17 ms·

OK Doomer

gambiting 7y ago
I don't know, I've never played doom when I was a kid, and every time I try to get into it I just get bored after few levels. On the other hand, I'm happy to play Doom 2016 a lot and have completed it multiple times. I suspect certain games just don't age very well, even though I can totally see why it was as revolutionary as it was when it came out(if you haven't read "Master's of Doom" yet, you absolutely have to).
- dasil003 7y ago
  Can you cite a 1993 game that you think aged better than Doom? When Quake came out, the full 3D enemies and environments blew everyone away, but the kinetic gameplay was lost. You don't really get this in the first few levels of Doom, but as you progress on the harder skill levels you start to face an obscene quantity of enemies, which combined with the raw player speed and mostly-2D aim create an intensity that was lost in 3D FPS genre.
  - hprotagonist 7y ago
    secret of monkey island. well, it's 3 years older. LeChuck's revenge, from 1991, holds up even better.
    - Nition 7y ago
      Day Of The Tentacle is 1993.
      - hprotagonist 7y ago
        ah, that should do fine then.
  - detaro 7y ago
    I'd guess a bunch of platformers and arcade-y games probably qualify for many.
  - Spooky23 7y ago
    80s Strategy games and others that are more obscure aged well. “Command HQ” and “Pirates” from MicroProse, Zaxxon on Colecovision, Starflight on PC are fabulous games. I used to love adventure games, but most of them aged terribly.
  - radicalbyte 7y ago
    Not on PC - the point-and-clicks aside - PC gaming back then was horrible, Doom was an absolute revolution when it game out. Sam and Max was released in 1993 though I'd argue that it's hurt much more by the graphics than Doom is. On console? A fair few, with Secrets of Mana being the pick of the bunch. It's still a fantastic game in 2020. After that you have Super Mario Kart and Super Mario All-Stars.
    - tzs 7y ago
      If we include consoles, then I'd put "The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past" in there, from the same year as "Super Mario Kart". That was a good year for SNES.
  - tedunangst 7y ago
    This comment kinda reads like "Can you name a 1913 car that's aged better than the Model T? There's a reason they sold so many." And yet, for many people, it's not their preferred choice today.
  - rtpg 7y ago
    The Super Nintendo came out in 1990, with Super Mario World out in 1990 and Donkey Kong Country coming out in 1994. Those are both games that have a really strong core and are still close to perfection in their genres. I think that the FPS genre has had big variations in the past 25 years though, so there’s a lot of small ways for Doom to age.
  - samatman 7y ago
    Myst was released in 1993.
  - nrp 7y ago
    Link’s Awakening was from 1993. It aged so well that the highly successful 2019 remake for Switch is basically just new stylized artwork.
  - gambiting 7y ago
    So I just don't see that. To me the original doom is always more clunky than fast and fun, and the game has the annoying habit of releasing enemies from behind you. But yes, I think Mega Man X has aged fantastically, as in - the developers spent a really large amount of time on good level design and on teaching the player how the game works, so you could pick it up for the very first time in 2020 and get into it immediately. And no, I haven't played this when it came out first either. I think this highlights exactly what I'm talking about, look at the little things they are doing design wise, it's truly brilliant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FpigqfcvlM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FpigqfcvlM (Sorry, I know the video is meant to be a "funny" one, but it does make some very very good points about video game design)
    - mercer 7y ago
      Good lord, that is the best content to terrible everything else ratio I've encountered in the past weeks, at the very least. Why do people do this?
      - gambiting 7y ago
        Because it gets them views I suppose. But yes, I know what you mean - everything else about it would stop me from showing the video to some people, even though I 1000% agree with his points.
  - foldr 7y ago
    I think some of the classic graphic adventures have aged pretty well (e.g. Monkey Island 1 and 2). They're still graphically beautiful and the writing hasn't aged badly.
- dx87 7y ago
  If you only played the vanilla version, try playing it in gzdoom. It's an updated engine that improves the graphics and adds some QoL updates, like preventing your mouse from moving your character forwards and backwards. It's still no Doom 2016, but it makes it feel less like an outdated game and more like an indie game that could have been released in the past few years. https://www.zdoom.org/downloads https://www.zdoom.org/downloads
  - climb_stealth 7y ago
    Alternatively, Doom plays really well on the Nintendo Switch. It just feels right to play on the little device in handheld mode.
    - ddxxdd 7y ago
      How about on a digital camera[0], or a calculator[1], or an ATM[2], or an oscilloscope[3], or an Apple Watch[4], or a printer[5], or a Porsche[6], or an Etch-and-Sketch[7], or a Macbook Pro Touch Bar[8], or a piano[9], or a toaster[10]? [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gCZZkBATSc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gCZZkBATSc [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nduMTX86Zl0&feature=youtu.be&t=525 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nduMTX86Zl0&feature=youtu.be... [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0rStdHowAg&feature=youtu.be&t=430 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0rStdHowAg&feature=youtu.be... [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2JOs0Aldq0&feature=youtu.be&t=74 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2JOs0Aldq0&feature=youtu.be... [4] https://youtu.be/KXhf_SpO6wA?t=20 https://youtu.be/KXhf_SpO6wA?t=20 [5] https://youtu.be/XLHx3vO7KJM?t=5 https://youtu.be/XLHx3vO7KJM?t=5 [6] https://youtu.be/NRMpNA86e8Q?t=174 https://youtu.be/NRMpNA86e8Q?t=174 [7] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnmIXK3PYFw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnmIXK3PYFw [8] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GD0L46y3IqI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GD0L46y3IqI [9] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LoOzVAYSqzw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LoOzVAYSqzw [10] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vI7tWd7B3iI&feature=youtu.be&t=233 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vI7tWd7B3iI&feature=youtu.be...
      - climb_stealth 7y ago
        Hah, I love the ingenuity but I'm not sure if they quite match the ergonomics of the Nintendo Switch. Though I do like the idea of buying a Porsche to play Doom.
- everdrive 7y ago
  Games don’t age. Doom 2016 is great, but the idea that original Doom isn’t a classic is ludicrous.
  - dx87 7y ago
    Games absolutely age. I recently went back to try and play the original Deus Ex game that came out in 2000, and it feels super clunky compared to modern games. The original Doom is definitely a classic, but that doesn't mean it can't feel dated. For example, it's pretty common in Doom for walls to open up behind you, surrounding you with demons, even though there was no indication that the wall would open. Designers have learned that killing the player with no warning is usually more frustrating than fun, so they try not to do it any more.
    - everdrive 7y ago
      There is always an audio cue when the wall opens up behind you in Doom.
      - dx87 7y ago
        Yeah, but you are still getting killed out of nowhere. The audio cue was also usually accompanied by the sound of all the fireballs and shotgun blasts flying your way. That's why devs do stuff now like put blood on the floor if there's some sort of trap, so an observant player can dodge it, or at least learn how to avoid pointless deaths. Unless you know it's there ahead of time, there's no way in Doom to know that picking up a certain item or pressing a certain button will cause demons to start pouring out of the walls around you.
        everdrive 7y ago
        Games aren't necessarily improved by smoothing out the frustrations. Part of the point is to be challenged, and to have sections which are difficult, and produce anxiety. The joy comes from finding out how to overcome those sections. Additionally, because everyone will have different trouble spots, a game which has smoothed out the frustrations for the greatest number of people is really a game which doesn't provide much challenge. The worst culprits here would be the games of the mid-2000s, with their heavy cinematics, and extremely low difficulty. Conversely, these games fare worse over time than something like classic Doom: the gameplay was never there in the first place, and the graphics only wowed people 1.5 decades ago.
