So there was a Steam sale around 7-9 months ago and one of the items on sale was the "Doom complete pack". I had played the freeware version of the original Doom alot when I was a child. In fact, it was the first computer game I had ever played. I felt nostalgic and decided to buy the whole thing.
So what I got for the price of 8 euros?
Ultimate Doom, Doom 2, Master levels for Doom 2, Final Doom, Doom 3 and Doom 3: Resurrection of Evil
Excluding the Doom 3 series, the other ones are pretty much the same game with different levels and monsters/guns(I´ll get to that later). In total, those "original Doom games" consist of more than 150 levels. I don´t think I`ve ever bought anything as cost-effectively.
Being a person who likes challenge in videogames, I decided to play through the older games with "Ultra Violence" difficulty. There actually is a harder difficulty level, Nightmare, where random enemies keep spawning as you kill them.(I still prefer UV, what is dead should, preferably, stay dead)
Ultimate Doom Episode 1: Knee-Deep in the Dead
When the first level began and the music started playing...I smiled the whole level through...I mean, how can you not? I give you a link in the spoiler, it is a masterpiece+ Show Spoiler +
. Having played this episode hundred times it didn´t take too long. I was ready for the next one.
Episode 2: The Shores of Hell
I had not played these levels before, so everything from now on was new to me. There is one new weapon in this episode(The plasma rifle) and 2 new enemies (Cacodemons and Lost souls) as well as the boss monsters of episode1(Barons of Hell) are now normal enemies. The levels weren´t too difficult but still harder than the ones episode 1 had. At the end of the episode there also is a real bossfight, which was also cool.
Episode 3: Inferno
The last weapon the original Doom is introduced in this episode: The BFG9000. There are no other new enemies except the final boss of the episode. Again, harder than the previous ones but nothing I couldn´t handle.
Episode 4: Thy Flesh Consumed
Ok, here is where progressive difficulty scaling goes to Hell. This episode was harder than everything I had experienced before put together. I literally made it out of the first level with 2 hit points left as I ran past the few demons guarding the exit. Later I discovered that the hardest map of the Ultimate Doom was the second map of this episode. I made it eventually, thinking it wouldn´t get any harder than this. I was wrong.
Doom 2: Hell on Earth
The basic gameplay of Doom 2 is exactly like the original, with new things added: (I´ll spoiler this to keep it clean) + Show Spoiler +
One new weapon, the Super shotgun, one powerup Megasphere and a bunch of new monsters: -Chaingun Zombie - Hell Knight(smaller version of Baron of Hell) -Revenant(Skeleton with shoulder-mounted rocket launchers firing guided rockets) -Mancubus(fat brown demon firing barrages of fireballs) -Arachnotron(smaller version of the boss Spider Mastermind, fires plasma rounds) -Pain Elemental(Round flying monster that spits out Lost Souls) -Arch-vile(Spellcaster demon with high-damaging fire attack as well as power to resurrect dead monsters)
There are no episodes in Doom 2. Instead you just play around 30 levels straight. The difficulty increases pretty rapidly from easier early levels to slightly more harder than the episode 4 was. The hardest part for me was to learn how to deal with the new enemies. There are considerably more monsters in each level than in the previous game and the level design is more advanced.
Having completed Doom 2, the next thing in the list was Final Doom. Final Doom consist of 2 parts of 30+ missions: The Plutonia Experiment and TNT:Evilution. The game is essentially a map pack for Doom 2. I decided to play PE first.
Final Doom: Plutonia Experiment This set of levels is the hardest thing in these 3 games, clearly shown in these results of scientific research + Show Spoiler +
Eventually I made it. Every last one of those 422 Revenants is dead. Every...last....one... Just to show you the most ridiculous map this set had, have a walkthgrough(not me playing)+ Show Spoiler +
.
Final Doom: TNT:Evilution
While not being as hard as Plutonia, these maps still were a challenge. The level design is more complex and a few times I got stuck for many minutes not knowing where to go next(maybe just me).
Finally I was done. I had beaten the original Doom series on Ultra Violence.
So onto this
This game was released in 2004 and was considered to be one of the greatest achievements graphics wise up to that date. It still looks good.
