I don't know what it is about the original DOOM games, but I just haven't felt the same joy playing any more modern shooters. Maybe it's the experience created by Doomguy's ridiculous running speed, or the sheer number of stupid monsters, or just nostalgia.
It is not (only) nostalgia. I replayed Doom 1 & 2 a few years ago. To my big surprise, it is still a masterpiece. It did not age much, similarly to Terminator 2, The Matrix, or The Lord of the Rings.
No talk, all action. Weapon and monster balance; each time you get plasma, you are happy; you muster all of your attention each time you encounter an archvile. Level design, mixing unsettling sceneries with mazes and puzzles. And you feel the frenzy of hell, with armies fighting with you and infighting each other.
For years the only remotely close thing to that was The Painkiller series. Recently we got Doom 2016 (which is beautiful, pace-wise, and atmosphere-wise) and Doom Eternal (mechanically faster, cartoony, and somewhat cheap story).
I feel the balance in Duke Nukem is quite a bit different and less enjoyable from a pure game rhythm aspect - it feels more clunky and more about technical prowess then the game design excellence that Doom brings.
For me, the weapon damage to enemy damage in Doom (and its comparison in Duke Nukem) is part of it - in Doom, the common level enemies take a single shotgun shot, or possibly two. It enables you to get in to kind of flow state and with good reflexes etc, avoid damage.
In Duke Nukem, they introduce the pigs from pretty much the end of level 1, and there isn't a common weapon that can kill them before they can get at least a shot off. It's the same with most of the enemies they introduce after the pigs, as well.
The fact that in Doom the common grunts and shotgunners are hitscanners but have a bit of delay to firing and the imps fire physical projectiles leads to more tactical choice and literal maneuvering during a firefight.
I am sure there are arguments to be made about the increased complexity and breadth of Duke Nukems weapons, but both the damage they deal and the common enemies don't allow for the same flow.
I felt the same way about Doom and Duke Nukem on Nintendo Switch (of all things.) They really were a labor of love and it shows in a way that you do not really see anymore with these vast teams of people working for a decade on one game.
I got myself a PC with a high-end graphics card for the first time ever recently, and went through a phase of trying various games that would stretch its graphical capabilities.
I was super excited to try Doom Eternal because I was one of the original Doom and Quake generation.
Sadly, I was really disappointed – it felt really linear, a series of set pieces delivered on a conveyor belt, like an old-fashioned arcade game. I installed the raytraced version of Doom 2 and enjoyed replaying it far more – even though Quake 2 wasn’t the best of ID’s titles.
I can't get into doom eternal either, but for the opposite reason. For me it is too arcadey - the way enemies flash when a glory kill is possible, the subsequent button combo and fixed animations, the oversaturated colour of items as they spew out of the killed enemy.
it is just constantly shouting "this is a game!" in a way that for me personally, prevents any immersion in the world they have created
Yeah, Eternal is very "ADHD kill spree" mode. Still good fun once you get over the UX though as the level progression is very well done. It gets pretty intense later on.
Try Doom 2016 if you haven't already. You can turn off some of the arcardy elements in the "advanced" video settings.
Turning off that, crosshairs, certain HUD elements, adding film grain etc. makes it more cinematic...
It’s good to see someone else is commenting on this. I bought Doom Eternal on launch, but refunded it because of the mandatory Bethesda account and obnoxiously colorful, oversaturated UI. I’ve never seen anyone mentioning it before, just the general praise for the game.
Thanks for the link, when I played Eternal I could feel something is wrong here, it does not feel like 2016 game which I loved, I just could not describe what was wrong, that article was perfect.
Interestingly enough, the feelings you had towards Doom Eternal I felt towards the 2016 game.
I think there are two main groups of DOOM gamers. One group, who considered the original games to be more of a survivor horror experience - you are stuck in the middle of nowhere, with only a shotgun and hordes of monsters blocking your path. Try to survive with the limited amount of supplies you have. The second group is people who consider DOOM to be more of an arcade experience - you are not stuck with the demons, they are stuck with you.
The first group might not like Doom 2016 too much, but the second group would love it (and love mods such as Brutal Doom).
I always treated Doom as a horror, but not survival horror.
Its fast-paced dynamics are built-in. You don't hide, you charge, you shoot while running. You bring hell to knees at their own game with sheer firepower and brutality.
In that line, I retrospectively see Doom 2016 as an interaction between two villains. Samuel Hayden, a well-mannered mastermind. And you no-talk all-action, resolving all with force, and ripping demons with your bare hands.
