DOOM - THE GENESIS OF A VIDEO GAMING LEGEND

Never in the history of arcade video games has one title caused so much interest and stirred so many peoples' imaginations. The game is Doom, by Id Software, and it features some of the most gory, satisfyingly bloodthirsty scenes of maiming and mutilation that has ever graced the small screen. It is also by all reports well on its way to becoming the highest selling video game in the industry's history.

But what makes a game, and Doom in particular, great? Certainly Doom has stunning visuals, atmospheric tunes and lots of the aforementioned blood but it isn't the first game to have all these elements, so why the intense interest from jaded gamers? Certainly Doom is not perfect; the lack of true VR options like climbing, crawling and the ability to look up or down seriously hamper game play, yet no-one seems to care. Why?

Perhaps the reason for Doom's phenomenal popularity has more to do with its seemingly unlimited vista of possibilities than anything else. The game asks you to decide what to do next. There are no hand holding help screens here, you are cast into the fray on your own, with only your wits and reflexes to guide you. Taunted at every turn by diabolically tricky puzzles you weave, dodge and shoot your way through level after level of trans-dimensional mayhem.

Once 'completed', the game refuses to offer up its appeal, rather life gets more involved. Secret levels and hidden areas abound; there always seems to be more to do. A bit like a holiday, you always want to see just one more site, go on one more shopping trip. Except in the Doom world, that entails battling the hellish hordes and picking up weaponry that would make Arnie himself drool with delight.

Doom owes much of its success to the concept of shareware marketing and the loyalty of the Internauts who inhabit that trans-global realm known as Cyberspace. The first release, Doom v1.0, released on 3 December last year heralded a new approach to mainstream games marketing. The entire first mission complete with all eight levels was released onto the Internet and BBSs throughout the world as a teaser for what was to come. Updates followed on December 16 that year (v1.1) and February 17 1994 (v1. 2). Already by this stage many dedicated Doomers had finished or were nearing completion of an awesome variety of editors, level creators and sound managers to further prolong the Doom phenomenon.

Level editors are not a new idea; it was the hackers on the venerable Commodore 64 that first pioneered the concept of creating editors for their favourite games so as to give them a new challenge. The editor usually came about as a natural outgrowth of the illegal cracking and piracy of the game. Often as a game was 'cracked', its internal workings would be revealed to the hacker and it was a relatively simple matter to rearrange the game and presto, an editor would be the result.

Where Doom is different from these earlier attempts, however, is in the reasons for the editors, the popularity of the subsequent data files and Id's response to its illegitimate 'children'.

Previously publishing houses have been loath to hear of editors for their games, taking the view that such a situation would diminish the stature of the official release. Many have sought to actively hunt down and prosecute the manufacturers of these add-on softwares. Id on the other hand, while not actively endorsing the fad, have at least conceded its inevitability and have given their blessing, asking in return that no levels be created for the shareware version, as this would affect adversely sales of the commercial product if people could get an unlimited number of levels for free, without buying the software. In this request the gamers and hackers have worked with Id, and consequently it is rare to find any software that works with the shareware release.

Another difference between the Doom hackers and those 8-bit pirates from a few years ago is that the editors have evolved out of a great fascination and love for the game, not as lost children of illegal piracy. Doom programmers slave for hundreds of hours over a level creator or new scenario, not so that they can pirate it or profit from it, but so as to actually support the original game, enhancing its appeal rather than diminishing it. There are probably more third- and fourth-party developers for Doom than virtually any other piece of software in the world, except Microsoft's Windows. While the desire to show the world 'look what I can do' is still a strong motivational force with the modern hacker, it is perhaps a mark of the sub-culture's maturity that he can show off his talents without destroying the thing that he wishes to promote.

Another factor that prolongs the game's longevity is the multiplayer mode. Video game commentators have often commented that an otherwise poor game can be made playable by the simple addition of multiplayer action. It follows that a fantastic game like Doom can be propelled to super stardom by a two player mode, and into the outer stratosphere with its network support for up to four players.

