Click here for explanations of the meanings of some of
the names in Doom, Heretic and Hexen.
Latest modification 12 February 2001
Until August 1996 — over two years after the first version was released! — there was still no game that beat DOOM for atmosphere or sheer brilliance. There are games which are technically superior (Descent, Duke Nukem 3D), but they somehow don’t involve me in them the way DOOM does — and Duke Nuke has aspects which disturb some people the way all that DOOM gore never could. Indeed, Apogee have provided a “child switch” in Duke Nuke to turn off the “disturbing” aspects — but the enemies then seem to die without pain or gore, which I think is actually counter-productive, as that kind of thing is far more likely to desensitise kids to violence than showing that violence causes suffering, as DOOM does.
(One thing I find bizarre is that the music for Duke Nukem 3D isn’t nearly as good as that for DOOM — despite being written by the same person! When he left id, did he accidentally leave his talent behind, or what?)
I’ve now got the shareware version of Quake, and... well, after playing it for six months (and then deleting it from my hard drive as I was getting critically short of space, and needed to free up about 100Mb to install DJGPP), I’m a bit disappointed with it. Maybe it’s because of the drab and gloomy atmosphere, maybe it’s because no reality could possibly have lived up to all the hype Quake got for 18 months or more before release — it’s undeniably technically superior to DOOM, but somehow lacks that certain something.
I think one reason DOOM remained more popular than all the others put together (for quite a long time) is obvious: Where are the PD editors for Descent and Duke Nuke? Where are the masses of free extra levels, sounds, graphics, monsters, concepts? Where but DOOM (and Heretic, and Hexen, and Quake) can you get tons of extensions to the game for just the price of a Net connection, or PD vendor’s disk? This alone was a stroke of genius on id’s part.
If you’re still a Doom fan (if not, why are you reading this?), I particularly recommend that you check out the “I, Anubis” add-on for Doom 2. (You’ll need version 1·9, but there are upgrade patches readily available for whichever version of Doom2 you have — except the early pirate version of course, in which case tough luck.)
Talking of which...
Change music idmus Chainsaw dontwant1 God mode cheop Ammo & Keys fluff Ammo fluf Ghost Mode vctria BEHOLD menu * blowmedn Invincibility cantgetme Berserk ucantdome Invisibility cantseeme Radiation Suit canthrtme Auto-map icanseeyu Lite-Amp Goggles canseeyou Level Warp idclev Map cheat lkjh Player Position idmypos* You don’t actually have to type this to use any of the six codes below it.
Are you stumped as to how to get across the lake in TNT.WAD, level 30 (Last Call)? Here is a map to guide you!
Click here for explanations of the meanings of some of
the names in Doom, Heretic and Hexen.
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