If you're a newcomer, stay away from this. If you're a veteran, buy it and jump straight into the nightmare.
Was it the extremely hard difficulty, or was it because of the recycled content with completely nothing new to add? All of the above are true, but I'll do my best to give an un-biased review. Here we go.
Story:
There are two storylines, as a matter of fact.
TNT: Evilution
Approximately a few months (or years) after Doom II's events, the government decided to take steps in preventing a disastrous event from ever happening again. To add to the security measures, the UAC has established a base on one of the moons of Jupiter, hoping that the increased distance would not compromise the Earth's safety. In addition, a significant detachment of Space Marines are on standby-just in case Hell wanted to play once more.
Yep, they guessed right. Hell's legions came back for revenge and to feast on mankind once again, but the Marines were ready-they annihilated the monstrosities without too much trouble. The government rejoices over their victory and more Marines are assigned to even further strengthen the defenses.
They were mistaken.
Months later, a massive starship, thought to be a supply ship from Earth, approaches the moon. The personnel mistakened it, and it was actually a massive demon ship-onboard the titanic cruiser are hundreds and thousands of demons. Unleashing its gates, the monsters feast on the humans once more.
Only one man survived-you. Rushing back to base after an encounter with one of them, you realized it all.
To hell with mourning your dead men, you're going to jump into the slaughterfest and give those freaks a real living hell.
The Plutonia Experiment:
Months after the invasion of Earth, the government knew there was much more to be done-even with the destruction of one of the biggest demons all thanks to the Doomguy (anonymous Marine), it was clear Hell had much more of its minions to play with.
The new UAC was founded, and scientists got to work on the Quantum Acclerator Devices-technological contraptions designed to close gates from Hell and to prevent Hell from ever coming into our realm again.
The devices preform flawlessly-as soon as Hell attempted to attack through one of the portals, the Quantum Acclerator Devices are activated, closing the gate instantly and also spelling a miserable death for an unlucky Cyberdemon. This was just the beginning.
The next day, not one, but SEVEN, gates are opened, and not only this, a monstrous legion stomps through. In an hour, six gates are closed-but the demons manage to prevent the seventh one from closing by overwhelming the Marines. All survivors were either slain or transformed into bloodthirsty mankillers.
The government, frantic that the devices will be unleashed on mankind by the demons, orders all marines, regardless of their position, to the facility at once. The Doomguy was the closest and he get there first.
Realizing that the reinforcing marines will not stand a chance against the evil monstrosities, he loads his pistol-and begins a one man war against Satan's legions once more.
*Well, Final Doom had a more interesting background story, to say the least.*
Gameplay:
Simple as cake. Run around, grab weapons and anything else that's of good use, annihilate Hell's forces with an arsenal of super shotguns, rocket launchers, and plasma guns, activate switches, find the exit. That's it. But of course, it becomes so addicting that it doesn't become repetitive. Just be prepared for anything that comes across your path-stepping on that weird tile just may send an entire army of demons hot to sink their teeth into you.
Now to add on to the game's specialty-TNT: Evilution has a technological feel to it-the metal corridors of the UAC bases that you'll trek through will definitely be a memory in terms of Doom. However, The Plutonia Experiment has less than attractive graphics, and it mainly consists of ugly, brown walls and demonic architecture. I guess this was caused by Hell's takeover of the complex.
But wait-The Plutonia Experiment may disappoint in terms of graphical feel, but the difficulty will definitely give you living hell. On Level 1, it's already challenging for a Doom game to a novice player, and by Level 3, if you're not prepared, turn back now. You have been warned. Otherwise, prepare to die aplenty and don't expect it to become any easier after that.
The Plutonia Experiment was made for the Doom veterans. If you can beat it on the ultra-violence difficulty, give yourself a pat on the back-it's one heck of a feat to accomplish.
Music:
Some can fit the environment, while some can be plain annoying. Of course, you can always turn the music off. TNT: Evilution has some new music, while The Plutonia Experiment had rehashes of music from Doom and Doom II. This may or may not appeal to you, but that's all in the player's tastes.
Graphics:
Quite outdated, but who cares? This is Doom. As long as the graphics are viewable it doesn't matter. You can't judge games by its graphics unless the graphics are so crap it hurts your eyes just taking a brief glimpse at it. But this isn't the case for Final Doom.
Controls:
Arrow keys to move. Shift+Arrow keys to run. Ctrl Key to fire weapon. Number keys switch weapons. FPS games can't get simpler than that. But if you've played the previous Doom games, you should know what they are already.
Rent or Buy:
Buy if you're a saucy, seasoned and hard-bitten Doom veteran looking for more hellspawn to beat up. Think twice if you're a newcomer or novice, but it'll give you a blast regardless of your skill level and experience with Doom games.