Information AboutDoom |
''Doom'' (or '''''DOOM''''')The variations ''Doom'' and ''DOOM'' have both been used in official contexts. The variation ''DooM'', stylized after the game's logo, is also occasionally encountered, but has fallen out of use almost completely in recent years. According to John Romero, the correct variation from the very beginning was ''DOOM'' and all others are incorrect. It remains unclear which variation is supported as "official" by id Software. is a 1993 Computer Game by Id Software that is a landmark title in the First-person Shooter genre. It is widely recognized for its pioneering use of immersive 3D Graphics , Networked Multiplayer Gaming on the PC platform, and support for custom expansions ( WAD s). Distributed as Shareware , ''Doom'' was Download ed by an estimated 10 million people within two years, popularizing the mode of gameplay and spawning a gaming Subculture ; as a sign of its impact on the industry, games from the mid-1990s boom of first-person shooters are often known simply as " ''Doom'' Clones ". Its graphic and interactive Violence 1 has also made ''Doom'' the subject of much Controversy reaching outside the gaming world. According to GameSpy , ''Doom'' was voted by industry insiders to be the greatest game of all time.2 The ''Doom'' franchise was continued with '''' ( 1994 ) and numerous Expansion Pack s, including '' The Ultimate Doom '' ( 1995 ), '' Master Levels For Doom II '' (1995), and '' Final Doom '' ( 1996 ). Originally released for PC / DOS , these games have later been Ported to many other platforms, including nine different Game Console s. The series lost mainstream appeal as the technology of the ''Doom'' Game Engine was surpassed in the mid-1990s, although fans have continued making WADs , Speedrun s, and modifications to the Source Code released in 1997. The franchise again received popular attention in 2004 with the release of '' Doom 3 '', a retelling of the original game using new technology, and an associated 2005 ''Doom'' Motion Picture . GAME FEATURES Story ''Doom'' has a Science Fiction / Horror theme, and a simple Plot . The background is only given in the game's manual, and the in-game story is mainly advanced with short messages displayed between the game's episodes. The player takes the role of a nameless Space Marine (referred to as " Doomguy " by many fans), "one of Earth's toughest, hardened in combat and trained for action", who has been deported to Mars for assaulting a senior officer when ordered to kill unarmed civilians. He is forced to work for the Union Aerospace Corporation (UAC), a military-industrial conglomerate that is performing secret experiments with Teleportation between the moons of Mars, Phobos and Deimos . The Marine may have been forced into a security or unimportant staff position according to the manual, stating "with no action for fifty million miles, your day consisted of suckin' dust and watchin' restricted flicks in the rec room." Suddenly, something goes wrong and creatures from Hell come out of the teleportation gates, or "Gateways". A defensive response from base security fails to halt the invasion, and the bases quickly get overrun by Demon s; all personnel are killed or turned into Zombie s. At the same time, Deimos vanishes entirely. A UAC team from Mars is sent to Phobos to investigate the incident, but soon Radio contact ceases and only one human is left alive — the player, whose task is to make it out alive.3 In order to complete the game, the player must fight through three episodes containing nine , the Spider Mastermind , a hidden doorway opens for the hero who has "proven too tough for Hell to contain", leading back home to Earth. The expansion pack ''Ultimate Doom'' adds a fourth episode, ''Thy Flesh Consumed'', chronicling the marine's return to Earth, in other words his adventures between the first three traditional episodes of ''Doom'' and '' Doom II ''. Gameplay on Phobos . In this image the main character is currently using the Chainsaw , a powerful Mêlée -only weapon. Pools of Toxic Waste are visible on both sides, and a Zombified human approaches.]] Being a First-person Shooter , ''Doom'' is experienced through the eyes of the main character. The objective of each level is simply to locate the exit room that leads to the next area (usually labeled with an inviting red EXIT sign), while surviving all hazards on the way. Among the obstacles are monsters, pits of Radioactive Slime , ceilings that come down and Crush the player, and locked doors for which a Keycard , Skeleton key, or remote switch need to be located. The levels are sometimes labyrinthine (the Automap is a crucial aid in navigating them), and feature plenty of hidden secret areas that hold Power-up s as a reward for players who explore. ''Doom'' is notable for the , a Shotgun , a Chaingun , a Rocket Launcher , a Plasma Rifle , and finally the immensely powerful BFG 9000 . There is a wide array of power-ups, such as