It’s a crying shame these games aren’t on GOG. Also, that I sold my hard copies years ago. :(
Well, the Steam version is really DRM-free. Hell, at this point you only really want the .wads, not the original .exe, as you should use whatever source port you like.
Great article, it expresses exactly my amateur thoughts on the subject.
I’d like to see a realism-based s-f shooter going in the direction of tech that rationally justifies a) weird abstract spaces, b) 50 scale miles per hour movement and c) a wildly varied bestiary. I’m sure there must be some kind of weird mix of Lovecraft/s-f that could provide the lore for it.
I envision a cross between Charlie Stross’ “Laundry” series and the mech suits of the criminally underrated Looking Glass masterpiece “Terra Nova: Strike Force Centauri”.
If they’re DRM-free there then that makes it even more puzzling as to why ZeniMax hasn’t struck a deal to make them available on GOG as well. They’re leaving quite a bit of money on the table from people like me who want to support GOG instead of Valve. Oh well. Maybe next year.
Such a great game - in some alternate universe we would be playing the 12th of the Terra Nova series.
Some good wads I’ve played:
Deus Vult II
Best one
Deus Vult I
Great also, and the Hell is AWESOME. Pity I got stuck there.
Winter’s Fury
Just watch this! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2HcGIIs9YI
Icy landscapes, icy versions of demons, reskinned weapons, interesting maps, but a bit too hard
Back to Saturn X
Nice retexture with a more natural palette, a sweet music, some quake I influences in the design, and maps that flow very well, not too congestioned, not too sparse. The interesting thing is how it’s a compilation pack done by several mappers, but playing it it seems all from the same author. Not too difficulty, something good as lots of missions makers go crazy in that regard.
Eternal Doom IV
Super big levels, complex, medieval style, gothic castles. I love these themes.
5till L1 Complex
Exploration in a well done desolated city environment, without almost ammo so avoid monsters
Vanguard
Maps with the theme of wilderness, ruins, caves and jungles, with a nice organic feel to them.
Valhalla
A nice mix of Doom, Quake I and Quake II in this very well recreated industrial level, with a depressing, oppressive feeling.
Unloved
Doom if it was a action survival horror based on a gore slash film. A really creepy dungeon full of rust, torture chambers, insane sounds, maniacs with chainsaws, etc.
Very nice looking levels, but too freaking hard for me:
Stardate 20X6
Swim With the Whales
The Eye
Haha, the hell level is bar none my favorite Doom level ever. It’s extremely hard though. Once you learn how to go about beating it, it’s manageable. Another wad you should try is Speed of Doom, it’s my favorite big wad to come out lately - Speed of Doom - Doomworld /idgames database frontend .
I actually went my way to youtube to see what the hell I had to do in Hell (hahaha see what I did). From what I could see, it seems people did some trick and glitched? through some giant door made of 4 red columns, at last that’s what it seemed to happen in two different videos.
The way it’s designed (you can beat it from a fresh start without anything) is to go into the small halls and work your way all the way up to the BFG being guarded by a Cyberdemon. There’s ample supplies on the way there but it’s a tight fight with various traps. Once you get the BFG you can start to roam around and explore but it’s fairly dangerous since there’s many Arch-Viles. I’ve never used that trick and while I can see why people do it (especially for speed running) it removes most of the difficulty from the level. The hardest parts are getting the BFG then fighting two hordes to progress. Going through the bars gets you past the hardest horde fight.
After my stroke…and when I could actually sit at my PC, I tried to continue playing Far Cry 3 and got vertigo. I was a top 100 Quake player back in the old days so the thought that I could never play a FPS game again was just not acceptable. I dug out quake, installed the Reaper bots and proceeded to spend about 10 hours playing. I hoped that the well worn neural pathways from all those 1000’s of hours of deathmatch were strong enough to rewrite whatever damage was done. You know what? It worked.
Both are great. Doom is a better single player game…and fun multiplayer. Quake is still one of the best pure deathmatch experiences. I would still rather play DM4 than maybe any other map ever made.
This map? It looks like you get the bfg straight away. (Also: Hordes of monsters!)
Not that map, that’s Deus Vult II, not Deus Vult I.
