Game History - Doom - 1993
The Union Aerospace Corporation has been experimenting with teleportation
technology on Mars' moons Phobos and Deimos. After early successes,
something goes wrong. It seems the scientists have opened a gateway straight
to Hell. Phobos base is overrun with demonic creatures, and the whole of
Deimos simply vanishes. A squad of marines is sent to Phobos, but all except
one are quickly slaughtered. It falls to the surviving marine to grab some
guns and strike back at the demons.
id Software's follow-up to their genre-defining Wolfenstein 3D, DOOM is
another first-person 3D shooter: full-on action seen from the space marine's
perspective. Like Wolfenstein, the game consists of distinct episodes,
playable in any order. The first episode, Knee-Deep in the Dead, takes place
in the Phobos base and is freely available as shareware. The full game
continues on Deimos in The Shores of Hell and culminates in Inferno, the
final episode which takes place in Hell itself (the Sega 32x version lacks
this episode).
The basic objective in each level is simply to reach the exit. Since
dozens of enemies stand in the way, the only way to get there is through
killing them. Switches and buttons must be pressed to advance at certain
points and often color-coded locked doors will block the way - matching
keycards or skull keys must be found to pass.
The game's engine technology is more advanced than Wolfenstein's, and
thus the levels are more varied and complex. The engine simulates different
heights (stairs and lifts appear frequently) and different lighting
conditions (some rooms are pitch black, others only barely illuminated).
There are outdoor areas, pools of radioactive waste that hurt the player,
ceilings that come down and crush him, and unlike Wolfenstein's orthogonally
aligned corridors, the walls in DOOM can be in any angle to each other. An
automap helps in navigating the levels.
Stylistically, the levels begin with a futuristic theme in the military
base on Phobos and gradually change to a hellish environment, complete with
satanic symbols (pentagrams, upside-down-crosses and portraits of horned
demons), hung-up mutilated corpses and the distorted faces of the damned.
DOOM features a large weapon arsenal, with most weapons having both
advantages and drawbacks. The starting weapons are the fists and a simple
pistol. Also available are a shotgun (high damage, slow reload, not good
at distances), a chaingun (high firing rate, but slightly inaccurate in
longer bursts) and a plasma rifle (combining a high firing rate and large
damage). The rocket launcher also deals out lots of damage, but the
explosion causes blast damage and must be used with care in confined areas
or it might prove deadly to the player as well as the enemies. Two further
weapons in the game are the chainsaw for close-quarter carnage, and the
BFG9000 energy gun, that, while taking some practice to fire correctly,
can destroy most enemies in a single burst. The different weapons use four
different ammunition types (bullets, shells, rockets and energy cells), so
collecting the right type for a certain gun is important.
The game drops some of Wolfenstein's arcade-inspired aspects, so there
are no extra lives or treasures to be collected for points, but many other
power-ups are still available. Medpacks heal damage while armor protects
from receiving it in the first place. Backpacks allow more ammunition to
be carried, a computer map reveals the whole layout of the level on the
automap (including any secret areas), light amplification visors illuminate
dark areas and radiation suits allow travel over waste without taking damage.
Also available are berserk packs (which radically increase the damage
inflicted by the fists) as well as short-time invisibility and
invulnerability power-ups.
The enemies to be destroyed include former humans corrupted during the
invasion, plus demons in all shapes and sizes: fireball-throwing imps,
floating skulls, pink-skinned demons with powerful bite attacks and large
one-eyed flying monstrosities called Cacodemons. Each episode ends with a
boss battle against one or two especially powerful creatures.
DOOM popularized multiplayer in the genre with two different modes:
Cooperative allows players to move through the single-player game
together, while Deathmatch is a competitive game type where players blast
at each other to collect 'frag' points for a kill and re-spawn in a random
location after being killed.
The 3DO and Sega32x ports lack any multiplayer modes, though the other
ports retain the DOS versions multiplayer to varying degree. The various
console ports all feature simplified levels and omit some levels, enemies
and features from the original DOS release. The SNES and Gameboy Advance
versions of the game actually use different engines and hence feature
numerous small gameplay differences.
Game history from Moby Games
Game created by id Software, Inc. in 1993
File Download - Doom-1993.zip