I was chatting with my teenage son about old PC video games and I mentioned that IMHO some are simply unbeatable. As an example I mentioned the original Doom game, circa early 1990s.
Some work colleagues and I were very into it, playing after work for a couple of hours many nights. (Oh to be young and single again). Eventually we all maxed out, maybe 80% through the game. Then someone found the cheat codes (as I recall some keyboard key combo that gave you tons of lives / health and lots of weapons.) and we all eventually finished it. Even with the codes it still took a while.
Back then, we convinced ourselves that it was impossible to make it through to the end without the cheats. The onslaught of demons etc was beyond overwhelming.
My son completely disagreed and using modern games as his reference, said game developers always make it so a player can get to the end, Every game is quite beatable without the cheat codes if you play and get good enough. Bottom line we were just crappy / lazy gamers. I told him he was nuts, Doom at least was not beatable.
Of course I don’t know that for sure. Question - was the original PC Doom game beatable without cheat codes?
The general point is valid that the game market at the time was prone to games that were so hard to be effectively unbeatable (and sometimes, due to poor quality control, literally unbeatable), but Doom was certainly not one of those.
Doom I and II could be completed reasonably easily on the second hardest difficulty setting - no cheat codes necessary.
The hardest setting had respawning monsters. IIRC, it was basically included as a joke and was not tested for playability. As cheat codes were disabled at this level, I assume OP played Doom on the second hardest difficulty setting or lower.
IMHO and if IIRC, it was certainly more difficult than later 90s FPS such as Quake and DukeNukem 3D.
I think it was beatable, but I also used cheat codes. I definitely could picture it being beaten, though. I just got to the point where I wanted to shoot without consequence and run in. I think the cheat codes were a great idea.
I beat Half-life as well, though it was not the ending that was hard. That was oddly easy. I found the 60-90% portion I may have cheated during.
Ms Splosion Man co-op is the hardest game I’ve beaten, though. My wife and I talked about it yesterday and it’s been years since we played it. It was…torture. Pure torture. Single player was bad, but co-op was the hardest thing I’ve faced in a game.
I will say, though, that the Cyberdemon level - the big boss of part 2 of Doom II - is the single hardest video game level ever. At least that I ever attempted.
I know I beat Doom II on the hardest difficulty, but I played a LOT of Doom II. I doubt I beat Doom I on the hardest but I don’t think it’d be impossible.
I think in general your point is true – games are much, much easier to beat now. Just look at the number of console games that did not save progress if the power was off, any time you played to the end you had to do it in one sitting or hope that nobody shut it off while you were eating dinner (thanks mom). I remember renting some Spiderman game and spending a couple hours to get to Kingpin, I couldn’t figure out what I was supposed to do and died real fast. Took another couple hours to get back there and the same thing happened. There was no internet so I couldn’t look it up, I just had to return it in shame.
Through the 70s and 80s it was also the norm to have games just increase in difficulty forever, so “ending” a video game was often an afterthought that designers wouldn’t necessarily be building for it.
I still play Doom I/II regularly, and I’d say it’s actually one of the easier games out there. Certainly the original games are pretty easy, user-created levels tend to be more difficult, to the point where there’s a bit of a community split on how to best balance levels - for a long time it was “everyone just plays on Ultra-Violence” (the 4th, and hardest ‘real’ difficulty) because even that setting in the original game wasn’t that hard. But some mapmakers argue that UV should be used for the actual ‘only pro gamers’ difficulty while balancing the others for more normal players.
Modern control schemes help though too, it’s far easier to circle-strafe enemies like the Baron of Hell or Cyberdemon with a mouse/keyboard than it is with keyboard only back in the day. But even when the game came out, the player had the advantage of being able to run around at 50 MPH and avoid all the slow monsters.
To be clear, IDKFA is full weapons, IDDQD is God Mode. I still remember that by heart, as sure as ↑↑↓↓←→←→BA
I remember being incensed a the time that some games started making the left and right arrow keys (this was even pre-WASD) strafe instead of rotate. It’s so awkward to aim, said I, completely avoiding the mouse. Now I don’t understand how we lived without mouse+keyboard.
Yep, I beat it using the keyboard too. I never got used to mouse control. There is still an active Doom fansite with some amazing maps and mods and I still gib me some demons from time to time. The sheer playabilty, simplicity and speed of Doom put most later games to shame. Really, it’s the greatest FPS of all time.
