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Hellbent

Game of the Week

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http://gamecenter.nyu.edu/?p=357

Our Game of the Week at the Open Library is the seminal first-person shooter, DOOM.

Developed and released in 1993 by id Software, DOOM is easily one of the most important video games ever made. Though not the first shooter to let players see through the eyes of their avatar, DOOM solidified and popularized the genre of the first-person shooter, such that years after DOOM’s release were still referred to as ‘DOOM clones’. DOOM also made enormous techincal strides with an engine that supported things that now seem mundane, such as non-perpindicular walls and full textures for all surfaces and dynamic lighting. Because of both these factors, its first-person design and revolutionary engine, there is almost no major game released today that does not owe a debt to DOOM.
What is most remarkable about DOOM however is that it is not simply a relic or an historical curiousity. Though playing through the game will give any player a rush as they see different elements which are now staples of the FPS genre in their primitive forms, they may also realize that DOOM remains a remarkable and unique game on its own. Each of the levels is an expertly crafted labyrinth, and they grow more and more complex as the game progresses. The enemies in the game are carefully designed around the way the player moves, strafing being particularly difficult in the days before ‘mouse look’. The weapons the player can find, while relatively few by modern standards, are each distinct and must be wielded intelligently if the player is going to survive.

Probably the most remarkable thing about DOOM is how different it feels from contemporary first-person shooters, and how effective its atmosphere is even with its archaic technology. The speed at which players move in DOOM, combined with the exaggerated bobbing of the player’s vision and the sway of their gun back and forth, gives the game a sense of momentum and drive that FPSs (especially for consoles) now often lack. Moving through corridors and rooms filled with groaning and dangerous monsters, under flickering lights, can give the player the strange sensation of being extremely powerful while trapped in a malevolent world that is still more dangerous than they are.
DOOM is not simply a classic game. It is a game that in many respects must be played in order to properly understand the world that has come after it. Playing DOOM is the only way to get a sense of the long shadow it’s cast on games and game development, and how far we are from actually getting out from under that shadow.

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The graphics look purty, but I bet the gameplay sux.



It'll never catch on.




Just outta interest, I don't suppose anyone knows what level that screenie in the article that Hellbent linked to is from?

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I like that write up, as it concentrates on the qualities of the game itself, and not derivatives.

It is praising it for exactly what attracts me about it, that it creates its own type of "playing environment" or "world" that newer games don't grasp due to technological differences and other factors caught in time, and why I think it still sustainably popular (the community here seems more solid than Quake's, for example.)

Kyka said:
Just outta interest, I don't suppose anyone knows what level that screenie in the article that Hellbent linked to is from?

Damn, I think I've played that, but I'm not sure what it is... if someone identifies it, I'd like to try it again :p

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Doom is not just game of the week, and it blasphemous to think so.

Doom is a deity.

It is both wrathful and gracious.

All hail Doom

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graphics suck and the game is stupid it is 2d go play some real games not this nintendo shit

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Clonehunter said:

So what is game of the week about? You guys just play Doom all day?


No, just this week.

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Ralphis said:

graphics suck and the game is stupid it is 2d go play some real games not this nintendo shit


This. CoD5 is what real gamers play!

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I can't recall if Vanilla Descent allowed Mlook. But in either case. Mlook is better than Joystick in Descent.

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