- fctorial 7y ago
  You should try project brutality. It pretty much brings it on the same level as newer DOOMs. The graphics are still oldschool, but you won't notice that while ripping intestines at 17 m/s. You might have to enable performace mode if it lags.
- orev 7y ago
  Playing Doom today needs to be approached like any other nostalgia trip — you need to go into it with a mindset of what things were like at the time (like watching the original Star Wars movies). You really won’t get much out of it if you compare it to some game you’re playing today on your Xbox, and it’s somewhat disingenuous to try to do so. Everything has a context, and learning to understand where something came from is a skill that is not just useful in appreciating old video games, but is broadly applicable in pretty much any human interaction.
  - asdfasgasdgasdg 7y ago
    That's all well and good, but if I need to make a particular effort to appreciate something, particularly if that effort includes suspending my ordinary standards of fun and quality, that something is not going to match up to the assertion "X is the best shooter you can play today." At least not by any standard definition of best. Fwiw I don't think the og star wars movies require nearly the same suspension of standards that something like Doom does. Maybe for sfx buffs but I think most people go to movies for the human elements. That's not the same with videogames because of how the medium is interactive.
  - nothrabannosir 7y ago
    That's fine, and very common, as you say. But it is not what is meant by "it stands the test of time as the greatest in the genre." That epithet, explicitly, means an exception to that rule. A lot of music from the 80s is good in the way you described. Thriller however, is an album that stood the test of time.
    - ianai 7y ago
      I want to say Tetris has stood the test of time. It has actually followed through to modern times, but I’m pretty confident I could play it on a gameboy today and not feel stuck in the past - just playing a game that’s been around a long time.
  - grawprog 7y ago
    >Playing Doom today needs to be approached like any other nostalgia trip I see this a lot in regards to older games especially things like doom or goldeneye. I understand when it comes to graphics or some tedious gameplay features and controls but I find from an actual core gameplay standpoint, a lot of older games hold up a lot better than more modern games. I'd rather manage ammo, while searching obscure tunnels for secrets and keys shooting at blurry pixels than press 'space' for the next qte between beautiful 30 minute cutscenes after the umpteenth tutorial guided linear coridoor I receive the next shiny trophy for walking down where the only risk is having to restart 3 seconds earlier from the last auto save point with a possible bonus for failing too many times accompanied with a link to the ingame store where I can purchase ammo or armour for the price of a cup of coffee.
busymom0 7y ago
Unrelated but I really love the CSS and design of the site!
- fctorial 7y ago
  I went back and noticed that the first character of menu names is highlighted. It's useless TBH since you can't alt select the menu items. Overall the site is pretty clean though. Should probably set max-size on article, it's hard to read on widescreen because of long lines.
  - wltprgm 7y ago
    I don't understand how to 'alt select' anything, what is it for? I don't mind the the numbers of word/line in my full HD 15.6" laptop screen, in fact, and I actually hated the 80 words/line pattern like articles at medium.com. Are you on 4k wide somehow?
- btrettel 7y ago
  Reminds me of this site: http://fabiensanglard.net/ http://fabiensanglard.net/
- octocop 7y ago
  I also thought it was nice!
- 0xff00ffee 7y ago
  Lol. :) I was just about to complain about the font. Monospace: great for code and legal documents, terrible to read!
darkwater 7y ago
Well I do have played Doom as a kid when it was released and while I totally get that half of the experience with it was being a kid/teenager, I can still remember as if I'm still there the fear, the dread felt and my heart beating in my chest when playing it at night with the headphones on. And it was just a bunch of pixels (and sounds).
avmich 7y ago
I believe 2.5D graphics is a term and it means not the type of graphics in Doom. Rather the one in Ultima, or SimCity.
- wheybags 7y ago
  It is a highly overloaded term, and it has definitely been applied to doom historically.
- mysterydip 7y ago
  It has meant both at different times. Once true 3D games became mainstream, fake 3D games were retroactively re-labeled 2.5D
  - qwerty456127 7y ago
    There even is quite a spectrum between 2D and real 3D. Duke Nukem 3D made heavy use of 2D sprites (so it was less 3D than Quake, and that was good) yet was much more 3D than original Doom.
- disordinary 7y ago
  It means something which looks 3d but is actually 2d under the hood. Doom looked 3d through a combination of techniques but the maps were 2d, Ultima and simcity look 3d because of the isometric perspective but are still just 2d tiles.
  - BlueTemplar 7y ago
    Maybe the later ones, but the first SimCity doesn't even look 3D.
- tmarsden 7y ago
  Doom was called 2.5D because it was not 3D in the sense that you couldn’t stack rooms on top of each other. A given room could have a tall ceiling but there was never a room above or below you.
- 7y ago
didibus 7y ago
Isn't there a new ray traced version of Doom that just came out? Graphics look amazing!
- didibus 7y ago
  Oh I was thinking of Quake. There is also a Doom 64 re-release coming, but don't think that'll have the RTX treatment.
haecceity 7y ago
Does anyone else see a rendering artifact (looks like a really fast cursor) moving through the page? Happens in my Firefox and Chrome.
- dpwm 7y ago
  Yes, with Firefox 72 on Linux. It is really subtle and it seems to happen once on page load.
- Arnavion 7y ago
  It's not a rendering artifact; it's an actual div moving with JS. <div id="cursor386" style="right: 643px; bottom: 346px;">(box glyph stripped out by HN)</div> Search for "cursor386" in bootstrap.min.js, there's a setInterval loop that moves it around. Appears to be from https://github.com/kristopolous/BOOTSTRA.386 https://github.com/kristopolous/BOOTSTRA.386
  - haecceity 7y ago
    Amazing
dvasdekis 7y ago
I disagree with the point that as a pure carnage simulator, "Doom is the closest thing you will be to a pure instrument of destruction whose sole function is to search and destroy", and that it stands the test of time as the greatest in the genre. The Serious Sams, Bulletstorm, Painkiller (and others) have taken the Doom experience of finding a horde of somethings and killing them into the modern era, each with their own take. Serious Sam expanded the levels and monster counts to a grotesque scale, allowing for perverse satisfaction in watching and killing off a distant and vast sea of fodder running towards you. Bulletstorm lightened the mood, and as a precursor to the Gears of War series, was the first in my mind to make the action movie tropes of kicking and punching things, coupled with cheesy banter, genuinely pleasing. Painkiller took the heavy metal influences, and merged them with some of the great settings from the previous century of horror novels and coupled it with immersive and creative level and weapon design. I definitely believe that Doom was the original seminal piece in the genre, a Tolkien-esque work. But mankind has improved on the experience in the years since. Try those out too.
- ekianjo 7y ago
  > Bulletstorm lightened the mood, and as a precursor to the Gears of War series, Bulletstorm did not predate Gears of Wars. It came out way later.
  - pvg 7y ago
    I read a Romero comment somewhere pointing out how cover mechanics are a way for designers to slow the game down and also deal with the different constraints of consoles. In that sense, Gears of War is more or less the anti-Doom.
    - Supermancho 7y ago
      The door problem plagues all shooters. https://gamasutra.com/blogs/AndrewYoder/20190808/348237/The_Door_Problem_of_Combat_Design.php https://gamasutra.com/blogs/AndrewYoder/20190808/348237/The_...
emmelaich 7y ago
Loved Doom, but preferred Quake. The latest iteration, Quake Live (now on Steam, cheap) is my favourite multiplayer online game.
- 29athrowaway 7y ago
  Quake Live is basically Quake 3. After Quake 3 came Quake 4, Enemy Territory: Quake wars, and Quake champions.
- 0xff00ffee 7y ago
  Man, Doom blew everyone's mind when it showed up at work. Total productivity killer. FPS on PCs, Apples and Macs were pretty crappy prior to that. Hexen was creepier and improved the game play. Descent (non ID) was a great multiplayer and had better 3D. Finally everyone was itchin' for Quake because NIN was blowing up huge in 1995. Too bad the last level at it hard. Quake 2 had a great objective with cool bosses and much better level editing than Doom. ... And then, too many goddamn games to keep up! 1996 + Diablo I is about when I just got overwhelmed...
