Jump to content
Search In
  • More options...
Find results that contain...
Find results in...
Sign in to follow this  
Linguica

DWBS

Recommended Posts

Wednesday's question evoked quite a few responses, with E1Mx seeming to be the favorite set of levels for a lot of people. Episode 1 of Doom seems to have attained almost mythical proportions among many people, who will rank it among one of the greatest gaming experiences of all time. Why do people still love Knee-Deep In The Dead so much? Is it because it was their first taste of Doom, and maybe of first-person shooters in general? People who were weaned on FPSes after Doom and came back to try out Doom episode 1 tend not to find it a very big deal, while those who played it early on still find it awesome and great fun. Why do you think that is?

Share this post


Link to post
Guest docbob

Knee Deep in the Dead had a certain style: base architecture with mingling of open & enclosed areas, use of verticality in close quarters, huge variations in light levels, lots of secrets, level progress revealing new views of older areas, and perhaps most importantly, multiple paths throughout the levels. Part of the incredible excitement of playing our first Doom was exploring this style of level, and I think an association was formed: Doom WAS the KNEE DEEP style. All other styles that followed were variations on the original.

Share this post


Link to post
Guest Karlo

Two reasons I like it are that first it´s a bit nostalgic to re-live the experience of the first time I played Doom and second I like the style of the levels, don´t know why, they´re just great...

Share this post


Link to post
Guest PuPz

I remember when I played the shareware version of Doom for the first time. It wasn't too long after I got my first computer. Doom grew on me because of Knee Deep, so Knee Deep is the episode that will always be dear to me.

- PuPz

Share this post


Link to post
Guest Anonymous User

Knee deep in the Dead was meant to be an introduction to the world of DooM. It was meant for learning and getting into the thing. Besides the rarely disputed argument about the beautiful leveldesign the other main force behind Doom is it's way to educate people to be doomers. I am somehow sad to think of the many people who learned doom through DooM 2 or Evilution(or even worse Plutonia experiment). Not that these DooMs are bad. They are just not as fit for learners as the legendary Knee deep in the dead. At first DooM didnt put the big baddies into action until late in the game. This would make said baddies inspire the fear they should. Rather DooM would make you gradually more confident. At first you were scared at the very sight of a bunch of (three) former humans and the barrels in the first room reminded you to be as cautious as you would really be if you were in an abandoned base. You would then learn your first dodging skills dodging the imps on the pillar's fireballs while negotiating the wavy bridge across the goo. Remember you werent very cool at the maneuvers yet. After this desperate shooting match standing face to face with a big spiky imp in the end room would make you freak out. (They seemed bigger back then). Also the level offer you the first triumph by making you spot the first secret door giving you the megaarmor. Which at this point would be a highpower object. (Later the secret door would be obvious). After completing the level the game rewards you allowing you to conquer the biggest baddest steel building. In the second level the game will hone your secret door finding skills with a whole net of secret passages also showing you other kind of secrets than the off-colour wall. It will use a chainsaw dramatically posed on a pillar surrounded by an acid moat and guarded by former humans as an unholy religious artifact. The first room in this level also gives you the impression of being surrounded by enemies by letting them hide behind every pillar. In the big room before the end room you will also experience your first REAL fight battling a mix of shotgun seargents (at this time you'll probably fear them) and imps. While these are being supported by imps on platforms. In the third level theres really something to use your newly accquried secretfinding skills to. (Ultimately finding the secret level). Here the bait is a dramatically placed soul sphere. Which will invoke quite some wonder if seen for the first time here. (Yes i KNOW you can find it back in E1M2). The glimpse into the tekwall room is also quite and appetizer. The Room turns dark as imps descend upon you trick will also make you freak out totally thi first time. At last you are being introduced to the pink demon appearing as a solitary creature. It will inspire quite some fear in you when charging down the corridor after you. In level four all your skills will be put to use in big surroundings with really grand archtecture (unfortunately accompanied with really bland music, when compared to the other levels). The Maze behind the blue door will activate your claustrophobia (accented with a haunting demon) should you have become to comfortable. Level five is mainly about fear (and the glee of finding yoour first teleporting pentacle, if you can find it). The music is dark and brooding. (And has recently been copied by someone called Rob D appearing on the Matrix soundtrack under the name Clubbed to Death. Bobby prince, DO take this as compliment). The architecture is dark and brooding. The traps makes you fear every step you take. Demons rove the base with their beastly howls. The dark room in the end of the level will make you really scared. The sixth level will greet you with even grander architecture and some suprises as well. I personally think this level features some of the coolest architecture down to the amazing dazzling tekwall room at the end. You dont see such architecture in DooM 2. Level seven. Well what can i say its MASTER. The music is dark and this dark tech-noir base almost make you feel like running around in a futuristic space city run amuck. The music only accents this feeling. The level also introduces a new (and far too overlooked) concept. The delayed trap. Instead of letting the trap release the monsters right in your face as you flip the switch or (in this case grab the key) it instead activates a number of traps around the whole level making previously cleared tunnels greet you with new baddies. This adds to the feeling of being surrounded by villians deep in enemy territory. Level eight. What can i say. Tense music. Long hallways. Endless wait. Am i prepared for it? And then the grand showdown. Two barons of hell in yer face! Theyre far bigger and meaner than anything you have experienced so far. When activating the automap to find the exit and noticing that the area you fought in had the shape of a pentacle is just an extra treat. The fact that the end portal doesn't show on the map just adds to the drama. At last the secret level greets you with cool simplistic architecture and the first monster spawner! Few levels has such a fine working learning curve. Messiah with a Shotgun. An E1 and E2 lover.

