DOOM

[Takayuki Yagami]

Has anyone else come back to 2016 recently and actually been kinda bored with it, at least in the initial levels? Did a level of that and a world in Amid Evil yesterday and I’m wondering if the boredom is just coming from having all the weapons in a level clearly not balanced for them.

 

[Burned Man]

Has anyone else come back to 2016 recently and actually been kinda bored with it, at least in the initial levels? Did a level of that and a world in Amid Evil yesterday and I’m wondering if the boredom is just coming from having all the weapons in a level clearly not balanced for them.

My most recent playthrough was actually playing it on Xbox One through gamepass. I decided to see what would happen if I played it as it was installing. The game was perfectly playable except for the lack of textures and lighting so everything was dark and pitch black and so were the enemies. I had fun stumbling through the darkness trying to collect secrets from memory.

Found a video about it.

 

[Duncan Hills Coffee]

Has anyone else come back to 2016 recently and actually been kinda bored with it, at least in the initial levels? Did a level of that and a world in Amid Evil yesterday and I’m wondering if the boredom is just coming from having all the weapons in a level clearly not balanced for them.

No. I'm doing a Nightmare run right now and those early levels are fucking crazy, especially the soldiers with their charge attacks that can basically one-shot you in the early game.

I think if you were to make any criticism about it though, it's how lopsided the difficulty is on Nightmare. The early levels are the most difficult since you don't have much health and most attacks can insta-kill you, but by the time you get to the halfway point and got some health and armor upgrades and get all the weapons, the game becomes significantly easier.

Also I never redo the levels with all weapons. Hell I didn't even know you could do that but it doesn't matter anyway since I prefer starting from scratch when I do a new run.

 

[JongleJingle]

Well boys, we only have 6 weeks left to wait. 6 long, long weeks.

I'm doing a marathon of all the Doom games in these 6 weeks, from Doom 1 to 2, 64, 3, Resurrection of Evil and finally Doom 2016. Six games in six weeks.

These coming days are gonna get BRUTAL.

No I'm not using Brutal Doom for D1/2, we vanilla players in this household.

 

[Duncan Hills Coffee]

Well boys, we only have 6 weeks left to wait. 6 long, long weeks.

I'm doing a marathon of all the Doom games in these 6 weeks, from Doom 1 to 2, 64, 3, Resurrection of Evil and finally Doom 2016. Six games in six weeks.

These coming days are gonna get BRUTAL.

No I'm not using Brutal Doom for D1/2, we vanilla players in this household.

I've sorta been doing that. I've been replaying the hell out of Doom 1 and 2, I beat Doom 3 at least twice in the past 2 months (the first time of which was the first time I actually completed it), and I'm doing one last Nightmare run on 2016.

Are you planning on doing Final Doom perchance? Wouldn't blame you if you skipped it, especially Plutonia.

 

[GethN7]

My brief retrospective of the commercial Doom games:

Doom: Still holds up even now, the episode aspect was asinine and id wisely ditched it come Doom II, but it had so much iconic gameplay that never too bullshit.

Doom II: Better in every way that counts.

Final Doom: Both expansions go in completely different directions.

TNT: The easier of the two, had a lot of interesting gimmick levels and some nice new music, but nothing overly special that Doom II didn't offer.

Plutonia: The bar by which hard Doom WADs should be set by. If this makes you rage, don't play anything harder. Had a lot of stupid bullshit moments like Chaingunners and Archviles jumping your ass, but after a few times of this you kinda learned to expect it.

Doom 64: Kinda different, more atmospheric and felt like a real sequel to Doom II storywise. It's not my favorite, but it introduced some things they had to leave out of the earlier games and had some nice set designs.

Doom III: Doom as a horror movie with a story. Not bad if you can accept the heavy emphasis on monster jump scares, it being dark all the time, and accepted the change in game balance was nothing like came before it. Still had some good ideas and the Hell area looked as pants crappingly terrifying as I would expect it to. The expansion had some decent additions, but also felt like a bad Half Life 2 clone attempt, albeit one that had some decent ideas even with that said.

Doom (2016): A distillation of all the good ideas of what came before it without really taking away anything important, hit a sweet balance of having a story and letting you ignore it if you chose to. Borrowed some ideas from the Brutal Doom mod without being a shameless copy-paste and added their own innovations.

