DooM 2 is my nostalgic fave. My area code had multiple free 20+ line BBSes, so I was constantly playing 4 player doom matches(more on heretic/hexen/descent etc).
Honorable mention for the new Doom and Doom eternal.
My current favorite doom though is doom seeker and zandronum. Keeping the dream alive with crazy mods. Megaman deathmatch and shotgun frenzy are a delight.
I’ve played the classics, 3, 2016, and Eternal, and honestly 2016 is my favorite. Eternal was good, but I felt that 2016 was a lot more straightforward with it’s combat loop. I found it easier to loose myself in the shooter trance. I never felt like that in Eternal.
Outlier in that my favorite was doom 1. Probably its second episode was my favorite, but they’re all good.
The graphics at the time were amazing. The skyboxes for some reason really made an impression on me. There’s like green mountains in the background of episode 1 I think. As a kid I used to think about exploring them.
The first time I beat the third episode without cheats, I finished off the spider mastermind with exactly 1% health left. Memorable as shit. (I think the game might do the thing where the last few percents of health count more, so it feels exciting when you just barely hang on. If so, it worked.)
I remember thinking my older cousin was so cool because he could clear all the levels without cheats.
Playing it now with mouse look and wasd it’s a much easier game, but back then as a child with keyboard only it was daunting.
Doom2’s level design had more confusing and frustrating parts for me. Also I didn’t get a copy of it until several years later, so it didn’t have the full magic of youth.
Doom 3 I don’t remember very well. I liked it but it didn’t have staying power.
I didn’t finish the new dooms. They’re fine but I never really clicked with them.
The sound design is half the reason why Doom was so good, and why Doom II is better - going up point blank to a tanky enemy with the super shotgun and making every shot count is borderline orgasmic - second only to beserk-punching an Imp into gibs while still moving forward, beautiful.
Doom 1 is the one that will always hold a place in my heart. The family PC back then only ran at 25MHz and Doom required 33 so my Dad would bring his work laptop home for me to play on. No headphones but it didn’t matter, it was such an impactful experience for me as a kid and I’ll always remember it fondly.
I got to meet Jon Romero a few years back too - they say you shouldn’t meet your heroes but he is definitely an exception. Super nice dude and he blocked out a full hour on his calendar to just chat with me.
It’s one of the most important game franchises of all time and I’m really glad that I experienced the original when it was new (well, I was a bit late to it, but time moved slower then), and at a time when it had a formative effect on my life.
I was playing Doom 1/2 when I was 10-12 years old, at friends houses who had the right computer OS+specs to run it. I wouldn’t say it was solely responsible for setting me on the path towards other adjacent media like horror movies, metal/punk music, etc but it was definitely an important stepping stone along the way.
That said, I didn’t spend too much time with it compared to other games. I was never very good at it, preferring instead to watch my friends play since they’d had more practice time. Over time we gravitated towards newer games, and my time with Doom was over for a while. (I was disappointed by Doom 3’s gameplay, possibly exacerbated once again by my computer being underpowered for the technical requirements to enjoy it)
Fast forward to 2020 and we’re all in pandemic lockdown. So I fired up my ps4 and went looking for some “comfort games” to play - old stuff that I knew I’d enjoy and wouldn’t break the bank. Sure enough, I found a cheap Doom bundle: Doom 1, 2, 2016, and Eternal. We’re back, baby!
I ended up beating the original gen and their available Unity port WADs (e.g. BTSX) on Ultra Violence, beat 2016 and Eternal on Nightmare (no ultra nightmare for me, though I did put in some honest attempts). And Ultra Violence for the Eternal DLCs also. I still will pop on Eternal for some casual slaughter - I really love the dynamic combat.
Along the way I got interested in some Doomtubers as well- Zero Master to see, well, the master; but most importantly Decino who I still am playing catch-up with trying to get through all his content. My wife sees me watching his vids sometimes and “can’t believe you’re still watching Doom”.
Doom II remains my favorite in the series, and I still play the original pair regularly. I never really ever quit playing them. They remain comfort games from my childhood.
