Doom

How great is Doom? I’ll tell you, it’s the grandaddy of FPS gaming. Hell, FPSs were called Doom clones for a long time even though there were other FPS’s before him.

The year was 1993 when Doom was released and since then it was ported to at least 20 different platforms. As many games from that time, it was released as shareware, you would get a copy from a store or a friend with only the first chapter available and to play the full version of the game you would have to order it from the developer id Software. You would receive the full version at home by mail, like Steam but without internet.

But, what makes Doom so great? And that’s easy, everything!

Up until Doom there is, in my opinion, only one game worth mentioning in the FPS genre and that was another game from id, Wolfenstein 3d, from 1992, which I will likely talk about it later. But the improvements in all the aspects of the game make Doom seem like they weren’t even made in the same decade.

Let’s start to talk about graphics. Back in 1993, the first thing you would notice is….the ceilings. The game had ceilings. It doesn’t look like much but at the time this was the first FPS to have something to look like a ceiling instead of a single color trying to look like one. The relatively realistic 3d graphics were also a big improvement. The walls weren’t in a rectangular grid and they would have different sizes. There were flickering lights and a dark ambience to the game. The enemies were no longer 2d cardboards but they would seem to move diagonally. Again it does not seem like much but the non-perpendicular walls, full texture mapping of all surfaces, varying light levels and custom palettes were a big thing back then. It was essential to give the game the amazing atmosphere it still has. I mean, it’s been 20 years since the release and I still look at it and don’t think it looks bad. It still looks good, very good! Better than many, many games that were released since.

 

The sound. Oh, the sound! The menu had a simple music on the background and some metallic sound when you made a selection but when you started a game there was really music unlike the boring beat on the Wolfenstein 3d’s background. And it could have been any better? Unlikely. In a game called Doom which promises to take to hell it could only have been some music from hell. Metal it is! The first music is loosely based on Metallica’s Master of Puppets and the list goes on…Pantera, AC/DC, Slayer, Black Sabbath, Judas Priest and Alice in Chains were some of the bands which music inspired the Robert Prince’s soundtrack to the game. Why spend a lot of money paying to bands to use a legally MIDI-like (it was the MUS format that was used) version when you could make something that sounded just the same for a lot less?

The weapons sound awesome and the enemies grunt during the levels making you afraid to turn any corner. The goal was to make the gamer scared and the sound was spot on to do so. They all sound like they are in a really bad mood and all willing to kill you.

And talking about bad guys trying to kill you we talk about the difficulty, even in the easier mode the game is not that easy as you would think and the more you improve the difficulty of the game you see less ammo, less medkits and a lot more enemies to kill. The hardest mode is called “Nightmare” which I find suitable because you are due to have a lot of them if you play it.

Another thing that makes Doom great is the maps. They don’t simply go from A to C passing through B. No! Unlike most games today, they make you go from A to B but you have to go to C…and then to F…back to A…then to D…back to C and then, maybe, you would get to B. The maps were big and they would get bigger each level. Lots of rooms, filled with enemies and ammo. Keys to collect so you could open doors and progress in the game. I mean…you would want to explore the whole map before leaving while nowadays you simply go to wherever the compass points. When you finish a level there is an intermission screen which shows the percentages of kills, items collected and secrets found in the level. I guarantee it’s not easy to simply continue to the next level without seeing 100% in those stats.

The game has 3 chapters with 9 levels each which end with a boss battle. A lot more than today’s games. And the game takes some time to complete. There are some speedruns you can search on the web but not that many. John Romero, the level designer, once said that such a thing had to be impossible. In 1995 a store version of the game was released which included a new chapter. Some other ports, like the one on Xbox 360, contains some new secret levels.

The game has 8 different weapons. You are likely to never use the brass-knuckled fists if you run out of ammo because you have the awesome chainsaw and even if you have ammo you are drawn to use it. You have the pistol with which you start the game but still in the first level you get the shotgun and the Doom’s shotgun is awesome, you can almost complete the game with only the shotgun, that’s how good it is. There’s also a chaingun, a rocket launcher and a plasma gun which are good but not as fun as the chainsaw, the shotgun and the BFG9000! Even the name is epic! And the thrill to shoot it can only be experienced and never told, I can only say that it's devastating.

It has 10 different enemies that range from a possessed soldier or an imp which can be killed with a single shotgun to the bigger demons or bosses which take a lot of shots from the player’s strongest weapons to kill.

The gameplay is pretty straight forward. You can use auto-aim with only the keyboard or you could use a mouse. The game runs smoothly, it’s easy to move around either by turning around or strafing using the controls and there are no obstacles to keep you from your goals that cannot be solved by your gaming skills. The first person perspective makes you think that your arm is right in the middle of your chest but apart from that there is only two real problems. The first being a little bit difficult to see what’s above or beneath with you do not use the mouse and you cannot jump. I really do not know if it was a game engine limitation or a programmers decision but it works fine nonetheless.

An interesting fact about Doom is that from its first release, Doom supported networked multiplayer gameplay in addition to its single-player gameplay. It was one of the first popular games to support networked play. In other words, Doom was the pioneer of deathmatch so a lot of games still deserve the title of Doom-clone in my opinion. Also, you could play co-op.

But…what’s Doom about? When you play the game there is not much story in it. Between each episode of the game you get some short messages which tell what happened but not much. The only way to know is the old-fashioned way, to read the instruction manual.

The player takes the role of a space marine on Mars. He works as a security for the Union Aerospace Corporation (UAC) which accidentally create a gateway while performing experiments with teleportation. Evil demons then came from the gateway killing and possessing the UAC personnel and it’s up to the unnamed player to prevent the demons to get to Earth.

It’s been 20 years since its release and I still look at the game and think it looks awesome. It’s still more challenging and more rewarding to play than most of the games that are released nowadays. The gameplay is great and it only depends on the player to complete the game, the programing and level design was almost perfect. It looks good. It sounds good. There is just nothing wrong with it. That’s why it’s great. A timeless classic which will be played for a long time. I play it every once in a while and sometimes more than once a year.

There are many ways to get the game nowadays. In the consoles you can get it on PSN Store or the XBLA. You can also get it on Doom 3 BFG Edition which was released in all platforms or Steam if you use Mac, Linux or Windows. I did not tried the PSN, the XBLA and the Steam versions but I tried and thought that the Doom 3 BFG Edition version to be a little bit “laggy” to respond to controls.

Personally, I keep my old WAD file from Ultimate Doom on my Dropbox to have it always available, as it should be, and use ZDoom to play them on all my computers, this way I can even jump.

Graphics – 5/5 

Gameplay – 5/5

Sound – 5/5

Longevity - 5/5

Final Score - 20/20