Retrospective: Doom

By Paul Dean Published 15 January, 2012

It didn't just change gaming forever - it changed gamers.

Holy s***, there's a monster in the lift.

That's not supposed to happen. The lift is the end of the level. It's a safe zone, a chance for a breather before the game totals your score. For God's sake, it's a universally acknowledged cessation of hostilities. But this time, there's a monster in the lift and both my friend and I physically reel with shock, spasming backwards as the thing lurches towards us. Later, at school, we'll laugh with our classmates at all the stories of involuntary noises and slapstick jerking that this new game produces. Then we'll go home and make it happen again.

I suppose it means that we're suckers for punishment, but we're giving as good as we get and our screens are frequently full of pixelated gore, our ears ringing to the sound of screams and explosions. Yeah, that's just how our evenings go.

The two of us are 13 and we've both been playing video games in some form or another since we were toddlers. Doom is not only the best looking thing we've ever seen, but it's also the first game that's ever given us any sense of fear, that's ever reached right down to our brainstem and tugged hard.

The fingerprints (or perhaps the clawmarks) that it left still remain, permanent impressions left in not only our own gaming memories but also across the collective unconscious of modern videogaming. For two young teens in the early 90s, Doom is merely the next big thing in a rapidly-accelerating gaming industry that soon leaves it behind. We never really notice that it's Doom itself which had stamped its boot on that accelerator, but we'll have Doom to thank for so much that we'll come to take for granted, its influence scattered across modern video games like shotgun pellets.

1

If you think the game lacks subtlety, you're wrong. It can be surprisingly cruel.

Doom was released in December 1993, and on those long, dark winter evenings we both find moments where we absolutely, positively do not want to progress, where the game makes us so nervous that we refuse to participate. It's a strange experience, feeling nervous about playing a game you so enjoy, but it might be that, just as we're hitting puberty and getting to grips with our emotions, we find our video games are also coming of age. Doom only wants us to get in touch with our emotions too, it just turns out that the most basic of these happens to be fear.

It knows about darkness, it knows about environment, it knows about pacing and it knows about surprise. It likes to cut the lights, to groan from the shadows and, like some wicked labyrinth in a gothic fairytale, even its very structure can't be trusted. Floors fall away into pools of acid, walls suddenly disappear to reveal hordes of hungry hellspawn and, just when you need it, you tentatively reached for a new power-up or weapon only to find yourself enveloped in blackness, listening to the howling of approaching demons. Everything about this game is geared around giving a response to its players, to where two boys go and to what they do.

No game had ever been able to use technology to create such an emotional response before. id's previous shooter, Wolfenstein 3D, was a cartoon shooting gallery in comparison. Doom played with its world as much as it could, demanding that you never trust it, that you always second-guess it. While John Carmack, creator of Doom's game engine, might have pooh-poohed the idea of any sort of background or plot for the game, insisting that "Story in a game is like a story in a porn movie," he was nevertheless able to bury his players into an experience more tangible and visceral than anything they'd ever known.

But to an idealistic young boy like me, Doom was far more important for introducing two things to gaming that I'd long, long yearned for, two things that I'd secretly dreamt of but that I wasn't sure anyone would be able to realise. They were also two things that would have an enormous and lasting impact on all of gaming.

The first was frantic, extraordinary and unpredictable: it was other people. Not other people clustered around the same keyboard or taking turns in some tedious hotseat arrangement. It was other people on other PCs, even people in completely different towns or countries. Anyone who had an internet connection, access to networked PCs or enough money to buy a simple null modem cable could unlock a whole new gaming experience.

2

Admittedly, the palette is mostly red: blood, guts, organs and the occasional pentagram.

In my head I'd imagined how multiplayer Wolfenstein might work, what it would feel like to be part of a cadre of scarred veterans battling the odds and grasping at our gut wounds, but I'd never pictured this much energy, this much sheer adrenalin as you watched one friend's rocket turn a bad guy into pure goo, while another was torn apart beside you by the talons of a gurgling imp.

Nor had I imagined the alternative to this: deathmatch. We could turn the guns on one another, celebrate senseless murder and use every cruel trick of the environment to our advantage. Wickedness overtook us as we became the monsters lurking in the shadows, or the hand on the lever that dropped some unsuspecting soul down into a sea of radioactive waste. We were more devious and deadly than any of the game's monsters, turning its levels into slaughterhouses and abattoirs. We were bastards and we loved it.

Doom also introduced the concept of modification, encouraging its players to tweak and tinker with its media and its levels. Carmack deliberately programmed the game so that replacing sound and graphics would be both simple and reversible. He also made the code for the game's level editor available to the public.

While the move might have seemed like poor business sense, as if id was giving its secrets away for free, it only encouraged even more people to play and to talk about the game while, of course, fostering a whole generation of modders and level creators. I desperately wanted a Star Wars FPS and, a year before Dark Forces was released, I got it. The early internet was afire with discussion and development as both amateurs and professionals tried their hand at modding, inspired by Doom's own devious designer, John Romero.

And these names themselves - Romero, Carmack - became a currency among my friends, the first game developers that were household names to us. We finally saw game developers being treated like film directors and rock stars, being the heroes we'd always felt they were and even behaving like them. The long-haired, trash-talking Romero enjoyed meeting with his fans as much as they enjoyed meeting him, and when five students in Austin, Texas scraped together to buy a space above a café where people could pay to play multiplayer Doom, he turned up to give them his blessing. A dedicated social space, purely for the playing of computer games? I was jealous that we didn't have one.

3

Doom 3 gave you a flashlight because it was a game for wimps. No torches here.

Developers like Peter Molyneux and Will Wright would become just as fascinating and famous, but it was Doom's designers who were the first to stand out, the first names to become as important as their games. As I turned the pages of the technology and games magazines I collected, I would read of their latest public appearances or, as the years rolled on, their growing estrangement: id software hired and fired more and more staff; the development of their mysterious follow-up, Quake, stalled; Romero eventually left to form Ion Storm.

Among teenage gamers like us, such news spoke of great potential and of great drama. We wanted to know more about the people behind our games, more about who made them and how, and the spats and the self-destruction, the fallouts and the firings gave us all the soap operas and drama that we ever needed, at least as worthy of a dramatisation as Facebook's story was. (And after Carmack and Romero split, neither would develop anything as truly groundbreaking again.)

Doom was also the first time that I ever saw my hobby validated by the wider world. It grew large enough and reached far enough that both the media and the general public began to understand that, young or old, people play games. Doom II was featured in ER. Queen guitarist (and amateur programmer) Brian May expressed his astonishment at the game's technical achievement.

Fantasy maestro Terry Pratchett decided to applaud the game's approach to the problem of evil: "Over the centuries, mankind has tried many ways of combating the forces of evil," he said, "Prayer, fasting, good works and so on. Up until Doom, no one seemed to have thought about the double-barrel shotgun." It even earned a passing reference in Friends (characteristically unfunny, of course).

And then I witnessed controversy unprecedented in both its scope and its ignorance. Even before Doom's release, it was already marked as a game that corrupted young and, despite its popularity waning, it was blamed for inspiring the Columbine Shooting in 1999. After Doom, video games would increasingly find themselves the scapegoats for all social ills, frequently being misrepresented and misreported. Doom II would be the first game that the Entertainment Software Rating Board would classify as "M" for Mature, an implicit acceptance that video games were not just for children, particularly when they involved thrusting a chainsaw into somebody's mouth.