You and several comments below point out how you like the old doom games and not anything new. I would agree that the old games (including Quake) were masterpieces, but I still like Doom 2016, Eternal, Ancient Gods Part 1, and Ancient Gods Part 2. It isn't supposed to be serious and the gameplay took me awhile to master. I enjoy having to think about which weapon and which of the 2 upgrades I need for each scenario and how I need to constantly use the flamethrower, gory kills, and chainsaw kills as much as possible to keep armor, health, and ammo high enough. I haven't even scratched the surface to be honest as good players will even use a trick of rapidly switching weapons to deal out maximum damage while not having to wait so long to reload. I'm almost forgot that double jump, double dashing, and the double barreled shotgun's meathook all give you crazy movement abilities. Then there is trying to remember the weakness of every monster. So the setting isn't as good (and the story is whacky), but the mechanics switch it from an FPS to some kind of art form. The only thing missing IMO is Mass Effect style character specializations. I'm not as big of a fan of the platforming, but it's an interesting challenge.
I wrote an essay about why I think Doom Eternal isn't as fun as it could be... the linear nature of the levels doesn't help, but I think there are much deeper gameplay issues.
Doom 1/2 monsters dont't crawl to you and then patiently wait for you to hit whatever gamepad button to play a funny animation[1]. They were dumb, sure, but look at the basic zombies in Eternal: they almost don't move. They exist only for the glory kills bonanza for E3 presentations, they aren't even dangerous. Look at the analysis[2]:
> They should be chiefly considered as targets for glory kills, the flame belch or the chainsaw, depending on the player's current need for health, armor, and ammo respectively.
Literal fodder. Yet they have 13 funny animations.
Compare it to a Zombieman [0]: it's puny and doesn't pose a risk... until you get them in numbers and/or you are at the low health. And they are actively trying (as all other monsters) to get closer to you!
And if we talk about a map design here then even D1 maps are not linear (eg [3] or [4]) and were more restricted by the technology (2.5 engine) and performance (386DX as a minimal CPU in SysReq always been a butt of the joke) than actual design. There is a lot of linear levels too, but you still progress them on your own pace and usually you can retract your steps all the way to the start.
Overall both D2016 and Eternal (especially Eternal) is just Quake 3 in Doom setting, especially with all that platformer bullshit and fight arenas.
If you're looking for something actually quite similar to those old games, try Prodeus. It's on PC Game Pass. And it's a blast.
The new Doom games are their own thing. And if I was going to recommend either Doom (2016) or Doom Eternal, it'd be the former. Doom Eternal's game design is a bit bloated.
The game design might be a bit bloated, but dashing and reverse "get over here" is what I always wanted on these sort of games.
It's a damn shame how modern shooters just don't go hard on mobility/melee satisfaction. Being able to dodge opens up a whole new word of combat interactivity.
There's a whole new wave of retro FPS shooters that you might enjoy. Heck, we might even be on the third wave or so of them now (they started to come back ~2010). 'Boomer shooter' is the term to search for: https://www.inverse.com/gaming/boomer-shooter-definition-ori...
Also check out advanced gzdoom mods. The gzdoom engine never stopped innovating and now supports near full 3D environments with slopes, room over room, dynamic lighting, etc. but still has the same core frenetic and fast gameplay of the core engine. Here's a good taste of what's out there: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2Db5O5-xk0
I think it’s nostalgia but that’s not necessarily bad. Yeah, it’s true that magically music stops being good the minute you get your emotions under control as a young adult but again I think that time is to be cherished.
Just be wary of letting people manipulate your nostalgia.
No it’s actually anhedonia caused by cumulative damage to the brain through having orgasms and this can be reversed and your emotions and sense of love regained
To me it's the responsiveness of older shooters. No slow self indulgent reload animations. No break in control as an animation plays out as you climb a ladder. No or not many cut scenes. No scripted events (never understood modern warfare, it was basically an on rails shooter).
Ubisoft is nightmarish on these stupid animations.
Come on! These game push that your character is some special forces, super fit, well coordinated, carrying 5 different weapons - including a bazooka - plus all the other gadgets like night vision goggles, radio, drone etc etc.
But if you are under enemy fire and sprint up to a below waist high fence or 3 foot ladder it is a 10 second obstacle rather than a 1 or 2s diveroll.
I agree. The newer doom impressed me with the way they set the scary mood with the ambush.. but pretty soon just got boring. The fast pace of action in the originals is just much more enjoyable gameplay.
It's not just nostalgic reminiscence; it's people both younger and older than the game itself actually playing it and liking the experience for what it is, not a deteriorating memory of it.