 

[BrunoMattei]

Doom is Doom. It's fucking Doom. It's like reviewing Super Mario Bros. or Citizen Kane. It's just a masterpiece and a trend setter. Without Doom FPS wouldn't be where it's at today, even despite the cult success of Wolfenstein, not to mention the advancements of John Carmack's engines.

The others afer Plutonia are more worthy of retrospective.

Doom 64 is great even though at the time it was rejected because it was -truthfully- archaic. But when you look at it as Doom 2.5 or the REAL Doom 3 it holds up. Only problem? The lack of monster variety of Doom 2.

Doom 3 is okay. Not a bad game. Just generic. I've never been inspired to re-play it.

Doom 2016 is fantastic.

 

[JongleJingle]

I've sorta been doing that. I've been replaying the hell out of Doom 1 and 2, I beat Doom 3 at least twice in the past 2 months (the first time of which was the first time I actually completed it), and I'm doing one last Nightmare run on 2016.

Are you planning on doing Final Doom perchance? Wouldn't blame you if you skipped it, especially Plutonia.

I'm thinking about Plutonia, as I'm half way through Doom 2 as we speak. But TNT is off the books; that shit bores me to tears.

My 2016 run will be the first time I will have attempted a serious Nightmare run; all the other times were kinda half hearted and I just stopped playing that specific run and just went back to Ultra-Violence. This time however, I'm manning up and going through the entire game on Nightmare; and if my first time playing Nightmare was anything to go by, it's gonna be a long run.

Doom 3 I'm actually excited for, despite me saying a while back that I barely get half past the game before quitting from boredom; I have a mod that completely fixes the gunplay called Omega Doom 3, which doesn't mess with any of the graphics, but changes sounds, weapon spread (Looking at you, shotgun) and enemy AI. I literally can't play Doom 3 without these changes, and it's gonna be great to do a full playthough of it with this mod, especially when the Hell sections come up. Hell was done SO FUCKING GOOD in D3, it makes the one from D16 look like trash IMO. Doom 64 Hell is still better tho, the burning black void of Hell's skies always creep me out.

 

[JongleJingle]

An update on my marathon of Doom; I have completed Doom 2 this morning after an all-nighter of said game. To say it was surreal was an understatement.

In retrospective, I kinda prefer Doom 1 in terms of level design. It makes more sense, has a proper progression (Clean ass space stuff for episode 1, a strange mixture of hellish and human design for episode 2, and of course hellish design entirely in episode 3), and honestly, I just like the weirder "Reality is being intermixed with Hell" designs Doom 1 had.

The combat, monsters and music go straight to Doom 2 however. The Doom 2 roster of enemies is PERFECT, and I kinda wish ID Software put some more enemy variety in Doom 1 from the start so it would break up the monotonous slaying of Imps, Shotgunners and Lost Souls.

Plutonia is up next, after debilitating on whether it was canonical or not. After some searching, I have come to the conclusion that it IS indeed canon, so Plutonia is going to be next. Naturally I am doing it on UV, because it's the only way to do Plutonia; any other way is for cowards. I will be pulling out my hair in fury, but I gotta do it for Doom Eternal; it's the only way to be worthy of it's grace.

And before ANY of you say it, I'm not doing the Master Levels or TNT:Evilution. Those two can fuck right off. I prefer my Doom games actually FUN, believe it or not.

 

[Duncan Hills Coffee]

In retrospective, I kinda prefer Doom 1 in terms of level design. It makes more sense, has a proper progression (Clean ass space stuff for episode 1, a strange mixture of hellish and human design for episode 2, and of course hellish design entirely in episode 3), and honestly, I just like the weirder "Reality is being intermixed with Hell" designs Doom 1 had.

The combat, monsters and music go straight to Doom 2 however. The Doom 2 roster of enemies is PERFECT, and I kinda wish ID Software put some more enemy variety in Doom 1 from the start so it would break up the monotonous slaying of Imps, Shotgunners and Lost Souls.

This appears to be the general consensus. Doom 1's got the better overall levels and theming while Doom 2's got better action and enemy variety. Plus Doom 2's got more shitty levels in comparison to Doom 1. Doom 1's worst level, in my opinion anyway, is Slough of Despair and it's nowhere near as bad as shit like Downtown or Barrels 'O Fun in Doom 2.

