The 10s: Doom

Taking on the armies of hell, one demon at a time...

When you think about it, its really unbelievable how many first person shooters are out there right now.  Call of Duty, Battlefield, Halo, the list goes on and on and on.

And its not just straight up FPS’ anymore.  Open world games are FPS’ now (Far Cry).  Hell, even RPGs are more FPS’ than RPGs now (looking at you Fallout).  It’s getting a little tiresome, even if I do love a good FPS.  But that wasn’t always the case.  There was a time where these games were a novelty, something you only saw a few times in a generation.  So what happened?  Doom.  Doom is what happened.

Don’t get me wrong, Doom was far from the first FPS.  There were games like maze war dating back to the 1970s and of course, there was ID software’s precursor to Doom, Wolfenstein 3D.  But none of those quite captured the hearts and minds of Americans like the journey of a single, unnamed space marine and his battle against the armies of hell.  Initially released as shareware in 1993, Doom was everywhere seemingly overnight.

But what was it about this game that made it so great, unique and popular.  Before we talk about the game itself, we have to talk about the controversy it caused.  Politicians went HARD after Doom.  They called it a “murder simulator,” they cringed at the buckets of blood and they absolutely freaked out about the satanic imagery.  But all that did was add to the mystique.  All of the frenzy these folks whipped up just made people want to play it more.  You no longer wanted to see what all the buzz was about, you needed to see what the buzz was about.  (Side note, I wonder how many of the folks speaking out against Doom were putting crazy hours into it on the hush).

But make no mistake about it, Doom is an outstanding game.  It may not have been the most complex, but its legitimately challenging and incredibly stimulating.  You have to constantly be on your toes, looking out for traps and monsters while keeping your eyes peeled for keys and secrets.  You need to formulate strategies and use the appropriate weapons for each monster, while also compensating for your surroundings.  It is especially brutal on the higher difficulty levels, especially on nightmare.  

Whereas modern FPS’ derive much of their challenge from having to jump, aim and shoot, Doom’s comes more from having to dodge enemy fire and react to their patterns.  Its probably a matter of personal preference, but I have always found this more fun.  I was never a big time PC gamer, so the fact that Doom always felt more “console-y” was a big positive.  That is probably a matter of personal preference, but I don’t find the lack of vertical looking and aiming to be that big of a deal.  I might even say I prefer it.  The level design in Doom is also built around this style of play.  I think the level design here is great, as it forces you to keep coming up with new strategies for different environments.

But the biggest thing for me is the sense of freedom.  Doom drops you into each level and expects you to find your way out.  It isn’t about big, cinematic events, its about running, gunning and exploring.  Modern FPS’, like Halo, Killzone, Call of Duty and the like lead you around by the nose from action setpiece to action setpiece, completely taking away any sense of control.  That’s obviously just my opinion, as obviously the masses prefer that style, but I much prefer the older style.  Modern FPS’ make me feel like I am watching a movie.  I don’t want to watch a movie.  I want to play a video game.  

That being said, Doom is still engaging from a presentation standpoint.  It may not have the big, dramatic action sequences and elaborate cutscenes, but it effectively communicates its story in other ways.  Throughout the game, you very clearly start to see small aspects of hell creep into the normally sterile UAC Mars facilities.  You may start out surrounded by computers and synthetic chemicals, but by the end of the game they have been completely overtaken by pentagrams and fountains of blood.  The monsters become more and more fierce as you progress and the game uses all sorts of cues to tease just how big  a threat they are.  One specific example that comes to mind is in the final stage of the second episode, Tower of Babel.  Up until that point, the strongest enemies you have faced are Barons of Hell, nasty, bipedal goat-men that shoot powerful fireballs.  Well, this level starts you in a room with four of them in front of you, dead and hung on the wall like trophies.  Whatever took them out is obviously a bad dude and the game puts that idea in your head right away. 

I would also be remiss if I didn’t mention the sound, but first, a little bit about my musical taste.  While I am a fan of a great many genres, I would certainly say heavy metal is my favorite.  I got into the genre in my early to mid teens after tiring a bit of listening to the same grunge bands over and over again and the love certainly stuck.  I am a fan of all the sub-genres, death, black, doom, power, you name it.  While I was being introduced to a lot of these bands, there were times where I couldn’t help but feel like I had heard some of these songs before, especially when it came to more popular bands like Metallica.  Sure, I had heard their radio stuff, but my frame of reference was very small.  Well, when I re-discovered Doom around the same time, I realized what had happened.  Take a listen to the music from episode 1, map 1, Hangar:

Now, here’s the chorus for Metallica’s “No Remorse” (chorus starts around 1:30.  Also, please don’t sue me Lars).

You hear it right?  And its not a coincidence.  Here’s episode 3, Map 1, Hell Keep:

And here’s “Mouth for War” by Pantera:

Just about every song on this soundtrack is influenced by our outright aping a big time heavy metal song.  I love it.  It fits perfectly with the action, the theme and the atmosphere.

As you can see, I am a huge fan of Doom, but its a frequent target of the “aged poorly” crowd.  So, its time to answer the same question I did with Madden.  

Wouldn’t you rather play?:

Duke Nukem 3D - I am a huge fan of DN 3D, and there’s no denying it is a bit more polished than Doom.  The graphics are certainly more advanced and the enemy models look a lot cleaner.  There are also a lot more things to do, swimming, flying with a jet pack and using a full compliment of items.  However, DN 3D lags behind Doom in a few ways.  The biggest is level design.  Doom has a level of consistency that DN 3D doesn’t.  Duke’s second episode in particular is awful, I hate every single one of those maps, they are boring, frustrating and unnecessarily confusing.  Having all the items is cool in theory, but most of them don’t do anything noticeable and its just more junk you have to worry about.  I prefer the simplicity of Doom, as well as the setting and atmosphere.  

Quake - Simply put, Quake always felt too loose for me.  I never felt like I was in control of my character.  Also, it certainly seems like it was designed more for multiplayer.  Certainly a fun game, but not really my cup of tea.  

Halo, COD, Etc.  - First and foremost, I will say I am grabbing one of these first if I want to play multiplayer. I don’t game with other people a ton, but its not like I live under a rock either.  I already touched on it, but these games have essentially reduced the FPS genre to rail shooters.  You have some ability to explore, but at the end of the day you are just being led around from set piece to set piece, occasionally stopping to ooh and ah at the scenery.  These games, the Halo series in particular, look great and they also have some very strong storytelling, but that isn’t that important to me when playing an FPS.

Well, there you have it.  I recommend anyone who hasn’t played the original Doom to go and do so, its easy to find and incredibly cheap.  Even those of you have played it for hours can look into its extensive modding community.  I’ve never done so but I will mention that Doom is incredibly popular with modders.  As for my next 10/10, I think it should be pretty simple to figure out.  One simply needs to look at the release calendar for April and it will become very, very obvious...