I am sure that players will fondly remember Fortnite 30 years from now, but I doubt there will be as much of an active community around actually playing or modding it as there is now for Doom. If nothing else, because games like it (with centralized multiplayer only and with much of their appeal coming from active support by the developers) live and die with their commercial success.
I was soooo impressed with the "Bundle For Racial Justice and Equality," and I've been curious to see if something like that would happen again for Ukraine.
There are a couple of Bundles on Itch.io's bundle page, but there is a larger one in the works https://www.pcgamesn.com/itch-io-bundle-for-ukraine -- According to this article the creators are hoping to push it out for availability on the 7th.
Hopefully someone will create a "Bundle to Reimburse Small Businesses, Property Owners, Ordinary People, Firefighters, and Law Enforcement Harmed by All the Riots". An estimated $2B in property damages alone, not to mention all of the injuries to both regular citizens and law enforcement [0]. All for a guy who just wanted to drive on public roads high on meth and fenty. :/
Of course, I agree. But the lives of drivers on public roads also have value, do they not? Furthermore, let's remember that the felon in question died because he was an uncooperative, aggressive criminal under the influence of drugs - not, truly, for any of the reasons the rioters purported to be rioting against.
Perhaps if fewer people of all races (given that more than double the number of whites are unarmed when killed by police than blacks - about 19 vs 9) were belligerent towards police when apprehended during the commission or suspected commission of a crime, the thin blue line that separates the violent criminals of this world and law abiding citizens like you and I wouldn't be forced into such situations where one misjudgement or slight overreaction here or there could end up in a life or death situation.
Fight against brutality of all sorts, sure, but the forced "equality" angle is cringe - and incredibly transparent - and most of the country knows it.
> Furthermore, let's remember that the felon in question died because he was an uncooperative, aggressive criminal under the influence of drugs - not, truly, for any of the reasons the rioters purported to be rioting against.
George Floyd died because he was murdered by police officer Derek Chauvin, who was convicted on two counts of murder and one count of manslaughter. The Police Chief testified that Chauvin's actions violated the police department's polices on de-escalation and reasonable use of force. "There is an initial reasonableness in trying to get him under control in the first few seconds, but once there was no longer any resistance, and clearly when Mr. Floyd was no longer responsive and even motionless, to continue to apply that level of force to a person proned out, handcuffed behind their back – that in no way, shape or form is anything that is by policy, is not part of our training and is certainly not part of our ethics or our values."
That's why the person in question died.
Worse, from the perspective of many, the other officers on the scene did not stop officer Chauvin.
Those are, in my opinion, pretty good reasons to protest.
Just out of curiosity, do you get that police confrontations in other Western countries are not as violent, not as deadly?
Are you aware that police are required to receive far more training in many other Western countries?
Is it possible, in your mind, that those two things are related?
And while we're talking about how the police are being violent, maybe we should look to see if they are violent as home? [1]
> law abiding citizens like you and I
I think if we're honest, you would admit that you do not always follow the law. And if you care to admit some of your crimes, we can look up the statistics to see if people of color are more likely to be harassed by the police, arrested, and convicted of those crimes, even if they commit them at the same rate, or lower rate.
> Fight against brutality of all sorts, sure,
In which ways have you fought against brutality?
> the forced "equality" angle is cringe - and incredibly transparent - and most of the country knows it.
You would need to be far more exact in your terminology and claims to have this be a topic worthy of anything but my utter scorn. The law should offer equal protection to people. If you want to try to explain yourself more, with some nuance, I'm here.
That would seem excessively distasteful. Real human beings are dying right now on both sides and even if Russia is the obvious aggressor here, it's a tragedy that so many young men have to die for that country's leader's whims.
I mean, you're right.. But I can literally shoot civilians in the face in most of the games I have access to right now (Farcry, Cyberpunk).. And lets not forget ID's history (Wolfenstein 3D)... It's maybe distasteful, but it's not really MUCH more distasteful than shooting sprites of pretty much anything else.
I mean.. In a lot of these games, those monsters are at home and we're the ones fucking their shit up? ;)
Eh, leave it to the modders. There was no shortage of fan-made levels that featured some public figure widely regarded as an asshole as a killable enemy, back in the day.
Oh absolutely. There were plenty of Jack Thompson murder simulators on Newgrounds back in the day plus of course various "bomb the Taliban" games around the Afghanistan war. But that's not the kind of output you expect from a seasoned professional under their real name.
I mean, there's the WW2 era Disney and Looney Tunes shorts, but those were propaganda productions that were part of a war effort from a nation directly involved in open conflict and most people today look back at them slightly incredulously if not with disdain.
