
After 24 years, Doom II's final secret has been found - smacktoward
https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2018/08/31/after-24-years-doom-iis-final-secret-has-been-found/
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shaklee3
This would be a good time to remind everyone to read the book Masters of Doom.
Such a great story of how these games came to be.

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mrmondo
Thanks for the recommendation, I checked out the book (I had never heard of
it) and it does sound interesting, by chance have you listened to the
audiobook? It’s read by Wesley and I haven’t listened to any audiobooks read
by him. ([https://www.audible.com.au/pd/Masters-of-Doom-
Audiobook/B00F...](https://www.audible.com.au/pd/Masters-of-Doom-
Audiobook/B00FGGUT5O))

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dmuino
Wil is a very good audiobook narrator and does a fine job reading this
audiobook. I listened to it a year or so ago and it was extremely
entertaining.

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TheAceOfHearts
If we're talking about Wil Wheaton I'll also suggest giving Ready Player One a
try. It's a short but very enjoyable book and Wil does a great job at bringing
it to life.

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jandrese
I had forgotten just how fast Doomguy ran. Compared to modern shooters its
like he's playing on fast forward. Good thing too since that level is so
massive.

I also remember how bullshit the par times were on each map.

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djsumdog
I was thinking that too. It's bought up a lot if you watch retro gaming videos
that talk about this era. Doom was an incredibly fast game. It's pretty
technically amazing to think about how the game was constructed to run so
smoothly on a 386.

The game can still be jump-scary after all these years with the way the levels
and sound effects are designed.

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ehsankia
Same here. I definitely missed zooming across maps like CS' surf, Q3's defrag
or Tribe's skiing. Is there any good fast paced modern game with good
movements? And is there any with a decent single player experience?

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vvillena
Titanfall 2 has one of the best single-player campaign in recent shooters. You
are highly mobile and it's possible (and expected) to parkour your way across
multiplayer maps.

Warframe is different, it's focused on PvE (although there's a PvP mode if
that's your thing). The premise is simple, you are a space ninja with
supernatural abilities and you kill hundreds on enemies on each mission. The
game is complex and you'll need to read the community wiki to understand some
things, but the experience can be very rewarding.

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djsumdog
I did enjoy Titanfall 2's single player campaign. The cinematics were quite
amazing, almost as good as the cinematic feel of Mass Effect 3.

The trouble with it was that it was waaay too short. There are only 9 single
player levels. I realize the game is geared towards multiplayer, but I
honestly couldn't even get into multiplayer. Everyone was so good it made
multiplayer insanely difficult. You pretty much have to be able to beat the
game on hard to even begin in the multiplayer space, or grind a shit ton to
get powerups.

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luddaite
On the flipside, I really appreciate a short but sweet single player campaign.
Titanfall 2 had some truly awesome levels (time travel!) and ended when it had
said what it wanted to say. I really dislike games that feel drawn out like
too little butter on too much toast (some JRPGs come to mind..).

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derekp7
This reminds me of a quick in Kings Quest, which let you walk across the water
to the island by ducking while slipping down the embankment. Apparently you
couldn't duck and drown at the same time.

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philliphaydon
Haha, I remember playing a rpg game where you had to kill this undead boss,
it's kinda hard but it turns out if you cast heal on him it killed him in 1
hit.

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jjjensen90
(spoiler alert) there is an undead boss in Final Fantasy 8 who is incredibly
hard but can be killed using a "Phoenix down" (which is an item that revives
dead players). As a kid, I got a real kick out of it.

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teknopurge
___Spoiler alert_ __in FF2, IMO the single best RPG ever created in the
history of history, there were a number of enemies that you could only kill by
first casting a wall on one of your party then bouncing a spell off that wall
onto the enemy. Great times...

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philliphaydon
Secrets of Mana, and Chronos Trigger, are my favourites.

As well as Shinning Force, Breath of Fire, Phantasy Star, and Illusion of
Gaia.

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buster
Oh yes, Chrono Trigger and Secret of Mana! So good! By the way: Octopath
Traveler came out for Nintendo Switch a few weeks ago and is awesome (a modern
JRPG). Its stories are good but not as deep. Gameplay and music are really
great.

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philliphaydon
Planning to get it at end of October. Can't wait. Everyone has nothing but
good things to say.

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mothsonasloth
I'm a grown man but Doom 2 still manages to scare me at times, I think that's
a testament to the games level design, sounds and monsters.

The newest Doom was more like Quake and I didn't find many jump scares, still
loved it though.