4

Many levels were designed by Sandy Petersen, author of the Call of Cthulhu pen and paper RPG and an official, card-carrying Mormon. Surprise you?

Doom would echo down the years and I saw it reflected again and again in my favourite games, whether I was watching enemies fight one another in Halo; seeing the walls fall away in System Shock; aiming for parts of the environment that would explode in Crusader: No Remorse; watching the shadows in Thief; reloading my shotgun in Counter-Strike. It was the first game I played in a window and the title Bill Gates used to (personally) promote Windows 95's gaming potential.

Both its engine and its ideas had an incalculable influence and more than a few were ahead of their time. It's not always acknowledged that, a decade before Steam existed, Doom's initial distribution happened online.

David Datta, a sympathetic computer administrator at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside, allowed id to upload the shareware version of Doom, its first third, to the university's network. From here, other gamers would be able to log in, download it and further host and distribute it online and offline.

id was not interested in a traditional publishing deal, but instead in word of mouth, hoping gamers would pass on shareware copies any way the could, only paying to order the full version. While online distribution may have seemed like a good place to start, id set the trend of developers drastically underestimating their capacity to cope with demand. The University of Wisconsin-Parkside's network collapsed like a house of cards.

When I told my girlfriend that I'd be writing a retrospective on Doom, she asked me if it was scary. I was a little dumbfounded, but she'd been too busy playing on her SNES back then. I tried to explain that Doom was the scary game, but that it wasn't just about fear. Doom pushed gaming in a dozen different directions at once, some of which mattered to me then, some of which I only appreciate now.

There's an old philosophy adage that all western thought is really "a series of footnotes to Plato," so influential was the ancient Greek. When I look back, two decades later, I realise that if my own love of gaming isn't a series of footnotes to Doom, it's at least as peppered by id's shooter as if it had been blasted by a shotgun.

It's no wonder that, 19 years later, it's still being played and talked about in all kinds of places.

Comments (146) Latest comment 4 months ago

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  • Demiath #1 4 months ago

    Doom changed my life. As soon as I saw the unparallelled seamless movement through enormous and detailed 3D environments, there was no going back. I remember playing through the first few levels over and over again and making up elaborate back stories and justifications for the mass slaughter of aliens as I went along - not because I was morally troubled by the rampant violence or anything, but because a world this believable just had to include a sense of purpose, meaning and context. It's worth noting that I was quite prepared to provide all of that myself, inspired as I was by the sheer immersion in the game world, instead of having some sort of heavy-handed narrative spoon-fed to me by the developers...
    Edited by Demiath at 15/01/12 @ 07:36

  • TedMoseby #2 4 months ago

    I had *totally* forgotten about the existence of Crusader: No Remorse until it was mentioned in the article!

    Doom was the first game to really make me uneasy while playing it, and it was a revelation having networked deathmatch in the office, even if it was superceded by Duke Nukem 3D (mainly due to pipe bombs, the jet pack and the shrink ray) and then Unreal Tournament (instagib, low gravity, on Facing Worlds is still probably one of the best team bonding events we ever did, resulting in cries of "'Ave it!!!" from across the room...

    Having user levels so easily constructable in Doom was the icing on the cake.

  • Vortex808 #3 4 months ago

    Along with Elite, this is one of the games I love the most. Having grown up with pong, space invaders etc, the first person view and visceral play blew me away like a shotgun blast to an imp's face.

    One of the best games ever IMO. I have played it so many times, on pc when it came out, on ps1 and still do on XBLA.

    All hail id.

  • Dirhael #4 4 months ago

    After I purchased my very first gaming PC back in the day, a state of the art 486 DX2/66, a tech at the company where I got it from actually sent me the game on floppies (at no cost). I loved both the game, and the fact that someone at retail actually cared enough to introduce me to a whole new world of gaming, just because they could.
    Later we (meaning my classmates and me) would play Doom networked with null-modem cables at school, in our "IT classes" with our teacher, having a blast. Our principal would hear of this and get the game removed from the computers, and our teacher would find a new place to hide it deep down in some obscure system folder and we'd start all over again the next time we had class. Oh how I loved those days!
    Edited by Dirhael at 15/01/12 @ 08:39

  • Gastrian #5 4 months ago

    Post deleted at 13:34:06 08-05-2012

  • Pulsar_t #6 4 months ago

    19 years? Surely you jest.. Oh :/

  • Fuser #7 4 months ago

    Pah - I one-up you all: I built a full size Arachnotron in my garage and had its picture in PC Gamer magazine. I believe they called me the saddest bastard who ever lived lol

  • Maturin #8 4 months ago

    Molyneux was well known before Carmack and Romero.

  • otto #9 4 months ago

    Oh Doom... There's never been a gaming moment quite like that very first level. Running up the stairs - up stairs! - and looking out of the window at the fantasy landscape beyond. It represented a greater leap forward than any single game I can think of. The Hobbit & Tomb Raider are the other ones that came close to that "OMFG what am I witnessing?!" sense of awe at the future being realised in front of my eyes.

    I played it to death at work, in the days before sysadmins where anyone with a tad of computing know-how could set up their machines to run whatever they liked. Good times. Me & my boss played through the entire game together in between negotiating the GATT Uruguay Round. :D

    edit - grrr - iPhone client cutting posts >:p
    Edited by otto at 15/01/12 @ 08:52

  • Timotei #10 4 months ago

    Ahhh. Finally a PROPER retrospective. It infuriates me when I see articles on EG calling themselves retrospectives when looking at games barely 3/4 years old.

    I remember my dad taking me & my PC to a friend's house on a Sunday morning, for a day of serial cabled fun. Me having to play in a window 3" across because my SX25 couldn't handle full-screen while my friend revels in his P90. Camping on the rocket launcher spawn, that glorious WHUMP WHUMP WHUMP sound of me letting rip whenever my friend approached.

    The Aliens mod WAD file was awesome, adding those iconic weapon noises, face huggers and environment textures.

    Then on to a 50 lap race on Indycar.

    Halcion days.

  • havoc2011 #11 4 months ago

    Loved Doom on the Playstation.

    Ultra-Violence mode, no saves, excellent soundtrack, improved sound effect, nail-biting tension -- This game had it all for me.

