Revisiting DOOM – Knee Deep in the Past

The release of DOOM 2016 has rekindled the imagination and memories of many, many people. It’s hailed as contemporary yet a return to form. DOOM reached a lot of people’s computers, and it’s clear that it stuck. At present I don’t have a platform for the game, so I decided to reach out to the installment I had never played in any capacity – DOOM 3. And to frag three pinkies with one shell, I looked to the BFG Edition which also collected DOOM 1 and 2 on PS3. Not the ideal experience, but it worked and so I played these games for the first time in over 15 years.

I felt that I should cover my history with DOOM and clones before talking about DOOM 3, we’ll have it established and I’ll have refreshed context. Honestly, a lot of people were surprised that I started through these games – FPS are not really my jam, I guess. But DOOM played like a dream and had amazing flavour and was so ubiquitous how could it be ignored?

To be fair, I played a lot more Wolfenstein 3D than I did DOOM. Wolf was discussed amongst friends – talking about secrets and codes. I played a lot of the Blake Stone shareware as well. Most of my time with DOOM was spent at friends’ houses. I didn’t have it myself – not because of permissions, but because I usually played long RPGs at home. So I played a lot of DOOM, some of DOOM 2, and rented Final Doom and DOOM 64 plenty of times apiece. I wasn’t a super fan, but I enjoyed it. Not to be a heretic (tee hee) but we played a lot more Hexen together, and on the N64 co-op with its muddy haze that prevented you from seeing _anything_. So I played Hexen most of all, probably enjoyed it more because I liked the artifacts more than guns.

As anyone can tell you there were many clones of DOOM and many subpar FPS in general. I did enjoy that game that can’t be mentioned without three people in the room telling you it hasn’t held up and was never good – Goldeneye 007 – and its cousin Perfect Dark. There were good FPS, but more that were just… there. So the reason I haven’t played the DOOM games in so many years is because of this fatigue and disinterest in the genre as a whole. But that’s not really fair, and I’ve been denying myself.

I’m going to talk about DOOM 1 and 2 in terms of gameplay, and the surprises that entailed coming back to it after so much time had passed.

-First, I am reminded about how solid the gameplay of Classic DOOM is. Your shots are accurate and feel weighted. It’s fast, responsive, and it just works. It’s the foundation for a lot of games afterward, and that foundation is strong.

-Difficulty is mostly fair. I played on Ultra-Violence, the hard mode, and usually felt like I was performing well enough. I’m no aficionado of the series, certainly no adept. I don’t know where all the secrets are and can’t route a par time. I’m not that familiar with it. I chose U-V because people told me it’s the best experience for the games. I’d tend to agree, it’s mostly fair though that depends entirely on the layout.

-Monsters are so well designed, and the variety prompted me to constantly cycle my weapons. No weapon aside from the starting pistol felt truly obsolete, because depending on the demon, their number, and the kind of room you were in you think on the fly and adjust to the present scenario. DOOM II introduces some very high threat monsters with wild new attacks – the ability to resurrect slain demons, curving missiles, unmitigated volleys of fireballs and plasma. Lots of possibilities. Sometimes brilliant, sometimes not so much…

-Which brings us to level design. Some levels are absolutely brilliant, others are very tired. One of the main criticisms of DOOM’s gameplay was that so many levels amounted to finding the key to the door and rinse + repeat. Sometimes this is true, but sometimes there are interesting level elements that really break things up. I felt DOOM II should have introduced more unique environmental elements – it’d have helped as much as new demons honestly. DOOM II in particular began to rely too heavily on dropping walls to reveal hordes of monsters.

MAP21 of DOOM II, Nirvana, does this the worst. It’s just a dull assortment of walls dropping to reveal enemy ambushes. If you don’t know you’re going to be surrounded, you’ll probably die. If you do know, you’ll break out your BFG and vapourise them where they stand. That’s it, it’s just bad, bland design.

Other levels love these ambushes as well, but usually not so blatant. And on Ultra-Violence you have the prospect of whether you want max percents on the stage end stats screen, or if you can just leave that box of bullets where it is because it will not nearly make up for the ammo spent getting it.

But environmental fatigue or frustration aside, every level can be won just starting with your pistol and 50 bullets. There were [lots of] times I got caught by one of the many gotcha traps of the series. And while I may have cried horseshit when it happened, you reassess the situation and adjust your path or strategy next time. I think the gotcha moments are overused, but there are lots of clues as to their whereabouts (usually) and there are ways to mitigate or bypass them.

-Let’s talk atmosphere. One of the things that gives away ambushes in DOOM are the sounds of enemies. The guttural snarls and alien noises give away enemy make and proximity. You’re walking down a corridor and then suddenly you keep checking behind you.

Honestly, as a born again DOOMer I found playing through these games more unnerving than many contemporary attempts at horror. Especially on higher difficulties because you know things can go south in an instant. All of a sudden a Pinky is biting you and it wasn’t there before. I was legit startled by some of this stuff, ha ha. It came from one of the aforementioned infamous “monster closets” and when you don’t know they’re coming and not well versed enough to recognize them they can getcha.

Level environments are pretty good too. Hell levels with psychadelic textures and edgy skull stuff everywhere comes across as pretty cheesy, but I kind of like that ha ha. But at least each Episode or segment has their own flavour.

Music can be anywhere from creepy atmosphereic but especially blood pumping high energy. It matches the action incredibly well and I found myself humming some of the tunes later.

-DOOM was and is a controversial game. I’m not going to get into that here because it’s been covered everywhere by people more intimately familiar with the issues than I ever was. I like DOOM’s theme of an individual with the conviction to take on the grim prospect of an unending horde. DOOM’s demon and horror themes are no different than Castlevania, or Contra, or Alien to be completely frank. One thing is for certain is how polished the gameplay is, and how it holds up regardless of thematic elements.

At any rate, I was glad to finally get back to these games and roll them. I don’t need to tell folks to go play it, you’ve probably been there and done that. But I had to collect my thoughts before tackling DOOM 3, which as of publishing this article I’ve completed. Time to step into the darkness, and I’m all out of flashlight batteries.