  - Jamwinner 7y ago
    Most people I knew burned a copy of the cd, and proceeded to wear it out in their cd player. Back then they just coded half the cd as audio and the CD was basically the new NIN ep. Those were the magic and fusturating days of bonus content on CDs. I wonder how such content will be saved in the future? Playing "hidden track.mp3" really isnt the same as finding track 99 and hearing a song after the 10min of silence buffer to fool you.
- chupasaurus 7y ago
  The latest iteration is Quake Champions.
  - anon9001 7y ago
    Maybe it's best if we all forget that.
hrktb 7y ago
Looks to me like the author should try Splatoon 2 - moving fast in non realistic patterns? check - not being dragged down by realistic limitations? check Its network stack is garbage, but from any other point of view (speed, strategy, system, weapons, visuals and music) it’s I think the best FPS we have in this generation. And personally I’d say ever.
- ianai 7y ago
  Hey, coming from a Doom perspective, Splatoon “has a network stack.”
- throwanem 7y ago
  How's the mod scene?
  - hrktb 7y ago
    Good point. Less of a mod scene and more of people coming up with new approaches to the existing weapons. In a way it’s sad we don’t get mods, the silver lining is the game continued growing and getting tweaked for 2 years, with new stages, a whole new mode, new weapons added every few months even 2 years after launch. As of now there’s just hope about a Splatoon 3 for perhaps the next Switch.
- Razengan 7y ago
  Splatoon also has some of the cutest style and fashion aesthetic in any media ever. We could really use more bright and colorful future-fi, as opposed to the usual bleak and dark dystopian “cyberpunk” aesthetic.
  - ascagnel_ 7y ago
    Cyberpunk aesthetics tend to include splashes of bright neon color counterbalancing inky blacks -- a game like the 2009 Syndicate still looks pretty flashy. On the other hand, games that seem to take visual design cues from metal albums (looking specifically at games like Dark Souls and Bloodborne) tend to have an all-grey look that quickly bores me.
29athrowaway 7y ago
At the surface level, Doom was about killing monsters. But it was also about navigation, finding keys, and budgeting your ammo, health.
- 0xff00ffee 7y ago
  And chainsaws. Let's not forget chainsaws. I don't recall gore like that in a game ...maybe Postal and Syndicate... but it was pre-Duke Nukem.
  - 29athrowaway 7y ago
    As a player, I spent most of my time finding the key to unlock some door, rather than killing monsters.
    - catalogia 7y ago
      I think Doom changes with subsequent replays. After a while you start to learn the layout of the maps. They stop being mazes and start being puzzles, where you know where all the pieces are but the difficulty is in finding the optimal route to accomplish your objective.
      - 29athrowaway 7y ago
        There are many WADs out there for Doom with extra content and levels to play.
- tenebrisalietum 7y ago
  There's also trying to find all secrets.
- hnick 7y ago
  And shocking our parents... it was definitely a selling point. Luckily the game was amazing too.
strogonoff 7y ago
Contrary to my expectations, this article is about the venerable game Doom and not about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doomer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doomer.
- cosmojg 7y ago
  I'm pretty sure the pun is intentional.
  - Schiphol 7y ago
    The main pun is with 'OK Boomer', though https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/OK_Boomer https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/OK_Boomer
    - goblin89 7y ago
      I believe the author of this article went from OK Boomer to OK <videogame> Doomer, going from <subculture> Doomer to <videogame> Doomer seems way out of left field. Hence the original commenter’s confusion.
    - willis936 7y ago
      There are zoomer, doomer, and even bloomer variants of the “OK Boomer” meme. The author is likely riffing off of those riffs.
disordinary 7y ago
I prefer the original Quake to Doom as the best arcade style FPS. Doom is too limiting to me in it's movement and level design. Quake still has the abstract level design and that makes it the only 3d FPS that I've ever played to make true use of 3d space. It's almost like parkour as you're flinging yourself from surface to surface, doing rocket jumps, all while spinning in the air and destroying hordes of creatures. It's Doom but more agile.
- moltar 7y ago
  100% this. My favourite FPS of all time is Quake rail warz. So fast and agile!
  - 7thaccount 7y ago
    Rocket Arena! Yeah, Quake is insanely fast paced. I remember trying to explain this to friends playing FPS on consoles of the era (PS1 or PS2?) and just not being convincing. Even Halo felt glacially paced.
- ShorsHammer 7y ago
  Doom is usually called 2.5d because it's basically simulated 3d.
  - falcrist 7y ago
    Aren't all 3D computer games "simulated"? There must be a better adjective.
    - garmaine 7y ago
      Probably. To be clear, what's being stated here is that Doom, Wolfenstein, etc. don't actually render from 3D internal data structures like Quake and later first-person shooters did. The level layout is inherently 2D and some tricks are used to render the environment in a way which looks like a 3D perspective. But it is fundamentally a sort of flat-lander's pseudo-3D.
  - 7y ago
29athrowaway 7y ago
If you are into Doom, check out the WAD that John Romero published for Doom's 25th anniversary https://www.romerogames.ie/si6il https://www.romerogames.ie/si6il Some coverage about it here: https://venturebeat.com/2018/12/10/john-romero-reveals-sigil-megawad-for-the-original-doom/ https://venturebeat.com/2018/12/10/john-romero-reveals-sigil...
czbond 7y ago
Doom was fantastic. The only way I was able to complete my CompSci degree was through lots of Doom and Metallica while I coded....
- 7thaccount 7y ago
  You played Doom, while coding?
  - mercer 7y ago
    Maybe psDoom? http://psdoom.sourceforge.net/ http://psdoom.sourceforge.net/
  - czbond 7y ago
    Of course! My brain works better when highly stimulated inbound, bc coding is rather monotonous to me. I'd use bits of quiet to plan what I was doing - then lots of external stimuli to help me get through the many boring parts of implementation
Andrew_nenakhov 7y ago
When the shooters moved from 2.5D sprite-based (Doom 1&2, Duke Nukem 3D) to 3D ones, something important was lost: restriction on performance many that no longer you could fight hordes of enemies, because computers of the day couldn't display them all fast enough. So, enemies got fewer, but tougher, and no longer you could experience the same sheer carnage as fighting hundreds of imps at once. It was quite a while since I last played a 3D shooter (likely, HL2 Episode 2), so I don't really know if there is something out there that has a similar feel to good old Doom games.
- wishinghand 7y ago
  The newest Doom released in 2016 brings back that onslaught in a modern 3D engine. I forget the exact name but I think Mount and Blade had a lot of enemies on screen. It’s a medieval combat game. I’m not sure if Devil Daggers counts because it looks so primitive it might be an engine running 2.5D.
  - Andrew_nenakhov 7y ago
    It doesn't count if you can't mow down enemies with a chaingun. I presume there is no chaingun in Mount and Blade.
    - yread 7y ago
      There is lance charge though!
  - zentiggr 7y ago
    I have the original Mount and Blade, never got a chance to delve deeply. Does it handle well on Win10?
    - ascagnel_ 7y ago
      I played it a few weeks ago on Win10 without issues.
    - 7y ago
matthewaveryusa 7y ago
The early versions of counter-strike had a famous bunny-hopping bug where you could cover 40% more ground than simply walking (jumping had a bug where the X and Y coordinates were individually calculated, so if you moved in both directions at the same time you would cover sqrt(2) ground) It was a skill honed and part of the fun of the game. Then in version 1.3 they removed it because it was a 'bug' -- they basically removed the mini-game of bunny-hopping and the first 30 seconds that were all about perfectly executing bunny hops to get into position were replaced by a monotonous boring walk. Such a shame that the monotony of real-life is added to games. Anyways, I think the author should try Overwatch -- it's one of the few contemporary widely played FPSs that doesn't take realism too seriously.
- Vax45 7y ago
  On the opposite spectrum of simple exploits by jumping, we have Tribes. In the original game, people quickly realized you can exploit the physics engine by jumping, allowing you to quickly traverse the terrain. It became known as "skiing". The devs, rather than patching it, incorporated skiing into Tribes 2 and has been a staple ever since. And also, while Counter Strike has become a massive success and has thousands of players today. Tribes (while it was successful at the time) has become a niche game that quickly weeds out newcomers and hardly anyone plays it anymore. Not saying that there's a correlation, I just find it amusing.
