User Rating: 10 | DOOM PC
Doom made me wet my bed more times then I care to remember(I was 9 years old when I first played it in 1993)... yes, yes, it's a painful thing to remember over the Internet especially knowing that this review may be read by hundreds of people... but I gladly admit it. Doom was like crack to a hobo, I always knew I shouldn't play the game since I was TERRIFIED by it, but I couldn't stop myself from loading up the game on my (then) state of the are 486. It was the first game I beat without cheats (if there were any available), and it was one of the first games I ever beat (or, that I remember about). It also happened to be one of the best games I ever played. Graphics: 10/10 Wow, did this game look good back in 1993. The ''high-res'' 320x240 (if I'm not mistaken) graphics were jaw dropping. The lighting effects were about as amazing as Half-Life 2's physics are now-a-days. When rooms were suddenly engulfed by darkness and you could only hear the claws of monsters ripping away at your flesh, and the only 2 light sources in the room were little strips of light coming from the outside and your shotgun, you knew you were in deep trouble. Besides the great lighting effects the game just had a knack for keeping the frame rate at very playable rates even on lower end PCs even with about 10-15 monsters on screen (which, contrary to popular belief, didn't happen that often in Doom). Weapons and characters looked great and were animated beyond anything, anyone, had EVER seen in a game. The shotgun actually got pumped manually and visibly, the bodies of creatures remained on the ground for endless amounts of time, the creatures themselves had tons of very well rendered moves and attacks, etc. The graphics in Doom were top notch, much like every thing else in the game. Sound: 10/10 Alone on the fact that every level in Doom has a different song I could give this category a perfect score. But the sound goodies don't stop there. Doom has some of the best weapon effects ever created... and at that time those effects were the best ever created. Shotguns sound like shotguns, shots in walls sound like shots in walls, machine guns rolling their barrels and emptying hundreds of shells in your carcass sound like they're doing JUST that, and you suddenly start to imagine your feeling the pain... now that is sound. As if it was a glass of cold red wine to go along with your stake, the monsters’ sound effects complement the rest of the sound category perfectly. Monsters groan and moan and their claws rip at your flesh with great dexterity, their fire balls fly right by your head accentuated by that ominous ''Wooshhh!!'' sound that warns you of danger, etc. It's like listening to Beethoven; it's all perfect, sublime and classical. Gameplay: 10/10 As good as the sound and graphics of Doom are, they don't even come CLOSE to how good the gameplay is. Doom's gameplay is like a well sung ballad, it always keeps you interested because it has the right amounts of action, horror, drama, blood and gore and just enough superstition to go along with the rest of the list. Doom's gameplay is like a fine wine, the kind of wine that doesn't need to age, it's already age for 500 some years. In one word, Doom's gameplay is perfect. From the moment you put your fingers on the keyboard and fire your first shots, you can't stop. The game is just that compelling. Why? Because Doom is THE epitome of refinement. It combines weapons, monsters, level design, and all the aesthetics of a good game, with a big budget, to create one of the most revolutionary games ever. Doom is an interesting game from begging to end, and that is, in no small part, due to the story. Yes, it's not a terribly engaging or classical story but it's there and in a day and age when the main goal of all shooting games was to just shoot without a know purpose, this story was more then welcomed. Doom's story is, as mentioned, relatively simple. You, a space marine, have crashed on Mars. Your buddies are no where to be seen and you have a gun, some bullets and a bunch of haunted corridors to explore. As the game progresses the story gets deeper and as you advance through the game you find out more things about what has happened to the bases, who are these “things” in the hallways, and what the hell is going on exactly. The story is really paper thin and is presented to you as a mere backdrop for the action but that doesn't mean it doesn't influence the game... it's something most games just didn't have at this day and age and it gives you both an impression of the world and an insight in the mind of the marine your controlling. To top it all off, this game may have the best ending I have ever seen in my life, the moment I finished this game I already wanted to play Doom 2. The shooting game in Doom is just as good as the rest of the game. In Doom you can neither jump, nor crouch nor even look up or down, but that doesn't hinder the game even once. Aiming is nearly perfect and is usually adjusted to where the monsters are located (since you can't look up or down) as long as the monsters are somewhat in your plane of view. The controls for both the moving and the shooting portions of the game are nearly perfect, fine tuned to use all the bandwidth between the keyboard and the PC. Strafing is easy once you get the hang of it, and the running and moving is done very well. For a game this old, there is no mouse look, but that doesn't stop the game from moving at a very fast rate. Together with the number keys, CTRL and SPACE, Doom allows you to do a ton of actions in a simplified and streamlined way. Weapons are the meat of the Doom experience. Who hasn't wondered, even once, what BFG7000 stands for? Who hasn’t enjoyed seeing the ribs and meat of a shotgun solider after he was just transformed in barbecue by the rocket launcher? Indeed, Doom's weapons are very well if not perfectly made and applied to the game. You receive weapons at an incremental pace that is very well made as to not give you too much, or too little to do. The weapons are balanced and look great... while the BFG may empty a room with it's amazingly powerful blast, you gotta keep in mind that you can only fire 6 of those blasts and ammo