Doom2 was reality, it was speed chess at its finest, simplicity in an infinite environment of calculations - emotion, response, stealth, lust, love, and most markedly fear. I am not sure what it is about Doom2 that makes me want to speak broken English, but all I know is that I do not play doom2, it plays me.
The first time I played it was on a then supreme dx33, I had never played a game that actually scared me until that fateful night. It wasn't even my computer, I was the younger of three and as they slammed there fists down on the upstairs table in scotch induced quiver I stepped through a portal (13.2" viewable) into hell.
Wandering around a dimly lit calm and with my shotgun ready and suddenly out of the fray a roar, maybe a grunt then pain, confusion, and death...sweet death.
And that was the AI.
Then there came the actual opponent, one that could make the inside of your helmut muggy at best..at worst you ask, a feast of gutted raw hamburger. There was mercy at first, stealth seemed to win the game, but then came adulthood.
I found out I was a virgin when I was literally torn open one night via deathmatch. It was my first match outside my incredibly rural clave in the dirt. I was searching player listing on the internet, and thinking 'what a concept'. Then I sent an all too confident email to some guy. HA! Little did I know that I was playing Mr. Battle of Alberta XXX Grand Champion, whose weekends were spend low pinging over a 4 player lan. Yes, it was as if he took the blindfold off in lightning chess, playing me was a cinch. It took minutes for him to hit twenty and for me to realise that I was in too deep. 100-4 is where it ended, I was on the kb, he was on top of the world. I talked to him on the phone after and he shared some of his secrets, #1 utfm - use the f*cking mouse.
I did and me and a friend eventually went from KB to Joystick (great for stargate backpedal rocket fights), to the all empowering mouse. Triumph then came to me, I seemed unstoppable, I ruled my home town with an iron fist and eventually proved my worthiness is college as on of the top campus fraggers, but I preceded. I had the pleasure of getting whooped by a friend I met at college, the all inspiring phantom menace-literally. He proved his skill to everyone as we watched him lend taste of his royal waters via IQuake2, ravaging bitch after bitch. Inflated egos were deflated, newbies were annihilated, and one time tourni winners plunged into self analysis.
I never did beat him, not even close, the best I could to was 1:1.5 kill ratio, but sometimes he would explode for a 1-5-7-0. That is what we called the minute and a half seven crusher - you figure it out :) (hint: rhymes with unanswered).
Now here I sit infront of a new computer, 16mb TNT AGP, 17 Inch screen, 400Mhz Celeron, 128MB 100mhz Sdram, and I think to myself what a wonderful
