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MTF Sergeant

Can modern FPS titles be considered as Doom clones?

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I'm talking about games like Call of Duty, Battlefield, Rainbow Six, Overwatch etc.

 

Since these games are, of course, part of the same genre, and existed WAY after Doom did, would they still be considered as a Doom clone nowadays? If it is, I think we should be proud of playing such a legendary game!

 

I mean, come on! This game was more popular than a fucking OPERATING SYSTEM if you didn't know about it yet.

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IMO, absolutely not, but I also never liked the term "Doom clone" to begin with since even most early FPS games that get called that weren't enough of a copy job to qualify as what I'd call a "clone".

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Call of Duty is the farthest thing from Doom. If it was considered a Doom clone, it'd do a horrible job at it.

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Doom clones are games that mimic Doom's gameplay. In other words, most early first-person shooters — due to Doom's popularity, a huge number of such games appeared soon after its release. The term "Doom clone" was in fact the common term for first-person shooters until the late 1990s.

 

Among games often counted as Doom clones are those based on the Doom engine, such as Heretic and Hexen (see Games for more). Others include Rise of the Triad, Dark Forces, The Marathon Trilogy and Duke Nukem 3D.

https://doomwiki.org/wiki/Doom_clones

 

Let's look at that first sentence, "Doom clones are games that mimic Doom's gameplay."

Doom's gameplay:

Quote

Doom is a first-person shooter with a background setting that mixes science fiction and horror (of the weird menace style), presented in the form of three episodes, each taking place in a separate general location and played separately. The primary objective of each level is simply to locate the exit room that leads to the next area (invitingly labeled with a red EXIT sign), while surviving all hazards along the way. Among the obstacles are monsters, pits of radioactive waste, ceilings that descend to crush the player, and locked doors for which a key or remote switch need to be located. The levels are sometimes labyrinthine (the automap is a crucial aid in navigating them), and feature plenty of hidden rooms that hold powerups as a reward for players who explore thoroughly. A tally screen at the end of each level (except the last of each episode, which describes part of the plot) helps players aiming for additional objectives, such as clearing the levels of monsters or finding secret areas.

 

Doom's weapon arsenal was highly distinctive in 1993 and eventually became prototypical for first-person shooters. The player starts out armed only with a pistol, and brass-knuckled fists in case his ammunition runs out, but larger weapons can be picked up: a chainsaw, a shotgun, a chaingun, a rocket launcher, a plasma gun, and the immensely powerful BFG9000. There is a wide array of additional powerups, such as a backpack that increases the player's ammunition-carrying capacity, armor, medical supplies to heal injuries, and strange alien artifacts which can turn the player invisible or boost his health beyond its normal maximum.

 

The enemy monsters are Doom's central gameplay element. There are 10 types of monster, including possessed humans as well as demons of different strength, ranging from weaker but ubiquitous imps and red, floating cacodemons to the bosses, which tend to survive multiple strikes even from the player's strongest weapons. The monsters generally exhibit very simple AI, and thus most cases must outnumber the player to triumph (although great numbers can sometimes prove counterproductive due to monster infighting).

 

Aside from the single-player game mode, Doom features two multiplayer modes usable over a network: co-operative mode, in which two to four players team up against the legions of hell, and deathmatch mode, in which the same number of players fight each other.

https://doomwiki.org/wiki/Doom

This sums up Doom's gameplay quite well.

 

Now, let's compare this against the most prolific (I believe) modern FPS: Call of Duty.

Quote

As a first-person shooter, Call of Duty places the player in control of an infantry soldier who makes use of various authentic World War II firearms in combat. Each mission features a series of objectives which are marked on the heads-up display's compass; the player must complete all objectives to advance to the next mission. The player can save and load at any time, rather than the checkpoint system utilized in later Call of Duty games.

 

The player has two primary weapon slots, a handgun slot and can carry up to ten grenades. Weapons may be exchanged with those found on the battlefield dropped by dead soldiers. Unlike later Call of Duty games, the first allows the player to toggle between different firing modes (single shot or automatic fire). Call of Duty was one of the early first-person shooters to feature iron sights in game play; by pressing the corresponding key the player aims down the actual sights on the gun for increased accuracy. In addition to weapons carried by the player, mounted machine guns and other fixed weapon emplacements are controllable by the player.

