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Katamori

The best thing Doom is...the flow(?)

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Recently I started to think, why so mayn people really like Doom? Of course, it has several reasons, depending on each people, but overall...

I realised that Doom (and actually, almost every old-school FPS games) has a feature that makes it super addictive and way better a lot of games that doesn't have this feature.

This is the flow. I mean, everything in Doom flows quickly.

You got a rocket? Just walk over a medikit and you already got it - and you are healthy again!

The small shotgun isn't enough? Walk over that Super Shotgun and you can blow into their face - after less than 2 seconds!

Is the Cyberdemon too strong? Don't aim, don't do any tactics, just pump tin to his motherf@ckin' ass!


Yes, I know, it's because of the simplicity (in 1993 you couldn't make any games that contains headshot, stc.) but also, this simplicity makes everything smoother. The whole gameplay flow perfectly and smoothly, without any ingame "screwing-around" effect (like in Deus Ex, where you must press F to get anything - however, that game is still good).

That's what most of the games forget, even the best ones (even Half-Life 2 wasn't smooth enough IMO), but of course, some games just can't be arcade (like the mentioned DX1 that is still one of the best games in history IMO, even without the flow)

What do you think?

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Yes, I totally agree with anything you said there. :D
Plus, Doom has those fast paced and expressive animations everywhere. For example, whenever you shoot a zombie, you see him being thrown backwards by the force of the bullets. Little things like that makes it all so much more rewarding to watch or play.
In more recent shooters, the enemy just drops to the ground. That of course is much more realistic, but it feels so dull and boring. :/

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I have a hard time putting my finger on it, but one of the things I love about Doom is how easy it is to pick up and play. Especially levels that are designed with pistol start in mind (like any of the standard iwads). This, in contrast to HeXen (which I love beyond reason), which has to be played in sequence to be really enjoyed. This is HeXen's biggest 'failing' in my mind.

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I will agree. The 'flow' would be the combination of a very fast and responsive game style, without clutter such as auxiliary targets during levels -- objective is usually 'exit the level' or 'kill the boss' and you don't need a notepad document or audio snippet to figure out small deviations from this ('get blue key').

There's a kind of immediacy within its simplicity, too. See that Garry's Mod thing with the Doom weapons? Looks kinda fun to me, and I think it may be the pacing and rhythm of the weapons; they're all unique and different enough from each other to have strong identities, yet at the same time uncomplicated and easy to use in their own right.

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Yes, I agree. While reading a Dark Arena review a while back I noticed that they said the game had OK graphics, OK sound... OK everything, but in difference to Doom is was just plain boring. So I watched some gameplay and you walk... turn... shoot... shoot... enemy dies, then you keep walking. And I started thinking about what makes this different from Doom and it's definitely the pace.
I think Doom makes up for open, empty spaces and low fidelity gameplay by having it all happen at such a lightning speed so you still get a pretty high detail per second ratio or something such. It's hard to define why Doom and even Quake work out at such high speeds and would definitely not work at a realistic pace while modern games work at slower paces but not Doom-speed.

I think the number of enemies could have something to do with it. Modern games have so few enemies if you had Doom-superpowers everything would be dead in a minute.

Anyways playing Doom with a mouse and keyboard just gives you super-smooth controls being able to move both with the mouse and keyboard at the same time... works great.

I also agree Doom is kind of styled to go at a fast pace. You pick up everything instantly, weapons fire fast, no reloading, enemies are blown away by your shots and imps shoot fireballs that make you have to move around quickly.

Ultimately I think Doom works at such speeds is because it doesn't require a lot of precision. Most weapons spray all over the screen unless you're far away from your enemy. Crysis 2 multiplayer is pretty fast but it also requires a lot of precision because the maps are huge, the enemies are tiny and this doesn't work as well as Doom. In Crysis 2 hitting a small, lightning fast target is pretty difficult while in Doom you've got smaller maps, bigger hitboxes etc.

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DoomCollector said:

It's hard to define why Doom and even Quake work out at such high speeds and would definitely not work at a realistic pace while modern games work at slower paces but not Doom-speed.

I think the number of enemies could have something to do with it. Modern games have so few enemies if you had Doom-superpowers everything would be dead in a minute.



It was a kind of arcade feeling, where realism was a secondary feature. Recent games are nor arcade-ish, because new gamers doesn't want it anymore. God knows, why.

