Doom: 7 things about the epic PC game of all time

By Harshita

| Published: Tuesday, April 19, 2016, 12:10 [IST]

Gaming is a gamer's best way to make use of time. We have brilliant graphics and characters in gaming today, but these don't take away the glory of some old-time incredible games that have sailed through decades of transition. These games gave some of the best moments to gamers back then, and still have their own set of loyal followers.

Doom: 7 things about the epic PC game of all time

We are talking about Doom here which was launched over two decades ago on December 10. When company behind it, Id Software, launched Doom as a 2MB file, who knew it would become hugely popular and change the history of gaming forever. Doom was released as shareware, and quickly spread across FTP servers. In no time the PC game became a hit, popularizing the FPS genre, and topped 3D game worlds. It featured multiplayer-game base that became quite popular after this game.

Doom was not the first hit from ID, which had previously set a mark with Commander Keen and Wolfenstein 3D, but it surely took the bar much higher. It was about a space marine who shoots at demons to kill them and find his way ahead, first on a moon of Mars and then in hell. In included a few puzzles to solve, and offered players a large variety of weapons to choose from. The company already launched has 2 sequels to the original game, and recently announced the Doom 4 in open beta to all platforms.

Before you go ahead with the Doom 4, here we tell you 7 things about Doom, the first epic game that changed the gaming industry entirely, and is called greatest game of all time by gaming lovers:

1.

Doom was originally created by a small team of 15 developers including John Carmack, Id Software's lead programmer and co-founder; John Romero, who handled level design; and Tom Hall, whose was behind the game's creative direction and detailed world. These developers worked on it for over 9 months, before they released Doom. John Carmack recently left Id Software to be the full-time CTO at Oculus VR that is well known for it virtual reality Oculus Rift headset.

2.

In an interview with the site Doomworld, Carmack revealed that Doom's title was inspired by a scene in The Color of Money which featured Hollywood actor, Tom Cruise. It was when Cruise's character pulls out his custom cue case at a pool hall and mentioned ‘Doom' in the scene, that inspired Carmack to pick this name. Other name shortlisted for the game was ‘Attack of the Attackers', but the id Software team dumped it considering it to be ‘too silly.'

3.

The most appealing feature of Doom was its 3D graphics engine that was highly impressive and intuitive for its times. It has high end lighting, full texture mapping, surprising elements and other features that had not been seen in PC gaming, until Doom was launched back then In 1993. Then after, the company gave way to an entire genre of similar games. You can say that it is one of the most influential video games ever made. The success of first Doom was followed by numerous sequels.

4.

Doom created the 3D FPS (first-person shooter) genre, which has been the hot favorite of gaming fraternity ever since. Take examples of the Call of Duty, Halo, and Battlefield franchises, which are all based on first person shooting and have been very successful across gaming world.

5.

Doom's iconic music was composed by Bobby Prince, but did you know that the soundtracks for the first two Doom games were inspired by iconic metal bands including Slayer, Metallica, Megadeth, Pantera, AC/DC, Alice in Chains, and Black Sabbath. You will notice that Doom tracks mirror metal and hard rock very closely.

6.

Doom was expected to be played by around 10 million people within two years of its release. Also, previous reports suggest that it was installed on more computers than Windows 95 which prompted Microsoft's Gabe Newell to develop a Windows port of Doom.

7.

The first Doom became such a huge hit that the developers of the game launched two more sequels to the game subsequently. While Doom I and Doom II had been quite hits in themselves, Doom III game became a critical and commercial success for id Software. The company sold over 3.5 million copies of the game, which became the most successful game by the developer to date. The company recently announced the fourth sequel to the game, however it is available in beta till its release on May 13 for PC, PS4, and Xbox One.