Doom. Why is it such a satisfying game to play?

[Kyka]

Doom.... It is just so satisfying. Why do people think It has had such longevity, far beyond anything else. Why is it still such a wonderful game to play when most games from that era are not even playable, much less enjoyable.

I would love to know how many imps I have gunned down in fifteen years of playing this game, but somehow it never gets old.

Was just wondering what others think as to the reasons behind Doom's longevity, satisfaction factor, scariness, etc....

[CodeImp]

Obsession.
 

[Death-Destiny]

I think it's because Doom is so simple and "customizable." Here's how I see it. A mapper has a bunch of things (enemies and items, etc.) that always behave exactly the same way, as well as a bunch of linedef actions. Beyond that, the mapper is free to arrange these things, linedefs, and actions in whatever way they choose and is only limited by the imagination. I think Doom is one of the most customizible and straight-forward games ever made. Or something to that effect.

[Kira]

"Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication." Leonardo Da Vinci :P
Because Doom has a simple gameplay combinated with a coherent aesthetic aspect, it's sprites and 2.5D, but it doesn't looks that old (though it is with doom2.exe), and the engine is GPLed so it gave a big chance for doom to stay alive trough the years.
Now it can please to every kinds of "true" FPS players.

Oh, and without all those cool mappers, artists, players and programmers, Doom would be dead :P

[printz]

Because we're used to Doom. Other people may be used to other games, and ask themselves the same things, about those.

[magicsofa]

I find that beyond great gameplay and customizability, aesthetics play a huge role. All that chunky blood and hellish art, and the growls, and the sweet sound of a weapon pickup. **

The funny thing is that my other favorite FPS, Ravenshield, is nothing like doom. It's a special ops shooter, all about peeking around corners and capping people in the face.

Still, the basic premise is thrilling - they want you dead!

[Kira]

magicsofa said:

I find that beyond great gameplay and customizability, aesthetics play a huge role. All that chunky blood and hellish art, and the growls, and the sweet sound of a weapon pickup.

True, it's why I bought Doom at the beginning.
And it was after the release of Quake III : my parents were against this (waited a lot of years to play heh).

[purist]

It's all down to weapon & enemy balance for me.

[Deeforce]

It has a longevity, because of the enjoyment of creating doom levels. The creating of this 2.5d game level is much easier than the creating of real 3d game levels. You don't need to read an editor manual for a long time. You just can think of a room and make this room without thinking too much. Everyone can create high quality levels, they only need patience. That's great!

[Creaphis]

Doom has longevity because other people still play it. Other people still play it because it has longevity. Funny how that works, eh?

This is actually a factor that keeps me from being tempted into playing new games. It's clear from the start that these games will not have a long-lasting fanbase, but will be good fun for a little while before everyone moves on. Many games are advertised with a number of expected hours of play, which only emphasizes this point.

[Kyka]

For me the weapon/monster balance is one of the biggest things that makes doom so great. Coincidence that 1 SSG takes out one imp, or one DBS takes out a pinky or a specter?? I think not. It is still a good feeling to walk into a room full of imps and kill them all with one perfect placed SSG each. They have made it so that every shot is a mini challenge all in itself. 2DBS per Cac and Pain Elemental and revenant. 3 per hellknight and manky and 5 per baron etc.

Mowing down legions of enemies with the chaingun and the plasma gun. Berzerking an archvile. Making it rain cacodemons with the rocket launcher. Berzerking a baron. Dodging arachnotron plasma. Berzerking those same arachnotrons. Berzerking something else. There are just too many perfectly balanced combat moments to count.

As well, the entire game just begs to be explored and discovered.

And dont even get me started on editing and building levels.

Thanks for sharing your perspectives people. I'm reading them and I'm like... "yeah.. thats so true". I would quote all of you in my reply here and say something like "yup... what they all said" but I dont need another stint in post hell for unnecessary repetition..... :Y

[Patrick]

GUNS+DEMONS NEVER GETS OLD

[Richo Rosai]

Aesthetic quality, balance, and--I think maybe most importantly--the feel and response of the controls. The movement, the collision, the visual/audio feedback of the weapons, etc. are all perfect. There are a lot of well-designed FPSs out there, but never has it felt so good just to walk around an empty level as it does in Doom.

[chungy]

K!r4 said:

my parents were against this

I know what you mean... originally, I had to sneak Doom onto my computer (crappy out of date one, even by those standards). Eventually when I got older and they had less/no say in the matters of the kinds of games I played, I just said "Look, it's fantasy meant to be fun. I'm not going to go out and shoot up a school just because of it; millions of people play it, and almost none of them are violent in real life." (Not exactly like that, but more or less.)