  • 43n1m4 #12 4 months ago

    One of the first games I played on my first PC. Up till then, it had been Amiga and C64 games (dare I say Spectrum ZX?) - and Doom made it blatantly clear that times were changing.. Hi-mem, low-mem, bootdisks, cursing cursors and, eventually, playing Doom was part of being a teenager in those days. I would like to say these technical problems are things of the past, but then I spent many, many hours recently on M&M Heroes VI, just to make it work on my laptop...
    Anyway Doom as a game was always, at least to me, much less than the ideas it seemed to kickstart, for other developers. Immersive worlds was created. 3D backgrounds and 2D character/object sprites was the first wave of games that attracted the attention of people outside the traditional gaming culture. Gaming started to be cool.
    Edited by 43n1m4 at 15/01/12 @ 09:14

  • persus-9 #13 4 months ago

    @Maturin "Sid Meier's Pirates" was released in '87. Perhaps I'm wrong since I wasn't really aware of any of them at the time but I think the case could still be made that Romero and Carmack where the the first rock stars of gaming. Sid Meier and Peter Molyneux may have been known but I don't feel they were closing in on the mad world of celebrity in the same way.
    Edited by persus-9 at 15/01/12 @ 09:13

  • otto #14 4 months ago

    IDKFA
    IDDQD

  • StooMonster #15 4 months ago

    Doom turned the head of this die hard Mac user, for years I'd felt superior with my GUI versus DOS and my Excel, Word and Photoshop apps. I saw it and though "Hrm... That looks pretty darn cool and certainly better than Dark Castle" or whatever I was playing on Macs at work and there was certainly no gaming on Mac at home, I had an imported SNES (gotta have 60Hz) and Genesis for that.

    Bungie's Marathon was good and Doom on Mac was OK, albeit a bit slow on the screen updates but great fun networked for DeathMatch at work, it was actually Doom II along with Magic Carpet that made me buy my first gaming PC ... a Dell Pentium.

    I've been a card-carrying PC gamer ever since. [edit: spelling]
    Edited by StooMonster at 15/01/12 @ 09:21

  • Jonny5Alive7 #16 4 months ago

    I remember playing coop with a friend and getting to the last level of the 2nd episode when you face the cyber demon. At the time that was the scariest but most brilliant moment id had in gaming.

  • Ged42 #17 4 months ago

    ...Find some meat

  • DDevil #18 4 months ago

    /stealth "I have a girlfriend" article :)

  • WiseGuy #19 4 months ago

    Remember seeing this on a friends PC and being blown away. As an owner of a 3D0 I eagerly awaited it coming out on the machine. That didn't work out so good!

  • Porcupine_I #20 4 months ago

    i remember myself saying: "this is it! What more is there to come??" :-D

  • memeroot #21 4 months ago

    Bitmap brothers and those codemaster kids

  • whatfruit #22 4 months ago

    IDKFA

    I have never forgot that.

    Doom blew my mind and started the ball rolling but when Dark Forces came out in 1995 i came in my pants. That game was amazing huge expansive levels, mission objectives.
    Edited by whatfruit at 15/01/12 @ 10:01

  • munki83 #23 4 months ago

    I'm ashamed to say I've never finished doom only ever played the shareware version.....nd some of the snes version

  • ianegg #24 4 months ago

    @otto

    IDSPISPOPD

  • Rens11 #25 4 months ago

    Doom best fps of all time and in my top 5 games of all time still play it to this day

  • DDevil #26 4 months ago

    Id Kentucky Fried Ammo
    Although I have no idea what IDDQD stood for.

  • Azazel #27 4 months ago

    Played Doom 2 again recently and it's still amazingly good. I can even make it through a bit more of Final Doom these days.

  • PAG72 #28 4 months ago

    Playing at 13 tut tut ;) call the moral police !

    No doubt you have ended up a socially dysfunctional axe wielding psychopath surely ?

    ref wiki ratings:
    BBFC: 15
    CERO: C,D
    ESRB: M, T (GBA)
    OFLC: MA15+
    PEGI: 16+
    USK: 16+ (re-rating 2011) / 16+ (GBA version)

  • Kami #29 4 months ago

    Indeed, and I suppose games as we have them today owe much to Doom, which showed mature games with excessive violence were not only popular, but profitable.

    Doom just was, and is, a classic. One of those times you can pinpoint a change in the force as it were, and knew the direction had shifted somewhat.

    Arguably, we also owe much to it for the glut of FPS we've had in the last 19 years but I suppose we can't blame Doom for all of those...

    Just Doom 3 will do. :p

  • doomster71 #30 4 months ago

    This is my fav game of all time (my username says it all really). I still have it on the PS1, both on the xbox live and I have the all of them on the pc. Using the the doomsday engine mod though brings the game more up to date. http://dengine.net/ I have both 1-2 and final now running with high res textures, Proper 3d enemies (not scaled ones) and with the much improved PS1 music and sound affects. Pure doom bliss. I am on the edge of my seat waiting for Doom 4 though. I can't wait.

  • obscured021 #31 4 months ago

    I remember getting the share ware version, I must have finished it 20 times before doom hit the shops, and playing it online with 4 people back in 1993 was like voodoo on the local Game BBS, For doom 2 I up graded to a 486 dx2 66, them were the days, magic carpet, doom, mech2, xwing, descent.

    I still play it today using the doomsday Mod, full mouse look and updated sounds and graphics

  • INSOMANiAC #32 4 months ago

    Without a doubt one of the all time greats and still as good today as it ever was

  • OrgasmicMutton #33 4 months ago

    If only you could talk to the monsters . . .

  • Chibi-Kibou #34 4 months ago

    Good lord I wish the Princess Maker localisation studio hadn't had that fire.

  • wizlon #35 4 months ago

    My favourite Doom pop culture moment is in the Film Grosse Point Blank where the clerk in the grocery store is playing a Doom Arcade machine (of which none were ever made) during a gunfight. The game is Doom II btw.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZt0fAZ018E

  • Pickster #36 4 months ago

    It's quite fitting that this artical turns up today as I have just unwraqpped Rage and only poped onto the site while the Wasteland Sewers Missions downloaded.

    I wasn't fortunate enough to have a PC back when Doom was the big thing. I had sampled it on a few occations but never for very long. There is no denying its impact.

  • Whatascoop #37 4 months ago

    Doom was released for the SNES...

    I always liked the PS1 version, they removed some of the gaudier music, added some lighting, controls that worked on the pad well and it had fuckloads of levels.

  • Adge #38 4 months ago

    It was the greatest leap forward for gaming ever. I'd heard about this shareware game but when a friend brought it round on a handful of floppy discs I was totally blown away. I played it solidly for days to the point where every time I closed my eyes I was travelling down corridors and my dreams were awash with evil.

    Then we ran null modem (and then later ethernet) cable around my student house and a whole new level of gaming emerged.

  • Nisa #39 4 months ago

    If you gave me one game and one game only to keep and play it would be Doom. Still love it today as I ever have. Gaming history.

  • Nova1977 #40 4 months ago

    I played Duke Nukem 3d and Redneck Rampage before I finally managed to find a copy of Doom but it was scary the Cacodemon especially for some reason...it had a butthole.

  • Fightorride #41 4 months ago

    I actually missed out on this when I was a kid, my family didn't even have a computer, and being only 6 at the time, there is no way in hell my mum would have let me play it. I was busy with Wonder Boy 3 on my Sega master system!

  • Eraysor #42 4 months ago

    My favourite thing about Doom is it gave id enough money to make Quake, the greatest FPS of all time.

  • happyhammer81 #43 4 months ago

    @spacedelete - you can't deny Doom's influence and at the time there was nothing really like it. The genre might be congested now but really there was no FPS genre then.

    Personally, I played Doom on... wait for it... the Atari Jaguar. Think it was the only game I had on the thing, and it came with one of those overlays for the number pad, so you could select your guns easier.

