I just got my hands on an emulator and dug out my old Doom 2 cd.
What a great game. Simple, easy-to-play, fun, scary, and the soundtrack is a classic.
And I’ll just state it outright: you aren’t playing Doom if you use a mouse.
Doom 2 isn’t the greatest fps ever, but Doom 2 with Brutal Doom is.
You’re welcome.
Pretty much. I lump it with Final Doom, and don’t forget all the great custom campaigns. It’s sad to see the majority of popular modern FPS games have degenerated into theme park, linear military shooters. Let’s clumsily labor around with a sprint meter, regenerating health, limited weapons, and tedious cover mechanics, then shoot 300 guys with rifles one at a time…with your own rifle. Or you could run around around at a million miles an hour dodging waves of projectiles while blowing away hordes of monsters to rockin’ metal and then gun down a 30 foot tall demon with a nuke gun. Now that’s a stress reliever.
Only downside is the secret mechanic is kinda silly. Let’s run around walls and mash use. But it can be interesting sometimes when it’s some crazy tangent and you end up somewhere else.
New FPS games that ape that old style still come out every once in awhile, but they’re a rare treasure. I guess Killing Floor 2 will be the next one.
Doom 1 has better level design.
What a coincidence, I just had dinner with John Romero last night. 
His favorite FPS is Ghost Recon, BTW.
But, yeah, most modern shooters are too much about aiming and not enough about moving.
I would say that the Doom games weren’t even the same genre as modern FPSs, largely because of the control issue. Doom is properly played with a keyboard alone, while modern FPSs are properly played with a mouse.
That said, while I might agree that Doom II was the exemplar of its genre, I’m not quite sure I would call it the best: That title, I think, I would give to Hexen. There weren’t many changes between the two, but all of them were in Hexen’s favor, and some of them were profound, like truly 3D maps.
Damn, I loved Hexen! What a game.
I miss being truly in danger. Doom had a bunch of rooms where you’d go in, the doors would close, then monsters would pop up everywhere. Most modern FPS won’t do that, they’ll send maybe 2 or 3 guys at once.
BTW, Half Life 2 is the best FPS. Even though it has some issues, mainly with the linear play and the lack of enemy varieties. Still got the best story in a FPS ever, with Bioshock pretty close
If I’m going for story, I might still go for Deus Ex. For mood, I’m all about some System Shock.
What would you guys think of as modern-ish FPS games that are similar in style to the old Doom games?
Pain Killer
Serious Sam
Killing Floor, sorta
To qualify, I’d think they’d have to have at least one of the following qualities:
- Fast player movement to enemy movement
- You fight large numbers of enemies at once
- Enemies have different abilities instead of just being guys with slightly different guns
The '90s aren’t modern, but the old N64 Turok series kinda reminds me of Doom too, mostly because of the enemy variety and ludicrous guns. You fight a cyborg T. rex with a literal nuke gun.
I like the HL series, but probably more for nostalgia and non-gameplay reasons (e.g. music, world building, voice acting). I find it funny when people criticize FPS for lazily designed corridor gameplay or too much story…then praise HL. It deserves a lot of the blame.
If HL2 has the best FPS story that’s pretty damning. The only mildly interesting thing I can think of is the Lost/X-Files tier BS that will never be resolved satisfactorily (the G-man). Otherwise it has all the depth of a 1950s alien invasion movie. Some cool characters though. I felt bad for Breen. Alyx is a transparent ploy to pander to the protective instincts in the typical nerdy gamer guy. Effective as hell obviously given her popularity, but I feel too manipulated to buy in.
Plus most of the game seems like a test demo for their physics engine. Look, you can stack objects to solve the puzzles! We’re so cutting edge. A bit dated, nowadays. Not that modern games use physics to better effect, but still.
Don’t forget the sections where you’re forced to sit there and listen to NPCs yammer on for literally 10 minutes. At least you can skip cinemas.
I think the best part of any of the HL games was the end of Episode 2 where you drive around blowing up striders in the forest to defend the rocket. Now that was chaotic fun.
That’s another nice thing about Doom. No cutscenes. No escort missions. No one talking in your ear. No vehicles. No gimmicks. No story cinematics to bog you down. Technically there’s a story in the text intermissions, but you can skip it instantly and it’s over the top and tongue in cheek anyway.
Another criticism you can have for Doom is the rainbow of keys you have to collect. I think it’s alright generally, as long as the map maker isn’t a sadist.
Fallout 3 or New Vegas was the best FPS, IMO, with the complete HL2 a close second. If you dont use a guide and just wander FO3 can last more than 100 hours.
I think Doom 1’s often were more realistic but Doom 2’s had better replayability and were more fun.
I give my “Best FPS” award to Stalker: SoC/CoP. Tough, atmospheric, large open maps, good times.
I played a ton of Doom I & II and they holds a fond place in my memory but there’s virtually no aiming, partially because of the Z-axis silliness and inability of the game to place one object over another. Plus, as mentioned, the levels that turned into you just gliding face-first along the walls, mashing the space bar and hoping to find a secret door or lift. Still a fun game though.
Can GTA V count among the top contenders now?
Why is that? Aiming is great as a gameplay mechanic but maneuver is at least as interesting.
Come to think of it, I have to amend my statement about Hexen being better than Doom II in every way: Doom II had way better bosses. Neither game’s final boss was all that (Doom’s was a trick room with only one tedious way to beat it, while Hexen’s was a big pile of HP whose attacks were all trivial to avoid), but Hexen didn’t have anything that compared to a Cyberdemon, Spider Mastermind, or even Archvile or Baron of Hell. The only worthwhile bosses in Hexen are the three masters, and they’re all mostly just glass cannons.
I didn’t enjoy Doom 2 as much as I enjoyed the original, so no. 
I also do tend to agree that these games are only barely if at all in the same genre as the ‘modern FPS’.
Lord, yes!
Destiny is often very Doom-like in hitting the sweet spot of movement-based combat and appropriately squishy hordes of enemies that are dangerous, but often can be brought down in a couple of shots. Aside from the bullet-sponge boss battles, the rank-and-file combat portions of the game bring back a lot of the Doom space marine thrill.
I loved Heretic and Hexen also, though my memory have conflated them and I can’t quite recall which elements were from which game. I’m also one of the few diehard holdouts that consider Unreal to be a classic.
Yeah, that’s my favorite as well. That said, I’m not really into FPSers (most of the ones I’ve played just didn’t hold my interest long enough to play more than an hour or so), so maybe that’s not much of an endorsement for the more hard-core FPSers. 
Heretic was just Doom with different sprites. Even the progression of the weapons was identical. At most, I think it might have introduced items that you could stockpile and use later, but there just wasn’t enough new to justify an entire game. Hexen, by contrast, introduced classes, an entire new set of weapons (and more of them; 15 to Doom’s 8), three-dimensional enemy movement, bridges on maps, revisitable levels, new enemies, etc.