40oz
And who knows, maybe I'm wrong. But that's extremely unlikely because I'm always right.
Posts: 5063
Registered: 08-07 |
I was 3 years old when Doom came out and my oldest brother managed to get a hold of Doom somehow, not exactly sure how. He may have downloaded the shareware or got a floppy from someone who downloaded it or something. Anyway it was too early in my life to have very lucid memories playing the game. I don't think I got very far past the first level without cheating. I remember dying very quickly and easy and being frightened to see blood on my hero's face. It was too far beyond my comprehension to understand how to avoid being killed by enemies in three dimensions. Before then it was Mario, and Contra, all side scrolling games which were much easier to grasp.
Playing with cheat codes allowed me to explore a whole virtual world. Without being able to die of course didn't really inflict any emotions on me throughout playing the game. I just remember thinking "whats over here, what's over there" and navigating through all the levels and solving all the complicated puzzles until finally reaching the final boss at the end of Inferno, and the cutscene that struck me with such horror that hearing the D_BUNNY music track at any time makes my spine tingle. My older brothers would play the game too. I was amazed at their ability to play without cheatcodes, kill monsters with ease, strafe out of the way of fireballs, etc. They would even play on nightmare mode sometimes.
More importantly my favorite part of Doom was KILLING STUFF. Seeing through the eyes of the doom marine made me feel like an action hero defending himself against insurmountable odds; like the kung fu guy who beats up all the thugs, or the Terminator with his shotgun blowing through an office building full of security guards. I didnt want to leave anything living in my path.
From then on whenever I wasn't playing Doom i was make-believe playing Doom (I'm still between the age of three and six in this part of the story, mind you) I always played with green army soldiers and G.I. Joes and every piece of furniture was a new map. The coffee table, the bookcase where we keep all our VHS tapes, the couch, the fireplace, all deadly arenas to fight bad guys in!
Doom then pioneered my interest in video games. My Uncle learned C++ and was familiar with all these freeware video games floating around on the internet. I got to play a little bit of all the new games my older brothers started playing like Quake and Half-life and Starcraft and The Sims.
I came back to Doom later in my life when I found out a neighborhood friend of mine had both Doom95 with Doom 1 and Doom 2. I was destined to play all of the levels. We spent hours running around Industrial Zone berserk punching zombie men with respawn monsters on. I don't necessarily remember having Doom 2 or Final Doom but when I finally purchased those games between the ages of 10 and 14 I distinctly remember playing many of the levels, especially the first few in all the IWADs, and MAP13 downtown. before then I thought those levels were all made up in my head.
I rediscoverd Doom in middle school with a punk friend of mine when we found out about downloading source ports and megawads. That really tied our friendship together when we were talking about what megawads we were gonna play next and how far we're getting on Hell Revealed 2 and Alien Vendetta, and the weird levels Slige would generate for us. Unfortunately that same friend is a squatter that has been on a lot of different drugs, is now in jail for the third time, has burglarized cars and houses, and various other stuff. The last few times I've seen him, despite how much crazy shit he gets into, he still has the same undying passion for Doom and the same music we always listened to.
Since then I haven't really attached myself to any other video games. I remember playing a lot of Tony Hawk and Grand Theft Auto and Contra between now and then, but nothing really held my long-term interest as much as Doom. There's still an infinite world of possibility with Doom. I like to make the motion to play a new wad as often as possible. I'm sure I still haven't even scratched the surface of all the Doom wads that are out there.
At this point in my life I tend to immortalize Doom as one of the few greatest things in the world. I own two Doom T-Shirts, one was a gift. I got an optical illusion of the Doom logo tattooed on my right arm because of the emotional attachment I have to the game stemming from the very early years of my childhood. Mapping is by far my favorite hobby. Spilling demon blood is a close second. I rarely see any video games (or other forms of media) that are created with such love, craftsmanship, and enthusiasm as Doom. My girlfriend thinks my passion for the game is cute. She doesn't share the same amount of mirth i get from slaying demons but she does like to explore the worlds and help me design levels.
I think it's safe to say this game has layed a pretty strong imprint on the fabric of my lifetime.
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10-12-11 00:49 
