"What's Doom?" – Anonymous

At first I wasn't sure if I was going to bother returning to this game for these articles, but in an era where first person shooter is synonymous with Halo of all possible titles I decided to take this title and run with it. I'm also introducing two new categories for this entry and future entries known as History and Legacy which will look at a game's impact then, and its impact now (if it had\has one).

Developer: id Software

Publisher: id Software

History: For the uninitiated Doom was the game that launched the first person shooter genre into mainstream gaming; prior to that the genre was fairly niche with most gamers preferring side scrolling platformers and overhead shooters. There was of course Wolfenstein 3D which was released a year earlier which basically jumpstarted the genre, and a legion of Wolf 3D imitators after that such as Blake Stone: Aliens of Gold, but it was Doom that ultimately thrust the genre into the mainstream largely due to the implementation of multiplayer support.

Gameplay: Doom isn't overly complicated in its design; like Wolfenstein 3D, and most of id Software's pre-Doom 3 games really it's the very definition of an arcade shooter. The story? You're one man against the world, or in this case one man against the forces of Hell. You can take more damage than Mr. T, and carry more guns than Arnold Schwarzenegger as The Terminator, and it didn't get any more complicated than that.

The gameplay essentially consisted of going from level to level killing zombies and demons, finding colored keys, flipping switches and making it to the exit. Despite this rather monotonous sounding cycle the game managed to be very fun because of its fast, fluid, no non-sense gameplay. Cover was for sissies and a low difficulty level a sign of weakness. To this day there are dedicated fans who are still trying to finish Hangar (the first map of Episode One: Knee Deep in the Dead) on Nightmare (the highest difficulty level where monsters are abundant, and they respawn after twenty or so seconds) in the fastest time possible.

Design: As I pointed out in the gameplay section Doom was pretty straightforward. The map design however was a huge step up from Wolfenstein 3D's monotonous maze levels. Doom featured some large, open areas as well as a bit more creative level design in general. It wasn't logical level design by any stretch of the word, but it definitely made the game a lot more fun than Wolf 3D was due to the variety of map layouts id Software implemented. Unfortunately map layout is where the creativity ended; each episode of the game basically used one consistent tileset throughout its entirety. Once you finished the first map in each episode you essentially knew what the rest of the episode would look like. Episode 1 was all Tech Base, Episode 2 was a fusion of Tech Base and Hell, and Episode 3 was all Hell.

One area of design I'd like to praise is the enemy lineup. Doom featured far more enemies than Wolfenstein; granted you encountered some far more than others, but compared to Wolf 3D's grand total of five different enemy types the larger amount in Doom was nice. There were also more weapons for the player to utilize, and Doom was the first FPS to feature splash damage from explosive barrels and rockets.

Nostalgia Factor: I had a good time with Doom; it was one of the first PC games I played back in 1993. It was fast, and for the time it was creepy. I'm sure I have a higher opinion of this game than a gamer from one of the latest generations would if he or she sat down with it, but Doom stands as a milestone in the gaming industry, so a certain degree of respect is due.

Critical Reception: Doom received mostly positive reviews from critics worldwide who enjoyed its abundance of levels, and fast gameplay. See a detailed list of reviews here.

How it holds up: This is a question I find difficult to answer; like I said under nostalgia this is a game that definitely deserves a token of respect because of what it accomplished in the industry, but as a game it's very antiquated. On the other hand Doom offers something that most modern shooters do not; fast and fluid arcade action without any of the limited weapon or cover-focused mechanics of newer titles. If you prefer those games than Doom probably would seem like a fossil from a primitive era of the genre to you; on the other hand if you prefer games like Doom than the game definitely has something to offer if you have yet to play it, or even if you have played it already it never hurts to revisit. It belongs in any collector's library regardless; as Doom jumpstarted network multiplayer, and of course brought the first person shooter genre to the forefront.

Legacy: Doom has left quite a legacy in its wake. Although Wolfenstein 3D pre-dated Doom; Doom was the game that really defined the genre. As such Doom would be the standard that other first person shooters would be judged by for years to come with many fans regarding newer shooters as little more than "Doom clones" regardless as to whether or not that was actually true.

Doom definitely left a legacy as far as multiplayer is concerned since Doom was the progenitor of Deathmatch, and was the first FPS to feature an actual multiplayer component.

Doom itself still exists today in the forms of Doom 3 and the in development Doom 4, but in my opinion (and the opinion of many other old school Doom fans) the series is a shadow of its former self as Doom 3 tried to play the horror card instead of staying true to what made Doom great way back when it first hit store shelves in 1993.

Useless Trivia:

- id Software released a free expansion for Doom called The Ultimate Doom which added a fourth episode called Thy Flesh Consumed that bridged the gap between Doom and its sequel Doom II.

- Each episode of Doom featured a secret map that was accessed via a hidden exit in one of the primary Doom maps. Episode 1 had Military Base, episode 2 had Fortress of Mystery, episode 3 had Warrens, and episode 4 had Fear.

External Links:

Doom on Moby Games

Ultimate Doom on Moby Games

You can play all of Episode One: Knee Deep in the Dead with the Shareware version which be downloaded here

You can still buy Doom at id Software's online store