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Doom Is Twenty Years Old

Posted by Unknown on from the burning-flesh-of-hate dept.

alancronin writes with a quick bite from the Dallas News about everyone's favorite FPS: "Few video games have had the impact that Doom has on the medium as a whole. While it wasn't the first first-person shooter out there, it was certainly one of the earliest hits of the genre, due in no small part to its revolutionary multiplayer. Today, that game is 20 years old. Made in Mesquite by a bunch of young developers including legends John Carmack and John Romero, Doom went on to 'transform pop culture,' as noted by the sub-title of the book Masters of Doom." Yesterday, but who's counting. Fire up your favorite source port and slay some hellspawn to celebrate (or processes). I'm partial to Doomsday (helps that it's in Debian).

10 of 225 comments (clear)

  1. Ah the memories by cold+fjord · · Score: 2, Insightful

    There were some fragging good times playing that with friends.

    --
    much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
  2. Bought from a shareware machine! by Pope · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I remember a friend and I bought the full version of Doom at a shareware vending machine at a local mall. We brought our own floppies and a two rolls of loonies to pay for it. Then spent the rest of the day taking turns playing on his 486. Good times! :D

    --
    It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
    1. Re:Bought from a shareware machine! by Nerdfest · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The first machine I played it on cost in the areas of $2000. Now I can run it on a $10 MP3 player smaller than a pack of matches using RockBox. I kind of like the future.

  3. Memories by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    My first memory of DOOM was playing it on a 385 25MHz with 2 MB of RAM. Yeah, that ran like a slideshow. I couldn't understand the big deal. Shortly thereafter I got a screaming 486DX 66MHz with 8 MB of RAM. THEN I understood why the game was a big deal.

    I feel silly, but I started playing this game pretty young, about 9 or 10. And I was terrified. Not enough to stop playing mind you. But the snorts of the imps in adjacent rooms really terrified me. If I wanted a bigger scare, I'd turn off all the lights. I sure played games differently then. Not like I play games now, where I stroll around with a cocky sense of invincibility, just soaking damage and pressing the kill button as fast as I can.

  4. Re:We called them by fluffythdestroy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    We need more people like you

    --
    PC Gaming enthousiast that gives comments, opinions and reviews on Games. I'm just having fun with games while doing let
  5. Re:"legends John Carmack and John Romero"? by tuffy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Although John Carmack's engine opened up a lot of possibilities, John Romero's level designs were also a big part of Doom's success. The key difference is that Romero hasn't done much since Daikatana landed with a thud.

    --

    Ita erat quando hic adveni.

  6. Re:IDDQD by X0563511 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    IDSPISPOPD - that was the fun one.

    --
    For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
  7. Re:We called them by X0563511 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Ah, back in the days when developers (and players) were (mostly) honest.

    --
    For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
  8. Re:1st 1st-person shooter by timftbf · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Most people don't realize how far we've come until you go back and play those games. If I recall correctly, in Doom, there was no jumping, and you couldn't aim up and down. The only way to move vertically was going up small steps, which your character automatically walked up. The levels were all 2 dimensional. It didn't support rooms above other rooms.

    See, for me, these are features, not limitations.

    One set of directional controls. Look where you move where you shoot. That's controls I can have fun with.

    FPSes went downhill as soon as Quake introduced mouselook, and haven't been able to interest me since.

  9. Re:"legends John Carmack and John Romero"? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The anti-Carmack sentiment has really kicked up a notch in the past year or two. I really have no way of knowing if what you say is true, since it seems to contradict with everything Carmack has said publicly about modding and litigation over software. I just find it interesting that every group feels the need to tear down their idols once they reach a certain level of reverence and deification within a subculture.