Doom

"Over the centuries, mankind has tried many ways of combatting the forces of evil... prayer, fasting, good works and so on. Up until Doom, no one seemed to have thought about the double-barrel shotgun. Eat leaden death, demon..."

– Terry Pratchett

If you don't already have the first level's music in your head, you may be on the wrong site.

This is a /v/ related article, which we tolerate because it's relevant and/or popular on /tg/... or we just can't be bothered to delete it.

The granddaddy of the first person shooter, the original ass-kicking demon-slaying 3D slaughterfest, Doom is a franchise that demands respect even in the hallowed halls of /tg/. It was actually inspired by an Dungeons & Dragons campaign played by the founders of id Software; John Romero had given a demon lord the key to overrunning the material plane in exchange for a magic katana because he's an edgy faggot like that, and John Carmack (the DM) decided it made a good premise for their new 3D game.

The plot? What do you think this is, Gaylo? Here's your plot: you are a Space Marine (no, not the 40K guy, a jumped-up soldier who is sent to fight on other planets, so closer to the Imperial Guard) stationed on Mars. Somehow, demons break through into our reality and slaughter everyone else. Your job? Fight your way to where, you hope, there's a ride off of this rock, and make bloody mincemeat out of everything standing between you and salvation. Standing in your way are armies of zombified fellow marines and eggheads, fireball-tossing imps, hulking flesh-eating demons, cyborg-demon monstrosities, and various other hell-spawned nasties who want to kill you horribly. Good luck. You'll need it...

Although not the very first of the FPS genre (even its predecessor, Wolfenstein 3D, wasn't the first, as the history of the genre goes back all the way into 70's), Doom was definitive to the genre, so much so that "Doom Clone" was the standard nickname for many years afterwards. People are still playing it and making it even more awesome with their own custom modifications 24 years later, which isn't something you hear that often outside of /tg/; this is one of the main reasons why the franchise is so well-respected.

Fun fact: that iconic Doom monster, the Cacodemon, was actually inspired by the artwork for an Astral Dreadnought on the cover of the Dungeons & Dragons 1st edition Manual of the Planes splatbook.

Classic DOOM (aka The Good Shit)

"Welcome to DOOM, a lightning-fast virtual reality adventure where you're the toughest space trooper ever to suck vacuum. Your mission is to shoot your way through a monster-infested holocaust. Living to tell the tale if possible."

– README.TXT, Doom 1.8 shareware

The original Doom was fast-paced and bloody compared to what came before, but wasn't afraid to vary the pace with more labyrinthine levels or make you shit your pants by dropping you into a crowd of demons when you least expected it. (Fun fact No. 2: The extra levels included in the full version of Doom were built by the same guy who wrote Call of Cthulhu in just 10 weeks.) Doom II on the other hand was a circle-strafing explosion-rich gorefest, and is what basically everyone thinks of when they think of both Doom and 90s FPS gameplay in general. Plot was bare-minimum: Demons took over Phobos and ate Deimos, kill them all. Or, in Doom 2's case, Demons are trying to infest Earth in revenge, kill them all AGAIN. But this time, it's personal. (No, seriously, they killed your pet bunny Daisy.) The Doom engine is extremely mod-friendly for a 90s game (as both Carmack and Romero had been big into software tinkering in their day) and id Software actually paid a modding group for the right to sell two of their expansion packs commercially. Slightly more obscure but still relevant is Doom 64, which replaced the high-speed explode-o-rama with a stronger horror theme and more deliberate pace. id Software then for a time turned toward more multiplayer-oriented games with the Quake series and gave Doom a rest.

The Doom Comic

"DYNAMITE! I'M COOKING WITH GAS! I'VE GOTTA HANDFUL OF VERTEBRAE AND A HEADFUL OF MAD! YEAH, THAT'S YOUR SPINAL CORD, BABY! DIG IT!"

– You, the moment you read that heading

The origin of Rip and Tear. Possibly the most ridiculously, amazingly, stupidly 90s thing that has ever been put to paper with the possible exception of Snowflame. It has to be read to be believed. So go read it.