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signal11
Just curious: what did you think of Doom 3, if you’ve played that? As I
remember it, Doom 3 was far more influenced by horror as a genre than Doom
(2016) was.

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yason
Cheap scare tactics, painfully slow cinematic gameplay, boring level design
and repetitive fights.

I made it about two thirds in until I had to give up for sheer disappointment.
Disclaimer: I still play Doom and Doom 2 occasionally. Those are really good
instinctive games to play while you're thinking of a problem. You basically
focus on the tactical gameplay and at the same time free your mind to think
freely about the solution.

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ourmandave
I assume with cheats like noclip and the source dumps people knew about the
secret area since forever. But were just never able to figure out you had to
be pushed by an enemy to activate the teleport to it.

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xref
second paragraph:

"Prepare to put your Doom Pedantry Hat on for this one, because the secret has
been known, and considered a bug."

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ehsankia
I was curious about that. Did they mean that they knew where the secret was
but not how to trigger it, or that people already knew how to trigger it?

And to be fair, finding the secret is often only half the challenge, actually
getting it is the hard part. And I'm assuming this "bug" was intended, I doubt
they would design the game with an intentionally impossible level to 100%.

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jonny_eh
Ya, it's not clear if they intended for the workaround or not.

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chungy
It was a mapping error. If the engine works completely correctly, it would be
impossible to flag the secret sector as found.

However, Doom has bugs... so it actually turns out to be possible to trigger
it.

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guicho271828
Wait, from what is implied by the creator's tweet, this was the intended
method for getting the secret?

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LeoPanthera
He says "Great trick getting to that secret!" \- which seems to imply that it
wasn't intentional at all.

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djsumdog
I wonder if during that level design the devs were like, "This will be a
tricky once, because you have to be pushed by a monster," and then totally
forgot about it, under the mess over hundreds of other tasks to complete.

Maybe it was intentional and it was just so long ago, no one remembered it?

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diggan
More likely that the devs were like: "Hey, lets put a secret in that no one
can get, so when they won't be able to find it, they'll lose their minds"

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lloeki
Or simply, a secret was placed there but the room was different, then it was
modified to add an elevator, forgetting about the secret being therefore
unreachable.

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sbr464
Brings back memories. As a kid, my only chance to play Doom was on a computer
in the electronics dept at Sears, at the mall. Good times.

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dis-sys
the video linked in the article brings back a lot of good memory of the touch
and feel of DOOM's shotgun, it is by far the best weapon in all FPS games. ;)

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Max_aaa
I kinda liked the double shotgun, it really packed a punch.

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Zardoz84
half rocket damage, if I remember correctly.

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remarkEon
Fun read.

Been a longtime DOOM fan. I can bet that there are secrets like this hidden in
the most recent DOOM game, and expect the same for DOOM Eternal.

The attention to detail that game developers have is unreal.

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rangibaby
Wow! That is probably one of my favorite levels in Doom 2 as well. I love
music too: a knock off version of Hangar 18

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mothsonasloth
My favourite track

[https://youtu.be/TnzRBZd5_uA](https://youtu.be/TnzRBZd5_uA)

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qrbLPHiKpiux
PSU early to mid 90's, this is what we did. Doom, Doom 2, multiplayers, seeing
this made my day!

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h1d
I find it funny that I feel Doom 2 is still more fearful than playing any far
more realistic modern versions of Doom. Not sure why.

Also balance was awesome when even a shotgun guy at the wrong time can be
critical to you.

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pervycreeper
Romero's claim that this was intentional stretches credulity.

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LeoPanthera
I'm not sure he says it's intentional at all. He says "Great trick getting to
that secret!" \- which seems to imply that it wasn't intentional at all.

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ehsankia
Why would there be a secret (which would be a trigger area placed there on
purpose) that cannot be accessed? Is the implication here that it was dropped
into the map by accident due to someone misclicking?

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arketyp
Sounds to me like trolling. Pressumably they were using the map editor to make
warp zones and trigger areas and discovered this impish creation by combining
the two. I doubt Romero knew about this trick but I can imagine he left the
question open whether ever a way could be found. Such things may not be
obvious even to the programmer of the game.

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basicplus2
IDKFA - Fill up Ammo

IDDQD - Degreelessness Mode

Shall i get up voted or downvoted? :)

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cheschire
Doom is the only game where I still remember all of the cheats. I actually
struggle to exactly remember the Contra code, but IDSPISPOPD sticks in my
brain for a quarter of a century.

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pferde
Same here, IDSPISPOPD will probably never leave my brain.

By the way, a few years back, I was considering writing a POP3 server
implementation, just so that I could name it that. :)

