Retro games are so passé! Luckily, here's Action DooM 2: Urban Brawl, the sequel to Action Doom, a four year old modified version of Doom. Instead of straight retro, this combines FPS retro, in the form of the Doom engine, with old school 2D arcade beat 'em up action in the style of Double Dragon or Final Fight.
With bold, cartoonish graphics, Urban Brawl looks great. It also features Sin City style cut scenes and a jaded, cliche ridden, whiskey drinking protagonist, who narrates your story, as you go along, beating up generic arcade game baddies from years gone by. The story, amusingly, is supposed to be set ten years before the start of the original Doom, although is no actual Doom-related things in the game.
The music and sound effects are definitely old fashioned, and the action is fast paced, violent and quite hard. It shares with old 2D fighting scrollers the idea that you WILL die a lot! While it is violent, it's a tongue in cheek game that emphasizes fun not fear. The general bloodiness of it all make it a not for kids game, though.
Action DooM 2: Urban Brawl is definitely a cool game to play, although the combat will seem really old fashioned to today's gamer. It consists of hitting an enemy, jumping back out of harm's way, then hitting them again (repeat until dead). There is no sneaking, hiding or enemy AI to speak of, just waves of street punks coming at you from all angles. Taking a 2D game and making it 3D does have the disadvantage that the player can't see behind them, so you will find you take damage from enemies you haven't noticed which can be annoying
Mechanical irritations aside, Action DooM 2: Urban Brawl is a great slice of cartoon anger management!