a Backpack that increases the player's ammunition-carrying capacity, Armor , First Aid Kit s to restore health, the berserk pack (a black first aid box that puts the character into Berserk Mode , allowing them to deal out rocket launcher-level damage with their fists and potentially splattering former humans and imps), and supernatural blue orbs (called Soul Spheres) that boost the player's health percentage beyond 100%, up to a maximum of 200%. . The main character has just fired the Shotgun at a group of Imps and is cycling it. He is injured and has only seven shells left.]] The Enemy Monsters in ''Doom'' make up the central gameplay element. The player faces them in large numbers, on the higher of the game's five Difficulty Level s often encountering a dozen or more in the same room. There are 10 types of monsters ('' Doom II '' doubles this figure), including possessed humans as well as Demon s of different strength, ranging from weak but ubiquitous Imp s and red, floating Cacodemon s, to the Bosses which survive multiple strikes even from the player's strongest weapons. The monsters have very simple behavior, consisting of either walking toward the player or attacking by throwing fireballs, biting, and scratching (though they can also Fight Each Other ). Many versions of ''Doom'' (and its sequels) include secret levels which are accessed by the player discovering alternate exits, often hidden behind secret doors or in difficult-to-reach areas. In some versions of ''Doom II'' two of these secret levels incorporate level design and characters from ''Doom'''s precursor, '' Wolfenstein 3D ''. Aside from the ", in which two to four players team up against the legions of Hell, and " Deathmatch ", in which two to four players fight each other. DEVELOPMENT See Also: Making of Doom creates the Baron Of Hell in clay.]] The development of ''Doom'' started in 1992 when John Carmack developed a new 3-D Game Engine , the ''Doom'' Engine , while the rest of the id Software team finished the Wolfenstein 3D sequel '' Spear Of Destiny ''. When the Game Design phase began in late 1992, the main thematic influences were the Science Fiction Action Movie '' Aliens '' and the Horror Movie '' Evil Dead II ''. The title of the game was picked by Carmack: There is a scene in " The Color Of Money " where Tom Cruse Designer or Latex , and some of the weapons are toy guns from Toys "R" Us . A Heavy Metal - Ambient soundtrack was supplied by Bobby Prince .6 Engine technology See Also: Doom engine ''Doom''
In contrast to the static levels of ''Wolfenstein 3D'', those in ''Doom'' are highly interactive: platforms can lower and rise, floors can rise sequentially to form Staircase s, and bridges can rise and descend. The life-like feeling of the environment was enhanced further by the Stereo Sound system, which made it possible to roughly tell the direction and distance of a sound's origin. The player is kept on guard by the grunts and growls of monsters, and receives occasional clues to finding secret areas in the form of sounds of hidden doors opening remotely. Monsters can also become aware of the player's presence by hearing distant gunshots. Carmack had to make use of several tricks for these features to run smoothly on home computers of 1993. Most significantly, ''Doom'' levels are not truly three-dimensional; they are internally represented on a method. Another benefit was the clarity of the automap because it could be displayed with 2D vectors without the risk of overlapping. Another important feature of the ''Doom'' engine is a modular approach that allows the game content to be replaced by loading custom WAD Files . ''Wolfenstein 3D'' was not designed to be expandable, but fans had nevertheless figured out how to create their own levels for it, and ''Doom'' was designed to take the phenomenon further. The ability to create custom scenarios contributed significantly to the game's popularity (see the section on WADs below). RELEASE AND LATER HISTORY Initial popularity The development of ''Doom'' was surrounded by much anticipation. The large number of posts in Internet run at the University Of Wisconsin-Madison on December 10 1993 . Released as Shareware , people were encouraged to distribute ''Doom'' further, and did so: in 1995, ''Doom'' was estimated to have been installed on more than 10 million computers. Although most users did not purchase the registered version, over one million copies have been sold, and the popularity helped the sales of later games in the ''Doom'' series which were not released as shareware. In 1995, ''The Ultimate Doom'' (version 1.9, including episode IV) was released, making this the first time that ''Doom'' was sold commercially in stores. made a video presentation to promote Windows 95 while digitally superimposed into ''Doom'' to blast zombies.]] In a press release dated s with traffic caused by deathmatches. Intel , Lotus Development and Carnegie Mellon University are among many