And before ANY of you say it, I'm not doing the Master Levels or TNT:Evilution. Those two can fuck right off. I prefer my Doom games actually FUN, believe it or not.

I actually really like TNT. I like the new music and I enjoy the atmosphere of some of the later levels.

 

[Kane Lives]

In retrospective, I kinda prefer Doom 1 in terms of level design. It makes more sense, has a proper progression (Clean ass space stuff for episode 1, a strange mixture of hellish and human design for episode 2, and of course hellish design entirely in episode 3), and honestly, I just like the weirder "Reality is being intermixed with Hell" designs Doom 1 had.

...

And before ANY of you say it, I'm not doing the Master Levels or TNT:Evilution. Those two can fuck right off. I prefer my Doom games actually FUN, believe it or not.

It's funny that you said you liked the thematic progression/level design of Doom 1, but said you won't be playing TNT. Because TNT exactly had that thematic progression, more akin to Doom 1 than 2. I won't fault you for thinking it's boring; TNT is honestly as easy as Doom 2, but the levels themselves had a nice atmosphere, going from civilian -> military installations -> space-bases -> hell-infested administration -> hell itself.

Still, do play Plutonia. It's amazing how well it holds up. Just watch out for the inevitable archville/chaingunner pit traps. I swear the Caselli brothers had a hardon for those.

 

[GethN7]

This appears to be the general consensus. Doom 1's got the better overall levels and theming while Doom 2's got better action and enemy variety. Plus Doom 2's got more shitty levels in comparison to Doom 1. Doom 1's worst level, in my opinion anyway, is Slough of Despair and it's nowhere near as bad as shit like Downtown or Barrels 'O Fun in Doom 2.

Slough of Despair's biggest issue for me is that it has a very obvious gimmick and they don't make it interesting.

Downtown was just boring in general. Level design was so dull I had to resist falling asleep.

Barrels 'O Fun had a nice premise but aside from the very first part of the level did crap with it. I would've preferred a level where ammo was really scarce so you had to make do with setting off barrel traps the whole way through. Instead, we get an obvious trap at the very beginning and some barrels splashed across other areas at occasional intervals but it was still a level where most of kills were direct ones regardless.


Doom 1 had the best theming but the whole episode idea just kills the momentum. Just as you're geeked for another level, you hit the end of the episode.

 

[Duncan Hills Coffee]

Downtown was just boring in general. Level design was so dull I had to resist falling asleep.

You think it's boring? I thought it was bullshit. You got projectiles flying everywhere from monsters above your view height (if you're playing without vertical mouselook) and you got Arachnotrons and Cacodemons wandering about that can very easily sneak up on you and get cheap hits off of you.

It's easily one of the most frustrating levels in the game for me.

Doom 1 had the best theming but the whole episode idea just kills the momentum. Just as you're geeked for another level, you hit the end of the episode.

I dunno, I kinda like the episode thing. I like how each episode is paced (though Inferno is a bit hectic at the start) and it allows for the subtle hellish influence to creep in as the episodes go on, which is something I always found was a big lacking in Doom II outside the city levels.

The only thing I don't like is that you have to start from scratch with each episode.

 

[GethN7]

You think it's boring? I thought it was bullshit. You got projectiles flying everywhere from monsters above your view height (if you're playing without vertical mouselook) and you got Arachnotrons and Cacodemons wandering about that can very easily sneak up on you and get cheap hits off of you.

It's easily one of the most frustrating levels in the game for me.

I dunno, I kinda like the episode thing. I like how each episode is paced (though Inferno is a bit hectic at the start) and it allows for the subtle hellish influence to creep in as the episodes go on, which is something I always found was a big lacking in Doom II outside the city levels.

The only thing I don't like is that you have to start from scratch with each episode.

That's what I meant by boring. Level is massive exercise in lazy design, design from the school of "throw a tons of cheap gotchas at the player". I don't mind the occasional "gotcha" just to keep it interesting, but the whole level is designed that way, and that made it tedious and yes, boring.

