Doom. The granddaddy of gaming. Regarded as one the greatest video games ever made. The foundation for all modern day first person shooters. Without this game, the world would be a very different place. The Call of Duty and Halo series wouldn’t exist and mankind as we know would be playing games that feature Miley Cyrus and other “loveable” characters... Okay that was a slight exaggeration, but I’ll bet that every single person involved with the creation of those 2 series, at some point in their lives, have played and loved Doom. Released in 1993, you play as an unnamed character who has been expedited to Mars to fight off demonic enemies of epic proportions. With the Xbox port to the Arcade you can play through, not just the original 3 episodes which featured in the original, but an additional level too. The additional level, or “Episode 4”, was featured in The Ultimate Doom which was the first Doom available to buy at retail level in 1995. Episode 4 was designed by the community, hence why it is unforgivably difficult. It was designed with the hardcore Doom players in mind. For those who wanted more of a challenge or those who simply had a thirst for pixelated blood and gore.
The objective in each level is to simply find your way to the exit. I use the term “simply” very loosely as it is anything but simple. You’ll find yourself thwarted by hordes of enemies, along with maze-like levels which both add to the difficulty. There will be numerous times where you think you’re going the right way, but in actual fact you’re going the complete opposite way thanks in part to the key card system. Certain doors will be outlined in Blue, Red or Yellow which means you’ll need to find the relevant colour key. The word Nightmare doesn’t quite cut it. Although this can be extremely frustrating, and often you’ll find yourself running around for hours in circles, the satisfaction of completing a level is very rewarding. Many a time have I breathed a sigh of relief after completing certain levels. The game also features many “secret areas” which can contain ammo, armour and weapons. Finding these can be extremely helpful as they’ll assist you on your journey to glory. Your arsenal ranges from your typical FPS guns of your fist, pistol and shotgun, but also includes the BFG. Fire this bad boy into an enemies and watch them disintegrate into dust. This happens not because the game mechanics tell it to, it happens through pure awesomeness! On the harder difficulties, your enemies arrive in much larger quantities which requires you to think about which gun to use as ammo is sparse, which also adds to the challenge factor. If you get the mix right, you’ll be blasting away until the earlier hours of the morning without the irritation of dying every 5 seconds. This port also features a multiplayer version, although I cannot comment on this as I haven’t played it, but not through lack of trying. I presume the online Doom community on the Xbox isn’t teeming with life as I’ve spent quite a while searching for games without success.
Doom was one of the first, if not the first, which featured realistic 3D graphics which entailed full-textured mapping on ALL surfaces (floor, roof, walls etc.) and varying light levels (flickering lights, dynamic lighting etc.). This helped the game develop an eerie, almost nightmare-ish atmosphere. Twin these graphics with the use of sound in the game and you have yourself one of the most atmospheric games of it’s era. The music used is extremely fitting. One minute you’ll be creeping around awaiting the next horde of enemies to come at you with a rather sultry, jazzy musical score, creating a sense of real dread and anticipation. The next minute you’ll be running for your life whilst being overwhelmed with an upbeat, adrenaline induced track. It’s amazing how a piece of music can change your mood so dramatically in a game. You can even find remixes of the music plastered all over the internet or youtube, that’s how good it is.
Unfortunately, if there is a flaw to the game (and if you can call this a flaw) it would be the achievements. Not in the manner in which their designed, but it would be the lack of them. I’d love to see this game released as a retail game and having a list of 50 to complete, but we’ll have to settle for just the 8. They’re all very standard and are rewarded for completing the game on the “Hurt Me Plenty” difficulty which is the 3rd hardest difficulty out of 5. The most rewarding one must be, and I challenge you all to attempt it, to complete the game at “Ultra-Violent”. That almost seems harsh! There’s a couple of multiplayer achievements chucked in to keep the multiplayer addicts happy.
It almost seems a bit redundant to write a review about this game for the Xbox as it is no longer available on the Marketplace, but if you have a friend who was lucky enough to buy it during it’s available period, I’d suggest that you demand to borrow his/her hard drive and spend a good weekend playing it. I doubt any other video game will give you as much satisfaction as this will. What other game can boast that it was once installed on more PC’s throughout the world than Microsoft’s Windows 95?
5.0