50 Years of Video Games: Doom (PC)

With some games, their impact on history is simple enough to summarize, but 1993’s Doom is something else. PC games had been hits before it but they were more niche, showed their limitations in integrating the mouse or keyboard, or simply didn’t hold up when compared next to the games seen on consoles or in the arcade. Doom though, Doom is a game that drove the gaming world wild on release, in no small part because it’s first of three episodes, a bundle of 9 excellent and decently meaty levels, was available for free through one of the first hugely successful implementations of the shareware model. As people passed around copies of that first episode of Doom and bought up the remaining two to get even more first-person shooting action back in a time when such a genre was relatively rare, developers tried to adapt it to consoles and had to keep making concessions to do so even though Doom ran remarkably well on even older home computers. It didn’t just popularize a genre with it’s demon killing adventure though, it also helped birth more organized speedrunning thanks to the ability to save exact replays of your runs while also being at the heart of the early game modification scene. On top of all these accomplishments, it also included online multiplayer where up to four players could compete against each other in a deathmatch, the game even coining that term that is still used for most FPS titles’ default score-focused multiplayer modes.

This monumentally important game wasn’t just an innovator though, it is a game with an impressive amount of style and satisfying action gameplay. Beginning in the future on Mars, a space marine gets roped into unusual occurrences on base as other marines are possessed and begin opening fire on each other. Demons quickly begin to appear as well, and picking up his weapon, this unnamed hero now affectionately referred to either as the Doom Guy or later officially as the Doom Slayer fights his way through the besieged bases and soon ends up heading to Hell itself in his efforts to turn back the demon tide. You don’t get many story tidbits to explain this to you save some end of episode text and gradual progression between areas visualized by a map screen, but there is an interesting touch as you explore. Other dead marines can be found littered across the ground, always reminding you that you weren’t the only one who tried to fight back but all of the others met a worse fate, and seeing the scattered corpses serves as good indicator that what lies ahead may be a bit rougher. Diving into Hell you’ll find levels filled with Satanic iconography, surreal sights, and macabre decorations, all of this realized in a way that mimics 3D visuals pretty convincingly so levels can have vertical depth and gun fights across multiple layers. You’ll also get some surprisingly strong backing music, some of it like the now iconic first level’s theme blood-pumping metal the soundtrack but can pull back for moody atmospheric noise that sells the feeling of entering unfamiliar territory where you can’t be sure where the demons of hell might be hiding.

Interestingly enough though, you can’t aim up or down in Doom, but that’s just fine as your weapon will automatically adjust its aim to hit foes in high or low places so long as you are aiming in their direction. This leads to an interesting dynamic where the minutiae of aiming isn’t too important but foes can be placed in tricky spots on different layers and that need to still determine where incoming fire is coming from means that their vertical position is still important. Enemy placement is done incredibly well in general, thanks in a big part to Doom’s surprising ability to wring a lot of variety out of level design. The game’s 27 levels are feel surprisingly distinct even when they aren’t embracing pronounced themes. You might have a level where you’re navigating a cramped maze with flickering lights always worried that a powerful foe might be lurking around the other side but then you have Mt. Erebus’s island focused design where you can approach various buildings to plunder them of important items more freely. Levels can involve teleporting all around interconnected spaces or traversing health-draining liquids to try and quickly reach important areas, some spaces having tons of cover to zip around and others anxiously open so that you’ll need to keep moving if you want to avoid fire from all sides.

Levels are often surprisingly large but your speed allows you to traverse them quickly enough as you collect keys to open up new spots, these levels often containing secret areas to find or trap-like walls that rise and change a level’s shape a little as they unleash enemies to harass as you as you make progress. The designs can be a touch confusing at times although you can pull up a map to help, optional areas sometimes complicating things a bit but the rewards these often provide usually making such diversions not only interesting but welcome. Your marine starts off an episode with 100% health but with the right pick ups he can increase it to 200% and even pick up armor that gives him a similarly expansive armor rating that dampens damage and can also be refilled or replaced with frequent pick-ups in both huge and incredibly tiny sizes. Health is valuable though so any amount of it will be welcome, and certain power-ups can be found as well. Temporary invincibility comes with an unusual limiter in the form of making the screen a disorienting off-white color, perhaps to try and prevent it from being used to clear away too many of the plentiful opposition with ease, and other options like the Light Amplification Visor can help in those levels where dark halls are used to good effect in making things feel dangerous. Foes can be heard if they’re nearby, distinct grunts, gurgles, and roars louder if they’re nearby and letting you know if danger is still around. A post-level screen tells you if you killed all the enemies, how long beating the level took, and if you found all the secrets as well, giving many little goals to shoot for even if you aren’t going to take it to the level speedrunners do.

