This Tittle Made Me Love FPS Games
It showed me what they can do
When I was a kid, I played video games during my free time.
Some of them were first-person shooters, almost everyone was talking about at the time, which were mostly Call of Duty and Battlefield.
However, every time I played them, I felt a bit disappointed.
It wasn’t that the games were bad but something was missing for me and I didn’t know what it was.
That was until 2016 when I saw the trailer for the revival of the father of all shooters DOOM (developed by id Software and published by Bethesda) and boy, that awoke something in me.
The idea of being a big green man too angry to die while fighting hordes of demons sounded so much fun to me, however, as a broke high school student I didn’t have the money to get it.
It took some time, but in 2024, I was finally able to get my hands on it and after I finished it, I understood what all these other games were missing for me.
It was POWER.
Raw, brutal, and unrestrained POWER.
Let me explain.
Up to this point, only shooters I played were more tactical, and trying to rush would more often than not get me killed. This made sense since these games were trying to emulate what it feels like to be in the army or a military operation.
DOOM, on the other hand, was doing the complete opposite.
It was a fast-paced and brutal shoot first ask questions later type of game that rewarded aggression and quick thinking over careful planning.
I didn’t have to follow orders from someone or have to care about casualties, I could just go crazy and shoot everything that moved.
It was the first time I played a game that dared to show me just how powerful the main character truly is.
While other games would have me taking cover and shooting enemies as they got closer or flanking them, DOOM had me rushing into hordes of demons with a shotgun in one hand and a chainsaw in the other.
In other words, DOOM was the first game that made me feel like a one-man army.
I mean can you blame me?
Imagine being a 6-foot-tall dude, that’s built like a brick house, can move faster than any other living creature on Earth, is armed to the teeth with the most advanced weapons and armor humanity can create, and can get ammunition from demons by giving them the pinata treatment but instead of using a stick, you use a chainsaw.
Yeah…I don’t think so.
The Story
While I do have a preference for games with good stories, I also like games that are first and foremost — fun.
This is exactly what DOOM is and that is important because its story is by all means simple but also effective.
Here is a summary:
Samuel Hayden is a scientific mega genius who founded the Union Aerospace Corporation (UAC), built a facility on Mars, and had the “bright” idea of harvesting hell of its resources to solve an energy crisis on Earth.
One of his scientists is Olivia Pierce and she got tricked by the demons to open a portal to connect Mars to Hell. Samuel realized that something was going on with Olivia so he made an expedition to Hell and found you (the DOOM Slayer) imprisoned in a tomb and brought you back to his facility in case something happened and well…it did.
Olivia freed all the demons the UAC had capture for experimentation and they proceeded to redecorate the facility with the bodies of the other employees so Samuel freed you to stop them.
As you go back and forth between Hell and Mars, you find new weapons, upgrades, and runes to make yourself better, faster, stronger, and more lethal against the demons until you eventually stop the invasion.
That’s the gist of it.
Then, if you want to learn more about the world, the demons, and the characters, you can look into your Codex to read the entries you collect on every stage, and to learn about the DOOM Slayer you can listen to the Slayer Testaments you find in the missions in hell.
Here are all the testaments:
I think this is the first game I played where the enemy was afraid of the protagonist, which made this game even cooler for me.
However, what DOOM lacks in a detailed storyline it makes up in gameplay which is where it truly shines.
Gameplay
First of all, you don’t get boring and lengthy tutorials. Instead, you get thrown into the action and get text boxes briefly showing you what to do while the story is direct enough to guide you.
What I liked the most about the gameplay, though, lies in the simplicity of its combat.
To summarize DOOM’s combat, you only have to keep in mind the following:
- Don’t stay in one place for too long
- Use the correct weapon on the right enemy
- Remember to use the different weapon mods
- Perform Glory Kills at every opportunity
- Use the chainsaw when low on ammo
- Pick up the powerups at the right time
- Save the BFG for big tanky enemies
That’s all.
But my favorite aspect of the combat was the Glory Kills because they kept the flow of the fight and rewarded me with health for being aggressive, and also the powerups because they made the fights more intense in a good way.
Like the Berserker powerup that gave me some cool animations that showed a bit more of the Slayer’s brutal fighting style.
