SIGIL was certainly a surprise for most Doom fans especially for those that never expected former Doom creative director John Romero would suddenly make a brand new episode for old time fans to play. SIGIL was fairly competent in what it was doing during its inception. The add-on was released in 2019, and the maps felt something that would fit well with the official maps. It should be noted that SIGIL’s maps were designed to be harder and targeted towards veteran Doom players. Here in 2023, on the day that the original Doom was born, Romero decided it was time to take players back into hell once again.
SIGIL II is the sequel to the unofficial add-on for the original Doom and you’d think Romero would make these maps in Doom II to take advantage of the bigger sandbox that the classic Doom series can offer. Well, SIGIL II is still an add-on to the original Doom, and it basically stays that way from start to finish. However, the content that SIGIL II offers is certainly a lot more engaging than the original SIGIL. It will entertain you and also test your mental capacity.
You can play SIGIL II for free as long you have an installed version of the original Doom for PC. You can buy Doom on Steam for $4.99. As of December 12, you can now play SIGIL II on consoles.
Story – The Only Thing They Fear Is You
For those who played the original Doom, you should know that story has never been the strongest portion of this game or its later installments. You play as a lone space marine and you’re killing demons because they are the bad guys. You never have anyone else there to help you because you are the hero that needs to save humanity from being completely obliterated by these demons. The SIGIL series that Romero has made continues this concept, but the player is currently stuck in a hellish reality as you are trying to make your way towards Earth to kill even more demons. Don’t expect much voice acting and dialogue while playing SIGIL II, but you can expect lots of violence and blood.
Gameplay – They’re Going to Get You
The gameplay is without a doubt vanilla Doom. There isn’t a single new enemy or weapon to use. It’s basically the same game that you’ll know if you played the original Doom, but it’s much harder. The original SIGIL was definitely harder than any of the official maps, but SIGIL II cramps it up even more. The fights are definitely going to feel fairly overwhelming when playing on Ultra Violence difficulty. There will be moments where you will be starving for additional health or ammo pickups while playing through these maps. On top of that, there were a decent amount of sneaky traps that can easily catch you off guard or downright kill you if the player isn’t prepared. Also, SIGIL II seems to love Cyberdemons, so be ready to see them a lot more in this map pack compared to the original!
SIGIL II is a celebration for the 30th anniversary of the original Doom.
The maps are certainly eye catching in the attention of detail which is something that Romero was always known for back in the day, and unlike the original SIGIL, there are moments where players will be going through areas that isn’t hell themed. There are only eight or nine maps if you happened to find the secret level which may not sound much. But it actually took me awhile to finish SIGIL II due to the difficulty, figuring out its puzzles, and sometimes getting distracted while finding the very much valuable secrets. The map sizes are also a lot more varied this time around. Some of them don’t feel that much bigger than the official maps, but some of them will definitely take a while to finish. This makes SIGIL II feel a lot more interesting compared to the original SIGIL where most of the maps were fairly similar in terms of the scope and complexity of the official maps.
With all that information mentioned, SIGIL II follows the same gameplay loop of the original Doom. You kill monsters, look for keys, and find the exit to progress the next level. You basically do that until you reach the final level which was one of the best levels due to the great balance of pacing, action, and atmosphere. Despite having many solid and fun levels, the first level feels like it needs some better balancing. The first map seemed too stingy on the health and ammo pick ups. Due to this nature, luck played a big factor in surviving that level compared to others.
Graphics & Audio – Old, But Still Awesome
Doom was definitely a great looking game back in its heyday. To this day, it may not look as cutting edge like it was back in the early ‘90s, but it still is one of those games that just have this sort of charm to it. It’s a game where the enemy design is so iconic and the visual design is so top notch for its time, you cannot help but just appreciate its existence. The same thing can be said for its audio.
The audio are all iconic in its own rights. Shooting the normal shotgun has always been satisfying to my ears, and hearing the demons dying will never get old whether it’s a Baron of Hell or a Cacodemon. Basically, the original Doom was a game that was impressing players back in the early ‘90s with its design, and that impression is still there in current times. There is also new music in this map pack and it’s made by James Paddock.
The soundtrack is very much what you can expect from a classic Doom experience. It’s a MIDI-oriented soundtrack and it has a mixture of anthem and moodier tracks. It was definitely solid to listen to it while playing SIGIL II and my favorite track was the one that was played on the third level.
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- Ominously excited.
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- The beautiful Shotgun animation.
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- My favorite level in SIGIL II.
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- An interesting secret…
