A Love Letter to Doom

by Salad

Posted October 27th, 2022

I have been trying to find several ways to approach how much I love Doom. Not of the impending variety, just the game from 93 that was installed on more machines than Windows at one point. I wrote several scripts that were thrashed, shot several reviews that were canned, shit I fucking tried to write an article like this for I don’t know how long. After trying several angles, I think the only angle that will work for this particular topic is this angle: blunt honesty.

Doom is the greatest game ever made. Doom is my favorite video game and Doom is still the best value money can buy. Doom got me through a lot. Doom got me to my highest points and my lowest points. That’s why it’s so hard to approach this for me. Its just pure adoration and nothing felt...good enough.

This is gonna be a long one

MY HISTORY

This game entered my life when I was a lil ol 9 year old boy in 2004. Doom 3 just dropped on the Xbox and my best friend at the time invited me over to watch him play it. I was in shock. The visuals were unlike anything I had ever seen. Monsters snarled and roared, they crawled at you and swung at you, the surround sound shook the fuck out of me. I was in awe. I guess the gameplay was neat too, just runnin n gunnin through a giant army of Hell’s minions to do...something. I was 9 dude I didn’t know shit about story in video games. I thought Halo was about Green Mega Man stomping alien bastards. I was partially right.

2004 was a fuckin nuts year for gaming, this shit was competing with half life 2 (pic from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHndhBWuk-Y)

After seeing the wonders of id Software on the Xbox, that shit stuck with me. My parents were divorced. Weekends meant unsupervised computer time at my dad’s house. That led to two things:

1) My discovery of internet pornography, and

2) Late nights browsing Google for some obscure knowledge about gaming

During these sleepless nights, I discovered many things. I learned that Turok 1 had a PC version. It even had a demo that ran on my dad’s old ass PC. I learned about emulation, and played Duke Nukem 64 and Duke Nukem Advanced. Finally, I learned about Doom.

In my infinite wisdom, I had a baller ass thought: If there was a Doom 3….maybe there's a Doom 1 and 2??????????????????? GOD DAMN I AM SMART. Off to Google we went looking for a demo of Doom 1 and/or 2. One shady ass 90s looking website later (like this one lol) and I had the shareware version of Doom. This wasn’t using just any version of Doom, this was the Doom95 source port. This wasn’t my first toe into Doom, it was my first exposure to the fucking OCEAN of source ports this game has. One config menu later and...it was suddenly 8 am.

bro this shit look like a virus, if my dad saw this i'd be FUCKED

What the fuck happened??? It was 3 am last I checked!! There is no way I was sucked into this game of pixelated demon slaughtering, all whopping ONE episode of it! How many times did I beat it in 5 hours? 2? 3? I don’t know...shit Im gonna get in trouble….

Jk I didn’t get in trouble you FOOLS. However this game did become all encompassing in my thoughts. At school all I could think about was slaughtering hordes of demons and maybe, just maybe, surviving that last level of Episode 1. Maybe that’s how you unlock episodes 2,3 and 4? Man I want to use the BFG and plasma gun so bad.

Fast forward 5 years. The same friend that introduced me to Doom later had a Xbox 360 and Microsoft Points (yeah remember those fuckin things) to blow. What do you know? Doom was $5 on the Xbox Live Arcade. He bought it, invited me over, and I played it all that weekend. Literally that whole weekend. And most other weekends. And all the fucking time on his gaming PC his dad built for him. Shit, this is when I discovered Brutal Doom and that blew the fucking hinges on modding in video games for me. Imagine, unlimited content for FREE without a season pass, a battle pass, any fucking paid pass. Just 20 years of free content.

OK NOW WE TALK ABOUT THE GAME

So what? Childhood nostalgia calls a bunch of dogshit good. That doesn’t mean its ACTUALLY good. Which yes. You do be right doe. But this game kicks ass and balls dude.

