Recently we celebrated thirty years since one of gaming’s most Chad franchises was released and video games were never quite the same. I’m talking DOOM; the demon-slaying, metal as fuck game that popularised the first person shooter.
The premise of DOOM is as simple as Lenny from Of Mice and Men. YOU are an unnamed space marine, popularly known as Doomguy, stationed on the Union Aerospace Corporation’s Mars base. Unfortunately, those sneaky bastards in the military have been conducting dangerous teleporter experiments and unsurprisingly the demons of hell invade. Everyone else gets their arse turned into a fine paste leaving only YOU to stop the demonic attack.
Fortunately, the Doomguy was off sick the day they were handing out fucks to give, so the ripping and tearing ensues. He storms the UAC base on the moon Phobos (Episode 1), dimension-hops to the abducted moon Deimos (Episode 2), before dropping down to Hell on balls of steel (Episode 3). It’s like The Divine Comedy for guys with more muscles than books.
Developed by id Software, DOOM was genuinely a landmark title in the history of gaming. It took everything previous FPS games established (especially id’s own Wolfenstein 3D) and dialled it up to eleven. The pace, the graphics, the violence, the god-damn key hunting, everything. In id’s house, you shoot faster than me after ‘it’s been a while’; piss off Christians by (*checks notes*) killing demons; and spend five fucking hours searching for the fucking blue key on Mt. Erebus (E3M6).
Wolfenstein’s levels all took place in samey labyrinths of primary colours which all had swastikas and paintings of Hitler on the walls (like you’re at your Austrian Grandparents’ house). Doom’s levels instead takes place in vibrant Hell citadels with pentagrams everywhere and the occasional fleshy button that looks like a tightened arsehole; as well as cold, dank industrial bases that could do to put a fucking rug down to spruce the place up.
Throughout the game, the protagonist’s personality is synonymous with the player’s expectations: both simply want to rip and tear, and id are the eagerly indulging parents. There’s rocket launchers with more splash damage than a cum shot from a blue whale, movement speed resembling a black teen running away from American police, and more pick-ups than an accident-prone contact lens factory.
The demons you face are some of the most iconic enemies in any game. From the lowly fire ball chucking brown imps, to the big meaty bull-like pinkies, to the cacodemons (giant one-eyed floating red heads with a single eye and a gaping maw), all the way to the big bad cyberdemon himself – a tower sized goat demon with a rocket launcher for an arm. The roster of demons is fairly small – 10 in total – but the game uses its enemy types well. Each one plays a specific function. For example, the lost souls (floating fire skulls) are there so you have something to tell to get fucked.
Aiding you in your quest to ‘rip and tear’ is a varied collection of weapons, 7 all in all. These are accompanied by Doomguy’s psychotic grin whenever he finds a new gun, as though he’s just seen an unflattering photo of his ex on Instagram. You have your fists (use at your own risk, unless you have the Berserk power-up), chainsaw, pistol, shotgun, chaingun, rocket launcher, plasma rifle, and the BFG9000 aka the Big Friendly Giant/Big Fucking Gun. A good variety but the pistol is basically the gun you use to get yourself a better gun at the start of a level, and your shotgun will be your go-to weapon for most of the game.
Doom excels when it’s the gross-out gorefest. Unfortunately, that’s only part of the experience. I made a joke about spending ages searching for a key, but in truth that’s what you’ll spend most of your time doing. There’s convoluted labyrinths, laborious key hunts, and at times a real tedium that’s broken only by the monsters that’ll ambush you from nowhere like X users after you dare to have a slightly nuanced take.
As the game progresses it becomes increasingly easy to anticipate encounters, the level design akin to Wile E. Coyote setting up exceedingly obvious traps that the player can only roll their eyes at. Doom repeats its tricks so often that they become played out more quickly than Ray J. Johnson Jr (good luck with that reference if you’re under forty).
So, Doom in a nutshell? You start the level and need to make your way to the end of the level, which can possibly take a long time depending how deviously hidden the keys are, and every demon between you and your goal will be torn a new arsehole. And there will be a lot of demons if you have play the game on Ultraviolence, like a real man should.
Is it still good? Yes. Is it still balls to the wall? If you play on Ultraviolence or higher, you’ll be forced to desperately search for health pick-ups as though you’re trying to find a clean toilet in a hospital for the blind. Err, so yes?
Midnight Cinema Junkyard 