Fairy Tale Spotlight: Hell to Pay [Video Game Review]

"Hell To Pay" is a video game developed by Wraith Corporation. It is a 32-map episode for Doom II that was released in 1996, two years after Doom II actually came out. It was released in retail stores for $14.99, so this was a professionally made and released Doom II mod, which is pretty cool. It is non-canon, however it does claim to be a continuation of the Doom II story, although two hundred years later.

Where to begin with this one? I suppose I can copy and paste the story for you, since that was only available in the manual anyways. Here it is:

"Two hundred years have passed since a lone marine stood against the forces of Hell. Bone weary from the conflict, and thinking they were finally safe, mankind shunned the ways of war and devoted themselves to turning Earth into a paradise.

A decade ago, all of that changed. Near Jupiter, a wormhole opened. A vast alien armada quickly established on Io, Jupiter's volcanic moon. Without warning, the alien fleet descended upon an unsuspecting Earth.

Many rushed to greet the alien visitors, only be dismembered by the killing machines disgorged by the hellish alien ships. It was soon obvious that the aliens were bent upon savage colonization. Some even tried to defend the planet, but it was hopeless.

Billions died. They were the lucky ones. Those that remain bowed down before their new metal masters and meekly accepted the living Hell that awaited them in the Slave Pits.

The physically fit were pressed into labor under inhuman conditions. Those who weren't or who could not perform to the satisfaction of their masters were led away never to be seen or heard from again. No one really knew what happened to them, but there were rumors too horrible to believe.

But it wasn't the metal demons who were feared the most, rather the sadistic and twisted among you who were led away only to come back transformed into trustee guards. The way they looked at you with a hunger in their eyes was enough to send shivers down your spine.

But unlike the other slaves who have given in to fear, you have let the hate burning in your heart give you strength while you waited for your opportunity to strike back. But the worst has happened, one of your fellow slaves whom you told of your plans was turned into a trustee. You have been arrested and thrown into a holding cell.

The opportunity you've been waiting for hasn't arrived. The other slaves had been looking towards you to lead the revolt. As the trustees lead you away, you saw in their eyes that they had lost of hope. As the trustee opens the cell, you shudder as you remember the rumors of a "Final Solution".

Filled with rage, you slay the trustee with a savage blow. You grab his pistol and emerge from the cell screaming, 'There's gonna be HELL TO PAY!'"

So even though it is technically a sequel, it is also really its own thing at the same time. Most of the enemies have been altered or changed entirely. The imp looks a bit different. The lost souls have been replaced with floating spheres of liquid metal. The Cacodemon, Mancubus, and Pinky Demons are now robots, although they still act the same way. A few of the weapons changed as well, such as the Plasma Gun and BFG9000 which are now a blue and red tridents respectively. Everything works the same though. All that was changed were the looks and some of the sound effects.

This game tried some really interesting things. Not all of it worked well, mind you, but they tried. For example, there was one map where you are in a spaceship. You approach an airlock, pick up a protective suit, and actually perform a space walk for a little while. They tried to simulate being able to float around and even move up and down, but it was all faked using the original engine. It was only convincing the moment when I went out there, but I soon realized how it just was not all that well-done.

A couple missions actually had a self-destruct countdown happening. It even displayed on the screens, letting you know how long you had. Although I am unsure how they got the screens to display like that, I do know roughly how the countdown is performed. They use something called "Voodoo Dolls." They are copies of your space marine hidden somewhere unseen in the map. Anything that happens to that clone happens to you. They probably have him on some slow-motion conveyor belt or something that takes a full ten minutes to drop it into a lava pit or some sort of instant death hazard. In that way, you can give the illusion of a countdown timer that leads to your untimely demise. Cool, yeah?

One odd thing that kept happening in these maps was that enemies constantly got stuck on doorways. I'm not sure why this happened, but it did happen a lot. This is not a normal thing that happens in Doom; at least, I am unaccustomed to seeing it. Either way, I always used the advantage against them when this happened.

Have you ever heard of the Ghost Monster Bug in Doom II? It is extremely rare, and most people who run into it will usually brag about it. It is a really unusual bug that sometimes happens when an Arch-vile revives a fallen enemy. It causes them to not only be unkillable, but they can also pass through all the walls of the entire map, basically free to hunt down Doom Guy relentlessly until the ghosts has his way. There is a way to kill the ghost, however. You have to hit him with the splash damage of a rocket, but that is very difficult and does not damage it all that much.

In "Hell to Pay," I consistently ran into the Ghost Monster Bug three or four times. If I restarted a map, I would always run into it in the same place. I actually do wonder if the developers had meant for it to happen. For a bug so rare, it is hard to believe that it was not intentional. But imagine having a Revenant chasing you around through walls, and all you can do is try and hit the wall nearest to it with rockets and hope that the splash damage ends up enough to kill it. It's maddening!

Another thing these developers did that was cool was that you got a cutscene at the beginning of every single mission. It was still just text, but this text came with an original image behind it. I looked into it, and apparently they just put in a text intermission before every mission, left the text field blank, and then just showed the image with the text already on top of it. So the text does not roll out like it does in the original game. This is something I have never seen before in a classic Doom mod.

"Hell to Pay" did a really good job at being an outer space adventure. It also did a fairly decent job at map design. You even got a spaceship with a really nice-looking cockpit. And the whole idea of going to Planet Hell to fight the demons on their actual origin planet was really cool.

This game is really good and interesting, despite its flaws. And yes, it is flawed. Regardless, I found myself getting excited for every single map that came my way. I wanted to know what new and crazy thing the developers were going to throw at me. "Hell to Pay" gets my recommendation for simply being extraordinarily unique, and, most importantly, it's fun as hell.

You can find this game in the mod browser within the excellent Doom+Doom II Remaster released through NightDive Studios. It is not a featured mod though. I kind of wish it was, but I guess it's inherent flaws strips it of that privilege. Either way, do yourself a favor and download this one.

This blog was written on April 3, 2025.

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