The one thing that comes to mind for most people who have heard of Doom 3 is darkness. That game is dark. As in, it is hard to see things. Doom 3 is sci-fi/horror/survival fps that is known for pitch dark corridors filled with demons waiting to ambush the player. Player can still use a flashlight but not while using a weapon.
I had no expectations when starting this game. I haven´t really played any horror-games, classic Doom is not horror in my opinion. Overall, my experience turned out to be quite positive.
Unlike the previous games, this one also has an actual story in it: it is year 2145, UAC research center developes teleportation technology on Mars, something goes wrong, they manage of open a portal to hell, hell breaks loose, it is up to you to save the day.
When the game begins you(nameless, silent space marine without a personality) arrive in the UAC labs. After getting introduced to characters and walking around the labs for 15 minutes the action begins. You´ll get your first heart-attack around the 16 minute mark.
Difficulty levels in this game only alter the % of incoming damage from the enemies. I intended to play this with hardest one but after getting brutally murdered in the first level while having a pulse of 200 I did reduce it.
There are 27 levels in Doom 3, most of them are pretty linear, filled with dark corridors. There still is a reason to explore everything as the levels are filled with hidden ammo and weapons. The gameplay is considerably slower in Doom 3 than in the older games and very repetitive(personally I dont really care, older Doom games are even more repetitive tbh)
Most of the classic Doom monsters and weapons can be found in the game as well as a bunch of new ones. The biggest change however is that Cacodemons are no longer cute+ Show Spoiler +
.
This game also has deathmatch-style multiplayer but nobody really cares about it at all.
Without making this a complete review Im just going to list a few more things liked and didn´t like in Doom 3 + Show Spoiler +
What I liked: -Almost all of the weapons are fun to use -Story -enemies -bosses -interraction with control panels/security lockers -PDAs
What I didn´t like: -basic grenade is the most useless and badly designed weapon in the whole Doom-series -the darkness(I did not hate it but still would prefer more light) -slow gameplay(gets better later in the game) -corpses of dead enemies disappear instantly
What I did not mind: -Constant ambushes -Scripted events -(over)use of horror clichés
So all in all, I enjoyed the game. Total heart-attack count: 459.
Doom 3: Resurrection of Evil
So the story continues with 12 more levels, translating to 3-5 hours of gameplay. To keep this short, some new monsters and weapons(super shotgun is the best thing ever) and more fast-paced levels. Excellent expansion to the game. I finished this game today.
If you followed closely, I skipped Master levels for Doom 2. I have played some of them but not all of them yet. Very challenging and enjoyable levels
This pack costs 35e on Steam right so if you are interested in these games I suggest you to closely follow Steam sales in the future. You might get the best deal of your life.
I was just thinking about running through the older dooms again the other day. I never played Final Doom too much. I always seemed to like Ultimate Doom the best.
Doom III was not my cup of tea at all. It kept on trying to be too much like Half Life imo. Supposedly the talks about D4 have been going back to the roots of the orginals with the fast paced shoot em up stuff.
my favorite parts were always the .midi music of the originals. God I love that stuff.
Awesome write up, thanks for posting this I played DOOM when I was a little kid, and it's partially due to that (and heretic, and quake) that my parents always have had the impression that video games are bad, haha. I think the games gave me nightmares back then! I bought the original Doom game on xbox live marketplace a couple of years ago and ran through that, it was awesome. Episode 4 was some fun stuff :D I beat Doom 3 around a year after its release, and wow that game made me jump a lot. The levels in Hell were super fun though. I still haven't finished beating Doom 2 and I've never played Ultimate Doom - it looks like I learned something new from your post, and I'll keep my eyes open for a sale on these games in the future. ^^
This takes me back. Doom was the best thing ever back in the day. I'll definitely watch out for that steam sale. I loved all doom parts. Especially the music was kick-ass. Even though (maybe because) it was so limited the tunes are awesome and stick to your brain. And the level design is, albeit complex, better than in most modern day shooters where you can only go in one direction and are held by the hand. Thanks for this OP.