The mod scene has become absolutely crazy. The things modders put out these days blow my mind.
I never really got into the new games. 2016 was fun, but it didn’t really stick for me. Once I played it for a few days, I had my fill and returned to the originals.
1 and 2 are some of my favorite games ever. They’re sort of like Pac-Man or Tetris, they just nailed such a basic, fun gameplay experience that you can always go back to it and get sucked in.
Also props for GZDoom and Brutal Doom updating them for modern hardware.
The original DOOM is very special to me as it helped me get out of a very dark time. I went to therapy and got a lot of support on various fronts, but still needed something to take my mind of the pain. Something about the pure and basic gameplay just clicked: the only thing I had to do was run and shoot. The maps were complex enough to keep my mind busy and I still remember it very fondly and am grateful to this day.
Also loved DOOM 2, quite liked 3, and am currently adoring 2016.
Doom 2 is my most favourite game, being Doom Eternal my second most favourite one. I’ve never played Doom 3, I’ve barely touched Doom 2016, and Doom is meh without the super shotgun or the pain elementals.
Gzdoom is the source port I use to play Doom games. It has lots of configurations, you can use tons of mods, and freelook & no autoaim are a delight.
By the way, I upload regularly Doom 2 videos on my HardLimit (Peertube) channel.
I think my favorite aspect(s) about DOOM is that all of the games are good, they are all worth playing, and they are all representative of the peak of 3D technology from their respective release eras.
Aside from that, every DOOM short of DOOM 3 satisfies my primal need to violently, quickly, adeptly slaughter demons (which has needed far more satisfaction in recent years for some odd reason). I recently finished a nightmare DOOM 2016 playthrough and loved every minute beginning to end, yet again. I’m now in the depths of a nightmare DOOM Eternal playthrough and I can’t get over how addicting the game is. You CANNOT beat the game without engaging with every single one of the combat mechanics, but it’s up to you, your skills, and your digital (read: finger) dexterity to determine when and how you do that. It’s nothing but flawless game design, gorgeous visuals, technical mastery, and some of the best instrumental heavy metal there is.
When I first played DOOM I was a bit afraid of the monster sounds. I would usually ask my little sister if she could color her things in my room so I wouldn’t be alone while playing. I was way too bad to ever finish the game back then. I used to ask my father to make me “untötbar” (unkillable) because the word “unverwundbar” (invulnerable) was too difficult for me.
But I really like the reboot and DOOM Eternal especially.
Doom 3 is my favorite one to play when there’s combat and its had some tweaks to the gunplay (like fixing the god-awful shotgun spread to be more normal, greatly reducing ammo amounts, and increasing armor effectiveness,) but if i want a really fun experience, I tend to do Doom 2, or Plutonia. The newer doom games don’t have enough mobs spawning in, and a lot of the levels just feel like combat arenas, (less so in Eternal) instead of places to explore. I think a lot of people overlook the exploration of the og doom games and 3. I liked how demons could roam the halls in Doom 1 and 2, and it really made the levels feel a bit more sandboxy imo. Not to say Doom 2016 and Doom Eternal are bad games, certainly not! It’s just a lot easier for me to sit down and play a few levels of doom 1 or 2 for 30 minutes or an hour, instead of getting invested in complex, more intense gameplay.
Doom 1 and 2 typically relieve stress, though can be challenging, while in doom 2016 and eternal, i feel overwhelmed sometimes and kinda have a bad time cuz I need to focus too much, constantly switching weapons and whatnot. Sometimes i just wanna mow down a horde of zombiemen and imps with a chaingun or ssg.
I loved Doom. But I remember playing Heretic a whole lot more. And even so, my favorite game on the engine is Strife.
I kinda want more shooters like Doom or rather the Build engine era games. But Doom’s design is still very much at the heart of those, they just have the nifty interactive things in the world like pool tables and toilets and such. I don’t like the linearity of most SP shooters these days. I want to be dropped into a labyrinth and have to fight my way out. I want to actually need a map because I got lost.
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