 

The game uses a standard health points system, with a limited amount of health reflected by a health bar. Medkits scattered throughout the levels or dropped by some foes are used to restore health when the player is injured.

 

Call of Duty also featured "shellshock" (not to be confused with the psychological condition of the same name): when there is an explosion near the player, he momentarily experiences simulated tinnitus, appropriate sound "muffling" effects, blurred vision, and also results in the player slowing down, unable to sprint.

 

As the focus of the game is on simulation of the actual battlefield, the gameplay differed from many single-player shooters of the time. The player moves in conjunction with allied soldiers rather than alone; allied soldiers will assist the player in defeating enemy soldiers and advancing; however, the player is given charge of completing certain objectives. The game places heavy emphasis on usage of cover, suppressive fire, and grenades. AI-controlled soldiers will take cover behind walls, barricades, and other obstacles when available.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Call_of_Duty_(video_game)

This is about Call of Duty 1, before the health regeneration and extremely restrictive inventory that defines the later games.

Not the massive difference between the two, and I'm comparing Doom I against CoD I, not against CoD 4 or Black Ops or whatever.

I don't know much about Overwatch or Rainbow Six, but I do know that Battlefield and CoD are very very nearly the same game in how they work, with Battlefield a little more lenient in what you can do, allowing for a little more fantastic capabilities like operating a tank by yourself.

 

TL;DR: No. They're not Doom clones.

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3 hours ago, MTF Sergeant said:

Since these games are, of course, part of the same genre, and existed WAY after Doom did, would they still be considered as a Doom clone nowadays?

No. Being part of the same genre is not a qualifier that constitutes being a "clone" all by itself.

3 hours ago, MTF Sergeant said:

I think we should be proud of playing such a legendary game!

Pride is irrelevant

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"Doom clone" was a term that existed as a stopgap before more proper terminology existed. See also MOBA games referred to as "dotalikes," or open world sandbox games called "GTA clones." It's an obsolete turn of phrase that only exists as a capsule of mid-90s ephemera.

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20 minutes ago, Maser said:

Modern FPS games like COD are children's games. 

We live in a world where Pokemon was made for children and CoD for men but where children play CoD and men Pokemon

 

On topic:
Nah.

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At the time, 'Doom Clone' referred to a game that used both a Doom like engine, and had Doom like gameplay. So Dark Forces, Duke Nukem and Heretic were regarded as Doom Clones due to the 2.5D engine, sprites for enemies, and fast paced simplistic gameplay.

 

Descent was't considered a clone due to using a true 3D engine. System Shock wasn't considered a clone, but was sometimes referred to as a 'Thinking Man's Doom'. Quake and it's descendants were referred to as First Person Shooters.

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I guess technically if it goes out of it's way to try and act like Doom then maybe? But I definitely wouldn't call almost any modern FPS that because they have extremely different gameplay than the original Doom games

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10 hours ago, ETTiNGRiNDER said:

IMO, absolutely not, but I also never liked the term "Doom clone" to begin with since even most early FPS games that get called that weren't enough of a copy job to qualify as what I'd call a "clone".

Well, you can't blame 'em. They didn't have a name back then.

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5 hours ago, Urthar said:

Descent was't considered a clone due to using a true 3D engine.

Also, six degrees of freedom was a slight departure from the Doom engine.

 

Some good points in this thread, I only have one to add: The term "Doom clone" sort of implies a marketing strategy dependent on Doom's success, and hoping to hop on board a "first-person shooter" craze (of course, the term "first-person shooter" wasn't even in use yet). I'm sure there were many FPS games which were nothing more than just that. However, it would be absurd to think that Rainbow Six or Overwatch are still trying to ride the coattails of Doom's success.

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50 minutes ago, 42PercentHealth said:

The term "Doom clone" sort of implies a marketing strategy dependent on Doom's success, and hoping to hop on board a "first-person shooter" craze (of course, the term "first-person shooter" wasn't even in use yet). I'm sure there were many FPS games which were nothing more than just that. However, it would be absurd to think that Rainbow Six or Overwatch are still trying to ride the coattails of Doom's success.

I think "cash-in" would be more accurate than "clone" for that case, but at this point I suspect I'm being rather pedantic.

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Genres are for classification (duh). Doom and Call of Duty are considered to be First-Person Shooters, and that's nearly the full extent of their similarity. They both have a first-person perspective whose gameplay loop involves a lot of shooting. So Call of Duty shouldn't be considered a Doom-clone at all. The terms 'military shooter' or 'cover shooter' are more apt, even if they have their issues.

