Hell Comes to Dad's Office Computer

It's been said that the most vile and contoversial things can become the most popular, and in the world of gaming that fact is clearly seen. Many of of saw our first look at a gory video game with Mortal Kombat, the fighting game that might have just been a lame punch-kick game with digitized graphics if not for all the blood that spalttered with every hit your opponents face. Mortal Kombat would have died out if not for its adult themed violence. The Grand Theft Auto series gives a look at the thug life and gives us to oppurtunity to be as bad assed as we have always wanted to be, but were afriad to do in the real world. Resident Evil pits us a against an entire army of the undead, and puts you through an adventure that makes the heart race, surprising you forcing you to charge every corner with every barrel alblaze. Doom gave us gamers a chance to battle our asses off out of hell, mars and earth-bound hell, and it did this with a concept in gaming that continues today, First Person viewing.

In the early 90's computers had a new buzzword called "Virtual Reality". Origionally the idea wasn't JUST for video games, but eventually it made VR its best selling point. The idea was to put a person into a computer generated world and make them believe they were somehow inside it and affecting it, not just watching it and playing. VR's transition to video games was a natural and obvious one, and why not? Who wouldn't want to BE Mario rather than just watch Mario. The VR craze wasn't a long lived one, that is, if your idea of being inside a video world meant strapping and uncomfortable headset to your face that shined a brightly lit video LCD screen in your eyes. The screen showing you early wireframe polygon graphics that moved at slow framerates and looked just as they looked,... like graphics.

Despite it drawbacks, VR was still ok and convincing. County Fairs and arcades had VR stations where people could get lost in that trippy pixelated world where they could shoot, kill, dance, drive, or even just ride a roller coaster without actaully going anywhere. It was a pop-culture sensation and an easy venue for naughy things as well. One could go to virtual strip clubs and even have virtual sex. Gaming companies pounced on this concept. Nintendo was widely known for the development of its VR device called the "Virtual Boy" and it was a total flop. Nintendo's VB console had red stereostropic grapics with the resolution of its previous system the Game Boy, all you did was look into the oversized viewmaster-esque display and enjoy playing Tennis. The manual for the system advised its users to take breaks during playing to avoid the headaches that followed, few games were made and the system was garage sale fodder after it was canned. Kudos to nintendo for taking the risk. Sega had a much cooler full color VR system in the works, and it never got released (maybe they had other plans like competing against themselves by making another system identical to the Genesis). Bummer.

In the world of computers, VR was becoming popular as well, but the whole headset thing was kinda ignored. Why would you need that? When you look at the screen you lose all periferal vision anyways, and if the world is interesting enough then who cares if it projected from a screen on the desk or two inches from your eyes? The game idea of VR was to put you into the characters eyes and make you the one that controls what that character does.

There was probably a few attempts to make this all come to light, few of which are noticeable. The most notable attempt in first person gaming was a shooter called Wolfenstein 3D. W3D was you controlling a soldier blasting through level after level of a Nazi prison camp. The game was quite fun, you got different weapons and fought against hordes of Nazi foot soldiers, and even got to fight the big bad bosses at the end of each episode. The graphics were ok to the standards of () it showed us a cartoon of violence that we got to see through the eyes of a battle hardened prisoner of the 3rd reich. This game has some gore happy fun to it as well, making it a parents worst nightmare on daddy's home office computer. One company was brave enough to release this title: id Software.

Id software (pronouned 'Eed' not 'eye-dee') had an artist, John Carmack and that artist had a dream to make a fun submervise adventure in 3d worlds. Id software had been successful in creating a 3d graphics engine that was capable of putting you inside rooms and letting you navagate through them, open doors, interact with objects and yes, even shoot shit.

W3d came out in 1992 and was an undergorund sensation and a controverisial hit. The graphics didn't look all that, but the gameplay was and more. The controversy was there from the start, and why? well the violence was a good start, but also the use of nazi symbols made a lot of people uncomfortable. It makes no sence in this day and age, at least not to me the writer(Who wouldn't want to kill nazis? Its not like they don't have it comming). Most of the controvery was just from the blood, gore and the fact that you were running into rooms with guns, and parents just weren't ready or basically refused to excersize the right to put thier foot down and say, "no billy you may not play that game!" This was also before games like Mortal Kombat warped everyones fragile minds.