  - alharith 7y ago
    Just to make this technically correct, people still bunny hop in CS all the time, it just doesn't get you anywhere any faster.
    - silvester23 7y ago
      If done right, it gives you a modest speed-up but it's only possible for a short time and also requires some luck without hacks.
    - levosmetalo 7y ago
zeouter 7y ago
One part of the DOOM portverse I have enjoyed recently is DOOM in VR with GZDoom - hhttps://github.com/Fishbiter/gz3doom https://github.com/Fishbiter/gz3doom
- taneq 7y ago
  Have you got the improved voxel weapon models working? I've tried this a couple of times but can't get past the crudely assembled billboard weapons. I downloaded WeaponsForVR.pk3 and another one (I think BR_VR_something?) but it doesn't seem to load them. I never played the Doom games when I was a kid and I've been working my way through the whole series. Finished Doom VFR and Doom 3 BFG Edition in VR, done most of the original Doom, and almost finished DOOM (2016). They're great fun and the DOOM (2016) soundtrack is amazing.
  - taneq 7y ago
    (Too late to edit, but apparently I needed to set "Sprite Weapon Mode" to "Fat Item" in the VR options.)
geon 7y ago
> Realism is moving at human speed, experiencing fatigue, reloading and hiding behind cover, and guns that recoil when you fire them. Well, pseudo-realism anyway – you really don’t want the “real” in gaming. Sounds a bit biased. My favorite FPS (pubg) has all of that, and it is what makes the game enjoyable. There is even bullet velocity and drop, so you need to account for moving targets and parabolic paths.
- simongr3dal 7y ago
  One of the great things about that game is exactly how vulnerable you are when you don't have a lot of gear. And it really makes you play different strategies depending on how much gear you get. It clearly also tickles that part of the psychology that makes you want to keep playing if you're lucky and get a jackpot of good gear when you first land.
- garmaine 7y ago
  Do you also personally die a violent death when your character gets shot on-screen? That's where he's getting at at the end of what you quoted. Non-realism is necessarily a part of any game environment, in this genre at least.
- chmod775 7y ago
  Compared to games like Escape from Tarkov, PUBG doesn't even get close in the realism department. But that is perhaps the authors point, because games like EFT are certainly not games for everyone, while PUBG can be fun to most people. Most people: - Don't want to keep track of magazines which they can swap and which you have to reload slowly bullet by bullet, they'd rather press reload and end up with a full magazine in their weapon again. - Don't want to think about ammo types of which some will be utterly impractical in certain situations or about bullet penetration. They'd rather have 1 ammo type that fits in their gun that does 20 damage per hit. - Don't want to deal with their character having a broken leg or arm, being dehydrated, hungry, bleeding, in pain, or suffering from some other medical condition after a firefight that requires attention and will impair their ability to see, aim, walk, etc. They'd rather "use medkit" and be done with it. - Don't want to think about weapon/gear durability or taking their weapon apart/changing parts in a weapon they will likely lose on their next raid anyways. All that stuff is something for people who enjoy more of a survival type gameplay. For everyone else systems like gear, health, reloading, ammo etc. are usually simplified to be fun. On the other hand, systems you don't usually have to take away from without sacrificing fun are noise (step sounds, reloading sounds, moving in vegetation, moving slow, moving fast etc. etc.) and ballistics (bullet drop, ricochet, bullet penetration).
Annatar 7y ago
As someone who has finished Doom multiple times on the hardest level of difficulty, I really see no point to first person shooters. BOOORRRIIINNNGGG!!! Give me "Eye of the Beholder" or "Hired Guns" or "Dungeon Master" any day over senseless, repetitive violence; the atmosphere is orders of magnitude better.
ggambetta 7y ago
Periodic plea to Splash Damage (or whoever holds the rights) to re-release Enemy Territory, gameplay and maps unchanged, with a modern renderer and high-resolution models and textures. Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeease?
- Insanity 7y ago
  Oh man, that brings back memories. ET was a great game, one of the first multiplayer games that I've "really" played so there's a heavy dose of nostalgia attached to it. I was particularly fond of the 'trick jumping' maps. Spend hundreds of hours just on those.
  - ggambetta 7y ago
    Same here :) It was my first online game, and I sunk a massive amount of time on it. It ruined FPSs for me. Haven't enjoyed another FPS, online or not, nearly as much since, with the possible exception of Heroes & Generals which I've been playing a bit recently, and has a similar vibe to it. I used to play the standard maps, mostly. So elegantly designed, so beautifully balanced. Just loved playing an engineer.
    - Insanity 7y ago
      Yeah - modern FPS games don't do it for me either, mostly the "realism" bothers me. Especially in the map design or the physics. Plus the million choices you need to make. If you play any of the new CoDs you have to choose between a million perks, weapons, add-ons to those weapons. Same for BattleField. I've enjoyed the 2016 rendition of DOOM though, also the multiplayer with silly game-modes like "football" / freeze tag. I'd have liked an "instagib"-style game mode though, that was my favourite in JK2
- erk__ 7y ago
  ET: Legacy still get updated, it may not have super high resolution, but it just recently got a new renderer. Still campatible with the last official release, though the ingame server browser have not worked the best for me compared to finding server through verious online sites. https://www.etlegacy.com/ https://www.etlegacy.com/
cydmax 7y ago
The best FPS game you can play right now is Escape From Tarkov. There is no other game that captures the fear of screen death and the adrenalin rush that you get, when you escape with your precious loot so well. The overall game loop is very addictive though...
- shifto 7y ago
  Been playing it on and off for a few years now. It's fun but far from done.
znpy 7y ago
I play a lot of OpenArena and I must say it's still a lot of fun, especially with friends.
MisterTea 7y ago
I still play Doom using GZDoom and use the Brutal Doom mod. Fun as hell and there are dozens of great megawads to play. The Brutal Doom starter pack comes with the hell on earth collection which a really good remake of the original Doom 2. I must have played through a dozen times. One amazing WAD is the Japanese Community Project which has some mind blowing maps. It has a level which when viewed in the 2D map is a multi pane comic of the level you're playing. And the gameplay is fast. You move fast, shoot fast and die fast if not careful. The latest Doom felt like your character was walking through deep mud.
- justwalt 7y ago
  I thought the speed of the new Doom was too low, too, but I think the bigger problem is the number of screen- and movement-locking events. Every time you pick up a key or do a finisher move, you have to wait 1-5 seconds for an animation to play out. I think Doom 2016 is a pretty good and especially gory Serious Sam game. But it’s certainly not Doom.
- nailer 7y ago
  I'm really enjoying Eviternity (on gzdoom with Neural Upscale) right now: https://www.dfdoom.com/project/eviternity/ https://www.dfdoom.com/project/eviternity/
wltprgm 7y ago
Doom is ported to browser 1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18817278 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18817278 2. https://doom.fandom.com/wiki/Wasm-doom https://doom.fandom.com/wiki/Wasm-doom 3. https://wasm.continuation-labs.com/d3demo/ https://wasm.continuation-labs.com/d3demo/
spookybones 7y ago
Similarly, I used to play a game called San Francisco Rush, which was all about driving off of hills in sports cars and getting absurd amounts of air. It was essentially a high-speed gliding game where you try not to smash into buildings on your descent. It was absurdly fun and not at all realistic.
camgunz 7y ago
Odamex is also a pretty good multiplayer port. Here's a 160 person CTF game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rr5pA9t1Z0A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rr5pA9t1Z0A Here's some highlights from the CTF league: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o41hDzqaXpU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o41hDzqaXpU Highly encourage getting involved (www.doomworld.com), it's a blast and the barrier to entry is basically zero.

