Game: Doom II
Genre: First Person Shooter / Horror-ish
Developer: id Software
Release Date: Oct 10, 1994
Intro:
I played the doom games back when I was growing up, and after skillfully avoiding becoming a psychotic serial killer; I learned that it was up on steam for download. Ten bucks for a classic game like this seemed pretty insubstantial so I bought it and spent the rest of that day playing it. Here are my thoughts on the matter, both nostalgic and contemporary.
Setup
When I first downloaded the game, I figured Valve had put in support for 16 bit DOS games, which are not natively supported on XP. However, the game loaded in DOSBox, a MSDOS emulator which I had downloaded some time ago to play some other old games, so I can not say whether this games works standalone or not. DOSBox is free though, and only takes a few minutes to set up, and the game downloads in a matter of seconds, even with the included ?master levels? and is ready to play as soon as its done downloading, assuming you have the software to play it.
Game On
Doom II starts you off right in the action. Once you select new game and pick a difficulty, you?re immediately put in a room with one or more (depending on difficulty) mindless demon, zombie, whatever they are enemies for you to joyously slaughter (don?t forget the chainsaw on the left). There is no opening story explanation, no cut scenes, no intro sequences to show off the graphics engine; things that in other games usually invite me to go make a sandwich while I wait for the actual game to start.
Difficulty
This is one of the things I really enjoy(ed) about the Doom series, both in the past and now. There are enough difficulty settings to accommodate for any player skill level, all cleverly, but accurately named. Now, I used to play this game on the first, maybe the second difficulty level (if I was feeling particularly balls-y) when I was a lad. Having played several dozen first person shooters since then, and subsequently disemboweling more demons, zombies, and space marines than any one man could possibly be proud, I decided to be a total badass and try it on the top difficulty setting ?Nightmare.? Let me tell you, If you are looking for a game to totally frustrate and infuriate you, play DoomII on Nightmare. I made it about halfway through the second level before being unable to move forward due to low ammo, low health, and insanely large amounts of enemies. So I switched to the second hardest difficulty. Which while still having to cut down many enemies with the chainsaw while desperately searching for a box of ammo, was entirely playable and beatable, as long as I saved often enough.
Controls and Gunplay and Gameplay
Arguably the most important aspect of a FPS is the intuitiveness and functionality of the controls. Now, one immediate frustration that any modern FPS player will incur is the inability to use the mouse. Ok, you can, but trust me in saying that unless you enjoying using the mouse to move forward and backward, you will not be using the mouse. The standard controls are W ? S for forward backward, A-D for strafing, and the left and right arrow keys to look left and right.; ctrl to shoot, shift to run. You may say ?what about looking up and down? well you can?t. If you have ever played this style of game where you can look up and down (i.e. ?Blood?) you?d quickly find it to not be much help anyway; the textures and models become incredible distorted when the Y perspective is changed (This was a much simpler time before antistrophic filtering). However, the inability to look up or down is compensated substantially by the auto aim system, which will automatically target an enemy either above or below your line of fire. This may sound to make the game too easy, but it really does not as the auto target only works on the Y-axis and does not correct aim, to any sufficient extent, on the X-axis. It also doesn?t help much when the enemy is not in the field of view; it will still target enemies well out of the screen above or below you, but good luck figuring out what you?re shooting at. The gun selection is quite well done. With enough variety in both guns and enemies to make each gun useful in its own way? well except maybe the pistol. The AI is competent enough for a challenge; their main, and only, strategy is to rush you. While this makes it predictable it defiantly doesn?t make it easy.
Graphics and Level design
The level design of Doom II really stands out, even against modern shooters. The begging levels are linear, but as the game progresses the levels open up into entire cities (albeit poorly textured cities) where you are given a bunch of buildings, and the objective to find the three keys hidden within some of them. The non-linear level design is something that even modern shooters don?t implement often. Being able to explorer a level, rather being led through it, lends to a much better play experience in my opinion.
The graphics, of course, are pretty terrible (They looked great in 1994). The textures become grainy blurs at distances, and enemies become hard to make out against the backgrounds at even medium distances. However, rooms are generally small enough that this doesn?t become that big of a problem.
Also, Via some recent posts, there are several options if you want to increase the graphics capabilities on this game. Read down the thread for more information on that.
