Slashdot Mirror
Doom Archive Reopened
Obiwan Kenobi writes "Computer game history buffs rejoice: Lee Killough's Doom Archive has been reopened at John Romero's site. Its been offline since 1998, when it was handed to Romero to look after, and has finally resurfaced. The info inside is priceless, if a bit Romero-centric, but who can deny the nostalgia of downloadable alpha versions, beta screenshots (complete with wild health meters) and the original Doom Press Release where the game tagline reads "Doom-the sanest place is behind a trigger.""
I know what you mean.
Yet Doom was more effective. Given Carmack and Romero were two different design aspects, one man being all about implementation and the other focusing more on content and art; and the question I always receive from people is the same...
"WHO THE FUCK DO I HOLD RESPONSIBLE FOR THE CYBER DEMON AND THE SPIDER MASTERMIND TO BARELY FADE AFTER BEING NUKED A HUNDRED TIMES WHEN I AM BUT A MERE MAN WHO CAN BARELY WITHSTAND 1 ROCKET BLAST MYSELF?"
Doom had so much immortal gameplay put into it that strategy of choosing how to fight one of the nearly immortal enemies is what caused many gamers to pass their Quake bootcamp with flying colors. Doom's cheatcodes is what separated the draft dodgers from the 1337 strategists. I'll never forget playing 2 player DOS DOOM1.666 over serial cable...I have never played a multiplayer Doom game ever since; I tried to play csDoom, but at the time some dork made a denial-of-service app and always intentionaly crash the csDoom server 'cause he didn't like the csDoom maintaner and the poor implementation. Go figure?
But I'm sure you already Gnu that.
It might be a demo, full version, or a test version. It would be a good way to celebrate 10 years of DOOM. ;)
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Yeah only the thing is John makes GAMES, id software has been an ENGINE maker since he left.
Sure Daikatana was a fuck up but he TRIED - he got it wrong, he's not a good manager maybe but he put an effort in.
If you've ever seen an interview with the guy or READ rome.ro you'd realise this guy has a REALLY great attitude about gaming - he's nostalgic - he enjoys games and he want's to have fun - the guy was crying because some moron like yourself sent him (yet another) abusive email just to make themselves feel better.
That's more than I can say for the id crew who seem to care less and less about each title, John C himself has said multiple times in interviews that certain aspects of a game are just gimmicks (even though said aspects would add to the title such as realistic physics in Doom 3) to put it bluntly as far as _I'M_ concerned Carmack and crew have far less enthusiasm for GAMES than they do engines...
He may have had a few failures in his time, but for christs sakes can we leave the guy alone now please???
the game looks VERY amatuer.
No, the game looked state of the art, even without the lighting and level changes. At the time only "Ultima Underworld" was remotely close to what Doom would become.
For a quick kick in the pants to your favorite Luddite show them a screenshot of alpha doom, then show them a movie from the lastest Doom beta while chanting: "It's only been nine years, it's only been nine years..."
Take a close look yourself and realize what the future holds. FPS games in 2011 should make Doom III look like these "amateurish" screenshots. We'll probably have Carmack to thank even then, or in 2022 when Doom VI looks like crap in comparison to Doom III. Should be fun...
Hell, I'll probably be playing FPSs until advanced age makes it too difficult, sometime around 2035... then I'll camp...
-dameron
Why would anyone want to play a game that looks like DooM on the PS3 or XBox 2?
Why would anyone want to play a game that looks like the original Super Mario Bros. on a 2 GHz Pentium 4 based PC with a GeForce 4 processor?
Why would anyone want to play Solitaire on that same system?
Why would anyone want to play Tetris on that same system?
Because they're still fun.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Actually, if you look at the games from 10 years ago you'll see a lot of side scrolling shooters and platform games.
But I agree, more adventure games! Good thing that Sam n' Max 2 and Full Throttle 2 is coming.
The thing that made DOOM, and no other game since has managed to recreate (apart from the Alien DOOM mod, which was basically DOOM again) was the atmosphere.
DOOM was a favorite on damp winter afternoons. I would play it wearing headphones so as to not disturb others in the house. It felt _creepy_. You felt a bit of anxiety as you could hear another Imp shuffling around the place, but couldn't tell exactly where he was. You'd jump when you went around a corner and suddenly heard one of those half-man-half-goat things shout "Wwooooooooooooooo!!!" and start hurling fireballs at you.
I've not found an FPS since that does that for me. ID got the atmosphere absolutely right on that, and I hope they can recreate this in DOOM 3 - to a bigger extent with the graphics capabilities they should have.
One afternoon, I was playing DOOM and got the fright of my life. I was playing along, headphones on, volume up, creeping around one of the levels when my housemate sneaked up behind me and threw one of those beanbag frogs that were used to prop open doors. The frog landed on my shoulder JUST as a room erupted with Imps. I almost died of fright!
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows