how do you perceive doom ?

[FireFish]

Reading this forum at a daily rate, i started to wonder how everybody actually looks at the old doom games, Note that opinions differ and so does preference.

the topics for copy and paste purpose :
A : gameplay
B : level design
C : the look of the games
D : overall thoughts


A : gameplay
The gameplay is simplistic run and shoot, and to make it less repetitive the player has to collect keys and press a button at times.
It is fun, fast, but braindead. A perfect game for the older or more hardcore gamer that wants to play a challenging yet straight to the point game.

B : level design
The original level design of doom and doom 2 is based around monster clusters. You enter a room, shoot everything there, look at the walls, and at times you see a square computer. In certain levels a player can run over small ledges to reach an otherwise hidden area.
Details seem to exist through pillars, and at times certain texture combinations, while doors seem to have the sole purpose of blocking monsters. Military installations are not more then what is needed.

The first 11 levels are my favourite, followed by the more demonic levels after map 20.

C : the look of the games
The textures are interesting to say the least, and the overall balance of their usage is pleasing. I have a hard time abandoning the original look of the software renderer, and i especially could never play this game without the original monster sprites.

I see this as a masterpiece, how fast could they make a game in that era, while using as much textures and extra's as possible.

D : overall thoughts
Doom and doom 2 are masterpieces, and they where designed and programmed using a genius combination of concept and execution.
It could run on the ancient computers in that era at full speed, while
still looking good.

The only problem i have is based around the influence of modern doom 2 ports, people creating vanilla compatible maps always have to live through an endless charade of "add more detail" while some of those maps contain more detail then the original doom and doom 2 maps...

[Krispy]

When I first started playing Doom, the thing that really blew me away was the very gradual, subtle changes from a tech base disaster scene with a few corpses and candelabras to full blown Hell with warped architecture and everything. This game really terrified me in a way that's hard to replicate.

Also, the fact that the Doomguy is doing this all of his own accord, with no idea what's around the next turn, with no hope for help and all of Hell's army and horrors in front of him, just makes him look so much more badass.

[Rook]

A lot of my thoughts on these will be coloured by the fact that I didn't really play the games properly until around 2003; I'd already very much digested the likes of Quake II, Half-Life, Return to Castle Wolfenstein and others before I played Doom and Doom II.

I think for A, the gameplay still stands up incredibly well - better, in some ways, than those other later shooters I mentioned. The sheer speed of player movement and the number of enemies keep the game feeling fresh when compared with more meditative, conservative modern games.

As for B, I don't really think that for me personally there is much to like about the level design in either Doom or Doom II from a contemporary context. I think id did the best they could with the time available and the tools they had, but the levels are so lacking in detail and often look very crude. I'm consistently amazed by how bad the start of E3M1 looks, for example. With that said, all FPS level design that I know of from that era is similarly bad; I think it was the Build engine games like Duke Nukem 3D, Blood and Shadow Warrior which made other developers raise the bar post-1996/97 (obviously the advances in technology helped that).

On C, I really like all of the sprite work in the Doom games. Most of the enemies look fantastic and it's fascinating to see how they progressed from clay models to finished sprites. A lot of the animation is really fun too. By contrast I think most Doom textures are very poor and have not stood the test of time at all - I much prefer mapsets with custom textures for that reason, particularly excellent ones as in the likes of BTSX.

My overall thoughts for D are that to me, Doom and Doom II are not so much games that I would recommend to anyone in and of themselves - I don't think that as a game, Doom II stands up in any way against Duke 3D, for example. Where Doom excels is as a formula and a template for additional mapsets, mods, and so on. It's all the great WADs and megaWADs that the community have made that have allowed the Doom formula to live on and entertain in a way that the original maps, for me, just don't.

I think in a historical context, Doom was a bit of a mixed blessing for id. It made them a lot of money and made them successful, obviously, but I think it also made them very cocky, overly self-assured, and over-reliant on technology over design and plot. With the games they went on to make, they arguably repeatedly made Doom clones of their own with diminishing creative returns. Supposedly id mocked Valve internally, but Half-Life left Quake II and id looking very behind the curve in a lot of ways and id have never succeeded in getting out of Valve's shadow since then. I think in a lot of ways Doom 3 was id's grudging, belated response to the success of Half-Life (itself obviously influenced by Doom), ironically released in the same year Valve raised the bar again with Half-Life 2. Although I like Doom 3, id in general don't earn much respect from me these days (the technical disaster that was Rage did not help) but Doom will always be a grand legacy.