Romero released "Sigil" in 2019, which is an unofficial new act for DOOM, and I believe last year he announced he was working on a sequel using the same concept for DOOM 2, so I have very little doubt that this was created in that project and ultimately rejected for inclusion and this is his way of getting some good out of it, which is pretty awesome.
judging by other replies as well as downvotes for my previous one, there is demand right now for a specific sort of indie game, and if your ideology aligns with it, it could be quite profitable for anyone who wishes to throw something together.
Not to "start a whole thing" (too late) but can you elaborate on why you prefer Red Cross to military aid? I've not read many opinions on choosing one over the other.
Well, one just helps the civilians, the other helps with military superiority. Now the big question is, is using of weapons on aggressor something you are OK with or not? Many people are not, so its perfectly fine to help like that. It might not be directly used for killing, many barely 18 years old drafted Russian soldiers are vastly demoralized and surrendering. Having superiority helps to achieve that.
That being said, I come from eastern Europe and whats happening is seen in eastern Europe as existential fight also for us down the line. Could be compared to how ie US felt during WWII with Hitler and axis. Hundreds/thousands of men are volunteering in each state to go fight in this war. These are not Ukrainians in any way, more like patriots for lack of better term.
Personally, I've donated to the org directly in Kyiv which might use it for aid or for weapons, both are good with me. I would say I hope for peace, but Putin doesn't want it at all regardless of bloodshed, so let's not be naive and kick his ass instead.
There are dozens of Doom engine ports going back to the late 90s when the code was open sourced. Most of them support modern high resolutions graphics.
WAD files like this don't contain any original doom assets and are free to distribute. The files are created by completely independent tools (typically Doom Builder) and only contain binary and text lumps created in whole by the editor. There's no executable code in WAD files that's linked in or becomes a part of the game engine either. You have to have a commercial version of doom 2 to use this level in particular (it cannot run on its own or without the original doom 2 assets). Think of this like a .doc file you're loading in MS Word, but it's new levels for the game.
Some total conversions and such could be in a legal grey area or bad place if they take the original assets of the game (sprites, sounds, music, etc) and include them in their WAD files to distribute. There are some projects like Freedoom that recreated the entire asset pack of the original doom games so that someone could use it freely if there are legal concerns.
You're right that Doom was originally released under the Doom Source License, which had a non-commercial-use clause, but it's since been re-released under the GPLv2.
But even so, it's irrelevant because all Romero is distributing here is a WAD file, not a modification of Doom itself.
Memory might be getting rusty, but I seem to recall going to Computer Shows back in the mid 90's and buying full DOOM mods/conversions on floppies, like The Simpsons mod or Batman.
I'm the co-author (Walter) of the Ultimate Simpsons Doom mod. We were never sued by Fox (now it would be Disney). Hopefully there is some sort of statute of limitations. Although these days Disney seems to be pretty cool about fan-art.
Myk Friedman did pretty much everything for the mod.
My contribution was the technical work required to remove id Software assets (graphics & sounds) from the WAD so that it could be published on the popular WAD FTP site of the day. You can read more about it in the "WALTER SAYS" section of the readme at https://www.gamers.org/pub/idgames/themes/simpsons/ulsimpdm....
Sadly, Myk passed away a few years back. I never actually spoke with him, it was all over email and USPS, and some facebook when that came around.
John Romero appeared on a Doom themed episode of the Netflix show "High Score". In the episode, there was a quick montage of a bunch of Doom mods. The was a split-second of a Simpsons Doom mod that appeared on screen. After careful study, I determined it was the original Simpsons Doom by Steve Blauwkamp & Chuck Fuoco. I was this close to being able to say my work was featured on Netflix. Ah well.
my dad's old "Unofficial DOOM Strategy Guide" is on my bookshelf complete with a mail order for a CD-ROM with "666 new levels". like you said I think as long as you're just distributing WADs, they never really cared.
IANAL and this is not legal advice, but it is a tactic I've seen used to distribute cannabis in places where possession has been legalized but it is still against the law to sell [0]. I'm not sure if it is still being used anywhere.
In this case, it would be more of a polite fiction, as I don't think anyone is seriously going to take action against a charity effort.
Edit: also that was a much different issue around intellectual property ownership, I don't think even Microsoft / Bethesda will sue over soliciting donations
Chocolate Doom is basically the state of the art for playing Doom exactly vanilla-style, with the low 320×200 resolution and all.
GZDoom should be more preferable for "normal" people that care less about every bit of game mechanic minutiae and just want a high-resolution game. (Only caveat is that it defaults to a blurred display... need to find and change that to nearest filtering)
The original Doom had "auto aim" - all you had to do was match an enemy's column and the hit would connect - because you were not able to look up and down in the original game.