I don't know, I've never played doom when I was a kid, and every time I try to get into it I just get bored after few levels. On the other hand, I'm happy to play Doom 2016 a lot and have completed it multiple times. I suspect certain games just don't age very well, even though I can totally see why it was as revolutionary as it was when it came out(if you haven't read "Master's of Doom" yet, you absolutely have to).

dasil003 7y ago
Can you cite a 1993 game that you think aged better than Doom? When Quake came out, the full 3D enemies and environments blew everyone away, but the kinetic gameplay was lost. You don't really get this in the first few levels of Doom, but as you progress on the harder skill levels you start to face an obscene quantity of enemies, which combined with the raw player speed and mostly-2D aim create an intensity that was lost in 3D FPS genre.
- hprotagonist 7y ago
  secret of monkey island. well, it's 3 years older. LeChuck's revenge, from 1991, holds up even better.
  - Nition 7y ago
    Day Of The Tentacle is 1993.
    - hprotagonist 7y ago
      ah, that should do fine then.
- detaro 7y ago
  I'd guess a bunch of platformers and arcade-y games probably qualify for many.
- Spooky23 7y ago
  80s Strategy games and others that are more obscure aged well. “Command HQ” and “Pirates” from MicroProse, Zaxxon on Colecovision, Starflight on PC are fabulous games. I used to love adventure games, but most of them aged terribly.
- radicalbyte 7y ago
  Not on PC - the point-and-clicks aside - PC gaming back then was horrible, Doom was an absolute revolution when it game out. Sam and Max was released in 1993 though I'd argue that it's hurt much more by the graphics than Doom is. On console? A fair few, with Secrets of Mana being the pick of the bunch. It's still a fantastic game in 2020. After that you have Super Mario Kart and Super Mario All-Stars.
  - tzs 7y ago
    If we include consoles, then I'd put "The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past" in there, from the same year as "Super Mario Kart". That was a good year for SNES.
- tedunangst 7y ago
  This comment kinda reads like "Can you name a 1913 car that's aged better than the Model T? There's a reason they sold so many." And yet, for many people, it's not their preferred choice today.
- rtpg 7y ago
  The Super Nintendo came out in 1990, with Super Mario World out in 1990 and Donkey Kong Country coming out in 1994. Those are both games that have a really strong core and are still close to perfection in their genres. I think that the FPS genre has had big variations in the past 25 years though, so there’s a lot of small ways for Doom to age.
- samatman 7y ago
  Myst was released in 1993.
- nrp 7y ago
  Link’s Awakening was from 1993. It aged so well that the highly successful 2019 remake for Switch is basically just new stylized artwork.
- gambiting 7y ago
  So I just don't see that. To me the original doom is always more clunky than fast and fun, and the game has the annoying habit of releasing enemies from behind you. But yes, I think Mega Man X has aged fantastically, as in - the developers spent a really large amount of time on good level design and on teaching the player how the game works, so you could pick it up for the very first time in 2020 and get into it immediately. And no, I haven't played this when it came out first either. I think this highlights exactly what I'm talking about, look at the little things they are doing design wise, it's truly brilliant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FpigqfcvlM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FpigqfcvlM (Sorry, I know the video is meant to be a "funny" one, but it does make some very very good points about video game design)
  - mercer 7y ago
    Good lord, that is the best content to terrible everything else ratio I've encountered in the past weeks, at the very least. Why do people do this?
    - gambiting 7y ago
      Because it gets them views I suppose. But yes, I know what you mean - everything else about it would stop me from showing the video to some people, even though I 1000% agree with his points.
- foldr 7y ago
  I think some of the classic graphic adventures have aged pretty well (e.g. Monkey Island 1 and 2). They're still graphically beautiful and the writing hasn't aged badly.
dx87 7y ago
If you only played the vanilla version, try playing it in gzdoom. It's an updated engine that improves the graphics and adds some QoL updates, like preventing your mouse from moving your character forwards and backwards. It's still no Doom 2016, but it makes it feel less like an outdated game and more like an indie game that could have been released in the past few years. https://www.zdoom.org/downloads https://www.zdoom.org/downloads
- climb_stealth 7y ago
  Alternatively, Doom plays really well on the Nintendo Switch. It just feels right to play on the little device in handheld mode.
  - ddxxdd 7y ago
    How about on a digital camera[0], or a calculator[1], or an ATM[2], or an oscilloscope[3], or an Apple Watch[4], or a printer[5], or a Porsche[6], or an Etch-and-Sketch[7], or a Macbook Pro Touch Bar[8], or a piano[9], or a toaster[10]? [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gCZZkBATSc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gCZZkBATSc [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nduMTX86Zl0&feature=youtu.be&t=525 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nduMTX86Zl0&feature=youtu.be... [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0rStdHowAg&feature=youtu.be&t=430 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0rStdHowAg&feature=youtu.be... [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2JOs0Aldq0&feature=youtu.be&t=74 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2JOs0Aldq0&feature=youtu.be... [4] https://youtu.be/KXhf_SpO6wA?t=20 https://youtu.be/KXhf_SpO6wA?t=20 [5] https://youtu.be/XLHx3vO7KJM?t=5 https://youtu.be/XLHx3vO7KJM?t=5 [6] https://youtu.be/NRMpNA86e8Q?t=174 https://youtu.be/NRMpNA86e8Q?t=174 [7] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnmIXK3PYFw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnmIXK3PYFw [8] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GD0L46y3IqI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GD0L46y3IqI [9] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LoOzVAYSqzw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LoOzVAYSqzw [10] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vI7tWd7B3iI&feature=youtu.be&t=233 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vI7tWd7B3iI&feature=youtu.be...
    - climb_stealth 7y ago
      Hah, I love the ingenuity but I'm not sure if they quite match the ergonomics of the Nintendo Switch. Though I do like the idea of buying a Porsche to play Doom.
everdrive 7y ago
Games don’t age. Doom 2016 is great, but the idea that original Doom isn’t a classic is ludicrous.
- dx87 7y ago
  Games absolutely age. I recently went back to try and play the original Deus Ex game that came out in 2000, and it feels super clunky compared to modern games. The original Doom is definitely a classic, but that doesn't mean it can't feel dated. For example, it's pretty common in Doom for walls to open up behind you, surrounding you with demons, even though there was no indication that the wall would open. Designers have learned that killing the player with no warning is usually more frustrating than fun, so they try not to do it any more.
  - everdrive 7y ago
    There is always an audio cue when the wall opens up behind you in Doom.
    - dx87 7y ago
      Yeah, but you are still getting killed out of nowhere. The audio cue was also usually accompanied by the sound of all the fireballs and shotgun blasts flying your way. That's why devs do stuff now like put blood on the floor if there's some sort of trap, so an observant player can dodge it, or at least learn how to avoid pointless deaths. Unless you know it's there ahead of time, there's no way in Doom to know that picking up a certain item or pressing a certain button will cause demons to start pouring out of the walls around you.
      - everdrive 7y ago
        Games aren't necessarily improved by smoothing out the frustrations. Part of the point is to be challenged, and to have sections which are difficult, and produce anxiety. The joy comes from finding out how to overcome those sections. Additionally, because everyone will have different trouble spots, a game which has smoothed out the frustrations for the greatest number of people is really a game which doesn't provide much challenge. The worst culprits here would be the games of the mid-2000s, with their heavy cinematics, and extremely low difficulty. Conversely, these games fare worse over time than something like classic Doom: the gameplay was never there in the first place, and the graphics only wowed people 1.5 decades ago.
fctorial 7y ago
You should try project brutality. It pretty much brings it on the same level as newer DOOMs. The graphics are still oldschool, but you won't notice that while ripping intestines at 17 m/s. You might have to enable performace mode if it lags.
orev 7y ago
Playing Doom today needs to be approached like any other nostalgia trip — you need to go into it with a mindset of what things were like at the time (like watching the original Star Wars movies). You really won’t get much out of it if you compare it to some game you’re playing today on your Xbox, and it’s somewhat disingenuous to try to do so. Everything has a context, and learning to understand where something came from is a skill that is not just useful in appreciating old video games, but is broadly applicable in pretty much any human interaction.
- asdfasgasdgasdg 7y ago
  That's all well and good, but if I need to make a particular effort to appreciate something, particularly if that effort includes suspending my ordinary standards of fun and quality, that something is not going to match up to the assertion "X is the best shooter you can play today." At least not by any standard definition of best. Fwiw I don't think the og star wars movies require nearly the same suspension of standards that something like Doom does. Maybe for sfx buffs but I think most people go to movies for the human elements. That's not the same with videogames because of how the medium is interactive.
- nothrabannosir 7y ago
  That's fine, and very common, as you say. But it is not what is meant by "it stands the test of time as the greatest in the genre." That epithet, explicitly, means an exception to that rule. A lot of music from the 80s is good in the way you described. Thriller however, is an album that stood the test of time.
  - ianai 7y ago
    I want to say Tetris has stood the test of time. It has actually followed through to modern times, but I’m pretty confident I could play it on a gameboy today and not feel stuck in the past - just playing a game that’s been around a long time.
- grawprog 7y ago
  >Playing Doom today needs to be approached like any other nostalgia trip I see this a lot in regards to older games especially things like doom or goldeneye. I understand when it comes to graphics or some tedious gameplay features and controls but I find from an actual core gameplay standpoint, a lot of older games hold up a lot better than more modern games. I'd rather manage ammo, while searching obscure tunnels for secrets and keys shooting at blurry pixels than press 'space' for the next qte between beautiful 30 minute cutscenes after the umpteenth tutorial guided linear coridoor I receive the next shiny trophy for walking down where the only risk is having to restart 3 seconds earlier from the last auto save point with a possible bonus for failing too many times accompanied with a link to the ingame store where I can purchase ammo or armour for the price of a cup of coffee.

