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EduXYZ

Mysteries around the DOOM cover

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how com hold 2 gun when i can only one

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1. I always figured it was purposefully different so it didn't feel ridiculous or anything. Personally I would have never used the box art for the main menu screen.

2. I don't know. As a kid I thought it was a former human, but eventually I realized that's probably a regular marine. Regardless I don't know.

3. That's the Chaingun. Just smaller, all black, and with a magazine facing inward instead of outwards (obviously).

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1. I think someone said this already, but palette limitations. Also, it is limited to 320x200 pixels, so there's that.

2. Probably just another dude. Multiplayer was a feature that was pretty awesome for the time.

3. The barrel(s) is(are) completely covered by that awesome muzzle flash, so it could be the chaingun. The pickup sprite has that clip magazine on it, and as seen on the chaingunner and in the Doom comic, the Chaingun is, indeed held that way. Problem is: why do the pickup sprite and cover have a magazine, but the chaingunner and Doom comic guy's chainguns have a belt mechanism?

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The gun Doomguy holds is a supposed assault rifle by my friend.
Why it's never seen in the game, I don't know. The artist probably thought there was an assault rifle in the game because EVERY FPS GAME HAS THAT.

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That makes no sense, because at the time of release Doom and Wolf were the only two popular FPSes (there was just Blake Stone between the two, and the Catacomb/Hovertank games pre-Wolf, neither being too popular).

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The player was originally meant to have a rifle as his starting weapon, with a bayonet for melee. This was scrapped in favor of a pistol and a knuckle-duster adorned fist.

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Fonze said:

A better question is did the imp find the Doomguy's heart rate to be at an acceptable level?


I never understood why people called those demons "imps". There's literally no element of them that's reminiscent of how Imps look in-game, while there are plenty of elements that make them look like Barons.

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scifista42 said:

^ Here is how I justified them as Imps when we discussed this topic last year.


Well, we now know for a fact that those "devils" are actually Doomguy's groupies:

Maes said:

Now, it's hard for me not to see the Demons/Barons/Devils/whatever as ravenous female fans, with expressions of pure lust on their faces. Why, look, the hand grabbing Doomguy's forearm looks more like a nicely manicured female hand grabbing the object of her passion, as she licks her demonic lips with anticipation! Even the look in the eyes of the demons is more like passion/desire, than aggression.

And isn't Doomguys' pose reminiscent of a rockstar with his guitar, surrounded by lusty groupies? Hmm.....

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Maes said:

I never understood why people called those demons "imps". There's literally no element of them that's reminiscent of how Imps look in-game, while there are plenty of elements that make them look like Barons.


I guess there being an abundance of demons surrounding doomguy left an impression that it was a low-tier demon as opposed to a baron. I always thought it was just an artistic view of the imps, but now that I look it they are definitely barons.

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CheeseOnTheMoon said:

I guess there being an abundance of demons surrounding doomguy left an impression that it was a low-tier demon as opposed to a baron. I always thought it was just an artistic view of the imps, but now that I look it they are definitely barons.

Honestly I'm pretty sure they are "really" neither and are just inspired by the concept art that I'm certain id gave Don Punchatz copies of for reference. He obviously had the DOOM logo itself, which we know was originally illustrated by Adrian, and the Doomguy, who was modeled in clay. So he probably also had the Baron of Hell sketch and maybe pictures of the imp sprite, and obviously also knew that some of the demons would be cybernetic, hence his decision to give some of them arm cannons.

It's called artistic license, and it used to be a common element in game box art, especially back before games could have realistic graphics and you needed to invoke your imagination to fill in the details. Sometimes this was not for the best (see Megaman for example), but DOOM's box art has been consistently voted one of the best of all time.

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Yeah I always thought they were neither imps nor barons, but just referred to them as imps for their sheer numbers. I guess we could call them demons but then people would say they didn't look like bulls ;D

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The Ps1 cover seemed to have the opposite problem. You could clearly see 2 Imps, a Lost Soul, and a Baron of Hell but who's the guy fighting them? It's obviously not Doom Guy.

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DoomzRules said:

I always thought it was Ash Williams... :P

Groovy.

MetroidJunkie said:

The Ps1 cover seemed to have the opposite problem. You could clearly see 2 Imps, a Lost Soul, and a Baron of Hell but who's the guy fighting them? It's obviously not Doom Guy.

http://babysoftmurderhands.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/PSXDoomBoxArt.jpg

It probably is Doomguy, the artist probably just didn't know how he looked and just drew that guy.

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scifista42 said:

^ Here is how I justified them as Imps when we discussed this topic last year.


Well....TBQH there IS a situation in Doom where you're pitted against almost as many Barons: in E2M9 "Fortress Of Mystery". If you view that "submachine gun" as a Plasma Rifle, it suddenly makes much more sense ;-)

Then again the sky used in the E3 one...

About the PSX cover: I think it's influenced somewhat from the Wolfenstein 3D box art:



and to a lesser degree from the MAC box art:



BTW, the background in that PSX Doom cover, really looks a lot like Wolf3D's "outdoors" openings:



And speaking about Wolf3D covers...wtf was it with come console versions (SNES, to be precise):



That guy looks just like a mook in some 3rd rate 80s Mad Max-style punk action movie, or something starring Chuck Norris and Van Damme. He couldn't have been more out of place on the cover of a game that takes action in WW2.

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Maes said:

And speaking about Wolf3D covers...wtf was it with come console versions (SNES, to be precise):

http://199.101.98.242/media/images/36331-Wolfenstein_3D_(Europe)-1459062634.jpg

That guy looks just like a mook in some 3rd rate 80s Mad Max-style punk action movie, or something starring Chuck Norris and Van Damme. He couldn't have been more out of place on the cover of a game that takes action in WW2.

Hey guys, we have a new piece of art we can copy for our bootleg game! Yaaay!
But seriously, who even thought about making it that.

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I actually have the cart and it always struck me as weird that he was wearing so much eyeliner.

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Doomkid said:

I actually have the cart and it always struck me as weird that he was wearing so much eyeliner.

Glam rock as FUCK. I think he's even giving us the blue steel pout.

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Maes said:

And speaking about Wolf3D covers...wtf was it with come console versions (SNES, to be precise)
That guy looks just like a mook in some 3rd rate 80s Mad Max-style punk action movie, or something starring Chuck Norris and Van Damme.


Looks more like Zoolander meets Commando to me.

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Maes said:

And speaking about Wolf3D covers...wtf was it with come console versions (SNES, to be precise):
(image)

I'd hate to say it but... It looks like BJ Blazkowicz turned into JB Blazkowicz.

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I started this little trend today... Carmack being the face of Doom Guy.



Seems all the facial features match exactly...

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So we were playing as a pencilneck computer nerd (albeit a very successful one) all these years, thinking it was a tough space marine?

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