In short: Get this game, well worth the 10$
Genre: First Person Shooter / Horror-ish
Developer: id Software
Release Date: Oct 10, 1994
Intro:
I played the doom games back when I was growing up, and after skillfully avoiding becoming a psychotic serial killer; I learned that it was up on steam for download. Ten bucks for a classic game like this seemed pretty insubstantial so I bought it and spent the rest of that day playing it. Here are my thoughts on the matter, both nostalgic and contemporary.
Setup
When I first downloaded the game, I figured Valve had put in support for 16 bit DOS games, which are not natively supported on XP. However, the game loaded in DOSBox, a MSDOS emulator which I had downloaded some time ago to play some other old games, so I can not say whether this games works standalone or not. DOSBox is free though, and only takes a few minutes to set up, and the game downloads in a matter of seconds, even with the included ?master levels? and is ready to play as soon as its done downloading, assuming you have the software to play it.
Game On
Doom II starts you off right in the action. Once you select new game and pick a difficulty, you?re immediately put in a room with one or more (depending on difficulty) mindless demon, zombie, whatever they are enemies for you to joyously slaughter (don?t forget the chainsaw on the left). There is no opening story explanation, no cut scenes, no intro sequences to show off the graphics engine; things that in other games usually invite me to go make a sandwich while I wait for the actual game to start.
Difficulty
This is one of the things I really enjoy(ed) about the Doom series, both in the past and now. There are enough difficulty settings to accommodate for any player skill level, all cleverly, but accurately named. Now, I used to play this game on the first, maybe the second difficulty level (if I was feeling particularly balls-y) when I was a lad. Having played several dozen first person shooters since then, and subsequently disemboweling more demons, zombies, and space marines than any one man could possibly be proud, I decided to be a total badass and try it on the top difficulty setting ?Nightmare.? Let me tell you, If you are looking for a game to totally frustrate and infuriate you, play DoomII on Nightmare. I made it about halfway through the second level before being unable to move forward due to low ammo, low health, and insanely large amounts of enemies. So I switched to the second hardest difficulty. Which while still having to cut down many enemies with the chainsaw while desperately searching for a box of ammo, was entirely playable and beatable, as long as I saved often enough.
Controls and Gunplay and Gameplay
Arguably the most important aspect of a FPS is the intuitiveness and functionality of the controls. Now, one immediate frustration that any modern FPS player will incur is the inability to use the mouse. Ok, you can, but trust me in saying that unless you enjoying using the mouse to move forward and backward, you will not be using the mouse. The standard controls are W ? S for forward backward, A-D for strafing, and the left and right arrow keys to look left and right.; ctrl to shoot, shift to run. You may say ?what about looking up and down? well you can?t. If you have ever played this style of game where you can look up and down (i.e. ?Blood?) you?d quickly find it to not be much help anyway; the textures and models become incredible distorted when the Y perspective is changed (This was a much simpler time before antistrophic filtering). However, the inability to look up or down is compensated substantially by the auto aim system, which will automatically target an enemy either above or below your line of fire. This may sound to make the game too easy, but it really does not as the auto target only works on the Y-axis and does not correct aim, to any sufficient extent, on the X-axis. It also doesn?t help much when the enemy is not in the field of view; it will still target enemies well out of the screen above or below you, but good luck figuring out what you?re shooting at. The gun selection is quite well done. With enough variety in both guns and enemies to make each gun useful in its own way? well except maybe the pistol. The AI is competent enough for a challenge; their main, and only, strategy is to rush you. While this makes it predictable it defiantly doesn?t make it easy.
Graphics and Level design
The level design of Doom II really stands out, even against modern shooters. The begging levels are linear, but as the game progresses the levels open up into entire cities (albeit poorly textured cities) where you are given a bunch of buildings, and the objective to find the three keys hidden within some of them. The non-linear level design is something that even modern shooters don?t implement often. Being able to explorer a level, rather being led through it, lends to a much better play experience in my opinion.
The graphics, of course, are pretty terrible (They looked great in 1994). The textures become grainy blurs at distances, and enemies become hard to make out against the backgrounds at even medium distances. However, rooms are generally small enough that this doesn?t become that big of a problem.
Also, Via some recent posts, there are several options if you want to increase the graphics capabilities on this game. Read down the thread for more information on that.
In short: Get this game, well worth the 10$