isn't that easy to find. Weapons can even be enhanced by an Ammo Pack, which allows you to carry more ammo for all of your weapons making the game easier and killing more effective and fun. Besides the weapons that are already at your disposal Doom offers you a huge array of power-ups to satiate your hunger for the kill. Invisibility, invincibility, berserk, and many other, perfectly timed power-ups make an already over the top game, even more so and are just a blast to use in multiplayer. Doom's levels are a strike of genius. They are of such a variety that I think few games today have matched Doom's array of levels. Everything from grotesque caves with dark rooms and flaming torches that spread a dim light about them, to tight corridors that give you a creepy sense that you are really alone and nothing can help you, much less so save you, and finally levels that have all of those features combined and change tiles sets 5 times per level. On top of the absolutely graphically stupendous level of detail in the stages and arenas of Doom, there is also an absurd amount of detail imbued in every passage way and door. You may need up to 3 keys to open the doors of many of the levels and you may find nasty scripted surprises every time you turn the corner. The levels are well designed and offer both spacious halls in which gangs of monsters may attack you and also tight rooms where the pistol and machine gun are your best friends. And if all of this was not enough to satisfy even the most demanding of gamers, the levels are just plain simply huge and offer hundreds of hidden passageway and corridors to help you on your quest with more items, maps of the level or even new weapons. Monsters in Doom have terrified me more or just as much as the levels. The well made monsters posses what, at that time, was revolutionary AI. Monsters will dodge and they will fire projectiles to try to stop you in your tracks, instead of firing at you just so you can dodge their fire ball a second later. Monster design is somewhere between excellent and godly. No monster feels rushed or done as an add-on... even monsters that are relatively similar to each other inspire and demand respect and just a bit of terror. What's even more important, however, is that monsters have a perfect amount of HP. They have enough HP just to not be a cake walk, yet, just as little as to not make a fight last for a half-an-hour. But it wouldn't be Doom if there weren't more praises to be razed at the monster altar. Monsters in this game are so cleverly placed that even on the highest difficulty you will never feel overrun or lost, or completely screwed. You can always find a way to get out of a sticky situation without resorting to the load game button. As if to slam the door on the monster issue once and for all, the bosses in this game are grotesque, terrifying and morbidly well created... ALL at the same time. Monster attacks are detailed and bosses don't really have patterns adding even more to the fact that the AI in Doom could hold it's own even in 1998. Difficulty in Doom is also nearly perfect. With enough levels of difficulty for anyone to be able to enjoy the game at their own pace, the game never gets too difficult or too easy making this one of the most balanced games ever. A good sense of humor also spreads throughout the Doom experience. From the hilarious difficulty descriptions to the reactions that the Space Marine has when he finds a new weapon... it's impossible that you don't laugh even once while playing Doom. Pacing is one of the hardest things to achieve in a game and it should not surprise anyone that Doom managed to achieve perfect pacing. The game is just so well made that the shooting sequences are a breeze to play through and whenever a sequence is done, you yearn more and quickly go about finding more monsters. Adventuring through the halls never gets boring since you don't know when a monster may jump at you (and you may end up soiling yourself or having a heart attack) and you just never ever know what's gonna happen next. Yes you may have to find that key, but where will the monsters appear? Will they come out of the walls? Will they fly at your current location? What could happen? Questions like this wonder through your head as you wonder through the hallways, littered with bodies, finger on the CTRL button, gunz-a-blazing ready to take down everything that moves because this is the DOOM experience and it was never matched by any other FPS. Multiplayer: 10/10 If you play online at all, you owe it to Doom in some way. Doom certainly had an impact on the gaming world as a whole, but compared to the impact it had on the multiplayer gaming world... there is no comparison. Doom was truly the first game I networked with my bigger brother and a few friends... we played Doom in a 4 player fragfest for a few days, almost straight. Doom's multiplayer was utter perfection because it took everything that the single player experience had and it gave you more, more, more! You could play Doom with your modem (unheard of at that time) or on your LAN (almost equally unheard of) and the fact that the weapons were balanced, that the power-ups were perfectly placed and finally, the fact that the levels were so well made that neither camping, nor significant advantages could be had at any moment in the game only topped, and already great experience off. Naturally such a great multiplayer game gathered hordes of followers and the first MOD ever, Marine Doom, followed. Maps, skins, etc. it was like Quake, just 3 years earlier and even more revolutionary. Doom's multiplayer wasn't the cherry on top of the cake, like it is in many games today. No! It was the cherry, the frosting and the chocolate filling. Overall: 10/10 Doom remains my 5th favorite game of all time and that won't ever change. It is only second in the world of FPSs to Half-Life and there are too many things I can list in the defense of Doom as to why it is the 2nd and not the best FPS of all time. But I have no need to say more, for Doom is as revolutionary as Mario, Zelda, Contra, Metroid, and Ultima COMBINED. Because Doom invented what is multiplayer and it didn't suck at it either... and because Doom is just DOOM.