    Like the writer and many others, it was the first game to make me feel apprehensive about tackling the next part.

  • DrStrangelove #44 4 months ago

    Post deleted at 13:06:05 15-01-2012

  • DrStrangelove #45 4 months ago

    @otto

    Trying to cheat, eh? Now you die!

  • Stomp224 #46 4 months ago

    I first played Doom on the 32X. And it quickly set off my motion sickness too. a 15 min session in the morning was an excellent way of bunking off school; "Mum, I dont feel t-BLEEAAAAAAARGH"

    Ah, good times :D

  • Jamsus #47 4 months ago

    I meet Sandy Petersen at 2011' Lucca Comics "almost like comicon, but in epic lucca".

    It is an incredible & creative person, a bit eccentric but is justified. We prepared for him a larp roleplay session of Call of Chtulhu, just wonderful.

    His touch can be seen in many parts of ID Software masterpiece.

  • rarebit #48 4 months ago

    well written article - i identify directly with this, doom played at night round my mates house on some controlled substance or other - terrifying.

  • quadfather #49 4 months ago

    Great article.

    I remember getting the floppy disks and booting it up on my dx2/33. My house mates were down the pub and I gave it about 10 minutes worth then realised how utterly amazing it was. I stopped it, went down the pub and dragged them back to see it and we ended up playing it continuously (fighting over goes etc) all through the night.

    I still play it now (hell revealed mods ftw) and have it and quake on my desktop to this day, hence my sig

    Nothing touches it.

    /salutes ID.

  • kickerconspiracy #50 4 months ago

    @spacedelete

    You're either a troll, an idiot or both.

    Doom was the best thing since sliced blow jobs.
    Edited by kickerconspiracy at 15/01/12 @ 14:13

  • Nanocrystal #51 4 months ago

    I remember the first time I played it, I was alone in the house after dark and it scared me senseless. Funnily enough I also had a quick blast on it last night on my iPod. Can't think of many other games from that era that are still so much fun to play.

  • Obli #52 4 months ago

    Surely in the top 5 most influential and important games of all time. There is so much more to this game than was mentioned in the article; not a dig at the author but a testament to how much good stuff was in this game. The artwork, music, enemy design and weapons are also spectacular.

    This game convinced me at 14 years old that I NEEDED a PC for Doom, and I managed to convince my Dad to buy a PC for the family home.

    Planet Romero (www.planetromero.com) recently put up a presentation that was conducted at GDC 2011 by ex-id members John Romero and Tom Hall; a post-mortem on Doom. Excellent insight in to the development process. It's very sad that modern-day game development - at least professionally - is totally different to 20 years ago. Here's the presentation:

    http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1014627/Classic-Game-Postmortem

    @spacedelete - I guess you weren't there in '93 or '94 to be making an ignorant comment like that. Doom was mesmerising at the time and no-one had ever seen anything like it before. It was a huge leap technically and feature-wise over other FPS'. Yes, there were games like Ultima Underworld and Battlezone, but they didn't have the smooth, fast, visceral qualities of id's games.
    Edited by Obli at 15/01/12 @ 15:03

  • datta #53 4 months ago

    Wow, the effect on the Parkside network gets worse with each re-telling. :)

    So many people were logged in waiting to download Doom that ID couldn't log in to upload it. I kicked everyone off so the file could upload. While it was uploading, people came back and tried to download it as it was being uploaded. The Workstation crashed with too many network connections. Nothing happened to the rest of the network. Once it was uploaded, everything was fine. It was still quite a thrill ride that night.

  • Kostas #54 4 months ago

    Doom 1 and 2 set the standard in the "feel" of a shotgun and how its supposed to sound and reload. Not even Doom 3 managed to recreate this feeling. The one and only FPS i can think about that manages to make a shotgun feel so good is Crysis 2 and in a lesser way the first F.E.A.R. game.

  • D_arkTrooper #55 4 months ago

    Reading that article made me want to play Doom again :-)

    I've got the Doomsday program installed and running, but where do I find the PS1 sound files a couple of people mentioned?

  • -cerberus- #56 4 months ago

    DOOM does bring back childhood memories of having bought the game at a flea market without my parents' permission. Back then I didn't really pay attention to who made what, I just wanted to play and have fun. However, the first video game I ever played was called Dangerous Dave which I later found out was made by John Romero!
    Edited by -cerberus- at 15/01/12 @ 15:18

  • CaptainTrips #57 4 months ago

    @Spacedelete - Yes Doom is a generic FPS.

    In the same way that Super Mario Bros is a generic side-scrolling platformer, Yie Ar Kung Fu a generic 2D beat-em-up, and Dune II a generic RTS.

    You fucking idiot.

  • agparrot #58 4 months ago

    Having played Wolfenstein 3D prior to this, Doom still felt like an amazing leap towards a giddy future of gaming at the time.

    My mate had a 1mb Diamond Viper dedicated graphics card.... how paltry that seems now, and it made Doom run like the silkiest, fastest thing you'd ever seen. It seemed at times like it was too fast to play, compared to my crappy PC-without-a-graphics card.

    It was definitely a seminal moment in the evolution of games.

    @spacedelete - it is better to be thought a fool, than to open your mouth and prove it.

  • Lukinsons #59 4 months ago

    Thumbs up if you still play this game in 2012 !!!

    DosBox 4ever'

    :cool:

    btw: My mom played it so much :-D
    Edited by Lukinsons at 15/01/12 @ 16:03

  • bad09 #60 4 months ago

    Haha! Did I realy jut read someone say Doom wasn't groundbreaking? Anyone thinking that is either:

    a) Too young to have been playing games at the time it made it's huge impact on gaming.
    b) Trolling
    c) A moron

    There was NOTHING like Doom before it, even Wolf 3D didn't have the impact Doom had on gaming. The detail, the atmosphere, the levels, the gameplay. Nobody did it like Doom before Doom :)

    Much love Doom, fond memories and fun times and I still throw you on from time to time for a giggle. Hell I even like Doom 3. Now whose blue key do I have nick to get to Doom 4?
    Edited by bad09 at 15/01/12 @ 15:59

  • Obli #61 4 months ago

    For those that love the music in Doom (and Doom 2), you must check this out. The original soundtracks have been recorded from a genuine Roland Sound Canvas SC-155, and the quality is awesome. I guess it was how most of us should have heard it back in the day. Torrents here:

    Doom Classic Music: http://files.dengine.net/tracker/torrents/jdmu-doom-classic-20080930.pk3.torrent
    Doom 2 Classic Music: http://files.dengine.net/tracker/torrents/jdmu-doom2-classic-20080930.pk3.torrent

  • Dogme #62 4 months ago

    @spacedelete Fucktard!

  • -cerberus- #63 4 months ago

    If anyone's interested, here's a fandocumentary about id. This particular segment is about DOOM: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvgDPcksU0c

  • stryker1121 #64 4 months ago

    "Involuntary noises and slapstick jerking."

    Well describes my life at 13, too! No, really, good column, Paul. Keep the retrospectives coming, EG.

  • Baranga #65 4 months ago

    Thank you for the links in the article. Nostalgia overload!