busymom0 7y ago

Unrelated but I really love the CSS and design of the site!

fctorial 7y ago
I went back and noticed that the first character of menu names is highlighted. It's useless TBH since you can't alt select the menu items. Overall the site is pretty clean though. Should probably set max-size on article, it's hard to read on widescreen because of long lines.
- wltprgm 7y ago
  I don't understand how to 'alt select' anything, what is it for? I don't mind the the numbers of word/line in my full HD 15.6" laptop screen, in fact, and I actually hated the 80 words/line pattern like articles at medium.com. Are you on 4k wide somehow?
btrettel 7y ago
Reminds me of this site: http://fabiensanglard.net/ http://fabiensanglard.net/
octocop 7y ago
I also thought it was nice!
0xff00ffee 7y ago
Lol. :) I was just about to complain about the font. Monospace: great for code and legal documents, terrible to read!

darkwater 7y ago

Well I do have played Doom as a kid when it was released and while I totally get that half of the experience with it was being a kid/teenager, I can still remember as if I'm still there the fear, the dread felt and my heart beating in my chest when playing it at night with the headphones on. And it was just a bunch of pixels (and sounds).

avmich 7y ago

I believe 2.5D graphics is a term and it means not the type of graphics in Doom. Rather the one in Ultima, or SimCity.

wheybags 7y ago
It is a highly overloaded term, and it has definitely been applied to doom historically.
mysterydip 7y ago
It has meant both at different times. Once true 3D games became mainstream, fake 3D games were retroactively re-labeled 2.5D
- qwerty456127 7y ago
  There even is quite a spectrum between 2D and real 3D. Duke Nukem 3D made heavy use of 2D sprites (so it was less 3D than Quake, and that was good) yet was much more 3D than original Doom.
disordinary 7y ago
It means something which looks 3d but is actually 2d under the hood. Doom looked 3d through a combination of techniques but the maps were 2d, Ultima and simcity look 3d because of the isometric perspective but are still just 2d tiles.
- BlueTemplar 7y ago
  Maybe the later ones, but the first SimCity doesn't even look 3D.
tmarsden 7y ago
Doom was called 2.5D because it was not 3D in the sense that you couldn’t stack rooms on top of each other. A given room could have a tall ceiling but there was never a room above or below you.
7y ago

didibus 7y ago

Isn't there a new ray traced version of Doom that just came out? Graphics look amazing!

didibus 7y ago
Oh I was thinking of Quake. There is also a Doom 64 re-release coming, but don't think that'll have the RTX treatment.

haecceity 7y ago

Does anyone else see a rendering artifact (looks like a really fast cursor) moving through the page? Happens in my Firefox and Chrome.

dpwm 7y ago
Yes, with Firefox 72 on Linux. It is really subtle and it seems to happen once on page load.
Arnavion 7y ago
It's not a rendering artifact; it's an actual div moving with JS. <div id="cursor386" style="right: 643px; bottom: 346px;">(box glyph stripped out by HN)</div> Search for "cursor386" in bootstrap.min.js, there's a setInterval loop that moves it around. Appears to be from https://github.com/kristopolous/BOOTSTRA.386 https://github.com/kristopolous/BOOTSTRA.386
- haecceity 7y ago
  Amazing

dvasdekis 7y ago

I disagree with the point that as a pure carnage simulator, "Doom is the closest thing you will be to a pure instrument of destruction whose sole function is to search and destroy", and that it stands the test of time as the greatest in the genre. The Serious Sams, Bulletstorm, Painkiller (and others) have taken the Doom experience of finding a horde of somethings and killing them into the modern era, each with their own take. Serious Sam expanded the levels and monster counts to a grotesque scale, allowing for perverse satisfaction in watching and killing off a distant and vast sea of fodder running towards you. Bulletstorm lightened the mood, and as a precursor to the Gears of War series, was the first in my mind to make the action movie tropes of kicking and punching things, coupled with cheesy banter, genuinely pleasing. Painkiller took the heavy metal influences, and merged them with some of the great settings from the previous century of horror novels and coupled it with immersive and creative level and weapon design. I definitely believe that Doom was the original seminal piece in the genre, a Tolkien-esque work. But mankind has improved on the experience in the years since. Try those out too.

ekianjo 7y ago
> Bulletstorm lightened the mood, and as a precursor to the Gears of War series, Bulletstorm did not predate Gears of Wars. It came out way later.
- pvg 7y ago
  I read a Romero comment somewhere pointing out how cover mechanics are a way for designers to slow the game down and also deal with the different constraints of consoles. In that sense, Gears of War is more or less the anti-Doom.
  - Supermancho 7y ago
    The door problem plagues all shooters. https://gamasutra.com/blogs/AndrewYoder/20190808/348237/The_Door_Problem_of_Combat_Design.php https://gamasutra.com/blogs/AndrewYoder/20190808/348237/The_...

emmelaich 7y ago

Loved Doom, but preferred Quake. The latest iteration, Quake Live (now on Steam, cheap) is my favourite multiplayer online game.