As for the episode thing, the start from scratch part annoyed me because there was no logical reason for it. Sure, you could argue a justification for it going from Episode 1 to 2 (surviving getting jumped forced you to piss away all your stock of supplies), but 2 to 3 makes no sense (you survived Deimos and jumped on down to Hell to keep fighting, presumably with whatever you had left after icing the Cyberdemon, and any decent player should have had plenty).

 

[Syaoran Li]

I'm with @GethN7 on the issues of the episodic structure of Doom 1 in terms of how it resets your inventory at the start of each episode. As he pointed out, it makes sense when going from E1 to E2, but by the time the third episode begins, wouldn't it make more sense for the Doomguy to bring everything he has to literally storm through Hell itself?

That being said, I do like the unique feel and style that each episode in Doom 1 had, going from the high-tech space station of Episode 1 to the warped ruined base in Episode 2 to the literal hellscape of Episode 3, and Doom II tried that up to a point with a different theme every ten levels or so, going from underground tunnels to city streets to hellscapes.

However, if I had the know-how, I'd do a total ground-up remake of Zombies TC for Doom II.

I know of the "Reanimated Edition" that's compatible with modern source ports, but I'd go for something that is more in-depth and covers the entire Romero trilogy, as opposed to the original TC being mostly just Dawn of the Dead with a few late levels based off of Day.

In fact, a complete reboot of Zombies TC is the kind of thing where the episodic structure of the first Doom would actually work better. Each episode would roughly correspond to a different movie within the trilogy.

Episode 1 would mostly be set in locations reminiscent of the original Night of the Living Dead, with woods, a rural cemetery, a farmhouse and adjacent farmland, maybe have a stage that's sort of like a small town in 1960's America.

Episode 2 would be focused on Dawn of the Dead with its suburban mall setting, obviously.

Episode 3 would be the dank claustrophobic army bunkers and laboratory from Day of the Dead.

If one were ambitious enough, you could even do a fourth episode loosely equivalent to Land of the Dead that's set in a wrecked cityscape.

I'd likely do overhauled enemies, both zombie and human, and a somewhat different weapons set from the original Zombies TC. I'd keep certain classics like the M16A1 from Dawn of the Dead, but I'd also add the Winchester rifle from Night of the Living Dead and have a Colt M1911 as the pistol since it's the sidearm used by both Bub and the soldiers in Day of the Dead.

If possible, I'd even include bosses at the end of every episode, each one a character from the movies

Episode 1 would have Sheriff McClelland
Episode 2 would have Blades
Episode 3 would have Captain Rhodes as the final boss

Hell, if it's doable, you could even have a different face for the main character for each episode if one were so inclined. The original Zombies TC had Peter from Dawn of the Dead replacing the Doomguy, so there is precedent.

The main protagonists would be Ben for Episode 1, Peter for Episode 2, and either Sarah or Bub for Episode 3.

TL;DR-They need to do a remake of Zombies TC and I need to get Doom II again. I already got the GZ Doom source port downloaded

 

[BrunoMattei]

I'm with @GethN7 on the issues of the episodic structure of Doom 1 in terms of how it resets your inventory at the start of each episode. As he pointed out, it makes sense when going from E1 to E2, but by the time the third episode begins, wouldn't it make more sense for the Doomguy to bring everything he has to literally storm through Hell itself?

That being said, I do like the unique feel and style that each episode in Doom 1 had, going from the high-tech space station of Episode 1 to the warped ruined base in Episode 2 to the literal hellscape of Episode 3, and Doom II tried that up to a point with a different theme every ten levels or so, going from underground tunnels to city streets to hellscapes.

However, if I had the know-how, I'd do a total ground-up remake of Zombies TC for Doom II.

I know of the "Reanimated Edition" that's compatible with modern source ports, but I'd go for something that is more in-depth and covers the entire Romero trilogy, as opposed to the original TC being mostly just Dawn of the Dead with a few late levels based off of Day.

In fact, a complete reboot of Zombies TC is the kind of thing where the episodic structure of the first Doom would actually work better. Each episode would roughly correspond to a different movie within the trilogy.

Episode 1 would mostly be set in locations reminiscent of the original Night of the Living Dead, with woods, a rural cemetery, a farmhouse and adjacent farmland, maybe have a stage that's sort of like a small town in 1960's America.

Episode 2 would be focused on Dawn of the Dead with its suburban mall setting, obviously.