Id software was on the map in the gaming world and they met with a challenge. Many episodes were made of W3d and it was getting kinda old. How do you follow the funnest and most violent first person shotter without repeating the formula and boring the audience further. Id software bounced ideas about a car racing game with the adult violence theme in mind, but things moved back to the shooter format. They had advanced thier engines graphics capabilities as far as looks but they had decided to pit you the gamer against the grandaddy of all villans, Satan. After all Hitler had to become evil somehow? Why not make the devil your prime target.

Doom was what the name implied. You were fucking doomed from level one. Rooms were dark some had flikering lights, some had these computer panels on the wall, some were stone stuctures with a blocky gothic look, some walls looked as if they were constructed from a sheetrock made of human innards and flesh wallpapering it all like if Ed Gein was an interior designer. Some areas has pools of toxic waste that would damage you if you if you walked on it without a special suit. The environment wasn't scary really but we knew exactly what the game designers were thinking. Hell was now a realistic place, with wooden walls or large pools of blood that drained your health if you were to ever lose your footing and fall. The level design was bigger than in W3d, The game took place in a variety of settings like Mars, Hell, Earth with Hell on it, Mars with hell on it, Earth with Mars on it, Earth, Mars and Hell all put into a blender. I can only remember so much but it was all cool but eventually it all looked alike to me. So much in so little of a package. Each level was about getting to that red panel at the end. To reach that panel your going to have to get VERY fuckin creative or VERY fuckin lucky. The game play was the same thing, again and again, but it was the RIGHT same thing over and over.

Find key #1
To open the door #2
To throw switch #3
To bring up the drawbridge that leads to an exit.
And don't let the throng of zombies and fat monsters with flameball throwers for hands stop you.

Fun as fuck. But that wasn't enough to create a hostile environment, you needed to hear it and sound played a good role. Most of Dooms sound effects were sampled. I still watch movies and hear Doom sounds of opening doors, rockets flying, and demons growling. But the shotgun sound sticks into your head and doesn't let go. I can hear that in my sleep. the chainsaw buzz makes you WANT to tear some demon flesh..

Your enemies were a diverse lot, solidiers, pink demons that bite, brown imps that throw fireballs at you, flaming skulls, skeletons with rocket launchers, really bad ass looking monsters that... well you get the picture, it was big even though all of the characters were just 2d images that were drawn in multiple angles. These enemies gave your trigger finger a workout with an array of different weapons that you could use.

Your weapons were a diverse -and simple to weild- lot as well. You had the shitty pistol, your fist (with a pointy ring on the index finger), a shotgun (in doom 2 you got a double barreled shotgun), a chainsaw (on mars!?), a plasma shooter, a rocket launcher, a chaingun (to make you feel like the terminator) and who could forget the big fucking gun called the BFG 9000. Fire one round of the BFG and watch all your enemies flash out in a green spark. Watch the rocket launcher turn that Pinky demon into mush. The chainsaw was too much fuckin fun and handy when your trigger happy adventure leaves you with no bullets.

Your weapons were your only ally and it was fun not to have to worry about who NOT to shoot at, most games these days just bog you down with crappy AI controlled side soldiers that LOVE standing in front of your barrel. Another great note was that it was almost impossible to screw up, there was no 'secondary fire' that caused you to lob a grenade at a bad moment, all one needed to do was hit the fire button.

If you even still have the CD (or Floppy disk package) give Doom and Doom 2 a whirl. Theres a good chance you might not like it as much as Halo or Halflife. Your surprised at the origionals limitations, its like playing pacman again. Its still beyond fun to enter that cheat code and go beserk but suddenly your brought back to the old days. Your character can't jump. The rooms are long and 1 story, the games engine couldn't have rooms above a room. Enemies are as dumb as dumb, the only thing they have in mind is to run at you with arms flailing. You can't look up, down or all around. Believe it or not THIS was hardcore entertainment in that time and we still had a long way to go.

Your challenges never went beyond JUST STAY ALIVE, it was a survial game, not really startegy. The cyberdemon is a GREAT example of this. You see this skyscraper with metal legs and your first instinct is to shoot it. Good idea, you just better run like hell while you do it, or you'll become rocket fodder in no time. The sound of those stomping feet are still in my head. I would run my character around the entire level looking for that heath pack or ammo crate and meanwhile I can hear him stomping his ass my way, looking from me.

