Favourite Classic Doom game and why?

Doom, Ultimate Doom, Doom 2, or Final Doom?

Mine is the first one because I thought it had the best level design. But doom 2 has the SS so that's good. I'd need to play thru final doom more to form more of an opinion.

Doom 2. It's the only classic game I had access to as a kid and the one I have the most experience with. I like Ultimate Doom now, but going back to it after having the SSG and the additional monsters, it just feels inferior to me. And I still haven't finished playing through all of Final Doom though I can safely say I really don't like Plutonia.

Ultimate Doom for sure. So nostalgic. Doom II is more popular and used more often for mods and what not, but Ultimate Doom was first and IS Doom. The first two episodes of Ultimate Doom are just so good. One of the reasons Ultimate Doom gets a yearly replay on UV for me.

Ultimate Doom couse that was the only i got in the Doom95 port if i remeber.

I hated the flesh consumed!

DooM2. The SSG & new enemies alone were worth the price of admission.

I admit that I feel nostalgic about DooM 1, but the nostalgia doesn't keep me from going back to DooM2 repeatedly. As for The Ultimate DooM, I was thrilled when id released the 4th episode for free. However, my enthusiasm waned when I realized how difficult the levels were.

Although I bought Final DooM and played it, I just haven't been motivated to go back and play them again.

I'd say the Ultimate Doom as its the definitive version of the original game, but I'd probably be more specifically saying just Doom, as I adore the original three episodes the most. I preferred Doom 1's more cohesive, realistic, colorful and claustrophobic design as opposed to Doom II's more abstract, gimmicky, brown and wide open design. Even though the sequel has the super shotgun and seven more monsters and all that and the majority of addons are made for it the first game will always have a special place in my heart. I also prefer the soundtrack to D1 over D2 as well and the overall moodier tone and theme of the moon bases and going to Hell for the first time.

To me Doom 1 will always be superior to Doom 2 in terms of level design, music, textures, and overall fun.

But Doom 2 will always have the superior monsters and weapons (and thus be better for modding).

Now if only somebody could make a Doom 1-textured mapset with Doom 1 sensibilities and Doom 2's super shotty/monsters...

Doom 1 > Doom 64 > Doom 2

Now let me elaborate: I think Doom 1 has the best maps, and overall campaign out of all three games. Doom 64 has my favorite visual design and atmosphere. I think it's a perfect balance between horror and action, and it brings out the best from both genres. Doom 2's maps are honestly underwhelming in my opinion, but it's saving grace is the new monsters and weapons they added.

Edit: Oh yeah, I'd place Final Doom in between Doom 64 and Doom 2. I actually really like the Final Doom maps.

All of them.

My favorite classic Doom is classic Doom.

I thought Doom 2 was a noticeably better designed campaign than all of The Ultimate Doom. The level design was just a lot more varied, creative and interesting.  

Ultimate Doom. It had the best level design by far, with my favorite mapset of the iWads being episode 4. And it didn't rely on more monsters or the SSG to be good.

Ultimate Doom.  Without the SSG, demons are much more of a threat.

The Ultimate Doom for being the most fun to play. Doom II could have been the best one but some of the levels leave something to be desired. Final Doom I don't care about much.

I wonder when could Doom 64 count as a classic game. It's 20 years old already.

1 hour ago, Tracer said:

Ultimate Doom.  Without the SSG, demons are much more of a threat.

I disagree because you lose the much more threatening monsters. No PE's, no AV's, no Revs, Fatso's, Arachnotrons or Chaingunners.

In UD aside from three boss monsters (Baron, Cyber, and Spider) there's nothing more threatening than a Cacodemon.

DOOM has better maps, but DOOM 2 has the new monsters which make things much more dangerous.

I can't help but think that the people saying that Doom 1 had the better maps are at least a little blinded by nostalgia. 

18 minutes ago, Ajora said:

nostalgia. 

I played some combination of Shareware Doom 1 and Doom 2 first, probably a couple of years after they both came out when I was a young lad.  I was on the Doom 2 train from the beginning.  Though, I can respect people's arguments that Doom 1 was more atmospheric.

I didn't play E2-E4 or Final Doom until some years ago, so Doom 2 will forever be my favorite classic doom.

Doom (or Ultimate Doom) makes me feel nostalgic all the time, Doom 2 reminds me of years before, Final Doom is cool, No Rest For The Living is great.

Don't really have a favourite one, they all are great in their own way, but Doom 1 is where most of my childhood memories come to my mind, regardless of not remembering too much about the game when I was a kid 

Doom 2, because it's the one doom game i played the most. I may add also Doom 64 if it can be considered as a classic.

I played Doom 1 shortly after the 2 though. Nothing bad to say about any of those games. Really like them all.

For me it's without a doubt Doom 64, because out of all the classics, it has the best level design. Doom 1 is utterly iconic, but some of the E2 and E3 maps are a bit of a mess and E4 is unnecessarily difficult for the first two maps. Doom 2 has a handful of maps that get a bit too ambitious—not to mention overly gimmicky, boring secret maps—and the copious amounts of brown can sometimes leave a feeling of blandness. Final Doom has its moments but a fair bit of it is forgettable and some of the new graphics really clash with Doom's art style.

But Doom 64? It may have made a few sacrifices for the sake of RAM limitations, but it is an extremely well designed game from start to finish, oozing with atmosphere and much more elegantly laid out than previous entries. Its only real issue is that there just isn't enough content, and due to its recent integration into the community the modding scene for it is nearly non-existent.

Uhh... All of them?