  • minimong #66 4 months ago

    Superb game.First pc game to make me upgrade my computer and first game that made me nearly sh1t my pants.
    doom online

  • IncredibleKoosh #67 4 months ago

    @spacedelete Doom? Mediocre? Do you actually know a thing about games, or the games industry?

    Surely you are naught but a troll?
    Edited by IncredibleKoosh at 15/01/12 @ 16:53

  • agparrot #68 4 months ago

    Thanks @bad09

    spacedelete, can you please explain which of these you are?

    a) Too young to have been playing games at the time it made it's huge impact on gaming.
    b) Trolling
    c) A moron


    There really isn't a lot I can do about a) or c), but if it is b) I'm going to ban you in the face!

  • Golgo #69 4 months ago

    Doom was truly a revelation, but I call an earlier and much scarier lift - Scarabaeus on C64 - and reveal thereby my prodigious old age. Intersting article nonetheless, for a whippersnapper.

    / Rocks chair, sucks pipe. Somewhere, cicadas start to sing out...

    @spacedelete: "graphics terrible even for their time...", etc. Really you have no idea what you are talking about whatso-fucking-ever, so kindly go away and read a book.
    Edited by Golgo at 15/01/12 @ 17:13

  • Bander #70 4 months ago

    Doom needed a £1000 PC to play it. You had that when you were 13? I was 16 or 17 and had only just got my hands on a second-hand Amiga.

    However, this does mean that I paid more attention to arcade games at the time. I love what id managed to show to the world of home computer games with Wolfenstein 3D and Doom, but there was a fast 3D multiplayer shooter in 1988 called Last Survivor which is almost completely forgotten.
    Edited by Bander at 15/01/12 @ 17:14

  • Smoped #71 4 months ago

    Speaking of moments in the development of FPS games, does anybody think that Soldier of Fortune was the first FPS in the Modern Warfare template? I remember the more casual types who didn't really play games with their pcs being drawn to its' supposed realism, and the story, what there was, was cut from the same cloth.

  • kickerconspiracy #72 4 months ago

    @spacedelete

    i'll explain why. the graphics are terrible even for their time

    No, they really weren't.

    characters were repetitive with no variety

    There weren't loads of characters for them to be uninspired, so it's pretty facile to bring this up. I think ID were more interested in making a playable game than telling a story.

    its been duplicated time and time again making the game pointless and redundant.

    How on earth does the fact that Doom created a wealth of imitators make it pointless and redundant? If anything the opposite is true.

    You're a fucking moron.
    Edited by kickerconspiracy at 15/01/12 @ 17:26

  • bad09 #73 4 months ago

    @spacedelete "i have played it myself on the 360 and theres nothing special about it especially when fps games are a dime a dozen these days"

    Says it all really. Kid plays old game doesn't know or understand the heritage or the impact at it's original release and then trys to compare it to todays games.

    And youngsters call themselves gamers :)
    Edited by bad09 at 15/01/12 @ 17:30

  • agparrot #74 4 months ago

    @spacedelete
    what's the point in a gaming site if you cant voice your opinion.
    This isn't a contest of opinions about whether Doom is good or not, it's a broader conversation about the influence that Doom had at the time, 19 years ago, and the way that it has resonated through the consciousness of gaming ever since.

    Your posts thus far have been factually incorrect, and they appear to be deliberately trying to invoke a response, you know, like TROLLING. Please stop it.

  • Lunatic4ever #75 4 months ago

    @spacedelete

    by duplicating you probably mean "marked the beginning of a new genre that soon became the most popular one in the videogame industry?"

    and you condemn the game for that reason?
    I agree with kickerconspiracy.

    You are a fucking a moron indeed.

  • MrSandwicHead #76 4 months ago

    I think the fact that "Spacecock" has actually included the word "Xbox" in a discussion about the influence of a game that was released 19 years ago shows how much of belter he is...

    Please carry on...

  • rommy667 #77 4 months ago

    Doom and snes mario kart the 2 best games ever :) i still have not forgiven rage for the awful sega satrun version........

  • DDevil #78 4 months ago

    Before First Person Shooters were called First Person Shooters they were known as "Doom Clones".

    I think that adequately puts across Doom's influence on video games.

  • Lemming81 #79 4 months ago

    I have similar fond memories of Doom. Combined with Quake, Worms, Theme Park, Command and Conquer, SimCity 2000, Syndicate Wars and Frontier: Elite 2 they all form my happiest gaming memories on the PC.

  • agparrot #80 4 months ago

    @Lemming81
    I have similar fond memories of Doom. Combined with Quake, Worms, Theme Park, Command and Conquer, SimCity 2000, Syndicate Wars and Frontier: Elite 2 they all form my happiest gaming memories on the PC.
    The article is a great retrospective, because it instantly had my mind wandering back to those days of Dune II and X-Wing and UFO and all the other games that exploded in the wake of the the Age of Doom.

  • IncredibleKoosh #81 4 months ago

    @TooOldToGame I have the 360 version. Never played it at the time as I would have been 8. But it's still fun. Certainly more fun than MW. Doom, the Half Life family and Quake 2 are the only FPSs I've ever really enjoyed.

  • Obli #82 4 months ago

    @spacedelete

    You're entitled to your opinion but you are massively mistaken. May I ask where you were when Doom was released?

    I'd highly recommend the book 'Masters of Doom' - it's a great read, fan or not.

  • Bloke1182 #83 4 months ago

    @agparrot Same here. I have an attic filled with old school pc cdrom games, lovingly put aside, with boxes and manuals. From Lucas Arts "Outlaws" (doom for dad, who was a Clint Eastwood-fan) to X-Wing and the later (and better) Tie Fighter, still with my trusty Logitech Wingman joystick beside them. I had more fun back then with my games back then than I do now. Don't know why exactly, but things were just more thrilling I guess.

    Thanks for this article. I'll be spending the evening thinking of them glory days.

  • Eurolamer #84 4 months ago

    In the top 5 games ever made in my humble opinion. I played it though recently on my iPod (of all things) and it's aged very well. Even the graphics aren't too much of a shock, and once you get back in the groove with it you realise the level of craft that actually went into this game. Play on Ultra Violence and the game takes on a whole new dynamic; having to conserve your ammo and run like a little girl when faced with far too many demons to dispatch with your puny bullet cache.

    It's a masterpiece in level design. Incredible that they got so many good levels into one game, with very little 'filler'. Of all the lessons that modern FPSs have taken from DOOM, sadly this one seems to have been forgotten by many.

  • IncredibleKoosh #85 4 months ago

    @TooOldToGame Does it run ok on the 360? I don't have a gaming PC.