On February 29 2012 04:07 CakeSauc3 wrote:I still haven't finished beating Doom 2 and I've never played Ultimate Doom - it looks like I learned something new from your post, and I'll keep my eyes open for a sale on these games in the future. ^^
Keep in mind that "Ultimate Doom" is merely the original game with a fourth episode tacked onto it.
To the OP, if you haven't had your fill yet, I'd recommend checking out the fan made Plutonia 2 map-pack. It's pretty challenging, but without every map devolving into a major slugfest similar to the one you've been through in map 32 of Plutonia 1. Assuming custom maps work with the Steam thingymajig at all, that is :-p
On February 29 2012 04:07 CakeSauc3 wrote:I still haven't finished beating Doom 2 and I've never played Ultimate Doom - it looks like I learned something new from your post, and I'll keep my eyes open for a sale on these games in the future. ^^
Keep in mind that "Ultimate Doom" is merely the original game with a fourth episode tacked onto it.
To the OP, if you haven't had your fill yet, I'd recommend checking out the fan made Plutonia 2 map-pack. It's pretty challenging, but without every map devolving into a major slugfest similar to the one you've been through in map 32 of Plutonia 1. Assuming custom maps work with the Steam thingymajig at all, that is :-p
I don't have the Steam version but I'd imagine the .wad files can be found in the steamapps directory. Easiest would probably be to copy them into the directory of a separately installed modern source port. Zdoom for example can run custom levels just by drag 'n dropping them on the main executable.
My personal favourites are Erik Alm's Scythe series and various other epic maps like Deus Vult :-)
In any case the Master Levels are rather mediocre compared to a lot of freely available content (try browsing Doomworld's annual Cacowards for example; they feature many of the highlight levels of every year).
I bought this a while back too but whenever I run Doom 1 or 2, I can't seem to get the mouse working and have to use the arrow keys for turning even though Doom 1 & 2 had mouse support. I'm running windows XP here too.
Actually yes, I have downloaded Skulltag engine and I´ve mainly played co-op with a friend(who I gifted this pack on Steam) in Doom 2 and Final Doom. For whatever reason I forgot to mention it.
Quess I should look more into fan made maps.
If you buy Doom games on Steam you can find .wad files in steam/steamapps/common/insertdoomnamehere/base
On February 29 2012 05:17 Yaqoob wrote: I bought this a while back too but whenever I run Doom 1 or 2, I can't seem to get the mouse working and have to use the arrow keys for turning even though Doom 1 & 2 had mouse support. I'm running windows XP here too.
Yeah this is the same for me
I used to LOVE the wad creator. Even if my maps were awful i had so much fun just making random shit for my brother to try and run
That was a fun read! I remember watching my dad play Doom when I was 3 or 4 years old and then a year later starting to play it myself. I can't tell you how often I have finished Doom and Doom II, probably well over 20 times each. Evilution and The Plutonia Experiment I only played through once, somehow they don't quite have the charm or nostalgia of the original maps.
Doom 3 and the add-on were also fun, but in a different way. While in the classic games you just had to slaughter the shit out of everything, Doom 3 went with a more atmospheric approach, considerably less enemies on screen etc. It was one of the first games I got with a new computer at the time (around 2004 I think?), and I remember being absolutely blown away by the graphics.
Even nowadays I'll boot up Doomsday (Doom source port) once in a while and do a quick runthrough of Doom II, since by now I pretty much know all the levels by heart.
To the OP: Have you ever played Heretic or Hexen? They were made by Raven Software, published by id and they both use modified versions of the Doom Engine. The big difference is that instead of a zombies and demons kind of deal, they take place in a fantasy setting. While neither of them will ever have as big a place in my gamer heart as Doom has, they were still fun games in their own right.
i was just looking back at doom just videos of people playing, but i have never played it myself i was more into consoles at the time and the only computer games i bothered with were sc bw and aoe series
On March 05 2012 10:12 Hawk wrote: I beat Ultimate Doom on UV today. No fucking kidding e4m2 was stupid hard. Good lord.
Yeah, it still is one of the best maps, though.
