Doom

Doom stylized DOOM is a first person shooter (FPS) survival horror game franchise. Every game to this date has either been primarily developed by ID Software and/or Raven Software. The series has gone through two publishers throughout its life Zenimax Games for the first two titles, and Microsoft Game Studios for the other titles. The series is noteworthily for being Halo's major competitor, its first title being the second FPS ever made. Yet, the two titles could not be any more different. Instead of the ripe fast paced alien killing sci-fi epic power fantasy Halo offers, Doom is built around making the player feel powerless against the forces of hell.

## Video Games

### **Doom (1992)**

Doom was a first person horror game that started development in January of 1989 alongside its sequel. Originally it was envisioned as a top down experience similar to the original Zelda but with demons in space, after Zenimax figured that a horror game was missing from its game catalog. This original concept was quickly scrapped in favor of developing a fake 3D play space, with a majority of the team voting to change the viewpoint to a first person perspective. Needing to develop a new engine, this new tech proved to be a difficult task and a somewhat limiting game engine. Eventually ID Tech 1 was developed to run the original DOOM. The Engine had some notable draw backs. due to it being technically built in a 2D play space. This meant muitiple story maps were impossible within the engine. Due to these limitations, the developers decided to change the demons in space, to a underground base in Antarctica. The AI proved to be very easy for the developers to work with allowing them to have allies for the player against the demon hordes. Flying enemies proved extremely difficult for them, many of the NPCs taking damage from the lava below them while in the air. Grenades proved to be almost impossible to code in due to a lack of proper physics, this also meant that the devs had to put the rocket launcher that was gonna be introduced at the end of the game on the cutting room floor. Unlike Halo's engine which was fully 3D, the devs didn't have the luxury of bullet spreads meaning they had to build the game around a precision weapon meta. Many of the automatic and semiautomatics planned were cut. This meant that a lot of things introduced in DOOM 2, where supposed to be in the first game. Many of the cut features weren't due to time constraints but instead limitations of ID Tech 1.

When the game finally released on Halloween of 1992 after 4 long years of development, it was meant with critical acclaim with Nintendo Power calling it "The Most Terrifying Game ever made." and Amiga Power saying "This game was a combination of innovative game design, thrilling horror, and creative level design." Yet many to criticism of its rather poor weapon sandbox with GameInformer going off on "How the game seems to favor the player using precision weapons like the Basic Pistol, Magnum Pistol, Revolver, Sniper, DMR, and Battle Rifle or the melee weapons in the form of the Chainsaw, Iron Knuckles, Cowbar, Wrench, and Fireman's Ax. Even then you will only use the pistols if you don't have Sniper, DMR, or Battle Rifle ammo available due to their low damage outputs. I wouldn't be so frustrated if the automatic weapons like the Chaingun, Assault Rifle, and Plasma gun weren't super inaccurate." the reviewer also noted, "the Shotgun is literally the worst weapon in this game, unlike Halo it is not a effective crowd control tool making its utility in the game basically useless."

### **Doom 2 (1993)**

This is when ID Software and Zenimax Studios tension began. After the colossal failure of Elder Scrolls and Fallout, Zenimax needed a hit and it need it now. So Zenimax decided to have ID Software fast track the game's development, which proved difficult after Zenimax fired the co-developer of the first game Raven Software after their massive misstep with Chrono Trigger by making it a parody of RPGs. This did effect Doom 2's development greatly resulting in a largely samey experience to DOOM 1 except automatic weapons were actually good. The only new weapon added to the sandbox was the super shotgun, which was a beefy shotgun that did more damage with all the problems of the previous shotgun unsolved. Instead of a Artic facility they went with a facility on mars with the same exact story of the first game with different characters.

Unlike the first game critics weren't very kind to Doom 2 with Nintendo Power calling it "DOOM 1 but slightly worse." and IGN calling it "It was ok, but not something I'd play again considering the only new weapon added sucks." Game Informer gave it a 1/10 saying "you didn't fix the problems in the first game, you didn't even improve on what works, you just delivered the most bare bones sequel possible."