Doom

Doom

MS-DOS - USA - 1st edition.

Developer id Software Publisher id Software Published 1993-12-10 Platforms 3DO, DOS, Game Boy Advance, Jaguar, PC-9800, Sega 32X, SNES, Windows, Windows Mobile Genres Action, First-person shooter, Shooter Themes Horror, Science Fiction Series Doom Distribution {{{Distributions}}}

Doom is a first-person shooter with a science fiction and horror theme developed and published by id Software for MS-DOS on 1993-12-10 as shareware. It's the first game in the Doom series. In the game, you play a space marine stationed on Mars. Scientists have been experimenting with dimensional travel and have accidentally opened a portal to Hell, and released hordes of demons on the planet. It's up to you to fight your way through the demons, enter Hell, and stop them from getting to Earth. Doom is considered a monumental game being the first hugely-successful multiplayer FPS and breaking ground among 3D games.

Personal

When it came out, the computer I owned couldn't handle it, so, to make it more playable, I decreased the view port to its lowest size and bumped up turbo to its highest level, but that ruined the feel of the game. It wasn't until a couple years later that I could run the game at its intended size and speed. I really enjoyed Doom, and spent a lot of time making my own levels with Waded, an editor tool.

I own The Ultimate Doom on 3.5" diskette and as part of the Doom 3: BFG Edition on Steam. I have beaten all four episodes on "Hurt Me Plenty" difficulty.

Review

7	7	8	7	7

Best Version: Doom95 for Windows

— This section contains spoilers! —

Good

• The game is just a lot of fun to play.
• The addition of multi-player, while not necessary, vastly increased the enjoyment of the game.
• There were a lot of interesting small features added to the game like monsters that would get mad and hurt each other, enemies near ledges that would fall off, flickering lights, semi-transparent demons, etc.
• Each of the weapons has its own strengths and weaknesses. For most of them, there is no way to say that it is definitively better than another.
• The game was really spooky at the time, and even today, when I'm playing a new map, I get apprehensive about diving into sludge or walking into a dark room.
• The game has very fitting music including heavy metal tracks, and Bobby Prince wisely convinced the developers to include mysterious ambiance as well.

Bad

• The game allows save scumming. Ordinarily, I appreciate this, but, since the game is meant to be terrifying, and you can save and reload every time you get ambushed, it kills a lot of the tension.
• The earlier releases of the game had some pretty bad bugs, but id did a great job patching them over the years.
• All of the other ports are inferior.

Ugly

• Some ports are disastrously inferior, like the SNES port.

Media

Box Art

This art was designed by Don Punchatz and used on nearly all of the boxes for all ports, just with various differences in layout. It features a space marine being rushed by the demons of Hell, some of which have been cybernetically altered. The Doom logo was also designed by Punchatz. The original painting doesn't include the Doom logo which was superimposed on it for the box design.

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  DOS.

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  Logo.

Documentation

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  Manual - DOS - USA.

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  Manual - DOS - USA - Ultimate - Digital.

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  Manual - Game Boy Advance - USA.

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  Manual - SNES - USA.

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  Poster from the Ultimate Doom.

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  Masters of Doom. Describes the development process.

Graphics

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• spriters-resource.com/pc_computer/doomdoomii - Sprites.
• textures-resource.com/pc_computer/doom - Textures.

Screenshots

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  Title screen.

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  Turning a zombie into gibs with a close rocket blast.

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  Getting a green sphere temporarily makes you indestructible.

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  Fragging an opponent in deathmatch mode.

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  Anti-piracy message when you exit the registered version.

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  When clipping through the walls, the player will experience the hall of mirrors effect.

Fan Art

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  Doom on platforms not meant to play Doom.

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  Doom meets The Magical School Bus by beetlemoses.

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  Doom painted on a fingernail.

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  Windows 3 mockup.

Videos

Postmortem.

The Game Theorists - Exploding Barrels.

Boundary Break.

John Romero's level design rules.

How auto-aiming works.

How the melting screen works.

Doom graphics pulled from Wolfenstein 3-D.

Longplay, Knee Deep In the Dead.

Longplay, The Shores of Hell.

Longplay, Inferno.

Longplay, They Flesh Consumed.

• gdcvault.com/play/1014627/Classic-Game-Postmortem - Postmortem by John Romero and Tom Hall.

SNES Port

The SNES is severely under-powered and ill-equipped to handle a first person shooter, so the SNES port is pretty awful:

• The visuals are horrible:
  • It drastically decreases the screen size cutting off 40 pixels horizontally and 48 pixels vertically.
  • It halves the 3D environment horizontally, then renders it double-wide to make up for it.
  • The totaled rendered area is only 108x144 pixels which makes it very difficult to see monsters that are far away.
  • It doesn't render ceiling or floor textures.
  • It doesn't use animated textures.
  • It can't handle transparent textures (like gratings).
  • Despite all these graphical concessions, it still runs at a terrible frame rate.
• The audio is bad.
  • The music has constant noise and popping.
  • Only one sound effect can be played at a time.
  • Some sound effects have been removed.
• The controls are terrible.
  • Objects, including the player, do not slide along walls very well, so, you will often find yourself stuck because there is a wall nearby.
  • Turning is too slow.
  • You can only cycle forward through your weapons. So, if you want to drop down one weapon, you have to press the weapon toggle button seven times, and, if you mess up and press it eight times, you have to press it another six times to correct your mistake.
• Episode three, Inferno, was removed.
• You can't save. There isn't even a password system, so, each time you start the game over, you have to begin from mission 1.
• The HUD doesn't show how much ammo you have for each weapon, or which weapons you have in your inventory.
• The slow movement and tiny display area makes aiming very difficult. Thankfully, the collision detection is very forgiving.

Representation

Strong female character?	Fail	There are no women.
Bechdel test?	Fail	There are no women.
Strong person of color character?	Fail	The only human characters are white.
Queer character?	Fail	There are no queer characters.

Credits

Role	Staff
Game Design	Shawn Green, Sandy Petersen, John Romero
Programming	John Carmack, John Romero, Dave Taylor, Michael Abrash
Graphics, Art	Adrian Carmack, Kevin Cloud
Level Design	John Romero, Sandy Petersen, Shawn Green
3D Modelling	Gregor Punchatz
Music & Sound Effects	Robert Prince
Business	Jay Wilbur
Sound Engine	Paul Radek
Tools Programming	John Romero
Creative Director	Tom Hall
Box Art	Don Punchatz

Links

           

• doomwiki.org - DOOM Wiki.