Jeez, so hard to pick favorites, they're each great. I loved Doom back when it released, though I like Doom 2 better, just greater enemy variety, great maps, more challenging, double barrel shotgun. Doom 1 was the first game I played, back when they sold shareware on 3.5 inch floppies in a cardboard/paper pouch at computer/game stores for $4.99, I actually had full Doom 2 before I acquired the disc retail version of the original Doom. It wouldn't even run on the PC I had back then, had to take my computer in to double RAM from 4MB to 8MB, and upgraded my HDD from 200MB with an extra 500MB hard-drive (didn't need it to run Doom, but why not?). Back then it was only mail order, but I found it magically at the local university bookstore on their shelf and got it in a heartbeat. It'd still be some time before they released it properly at retail, when they did though they did it with the 4th campaign I never played. Didn't get to play that until many years later when I got it on Xbox 360.
But Doom 3 & 4 are just so different. I loved Doom 3 back in its day, I liked the introduction of more story elements for its time, PDAs and audio logs to flush out more story, and at the time I thought it was a pretty scary game, even the imps frightened me, the use of shadows and hidden spaces and reactive walls with enemies behind could make a seemingly harmless room jump alive with action and terror, though the story narrative elements nothing special by today's standards who've done this and done it better, the shooting gameplay is my least favorite, but the game had incredible atmosphere for its time, but of all the games I feel it doesn't hold up as well as the others. Doom 4 was great fun, it had that fast and fluid gameplay of the original games, yet it's not perfect, but man it is refleshingly fun. The gun gameplay is great, I like most the weapons.
But, I feel Doom 4 is where the original Doom was when it released. They need a sequel to that just gives us more more more. More maps, more enemy variety, maybe a new weapon or two. I liked Doom 4 for the most part, lots of good challenging fast paced violent gory combat, however I wasn't a fan of the boss fights, weren't bad but weren't great. I also feel you don't get that same kind of ambush environment of previous Doom games where the wall panels lift and it's like "oh shit!!" and then you have to fight your way out of I feel that post released they needed to focus more on SP DLC that expands the game and not MP content. If they'd had done that I'd of been all over SP DLC day one. The user created SP maps didn't do much for me either. Maybe I should check back into the game to see if anybody has made some good levels there. Nonetheless, I love the direction it's going. I like the idea of powers/perks, weapon upgrading, brutal executions, and berserk perk (maybe the most useless perk in previous games) is actually useful for once and you tear enemies limb from limb (literally). The chainsaw is a lot more useful and has more purpose. I like how it didn't overdo story and focused on the gameplay, the story is a bit simple as it needed to be, but what they had was good I kind of wish they had more.
So, I'll rank them:
Doom 2 > Doom 4 > Doom 1 > Doom 3
I'm hoping Doom 5 is to Doom 4 what Doom 2 was to Doom 1, I hope it's Doom 4 with more focus on SP development, bigger better levels, more enemy variety, challenging situations. More gore, more brutal executions. More opportunity for utter carnage. Maybe some co-op MP.
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