organizations reported to form policies specifically disallowing ''Doom''-playing during work hours. At the Microsoft campus, ''Doom'' was by one account equal to a "religious phenomenon". In late 1995, ''Doom'' was estimated to be installed on more computers worldwide than Microsoft's new operating system Windows 95 , despite million-dollar advertising campaigns for the latter. The game's popularity prompted Bill Gates to briefly consider buying id Software, and led Microsoft to develop a Windows 95 port of ''Doom'' to promote the operating system as a gaming platform. One such presentation to promote Windows 95 had Bill Gates digitally superimposed into the game.7 The Microsoft 1995 release Excel 95 included a ''Doom-esque'' secret level as an Easter Egg containing portraits of the programmers among other things. It is speculated that Microsoft engineers took advantage of their experience working on the Doom Windows 95 port to place the code in the spreadsheet program. Easter Egg archive - Excel 95 ''Doom'' was also widely praised in the gaming press. In 1994, it was awarded Game Of The Year by both '' PC Gamer '' and '' Computer Gaming World ''. It also received the Award for Technical Excellence from '' PC Magazine '', and the Best Action Adventure Game award by the Academy Of Interactive Arts & Sciences . In addition to the thrilling nature of the single-player game, the Deathmatch mode was an important factor in the game's popularity. ''Doom'' was not the first first-person shooter with a deathmatch mode—'' MIDI Maze '' on the Atari ST had one in 1987, using the MIDI ports built into the ST to network up to four machines together. However, ''Doom'' was the first game to allow deathmatching over Ethernet , and the combination of violence and gore with fighting friends made deathmatching in ''Doom'' particularly attractive. Two player deathmatch was also possible over a phone line by using a Modem . Due to its widespread distribution, ''Doom'' hence became the game that introduced deathmatching to a large audience (and was also the first game to use the term "deathmatch"). WADs See Also: Doom WAD '' is one of many movies that has been made into ''Doom'' WADs.]] The ability to create custom levels and otherwise modify the game, in the form of custom WAD File s, turned out to be a particularly popular aspect of ''Doom''. Gaining the first large Mod -making community, ''Doom'' affected the culture surrounding first-person shooters, and also the industry. Several to-be professional Game Designer s started their careers making ''Doom'' WADs as a hobby, among them Tim Willits , who later became the lead designer at id Software. The first Level Editor s appeared in early 1994, and additional tools have been created that allow most aspects of the game to be edited. Although the majority of WADs contain one or several custom levels mostly in the style of the original game, others implement new monsters and other resources, and heavily alter the gameplay; several popular movies, television series and other brands from popular culture have been turned into ''Doom'' WADs by fans (without authorization), including '' Aliens '', '' Star Wars '', '' The X-files '', '' The Simpsons '', '' South Park '', '' Dragon Ball Z '', '' Pokémon '' , and '' Batman ''. Some works like the ''Theme Doom Patch'' even combined enemies from several movies like '' Aliens '', '' Predator '' and '' The Terminator ''. Some addon files were also made which changed the sounds made by the various characters and weapons. Notable ones were samples from Beavis And Butthead and the famous fake orgasm scene from '' When Harry Met Sally... ''. Around 1994 and 1995, WADs were primarily distributed online over Bulletin Board System s or sold in collections on Compact Disc s in computer shops, sometimes bundled with editing guide books. FTP servers became the primary method in later years. A few WADs have been released commercially, including the '' Master Levels For Doom II '', which was released in 1995 along with ''Maximum Doom'', a CD containing 1,830 WADs that had been downloaded from the Internet. Several thousands of WADs have been created in total: the ''idgames'' FTP archive contains over 13,000 files,8 and this does not represent the complete output of ''Doom'' fans. Third party programs were also written to handle the loading of various WADs, since the game is a DOS game and all commands had to be entered on the Command Line in order to run. A typical launcher would allow the player to select which files to load from a menu, making it much easier to start. Clones and related products See Also: Doom clone Versions and ports of Doom Doom spin-offs and homages " was initially popular to describe the style of gameplay in ''Doom''-like games, but after 1996 was gradually replaced by " First-person Shooter ".]] The popularity of ''Doom'' led to the development of a sequel, '' on Xbox Live Arcade . The total number of copies of ''Doom'' games