Doom 2 for casual demon killing; Final Doom for a little bit of toughness. Don't really like Ultimate Doom because there's no Super Shotgun.

Ultimate Doom for expanding Doom 1 and the maps being memorable as always. E1M3 especially.

Doom 2 for providing two things that defines Doom: SSG and Revenants. These two have literally become the represenatives of Doom.

Doom 64 for serving as an official/non-official sequel to Doom 2 and effectively creating a proper trilogy. The ending is cool and heartbreaking if you think about it.

Doom 2. The one I replayed the most and the one with the most mods I like.

ULTIMATE DOOM FOR EVER!!!

Seriously though, the Ultimate Doom was my first ever Classic Doom game. I love it! I find its level design excellent. At times it can be more simplistic than anything else and yet I still remember a lot of its levels (that is an impact). Sure Doom 2 had memorable levels too, but that was thanks to the gimmicks, more often than not.

Additionally, I liked Doom's OST as a whole. If you look at the <<my favourite Doom songs>> thread, most of the songs I posted were Doom1's and that's for a reason. I like those rock songs in Doom like Hiding the Secrets and At Doom's Gate, with the atmospheric tracks like Sign of Evil in between.

Finally, the Ultimate Doom makes me feel like I am a helpless dude running around for my life, even though I have the upper hand all the time, while Doom2 is about a veteran that returns to Earth to stop the demon invasion from happening again, so it conveys to me a sense of <<arcadiness>>, instead of forging a believable setting. Yes, Doom2 had the city levels, but they failed to convey realism to me, because, let's face it, you are never going to see demons in a city in real life, while a Martian space facility is something closer to the unknown. Finally, the Ultimate Doom has my favourite gun (shotgun) and a whole new episode to blast my way through.

I couldn't ask more from it as a game.

Now in Doom2's defense, Doom 2 had all those great additions. The Icon of Sin was a lot more challenging for me, compared to the Spider Mastermind, as an end game boss (at least until I figured out how to beat it). Generally, I have to say Doom2 traded the story and atmosphere Doom1 had, with sweet gameplay plus difficulty for the already experienced Doom1 player (you see what I was saying about the games' stories above?). New weapons, new enemies, gimmicky maps, e.t.c. It is a challenging game and I have to admit that my two favourite monsters are from Doom2: Hell Knights and Arch-viles. Also, all those custom wads for Doom2 are just the icing on the cake.

I wish I could write about Final Doom, but I unfortunately haven't played it much. I can say one thing though. If the level design, gameplay and music of TNT stay consistent in all of its levels (I have only played its first 8 maps), then I love it. Wormhole is without a second thought in my top favourite maps of all time in iWADs list. Plutonia on the other hand, felt like a joke difficulty-wise, at the time I played it, when I booted the first level, mostly because I was a total newbie back then and I have to start playing it some time in the future, in order to evaluate it correctly. (bolded that out just to be sure no one will skip it, after they read what I wrote about Plutonia and start mercilessly chasing me to kill me)

Doom 64. I don't know, because I haven't played it much. Maybe atmosphere, while retaining Classic Doom's gameplay.

All in all, the Ultimate Doom has a very special place in my heart. It is not only my favourite Classic Doom game. It is my favourite game of all time and nothing is going to change that. And Doom2 is of course a close second.

My preference is of course Doom II. Doom 1 just doesn't feel as fun to me, during my pistol starts UV run of all of ultimate doom I found it was just a shotgun/chaingunfest slog because I never quite had enough cells and rockets to feel comfortable using stronger weapons in the general case, though they did get use in the trickier bits.  I do confess that maps like E4M1 and E4M2 are pretty good at taking what Doom 1 has and making a great challenge out of it, but I just didn't feel this in any of the classic maps. With Doom II, some of the maps are eyesores, sure, but I just found them overall much more interesting to play than most of the Doom 1 maps. While I know its possible to put together great experiences while restricted to solely Doom 1 things (look at things like Double Impact or NEIS), I don't think the stock maps are quite that.

Beyond that Plutonia takes second place. I don't really consider myself a great Doom player, but I did find that Plutonia's difficulty was pretty alright for me even on UV. Tricky traps here and there, but I made it through somehow. I feel some give plutonia a horridly undeserved bad rap because they know its supposed to be hard and they instantly equate it to things like HR (which in recent years seems to be the subject of a lot of loathing), even though it isn't like it at all.

The Ultimate Doom, I really dont know why...I guess I like it more than Doom II because of the music...

DOOM II.

It's too hard for me to try and keep DOOM I my Favorite in the series anymore, and here's why:

- The game is split into episodes. It was fine for when it first came out, but now I wish they'd just merge the episodes into one big game so it's akin to the rest of the classic games.

-No Super Shotgun. That's my favorite weapon in the series, and if I did try to make DOOM I my Favorite entry again, I'd have to switch my favorite weapon to the chaingun, which is inferior by all accounts (as much as I hate to admit it).

-The monster roster feels extremely limited compared to the roster in DOOM II. This didn't bother me before, but it's become a glaring issue in recent years.

-The GBA version of DOOM I is IMHO greatly inferior to the GBA version of DOOM II, even if that port of DOOM II doesn't run on id Tech.

-The PS1 version. Even though it's clearly labeled "DOOM", it might as well have been called something like "DOOM II Anthology Extended Edition", because of not only DOOM II monsters appearing in DOOM I levels, but the entire story of DOOM I AFAIK being erased in favor of DOOM II's.

None of this keeps me from liking and playing DOOM I mind you, it only keeps me from making the game my Favorite in the DOOM series.

Eh, they're all classic. Doom is a series that I can keep returning to and never get bored of.