The Union Aerospace Corporation has been experimenting
with teleportation technology on Mars' moons Phobos and
Deimos. After early successes, something goes wrong. It
seems the scientists have opened a gateway straight to
Hell. Phobos base is overrun with demonic creatures, and
the whole of Deimos simply vanishes. A squad of marines
is sent to Phobos, but all except one are quickly
slaughtered. It falls to the surviving marine to grab
some guns and strike back at the demons. id Software's
follow-up to their genre-defining Wolfenstein 3D, DOOM is
another first-person 3D shooter: full-on action seen from
the space marine's perspective. Like Wolfenstein, the
game consists of distinct episodes, playable in any
order. The first episode, Knee-Deep in the Dead, takes
place in the Phobos base and is freely available as
shareware. The full game continues on Deimos in The
Shores of Hell and culminates in Inferno, the final
episode which takes place in Hell itself (the Sega 32x
version lacks this episode). The basic objective in each
level is simply to reach the exit. Since dozens of
enemies stand in the way, the only way to get there is
through killing them. Switches and buttons must be
pressed to advance at certain points and often color-
coded locked doors will block the way - matching keycards
or skull keys must be found to pass. The game's engine
technology is more advanced than Wolfenstein's, and thus
the levels are more varied and complex. The engine
simulates different heights (stairs and lifts appear
frequently) and different lighting conditions (some rooms
are pitch black, others only barely illuminated). There
are outdoor areas, pools of radioactive waste that hurt
the player, ceilings that come down and crush him, and
unlike Wolfenstein's orthogonally aligned corridors, the
walls in DOOM can be in any angle to each other. An
automap helps in navigating the levels. Stylistically,
the levels begin with a futuristic theme in the military
base on Phobos and gradually change to a hellish
environment, complete with satanic symbols (pentagrams,
upside-down-crosses and portraits of horned demons), hung-
up mutilated corpses and the distorted faces of the
damned. DOOM features a large weapon arsenal, with most
weapons having both advantages and drawbacks. The
starting weapons are the fists and a simple pistol. Also
available are a shotgun (high damage, slow reload, not
good at distances), a chaingun (high firing rate, but
slightly inaccurate in longer bursts) and a plasma rifle
(combining a high firing rate and large damage). The
rocket launcher also deals out lots of damage, but the
explosion causes blast damage and must be used with care
in confined areas or it might prove deadly to the player
as well as the enemies. Two further weapons in the game
are the chainsaw for close-quarter carnage, and the
BFG9000 energy gun, that, while taking some practice to
fire correctly, can destroy most enemies in a single
burst. The different weapons use four different
ammunition types (bullets, shells, rockets and energy
cells), so collecting the right type for a certain gun is
important. The game drops some of Wolfenstein's arcade-
inspired aspects, so there are no extra lives or
treasures to be collected for points, but many other
power-ups are still available. Medpacks heal damage while
armor protects from receiving it in the first place.
Backpacks allow more ammunition to be carried, a computer
map reveals the whole layout of the level on the automap
(including any secret areas), light amplification visors
illuminate dark areas and radiation suits allow travel
over waste without taking damage. Also available are
berserk packs (which radically increase the damage
inflicted by the fists) as well as short-time
invisibility and invulnerability power-ups. The enemies
to be destroyed include former humans corrupted during
the invasion, plus demons in all shapes and sizes:
fireball-throwing imps, floating skulls, pink-skinned
demons with powerful bite attacks and large one-eyed
flying monstrosities called Cacodemons. Each episode ends
with a boss battle against one or two especially powerful
creatures. DOOM popularized multiplayer in the genre with
two different modes: Cooperative allows players to move
through the single-player game together, while Deathmatch
is a competitive game type where players blast at each
other to collect 'frag' points for a kill and re-spawn in
a random location after being killed. The 3DO and Sega32x
ports lack any multiplayer modes, though the other ports
retain the DOS versions multiplayer to varying degree.
The various console ports all feature simplified levels
and omit some levels, enemies and features from the
original DOS release. The SNES and Gameboy Advance
versions of the game actually use different engines and
hence feature numerous small gameplay differences.
DOOM (MS-DOS)
(DIR) by id Software
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Date Published: 2021-05-04 18:44:23
Identifier: doom_dos
Item Size: 18725302
Media Type: software
# Topics
(DIR) MS-DOS
(DIR) DOOM
# Collections
(DIR) softwarelibrary_msdos_games
(DIR) softwarelibrary_msdos
(DIR) softwarelibrary
(DIR) emulation
# Uploaded by
(DIR) jen.waughtal@gmail.com
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