[FireFish]

Rook said:
I think in a historical context, Doom was a bit of a mixed blessing for id... and over-reliant on technology over design and plot.

They seem to apply the same formula over and over again. killer graphics, killer engine, and attempts at pushing graphics forward.

this is not a bad formula, if your engine gets licensed. looking at the unreal engine 3 by epic games, having one deathmatch game serving as a commercial, and then being successfully licensed to over 20 official big giant moneybags of modern games.

but to my knowledge not many modern ID-tech engines have escaped the corridors of ID... the last one was in 2011 with the game brink, using the id-tech 4 (doom 3 its engine).

[Patrol1985]

A : gameplay
The gameplay resembles an arcade game. It's fast and more on the side of manual skill and eye-hand coordination than puzzle solving and trying to resolve key plot points.

B : level design
Mostly narrow and dark corridors with a more open space every now and then to relieve the tension. I don't know why, but that's how I imagine space military installations should be, even though logic would probably dictate otherwise. Must be all the science-fiction movies ;)

C : the look of the games
The look is mostly arbitrary. Lots of textures and things look the way they do "just because". There is definitely a general theme, but when one starts looking into details some inconsistencies become apparent. It's not a big deal however, because it's enough to build the right atmosphere and, like I wrote earlier, it's mostly an arcade game focused on action, not on artistic style.

D : overall thoughts
Very positive, obviously. On the one hand, Doom's aesthetics allow one to immerse in the game world, but on the other hand the game never loses its focus which is pure, uninterrupted action. ID Software reached the balance so perfectly that to this day I wonder if it was mere luck, or a result of an extremely well-thought design way ahead of its years.

[Koko Ricky]

A : gameplay
Doom's controls are very tight, and integral maneuvers such as circle strafing were difficult if not impossible in other shooters from the time. There is also a very careful balance between weapons, power-ups, enemies and obstacles. There are few if any moments in Doom/Doom 2 where that feel genuinely unfair, overly easy just plain sloppy. Each map can be beaten from a pistol start on Ultra Violence if you're a pro, and yet I'm Too Young to Die isn't insulting to beginners. Enemies can come in both small and large numbers, adding a careful dynamic to the action that is often missing in contemporary shooters. I also love that Doom is simple enough to be intuitive, making a tutorial mode unnecessary. It's a game you can jump right into with very little information.


B : level design
Although I prefer user-made maps and mods to the originals, there's something to be said about id's layouts. They aren't perfect, but they're rarely awkward. There is a real sense of experimentation and classic video game aesthetics that dominate the games. Choosing not to focus on realistic locations gave them the freedom to articulate wildly abstract and nightmarish ideas, which gave each map a very distinct look. Even the worst maps in Doom/Doom 2 have something charming about them. Many of the maps feel like genuine attempts to continually add new elements and challenges. The gradual descent into increasingly bizarre and hellish architecture is particularly noteworthy and perhaps Doom's most subtle element.

C : the look of the games
I have yet to see a shooter from the early-to-mid-90s that looks as professional and slick as Doom. Most shooters from 1993/1994 look like garbage, feeling as if the designers and programmers were the artists, rather than people with an actual background in art. Doom combines photographic, sculptural and pixel art elements seamlessly. If you look at other shooters from that era (and even several years after), attempts to combine different art styles often results in an inconsistent mess.

D : overall thoughts
It's not just my favorite game because I grew up on it. Doom just somehow got everything right and did very little wrong. Sure, it has its flaws, and sometimes Build games like Blood are genuinely more fun, but I keep coming back to Doom because its aesthetics, gameplay mechanics, layouts and modding community are so unique and fun. Doom is deceptively simple and its art style appeals to the little devil in all of us.

[Deleted_Account]

I perceive it as a video game that I like to play.