What makes e4m2 Perfect Hatred hard: -Lack of cover -not too much extra ammo to spare -not knowing what is about to happen(if 1st time playing) -easy to fall of ledges into that poison pit -not picking up the secret Rocket laucher in m1
Funny fact: The Cyberdemon in the end is intended to be telefragged by walking onto a teleporter. You´ll find a BFG below its corpse.
Also there is a hidden exit to a bonus level. Every episode has one hidden somewhere.
I dislike the Icon of Sin level. It's kind of silly to have to fall from a pillar firing rockets into a tiny hole. (You can't change your aim vertically).
I played ZDoom (or something) online. It seemed much faster than I remember my modem hosted Death Matches in yesteryears.
Thanks for posting this, i've been looking for years for an easy way to get doom. I would say 5+ just downloaded and planning to check through the mods afterwards. I've never played more than doom, doom 2 though in the past meaning it may be a while looking at what you say about act 4 and also final doom.
So, downloaded "Scythe" 32 level megawad by Erik Alm as suggested here. This was the download description + Show Spoiler +
A 32 level megawad for doom2. This megawad doesn't have perfect texture alignment, insane detail and fantasticly hard gameplay. Instead it focuses on small fun maps to blast through without much thought about defense. The difficulty rises steadily as you go through the maps and the last few should challenge even the best.
Played on UV, completed in 2 sittings.
Some of the best maps I`ve ever played. Most of the maps are relatively small in size but full of non-stop action. There are 30 normal maps and 2 secret ones. I managed to find one of the secret ones. It starts rather slowly as you need to complete the first 2 maps with only a pistol and a chainsaw. It gets more difficult around map #15.
Maps #26 and #30 were my favourite ones. It took me 1,5 hours to complete the last one. I didn´t know you could fit 534054057 Revenants and 25 Cyberdemons in one map.
Still, there was something I did NOT like: map #28. In this one you have 30 seconds time to run to the exit or you get magically squashed. There is around 10 monsters just trying to block your path. After 50 tries and a lot of swearing I IDDQD`d it. I don´t even feel bad.
So, I´m going to imagine #28 doesn´t exist and I´ll give this wad an A. If you have Doom 2, go and download. You should get around 5-8 hours of enjoyment out of it. Until next time.
Doom is fucking badass. I still remember playing Doom 1&2 a long time ago on my familys computer (my dad was a big FPS fan back then). Doom 3 I kinda hated though. Was really annoying that it took two hands to hold a flashlight, and everything was pitch black resulting in cheap scares imo. I got bored and never finished it :/
I recently picked up a bunch of old Doom games on steam myself like Final Doom and the master levels for Doom 2.
I like all of the Dooms except 3. I've been an inordinate amount of time sifting through the history of creation, fan created projects, and even a few of my own attempts at Doom mapping. My favorite thing about the games is that they put the gameplay first. There's little story, no talk scenes: just maps filled with monsters and a few keys scattered about. Today, it's hard to imagine a video game without photo-realistic scenery and a beautiful storyline, but here, a game from 1993 that broke all of the rules in all of the right ways.
On February 29 2012 04:42 Zorkmid wrote: Initiate refresh Daemon.
I'll deathmatch whoever
edit: it just hit me....is Doom the origin of the term Deathmatch?
It is said that John Romero came up with the term.
Ya, I went and downloaded scythe after finishing up the first 3 on UV. I planned to change it up though and start forcing myself to slog through the entire level on zero save points. Since scythe involves short detailed maps, it is your best opportunity to do so as something like plutonia revisited community project or hell revealed 2 have much larger maps. Getting to the end without savepoints will be a struggle in the larger maps, so practice is required.
As such, it took me a bit longer to finish the megawad as a few of the maps, 23, 24 and 27 in particular, ammo is short and they all involve cyberdemons that needed to be killed with less than 4 shots. (Meaning, I needed to get up close and personal. You would be suprised how nervewracking it can be to kill a cyber after doing a few hours of attempts on a map, especially when it is the last unit.). Also, i couldn't believe how many times on fear (Level 26) I ran off the fucking ledge without picking up the key. I need to to make a blooper reel or something just for that specific level.