Share this post


Link to post
Guest Sir Robin

Nostalgy might be part of it, I played E1 a lot... But it wasnt my first FPS experience, I'm not sure if it was even my first DooM experience. Anyway, I'm big fan of base style, any kind of base style. This is good explanation why I like E1, plus it is damn great base style, not the usual METAL2 filled dark place with lots of machines made with crushers...

Share this post


Link to post
Guest genocide

I think it's the whole 'compound' feel to it. Ep 1's feel is the whole reason I play Ep2. Remember how cool it was in E1M2 when you got outside where the megahealth was? You look back and see the half of the base while you're on the surface of Phobos, it was just the coolest thing in the world. You haven't seen anything quite similar to it's atmosphere, it's simply the best IMO.

Share this post


Link to post
Guest Density

I agree with all of you, in the way that Knee Deep in the Dead had a style that no other ep's had. The architecture of the ep is just great, even with Doom's 3D engine limits, if the maps where ported to Quake 2 or Q3a and wouldn't be changed, they whould be Winners!! thats my 2 cents

Share this post


Link to post
Guest Dissonant

Happy Sappy Delusion Syndrome. And that's all there is to it. Of course, I'm certainly not immune...

Share this post


Link to post
Guest Dr_Watson

Knee deep in the dead is the best single player First person shooter episode for the main reasons of the time spent on it, the fact that they were breaking new ground (not just trying to make the ground look pretty *ala: quake 3*), and basically ... history. If you ask anyone who anticipated the release of DooM and ran home from High school, snagged the shareware off the local bbs with your cardinal 9600 then installed and played it with drool on your lip as you were engrossed in the marval you didn't know your 4x86 dx33 could pump out. They will say its the best ever, due to the impact factor in their mind from that first step in DooM. Mutch like the kennedy assination sticks in people's minds ("where were you when kennedy was shot?") DooM sticks in 20-something Video game Junkies like me. Peace out. Dr_Watson

Share this post


Link to post
Guest Anonymous User

Knee deep in the dead is the best single player First person shooter episode for the main reasons of the time spent on it, the fact that they were breaking new ground (not just trying to make the ground look pretty *ala: quake 3*), and basically ... history. If you ask anyone who anticipated the release of DooM and ran home from High school, snagged the shareware off the local bbs with your cardinal 9600 then installed and played it with drool on your lip as you were engrossed in the marval you didn't know your 4x86 dx33 could pump out. They will say its the best ever, due to the impact factor in their mind from that first step in DooM. Mutch like the kennedy assination sticks in people's minds ("where were you when kennedy was shot?") DooM sticks in 20-something Video game Junkies like me. Peace out. Dr_Watson

Share this post


Link to post
Guest Anonymous User

Doom wasn't the first FPS shooter I've played, but it still facinated me. I remember when I first downloaded it and played the shareware version. It was on a Macintosh that was basicly the same as a 386/25sx (my PC was a 286, so it wouldn't run it at all) with only 4 megs of ram. I actualy had to turn on virtual memory. The frame rate was pretty bad, but despite that, I was hooked and in awe at the 3d world that I was seeing right before my eyes. It actualy felt like a real 3d world, and the creepy sound effects added to the enviroment well. When I finaly got a descent PC and Doom 2, I spent countless hours playing wad after wad. I've accumulated so many, I had to start using a menu program to keep track of them all. I have several hundered entries now, and that covers only a fraction of the wads I've downloaded over the past few years (I was meaning to get those other wads organised, but I am too lazy :). I remember being awe struck again and again with Eternal, and several other Doom2 TCs and wads wads I've downloaded. I own a copy of Quake 1, and though it has some very good TCs, it would often have to leave my hard drive to make room for the new Doom wads I would download :). Quake is nice, and I use it for Internet deathmatching, but Doom is still tops, and no other FPS has the same magic Doom has. --balanco00@my-deja.com

