You kids these days with your Halos and your Gear Wars and your Half Lifes... you don't appreciate what we had to work with! Back in my day, we didn't have no fancy-schmancy high-end graphics in our shooters! No complex storylines, neither. We didn't even have a jump! You know what we had? We had Doom.
Doom was a simple game. You were stuck on Mars. You had to get unstuck from Mars. And between stuck and unstuck was a buncha monsters that wanted to kill you. So you got a bunch of guns and killed the monsters. None of this ninety-minute cutscene junk. You get to the end of the level, you maybe get a bit of text saying what's next, and you move on.
No mouse controls, neither. [WASD] to move, [Q] and [E] to strafe, [R] to open doors and use switches, number keys to switch weapons, and the space bar to shoot.
What? What was that? Why bother with a game that's 15 years old? Because it popularized the whole first person shooter genre! And at its core, it's one of the greatest of all time: undiluted by extras, a pure shooter at its core. In here, you'll find the foundations for modern FPS games, what inspired Bungie, Epic, and Valve.
To play this online Flash version, you'll need Adobe Flash Player 10. Compiled into Actionscript from the original Doom source. Sorry, the game is not compatible with PowerPC Macs.
So pay some respect to your elders! Don't make me go find the BFG 9000.
DOOM? You're clearly a Youngster. Some of us were shocked by the sophistication when DOOM came out, having only played Wolfenstein!!!
Wolfenstein created the FPS genre. Sorry.
Actually parent is right, Wolfenstein was the first. But Doom was the first to gain widespread diffusion, with articles on newspaper and all.
Heh, back in the day, I would rather take down Carmen Sandiego and her international crime syndicate rather than blow the heads off of monsters on Mars for some reason. (The reason was that I was very young at the time)
Still, this game had the idea of shooting stuff that wasn't human, opening the way for game with guns to a wider audience, who would rather shoot zombies or robots than their fellow humankind (well, the living, in the case of zombies). I think I might just give this a whirl, then reminisce about the Oregon Trail and Sonic the Hedgehog's 2D glory days...
@xadoc:
Well, if you want to be REALLY technical, Ultima Underworld was the first of the first-person games. But Doom is definitely the one that popularized it.
And I think it bears mentioning that this isn't a remake of Doom, it IS Doom, recompiled into actionscript.
Wolfenstein 3D started it, not Doom.
That cannot be discussed! That is simply how it is.
I was working in a notebook design lab at Compaq computer when this came out. The engineers would use Doom to test out the new Presario boards. Everyone in the lab was amazed by the graphic 3D detail and fluid control of the game. Doom not only popularized first person shooters, it was the game that made the PC a serious platform for video games, and made people realize that a real industry could be built on PC gaming.
For lack of better words, ALL RIGHT.
the game that paved the way for games like half life and resident evil is now on flash for free...
I'll play this after i play the new ten gnomess game
Sorry Tonamel, I have to rebut that.
Wolfenstein 3D WAS the 1st 'FPS' Or First Person Shooter.
You're right in that Ultima Underworld was the first of the first-person 3D perspective type games, but it wasn't a shooter; it was an adventure role play game.
Wolfenstein 3D integrated Ultima Underworld style 3D action with a shooting game based on a 1980's game - Wolfenstein Castle.
And I am now showing my age.
No Workee Workee for me. Latest Firefox, latest Flash. Engine works great, gun fires, barrels go Kaboom, but all the bad guys are already dead. Kinda takes all the fun out of it....
Ahh, Doom! I can still hear the faint strain of MIDI music echoing in the dank recesses of my brain, the screams of Imps being ripped to shreds by my trusty chainsaw... What golden era that was: when Men were Men, Women were Women, and Cyberdemons were Cyberdemons!
--TwoDragons
You can't play this game on most european keyboards (french and german for example) because it's not QWERTY. Mine is AZERTY for instance.
Pleeeeease! Bind the LRUD keys to the arrow keys!
Well, Doom is Doom... Although I was more of a Duke Nukem fan, there is no way to fairly judge Doom anything else than giving it a 5.
And Jeep's right: Wolf 3D was the first one. Fact.
I miss when first person shooters used to have levels in the style of doom(particularly doom 2 and final doom). there was an element of puzzle solving in the level design that seems like the only thing the fps genre didn't inherit from the doom franchise. i can't think of a fps in the last few years where i didn't feel like i was being led around on a rail, (a lot of times with a little narrator telling me exactly where to go and what to do) and where excessive backtracking didn't seem like a chore.
OH MY GOD.... DOOM!!!
Brings back so many memories! Thanks so much for posting this one.
Wolfenstein was so cool too... I haven't played that one in ages of course but I have this idea that it was labrynthic
If you want to get even more technical, there was Catacomb 3D by Softdisk, written by John Carmack before he perfected the technology for Wolfenstein 3D. It used awesome EGA graphics.
And no, I hadn't played it until after Wolf 3D came out, either.
Oh, my teachers are going to LOVE me when I start playing this at school!
Thanks for the post, great find!
Never played Wolfenstein, but did like Doom. Still, my all time favorite to this day is Marathon!!! I can still hum the music to myself - so darned catchy.
Looking forward to revisiting Doom. Now, somebody get on that flash version of Marathon! :)
Hmm, now I'm starting to wonder, and maybe some of the more...ahem...geekier of you will know the answer. Which was the first FPS to distribute a level editor so the masses could create their own forums of destruction? Bwa-ha-ha.
Heh he he... I see what my dad was raving about. WAY better than Halo in my opinion. And the game is legal!!! Yay legalness!!!
BTW- Those blue doods were WEIRD!!!