I also like the weapons that you can get from secret areas or by progressing the story. I won’t get into much detail about them but here is a list of them in no particular order:
- A pistol
- A shotgun
- A super shotgun
- A plasma rifle
- A gauss cannon
- A heavy assault rifle
- A chaingun
- A rocket launcher
- A chainsaw
- The BFG 9000
All the weapons are upgradeable so you can make them more lethal, which is good since the enemies kept getting harder as I progressed the story.
Personally, I liked most of them.
The only gun that felt out of place was the pistol because of how underwhelming it was compared to the rest.
It would have been great if the upgrades would have made it into a kick-ass weapon but they didn’t. On the bright side, it has infinite ammo and a charge shot for more damage so it is effective for taking out the weakest enemies and safe ammunition of your other guns for the big guys.
Exploration
There is also a bit of exploration and platforming which rewards you with upgrades, armor, health, ammo, new weapons, collectibles, and secrets.
Some of these secrets involve:
Preator Suit Points
These allow you to find some chips that let you improve different things on your suit.
You can improve your:
- Dexterity — by making you faster at climbing ledges, reloading, and changing weapon mods
- Exploration — makes it easier to detect secrets and hidden items
- Equipment — upgrades your grenades to make them more effective
- Resistance — makes you more resistant to damage from the environment, your own weapons, and explosive barrels
- Powerups — makes your powerups more effective and lethal
Runes
These give you useful bonuses to support you in combat that you get after completing specific challenges.
For example,
You can select a rune that:
- Keeps enemies staggered for longer so you have more time to perform a Glory Kill on them
- Attracts amo and health when dropped by an enemy
- Perform Glory Kills faster
- Survive a deadly attack once and get a chance to recover health by killing an enemy
Argent Cells
This is a direct upgrade to the DOOM Slayer.
Specifically his:
- Health
- Armor
- Ammo
Weapon Mods
These allow you to modify and change your weapons in different ways.
My favorites were adding a grenade launcher to your shotgun, the mini rockets in the heavy rifle, the heat blast from the plasma rifle, and the charged shot with the Gauss cannon.
There are more weapon mods and they all allow you to make your weapons more versatile in different ways.
Maps
To help you know where you are going, where you have been, and where to find other secret items as well as extra lives.
I like collecting stuff in games, so I don’t mind spending some time searching for secret items around the stages, but I had to actively remember to use the map to make sure I don’t miss them.
Speaking of secrets, my favorites are the levers that open a secret area resembling the Classic DOOM stages. As someone who never played the classic DOOM games, it’s nice to see how the stages looked and how much respect the developers have for the first title.
Design
Besides the gameplay, the second thing that DOOM nailed was the visual and sound design.
From the start, you are introduced to a place that has been devastated by the demons, with entire rooms decorated with blood and “meat status” created with the bodies of UAC employees giving a clear picture of how bad the situation is without directly telling you.
In the UAC stages, you see how advanced their technology is, and the presence of candles and symbols hint at the cult-like nature of the activities performed by the UAC personnel, despite them being people of science.
That and the human sacrifices.
The Hell stages are desolated of all life and you can only find stones, skulls, guts, and some crude constructs with symbolism showing how savage the demons are despite being able to create portals to different worlds.
Speaking of the demons, their design is also great.
They look like strong and formidable opponents that come in different shapes and sizes, and can kill if you are not careful, especially the bosses.
Here is a video showcase of all the enemies:
However, I can’t talk about the ambiance of a DOOM game without mentioning the best part — the music.
I’m not a Metal fan, but Mick Gordon did an amazing job at creating the perfect tracks to make each moment even more intense. I mean, just listen to this:
Each track is strong, aggressive, cool, and most importantly it complements the combat instead of feeling like background noise.
Now I understand why some people say that DOOM is a metal album with a free game.
Final Thoughts
Overall I loved this game and I can see the love and dedication the developers put into making it so I’m so happy I finally got to play it live on stream, even if it was several years after its release.
It's not every day that I get to play a game like this and have this much fun, so it easily became one of my favorite games ever.
Next on my list is DOOM Eternal and I’ll let you guys know what I think about it after finishing it.
That’s all for today.