Doom's design has three pillars: guns, enemies, and level design. Each of these points in its pyramid are polished to a mirror sheen that provides a thrilling gameplay experience every single time you play it. It's guns are each designed to fit a specific role. The pistol is designed to be tossed to the side. The shotgun is your workhorse gun since it works at almost every range. If the shotgun cant get the job done the SUPER SHOTGUN sure can, delivering 2 barrels of pure demon death in its load. Your chaingun keeps a group of enemies stunlocked while you circle strafe around them. The rocket launcher is....I dont have to explain it. The plasma gun is like a chaingun but since it uses projectiles instead of hitscan, does a hell of a lot more damage. Then the BFG (Bio Force Gun or Big Fucking Gun, depending on your lore) is your big fucking dealer of death in a giant group. The actual intricacies of it's function are interesting and I suggest watching this video by Decino to see how exactly it works. Finally, when all shit hits the fan, you have your chainsaw. A rapid fire melee weapon that pretty much earns the “rip and tear” moniker all by itself.

The enemies in Doom serve one function: get fucking shot. They aren't gonna make it easy on you though. Low class Zombiemen, Shotgunners, and Chaingunners can deal damage from afar but usually die in 1-2 hits. Your Imps, Hell Knights, Cacodemons, Demons (and Spectres but they are just invisible Demons), Arachnotrons and Revenants (doot) serve as your medium tier projectile slingers (minus the Demon/Spectre, who are melee only). They deal a lot more damage and can take a few more rounds to take out to pasture. Your heavy hitters, the Barons of Hell, the Archvilles, and the Mancubus will FUCK YOU UP HARD and are pretty god damned tanky. The Archville especially will rock your nuts since they engulf you in flame and do a shitload of damage. Oh they can revive enemies too. Just in case you wanted to not shit your pants. Finally your boss enemies are the Spider Mastermind and Cyberdemon. The Mastermind long range shits on you with its auto shotgun (it looks like a chaingun but I swear its a fucking shotgun). The Cyberdemon uses it giant exploding rockets to make you throw your keyboard at the fucking wall. An iconic line up, each with a specific job and a thrill to fight.

Your levels are designed to push you forward and into combat. Utilizing your speedy speed boi movement with your arsenal to grab fucking colored keys and escaping the maze has always and WILL always be a total thrill. Mastery of all of the levels (and by proxy, the other pillars) looks a little something like this video by Zero Master:

OK COOL BUT WHY DO YOU LOVE IT SO MUCH?

Maybe it is a little dumb to talk about a game this long and not really talk about why it means so much to me. Well, it is always there for me. No matter what PC, phone, console, fucking ANYTHING with a CPU, Doom is always with me. I seriously mean no matter what system. Delta Touch on Android allows it to be played on your phone. A variety of source ports are available on PC and will run modern mods on a Core 2 Duo laptop from two thousand fucking seven. This game is always in my pocket and always with me no matter what.

Now, I titled this article a “love letter” and haven’t inserted any semblance of feelings or emotional connection to this game. That's the purpose of this paragraph here. I hold Doom as close to me as I do loved ones. Any hour of the day, any day of the week, I can always turn to it and get a giant smile. The game is ALWAYS with me and has ALWAYS been there for me. To illistrate that, here are some stories.

Right after I turned 18, I still only had a Core 2 Duo laptop. I say “only” but I am absurdly lucky I had that to begin with. 2013 was a weird time for me. I just graduated high school, I was lost in the world working a dead end job at a local Rite Aid, and really had no intention of doing SHIT. Classic case of “kid that got good grades in HS but burned out and quit”. So what do you do when you are a total burnout and have no direction? You look for comfort and solidarity in the little things. For me that was Doom. Doom and a Core 2 Duo go together like PB+J. I would come home from work at 1 am and spend HOURS playing Zandronum online. Though I didn't make any friends, I played a TON of deathmatch and coop. This was my introduction to many mods, including Complex Doom. Doom was there for me to make me smile when nothing else could at the time.