  • RipRock_2010 #86 4 months ago

    Have to say I'm sat here with a big grin on my boat race with the names of some of these old classic dos games being banded about.The 90's and early 2000's saw some amazing pc games that read like a who's who of awesomenessnes and kickassarey ;)

    Doom,duke3d (honourable mention has to go to dukes shotgun for being better than dooms though, i just thought it had more bite personally)quake 1/2,dott,monkey islands,Sam and max,crusader no remorse/regret,strike force terra nova,shock 1 and 2,tie fighter (one of my all time favs,preferred it to x wing ......the dark side is always more fun ;) ) speaking of the dark side...2 games inspired by doom itself,dark forces 1 and 2.The list could go on and probably would if I could be arsed to ;)

    Been playing games since the late 70's and although I have fond and strong memory's of the c64 days and Amiga and various old consoles I've had like the snes and megadrive,all things considered the almost 20 years I've had with pc gaming has easily for me, been the highlight.And that's saying something when almost always people's fondest memory's of gaming tend to be there teenage years.best gaming for me has defo been in my 20's/early 30's.It pains me a little talking to some of the younger lads at work who have no idea about the power of the pc and think that gaming began with the 360/ps3 style attitude.Oooh well guess that just makes me auld :).Pc forever!!!!!.....remember form is temporary,but class is permanent ;)


    P.s spacedelete,your a fuckwit.
    Edited by RipRock_2010 at 16/01/12 @ 13:14

  • bionic_v2 #87 4 months ago

    I only ever played this on the Snes. They put so much effort graphically into Level 1 (if that's what it was called?) only for it to turn to sh-t on the 2nd level *blocky world*. I gave up playing it at that point.
    Edited by bionic_v2 at 15/01/12 @ 19:16

  • bad09 #88 4 months ago

    @IncredibleKoosh

    Doom 3 is B/C with 360, you should be able to pick up the xbox version quite cheap.

  • Cobalt_Jackal #89 4 months ago

    "It didn't just change gaming forever - it changed gamers".

    I don't doubt it changed gaming forever, but DOOM didn't change me, heck i wasn't even born when it came out (DOOM released 1993 and the moment the destiny of humanity changed forever, my birth in 1994). But still i may not have experienced it when it was new (and im not trying to take away from the game but when i played it on PS2 (the PS1 version) in 2004 and i got bored of it fast, to me it felt very repetitive, gameplay outdated, fugly graphics. I remember thinking "is this it" etc. But i guess thats to be expected playing a game from 1993 in 2004. Games evole and what was once the bees knees at some point will cease to be. I guess DOOM is one of those things you just had to be around to experience at the time in 1993/mid 90s to truly appreciate). But none the less even if it was before my time and even if i i didn't enjoy it when i played it... i can still respect it purely because its rightly reguarded as a landmark in video game history.

    P.S. I actually watched a documentary on DOOM recently (well fairly recently, i watch and enjoy alot of docs on VG history), and this DOOM doc it was fascinating stuff learning the history of it and what went on behind the scenes and how for a time it was a pop culture phenomenon. Truly awesome.

    So uhm great stuff. :).
    Edited by Cobalt_Jackal at 15/01/12 @ 20:19

  • DodgyPast #90 4 months ago

    First time I was chased by a real person carrying a chain saw.

    It was the start of something. Though playing quake on the office LAN really grabbed me.

  • TheEarlOfZinger #91 4 months ago

    erm, I had doom on the snes.

  • Retro_ #92 4 months ago

    I didn't play much DOOM on PC, I Played it on Playstation 1, it was almost the same save for one creature missing. The biggest difference though was the Music, DOOM on Playstation had a fantastic soundtrack, it was creepy, daunting and downright scary, especially the demonic slowed down druids. I played the game almost non stop for a whole year (those were the days), Some of the levels, like 'The Citadel' I must of played fifty times, I loved it that much, the number of creatures on screen would run into dozens at times and the Cyber demon really was a nightmare to defeat.

    DOOM, up there with Half Life in my eyes, iy cemented my love for gaming..... well, Adventure on The Atari VCS2600 really did that :)

  • RedSparrows #93 4 months ago

    The thing I still find brilliant about this game, other than the still great feeling of shotgunning imps and circle strafing like a loon, is the horror of the game.

    The unrelenting, bloody, futile carnage, and the awful, awful world it goes on in. It still gives one a feeling of, 'alright, demon fucks - time to play.'

    Let alone the weapon, level and monster design being superlative.

    Wonderful game. Weirdly, I've played it most on an Acorn OS, and on XBLA. But there we are. I think I've owned one form or another about 15 times now.

  • AgentCool #94 4 months ago

    I played a lot of Doom back in the day but it is a game I don't think has the eternal appeal of a lot of other classic titles. In fairness, that's probably because the FPS genre has become so saturated with crap whereas the likes of 2D platformers have benefited from being out-of-fashion for so long that nobody remembers the deluge of shit we had to endure in the Mega Drive/SNES era.

  • Whizzo #95 4 months ago

    "Fuck's sake, he's got the chainsaw!" A line I never got tired of hearing across the office as I ran at colleagues revving the bugger.

  • Dizz #96 4 months ago

    DOOM's pretty much the game that told me 'this gaming shit is going for the big leagues in the future'.

    No game can topple Elite's greatness however (although EVE Online came/comes very close).

  • TazerFan #97 4 months ago

    I was actually turned off by the violence at the time. It was awe-inspiring and amazing but I got a bit queasy after more than a few minutes. Too much blood for a little chap!

  • BartsBlue #98 4 months ago

    When I first played Doom, I said to my buddies:

    Science-fiction clone of Wolfenstein, this will never catch on.

    Little did I know...

  • Dogme #99 4 months ago

    @Golgo This is the first time I've ever seen Scarabaeus mentioned on the internet! Loved that game and I bought it when it came out :D

  • FWB #100 4 months ago

    For me it was the multiplayer. I remember hooking up my dad's computers - desktop, an old orange and black and a 16 colour laptop, with null modem cables to play DM and coop with mates. For me, that was the defining element of Doom. The FPS game play had been introduced to me by Wolfenstein. Granted, Doom SP was still a big step up. I also still remember picking up the first level editor for it on the front of a magazine. Spent many hours constructing rooms.

    Then came Duke Nukem 3D. Its unique weapons and overlapping maps (an object and map section could be on top of another, something you couldn't do with Doom) gave us another leap forward.

    The next few FPS to wow me were Deus Ex - multi-pathed and excellent story, OFP1 - expansive maps and some of the most intense gameplay I've ever experienced and Quake Team Fortress for the class based multiplayer.

    Since then nothing innovative gameplay wise has happened in the FPS world.
    Edited by FWB at 15/01/12 @ 21:49

  • superdelphinus #101 4 months ago

    I was too busy outside playing football and cricket :)

  • TrevHead #102 4 months ago

    Im more of a fan of Quake 2 than of doom as it takes whats so fun about Doom and puts it into a modern 3D FPS.

    I wish someone would make a homage to that playstyle just like Croteam have with Serious Sam 3

  • RobTheBuilder #103 4 months ago

    Our school library had a PC with Wolfenstein, and I never had a home PC then, so I didn't experience it til later on. No doubting it's influence though.

  • Labatyd #104 4 months ago

    @spacedelete You must be the dumbest person on the internet, or some bizarre social experiment.

    (If you've just skipped to the end of the comments section, read up and laugh)

  • JinTypeNoir #105 4 months ago

    "No game had ever been able to use technology to create such an emotional response before."

    I think you can give Doom plenty of other real accolades (and the game certainly deserves a great many) without going this far into false-ringing hyperbole. I can think of quite a few games that did that before Doom, the importance is what kind of emotional response and how it did it-- and that other games managed it to doesn't diminish Doom's accomplishments.

