While this blog is generally reserved for movies, I do periodically talk about video games, especially ones that I feel that are worth mentioning. I’ve been a gamer for as long as I can remember, so I want to discuss a video game that has had an impact on not just my life, but society and pop culture in general: Doom. The reason I bring this up is because last Friday, which was the 13th of May, id Software and its parent company, Bethesda Softworks, released the latest iteration of Doom. Now, before I go over why Doom is such an important part of gaming and pop culture, I want to take you back to the early 90’s, specifically 1991. In 1991, 4 employees from a company called Softdisk, struck out on their own and founded a company called id Software. After finishing up on Commander Keen, a 2D side-scrolling game, id Software struck gold with a first-person shooter called Wolfenstein 3-D. The game put the player in the shoes of protagonist B.J. Blazkowicz, who was sent on a mission to kill Adolf Hitler. The game was a critical and financial success. Wolfenstein 3-D is widely considered to be the grandfather of the first-person shooter genre. It was a game that I absolutely loved, even though my folks were a little hesitant about me playing a game where I shot people. But these weren’t people, they were Nazis. HUGE difference.
In the following year, 1993, id Software followed up Wolfenstein 3-D with Doom. Doom was revolutionary in every single aspect. From the then-realistic graphics, to the gun-play, music and sound effects, Doom changed everything about video games. Not only did Doom change how games were made and approached, but it showed audiences that you could do a lot with very little. The game-play in Doom is very straight-forward: Point, shoot and try not to get killed. It’s a kind of purity that the genre would end up phasing out towards the end of the decade. Part of what made Doom so special was a number of things. For one, people who wanted to try the game could get the entire first episode for free: Knee-Deep In The Dead. The game was initially split up into three different episodes with about 9 levels each. Doom utilized a free form of distribution called shareware. This was a method that gamers could use to try the game for free. These days, it’s called a demo. But back in the early 90’s, the Internet was basically in its infancy, so the free version of Doom came on 3.5 inch floppy disks. One of the other things that made the game unique was its graphics engine. While Wolfenstein 3-D appeared in 3-D, you could only move forward, back, and side to side. There were no elevated platforms. Doom introduced a fully 3-D environment. The characters still used sprites, but that’s because of the limitations of technology. Visually, the game was brilliant, utilizing various lighting techniques that nobody had ever seen before in a video game. The sound was also astounding. Honestly, even playing this game today still gives me the creeps. It still maintains that kind of atmosphere after 23 years.
After the monumental success of the original Doom, id Software began work on a sequel, called creatively enough, Doom II. This game was released in 1995. While it didn’t advance the genre forward technologically, it still ended up being a phenomenal game. In fact, Doom II really popularized the multi-player phenomenon with it’s wildly entertaining “Deathmatch” mode. I played it myself, and it was simply an amazing experience. While I was definitely a gamer back in the day, it was Doom that really cemented gaming as my go-to hobby. I’ve been playing games for over 20 years and I have no regrets. First-person shooters were my bread-and-butter at the time, so that was the genre that I was really attached to. Doom has influenced so many gamers and game developers over the years, it’s hard to really get a footing on who the first imitator was. Duke Nukem 3D was the next evolutionary step. It took the concepts introduced in Doom and took to another level, with the ability to look up and down and jump.
That’s not to say that Doom doesn’t have its detractors, it does. There were a lot of conservative groups at the time that railed against the game because of its Satanic imagery and it’s level of ultra-violence. It was definitely a gory game at the time. You look at it today, and it’s tame by today’s standards. But during the 90’s, parents and politicians were incensed. Unfortunately, the game would further gain notoriety because of a tragedy that happened in 1999: The Columbine Massacre. What happened was that two of the students from that high school thought out and planned an attack that took the lives of 12 students and one teacher. The pair would end up committing suicide shortly after. What was brought into question as to why this happened was emphasis on gun culture, outcasts and violence in video games, among other things. The game that came into the crosshairs of politicians at this time was Doom, as it was proven that these two kids played the game obsessively. A lot of people blamed the video game directly for the actions of the killers. While this is a topic for another time, I feel that people really didn’t understand the issues of mental illness at the time, as the two suffered from massive depression. Multiple studies have since proven that there is no direct connection between violent video games and people that commit violence. People have always tried to find something or someone to blame. First, it was rock’n’roll music, then it was television and now it’s video games. People want a scapegoat instead of actually trying to understand why people commit acts of violence.
After the release of Doom II, id Software would begin focusing on a new IP called Quake. See, id Software was always about really pushing and improving technology in video games, which made the company a major pioneer in the industry. Quake was the first truly 3D first-person shooter. I’m not just talking about the environments, but also the characters and creatures themselves. Instead of using sprite, id started using polygons, so the creatures and objects had a fully 3D look to them. The company would focus on Quake until 2004.
In 2004, id Software finally brought Doom into the 21st century with Doom 3. Doom 3 sported a brand new graphics engine that actually pushed PC to their limits. It was also one of the first games to require Windows XP. While Doom 3 was fairly well-received by most people, others railed against the game, because the game-play was different. Instead of the usual run-and-gun play-style of the first two games, Doom 3 opted for a more “survival-horror” approach. Instead of running ahead and shooting everything that moves, you had to reserve your ammo for the right moment, because ammunition was in short supply. It was still a shooter at its core, but the overall feel of Doom 3 was different. I loved the game, personally, but I understood why some people didn’t.
Over the course of the past 20 years, Doom has been ported to multiple platforms including the Nintendo 64, Sega 32X, and PlayStation. Doom has also been adapted into other forms of media including comic books, novels and a film in 2006. I recently reviewed the Doom film in my last post, and while it was not that great of a movie, it was certainly a fun time. But I’ve also had the pleasure of reading the first four novels of Doom. They weren’t particularly great, but they kind of expanded on the universe introduced in the original game. I don’t think it was a universe that needed expanding, but that’s what happened. After the released of Doom 3, id Software began focusing their efforts on a new Quake game, and a new IP called Rage. In 2008, id Software announced that production would begin on a fourth Doom game. After multiple starts and stops, we finally got a brand new Doom this year.
On Friday the 13th of May 2016, the new Doom was unleashed. Featuring a brand-new graphics engine, the new game would actually return to the original game-play style of running and gunning with a few new improvements. Initially, I had played the multiplayer beta a few weeks back and I was not impressed, mostly because it wasn’t developed by id Software. However, after hearing many good things about the single-player campaign, I picked up the game last night. After spending a significant time in the campaign, I have to say that I’m fully impressed. I don’t have the PC to run the game at maximum detail, but it does scale pretty well to older machines, and it still looks freaking amazing. Gone is the survival-horror element of the previous game. With new graphics and old-fashioned game-play, Doom 2016 is a very, very good game. With a new “glory-kill” system, taking out demons has never been this much fun.
So, what does Doom mean to me? I’ve been playing the game since 1993 and it’s one of my favorite video-game series of all time. Despite all the controversies and detractors, there isn’t a bad Doom game. id Software is one of my favorite developers in the industry, and while some of their games have not been up to the usual quality that id is known for, they are a great deal of fun. Doom, for better or worse, is an important part of not just pop-culture, but culture in general. It’s one of the most significant pieces of software ever released, and all the notoriety the game has attained has only served to make it more popular. It’s caused a lot of discussion about violence in video games and just how big that gaming has become. At the time, gaming was considered to be a kid’s hobby, but now it’s a part of many people’s lives and will continue to be so in the years to come. Doom has played an instrumental part in that, and it will go down in history as one of the most influential and controversial games to be released.