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Doom (1993) was the defining first-person shooter until Quake and Duke Nukem came along, and is still considered one of the quintessential games in the genre. Improving on predecessors such as Wolfenstein 3D, Doom revolutionized the genre by creating incredible 3D worlds (incredible for the time, at least) and a very scary atmosphere. The basic story was that you were the last surviving marine on a space colony that had accidentally opened the gates to hell, so now you had to kill all the demons with an arsenal of guns, including the famous BFG 9000 (BFG stands for "Big F**cking Gun", and it could toast an entire room of demons). The Doom engine, which used a combination of 3D worlds and 2D sprite-based objects, was used to make many clones, such as Heretic and Dark Forces. Nowadays, Doom looks really dated, and the constrained controls will annoy the kids from the post-HalfLife generation, but AlexBobbs still finds that Doom has a certain charm and frantic nature (not to mention one of the highest body counts) that is often missing from more modern FPS games. |
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Doom (1993) was the defining first-person shooter until Quake and Duke Nukem came along, and is still considered one of the quintessential games in the genre. Improving on predecessors such as Wolfenstein 3D, Doom revolutionized the genre by creating incredible 3D worlds (incredible for the time, at least) and a very scary atmosphere. The basic story was that you were the last surviving marine on a space colony that had accidentally opened the gates to hell, so now you had to kill all the demons with an arsenal of guns, including the famous BFG 9000 (BFG stands for "Big F**cking Gun", and it could toast an entire room of demons). The Doom engine, which used a combination of 3D worlds and 2D sprite-based objects, was used to make many clones, such as Heretic and Strife. Nowadays, Doom looks really dated, and the constrained controls will annoy the kids from the post-HalfLife generation, but AlexBobbs still finds that Doom has a certain charm and frantic nature (not to mention one of the highest body counts) that is often missing from more modern FPS games. |
Doom II (1994) was pretty much an expanded version of the original Doom. It took the same gameplay and the same engine (I think), but added a new gun, a plethora of new levels, and a boatload of new enemies, including the infamous Arch Vile, which raised other enemies from the dead and could literally kill you by looking at you. While the original was first, this one is generally considered better because, well, it has more stuff.
Doom 3 (released August 2004) in one word: "Shiiiiiiiiiny . . . ."
Everyone's going to Hell again, only this time Hell has never looked so good! Or so freaky, for that matter. Aside from FarCry? (and potentially HalfLife II), Doom 3 may very well be the greatest graphical achievement to date in an FPS. The game, however, has a distinct "oldschool" feel--many of the monsters are reimagined versions of the nearly-unstoppable legions of Hell from the first two games, the combat is frantic, the quarters are close, and bad-ass twitch reflexes are the order of the day.
It should be noted that Doom 3 recommends 500 MB of texture memory to run the game at its highest detail level setting. It should also be noted that no video card currently available to the mainstream market has that much texture memory.
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