What was your first DOOM experience?

[Percy T]

I found out about doom through a few of Karl Jobst's doom speedrunning videos he made last year on youtube. I thought it was cool and decided to start playing. Now I speedrun the game and make doom content! I first started playing around October 2019. 

[CesarDM]

I was really young when Doom first came out. I remember playing it for the first time at a Radio Shack (or some other electronics store?) who had the game running on a demo computer. I was too young at the time to get my own copy, but eventually I got a copy of Chex Quest, and I played a ton of that. I was also able to play the SNES port of Doom.

 

It would be a long time before I rediscovered these games. Doom 2016 brought me back in, and the book Masters of Doom has also pushed me to go through the whole series, as well as every id software game starting with Commander Keen.

 

I'm currently focusing on Doom 1, and technical achievements aside, I find the actual game and level design to be absolutely fantastic. Working my way up to Sigil.

[orangefire222]

Some time in the mid nineties, I was staying with a cousin who happened to have a sweet IBM pc and an internet connection. I had an Apple IIgs at the time so it was a novel thing. We stayed up one night downloading shareware games from some random website and came across Doom. Played Ep1 for the rest of the night.

 

Fast forward to 2008ish, I have my own pc at this point and my grandpa gave me a stack of old CD's and lo-and-behold there was a copy of Ultimate Doom in there amongst the rest of the shovelware and clipart junk. Played the included Doom95 for a bit, and it was terrible which led me to source ports and dosbox and at some point at the bottom of the rabbit hole, this website. Collected the rest of the commercial games eventually, dabble in editing/mapping...the rest is history I suppose.

 

Must say its been a hell of a ride.

[CyberDreams]

I know i played Doom 64 sometime around the early 2000's (i may even have rented it in the late 90's but i doubt it) so i'm just going to count the original Doom as the first time. The first time i played any port of the original Doom was around 2005 on the Xbox via Doom 3: Limited Collector's Edition. I would of been 15 ish.

 

So Doom 64 or Doom 3 would of been my first Doom game tbh, followed by that port of Doom/Doom II.

 

Like i said, i may have played Doom 64 beforehand as i did own an N64 in the late 90's but i don't think i played many M rated games (besides Perfect Dark) at the time. Not until i was 12 ish and i got a PS2 and GTA III that is ;)

Edited October 9, 2020 by CyberDreams

[TenenteZashu]

Played Doom 3 back in 2006 or 2007 at my uncle's place and I kind of forgot Doom as a whole, playing it only when I was there. I really got into Doom and ''boomer shooters'' in late August-early September 2017 when I got an xbox one and Doom 2016

[samwise970]

I played the shareware version of Doom as a kid, probably around age 11-12. We had two pcs, windows xp and a 95, played on both. Didn't get a commerical copy of Doom 2 until years later sometime in high school. 

[Snark]

Played it first on the super nes when it came out, so 1996 or something, which made me 14. The control was actually really good, circle strafing was really smooth and easy, and the music sounded great. Only thing was you COULDN''T SAVE, meaning you had to beat every episode in one sitting. I gave up in disgust on E4M07, the infamous Limbo, and only came back years later on PC to boot the masterminds brainy butt.

[Lovin'TheDemonSlaughter]

I'm not ashamed to say that my first experience with Doom was with 2016, I was amazed at its fast paced gameplay (I was used to games like call of duty and left 4 dead at the time) And wanted more, so I picked up on the rest of the series, been enjoying it ever since

[Omniarch]

I first played (Ultimate) Doom in April this year, and was immediately obsessed. I've always been a fan of older games from the late 90's and early 2000's, so one day I decided to buy the game on a whim, partially because my dad used to play it in the mid nineties and strongly recommended it, and also because of Karl Jobst's speedrunning videos.

 

I didn't use to like FPS games much, though I have played through the campaigns of the first six CoD games. I was more into grand strategy games, mostly Paradox Interactive's stuff. I honestly thought the genre was for mindless entertainment, and nothing else, with the possible exception of S.T.A.L.K.E.R, but I thought of that as more of a survival horror title. 

 

Doom was different though. For one, it is an incredibly fast-paced game combat-wise, and also quite challenging compared to modern FPS. Previously, I had been obsessed with Dark Souls and later Hollow Knight, so the fact that even the weakest enemies could pose a serious threat was practically a necessity in my mind in order to take a game's combat seriously, which Doom duly delivers. It is also atmospheric and its maps are very interactive, what with all the secrets, another thing in common with DS and HK. And finally, Doom is retro as all hell, which is probably what sealed the deal.