 

Doom-clones (if re-introduced now) should be a sub-genre of FPS and should strictly refer to games that are 'clones' of Doom. These games should have significant overlap with the mechanics of Doom. The term could be useful for people who enjoy Doom and want more games like it. This is the same reason why Souls-likes and Character Action are decent ideas for sub-genres of Action games.

 

The name needs desperate fixing though, as it places Doom on an unreachable pedestal that could be surpassed in the future. Regardless of how we categorize games, elements of both generality and clarity should be used. A person who hasn't played Doom wouldn't get what a Doom-clone would stand for, and a potential sub-genre of FPS is sealed away from them. This hurts excellent games like Heretic, Hexen, Blood, Duke Nukem, Shadow Warrior, and Strife, as well as any future games based on them.

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I definitely wouldn't put them in that category.

 

In the past, the term "Doom clone" seems to have referred to games that were heavily influenced by it to the point that they did very little on their own, having the exact same mechanics but with probably only a different setting or something. Those games have their own thing going, different mechanics and so on and apart from sharing the same genre, there's nothing that reminds me of Doom in the slightest.

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As many others have stated, no. However it would be silly to deny that many of the old batch are very 'doom like' compared to the post-half life/post-goldeneye era. Duke, Heretic, etc all have a different theme and weapons and all that but still remain visually similar in that they're 2D sprites moving around in a heavily pixelated "3D" environment. Old FPS titles were sorta forced to be visually similar in that regard due to the hardware constraints of the time so I can see how they all got lumped in together.

 

On ‎8‎/‎10‎/‎2018 at 3:17 AM, Pegg said:

All that stupid term did was harm heretic, hexen, blood and shadow warrior.

 

Oh, I'm not so sure about that - being held up against one of the greatest games ever made as a benchmark for comparison seems like a compliment, if anything. I don't think these games would have done any better if the term 'doom clone' never existed, each one is good but none of them are groundbreakers. I think that's the biggest reason for them not selling as well as Doom.

 

It's not uncommon for a modern gamer to look at FPS titles from the old batch and say "damn, that's a badass Doom mod!". I've heard it first hand from several people - that's how similar they all are at a passing glance (and sometimes well beyond that)

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No. They're not doom clones. DOOM is a power-fantasy game, the games you've mentioned are not. They differ mechanically. 

You're basically obsessed with DOOM and want to shove DOOM inside every damn hole you see.

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On 8/31/2018 at 6:08 AM, elarmadillo3 said:

Nah, not at all, don't think there really were any actual "Doom clone" back then.  Maybe W3D clones.

 

Well, there's Gloom.

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On 9/24/2018 at 5:55 PM, Ajora said:

 

Well, there's Gloom.

 

"Beware aggro skinheads!" Gloom is a fun game and the gibs and screams are fantastic, but its engine is more Wolf3D than Doom. Same can be said for Nemac IV and Genetic Species, though the latter had some impressive features, for example enemies that ran away when their damage built up. And the explosions were quite impressive, as were those of Nemac IV, whose explosions could actually damage enemies on the other side of walls.

 

On 9/24/2018 at 9:24 PM, MrD!zone said:

And Alien Breed 3D, And fears And such and such.

 

This is closer. Alien Breed 3D ripped off the SW1Comm texture and so did Fears, I think, though I never played that one. Fears at least had stairs, though I'm not sure how close to Doom the engine was. But Alien Breed 3D had a true over and under 3D engine complete with deep water, in 1995, so while it's a Doom clone its engine is more advanced in certain ways. This is even more true of its sequel, Alien Breed 3D II: The Killing Grounds, which had impressive lighting effects and much better textures.

 

So, did you guys have real Amigas or did you learn about these games from emulation forums?

 

For me, the truest Amiga Doom clone, and my favorite Doom clone on any platform, was Breathless. It had some limitations compared to Doom, for example it could only draw 90-degree angles, and flying monsters didn't fly, they were just sprites walking on invisible legs, but against that, it had freelook, plus a killer fog effect and moody lighting. It also looked much sharper than AB3D and ran fast on my 68060 machine. And it had four distinct map clusters, called "worlds", each with a different menagerie of monsters. I'll probably buy a new copy of Amiga Forever soon so I can play it again. 

 

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