Note: If there is a game that actually does all the things I love about Doom 2 and I'm just completely ignorant in the matter, please enlighten me. This would make my day and I will shut up.
I decided to venture through my ever-growing backlog of Steam games to play some Final Doom and Doom 2 for a the first time in a very long time, and I was blown away. These games are absolutely fantastic, and do a lot of things right that most AAA FPS Shooter games gloss over and completely remove in favor of added technicalities and 'SUPER EPICNESS'. I was rather shocked that I had not played a game in this gaming generation that is over saturated with FPS Games that was able to encapsulate what made the original Doom games so damn good. Let me explain as elegantly as I can:
1: LET'S DO THIS
The very first remarkable thing about the game is the amount of information they feed you. Here's how you start: Click 'New Game' --> Select Difficulty --> BAM! They plop you in a with a gun with shit to kill. No Objectives, cutscenes, tutorial no bullshit in the way of you figuring out on your own how to get around and make it out alive. Awesome.
2: BALLER LEVEL DESIGN
The popular thing to do these days is create this epic world with an entire environment to explore and traverse to get to where you're going, with a compass and pretty things to look at.
Fuck that.
Doom decides to instead focus on the levels themselves as their own individual objectives, allowing it space to breathe and give you an amazing experience one level at a time. It reminds me in a way of Super Mario Galaxy, as they chose to focus on separate levels that allowed the developers to tackle certain ideas individually, and not combine it all into one massive open world experience. Doom capitalizes on this perfectly, as they place you down in a level, setting the tone for your experience, and make you figure out how the fuck to get out of there on your own. Then when you throw in all the triggers, monsters every step of the way, and keys, guns, ammo, and health to collect in every room you are engaged through out your entire experience, and curious what you'll see next at every moment. All in a super loose feel and no bullshit in your way.
3: SECRETS SECRETS SECRETS!
The biggest miss of most modern games IMHO. This ties in easily with level design, as ID decided to give you multiple secrets every level for you to be actively keeping an eye out for as you're attempting to beat the shit out of everything and not get demolished by rockets. I would be running up walls slamming down the space bar hoping to uncover a secret door or switch that would lead me to a hidden BFG or Soulsphere. We all know by now the different colored walls, or to listen carefully for lifts moving in the distance, and it kept me on the edge of my toes everywhere I went. I can't think of a Modern FPS that has anything close to the amount of hidden content that Doom had.
4: HOLY SHIT HOLY SHIT HOLY SHIT
One thing that Doom 2 (and Final Doom to a much larger degree) certainly had are it's HOLY SHIT moments. Moments such as flipping a switch in the middle of the room and hearing the sounds of Archviles awakening while 15 mancubi (mancubuses?) appear behind descending fake walls produce emotions of terror and confusion as you're left flailing your plasma gun praying to survive until you find a safe area. These moments happen nearly every level, and sometimes multiple times each level. It seems at times they literally put their hand into a pot and threw the monsters into the level while yelling down at you DEAL WITH IT as you scramble to assess the situation. These moments ARE AWESOME.
Alright that was a lot of text. But I think I've made myself clear. This arcade aspect of First Person Shooters mixed with an immense amount of secrets and tons of shit to kill is lost in today's Brotastic FPS Generation, and I'm surprised a developer hasn't snatched up the opportunity to make it happen.
Not to mention, there is some serious potential here! Same basic formula, throw in some amazing HD graphics, co-op play, more new enemies, more guns, more unique levels, big modding community, leaderboards for fastest times, etc. ID Was certainly limited while designing this game in many facets, and there are so many areas in which modern technology can take this incredible gameplay to the next level. Why has no one done it yet?
Seriously, am I the only one who misses this stuff?
/end rant
I decided to venture through my ever-growing backlog of Steam games to play some Final Doom and Doom 2 for a the first time in a very long time, and I was blown away. These games are absolutely fantastic, and do a lot of things right that most AAA FPS Shooter games gloss over and completely remove in favor of added technicalities and 'SUPER EPICNESS'. I was rather shocked that I had not played a game in this gaming generation that is over saturated with FPS Games that was able to encapsulate what made the original Doom games so damn good. Let me explain as elegantly as I can:
1: LET'S DO THIS
The very first remarkable thing about the game is the amount of information they feed you. Here's how you start: Click 'New Game' --> Select Difficulty --> BAM! They plop you in a with a gun with shit to kill. No Objectives, cutscenes, tutorial no bullshit in the way of you figuring out on your own how to get around and make it out alive. Awesome.
2: BALLER LEVEL DESIGN
The popular thing to do these days is create this epic world with an entire environment to explore and traverse to get to where you're going, with a compass and pretty things to look at.
Fuck that.
Doom decides to instead focus on the levels themselves as their own individual objectives, allowing it space to breathe and give you an amazing experience one level at a time. It reminds me in a way of Super Mario Galaxy, as they chose to focus on separate levels that allowed the developers to tackle certain ideas individually, and not combine it all into one massive open world experience. Doom capitalizes on this perfectly, as they place you down in a level, setting the tone for your experience, and make you figure out how the fuck to get out of there on your own. Then when you throw in all the triggers, monsters every step of the way, and keys, guns, ammo, and health to collect in every room you are engaged through out your entire experience, and curious what you'll see next at every moment. All in a super loose feel and no bullshit in your way.
3: SECRETS SECRETS SECRETS!
The biggest miss of most modern games IMHO. This ties in easily with level design, as ID decided to give you multiple secrets every level for you to be actively keeping an eye out for as you're attempting to beat the shit out of everything and not get demolished by rockets. I would be running up walls slamming down the space bar hoping to uncover a secret door or switch that would lead me to a hidden BFG or Soulsphere. We all know by now the different colored walls, or to listen carefully for lifts moving in the distance, and it kept me on the edge of my toes everywhere I went. I can't think of a Modern FPS that has anything close to the amount of hidden content that Doom had.
4: HOLY SHIT HOLY SHIT HOLY SHIT
One thing that Doom 2 (and Final Doom to a much larger degree) certainly had are it's HOLY SHIT moments. Moments such as flipping a switch in the middle of the room and hearing the sounds of Archviles awakening while 15 mancubi (mancubuses?) appear behind descending fake walls produce emotions of terror and confusion as you're left flailing your plasma gun praying to survive until you find a safe area. These moments happen nearly every level, and sometimes multiple times each level. It seems at times they literally put their hand into a pot and threw the monsters into the level while yelling down at you DEAL WITH IT as you scramble to assess the situation. These moments ARE AWESOME.
Alright that was a lot of text. But I think I've made myself clear. This arcade aspect of First Person Shooters mixed with an immense amount of secrets and tons of shit to kill is lost in today's Brotastic FPS Generation, and I'm surprised a developer hasn't snatched up the opportunity to make it happen.
Not to mention, there is some serious potential here! Same basic formula, throw in some amazing HD graphics, co-op play, more new enemies, more guns, more unique levels, big modding community, leaderboards for fastest times, etc. ID Was certainly limited while designing this game in many facets, and there are so many areas in which modern technology can take this incredible gameplay to the next level. Why has no one done it yet?
Seriously, am I the only one who misses this stuff?
/end rant