[Texas Libra]

Simple...it's the perfect game to take your anger out on in a healthy way and geekify yourself at the same time.

[Stupid Bunny]

There are a lot of things I like about Doom. As it happens, the reasons are similar to why a lot of my other favorite games are also old ones.

First of all, I love the environments. In modern games, the locations attempt to look like real places. Even games which take place in the far future create environments which are meant to feel like they could logically exist. But with Doom, the graphics and engine are so limited that trying to create a realistic environment would be silly and wouldn't meet much success. (See truck in TNT MAP19.) What this means is that the levels focus much more on gameplay and a unique aesthetic which uses realistic graphics on rather abstract environments. None of the levels really feel like places that would actually exist, with mazes and donuts with nukage in the middle and stuff, which I think makes exploring them much more fun.

Then there's the enemies. There are very few games out there that have as vibrant, diverse, and well-balanced a cast of foes as Doom has. Because of the 256-color palette and use of sprites to represent characters, only so much realism could be achieved, and therefore I imagine id could be a lot more flexible with the enemy design. In a newer game, with 3D models and high-def colors and such, creatures like the cacodemon would look cartoonish and unrealistic. But in Doom, there's a lot more being left to the imagination and the creatures all fit in much better. Strange though it may seem, the limited capabilities of the Doom engine make the enemies seem more real, and therefore much more frightening.

These aesthetic qualities wouldn't matter much to me without the gameplay, which is Doom's most lasting contribution to gaming. Where Doom wins where newer FPSes don't do it as much for me is in pure simplicity: run, strafe, point and shoot. There's none of these grenades and inventory and special functions and all that, which can be fun but detract from the murderous mindlessness which gives Doom so much replay value. And yet, unlike Wolfenstein 3D, the levels themselves add a nice aspect to the game, so that wandering and shooting is made into a much more dynamic exploration. One of my VERY favorite things about Doom--and this kind of goes back to the realistic environment thing--is the way in which enemies will just seem to appear out of nowhere. It's so perfect when I turn a corner and I find a Baron of Hell in my face where there wasn't one before, or I pick up a key and I hear the dreaded sound of teleports in the next room. I really haven't found any other game which recreates this feeling.

The last thing I'd add is the story, or lack thereof. There are practically no cutscenes, no missions, no special goals on specific levels, but one level of uninterrupted gameplay after another. I like story-oriented games, but it hinders the replay value of a game to have to deal with a story progression each time. Doom makes it marvelously easy to just jump in and start blasting the fuck out of demons.

So I think I've ranted long enough now. But I've more or less summed up my thoughts anyway. :)

[NightmareZer0]

Part of the reason is that Doom employs a great concept. Easy to pick up and play at the start, but hard to master. In my opinion I think every great game has this concept.

[Butts]

i just feel really "at home" playing doom, especially a select few levels, like hangar.

[Kyka]

But in Doom, there's a lot more being left to the imagination and the creatures all fit in much better. Strange though it may seem, the limited capabilities of the Doom engine make the enemies seem more real, and therefore much more frightening.

well said stupid bunny. Imagination is the biggest reason why this game works like it does.

[kaiser_wilhelm]

I agree with bunny and would like to ad another thing. If you notice in quake every time you see a wall texture that has something on it like a support or something its in the texture and not really built out in the wall. But in doom the mapper can take the time to make every little support and loads of detail within the constraints of the engine.

A lot of people don't like zdoom mapping and they have a lot of good points but what is true is that zdoom gives the best aspects of doom engine, its speed and ease of use and makes it have even more features and allows you to put more detail in. Although the doom levels often look like quake they do still have a very doom feel to them.

Also another aspect of doom which is an elaboration on one of bunny's points is how the character is never directly spoken to but you know the character is yourself. I think when the character is spoken to it kind of breaks the third wall of sorts but the doom guy is the player and his wall is never really broken. If the player is creative they make everything up in their head. (which most doom players now are driven insane aka driven creative)

[40oz]

Everything StupidBunny said reflects my views.

I would also like to add that there is an extreme cause and effect that is so apparent in Doom. Something that annoys the shit out of me when I play some modern games, is when I am consistently firing at the enemies, and I stop for a couple of seconds to look around. "Are they dead?" I remember hating one of the early Medal of Honor games because when you shot the nazis, they would drop to the floor, and then struggle to get up. I would be wondering if this was his death animation, or if he's gonna get up and start shooting me again. I can't jsut sit there for 30 seconds watching to see if the guy was dying.

