Game:

Doom II: Hell on Earth (1994)

Duration: 6:52

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15

Holy ancient weapon mod, Batman!

Yes it's old (released for EDGE in late 2002), but it's still a lot of fun and introduced a lot of new things* at the time, back when expansive weapon/gameplay mods were still a relatively new thing. Goodbye, rigid and difficult Dehacked work. Hello, simple text-based DDF stuff which would pretty much let you change what you want, how you want... and then add a tonne more if you so desired.

Generally speaking, the difficulty is increased and necessitates a bit of a change in how you play; it's nothing truly excessive (all of the IWADs are still very doable, easier in some places too), but thanks to the reloading mechanics and general lack of 'superweapons' such as the BFG (although their are some fine substitutes for causing massive damage) tactics will need to be altered in most situations in order to survive. In particular, you'll need a lot of patience when dealing with groups of Hellspawn. Even the smaller packs can turn things-upside down and ruin your day.

Of course, with so many new weapons (ranging from lowly Knives and Pistols to room-clearing Flak Shotguns and Hand Grenades), most of which have alt-fire capabilities, come several new enemies. In addition to the default stuff being modified for balance, there are several new Zombies, all geared for really messing your stuff up; these guys are bastards, and will frequently drop a live grenade on the floor when damaged. This can and WILL kill you if you're caught in the blast, and is a major reason for keeping to a cautious style of play when dealing with any map usually loaded with Zombies. But at least it only takes one of these to potentially clear a room, saving you a lot of hard work and ammo.

Speaking of which, enemies are also more dangerous. Some display higher aggression in attack frequency, some are tougher, and most do more damage than before... although on the upside, infighting is now even more frequent -- almost everything here will get into a fight without much provocation, even with others of their own kind. Ever wanted to see two Cyberdemons lose their temper with each other? Mancubi? Revenants? Even Imps?

Unfortunately, this map's a bit crap and doesn't really let me show off some of the finer points of the mod (and attempting to generate more resulted in OBLIGE saying "NO" and giving me some nonsense about Rockets being unknown thingtypes), but it should be enough to demonstrate some of the unique features.

I've never seen anyone create a gas grenade since this. Why not?

http://www.doomworld.com/immoralconduct/
http://sourceforge.net/projects/edge/files/EDGE%20Binaries/1.35/

*Remote satchel charges in particular. Good god, these things were fucking mind-blowing when this came out.

(Sadly, the mod isn't without flaws; it was designed for older versions of EDGE, and it shows in some respects; the HUD display for enemies present on the current map has all the offsets borked. Other problems are engine inherent -- EDGE's reload system was never ironed out properly for dealing with Shotgun-type weapons reloading, so even if reloading only one shell, you have to sit through a full animation for 8 shells. Oh well.)

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