Share this post


Link to post
Guest Ransom

1) Pacing. The learning curve is perfect. The revelation of new monsters and weapons is done with great care and dramatic effect. 2) Art direction. The utilitarian scenario of the moonbase is excellent. The gradual entry of strange elements to the architecture give the episode a feeling of a gradually corrupted reality, at the same time sucking the player deeper and deeper in. I think that's all there is to it. The other factors of level design that contribute to overall playability are well-known, but they are not unique to Episode 1. Only Episode 1 has these two basic elements done correctly, and it creates a versimilitude that absorbs the player completely. This sort of thing is usually only possible with one or two authors, not just in level design but in other art forms as well. Romero really gave it his all with this package.

Share this post


Link to post

At one point I had gone maybe a couple of years without playing the shareware DOOM at all. When I did dig it up again, the music from E1M3 sure brought something back. Wow, that was a great level.. No, wait! That IS a great level! :-b

Share this post


Link to post
Guest Anonymous User

Definately agree with every post on here. Nostalgia without a doubt, the way it built up, the adrenaline-pumping music which, in my heart, will never be matched. I do think, though, that a lot of the newer fps gamers who worship the quake series don't see magic in Doom that we see because they started out with a different game, and base their impressions relative to that first game. Doom is different from anything else. Unless you began with it, it's not gonna have the same impact.

Share this post


Link to post
Guest Anonymous User

I first played Wolf3D. I liked it alot... then I played DooM shareware. Whoa. It had a very distinct feel, and was spooky as hell. I mean, anything can be scary if it looks like the decoration had been done by H.P. Lovecraft (like most of DooM is) but Episode 1 was by far the neatest, 'cuz the technological setting coupled with an evil far greater than anything you ever imagined was great... especially that one part where you're in those tight halls and you can hear a pinkie grunting, but you have no idea where he might be... and then he shows up to make you a midnight snack... Yikes. O_O But anyway, then there was Phobos Anomaly... it was kinda fun blowing all those barrels with the demons nearby... then picking off the unhappy survivors. Bacon straight from Hell's kitchen...! And I was scared as hell to go into the hell-princes' room... I was a wuss! Oh, so much fun, so many memories, so many wasted afternoons at my neighbor's house!

Share this post


Link to post

Episode one was my first taste of doom. I played the shareware version of Doom over and over. Mastering E1 in UV was my main goal and eventually, I did it. One of the coolest things about it was it almost looked real the first time playing through it. The levels just looked amazing. Like in M1 where you have that large outside area, I would run around out there, looking everywhere, just taking in the way it acutally looked like you were outside. E1 is the place I got most of my Doom SP training. Finding the secret level on my own gave me bragging rights with my older brothers, something I did not usually have, and just made me feel really cool. :) As I said before, E1 more than E2, E3, or E4, just seemed real at first, the levels were that cool. Heh, I remember the first time I played M5, BOY! The music just scared the SHIT out of me. I remember sitting down at my Mother's piano and trying to play back that song that haunted my dreams... I would have dreams of Blasting away Demons in M3 or M5 and M4's soul sphere was a pain in the ass to get and was the reason I started strafing... :) Uh, this is way to long... Anyway, E1 just plain made me jump around every corner. I hope that Doom2000 has a good set of E1 styled levels....

Share this post


Link to post

Episode one was my first taste of doom. I played the shareware version of Doom over and over. Mastering E1 in UV was my main goal and eventually, I did it. One of the coolest things about it was it almost looked real the first time playing through it. The levels just looked amazing. Like in M1 where you have that large outside area, I would run around out there, looking everywhere, just taking in the way it acutally looked like you were outside. E1 is the place I got most of my Doom SP training. Finding the secret level on my own gave me bragging rights with my older brothers, something I did not usually have, and just made me feel really cool. :) As I said before, E1 more than E2, E3, or E4, just seemed real at first, the levels were that cool. Heh, I remember the first time I played M5, BOY! The music just scared the SHIT out of me. I remember sitting down at my Mother's piano and trying to play back that song that haunted my dreams... I would have dreams of Blasting away Demons in M3 or M5 and M4's soul sphere was a pain in the ass to get and was the reason I started strafing... :) Uh, this is way to long... Anyway, E1 just plain made me jump around every corner. I hope that Doom2000 has a good set of E1 styled levels....