To bring my mentioned examples: Half-Life and Deus Ex works because of the lot of opportunities you get through the game, and the strong atmosphere. Anything you do, you enjoy, and you even feel like if you'd be there.

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In my experience, most FPS with slow player speed and in which you can raise the player speed (through cheats, exploits, console variables) become more enjoyable as a result of doing so.

(I say "most", but I haven't played one yet where this wasn't the case.)

While balance is inevitably thrown off, those games tend to have shallow gameplay to start with, so the fun factor of running around fast outweighs any ill effect. If any. Sometimes, higher player speed is all it takes to turn yawntastic trench warfare into acrobatic ballets of death. The player is still bound by his own reflexes no matter how fast his avatar may be, whereas AI enemies are often designed to react instantly no matter what.

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The best thing about Doom is how everything comes together to create an experience that is pure, undiluted fun.

That's pretty much it.

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BaronOfStuff said:

The best thing about Doom is how everything comes together to create an experience that is pure, undiluted fun.

That's pretty much it.

Not a bad interpretation. I will agree that there is a certain Zen-like bliss that comes over me when I'm a few levels into a really good megawad (or any E1 run, for that matter).

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The Doom FAQ v6.666 says:

[3-8]: Smooth, Seamless Gameplay
================================
        The environment in DOOM is frightening, but the player can be at
ease when playing.  Much effort has been spent on the development end to
provide the smoothest control on the user end.  And the frame rate (the rate
at which the screen is updated) is high, so you move smoothly from room to
room, turning and acting as you wish, unhampered by the slow jerky motion of
most 3-D games.  On a 386DX, the game runs well, and on a 486/33, the normal
mode frame rate is almost as fast as television.  This allows for the
most important and enjoyable aspect of gameplay: immersion.


Which has NOT been a given with ANY game released ever since.

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Xaser said:

@Belial: Heh, I was just about to link that. :P

But yes, for those who haven't read it yet, JP LeBreton's article pretty much nails it on the head in every way.


Wow that was an interesting article! I never thought of treating Doom as a "FPS Berzerk/Robotron" game.

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I like how versatile Doom gameplay can be. To be precise, Doom 2's, since I don't really get the common opinion of its so-called inferiority to Doom 1, but that's another story.

I suppose this would fit the Doom Confessional Booth thread more, but I didn't really enjoy Doom 1 that much when I got around to playing it the first time. Sure, E1 was good, but still pretty samey. E2 was absolutely amazing and immersive, but still didn't have the same suspense feel characteristic of Wolfenstein 3D. E3 disappointed me, even though I liked the final level. The gameplay wasn't really that different to Wolf 3D - there was still a lot of hiding behind walls, hitscan enemies and not so much height variation. And the story was pretty much nonexistent. Don't get me wrong - it has grown on me in the course of time and it had a lot of major improvements over Wolf 3D, but still...

However, Doom 2 is completely different in nearly all aspects. It actually flows and is highly addictive. It also lacks a serious story, but that's the only shortcoming, as the rest is amazing. The new monsters that run the whole gamut of attacks, which forces the player to use so many different tactics.

Just take the revenant. To avoid his homing missiles in a closed area, you have to take a step backwards, strafe and quickly jump forwards. It's much harder in open areas but the fireball is still pretty slow and you can finish off a horde of them as long as there's some cover to get rid of their fireballs later. When a revenant is placed way above you, you have to circle around to let the missile hit the ground. You can also chaingun or even punch him at point blank range.

Or the mancubus. His attack can be dodged at point blank range in a few different ways. You can strafe left, strafe right and shoot, but also SR40/SR50 left/right and it also usually works. Battling him from a greater distance, you have to strafe just a little to avoid dodging towards his fire. Also, you can exploit his high pain chance with a chaingun.

Even despite my deep hatred of pain elementals, I must admit they make an interesting enemy that undeniably adds to the gameplay.

Also, arch-viles, arachnotrons and, ahem, chaingunners. Cyberdemons and masterminds are regular enemies at last, not just bosses. Much more height variation and interesting level designs. A fast-paced boss-like map where you have no chance to survive if you straggle too much (map07), a tricky map with plenty of great ideas (map08), a slaughter open area map (map18), a map that challenges you with ledge-walking (map24), to name but a few. There's only one new weapon, but very powerful and its sound is so lovely - just killing hordes of enemies with it feels sort of visceral.

To sum up, Doom 2 fucking rocks! Doom 1 also rocks, but much less so. However, it's still light years ahead of all those fancy modern shooters.

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