    I remember Shinji Mikami saying (this may have been in response to the whole "Did you copy Alone in the Dark?" question, I don't remember quite that well) that Doom was one of his influences for Resident Evil and even at first, Evil was a supposed to be a first person shooter. I think that speaks to how well Doom managed to create that emotional response with so little technology compared to today.

  • Daryoon #106 4 months ago

    Like Pac-Man, Tetris and Super Mario Bros, Doom simply doesn't age as a game. In many ways, FPS have only gotten worse since then, due to the pressures of consumers' graphical demand.

    This image sums it all up, really XD
    http://h9.abload.de/img/thumbs_hornoxe_com_picnamg.jpg

  • Paullicino #107 4 months ago

    @wizlon Awesome, thank you for linking that. I can't believe I forgot to mention that one, even though I know the film so well. Kudos.

  • Paullicino #108 4 months ago

    @datta Thanks so much for the clarification, and thanks for reading too. Oh, and while you're here, thanks for also making Doom available that night!

  • Paullicino #109 4 months ago

    @Obli You're quite right, there was so much I didn't have the space to include in this feature. As well as being an astonishing game, it also had a pretty fascinating development. Thanks for including the link.

  • FWB #110 4 months ago

    @Daryoon Indeed it does. Perhaps it is because gaming has become more mainstream since Doom and the masses playing don't want anything complicated. It's why Medal of Honor and co sell so well.

    Not a problem per se. I'm all for expanding the gaming population. It's just a shame that the rest of us have been forgotten by publishers and developers.

  • alexbulluk #111 4 months ago

    I feel ashamed that I've never actually played Doom.

    Then again, the game is older than I am (though only by a few days).

  • Retroid #112 4 months ago

    @alexbulluk Well done for making me want to cry in two separate ways :'(

    /Old bastard

  • beatwolf #113 4 months ago

    Would also like to recommend "Masters of Doom", fantastic read from start to finish for every gamer.

  • RipRock_2010 #114 4 months ago

    @spacedelete

    It's somewhere between a moron and a bellend.Oh yeah, it's fine having an opinion but if your prepared to give it,then also be prepared to be called out on it.The shear weight of opinion against you should be enough to convince you that your wrong and to deny it makes you look like a proper fucktard (which is somewhere between a bellend and a gobshite,for your information :) )

    So to sum up.......your wrong plain and simple
    Edited by RipRock_2010 at 16/01/12 @ 05:20

  • eminusx #115 4 months ago

    @spacedelete
    In fairness, you missed the point entirely so thats why youre getting such a reaction. In very plain, simple terms, the article is about the 'influence' that DOOM had at the time, how different it was, how it changed the game, not about how good its graphics or gameplay are compared to today. Do people compare a classic 1960's Mercedes gullwing to a Ferrari 599 and say its shit because it isnt as fast or doesnt have sat-nav? NO. Because that would be utterly ludicrous and quite embarrasing for the ignorant berk who claimed otherwise. you see?

    At the time, me and my mate used to hot-desk on games like Xenomorph on our Atari st's, it wasnt a fluent scrolling 3d environment, more like a series of static images that you progressed through one at a time with RPG elements, a fantastic game. Then DOOM came along and changed the games industry for ever, as many people above have stated. In truth, i'm not even a massive fan of DOOM, but it still changed the game regardless of taste!

    I'm not gonna slate you cause it probably isnt your fault, but I 'd have a good think about what your posting in future and ask whether youre qualified to make such statements. Opinions are fine mate, but only if you actually want to add something valid to the discussion, otherwise, expect some stick!

  • marblepuke #116 4 months ago

    Wasn't Doom also the first games where you could witness enemies attacking each other? Anyway remember being totally blown away by this thinking "how is that possible??"

  • Architect_z #117 4 months ago

    Calm down people. Spacedelete is only 6 years old.

  • StooMonster #118 4 months ago

    How do you 'ignore' people with this new Eurogamer website?

  • Darksjeik #119 4 months ago

    Doom is a terrible game. There's no perks, killstreaks or achievements.There's also no vehicles in the game and no "Call of Suty" in the name. If it was named Call of Duty: Doom it would be a much better game.

  • mashk #120 4 months ago

    Great game. I started Uni in '94 on a computer science course, it all went to shit because me and my mates skipped lectures to play network Doom. I must have played Doom on everything, from high powered PCs, the SNES port, to smartphones and even calculators. E1M1 must be the most played level ever.

    You definitely HAD to be there at the time to fully appreciate it, there were 3d games before Doom, but none of them had the fluidity, the brilliant graphics or game you the sense of really 'being there' that Doom did.

  • darkmorgado #121 4 months ago

    I remember playing shareware Doom on a PC in school and being blown away back in the day. The graphics, the lighting, the silky smooth, blisteringly fast gameplay and music and sfx that oozed menace and atmosphere. There had never been anything quite like it. And to this day no other game has quite managed to have the same impact on me, that feeling that you are looking at the future (aside from, possibly, Mario 64).

    Anyone who says that it was a shit game with ugly graphics that did nothing groundbreaking is either overwhelmingly thick as curdled pigshit or a Troll.

  • Skooch #122 4 months ago

    I remember playing this as a kid in the dining room by the window by the garden. I would play it so long everyone would go to bed and I would be left in a dark room, looking out on a pitch black garden with only my face lit by the PC screen. I would get so scared I wouldn't want to get up and close the curtains or walk across the room to turn on the light for fear of what I might see, so I would just carry on playing. This game is why I love FPS's and that kind of deep unrelenting unease/fear is difficult to find now; probably for me Condemned and Dead Space have come closest - but then I am older so the effect is somewhat less :)

  • ED209 #123 4 months ago

    You'll never experience true fear in gaming until you have played Rescue on Fractalus (C64)... and to a lesser extent Spooks (also C64). Had to give up on both. Also the voice sampling at the intro screen to Arabian Nights & Ghostbusters struck terror into my soul (I'll let you guess what format they're on).

  • Gecks #124 4 months ago

    @havoc2011 for real. the playstation version of doom is the best version of one of the best games around (and no quicksaving!).

  • rogermellie #125 4 months ago

    It's quite hard to appreciate how special Doom was when it first appeared.

    I had just started college and telling people my new favourte game was Doom and nobody had heard of it.

    It sounded amazing after I connected my sound card to a dedicated hardware reverb unit! I paid for the full version by mail order, but it was stolen from my friend's car. Never did find a replacement for that boxed copy.

  • rogermellie #126 4 months ago

    @ED209

    Forbidden forest on the C64 really gave me the spooks.

    Recent games still have the same impact on me (project zero, dead space, condemned).

  • darkmorgado #127 4 months ago

    I remember being frightened out of my wits playing Aliens on the C64. The motion tracker beeping, the first person perspective, creeping down corridors never knowing when an alien is going to jump at you...

    /shudder

  • geeza2020 #128 4 months ago

    I had Crusader: No Remorse on my Playstation 1! All my mates had N64's though and would take the piss out of me constantly for playing this rubbish 2d action game. I love it though. Oh, but how the tables turned when I realised that the awesome gaming they had been doing on their N64's was with the frankly atrocious Operation Winback!