The reason why multiplayer combat is so enjoyable is that it pits a human player against another living, breathing, cunning human. People learn from other players' actions and can respond to them in turn in a way that not even the best AI software can emulate. Bring in four of your buddies over a network, and apart from sending your network manager into a nervous fit, you change the dynamics to such an extent that the game takes on an entirely new dimension. Many a 'Doom Room' has been nefariously assembled at large computer sites in the early hours of the morning when traffic is low. Dedicated Doomers merrily scream in anguish as they are blind-sided by a fireball or bark orders to each other upon entering a virtual complex inhabited by demons of the abyss. It may be this unprecedented degree of interaction that has made Doom the sensation it is more so than any other single factor.

Certainly the marketing force that is Doom doesn't look as if it is anywhere near spent, quite the contrary is true. A new release is slated for the coming months, rumoured to be faster, meaner and more ferocious than the current v1.2. According to Hank Leukert, the official coordinator of the Doom Frequently Asked Questions update, the new commercial release will feature more levels, more options, more graphics, and more sounds. None of the current missions will be duplicated, and there should be six in total, as opposed to the official v1.2's three or the shareware's one.

An Atari Jaguar release is also planned for sometime around the end of the year, which will be a somewhat optimised version of the original v1.2 PC title, taking into account the unique difficulties that a console system poses. Frame rate should be a near-cinematic 20 FPS, digital SFX, nightmare mode, password save game feature and support for the Jag's comlynx cable (connects two consoles together for head-to-head play). No price has been finalised, although the cart would need to be in excess of 20-24Mb in size to do justice to the game, and with the price of memory at the moment and the sort of premium release that Doom would be, you can expect prices to be somewhere between $130-$150.

While everything looks rosy in the Doom world, a pall hangs on the horizon. That cloud is proposed legislation to outlaw certain video games; legislation that is aimed specifically to blow Doom out of the water. It would be ironic if, in this new environment of open communication and collaboration between official software developers' (in this case Id) and those much maligned hackers, it was a government led by the stuffy wowser elite who ensured a promising enterprise was stifled by legislating outmoded moral codes. Such a situation could only lead to the 'bad old days' of anything goes software piracy, at the very moment that the industry was preparing to embrace a bold new future of inclusion and consultation with the users of their wares. A future in which hackers, which many in society erroneously view merely as technological misfits, actually found a constructive outlet for their hugely creative talents.

The Doom bandwagon rolls on, and you can expect to see a large number of copycat games appearing on the market in the next few moths that will take some of the lustre off the genre, but to all the world's Doomers, there can be only one.

           Doom: Distributor Manacom Software 
         Price : $69.95 
  Availability : In stores now! 
FTP sites/BBSs : various.  
Levels available on NCTUCCCA.edu.tw/PC/uwp/romulus 
       Id BBS  :(a) (508)-365-2359 2400 baud
                (b) (508)-368-7036 9600-14.4k v.32bis
                (c) (508)-368-4137 14.4-16.8k HST/DS

While I do not promote the concept of cheating in a game as a first recourse, sometimes you just need a little helping hand! Use these as an absolute last resort. Have fun!

Iddqd           Degreelessness mode (God mode) 
Idkfa           Very Happy Ammo (full ammo, 200% armor, all weapons)
Idspispopd      No clipping (you can walk through walls) 
Idbehold        Displays menu (followed by S, V, I, R, A, or L for choice) 
idclev          Warp (followed by episode number and level number) 
idmypos         Displays your coordinates in hex 
idchoppers      Gives you the chain saw (long story behind the message) 
iddt            Toggles Automap between normal, full, and full with objects
                (enter when looking at the Automap)

Compiled with the assistance of the 'official' Doom FAQ by Hank Leukert (c) 1994.

This article is Copyright (C) 1994 Game Bytes Magazine. All rights reserved.