Doom 3

In the early 2000s, Doom 3 came along. It blows chunks compared to the classics, but since the classics are so damn good it ends up being passable anyway. Since Valve had made "story-driven" shooters and "realistic" scripted encounters the in thing id decided to rip off Half-Life, grafting on elements of the original Doom that had been scrapped at the concept stage. Unfortunately the gameplay was too slow and similar to the rest of the genre, the scripting and story interludes just made the gameplay even clunkier and the big technological gimmick (per-pixel lighting) meant you had to choose between seeing what you're supposed to shoot with a crappy little flashlight and actually being able to shoot it.

Doom 4 (aka DOOM aka DOOD aka Brutal Doom HD)

"They are rage, brutal, without mercy. But you? You will be worse. Rip and Tear, until it is done."

– A direct order from what is either God's seraphs or Khorne himself. Seriously, is there really a difference? And do you really need more of a mission briefing?

Then the latest Doom came out in May 2016. This rendition can basically be described as "3d Brutal Doom II" only sexier, with features like ripping enemies apart with your bare hands and having to stay on the move to avoid being torn to shreds. The plot is also about as bare minimum as the original, kicking the player straight into the action with waking up on Mars, immediately smashing a zombie’s skull, and basically being told “demonic invasion, go kill everything.” Also, the player this time around is someone the demons call the “Doom Slayer", who has traveled through “Worlds and Time” (hinting that this Doomguy could very well be the original Doomguy from the first two games, having also survived Doom 64 and has been traveling Hell since but that's up to opinion and not canon), and millennia ago kicked Hell’s ass so hard that the best the demons could do is seal him away so that he wouldn’t destroy Hell. Then the UAC decides to deal with an Energy Crisis by quite literally slamming an Oil Derrick on a Hell Portal to siphon off Hell Energy for power, and just for giggles starts tomb raiding Hell for artifacts and treasures as well, ultimately running off with the Doomguy's sarcophagus. The demons see that the Doomguy’s prison/tomb is empty, and the subsequent invasion is actually a panicked attempt to stop the Doomguy from being woken up.

DOOM Eternal

Doom Eternal was announced at E3 and a gameplay reveal was shown at Quakecon. From the look of it, it's glorious. Set on a demonically infested Earth and apparently in some new dimensions. The Doom Slayer has a shitload of new abilities such as a shoulder mounted flamethrower, a retractable arm blade, A FUCKING DEMON SWORD, a super shotgun with a grappling hook and shitloads of other toys. Some demons from the old Doom have returned (such as the Arch Vile and Arachnotron). The designs have also been updated; for example the Mancubus looks more like its Doom II design, and the Baron of Hell has arm blades. There is also an awesome feature called "Destructible Demons", where demons will actually show more damage on their bodies. There will also be a player mode called Invasion, a Dark Souls-inspired feature where players can join another player's campaign and fight them as demons (it can be turned off if you want). Overall a lot of amazing things are in this game.

Also check out this video where the Doom Slayer's presence scares the shit out of humans and demons alike. Awesome.

Doom: The Board Game

Yes, there is a Board Game - made by Fantasy Flight Games no less - giving the vague '/tg/ related' qualifications this site uses. It was released around the time Doom 3 was released, though it wasn't that remarkable and is pretty hard to find nowadays.

One guy plays the baddies, the other 1-4 players play a band of unfortunate marines. The heroes start with 2-3 powerup cards, and the baddies get 5 cards from his own deck and during the game, he gets to draw more (the rate of which is equal to how many marines there are) and if his deck is empty, he gets to insta-kill one of the Marines. His guys are more varied in their movement but they can only shoot once.

The marines have three options: move 8 spaces without shooting, move 4 spaces and shoot once, or shoot twice without movement. They need to explore the board, find computers and other events as the board provides. The baddies, meanwhile, can either upgrade his monsters or bring more to the board. Either way, his goal is to score 6 kills on the Marines.

A new board game got released shortly after May 2016 Doom, which, to my understanding, is basically just the same shit as before with a new coat of paint.

Movie

Also (roughly) around the same time as Doom 3 was a movie starring Karl Urban and former WWE superstar Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson. It pretty much replaced the whole Hell plot with some genetic experimentation to give people superpowers that only succeeds in creating hyper-aggressive mutants, and a squad of Marines sent to investigate the mayhem. It wasn't that good, with the only really 'good' scene being this one scene where it's all FPS-style like the original games and has monster killing.

External Links

• Doom Wiki for all your Doom-related autism needs
• /idgames/, the home of pretty much every Doom mod worth playing (and pretty much every Doom mod that isn't worth playing) since 1994.