    Anyways, Doom, yeah, awesome game. I remember the first time I played it, I was only about 10 or 11, but me and my best mate managed to convince his brother (a 15 year old) to go and rent it for us from the local Blockbusters (crazy days) and we spend the whole weekend camped out in his bedroom blasting our way through the game on his SNES. Happy days :) It was so brutal compared to anything I had played up to that point, but was so fast and slick to control that it just seemed to fit together, so well in fact that you'd play it until your eyes bled :)

    I'll need to dig out my psone copy from the attic at sometime, its always worth an hour of blasting fun. Not sure anyone who didnt play it back in the day would agree though, kids today dont even know they're born etc.
    Edited by geeza2020 at 16/01/12 @ 11:56

  • CaptainKid #129 4 months ago

    Doom made me realize the PC had surpassed the Amiga.

  • Lucodeath #130 4 months ago

    I still play Doom and Duke Nukem 3d on xbox 360, more than COD shite.

    spacedelete = stinky cock

  • agparrot #131 4 months ago

    Ok, I think we can probably draw a line under calling spacedelete names now. If nothing else, it doesn't seem to be working! The only person who doesn't appear to see how wrong he is in the approach he's taken to his response is himself.

    No amount of name-calling is going to change how very out of context his response was. He might be too stupid to realise that the points he made are totally irrelevant, but as the mod who usually moans most about name calling, I'd appreciate it if we could just carry on talking about how amazing Doom seemed back then, and how so many of its features changed what we play today.

    Also, Doom being 19 years old means that some people aren't going to see it from the same perspective as us fuddy-duddies. I had the privilege of seeing Tim Willits do his '20 Years of id' presentation at the EG Expo, and it occurred to me that some people in the room couldn't have been born back then. Tim W may have been a bit over-enthusiastic about how AWESOME everything they'd done was, but there's no getting away from just how old the whole presentation made me feel.

  • ukcodemonkey #132 4 months ago

    I loved playing Doom, changed my view on games since then.

  • darkmorgado #133 4 months ago

    @agparrot

    "I had the privilege of seeing Tim Willits do his '20 Years of id' presentation at the EG Expo, and it occurred to me that some people in the room couldn't have been born back then."

    Same. That was thoroughly depressing.

  • RipRock_2010 #134 4 months ago

    @ED209
    HAHA yes rescue on fractalus,ed209 if i was to tell you that my first few games of that were played on a black and white portable TV (you may see where this is going already ;) )and the ONE thing that you couldnt tell from using a black and white tv was the colour of ....yes you guessed it the space pilots helmets ;).

    bastard first time it happened made me scream like a little girl :D.good shit.

  • SteveEvil #135 4 months ago

    Great article, I must have been a similar age when my Dad first brought a copy home and we installed it on both of the home PCs. I quickly learnt all about networking them together, in fact I probably learnt more from networking Doom than I did in any IT class at school.

  • Agente_Silva #136 4 months ago

    When the review author says "the game that changed players" it really was my case.. I remember not being able to play because it made me dizzy and I got lost frequently :) Today FPS´s is my house...

  • Agente_Silva #137 4 months ago

    @spacedelete

    you surely lack of attention and want a zillion (hate) replys to your post. First of all, when you start to call everyone "muppets" and "shove your opinions downs your throat" you will be flamed, has you should...

    PC hardware is improving hardly every 6 months thanks to the gaming industry, and I would dare to say, thanks to FPS´s, so you´re being short minded when you ask how groundbreaking are FPS games.

    If you give the trouble to read this, just answer me, how old are you?

  • RipRock_2010 #138 4 months ago

    Post deleted at 19:56:42 16-01-2012

  • ajaxpliskin #139 4 months ago

    @spacedelete So you were ... 3 years old when Doom came out?

    You're entitled to your opinion, I won't flame you, but trust me, Doom was groundbreaking on release, and not just for the game, but for the methods they employed for releasing it.

    id Software broke the mould. When Carmack and Romero were around your age now, they were multi millionaire gaming celebrities who drove around in Ferrari's because of Doom.

  • RipRock_2010 #140 4 months ago

    @spacedelete

    says the billy goat eater himself

  • Popzeus #141 4 months ago

    I remember it taking hours of trial and error to make a boot disk that would free up enough conventional memory to get Doom running on our PC at the time. Those were the days :/

    There was a PC showroom near us that, for about 5 years, had Doom running on all its display PCs - gradually getting faster and faster as the tech improved. It was a benchmark you could relate to instantly, seeing how much faster Doom ran on the latest Pentium than it did on your current machine.

    Recently played through it again on the DS homebrew port, it's aged surprisingly well.

  • Gecks #142 4 months ago

    @TooOldToGame @spacedelete personally i'm more than happy to compare doom to current FPS games! doom on ultra violence difficulty is easily a more balanced and rewarding experience than most FPS games (i'm tempted to say 'all', actually!). it doesn't have much depth, but the doom's simple mechanics are used in so many creative ways throughout the game, from survival horror-style dark corridors to massive open expanses, corralling 100s of monsters at range.

    i think it's a shame that most people who played it stuck the cheats on and only saw the first shareware episode. it's a really, really, really good game. still.

  • spidermanalf #143 4 months ago

    @marblepuke, I think so, only because I remember it was taking me ages to get past one room, so I went in, fired some shots and ran out, trying to find another way round. After about 10mins, I couldn't find any other way, so went back into the room, and they were all dead except for one big dude (rubbish with names) and he then took a few shots to kill.

    Thought it was a glitch so must have done it about 10 times after that, as I couldn't believe things like that could be done!

  • Lucodeath #144 4 months ago

    Im surprised spacedelete can type.

  • swisstony #145 4 months ago

    Great article. I remember Doom 2 more fondly though, it seemed to have a sublime balance of ammo vs danger that exhausted me, in environments similar but somehow darker and more hellish. And a double barrelled shotgun.

    Doom 2 gave me far more moments of 'I have 4 shots, there's ammo over there behind those 'things', if I can just get them to attack each other I can get that ammo and finish off the survivor and move on.'

  • Obli #146 4 months ago

    @spacedelete Nothing wrong with your age or having an opinion. People suspect you're young because of your ill-informed comments. If you had played Doom in 1993 you wouldn't be saying such things. I'll spell it out for you.

    1) "the graphics are terrible even for their time"
    - No, they were mind-blowing at the time, and the engine created '3D' worlds we had never experienced before at such speed and smoothness. Point: you had to be there. Fair enough, you weren't but you could at least refer to reviews and reactions of the time.

    2) "characters were repetitive with no variety"
    - your opinion. Not shared by me - plenty of variety and character http://www.cslab.ntua.gr/~phib/doom1.htm (yes, I know some of these baddies didn't arrive until Doom II).

    3) "gameplay is just plain dull"
    - your opinion. For many, it was fresh and something quite incredible at the time, and I still enjoy playing it now. Fast, bloody, heart-pumping action that games-of-the-time Mario, Sonic, Street Fighter and the likes did not deliver.

    To compare Doom technology-wise to modern games is also a bit silly. There are still aspects of the game I think modern FPS designers should take note about. Any similarities could be due to Doom being the father of all FPS and being the foundation of many FPS games.
    Edited by Obli at 17/01/12 @ 23:36