Doom

Genre: 1st Person Shooter
Platform: PC/SNES/GBA/3DO/Amiga/Jaguar/Mac/PSX/Saturn/Sega 32X
Allegiance: ID Software
Vintage: 1993
Rating: T
Intelligence Agency Report by: The Macaque
An alien race has invaded the Phobos moon colony, and you are one of the marines who are sent in to get rid of them. However, something goes terribly wrong at the arrival, and you find yourself stranded all alone in the moon base, with some very nasty looking creatures around you. On top of that, the aliens have also managed to open up a gateway to hell, and since more and more hideous fiends keep passing through the gate, there’s no rest for you until all hell is wiped clean from these horrendous creatures. Are you ‘Doom’ enough to survive?

Weapons Expert Report by: The Macaque
Story/Premise
GamePlay
Impact
Visual
Audio
7.00
10.00
9.00
9.00
9.00
Overall 9.00
(not an average)
Version Reviewed: Windows 95, ver. 1.2So here it is. The mother of all hellish shoot ’em ups. This ultraviolent package was a trend setting game, that revolutionized the whole gaming industry. Not only because it was seen as overly violent, but Doom is also the game that truly started the whole shareware demo culture that we know of today. Sure there were games that were being released in the same way before Doom, but none could come even close when compared to the short time it took for Doom to spread all over the world via the Internet. 

As mentioned, Doom is still seen as the Pandora’s Box which started a whole new wave of violence amongst action games. It is by many valued as the most dark and angst filled game of all time, even compared to more modern games, like Quake or Silent Hill. Which is also why it was, and still is being criticized for triggering violent behavior amongst teenagers. Only a few other games have been symbolized in this same way. 

While it is still fun to play Doom alone in a dark room at night, the true fun only begins when you hook up with a friend for a game of death match or co-op, two new conceptions popularized by Doom. Multi player games were few and rarely anything fun before Doom came along and changed it all. Sawing your friend into pieces with a chainsaw was something that you just had to experience at least once. 

Doom was something that the gaming community needed at that time: a fun shooter with great graphics, intense atmosphere and brilliant game play. As it was relatively easy to create custom maps and graphics for the game, Doom soon had an enormous amount of mods and levels being made for it. Once again something that has remained as one of the key elements in games today. 

There’s just too much worth mentioning about Doom. Everything about this game brings back nostalgic feelings, and memories from a time when Doom was the king amongst PC games. The later platform conversions had little impact on the overall popularity of Doom, as they didn’t do so well. But the PC version set standards which are still valid today. I guess in the end it all comes down to two simple sentences: “Which one do you prefer, the shotgun or the minigun?” and “I’ll get those Imps, you take on the Cacodeamon.”