The player model...

[Craigs]

I've noticed that the player model for Doom is holding an M16 assault rifle. I couldn't help but find this strange because you don't get anything remotely similiar to an assault rifle in the game. So why did id software give the player model a rifle, instead of a weapon that was actually in the game?

[Quasar]

Actually, IIRC, it was originally planned for one of the weapons to be a rifle, and if you go back to the old alpha versions, not only will you see pics of rifles in the HUD, etc, but you will also note the DOOM guy has a funky sort of rifle-like gun which was apparently only a place holder (I may be mistaken but I think it comes from Wolf3D).

[myk]

Craigs said:
So why did id software give the player model a rifle, instead of a weapon that was actually in the game?

No piont in doing so anyway, uless they were going to make a sprite per weapon (bloating the wads a lot for just a detail you see only during MultiPlayer). Might as well have the marine carry a generic weapon that somehow represents any weapon, and not one of the weapons and not the others.

[Koko Ricky]

Yeah, notice that the player sprite in other 2-and-a-half-D shooters, like Duke Nukem 3D, Shadow Warrior and Blood, also feature the player carrying a generic weapon, which may or may not resemble an actual usable weapon in the game.