 

Despite playing Ultimate Doom for the first time only six months ago, I have already developed a sense of nostalgia for the game, though I never actually got around to finishing E3 (bounced off E3M6 and never came back until recently) or E4 (got bored on E4M3). The air of mystery that permeates the majority of the levels has stuck with me in much the same way the atmosphere of Dark Souls, S.T.A.L.K.E.R and Hollow Knight did.

 

On its own, Ultimate Doom might have held my attention fast for a month or so, and that would have been that. Then I discovered PWADs. Curious, I downloaded GZDoom and started playing Doom 1 PWADs. For about a month, I worked my way through many, many maps, though I didn't complete a single wad, since I still had so much to experience. The wads that stand out most in my memory from that time are Phobos: Anomaly Reborn, 2002: A Doom Odyssey and the Classic Episode.

 

Eventually, I got bored of playing Doom 1 PWADs, so I bought Doom 2. I only actually played the first three levels and then got bored and started playing Hellbound instead (where I first encountered the Arachnotron), before moving on to Alien Vendetta. which I found captivating and was my first completed megawad. Since then I've been consuming a steady supply of wads, and Doom has come to totally dominate my gaming habits.

 

I had actually dabbled in editing before buying Doom 2, but only got serious about it after playing No End In Sight a few months back. Since then I've gone on an absolute binge of history research, forum lurking, editing, experimental Decorate and DeHackEd modding and of course wad-playing, though amusingly I've honestly spent more time reading/modding/editing than actually playing Doom.

 

In short, the thing that really holds my attention is the 26-year-old community surrounding the game, and its innumerable creations. I've always loved mods and fan-content in general, and for the first time I have a desire to create some myself.

[TheMagicMushroomMan]

I was five, over at my girlfriend's house. Her parents were away so we... wait, this isn't the right thread!!! How embarrassing!

[instagib]

alright m8, I was really young and the very first time I played doom was on the snes....THANK GOD I DON'T HAVE TO PLAY IT LIKE THAT ANYMORE

[mxrgan]

I dont have an exact memory, But I think Ive played Doom 2016 as my first game. Then around the announcement of Doom Eternal, I started getting REALLY into classic doom.

[DOEL]

I remember playing Doom II during Kindergarten sometime around 1995. My dad and a neighbor were in IT so they layed internet cable for the neighborhood and we played co-op, which would always quickly turn into deathmatch.

 

I only played the shareware Doom I so I find Doom almost unplayable without the SSG and extended bestiary. (Though there are definitely good Ultimate Doom WADs.) We had some WAD packs though. I distinctly remember playing western and city themed maps.

 

I never tried Final Doom until sometime in the late 2000s and custom WADs until mid-2019, when are started playing it seriously for the first time.

 

I *still* jump at unexpected arch-viles and tense cyberdemon moments.

Edited October 12, 2020 by DOEL

[Murdoch]

I first saw it over a friend's shoulder not long after it was released, likely early 1994. I still have the magazine I got the shareware version off somewhere. PC Review, a UK publication if memory serves. It initially would not work on my parent's 486DLC with 4mb of RAM because I was not yet aware of how to hack autoexec.bat and config.sys or to bypass them with F5 I think it was. Found out about said tricks, tried Doom again, it worked, cried out in triumph and nearly gave our poor dog Ralph a heart attack apparently in the process as he was just recovering from being hit by a car :(

[Fadri]

Doom II.

Mid 90s.

My PC was a 486.

 

Now, the interesting part is, the very first time I tried the game and tried to turn around, I got a crazy motion sickness and the world around me started to spin like a top. I had to stop immediately, but when I tried again, just a minute later, I could play with no problem. My brain did a speedrun on learning how to manage the fake movement on the screen, I guess.

 

That was the first and only time something like that happened to me... or... not exactly.

 

It would happen once again, for the last time. And it was when, years later, after uncountable hours of Doom II and dozen of other "Doom clones" (they weren't FPS yet 8D), I tried non other than Wolfenstein itself for the first time. Just a fraction of a turn on the screen and... BOOM!, my head started spinning like crazy again.

I was like: "Why is this happening now with this game with movement and graphics way less advanced!?". Maybe being an older game was the reason why? I'll never now. XD

 

So that was my first experience with Doom and Wolfenstein: sudden kinetosis.