(and also pg was wrong, I was talking not of that fight, the Cyberdemon was easy to deal and the Archviles could be avoided, I was talking of the next area)
Finished Final Doom’s TNT section using Brutal Doom on UV. What a great mod. :) Really recommended if you want to replay Doom but want it to feel fresh. (And gorey)
I recently found out that all of the Doom 1 levels were designed standalone, with the player starting each map with 100 health and a pistol. I’d always wondered why some maps would start with a shotgun right in front of you. What was the use in that? You get the shotgun a million times in the game, why would I need one now?! Even if you died, you won’t need it. I mean, who died and restarted rather than just reloading?! Anyway, at some point in Doom’s production it was changed so the player progressed through the levels keeping all the equipment, but the levels themselves were still completable from a fresh pistol start. Apparently Doom 2 and Final Doom continued that tradition and that’s why you see most levels starting with a gun infront of you.
So out of complete boredom whilst I at my girlfriend’s family’s house for Christmas and armed with only an ancient dell laptop that couldn’t play any decent games, or even fit them on it’s tiny hard drive, I decided to take on that challenge of pistol starting my way through Doom. Though I’ve done it with Doom 2 as I’ve played Doom 1 too much. I’m using prBoom to get a vanilla take on the game. I did the first 10 or so levels with just the keyboard on that ancient dell (wads, e, space to shoot, left arrow, right arrow). It works really well, Doom is still very playable in that fashion. Now that I’m home I’m continuing on but using the mouse with vertical sensitivity disabled as I’d like to be able to turn around quicker. (I want to be able to look left and right, but I don’t want mouse-forward to move me forward. That’s insane).
There’s a bunch of really interesting videos on youtube of people doing pistol start runs. (sidenote: How do people stand linear filtering on the Doom sprites? Blurry mess). But playing it this way really makes you appreciate the levels differently. Monster infighting suddenly becomes a very important tactic, rather than an amusing fact of Doom’s engine. I imagine most people experience the Doom levels with the guns they’ve previously amassed, breezing through them in seconds. Think about the Doom 1 e3m3 boss battle with the spider demon. I imagine most people horde BFG ammo through the entire episode and when they get to the last level there’s a gleeful moment when they realise they can finalise use it without guilt. They probably mince the boss in seconds. But pistol started this is a completely different level. You’re basically given the exact number of rockets + a few spare required to kill the boss. You’re not given much else. It’s really difficult to pull off, quite a challenge.
Two that I’ve just done are MAP10 and Map14. In both levels there’s not a lot of ammo to go around here. (Though for Map14 that might have been my fault as I found the arch vile early and attacked it from a very safe distance, using the only 2 rockets on the level.) I had to resort to the berserk fist every time I saw an imp, even if there was a pack of them, until I got to loot the hordes of shotgun guys I’d killed. For MAP10 I was really struggling as you have to do a really large pack of human demons with just the pistol and yet you encounter some of the really tough baddies right from the start. You can rush in and grab a shotgun off a dead shotgun demon, but you get hurt really badly doing so. Then I found out (i.e. read the wiki ;)) that right at the start there’s a secret alcove containing some goodies including a shotgun :) Really changes things to go in armed properly.
I wish I’d known about this pistol-starting concept when I first played Doom and that it was presented as an official way to play the maps. (Maybe as a difficulty modifier?). I think it’s great.
ps: If any of you watch Campster, he’s just posted a video about Quake 1. I think he agrees with Tim ;)
I guess I picked that up originally from all the WAD readme files that said the levels could be played with a pistol start, plus Doom Honorific Titles where I think it was a specific category.
Only if you’re one of those freaks who has it configured so you also use the mouse for moving forward/backward. Beyond that, being able to 2D-mouselook is awesome.
Remember that Doom had a little bit of autoaim (that’s it, apart from the aim-above-or-below), in exchange of enabling mouse look you can turn the autoaim off.
In stock Doom and all source ports there’s still autoaim when using the mouse to look left/right. Autoaim only disappears in the source ports when you enable the full Quake-style free mouselook. In prBoom you can turn on a crosshair that shows how autoaim works. Most of the time it’s in the center of the screen, but you can see it “snap” to monsters. Really useful when figuring out if a monster that just visible around a corner is visible enough.
Q: Does Doom “aim” the shotgun shells? Sometimes it seems as if all of the bullets from the single-shotgun converge into the target’s face.
I played most of Doom 1 w/ a joystick. It’s also the last time I’ve touched one. DWANGO cured me of that right quick.
I used a Gravis gamepad early on. I only mention it because it’s the last time I ever had to consistently use my index finger to press a button (the blue one up top to strafe) until goofy ass Dark Souls.
Quake (and Duke3D) taught me how to mouselook. Doom is very satisfying on keyboard, and still pretty much the way I play.