sold is unknown, but may be well over 4 million;9 ''Doom II'' alone has sold for over $100 million. The game engine was licensed to several other companies as well, who released their own games based on it, including '' Heretic '', '' Hexen '', '' Strife '' and '' HacX ''. There is also a ''Doom''-based game released by a breakfast Cereal maker as a product tie-in called '' Chex Quest '', and the United States Marine Corps released '' Marine Doom '', designed to "teach teamwork, coordination and decision-making". Dozens of new first-person shooter titles appeared following ''Doom'' When, three years later, 3D Realms released '' Duke Nukem 3D '', a tongue-in-cheek science fiction shooter based on Ken Silverman 's technologically similar ''Build'' Engine , id Software had nearly finished '' Quake '', its next-generation game, which mirrored ''Doom'' ''Doom'' has appeared in several forms in addition to games, including a '' by David Kushner . Controversy can be used to explode enemies into piles of Gibs ; the graphic violence made ''Doom'' highly controversial.]] ''Doom'' was and remains notorious for its high levels of Violence , Gore , and Satanic imagery, which have generated much controversy from a broad range of groups. It has been criticized numerous times by religious organizations for its diabolic undertones and was dubbed a "mass murder simulator" by critic and Killology Research Group founder David Grossman .11 ''Doom'' prompted fears that the then-emerging Virtual Reality technology could be used to simulate extremely realistic killing, and in 1994 led to unsuccessful attempts by Washington State Senator Phil Talmadge to introduce compulsory licensing of VR use. The game again sparked controversy throughout a period of School Shooting s in the United States when it was found that Eric Harris And Dylan Klebold , who committed the Columbine High School Massacre in 1999, were avid players of the game. While planning for the massacre, Harris said that the killing would be "like fucking ''Doom''" and that his shotgun was "straight out of" the game.12 A rumor spread afterwards that Harris had designed ''Doom'' levels that looked like the halls of the high school, populated with representations of Harris's classmates and teachers, and that Harris practiced for his role in the shootings by playing these levels over and over. Although Harris did design ''Doom'' levels, they were not simulations of Columbine High School (see Harris Levels ). Continued legacy ''Doom'' is widely regarded as one of the most important titles in gaming history. It was voted the "#1 game of all time" in a poll among over 100 game developers and journalists conducted by GameSpy in July 2001,13 and PC Gamer proclaimed ''Doom'' the most influential game of all time in its ten-year anniversary issue in April 2004, and named it the second best game of all time a year later (number one was Half-Life). However, several game journalists have also contrasted the relatively simplistic gameplay in ''Doom'' unfavorably with more story-oriented first-person shooters such as '' Half-Life ''. Although the popularity of the ''Doom'' games dropped with the release of '' Duke Nukem 3D '' (1996) and '' Quake '' (1996), the game had still retained a strong fan base that continues to this day by playing competitively and creating WADs (the ''idgames'' FTP archive receives a few to a dozen new WADs each week As Of 2005 ), and ''Doom''-related news is still tracked at multiple websites such as Doomworld . Interest in ''Doom'' was renewed in 1997, when the Source Code for the ''Doom'' engine was released (it was also placed under the GNU General Public License in 1999). Fans then began Porting the game to various operating systems, even to previously unsupported platforms such as the Dreamcast , PSP and the IPod , and adding new features such as OpenGL rendering and Scripting , which allows WADs to alter the gameplay more radically. There are well over 50 different ''Doom'' Source Ports , some of which remain under active development. Devoted players have spent years creating Speedruns For ''Doom'' , competing for the quickest completion times and sharing knowledge about routes through the levels and how to exploit Bug s in the ''Doom'' engine for shortcuts. Achievements include the completion of both ''Doom'' and ''Doom II'' on the ''Ultra-Violence'' difficulty setting in less than 30 minutes each. In addition, a few players have also managed to complete ''Doom II'' in a single run on the ''Nightmare!'' difficulty setting, on which monsters are more aggressive, launch faster projectiles (or, in the case of the Pinky Demon, simply move faster), and respawn roughly 30 seconds after they have been killed (level designer John Romero characterized the idea of such a run as " having to be impossible"14). Movies of most of these runs are available from the COMPET-N website. REFERENCES EXTERNAL LINKS
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