My favorite map was anger or 23 where the two cybers come out of the blue door. There is not enough ammo to kill them so a path must be set out to distract them, press the switch to spawn more monsters and then as infighting proceeds take them out. This one took me around 4-5 hrs to complete with no saves, difficult to forge a path but damn it was satisfying when I beat "anger". (I could have just used an archvile jump, but thats no fun!).
The most enjoyment I received out of scythe comes about from the gameplay change you see from levels 19-25, it felt like a completely different game. Many people would take a look at the monster count and be discouraged but I love the fact that it puts you in weird spots, forces precise movement and thinking instead of just ducking and covering. (The sad part is it's a really easy mechanic, ammo placement and ammo amount. These two qualities ensure that you can't just duck and cover which i find frustrating in new age shooters and very boring.)
Favorite moment: If you look at the WAD's cover when you enter the game it shows the starport with a cyberdemon attacking. I get to this location on level 20 and im immediately getting suspicious of course having some great foreshadowing of what is coming. Seeing no cyber, I become less concerned and lose focus due to 2 caged arachnotron's. Cyber ports in, I die O.o
Least favorite moment. On level 27, there is a location that spawns in 3 cyberdemons in a small area and teleports the player on a blur artifact. This is a very luck based scenario, and a really frustrating way to have to redo the entire map because the errant shots went the wrong way.
I would also rate this WAD highly, and will do followups on superb WAD's. Working on hell revealed at the moment but the first one has not aged very well. The detail and design is subpar as well with unit placement. I would recommend skipping straight to HR2 if these are qualities you do not enjoy.
On March 24 2012 00:44 KingDime wrote: Ya, I went and downloaded scythe after finishing up the first 3 on UV. I planned to change it up though and start forcing myself to slog through the entire level on zero save points. Since scythe involves short detailed maps, it is your best opportunity to do so as something like plutonia revisited community project or hell revealed 2 have much larger maps. Getting to the end without savepoints will be a struggle in the larger maps, so practice is required.
As such, it took me a bit longer to finish the megawad as a few of the maps, 23, 24 and 27 in particular, ammo is short and they all involve cyberdemons that needed to be killed with less than 4 shots. (Meaning, I needed to get up close and personal. You would be suprised how nervewracking it can be to kill a cyber after doing a few hours of attempts on a map, especially when it is the last unit.). Also, i couldn't believe how many times on fear (Level 26) I ran off the fucking ledge without picking up the key. I need to to make a blooper reel or something just for that specific level.
My favorite map was anger or 23 where the two cybers come out of the blue door. There is not enough ammo to kill them so a path must be set out to distract them, press the switch to spawn more monsters and then as infighting proceeds take them out. This one took me around 4-5 hrs to complete with no saves, difficult to forge a path but damn it was satisfying when I beat "anger". (I could have just used an archvile jump, but thats no fun!).
The most enjoyment I received out of scythe comes about from the gameplay change you see from levels 19-25, it felt like a completely different game. Many people would take a look at the monster count and be discouraged but I love the fact that it puts you in weird spots, forces precise movement and thinking instead of just ducking and covering. (The sad part is it's a really easy mechanic, ammo placement and ammo amount. These two qualities ensure that you can't just duck and cover which i find frustrating in new age shooters and very boring.)
Favorite moment: If you look at the WAD's cover when you enter the game it shows the starport with a cyberdemon attacking. I get to this location on level 20 and im immediately getting suspicious of course having some great foreshadowing of what is coming. Seeing no cyber, I become less concerned and lose focus due to 2 caged arachnotron's. Cyber ports in, I die O.o
Least favorite moment. On level 27, there is a location that spawns in 3 cyberdemons in a small area and teleports the player on a blur artifact. This is a very luck based scenario, and a really frustrating way to have to redo the entire map because the errant shots went the wrong way.
I would also rate this WAD highly, and will do followups on superb WAD's. Working on hell revealed at the moment but the first one has not aged very well. The detail and design is subpar as well with unit placement. I would recommend skipping straight to HR2 if these are qualities you do not enjoy.
Verdict: Play Scythe!
