Writing a whole article on Doom wouldn't be complete without a throwback to the orignal FPS that was actually any good: Castle Wolfenstien. Ah, the fun of ripping Nazis apart. Some years ago, I came upon a complete version of the game, and took a few days out of my life to complete the entire series, and I can see why people loved this game. The level designs and the challenges were great. Sure, I could have played Half-Life 2 or something, but that game doesn't really have Nazis. Just mutant overlords, which are totally different. I mean, look at those masks. That says "I'm sensitive to particulate germs" and not "SEIG HIEL," or whatever Nazis yell to get free candy.
Doom was the next FPS from Id, and it took the entire universe by storm. Alpha Centauri was all up in that shit. The reason we don't get any signals from aliens is they are all busy trying to run our games on their 18-core computers. You need emulators for that shit.
Demons. You need demons in every game. I don't care if it's another train simulator, you need demons. Just put an engineer hat on them, and you're good to go.
The demons in Doom were also pretty creepy looking at the horrible resolution. Is that a hand, or a claw made of PENISES?! ONLY HELL KNOWS. A rocket launcher? NO. DILDO. Flying skull? NO. Err, yeah, actually that is a flying skull.
What else worked was the levels. Some were pretty wide open, and others had you jumping around pillars barely a foot square above a huge vat of lava, with a ton of red flying demons throwing balls of lightning at you, and you had to use your rocket launcher to blow up their face. What isn't better than that?!
The music made you want to shit yourself every new level. None of that out-of-place happy music, no. This music made you want to cut up demons with a chainsaw. Then, you'd eat their face. Twice.
GUNS. The weapons were pretty straightforward at first. Then, they got a little weird.
- Pistol. Of course.
- Shotgun. Roger that, shotguns rock.
- Chaingun. Uhh... Ok...
- Rocket Launcher? What is this doing in hell?
- Plasma rifle? Okay, seriously, whaaaa?
- BFG9000? The crap? Demons can use fire and lightning and green slime, and there's only one of these in Hell? Christ!
I mean, I know the game is supposed to be fake and all that, but they could at least explain where this shit comes from. Instead, the guns are usually laying around somewhere, like someone just dropped them there. I imagine a cyberdemon running around because he spotted you and he's all "Oh shit, I better get ready!" and his arms are full with guns to give to the grunts, but of course, he's got that stupid rocket launcher, and he can't hold on to crap with that thing, so he's dropping them everywhere.
The game's levels were just as fucked as you'd expect hell to be. Tons of moving platforms everywhere, elevators that moved at various times for no reason, and huge pits with ooze at the bottom. But hell was also nice enough to leave health packs and ammo and anti-radiation suits around, just in case. Just to tease the shit out of you. Because, that's how hell is like. Like that video store on the corner, where the clerk tells you he has Super Slut Mushroom Whores 8, but someone rented it. And it won't be back until "later." Fucking whore. Anyway.
To wrap this up, the sequel, Doom II (because roman numerals sre so fucking EVIL) plays much like the first, only it's longer, funner, and has a few more demons that you didn't see in the first. And for good reason, because they'd overload your brain with scary shit and make you crap your pants while your brain tried to figure out if you were in hell or just playing on your computer with soiled pants.
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