Dying in this game was something horrifying. Your tough as nails character would let out a shreak and your viewpoint would drop to the floor. The screen would go red and the image of your character at the bottom of the screen looked as he had just recently just called Mike Tyson a pussy. Another insult to injury was that the view also turns to what ever son of a bitch shot you down. Thats just teasing you, but at least you learned about that imp that was hiding in the corner you never thought to look.

The point to all this is that Id software was and to this day still is absolutely genius at creating a sence of urgency. You panicked while playing Doom. It was hell and you had a damn fun time fighting through the place. At the end of the game nothing was better than seeing that kill count from the final level of doom 2, when you had to get upon a platform and drive a rocket into the demon's head monted on the wall of that last, big arena. It sounds simple and it would be if only that head on the wall wasn't spitting out floating boxes that transported more demons that would get in your way. Doom had a scoring system as well that displayed at the end of each level, but really did anyone care? Not me.

Multiple versions of the game were made. Doom 2 was bigger and badder. The aformetioned double barrel shotgun was a treat to use. new enemies filled the screen and by the final version of Doom (called Final Doom) the developers went all out to make your life hell, but of course they also new that you the gamer knew the id cheat codes which gave you inviciblity. There was then no harm in making levels filled with every monster times 1000. It was overkill and the most outrageous company with the most successful shooter ever made moved on to other projects.

Though Doom gave people entertainment, it also gave others ideas. Controversy of course erupted in the wake of the columbine shooting, when 2 students with a lot of guns but no brains whatsoever walked into thier school and turned it into a Doom level. They killed (13) students and then eventually themselves. Since the two boys were avid players of Doom, it was obvious that the game was going to have the right wing finger pointing to it and it did. It was a controversy that ultimently was labeled as ludicris to most of the gaming world since millions of other people that had played Doom never hurt anyone. Games like Doom really shouldn't JUST be denied to young children, parents need to also look at thier kids mental state before you let him escape into a world of death and destruction, because you never know if your scatterbrained teen might just lose thier sense of realilty altogether. At the age of 14-17 a kid needs a job more than a video game and internet access.

I played doom religiously and never hurt a soul. Theres proof for you. I know that the gun in my characters hand is just a sprite. I also know that while killing demons is ok, killing people is not, because:

A. Its wrong, and most importantly,

B. Its against the law!

Id software did move on, and suffered through the heat, flack and success of Doom. Nearly every gaming console had a realease of Doom. Even low end ones like the Snes and the Sega genesis (with the 32X attachement) had a version worthy of the name. The greatest success for id even continued when they made another great legendary shooter: Quake. Quake would go on to be the game that not only gave us everything Doom lacked, but also powered other great shooters of the future like Half Life.

Id software returned in 2004 with Doom 3. Again, everyone had to tweak thier gaming rigs to play it just like back in the day with the old Doom. The graphics were dark but good enough to still scare us into a frezny and make us want to play with the lights on. The game was not near perfect. It was long, repetative, way to dark and had some feature problems that made the game seem to not make sence (like the flashlight that could not be used along with a weapon), but really the harshest reviews of Doom 3 were made by people expecting the origonal experience (which will NEVER happen). The first Doom game are on a plane so high that nothing will ever out do it. It was nice to see that the old dogs of ID learned new tricks and showed the other tough kids on the block how a shooter is made. Not even Microsoft and its 'Halo' series can reach the same legendary status as Doom had. [Hmm do I dare challenge the big 'M' with the big 'H' title that is worshipped by biggest ' L's '(losers). Yeah fuck it, why not. This is MY blog dammit.]

The first person shooter is in full swing now, and the Microsoft X box 360 has carried the torch. Halo dominates the scene (though I don't know why seeing how its the most overrated shooter of all time). There is now millions of people around the world who 'frag' each other on a 24/7 time frame. Its nuts! War is no longer fought in the real world and if it is, its flying way over the heads of Halo, Counterstrike and Unreal players all over the world. The harsh words of flaming get thrown around in chat rooms, spoken by gamers who talk as if they're foul mouthed fourth graders on crack. A man in America is fighting in a virtual hell right now against everyone in the world VIA broadband connection, all for the sake of higher points. I'm not saying its wrong, I'm not saying its sad, or even that the industry has forgotten the point of good gaming, I'll just say that I miss the good old days, when all that mattered was getting to that red panel and ending the level. The rest of those 'professional' Halo players can enjoy living in thier sister's basement.