Speaking of shooting though, Doom has a wonderful selection of guns even though the default is admittedly underwhelming. Your starting pistol can take a few shots to kill even the weakest foe, and while you do have fists for if you run out of ammo completely, those at least have the Berserk power-up that lets you go on a fist-fighting rampage if you find it. However, you quickly get a shotgun to help you out, and with it you get your first taste of true power. The shotgun can kill some foes in only one or two shots, and while it is slow to fire, the incredible strength and reliability almost make it the true default weapon as its efficacy is hard to resist. The game piles on the enemies and toughens up some pretty much with the expectation this will be how you handle most of your foes, the shotgun’s ammo common enough for frequent use and the slow firing rate requiring the player to smartly weave around the area to avoid damage as they pick off opposing demons. It’s also the first weapon that really leaves a bloody mess after, your foes exploding into bloody chunks when they’ve been killed with something strong enough.

The raw thrill of your efficient killing tool is already enough to make the action great, but your shotgun isn’t the only satisfying weapon available. A chainsaw can be found to give you a much better close range option, and while it needs time to carve through an enemy, for foes who like close range you can turn the tables so long as they don’t have back up to pester you. The chaingun is the next true common option, firing bullets quickly enough to work through even some of the tougher foes with great speed even though it exhausts ammo too quickly to be used for normal circumstances. The Rocket Launcher unsurprisingly is best kept in your back pocket until something is deserving of its power, but some bigger groupings can be blasted apart if they’re packed in tight too and its even messier kills definitely sell the strength of this explosive option. The plasma gun is an interesting variation to the chaingun, stronger and easier to fire in small amounts but the bullets are slower plasma balls that require better aiming to hit with.

The BFG9000 is really the top of the pile though. In Doom, you can always see the marine’s face at the bottom of the screen, it changing to indicate how damaged he is in a cute little touch, but the best moment has to be when you stumble across something absurdly powerful like the BFG9000 and see the manic glee on his face as he knows what having it means. This weapon fires a huge slow plasma projectile that can decimate even many of your strongest foes and it actually gives you quite a few shots when you find one, although ammo limitation overall is kept contained so that the BFG9000 is instead your big way of showing your foes or opponents in multiplayer that you’re through messing around. In the game’s three episodes you can expect to be swapping around through most of your attack options to make sure you have enough ammunition to make it to the end, the game’s third episode in particular withholding ammo enough that you’ll possibly even want to whip out that pistol to handle the foes it can work with just so you don’t drain the better tools. Doom definitely has a full arsenal rather than options you pick from and stick to, the shotgun the star of the show but only as good as it is because sometimes you will whip out alternatives to ensure it won’t be empty for the hordes you have to take down.

The enemy design is of course just as important to the remarkably well-tuned shooting play. The first enemies you will encounter are other marines who have been taken over, and they’re the only force in the game that uses the same weapons as you. Their weapons will damage you instantly when fired in the same way your bullet-focused options do when fired at them, meaning that even though they’re technically the weakest, these marines can still wear you down and their inclusion in a group isn’t just for simple cannon fodder. The many creatures of Hell are the bigger attraction though, and they almost all instead use shots that you can see coming and dodge. The Imp, a brown human-sized foe, fires red fireballs that you can dodge if you can see them, strafing to the sides during a firefight vitally important as you try to maintain focus on your foes while avoiding visible incoming attacks. The Demons, more affectionately known as Pinkies despite their fearsome muscular bodies, charge like bulls to get in close and bite and punch you, the player needing to make sure they can outpace these guys while still actively fighting back. An invisible variation only noticeable due to a light distortion effect can be quite dangerous but it becomes one you know to expect quickly, but even a cautious player will be on the back step when the invisible demons are thrown into dark spaces to make it even harder to spot them. Despite this, the game is remarkably fair thanks to things like the sound cues and your overall high strength, retaliation swift enough to pull off once you spot one and the distortion effect distinct enough to track once you do notice it.

Enemy placement really gives this first set of foes their varying levels of danger and efficacy, the player constantly encountering trouble in small bursts for the surges of excitement as you explore for the way to the exit. These base foes already mix well with the designs featured in the first episode, but new frequent foes appear in the other two that add more layers to the action. The Lost Souls are flying skulls that lunge towards you if they see you, almost like a little trap in that you know the moment you see them you need to strike fast or risk them launching themselves at you. Often coming in groups means you have to be quick to respond to, but the Cacodemon takes a different approach where the big floating cycloptic balls have strong attacks but drift along slowly. Using vertical space to get away from such foes becomes an option as their attacks will hit barriers more than yours will, but they’re still relying on visible attacks that don’t hit you instantly so even these foes with far more mobility can be weaved around if you have developed the ability to keep up with these fast and dangerous firefights.

The bosses mostly continue this idea of tough opposition that you are equipped to handle but need the dodging skill and good weapon management to overcome. The Barons of Hell are your first encounter with foes who really can take a beating and they even appear in a pair despite their increase in durability and damage output from typical fare, but you likely haven’t reached them through blind luck so the fight is fair despite the difficulty increase. They don’t hold much of a candle to the Cyberdemon though with his rocket launcher arm that can kill you in one shot, but utilizing the boss arena, watching how the foe fires, and managing your output means he’s still a foe that can provide an exciting and balanced battle. The game’s final boss perhaps doesn’t hit those marks as solidly since he uses bullets that hit the instant they’re fired and the arena isn’t as conducive to strategic dodging, less exciting interplay and tactics likely to win you the fight. The third episode can otherwise feel like it has some of the most creative and interestingly complex moments with strong level concepts and the willingness to really test you against the game’s strongest mixes of foes, but the final boss does seem to request exploitative tactics rather than the fast-paced weaving through danger as you dish out hefty damage with smart gun use.