Sorry, noobz, but the original first-person-shooter is Maze War, from 1973. It originally ran on the IMLAC minicomputers at NASA Ames, then spread to MIT and Xerox PARC. (I played it on Xerox Alto systems in 1984.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maze_war
The graphics may be crude even by Wolfenstein 3D standards, but they are undeniably first-person and 3D, and you do run around in real time shooting other players (who all look like giant eyeballs).
Let's stop the sabre rattling over what came first.
I don't think there is any doubt that Doom was the first game to popularize the first-person shooter genre.
Yes there were other, similar games before it. But the popularity of any other game is negligible compared to Doom.
Wow. I'm definately going to have to link this to my brother. I used to watch him play, but never did myself. Now's my chance I suppose. :)
Curses! Doesn't run on Mac PowerPCs for some reason . . .
No, no. Is what the Castle Wolfenstein on the show Commador 64 as FPS for the geshaftenweldt. Atari and healing Commador about everything! (and maybe Apple II?)
Nein, nein. Est was das Castle Wolfenstein auf der Commador 64 wie weisen FPS fur die geshaftenweldt. Heil Atari und Commador uber alles! (und maybe Apple ii?)
AWESOME!!!
I remember when you had to have a top end machine to play this and now its a flash game...
All of the reminiscing is great guys. Can we have some talk about secret stuff now?
Since it's not mentioned in M.Den's article: don't forget you can press TAB to bring up the map.
I remember playing this and cranking Karl Orff's Carmina Burana up to 11 at the same time. Big fun.
cheat codes work too!
idkfa = all items
iddqd = invincible
FTW!
There's more on the web, but those two will certainly take you far. =)
Yep, I remember I specifically upgraded my computer to play Doom. Funny now how awkward the controls feel, when you're used to mousing around in all directions. Still, I'm gonna try to finish it again.
LOL
Your cheat codes made my husbands eyes go all misty with memories Bloatedsack!!
what a trip down memory lane. Will they port Decent next? :D
The only bummer is the strafing. I think you used to be able to hold shift to strafe which feels a lot more fluid for me.
The grand old daddy of fps! I know there were others, I played Elite which to me was a 3d fps space shooter, way back in about 1985, but Doom was the first with real colours and immersion.
I remember playing it in the lab on a Sun Sparc station, and you could link your workstation to two other Sparc stations on either side and set the monitors to show you 90º left and 90º right views, giving you a total of 270º. (about 3000x900 pixels) Not bad for 1994 tech.
These Sparc workstations cost about $10 000 each and playing games was severely frowned upon. Especially using three of them for a single game. Even today in 2008, I still haven't yet experienced again playing a FPS spread across three large screens. Yes I've seen pics of large Quake installations, but I haven't played them.
Doom was the best. Shame the controls are slightly awkward in this flash implementation. I remember space used to open the doors, not 'r'.
And the less said about Doom 3, the better. I've started it about 3 times or so, but still get fed up with it about an hour or two in.
That still works!!!!!
IDDQD
IDKFA
IDSPISPOPD
IDBEHOLD (+ S|V|I|R|A|L)
Missed you Doom !!!
Is it supposed to be the shareware version?
omg i used to be soooo good at this game. i just played the first area and i feel like puking, i'm so motion sick i can't believe there was ever a time that i could have played this for hours on end!
i feel old... :(
The game is pausing itself every ten seconds... It's really annoying.
blakyoshi, I think it's a problem of your pc. This worked fine on the 3 machines I tried it on :/
Anyway. I really had to download chocolate doom, I'm glad somebody ported it to flash but the commands with wasd + r + q/e just don't feel fine for me.
As soon as I was able to play oldstyle (and yes...I was 4 y-o when I first played it) with traditional ctrl + spacebar + ., + arrows it all was really better. And it has sound.
You need IWADs but you can take them from your old original games (and add new ones).
So: thanks and credit to the guy for the work on flash porting, give him 5/5 on Kong, but then go buy a collector's edition and play those wad files on a different host than flash 10.
Good solution for pause problem follows:
Use the ~ key to pause. Make a file, then use the escape key to go to the main menu. Select load game, select your file, and play.
Sounds pretty complicated, but works better then just waiting for it to de-pause.
M. Den, you said "We didn't even have a jump! You know what we had? We had Doom," yet you can jump in Doom.
Does anyone else remember playing Blood?
A couple secrets I found in the first map:
Work your way to the end of the level, then double back to the room filled with toxic waste. A door should have opened to your right with some pickups. Exit the chamber, then continue backtracking out of the room. Turn around, hold Shift to run, then dash back into the toxic room, through the secret door, and you should see an elevator. Get on quick before it closes, and you'll find another hidden tunnel with some armor bonuses.
I've yet to figure out how to get outside the building to that megaarmor, though.
I used to love Doom and Duke Nukem 3d. I had Ultimate Doom, Hexen, and Duke Nukem 3d Atomic Edition back in the day. Those were some great times playing throughout the night on the weekends.
Hey Lavos,
To get outside:
Just after the zig-zag walkway,there is a big flashing light shining on the wall.
It's a hidden door.
Anybody ever seen the ending for Inferno!
You really MUST see the ending...
BTW - found all the secrets but can't get into the second lift in toxic room on first level.
Hexen won't let me past the first level. Anyone else have this problem?
Oops. I thought this was the three-package. Nvmd!
I loved DOOM. It came out at the perfect time, right when I was getting out of High School... Hmmm...
Anybody remember the no clipping code? I wanna run through levels all wrong.
IDCLIP.
Chex Quest is an adaptation of doom. and creepier too.
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