Video Game Review: Doom

Twenty years ago, I remember seeing Doom for the first time, as being demonstrated by another gamer.  In 1993, it was an incredible technological achievement to behold, for the first time, actual 3-dimensional rooms, and to be able to control the character in his point-of-view, even going so far as showing the gun in his hands.  Granted that a few games used the same technology beforehand (such as Wolfenstein 3D), but Doom was the first one to really push the technology ahead and introduce the style of first-person shooters into the mainstream (with highly controversial results that resonate to this day, thanks to its level of violence).

All that being said, I never had a chance to play Doom firsthand until recently; in 1993, I was still too young to play it, and the brief clips I saw scared me silly.  That's because Doom, like many other FPS games, is purposefully designed to be unsettling.  You can't really go far in the game without having to confront a whole room full of bad guys, or to have bad guys popping out from hidden walls or from behind crates, or to have them appear behind you or at your flank.  More than that though, the game is probably one of the first to draw upon the occult, pitting the player against entire hoards of literal demons from Hell, and then actually putting the player into Hell.  Hell and its monsters would be pretty common cannon fodder for future FPS games (such as id's own Quake series), or else would be imitated using aliens or other funky creatures (future Wolfenstein games, Half-Life, Resistance:  The Fall of Man, Dead Space, Singularity, and countless more).  Games like this usually freak me out, but become easier to handle as they go on, and my experience playing Doom is no different:  there's nothing more heart-pumping than to tread across the portals of Hell, always wondering where those demons are, always fearing that you may not make it to the next level.  However, with a huge arsenal of powerful weapons and oodles of secrets to find, Doom does give the player plenty of firepower to blast through the levels and make it to the final boss, and that makes it a pretty smooth and empowering experience.  Thus, for years, playing Doom has been the mark of being a totally badass gamer; no matter what the skill level or experience, players of all generations can feel satisfied as they pump bullets and rockets into vast hoards of possessed soldiers, ugly demons, and wicked flesh-and-machine hybrids.

All that being said, the game's story is not the main draw.  There is a narrative at work:  you basically play a nameless soldier who has to rush through an overrun Martian base.  The game has some neat ideas, with the use of teleportation technology causing one of Mars' moons to disappear and open a gateway to Hell; there is definitely potential in such a concept (and I think Doom 3 did its best to maximize that potential).  Beyond that, however, you basically just run from one level to the next, shooting everything that moves, and then hitting the button at the end.  The game is almost arcade-like, because it's not about telling a story necessarily; the story just provides the basic layout of the levels, and dictates what they'll look like.  What matters the most is trying to up your kill-count, find all the secrets, find all the items, and achieve the fastest time.  On the level of an arcade-style game, it works sublimely, but the game never strives for anything beyond that.

In its time, Doom was one of the best-looking games on the market.  After twenty years, obviously, graphics and sound has improved insanely; comparing Doom with Doom 3 will reveal just how far games have come in terms of textures, resolution, lighting, rendering, animation, design, physics, and controls.  Naturally, the first Doom game suffers from appearing heavily pixilated and low-tech, filled with limited and stilted 2D sprites, and using a very limited range of sounds.  The actual gameplay has its limitations too; you can't jump, duck, aim down the sights, look up or down, or really do anything beyond moving horizontally and shooting.  However, the simplicity of the game is what makes it timeless; the game runs smoothly and fast, and remains glitch-free, allowing you to run through the levels and blast away enemies in a more careless and worry-free manner.

Even after all this time, Doom remains a perfectly playable classic.  It has paved the way for an entire genre and style of gameplay that has now touched upon all corners of the industry.  It even went so far as touching modern society in a particularly sensitive spot, for it has been one of the leading examples of extreme video game violence, leading many to believe that it is responsible for draining the morality and empathy out of the players.  Whether you believe that or not, it has undoubtedly left its mark in gaming history; for all mature and responsible gamers, it is a must-play.

4/5 (Experience:  Very Good | Content:  Pretty Good | Game:  Very Good)

I played this game on the PS3 as part of the Doom 3 BFG Edition package.  However, I believe there are free, open-source versions of this game available on the Internet (I don't recall where), along with countless possible mods and upscaled presentations.