A Game Worse Than Doom

This December marks the 15th anniversary of Doom. Having played a great deal of Doom recently this does actually have some meaning to me. In fact, one of the stranger experiences I have had since moving to the state of Qatar is sitting in a Coffee Shop in a Middle Eastern country blowing up demons. Of course, I am not living in the past and I have lots of experience with the remake of Doom that came out in 2004, Doom 3.

The strange thing about Doom 3, is that you wouldn't know that it was a remake unless someone told you. However, this really says less about the game and more about the way shooters have evolved since the original Doom. People often complain about shooters being too similar, but comparing Doom 1 and 3 somewhat dispels that attitude.

Both games feature the same basic plot and absolutely stunning graphical technology. Many of the enemies in Doom 3 have obvious Doom 1 counter-parts. And both games will scare small children. But this is where the similarities end.

The plot line in Doom is a simple one and can be summed up in a few sentences: Scientists mess with portal technology. They accidentally open a portal to hell. Everybody dies except for this one marine that kills all the demons. 15 years ago, this was about as much plot as you usually expected from an action game. But (partially thanks to that other great shooter, Half-Life) we now expect some kind of plot line in shooters and Doom 3 provides. The game has been criticized for the rather laborious way the plot is revealed (via reading and listening to journal entries) but really, relative to the original game ANY kind of plot explanation is slow. The method used in Doom 3 simply highlights the way that out approach to story development has changed over the years. These same exagurations are found throughout the rest of the game.

The level design for example: Doom was known for being filled with complex mazes which were as much an element of gameplay as the combat. Doom 3 is completely different in that it follows a rather straight path most of the time and the player is always expected to be moving forward in a fairly constrained way. However the secrets, bonuses and keys that were hidden by corridors in the original Doom are now buried within the texts that push the story forward. This is another key change of direction. Modern shooter designers tend to reward cleverness over persistence. This can be seen in other games such as Doom 3 contemporary Half-Life 2. In one instance an ally yells "Head for the horse". It is not immediately obvious what he means, nor is it clear what direction the player should move in once the area is clear of enemies. Dr. Freeman could wander aimlessly until he stumbles upon the correct route, but clever players will notice a small statue of a horse by a street and head that way.

While it is certainly true that game developers have moved to more clever level designs in order to avoid becoming stale, it is also true that technology has placed constraints on what designers can do. That may sound counter-intuitive, but consider this: would the source engine be able to run a graphically updated version of the original doom tolerably? Probably not. The levels in Doom are extremely large, but unlike the vast world of Half-Life 2 it is absurd to try and cut Doom into loadable chunks, thanks to the substantial amount of backtracking (imagine if you had a loading screen for every room in Metroid Prime!). That said, part of the reason that Doom was so large is that the engine it ran on could not store rooms on top of each other and so each level had far more stairs and hallways than one would see in even the most system resource friendly modern shooter.

Enemy placement is another thing that has evolved between Doom and Doom 3, and this is for precisely the same reason that level design has changed. Fighting wave upon wave of enemies is often monotonous (though not in the original doom for some reason) and within the constrained levels of Doom 3 it could very easily become infuriating to fight wave after wave of the demonic hoard. Instead, the developers have made the enemies come from predefined, unexpected places. The player now has less health and supplies are harder to come by. This is probably the biggest difference between Doom and Doom 3, but it is also the most telling. Most modern shooters are made this way (at least most of the good ones). It really does feel as though Doom 3 is what Doom would have been if it was made for the first time in 2004.

There are probably more differences between Doom and Doom 3 that are just as telling about how gaming has evolved since 1993. It is quite clear, however, that game design has changed. Doom and Doom 3 are perfect marks to show what elements have been altered and how, for better or worse. Perhaps Doom 4 will do the same? or will it be Half-Life 3? You heard it here first, Duke Nukem Forever, 2014. 10th anniversary of Doom 3.