DAY 43 / GAME 43
Doom II
I think I read somewhere that Doom is the single most installed piece of software to date, possibly surpassing Microsoft Windows. Of course, Doom 1 was 'shareware', available for free with the option to mail-order the rest of the game. Doom II was the first, proper retail version of Doom, which I promptly purchased from my local computer hardware store when it was released.
Virtual Reality was a big thing in the 90's. It seemed like it was going to be the future and with the FPS genre just starting up it seemed like it was all coming together. And so games like Doom felt like they were about as close as I was going to get to proper VR while I waited for it to become commonplace. In the end all that fell away and the gimmick that I put together in my head was long gone. Instead I was just absolutely absorbed in this dark, sci-fi, paranormal horror, action first-person-shooter.
Few video game weapons rival the simple Chainsaw.
Doom II came on 5, 3.25" floppy disks. I installed it so many times the disks ended up failing on me. It was a good thing I had never lost the original install files because I played this game a ton. Doom, like a lot of earlier FPS games were very basic and had a certain simplicity to their fun. You can speed run games like Doom 2, powering through it, running past most of your enemies and just grabbing the keys you need to continue. But back when I first got it, it was a pretty scary game and I most certainly hobbled my way through it. Frightened to go around the next dark corner, because it probably had a Hellbeast or a Cyberdemon or a Mancubus waiting to murderize me.
Doom II had an actual bit of a story that was kinda neat. You made your way through various levels on Earth, saving humanity from demons that made their way over from some kind of Hell from the first game. After saving humanity you discover a way into this same alien hell. I don't know what it was about being a teen in the 90's, but any visualization of hell, especially in a videogame, was pretty cool.
Doom II may have been the game that really started the FPS genre. Doom 1 and Wolfenstein were not really big enough commercially. It wasn't until Doom II exploded into the market that it really added this whole new angle to the action games of the 90's. After Doom, we got Hexen, Duke Nukem 3D, Quake, Half-Life, Serious Sam and even more I can't think of. Some of which really took the genre to new places. But it all started here and I enjoyed it from the very beginning.
Doom II
I think I read somewhere that Doom is the single most installed piece of software to date, possibly surpassing Microsoft Windows. Of course, Doom 1 was 'shareware', available for free with the option to mail-order the rest of the game. Doom II was the first, proper retail version of Doom, which I promptly purchased from my local computer hardware store when it was released. Virtual Reality was a big thing in the 90's. It seemed like it was going to be the future and with the FPS genre just starting up it seemed like it was all coming together. And so games like Doom felt like they were about as close as I was going to get to proper VR while I waited for it to become commonplace. In the end all that fell away and the gimmick that I put together in my head was long gone. Instead I was just absolutely absorbed in this dark, sci-fi, paranormal horror, action first-person-shooter.
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| Few video game weapons rival the simple Chainsaw. |
Doom II may have been the game that really started the FPS genre. Doom 1 and Wolfenstein were not really big enough commercially. It wasn't until Doom II exploded into the market that it really added this whole new angle to the action games of the 90's. After Doom, we got Hexen, Duke Nukem 3D, Quake, Half-Life, Serious Sam and even more I can't think of. Some of which really took the genre to new places. But it all started here and I enjoyed it from the very beginning.
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