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I guess I’d better establish my gaming history before continuing. I didn’t own a PC until I was 26, which I guess is quite late. It was a lame 486 with 66Mhz processor and 8Mb RAM so not a lot would run on it. One of the few games that would run and that I liked the sound of was Doom. I’d previously played it on a friends computer and actually found I was quite good at it. What my friend didn’t tell me was that he always set it up on the easiest skill level whenever I played, but that’s beside the point.
| I've not been playing Half-Life as much as I did, because I’ve been playing Doom again |
After about a year of so I got a new computer and one of the reasons why was because my friend had moved up to playing Quake, had started his own clan and I was determined to join them. The difference to me was remarkable especially after I bought a Voodoo 2 card. Eventually the clan stopped death-matching for various reasons, but my interest in shoot’em-ups continued. The same friend that introduced me to Doom and Quake suggested I give Half-Life a try. The first time I played it I was astounded by the complexity of the game, the AI of characters and the amount of game time needed to complete it. For a couple of months my spare time was split between completing the original game and battling in death-matches.
 | | A shot of a now defunct DooM mod for Half Life |
Recently though I've not been playing Half-Life as much as I did, partly because it interferes with my studies but also because I’ve been playing Doom again . It came about because my flatmate (That'd be me - Icarus) is a dedicated Doom freak and I’ve been play testing some of his levels, like his entry into the 10 sectors contest. It was odd at first, as I no longer had the kind of controls I had been used to when playing Half-Life. I kept trying to crouch to avoid being fire-balled by an Imp. The pace of the game was different as well. In Half-Life I found I had to think more about how to deal with a situation before it the room became full of Grunts, whereas in Doom, evrything's a lot more static, but a lot more frantic once it actually starts up.
 | | Going the other way - Cyb's Half-Life graphics for DooM |
That doesn’t mean I haven’t enjoyed playing Doom, if anything I’ve found playing some of the mods more enjoyable, especially Batman and the new Covet Ops (reviewd this issue - Icarus). I guess there’s two different reasons for why I like playing shoot’em-ups. The first is marvelling at the innovations of new games, and the other is the nostalgia of going back to a more simplistic game and finding out that it’s still fun to play.
Thanks to my flatmate Simon from taking time out of his final year degree course, and ever complex life, to write this. Now you thank me for doing the same thing to format it...
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