So Doom is my favorite game of all time.

This guy is fucked.

So if you were not aware, today marks the 19th anniversary of the release of the greatest computer game ever created; Doom. It was on this day in 1993 that id Software unleashed Doom upon the world, and nothing was ever quite the same.

Many credit Doom as being the very first first-person shooter ever created, which is just straight up incorrect. A lot of people credit Wolfenstein 3-d for being the first, but I would argue it goes back much further than that. In my opinion, Battlezone was the first 1st-person shooter ever created. I could be wrong, but I feel like that is correct.

As I said in the title of this post, Doom is my favorite game of all time. I can't even count the hours I've spent over the past 19 years playing this game. I've beaten it so many times I've lost count (I have beaten Doom II twice, I know this because that last level is a HUGE BITCH). I will also tell you that I have never, ever beaten the fourth episode of Ultimate Doom, because I could never figure out one of the levels. Every once in a while I bust it out to try to beat it, and it's just too ridiculous.

How'd you like to read patch notes for a PC
game these days and all the new version said was
"New shotgun and some more levels" and THAT WAS IT?
It's be fucking amazing.

I have an equal affection for Doom and it's AMAZING sequel, Doom II. Doom II is exactly what a sequel should be; 32 new levels and a double barreled shotgun. That is really all you need, and you've got a fucking guaranteed hit. I definitely feel Doom and Doom II are about dead even for the top spot on my list of my favorite games, but today is the first game's birthday and I'll talk about that one.

I came across the very first Doom game like most people did at the time, through shareware. It came out a year or so before I began venturing onto the young World Wide Web, so I had to get the game in a physical form. I had played Wolfenstein, and the magazines were touting this as a Wolf3d killer, so I was in from the get-go (much like Resident Evil, which I will discuss - most likely at length - at another time).

HAHAHAHA, FUCK THIS GUY.

If you didn't grow up playing computer games, you are probably unfamiliar with the term 'shareware.'  Unlike today's market where you get to beta test a game to demo it, shareware was released in tandem (or sometimes prior) to the release of the registered version of the game. Shareware is basically a huge chunk of the game which is freely distributed to get people interested in the game. In the case of Doom, it was the first entire episode (of 3), which was 9 levels.

I got my full version of the game from my dad's friend. He brought the disks home to me one day after work and I about lost my god damn mind. I ran upstairs, installed the game and jumped straight into Inferno. Holy fuck balls was it horrifying to a 10 year old, but it was so fucking sweet. It was so incredibly hard, and I was so incredibly young and retarded that I had to cheat to beat the game. It wasn't until a few years later that I manned up and beat the game without cheats. Luckily for me you can just unload the BFG on the Spider Mastermind and he dies....spoiler alert.

The game has so many great things going on, it's hard to really single out every one. I believe the game still looks incredible, even to this day. It was so well put together, that it hasn't lost it's bite. I still prefer playing Doom on an old CRT monitor to get the feel of shooting demons in 1993, which is a great feeling. Also, mouse controls are for pussies, you play this game like a man; with the fucking ARROW KEYS.

D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-DO YA HAVE IT?
GUTS!

I developed an interest in game design by messing around with the modding tools available for Doom and Doom II. I didn't really get too heavy into level design until Duke Nukem 3d, but I definitely built my fair share of crappy little Doom levels. The thing I loved the most was redesigning the sprites in the game, which I did all the time. I used a program that would extract all the sprite files and open them in Paint, where I would add more gore or design new items. It was a great deal of fun, and lead me to become more interested in the behind the scenes world in game industry.

Doom has always had this appeal for me, one that has never faded and will probably never fade away for me. Every time I play it, it's like I'm picking it up for the first time. In my opinion, the game has never aged and continues to look great still to this day. It was designed so well, the whole thing sticks and still makes me feel like a 10 year old when I play it.