Doom II: Hell on Earth is a first-person shooter computer game originally released in 1994 as the sequel to the immensely popular Doom, which was released a year earlier. In 1995, Doom II won the Origins Award for Best Fantasy or Science Fiction Computer Game of 1994. Unlike Doom which was initially only available through shareware and mail order, Doom II was a commercial release sold in stores. Master Levels for Doom II, an expansion pack that includes 21 new levels, was released on December 26, 1995 by id Software.
Due to its popularity and success, Doom II has been released for numerous platforms, including the Amiga, Apple Macintosh, Sony PlayStation, Sega Saturn and Nintendo Game Boy Advance. The release of the original Doom source code has facilitated ports to many other platforms, including the Apple iPod, and several types of cellphones. On August 13 during the QuakeCon 2009 media conference, it was announced that Doom II will be ported to Xbox LIVE Arcade.
Doom II was not dramatically different from its predecessor. There were no major technological developments, graphical improvements, or substantial gameplay changes. The game still consisted of the player negotiating non-linear levels, picking up keys to unlock new areas, and of course shooting down hundreds of monsters. However, due to the larger and more complicated maps with larger groups of monsters, the game had somewhat higher system requirements than the original.
The main additions to the game were the additional monsters available for the player to fight. Doom II doubled the amount of non-boss monster types and started using bosses from the original Doom as normal level enemies. In addition, the multiplayer functionality was greatly improved in Doom II, including "out of the box" support for a vastly increased number of dial-up modems. The two player dial-up connection allowed one player to dial in to the other player's computer in order to play either cooperatively or in deathmatch style combat. There was also LAN functionality added, which was improved upon as patches and updates were released. This functionality was later incorporated into the original Doom.
The only new weapon addition was the double-barreled shotgun. In-game it is known as the "Super Shotgun", which uses two shotgun shells per fire, but could fire out 20 pellets instead of the regular shotgun's seven pellets. This made it very useful in dispatching medium-sized monsters.
Other than the Super Shotgun, there was also a new powerup named "Megasphere", which gave the player, no matter how low his/her health/armor may be, 200% health and 200% armor. It resembles the "Soulsphere" but more brown, and the facial sprites have been altered.
A small change in gameplay was instituted. Instead of the player playing through three related episodes, gameplay takes place over one giant episode, albeit with interludes for when the story develops. Instead of watching the player's progress on a map (as in the original episodes of Doom), the screens between each level simply show a background (as in the bonus fourth episode of Doom available on The Ultimate Doom expansion pack). It also meant that the player was not forced to start over with a pistol every eight or nine levels, as was the case in Doom.
