DOOMed to the nostalgia aisle
Written: Jan 28 '02 (Updated Jun 19 '02)
|
Product Rating:
|
|
|
Pros: Revolutionary, Network Play, Expandable.
Cons: Very Dated. Graphic violence.
The Bottom Line: It's a pioneer, and it's puzzling that it took over ten years for it to be carried on properly...
|
|
|
| dopple's Full Review: Doom Collector's Bundle for Windows |
DOOM is a classic game. It belongs right up there with Pong, Space Invaders, Pac-Man and Super Mario Bros. - granted, it popularized a much more violent genre, but it was indeed just as revolutionary and important in the history of video games as any other.
DOOM wasn't the first '3D' first person shooting game, but it was the first one to truely immerse the player, and make a huge impact on the computer gaming market. As primitive as the graphics seem today, they were unbelievably realistic to people at the time, when the closest we could compare it too were the blurs and beeps of ID Software's previous masterpiece, Wolfenstein 3D.
DOOM featured cleary defined floor, cieling and wall textures all emphasised with never-before-seen lighting effects. It was quite complex too - a sound in one room could travel through a vent or window into another, alerting enemies of your presence. You had a variety of weapons, from a chainsaw to a shotgun to a room-clearing BFG 9000. Enemies ranged from former human soldiers to fire-shooting Imps to invisible Demons and even a giant mechanical spider. You not only blasted through room after room of fierce hell creatures, but also searched for keys and items to help you through your quest. Okay, the plot wasn't exactly deep or relevant, it was really just an excuse to kill hundreds of enemies and make it to each level's exit alive, but it was endlessly fun and addictive (not to mention SCARY in some of the darker, quieter areas where the monsters liked to take you by surprise). And most importantly, it was as bloody and graphic as you could get. How could it not be succesful?
To make matters even more exciting, DOOM was designed on a very loose and flexible engine, that allowed people to quickly and easily play around with the game itself. Codes allowed people to become invincible or jump to different stages in the game. Levels could be edited or created from scratch, and new textures or graphics could be worked in. This led to an entire community of users creating their own levels and making them available for free on the internet, increasing the games replayability ten-fold. It also led to interesting 'hacks' that let players do everything from blasting away Barney the Dinasour to taking on the entire cast of The Simpsons.
But what really tips the scale on DOOMs classic status and it's insane popularity in the beginning of the 1990s was another revolutionary feature: multiplayer deathmatch. This allowed players to connect via the internet and basically hunt eachother down in any of DOOM's original or user-created levels. The fact that you could connect to your friend down the street or some stranger in Hong Kong and duke it out in your favorite video game was enough to sell any kid on DOOM, and made internet gaming a popular concept.
So DOOM goes down in history as one of the most disgusting, controversial, realistic, immersing, fun and revolutionary games ever designed. Of course, there had to be sequels.
It wasn't too long before we were graced with DOOM 2, a minor expansion of the original. Graphics were slightly smoother, a few new enemies and weapons were introduced, and things were set on Earth instead of Hell. It was a satisfying and succesful sequel, but from there on, DOOM would not carry the torch in the genre it had brought to life.
Games like Duke Nukem 3D and Quake were DOOM's immediate successors, bringing intensely improved graphics, more varied gameplay and even more realistic and diverse worlds. DOOM, on the other hand, failed to catch up. A 'DOOM 3', set to be based on a brand new game engine, was delayed and delayed until it was finally abandoned. The next Doom would be 'Final Doom' - the title alone realizing how limited it's potential and popularity would be. Final DOOM was nothing more than 64 new levels - same graphics, weapons and enemies. Seeing as the game was horribly outdated and you could download hundreds of new levels off of the internet for free, it was hard to tell what the appeal of the $50 FINAL DOOM could possibly be.
FINAL DOOM was not the end of the line, however. The original was ported to everything from the Super Nintendo to the Playstation, and an all-new sequel appeared on the Nintendo 64: DOOM 64. But even on Nintendo's state-of-the-art 64-bit gaming console, the new DOOM was rusty. It didn't make the jump to true three dimsenional graphics, still relying on 2D bitmaps and blurry textures. Sure, it looked and sounded better than the first three, but it was still light years behind the next generation of first-person shooters such as Turok and Perfect Dark.
So it never evolved, but it's legacy is more than any modern shooting game could ever hope for, and it's bound for a proper revisitation someday...
[update]...and that day has come. ID Software has announced it's plans to finally begin capitalizing on the DOOM name again, with an all-new DOOM 3 to be released sometime in 2003. Supposedly, it will feature some of the most gorgeous graphics ever to grace a video game and rekindle the spooky feel of the original. We'll see.
Recommended:
Yes
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
dopple
|
|
Reviews written: 140
Trusted by: 6 members
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.