In Doom, when you kill a monster, you KNOW it's dead. You can shoot a chaingun guy with a shotgun, and when he doesnt die, he will make that 3 toned "OWweeOOO!" sound and continue spraying bullets at you, give him one more blast and you blow his arm off, crack his skull, and collapses into a pool of blood. That's exactly what I wanted that son of a bitch to do.

[shinobi.cl]

There is a page that has a theory why Doom is so cool to play

Its called "Doom's Sexual Theory"

It's in spanish. So, if you dont know spanish, you lose :(

Anyway, here it is

http://www.telecable.es/personales/alberto9/textos/teoriasexualdeldoom.htm

[Death-Destiny]

shinobi.cl said:

There is a page that has a theory why Doom is so cool to play
Its called "Doom's Sexual Theory"
It's in spanish. So, if you dont know spanish, you lose :(
Anyway, here it is
http://www.telecable.es/personales/alberto9/textos/teoriasexualdeldoom.htm

The author of this site appears to be influenced by Freud's psychologiacal ideas, and according to Freud, the purpose of everything is supposedly sexually beneficial, even Doom. However, I don't really go for this. I don't feel as though playing Doom gives me any sexual satisfation (though it would be subconcious, I guess). I kind of agree with Freud about some things, like the subconcious mind. However, I think his idea that everything is about sex is a bit off. People relate sex to nearly everything (even Doom with the /idgames X directory). However, that's based on the individual's own sexual fantasies and not necessarily inherant to human nature, IMO.

Wow, this topic is going to get sidetracked...

[GreyGhost]

shinobi.cl said:

There is a page that has a theory why Doom is so cool to play

Its called "Doom's Sexual Theory"

It's in spanish. So, if you dont know spanish, you lose :(

Anyway, here it is

http://www.telecable.es/personales/alberto9/textos/teoriasexualdeldoom.htm

I'm hijacking this thread and flying it to Cuba! :D

Is he insinuating that DooM players are sexually frustrated or is Babel Fish leading me astray?

[Kyka]

Contrary to popular opinion, there is more than one thing that drives ur average male.

Is doom related to sex???

The short answer is no.
The long answer is NO.

It is, however, related to adventure and fun and overcoming challenges, and community and other stuff tho, which in their own way are just as important to your average decent life.

*In other news, a hijacked plane heading for Cuba was COUNTER HIJACKED (how awesome is that??) and returned to its rightful destination. The counter hijacker, one Kyka, described by eyewitnessess as ruggedly handsome (insert puke here), was reportedly last seen heading for.....static... breaking up...arrrrrgh

Doom rocks...... :)

[Death-Destiny]

The Babel Fish translation is correct, Greyghost. It is suggesting the Doomers are sexually frustrated, under Mr. Freud's logic which, if you're familiar with Freud's theories, anything and everything is based on furthering oneself sexually. You'd be surprised how Freud could relate literally everything to sex.

Besides, like Kyka siad, men think about things other than sex. (Just on a side note, I heard a statistic from a woman I know that states that men "think about sex every 8 seconds". I had to roll my eyes when I heard that. That can't possibly be true, or men would not be able to be say surgeons or lawyers or engineers, etc. because they would constantly be distracted by sex...)

On another side note, women and girls play Doom too. This Freudanismo source fails to address female sexual frustration, as they do not have the necessary body parts to validate the argument...

[myk]

We must admit DOOM has very fleshly aesthetics. Incidentally, Quake obituary lines for DM (which some Doom source ports borrowed) are totally sexualized.

Death-Destiny said:
This Freudanismo source fails to address female sexual frustration, as they do not have the necessary body parts to validate the argument...

Well then, since they lack a penis in the first place, the more reason to get a sublimated replacement in the game!

[Kira]

What the baphomet isn't a vagina ?

myk said:

Incidentally, Quake obituary lines for DM (which some Doom source ports borrowed) are totally sexualized.

Have you few exemples ? I don't see what beside of the mechanical rocket launcher penis.

[myk]

K!r4 said:
Have you few exemples ?

I mean these.

We have a new saying; "shag, don't frag".

[lazygecko]

For me it's the simple accessability, you play it more like an arcade game, rather than your average modern FPS that takes itself way too seriously and is riddled with cutscenes/intermissions all over the place. In Doom it's 100% no-bullshit action. You load it up and start kicking ass from the get-go, instead of "immersing yourself with the world" via some introductory level and integrated tutorial.