Forging a successful Doom

By Gemma @Juicy Game Reviews / TheGebs24

Doom Loading Screen Playstation 1

It was in 1995 that my twelve year old self stood in Gordon Harwoods, our local PC hardware store at the time, tapping on the keys of the keyboard trying to find the red key card in Doom. I'd never played a first person shooter before (although I didn't know much about game genre's back then) and looking back I now know that this was a key moment for me as a Gamer. It wasn't before long that the staff in Gordon Harwoods, two very slim chaps, came over and tapped frantically on the keys of the PC. The red, blue and yellow key cards appeared in the inventory slots and we had every weapon known to the game! Yes, now we were playing with cheats. Day after day, week after week we were there in Gordon Harwoods hammering the keys to progress in Doom. Just over twenty two years later I love Doom as much as I did back then but I ask myself why?

Doom on the PC

Doom port on the PS1

Doom was originally released in December 1993 via shareware and was developed by Id Software. Doom has since spread across numerous platforms like the Super Nintendo, Sega Saturn, Playstation, Atari Jaguar and more. Each platform release varies. The Playstation version does not include the Nightmare difficulty level that was featured in the original PC. I played Doom the most on the PC, Super Nintendo and Playstation 1. The Panasonic 3DO version intrigues me the most and for all the wrong reasons. Having watched gameplay of Doom on the 3DO I believe it looks to be a very poor port of the game, The frame rate lags, the music has been re-scored. It appears that the screen ratio is smaller too which causes the game to be framed by a nasty brown border. Despite these dislikes I'd still buy the game. 

Doom on the Panasonic 3DO - Mmm nice brown borders!

I'm sure that most of us have played Doom and are familiar with the high level of gore, weapons, merciless enemies and Satanic references. Naturally, pockets of society have criticised the franchise and blamed countless murders and outbreaks of violence on the fact that perpetrators played Doom. Putting those bullshit opinions to one side, Doom is a kick ass franchise that will never tire on me. If parents are stupid enough to allow their younger children to pick up a BFG (albeit in the game) then that's their choice! What do you guys think? 

As it stands we are waiting for the release of Doom 4 on next generation consoles. In fact, I'm still waiting for the beta to drop. I sense that Doom 4 will be great but until we play the upcoming Doom 4 beta we will have to wait patiently by playing our retro versions of this awesome game. I hope that multiplayer is as fun as it was back when we played via link up.

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