Lets jump into the future. I am a senior in college, I have my life (mostly) together, and the reality of “man I am about to be successful” is setting in more and more. Existentialism and me go hand in hand. I just have no idea what I am gonna do with my life. So what the fuck else do I do but play doom? YEAH MAN THERES A FUCKING PATTERN HERE. I found this server with a unique deathmatch mod that was a fuckin BLAST to play. Sadly, I cant seem to find that server anymore. Or the mod name. All I remember is there was a nail gun that had a chainsaw charge alt fire that one shot killed dudes. This mod had me ADDICTED to Doom for WEEKS. So much that I joined the Discord and started bullshitting with people in it. This is the first time I ever competed in an actual tournament. FOR REAL MONEY. AND I PLACED DEAD FUCKING LAST IN THE TOURNEY BABY LETS FUCKING GO. I even streamed my failure in front of all my IRL pals. What a time to be alive right?

Lets reel it back. Lets do something happy. I took a vacation in Denver in 2020 before the great world shittening happened. During my stay there, my buddy and I took a small shuttle ride to Estes Park (beautiful place you should go sometime). There aint shit to do when you are sitting in the back of a shuttle high off your tits IT IS LEGAL THERE IT IS PERFECTLY OK. My buddy and I were armed with a Switch and bordem so fuck it. We revisted a challenged we had attempted a year or so prior: coop Episode 1 on Nightmare. While this sounds easy on the surface, by the time you reach level 3 it is a fucking trip. Shit is just infinite respawning, you have no ammo, being spawn fucked by turbo pinkies and shotgunners as you scream “FUCK NONONONONONO”. Definitely a favorite memory of mine.

Shit there was another time in 2012 when a friend that was living with me wanted to coop Brutal Doom with me. The best part, I wanted to play with him too. WHAT A CONCEPT. The problem: my parents would unplug the wifi router at 10 pm because I was TECHNICALLY a child still. Whatever FUCK YOU MOM 17 IS LEGAL IN MOST PARTS OF THE COUNTRY. GOD. In a fit of fine “fucking around and finding out”, we stuck an ethernet cable into both of our PCs and directly wired the bitches together. Fuck I didn't know it would work, but holy fuggin piss it did. We played Brutal Doom all night together and laughed about flipping the bird to each other. We later had a falling out beyond my control, but this is a great way to remember them by.

MEANT FROM BIRTH

I have one more story that is so fucking good, it deserves its own section. I genuinely think I was meant since birth to play this game. Deadass. My mom played Doom 2 while she was pregnant with me. She even name dropped Duke Nukem 3D without ANY prompt. Like, who's mom does that? Mine dude its neat. Still don't believe me? Ok. Bet.

One day in 2009ish, I was playing the Doom 3 port of Doom 2 on my Xbox. My mom was just half watching while she was waiting for something to load. The map in question is MAP15. Any Doom 2 player can tell you that the map has a secret exit that takes you to the secret Wolfenstein 3D level. I had spent like 10 minutes wall humping looking for the switch. Suddenly, mom turns to me and says:

“Strafe jump to the platform up there”

What the fuck? Ok fine...and she continued to give me instructions until the secret exit opened. Without saying a single further word, she turns back to her PC and just keeps typing away. WHAT THE FUCK???? OK NAME A MORE BASED MOMENT IN HISTORY. YOU FUCKIN CANT CAN YOU?! DID YOUR MOM LEAD YOU TO MAP30? I DONT THINK SO BITCH.

WRAP IT UP MAN

I can talk about this game for HOURS. Literal HOURS. Those stories there are just a tip of the iceberg for me. This game has formed my opinion on how many shooters should be designed. But the main lesson is that this game brought me happiness when nothing else in life would. Bad breakup? Doom. Just got the job! Doom. Worldwide pandemic? Doom.This is my desert island game, my better half, and my foundation of all games. There is nothing that can happen with it that will make me stop loving it. Like, I have a small collection of various Doom object. Books, weird releases, ports, floppies. Just...anything.

Even after writing this and editing it and posting it, I still don't know if how much I love this game has come across. The 2016 release is the only game I picked up at midnight. The original game and my mod collection stays synced in the cloud so I have it everywhere. I am constantly watching content about the game and it's engine. I just...I love Doom.

I love you Doom, happy 29 years of existence.