Groundhog Day: Doom/Doom II

This is... well either just under the wire or late. Either way I'm happy I wrote it and I hope you enjoy reading it :)

For the sake of things I’m going to mostly refer to Doom and Doom 2 as the same thing for this article. They’re both pretty much the game game (more like Doom 1.5, nyah), or at least have all the same draws to them and if you had one chances are you had the other. Now if you’ll excuse me I’m going to spend a bit of time talking about Doom. <3



The early 90s was when I was introduced to PC gaming. My parents bought an overpriced computer in 1992 during the Lillehammer Olympics, and I have vivid memories of my hatred of video game chess developing when Canada lost the gold medal hockey game. (thanks Chessmaster 3000!)

Like most PC gamers (at least those on a budget like my pre-teen self) did back then I played a lot of shareware games. Now, some of you might not have been familiar with the glory days of shareware, which usually offered of up to a third of a game included with most PC-focused magazeine, free if you were lucky enough to have online access, or for a couple of bucks on it’s own. There was never any of this “exclusive demos” or “early beta access” mess. Games were designed to be episodic and you’d get the first for pretty much the price of the disc/packaging.

These weren’t short experiences either, and Doom (bet you were wondering when I’d finally start talking about it) was no exception. Of the 27 levels available in the original release of Doom (pre-Ultimate Doom), 9 were available on shareware. And you can bet I played the living hell (hur hur) out of it. Countless space marines have fought their way through the demon infested facilities of Phobos to an untimely end just past the Barons of Hell. Some made it through very quickly, some managed to cheat their way to invulnerability, and eventually (once I got good enough) some managed to punch their way through the entire thing.


I saw this a lot

Yeah, I played it that much. Eventually of course I ponied up and bought first Doom II, then Ultimate Doom (the original with an bonus fourth episode), and proceeded to send a lot of undead soldiers and hellspawn back to the hole they crawled out from. I played Doom frequently for the next decade, and will to this day still boot it up every now and then.


The true face of fear

What could make this game have so much appeal after more than 17 years? I mean, it’s the most basic of first person shooters. You just collect key cards, open doors and shoot everything that moves. There’s no inventory management, moral choices, dialog trees, or even reloading! Of course it’s those very things that make it so good, all presented at a blisteringly fast pace. The correct way to play Doom is to stand still as little as possible. The longer you stand still the sooner the hellspawn will kill you. You need to frantically run, strafe, and shoot until there’s nothing left, all the while keeping track of scores of enemies at a time as well as where you are in relation to health/ammo pickups and any escape routes.

And while you’re doing this you’re treated to a soundtrack that’s sometimes haunting and sometimes foreboding, but always rocking your face off. I hope I don’t have to mention the iconic E1M1 song, but just in case:



What’s this? You’ve played the game enough times and are sick of the levels? Well in addition to being a pioneer for first person shooters, online multiplayer (it coined the term “deathmatch” after all) and violent games it was one of the biggest proponents of user generated content. Back when you could talk about a WAD without making people giggle, everybody took a stab at making their own masterpiece levels. There are enough custom levels and even total conversions of the game to last for hundreds more playthroughs. I couldn’t even begin to list them all here. Many, for better or worse are still available online today.


Not the greatest mod ever, but pretty darn close

Through it all though, I could just as easily boot back up Knee Deep in the Dead, and relive the glory days of first person shooting... pewpewpew...