29athrowaway 7y ago
Quake Live is basically Quake 3. After Quake 3 came Quake 4, Enemy Territory: Quake wars, and Quake champions.
0xff00ffee 7y ago
Man, Doom blew everyone's mind when it showed up at work. Total productivity killer. FPS on PCs, Apples and Macs were pretty crappy prior to that. Hexen was creepier and improved the game play. Descent (non ID) was a great multiplayer and had better 3D. Finally everyone was itchin' for Quake because NIN was blowing up huge in 1995. Too bad the last level at it hard. Quake 2 had a great objective with cool bosses and much better level editing than Doom. ... And then, too many goddamn games to keep up! 1996 + Diablo I is about when I just got overwhelmed...
- Jamwinner 7y ago
  Most people I knew burned a copy of the cd, and proceeded to wear it out in their cd player. Back then they just coded half the cd as audio and the CD was basically the new NIN ep. Those were the magic and fusturating days of bonus content on CDs. I wonder how such content will be saved in the future? Playing "hidden track.mp3" really isnt the same as finding track 99 and hearing a song after the 10min of silence buffer to fool you.
chupasaurus 7y ago
The latest iteration is Quake Champions.
- anon9001 7y ago
  Maybe it's best if we all forget that.

hrktb 7y ago

Looks to me like the author should try Splatoon 2 - moving fast in non realistic patterns? check - not being dragged down by realistic limitations? check Its network stack is garbage, but from any other point of view (speed, strategy, system, weapons, visuals and music) it’s I think the best FPS we have in this generation. And personally I’d say ever.

ianai 7y ago
Hey, coming from a Doom perspective, Splatoon “has a network stack.”
throwanem 7y ago
How's the mod scene?
- hrktb 7y ago
  Good point. Less of a mod scene and more of people coming up with new approaches to the existing weapons. In a way it’s sad we don’t get mods, the silver lining is the game continued growing and getting tweaked for 2 years, with new stages, a whole new mode, new weapons added every few months even 2 years after launch. As of now there’s just hope about a Splatoon 3 for perhaps the next Switch.
Razengan 7y ago
Splatoon also has some of the cutest style and fashion aesthetic in any media ever. We could really use more bright and colorful future-fi, as opposed to the usual bleak and dark dystopian “cyberpunk” aesthetic.
- ascagnel_ 7y ago
  Cyberpunk aesthetics tend to include splashes of bright neon color counterbalancing inky blacks -- a game like the 2009 Syndicate still looks pretty flashy. On the other hand, games that seem to take visual design cues from metal albums (looking specifically at games like Dark Souls and Bloodborne) tend to have an all-grey look that quickly bores me.

29athrowaway 7y ago

At the surface level, Doom was about killing monsters. But it was also about navigation, finding keys, and budgeting your ammo, health.

0xff00ffee 7y ago
And chainsaws. Let's not forget chainsaws. I don't recall gore like that in a game ...maybe Postal and Syndicate... but it was pre-Duke Nukem.
- 29athrowaway 7y ago
  As a player, I spent most of my time finding the key to unlock some door, rather than killing monsters.
  - catalogia 7y ago
    I think Doom changes with subsequent replays. After a while you start to learn the layout of the maps. They stop being mazes and start being puzzles, where you know where all the pieces are but the difficulty is in finding the optimal route to accomplish your objective.
    - 29athrowaway 7y ago
      There are many WADs out there for Doom with extra content and levels to play.
tenebrisalietum 7y ago
There's also trying to find all secrets.
hnick 7y ago
And shocking our parents... it was definitely a selling point. Luckily the game was amazing too.

strogonoff 7y ago

Contrary to my expectations, this article is about the venerable game Doom and not about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doomer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doomer.

cosmojg 7y ago
I'm pretty sure the pun is intentional.
- Schiphol 7y ago
  The main pun is with 'OK Boomer', though https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/OK_Boomer https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/OK_Boomer
  - goblin89 7y ago
    I believe the author of this article went from OK Boomer to OK <videogame> Doomer, going from <subculture> Doomer to <videogame> Doomer seems way out of left field. Hence the original commenter’s confusion.
  - willis936 7y ago
    There are zoomer, doomer, and even bloomer variants of the “OK Boomer” meme. The author is likely riffing off of those riffs.

disordinary 7y ago

I prefer the original Quake to Doom as the best arcade style FPS. Doom is too limiting to me in it's movement and level design. Quake still has the abstract level design and that makes it the only 3d FPS that I've ever played to make true use of 3d space. It's almost like parkour as you're flinging yourself from surface to surface, doing rocket jumps, all while spinning in the air and destroying hordes of creatures. It's Doom but more agile.

moltar 7y ago
100% this. My favourite FPS of all time is Quake rail warz. So fast and agile!
- 7thaccount 7y ago
  Rocket Arena! Yeah, Quake is insanely fast paced. I remember trying to explain this to friends playing FPS on consoles of the era (PS1 or PS2?) and just not being convincing. Even Halo felt glacially paced.
ShorsHammer 7y ago
Doom is usually called 2.5d because it's basically simulated 3d.
- falcrist 7y ago
  Aren't all 3D computer games "simulated"? There must be a better adjective.
  - garmaine 7y ago
    Probably. To be clear, what's being stated here is that Doom, Wolfenstein, etc. don't actually render from 3D internal data structures like Quake and later first-person shooters did. The level layout is inherently 2D and some tricks are used to render the environment in a way which looks like a 3D perspective. But it is fundamentally a sort of flat-lander's pseudo-3D.
- 7y ago

29athrowaway 7y ago

If you are into Doom, check out the WAD that John Romero published for Doom's 25th anniversary https://www.romerogames.ie/si6il https://www.romerogames.ie/si6il Some coverage about it here: https://venturebeat.com/2018/12/10/john-romero-reveals-sigil-megawad-for-the-original-doom/ https://venturebeat.com/2018/12/10/john-romero-reveals-sigil...

czbond 7y ago

Doom was fantastic. The only way I was able to complete my CompSci degree was through lots of Doom and Metallica while I coded....

7thaccount 7y ago
You played Doom, while coding?
- mercer 7y ago
  Maybe psDoom? http://psdoom.sourceforge.net/ http://psdoom.sourceforge.net/
- czbond 7y ago
  Of course! My brain works better when highly stimulated inbound, bc coding is rather monotonous to me. I'd use bits of quiet to plan what I was doing - then lots of external stimuli to help me get through the many boring parts of implementation

Andrew_nenakhov 7y ago

When the shooters moved from 2.5D sprite-based (Doom 1&2, Duke Nukem 3D) to 3D ones, something important was lost: restriction on performance many that no longer you could fight hordes of enemies, because computers of the day couldn't display them all fast enough. So, enemies got fewer, but tougher, and no longer you could experience the same sheer carnage as fighting hundreds of imps at once. It was quite a while since I last played a 3D shooter (likely, HL2 Episode 2), so I don't really know if there is something out there that has a similar feel to good old Doom games.

wishinghand 7y ago
The newest Doom released in 2016 brings back that onslaught in a modern 3D engine. I forget the exact name but I think Mount and Blade had a lot of enemies on screen. It’s a medieval combat game. I’m not sure if Devil Daggers counts because it looks so primitive it might be an engine running 2.5D.
- Andrew_nenakhov 7y ago
  It doesn't count if you can't mow down enemies with a chaingun. I presume there is no chaingun in Mount and Blade.
  - yread 7y ago
    There is lance charge though!
- zentiggr 7y ago
  I have the original Mount and Blade, never got a chance to delve deeply. Does it handle well on Win10?
  - ascagnel_ 7y ago
    I played it a few weeks ago on Win10 without issues.
  - 7y ago

matthewaveryusa 7y ago

The early versions of counter-strike had a famous bunny-hopping bug where you could cover 40% more ground than simply walking (jumping had a bug where the X and Y coordinates were individually calculated, so if you moved in both directions at the same time you would cover sqrt(2) ground) It was a skill honed and part of the fun of the game. Then in version 1.3 they removed it because it was a 'bug' -- they basically removed the mini-game of bunny-hopping and the first 30 seconds that were all about perfectly executing bunny hops to get into position were replaced by a monotonous boring walk. Such a shame that the monotony of real-life is added to games. Anyways, I think the author should try Overwatch -- it's one of the few contemporary widely played FPSs that doesn't take realism too seriously.

