found, these are time based so make sure you don't mess around, get it on and get across the ooze quickly.

The key to progressing through Doom II is level completion, there are no missions or agendas, just enter a level and find the exit as soon as you can. Run and shoot, open door and flick the switch is pretty much par for the course here. Occasionally a coloured door will require a coloured key to open it, but the formula doesn't stray very much from this tried and tested path. Think of it as the Anti Splinter Cell if you like.

There are secrets to be found in abundance usually in the shape of weapons or health and armour packs, located in hard to reach places they do present a certain puzzle element but the desire to seek them all out isn't great. The reasons for this are two fold; firstly they don't add anything overtly significant to the main game, and secondly the screen is very hard to see, spotting a slight lightening of the grey in the wall which indicates a secret door is almost impossible, and this is where Doom II starts to creak. The original used very dark hues to create a feeling of claustrophobia and a sense of panic. Even then it was quite difficult to see in normal light conditions, indeed many people reportedly hung towels over there curtains to keep the sunlight out during brighter days. True to the original it is nigh on impossible to see what is going on in the game, whether you are playing in a dark or well lit room. Even with the GBA's light and magnifier you will struggle, and while the gamma control adds some respite it doesnÂ’t solve the problem completely.

Here we have a game made for the handheld market, the sequel to one of the most successful games of our time, it sounds fantastic, the movement is crisp and everything looks as it should, they have even managed to put in a great deatmatch mode which can be played with up to four GBA's, unfortunately if you are not playing at twilight under an incandescent glow you are not going to get the best from this game, shame. The challenge is enough in its inception with out having to fight Mother Nature in the process. Doom II is a great game, steep in challenge and offers very little but repetitive running and shooting, you will know if you are going to like it from the box, what you wont know is if you have anywhere with the required lighting to be able to play it. Doom II unintentionally asks some pertinent questions of the Gameboy Advance and its future. At present the medium appears to be the adoptive home of gaming classics, and is becoming the retro machine of choice, for this to continue developers should be given licence however small to make changes so that games suit the current medium, and retain the original games strengths. A slight shift in the colour pallet with Doom II would have elevated it to classic status, it didn't happen and what we are left with is a great conversion of a great game, rendered virtually unplayable because of its desire to be true to its parent.

Rating: 6 / 10

Words by Mike Tooley