Share this post


Link to post
Guest bowzer

When I got my first computer, (which was given to me as two old 386's and one 486SX, and i put them together myself to make one good one), the first real 'computer game' that i put on it was Doom: Knee Deep in the Dead. I would stay up all night just to play it over and over agian, finding new secrets each time. Because of this, Knee Deep in the Dead will always be a favorite (especially because of the cool music from e1m1 :))

Share this post


Link to post
Guest bowzer

When I got my first computer, (which was given to me as two old 386's and one 486SX, and i put them together myself to make one good one), the first real 'computer game' that i put on it was Doom: Knee Deep in the Dead. I would stay up all night just to play it over and over agian, finding new secrets each time. Because of this, Knee Deep in the Dead will always be a favorite (especially because of the cool music from e1m1 :)). Then, when i got the full version of doom, i was in heaven (or hell, i should say, heh) E2 was great, and E3 was magnificent, but knee deep in the dead will always be a favorite!!

Share this post


Link to post

Very rarely though...Heh. I played Doom2 first, then heretic, then Hexen, and lastly Doom. I still think doom e1 is the best of the levels. E1 is still being done...i.e. ricrob and flashback. (Screenshots look good ric!)

Share this post


Link to post
Guest Anonymous User

Knee Deep was certainly the best doom game and personaly, its my favorite game. I play doom2, final doom, quake, quake 2, etc. but Doom1 has a type of gameplay that few other levels have. They are relativily short, great for deathmatch,and single player can be just as scary and heart pumping because the hallways and rooms in doom have few monsters, once again making the game much more "scary"

Share this post


Link to post
Guest new_name

Episode 1 was the perfest mix of horror and atmosphere. Many games lack the creepiness of DOOM. Sad....

Share this post


Link to post
Guest Anonymous User

Episode 2 was pretty cool too, but Episode 3 kind of fell apart. Too much wandering around unsure of where I was going. Doom 2 had some nice stuff, but the city levels particularly really dragged on. id's never matched Doom 1 Episode 1, and I suspect they never will.

Share this post


Link to post
Guest Anonymous User

To me, the most obvious reason as to why id's E1 was so great was because it was designed to sell the game. Don't you remember shareware? E1 looks so great so id could sell copies of the registered version to junkies like myself. Secondly, the look and feel of the levels was perfect. The whole episode was styled as if you really were running around these nasty monster-infested bases, noticing all your comrades bodies scattered about the place. Hell, it didn't even need a plot. The fact that you were locked in these bases with no other means of escape was reason enough to keep going. I give up on E2 and E3 too easily. Doom 2, E4, Final Doom, etc.. It just lost me there. I never saw what was so fascinating about "city maps" or the super shotgun. Even the plasma rifle and BFG seem out of place at times in E2 & E3, as if they were thrown as toys for beginners.. Or id felt something else needed to be added to get more people to buy Doom.

Share this post


Link to post
Guest Anonymous User

<font size="5"> <font color="green"> Because </font> <font size="2"> <font color="white"> knee deep in the dead </font> <font size="4"> <font color="blue"> just RULES </font>

Share this post


Link to post
Guest docbob

Another factor that contributed to the immense fun of playing E1, and helped define what playing Doom was all about, was all the nooks and crannies of the complex base architecture. The multitude of small-to-medium-sized indoor and outdoor rooms, each connected in a matrix with lots of windows, doorways and elevators, made exploring the levels a joy: you had to be thorough and make sure you looked everywhere, especially for the secrets, and you had to pay attention or you'd get lost. There were also areas that required puzzle-solving to access, and many of these would reward you with wondrous views of the areas you just left. Moreover, the enemies were deviously placed in all those nooks and crannies, and often you'd find yourself getting sniped at from multiple directions. The whole place was just so damn interactive. I think, of all games since, none have had the incredible spatial density of stuff to do and avoid as KNEE DEEP.

Share this post


Link to post
Guest GordonFreeman

I think its the fact that it revies old memories of 1993. But then again, the levels are good too, so that helps. DooM was the most innovative game ever realeased. The jump bettween DooM and Wolf3d is pretty big.

Share this post


Link to post
Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
Sign in to follow this  
×