Episode 3 would be the dank claustrophobic army bunkers and laboratory from Day of the Dead.

If one were ambitious enough, you could even do a fourth episode loosely equivalent to Land of the Dead that's set in a wrecked cityscape.

I'd likely do overhauled enemies, both zombie and human, and a somewhat different weapons set from the original Zombies TC. I'd keep certain classics like the M16A1 from Dawn of the Dead, but I'd also add the Winchester rifle from Night of the Living Dead and have a Colt M1911 as the pistol since it's the sidearm used by both Bub and the soldiers in Day of the Dead.

If possible, I'd even include bosses at the end of every episode, each one a character from the movies

Episode 1 would have Sheriff McClelland
Episode 2 would have Blades
Episode 3 would have Captain Rhodes as the final boss

Hell, if it's doable, you could even have a different face for the main character for each episode if one were so inclined. The original Zombies TC had Peter from Dawn of the Dead replacing the Doomguy, so there is precedent.

The main protagonists would be Ben for Episode 1, Peter for Episode 2, and either Sarah or Bub for Episode 3.

TL;DR-They need to do a remake of Zombies TC and I need to get Doom II again. I already got the GZ Doom source port downloaded

If I knew how to code I'd do this. Only things I would do is make it so the only ways to kill the zombies are with a destruction of the head or blowing them up. Maybe code primitive A.I. to keep them at bay with fire?

 

[Syaoran Li]

If I knew how to code I'd do this. Only things I would do is make it so the only ways to kill the zombies are with a destruction of the head or blowing them up. Maybe code primitive A.I. to keep them at bay with fire?

Definitely, and now that I think about it, for an Episode 4, instead of a Land of the Dead-esque city, I'd go with a jungle setting complete with the misty skyline from Episode 1 of the original Doom, and have it be an extended shout-out to Bruno Mattei's infamous Hell of the Living Dead, with Zantoro as the Doomguy.

 

[BrunoMattei]

Based Zantoro. I honestly think this actor is way too good for this movie. A shame his career never went anywhere.

"Cut it out you jerks, you have to aim at their head I told ya! SEE!?"

 

[Duncan Hills Coffee]

Does anyone know how to get Final Doom's text interludes on Crispy Doom? For some reason Crispy Doom loads up Doom 2's text instead of either TNT or Plutonia's and I don't really know why.

 

[NotoriousD]

I'm currently jumping between some other stuff and a nice marathon like some others are doing. In archaic order though. I'm replaying 2016, then I'm grabbing the PC port for 64 and playing that for the first time since...I was a kid with an N64. That's gonna be a fun trip. Then i want to do something I played a bit of but never finished. Doom 3 BFG Edition with the "Ultimate HD" mod or somesuch. The name is something like that at least, but it actually overhauls a few things including enemy AI, and what little I played showed me it can get very unforgiving if you're not careful.

As a longtime fan of everything Doom, this is gonna be a blast and I should be set to play Eternal immediately on release.

As for opinions...I'm too biased and I'll even admit it, but everything was good in its own right. But I think what I love the most is how much of a love letter 2016 was. It was both that and its own thing, and I'm normally loathe to go "I get that reference!" over and over, but I loved all the things, big and small, throughout.

The enemy inclusions like Spectres, the Hell Knights staying close to their Doom 3 design while the Barons are walking nightmares closer to their classic design to keep things varied and distinct. All of the enemy designs felt great, really. And even now, replaying it, I find myself thinking a bunch of things. Comparing Olivia to Betruger, for example. Olivia's definitely not on board with becoming the Spider Mastermind, is constantly thwarted by the Slayer, and whatever forces she answers to are disappointed in her. She doesn't exactly keep any of this secret either, considering how blatant they made the UAC in this. Betruger meanwhile, keeps it all hush until it actually happens, takes two marines and two ancient artifacts to stop if you don't count Lost Mission, and sees becoming the Maledict as a reward. And that's just one thing I got to thinkin' about.

There's all kinds of neat things to look into or think about when I'm not in it solely for the mindless fun. And I think they struck a perfect balance with just the right amount of story without it feeling lacking or feeling shoved in your face. There's plot, there's story. You just don't care though. You're the Slayer, you're here to stop the invasion. But it's there if you feel like looking at it. Sorry for rambling.