In GZDoom, you can enable freelook+mouselook, enabling 360 degrees of looking, and gameplay is balanced IMHO by disabling auto aim, requiring you to aim accurately. For extra challenge I like to disable the crosshairs. To me, most of the original levels are really not easier with this configuration so I don't feel like I'm losing the essence of the original Doom with this too much.
You can also use the awesome Brutal Doom mod to enhance the gameplay - it does add lots of gory effects but gameplaywise it also gives the enemies additional attacks and makes flammable stuff a dangerous thing in the game.
Also you can get GZDoom down to 320x200 resolution if you want, and it doesn't set the video mode on the latest versions so no dependency on your graphics card to support ancient hardware resolutions.
Ostensibly not true :) Even in the vanilla engine, Z axis calculations are used everywhere (one of the most obvious visual effects is when fireballs and rockets fly over your head).
"Doom is 2D" is an urban legend dating to the 1990s that badly needs to die. It is not and has never really been true, and should be even more obvious after its open source release.
I clearly remember (but not in which game) a tight room with ledges on each side where you basically shoot blind horizontally to hit enemies out of screen above.
All depends on what part of the game you consider:
Level geometry is indeed 2D (or rather 2D projectable without intersection, hence the 2.5D moniker)
Gameplay though, is 3D, and actually hampered by not being able to look up down, which for shooting was compensated by vertical auto-aim. There are many places where it's hard to see the enemies above or below, or even where you're going to go/navigate. Luckily the level design is usually nicely done and usually caters for that with enough room space to kinda see things and/or elevators but there are a couple of areas that can be especially tricky or frustrating.
> maybe this limitations turns into the explanation that its 2d?
But it still not 2D. These types of engines are referred as 2.5D since ancient times specifically because they aren't full 3D but they aren't 2D either.
> You can't look up and down either, so your shots go twords the enemies hieght.
This is a limitation of implementation. Duke3D, built on the exactly same principles, allows you look around, and ROTT too.
> but I remeber some discussion of a restrictions where can't have a room directly above another room
> where you can can go over and under (like a bridge).
You can't have a proper 3D bridge, but you can place a sprite and walk over it, this technique is used by a later DOOM engine mods, Duke3D, ROTT [0]
RoR isn't that difficult to implement in a 2.5D engine, you just need to keep track in which one the entities are located (and Z axis helps here a lot).
Overall, all that 2D/2.5D/3D bickering is pointless if you understand what while DOOM, Duke3D, ROTT engines are 3D, their map layout (specifically the map geometry, not the entities) is 2D only, though with an additional 'ceiling height' and 'floor height' property per sector hence 2.5D.
The world geometry is defined in a limited 3D fashion (but still 3D since while the walls are defined in a 2D plane, there is also sector floor and ceiling heights which add the third dimension - a modern equivalent would be terrain that is almost always a heightmap that can't create caves etc - these are done with additional geometry and clever hiding of the seams by the artists) but the objects are placed in three dimensions.
However some calculations only take into account the two dimensions, e.g. object-to-object collision is often done on the XY plane, hence you can be "blocked" by enemies or pillars or other objects that are "below" or "above" you.
This is probably a terribly silly question, but, to do this do I just buy DOOM2 on steam -> https://store.steampowered.com/app/2300/DOOM_II/ find the doom2.wad _somewhere_ and then run it as above?
And one more possibly even sillier question, on steam on OSX can you even download the files (because it's only available on windows platform?)
In world progressively more and more fractured thanx to rather successful psy-ops by Kremlin and similar dictatorships (plus let's not forget Trump helped a bit in this)... its so heartwarming to see a lot of humanity joining efforts and trying to help for a good cause.
They say society is (among others) defined by a common enemy, and well Mr P fits the role perfectly. Europe wasn't this united since fall of iron curtain (again Russia, there seems to be some sort of pattern here).
The official news from Russia seems like from alternate universe, so surreal. They were always like that, but now its dialed to 11 and a bit more. Proposal from murderer and politician Andrej Lugovoj for forced military service in Donbas for any protesting. Very russian approach...
Their reality really is different. But we should be careful to recognize we are subjected to just as much propaganda as they are that just tells a different story. The truth is some combined version of both realities and the hidden untold realities of people living on both sides of the conflict.
What's happening now isn't as simple as Russia bad, Ukraine and West good. That's a story told to children.
> we are subjected to just as much propaganda as they are that just tells a different story
You're clearly bad at quantifying this stuff, and you're also trivializing the problems of a society and a press where journalists are routinely assassinated for reporting truthfully about their government.