Vax45 7y ago
On the opposite spectrum of simple exploits by jumping, we have Tribes. In the original game, people quickly realized you can exploit the physics engine by jumping, allowing you to quickly traverse the terrain. It became known as "skiing". The devs, rather than patching it, incorporated skiing into Tribes 2 and has been a staple ever since. And also, while Counter Strike has become a massive success and has thousands of players today. Tribes (while it was successful at the time) has become a niche game that quickly weeds out newcomers and hardly anyone plays it anymore. Not saying that there's a correlation, I just find it amusing.
- alharith 7y ago
  Just to make this technically correct, people still bunny hop in CS all the time, it just doesn't get you anywhere any faster.
  - silvester23 7y ago
    If done right, it gives you a modest speed-up but it's only possible for a short time and also requires some luck without hacks.
  - levosmetalo 7y ago

zeouter 7y ago

One part of the DOOM portverse I have enjoyed recently is DOOM in VR with GZDoom - hhttps://github.com/Fishbiter/gz3doom https://github.com/Fishbiter/gz3doom

taneq 7y ago
Have you got the improved voxel weapon models working? I've tried this a couple of times but can't get past the crudely assembled billboard weapons. I downloaded WeaponsForVR.pk3 and another one (I think BR_VR_something?) but it doesn't seem to load them. I never played the Doom games when I was a kid and I've been working my way through the whole series. Finished Doom VFR and Doom 3 BFG Edition in VR, done most of the original Doom, and almost finished DOOM (2016). They're great fun and the DOOM (2016) soundtrack is amazing.
- taneq 7y ago
  (Too late to edit, but apparently I needed to set "Sprite Weapon Mode" to "Fat Item" in the VR options.)

geon 7y ago

> Realism is moving at human speed, experiencing fatigue, reloading and hiding behind cover, and guns that recoil when you fire them. Well, pseudo-realism anyway – you really don’t want the “real” in gaming. Sounds a bit biased. My favorite FPS (pubg) has all of that, and it is what makes the game enjoyable. There is even bullet velocity and drop, so you need to account for moving targets and parabolic paths.

simongr3dal 7y ago
One of the great things about that game is exactly how vulnerable you are when you don't have a lot of gear. And it really makes you play different strategies depending on how much gear you get. It clearly also tickles that part of the psychology that makes you want to keep playing if you're lucky and get a jackpot of good gear when you first land.
garmaine 7y ago
Do you also personally die a violent death when your character gets shot on-screen? That's where he's getting at at the end of what you quoted. Non-realism is necessarily a part of any game environment, in this genre at least.
chmod775 7y ago
Compared to games like Escape from Tarkov, PUBG doesn't even get close in the realism department. But that is perhaps the authors point, because games like EFT are certainly not games for everyone, while PUBG can be fun to most people. Most people: - Don't want to keep track of magazines which they can swap and which you have to reload slowly bullet by bullet, they'd rather press reload and end up with a full magazine in their weapon again. - Don't want to think about ammo types of which some will be utterly impractical in certain situations or about bullet penetration. They'd rather have 1 ammo type that fits in their gun that does 20 damage per hit. - Don't want to deal with their character having a broken leg or arm, being dehydrated, hungry, bleeding, in pain, or suffering from some other medical condition after a firefight that requires attention and will impair their ability to see, aim, walk, etc. They'd rather "use medkit" and be done with it. - Don't want to think about weapon/gear durability or taking their weapon apart/changing parts in a weapon they will likely lose on their next raid anyways. All that stuff is something for people who enjoy more of a survival type gameplay. For everyone else systems like gear, health, reloading, ammo etc. are usually simplified to be fun. On the other hand, systems you don't usually have to take away from without sacrificing fun are noise (step sounds, reloading sounds, moving in vegetation, moving slow, moving fast etc. etc.) and ballistics (bullet drop, ricochet, bullet penetration).

Annatar 7y ago

As someone who has finished Doom multiple times on the hardest level of difficulty, I really see no point to first person shooters. BOOORRRIIINNNGGG!!! Give me "Eye of the Beholder" or "Hired Guns" or "Dungeon Master" any day over senseless, repetitive violence; the atmosphere is orders of magnitude better.

ggambetta 7y ago

Periodic plea to Splash Damage (or whoever holds the rights) to re-release Enemy Territory, gameplay and maps unchanged, with a modern renderer and high-resolution models and textures. Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeease?

Insanity 7y ago
Oh man, that brings back memories. ET was a great game, one of the first multiplayer games that I've "really" played so there's a heavy dose of nostalgia attached to it. I was particularly fond of the 'trick jumping' maps. Spend hundreds of hours just on those.
- ggambetta 7y ago
  Same here :) It was my first online game, and I sunk a massive amount of time on it. It ruined FPSs for me. Haven't enjoyed another FPS, online or not, nearly as much since, with the possible exception of Heroes & Generals which I've been playing a bit recently, and has a similar vibe to it. I used to play the standard maps, mostly. So elegantly designed, so beautifully balanced. Just loved playing an engineer.
  - Insanity 7y ago
    Yeah - modern FPS games don't do it for me either, mostly the "realism" bothers me. Especially in the map design or the physics. Plus the million choices you need to make. If you play any of the new CoDs you have to choose between a million perks, weapons, add-ons to those weapons. Same for BattleField. I've enjoyed the 2016 rendition of DOOM though, also the multiplayer with silly game-modes like "football" / freeze tag. I'd have liked an "instagib"-style game mode though, that was my favourite in JK2
erk__ 7y ago
ET: Legacy still get updated, it may not have super high resolution, but it just recently got a new renderer. Still campatible with the last official release, though the ingame server browser have not worked the best for me compared to finding server through verious online sites. https://www.etlegacy.com/ https://www.etlegacy.com/

cydmax 7y ago

The best FPS game you can play right now is Escape From Tarkov. There is no other game that captures the fear of screen death and the adrenalin rush that you get, when you escape with your precious loot so well. The overall game loop is very addictive though...

shifto 7y ago
Been playing it on and off for a few years now. It's fun but far from done.

znpy 7y ago

I play a lot of OpenArena and I must say it's still a lot of fun, especially with friends.

MisterTea 7y ago

I still play Doom using GZDoom and use the Brutal Doom mod. Fun as hell and there are dozens of great megawads to play. The Brutal Doom starter pack comes with the hell on earth collection which a really good remake of the original Doom 2. I must have played through a dozen times. One amazing WAD is the Japanese Community Project which has some mind blowing maps. It has a level which when viewed in the 2D map is a multi pane comic of the level you're playing. And the gameplay is fast. You move fast, shoot fast and die fast if not careful. The latest Doom felt like your character was walking through deep mud.

justwalt 7y ago
I thought the speed of the new Doom was too low, too, but I think the bigger problem is the number of screen- and movement-locking events. Every time you pick up a key or do a finisher move, you have to wait 1-5 seconds for an animation to play out. I think Doom 2016 is a pretty good and especially gory Serious Sam game. But it’s certainly not Doom.
nailer 7y ago
I'm really enjoying Eviternity (on gzdoom with Neural Upscale) right now: https://www.dfdoom.com/project/eviternity/ https://www.dfdoom.com/project/eviternity/

wltprgm 7y ago

Doom is ported to browser 1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18817278 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18817278 2. https://doom.fandom.com/wiki/Wasm-doom https://doom.fandom.com/wiki/Wasm-doom 3. https://wasm.continuation-labs.com/d3demo/ https://wasm.continuation-labs.com/d3demo/

spookybones 7y ago

Similarly, I used to play a game called San Francisco Rush, which was all about driving off of hills in sports cars and getting absurd amounts of air. It was essentially a high-speed gliding game where you try not to smash into buildings on your descent. It was absurdly fun and not at all realistic.

camgunz 7y ago

Odamex is also a pretty good multiplayer port. Here's a 160 person CTF game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rr5pA9t1Z0A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rr5pA9t1Z0A Here's some highlights from the CTF league: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o41hDzqaXpU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o41hDzqaXpU Highly encourage getting involved (www.doomworld.com), it's a blast and the barrier to entry is basically zero.