Edit: oops I meant level 23 not 24
I`d still like to hear how was map #30 for you. It took so long for me to finish it but I was happy with my 80% kill rate when I finally made it. For me this map was 1,5 hours of repeating sentences "Oh, you gotta be kidding me" and "How do I deal with THIS?" . Later I finished it in 1 minute with pistol only using a speedrun trick.
At the moment I´m playing Scythe 2. Unlike in Scythe 1, these maps are huge. Currently in the 23rd level, I´ll post my thoughts when I finish it.
Level 30 i went fairly quickly to the speedrunning method because i came out of level 29 pretty battered from the 5 cybers starting with 13% health and very low cells. Clearing the initial area became an issue due to my low cells and also due to the rule of no in map saving makes the full uv max run a bit of a stretch without more practice on slaughter maps. I ended up doing the kimoxvirus path in 1:15. Oddly the hardest part was getting myself to mentally shoot during a speedrun. It's like I assumed it was a pacifist run for a while there, until I realized I CAN USE MY GUNS AND MOVE TOO!
The speedrunning itself wasn't a huge deal since I beat level 28 handily within about 5 tries. My side strafing is pretty solid but my pathing needs work. My struggles came with anger, terror and despair where your movement positioning was really crucial. After I found the speedrunning tactic, map 30 took 15 mins of attempts where as that wasn't the case with the maps just mentioned.
If I ever get a one segment run of that map with no saves, promise i'll put it up. But at this point im not going to bother. My thoughts are fire and ice is a really hard slaughter map due to a lack of good runs on youtube (no joke, aside from some TAS' it's really barren).
"Time: 31:55
Comments: An improvement of my 35:41 demo has long been overdue, but I wasn't able to do it during the last six months. I tried it a lot in October and November, spent dozens of hours with it (much more than 1000 attempts I think), until I completely burnt out. This is the reason that I didn't record anything for a long time (except some testing for Gusta's new maps). Well, this week I felt I could try it again, and finally had enough luck to get another exit."
vid name on youtube: Scythe Map30 "Fire and Ice" UV-Fast by Angus
Heres a good quote from the comments of the one uv max exit which pretty much explains the above
How can you people hate on Doom 3? That's one of the best FPS games ever made. It's hard and makes you want to poop yourself cause they actually did a fantastic job with the level design. I guess if you play on easy and laugh your way past most of the traps and encounters it's not very engrossing. Play on the harder settings.
Holy crap maps 23,24 and 25 in Scythe 2 were difficult...Feels like I have to save the game every 20 seconds as advancing feels so luck based.
So there´s a new monster type: Evil marine. Moves as fast as the player while sprinting, zigzags around you and has a plasma rifle that kills you almost instantly if the entire burst hits. Extremely hard to hit without a bfg.
Well, im hoping after I finish up my finals for uni to do some speedruns on stream as well as some sc2 ladder. Im crawling my way into the later levels of scythe 2 now, level 15 took something like 4-5 hrs of attempts to stay alive start to finish. The entire level is a grind with lots of nasty well devised traps that force you to execute really well or else die at the final portion (Basically a semi circle of 15 mancubi and 30 revenants). Secondly, if you waste your bfg ammo needlessly you will also die, so being conservative yet highly efficient in the traps. Also, it has duke nukem music so it's an awesome level overall.
level 20 is similar, only around 2.5 hours on that one to get from start to finish. but it's a beast of a map with fantastic music, 6 cybers, great map design and a shit ton of revenants.
Currently on level 22 and plan to do a large review on the 3 WADS scythe, requiem and scythe 2 when i finish up with 2.
No saving really blows, but if I have any intentions of speedrunning on stream I need to plan out my paths, be quick as hell and of course stay alive
Finally finished Scythe 2. Maps 23-27 were the hardest ones I´ve played so far. Most difficult map award goes to #27 with #23 being close second. 28 and 30 were those "kill everything with BFG" maps which I enjoy quite a bit. 29 was not too difficult with maxed bfg ammo. No doubt it would have been with pistol start.
Also, if filling the map with ungodly amount of Revenants doesn´t do the trick anymore, you can always add a few flying Baron-Revenant-Mancubus-hybrids with 2500 hp to spice things up.