Action Doom 2: Urban Brawl
From DoomWiki.org
Action Doom 2: Urban Brawl | |
---|---|
Urban Brawl's cel-shaded graphics | |
Author | Stephen Browning et al. |
Port | ZDoom |
IWAD | Doom II |
Year | 2008 |
Link | Doomworld/idgames |
This mod received one of the 2008 Cacowards on Doomworld! |
Action Doom 2: Urban Brawl is a 2008 computer game which runs on the ZDoom engine. It was mainly developed by Stephen Browning, with ACS scripting by Mike Watson and James Bauer. It is the prequel to the total conversion Action Doom, but has a different style of gameplay. Whereas the first Action Doom was a sidescrolling shoot 'em up using Doom's first-person perspective, Action Doom 2 instead simulates a beat 'em up. An updated version of the total conversion for GZDoom was released in 2021 under the name of Action Doom 2: Urban Brawl Reloaded.
Contents
The project
Development on Urban Brawl began in 2004 just months after release of the original Action Doom. Instead of egregious advertising, like the original, the project remained entirely unknown to the community until the day of release. Urban Brawl features a distinct comic book art style with colorful scenery and characters rendered entirely in cel-shading. The game's enemy roster was drawn on paper, scanned and coloured. Similar to Beat 'em ups, many characters are a mere palette swap of previous enemies. Instead of using Doom's engine to calculate light, the lighting is texture based. Objects and walls cast black shadows when seen in sunlight and blue textures were used to simulate a moonlight appearance.
The game can run as a standalone either with version 2.3.0+ of ZDoom or with its own included executable, requiring no IWAD to run.
Outside of gameplay, the story is told mainly through black and white, film noir-style cutscenes inspired by Sin City. Darknation wrote most of the dialogue and cutscenes, while Mike Lightner contributed the voiceovers. The story can branch off in different paths depending on the player's actions, and features multiple possible endings.
The soundtrack was created entirely by Ralph Vickers.
On December 10, 2008, Action Doom 2 was one of the winners of the 2008 Cacowards.
Versions
Action Doom 2 was available in two forms: A free download, and a CD that could be purchased from the official website for USD$9.99 through PayPal. The CD version came with its own case and box art, as well as several exclusive bonus levels including a survival zombie war set in an urban environment. The sale of the CD version has been discontinued as of May 20th, 2010. As a result, the bonus levels have been released for free on the Action Doom 2 website.Promotional offerings
Scattered throughout each level of Urban Brawl were unique specialty items which awarded the player 100,000 points. Additionally, discovering all 9 unique items revealed to the player the official contest website and how to win. Winners were...
- Dylan Sanchez
- Robert Yarborough
- Mike Ewer
Endings
There are six endings:
- You meet Peter Crisp, but he has a trap laid out for you. You get arrested and thrown in prison for life. (You blindly follow the bartender's advice to take a taxi - or you use a warp cheat to the final stage, skipping other critical triggers.)
- In the subway, you lost the lead to your daughter. (You entered the subway without first obtaining the lead, and didn't get knocked out.)
- In the abandoned house, you defeat Hugo without encountering the cop, and marry Mary and have two kids. You think you see your daughter after ten years. (This requires obtaining a secret on a previous level.)
- You hit Peter Crisp while he is carrying your daughter. They both fall down from the skyscraper. The protagonist realizes his fault, but he can't deal with depression.
- You meet Peter Crisp and defeat all of his goons. However, your daughter turns against you.
- You meet Peter Crisp, defeat all of his goons, and shoot down the helicopter. (Missing the helicopter causes you to stand still and get gunned down, and is not a special ending in itself.)
Credit section lyrics
The credit section starts after the show of an ending. There you are shown all the development team, where each developer is drawn on a separate picture. The background music features some rap:
A vigilante - time to up the ante,
'Cuz understand G, you can't kill what you can't see
And if you're coming full force realize is what you can be
is in a body bag if you plot against me
Roll over, look, it's like I told ya
You played a coin against me and now it's game over
Straight up - you made me answer the call - and saw
that you made a mistake when I entered this brawl
This music also plays in the Subway Station level, but without the voiceover.
Trivia
- The initial release of Urban Brawl included a separate executable, called BRAWL.EXE. This is a renamed build of ZDoom with a custom icon, but is otherwise identical to stock ZDoom. Later updates removed the executable so users could simply use the version of ZDoom available on the website. BRAWL.EXE is based on ZDoom version 2.2.0 (r748) dated August 7, 2008.