If you do go to play the original Doom today though, you’ll likely be picking up either 1995’s The Ultimate Doom or the touched up Bethesda rerelease of that game, and thankfully it is mostly just an objectively superior release. The Ultimate Doom added in a fourth episode that does feel like it’s more for players who played the game obsessively in the time between the original release and the update, fan designers coming in to help make levels that represent a sharp increase in difficulty and even require use of special techniques like running to cross tight gaps when the main game kept that for optional content. The fourth episode isn’t bad and certainly continues to show a degree of creativity in how levels are laid out and must be tackled, and the Bethesda rerelease even allows you to pick if you want to play the original version of The Ultimate Doom, one with more convenient controls, or a touched up version so there’s little reason to play the first release when the later update is that and more. Importantly though it didn’t need such expansion or adjustment to be an excellent shooter, the heart of the experience still holding up even if you don’t play the lightly smoothed out version.

THE VERDICT: Doom gives the player a good amount of satisfying power with its weapons and is able to put up a strong and engaging fight because it knows you can handle it. That reliable shotgun still needs to be aimed right to make quick work of a demon, but they come in dangerous groupings or are spread out so that you need to keep stock of your ammo and thus your other powerful tools can come into play and make your participation more layered than a simple shooting spree. Many enemies have visible attacks that you are able to react to and weaving around a battlefield makes for some wonderfully dynamic play, and the level design provides a surprisingly varied mix of ways to experience these battles and explore even if it does lead to moments of being lost. Finding secrets and shoring up your battle options means the extra level space is worth those moments of confusion though, and throw in the multiplayer that lets you turn those weapons against other players and you have a remarkable adrenaline-filled heart-pounding experience that embraces carnage and movement skill for some truly superb play.

And so, I give Doom for PC…

A FANTASTIC rating. As odd as it may seem, the first time I played Doom was for this review, and even experiencing the first-person shooters it has inspired since by kicking off a true embrace of the genre has not dulled the strength of this almost 30 year old game. Good design doesn’t decay, and when you’re weaving through a series of levels that continues to innovate in how you can navigate this faux 3D space to blow apart enemies who are perfect fits for your fighting options, this action thrill ride still packs a punch. Were it all mindless bloody mayhem it would definitely grow stale over time, but the level navigation required by the keys and plentiful goodies to collect along the way leads you into new spaces for fresh battles and new useful items. That shotgun really shines in being such a powerful option that you don’t dawdle with simple foes but the game still manages to create plenty of tense battle moments where you are squeaking out a victory from a difficult situation by swapping weapons on the fly and strafing around like a professional. The final boss may not be the best and sometimes the maps are a touch too labyrinthine, but the incredibly active combat where strategy and power meld together so well makes for a thrilling experience that drives you forward. New demons enter the mix and interact with stage design so well that Doom never loses its energy as you fight your way through Hell, and fun little touches like the mood set by aural and visual elements and the face of Doom Guy there to delight and suffer in the same way you do in your wins and failures makes Doom a spectacularly rounded experience despite its light story.

I would still recommend The Ultimate Doom over the original release and having played both I find the upgraded version just sprinkles on more excellent options and content even if the quality of episode four is more variable than the constant successes and more reasonable difficulty balance of the original release. However, this game not only gets to claim plenty of important roles in the history of the video game medium but is the first game in this 50 year retrospective to earn my top rating, and deservedly so. Rather than simply being one of the pioneers of a genre it feels like it was constructed with the knowledge of what works well within that space, so perhaps unfettered by genre expectations the developer Id Software was greater able to follow their own ideas than try and repeat what’s been seen before. It wasn’t their first FPS though so perhaps they learned from making Wolfenstein 3D enough to make this stellar experience, but however it came together, the demons of Hell are a joy to blast through not because this is some straightforward power fantasy. Doom is a game that challenges that power with trials fit for it, the foes fearsome but the player tough enough to make it so long as they can figure out how to make their strong options work and use them properly. With multiplayer deathmatches as just another lovely feature on top that utilizes all those same elements for gunfights deeper than who shoots first the game can find even greater purchase beyond its consistently strong campaign content, but it was also built for modding and speedrunning and it defined those scenes for some time. Doom is a game worthy of such lavish praise, and all of it was said without an ounce of nostalgia or some preconceived need to fit in amongst the popular opinion. I’m not a man to cut a game slack because it’s important or the standards at the time of release were different, and so long as you don’t pick up one of its many weak home console ports, Doom’s appeal is still easy to find even for a first-timer.