Doom: An FPS masterpiece, even against today's standards.
This is action in its purest form: You are alone. You are surrounded on all sides by zombies and demons, all looking to turn you into a bloody spot on the wall... and that's pretty much the entire plot.
No, it's not the most engrossing story... but let's be honest. With Doom's incredibly intense and frenzied gameplay, you'll forgot the backstory before even finishing the first level. The story here is survival, pure and simple.
The key to Doom is numbers. You will face swarms of enemies. With cunning level design, the developers have created countless traps and ambushes for you to fall into, and before you know it, you'll be surrounded by so many scratching imps and gnawing demons that you're forced to cut a path through them with your chainsaw. Some of the traps set up for you are just mean. Combinations of hidden compartments, lava or toxic sludge, sinking platforms, and teleporters spewing out seemingly endless numbers of demons will make your life a living hell (no pun intended, haha).
Doom's pace increases rapidly as you near the end of the game. Bigger, badder monsters appear in greater numbers, and a game that was already fairly hard becomes much harder (not even mentioning Nightmare Mode). Exploding barrels abound, teleports to other dimesions open wide, and what started as a bad day at the office quickly turns into an all-out slaughterfest against hell's worst nightmares.
The atmosphere in Doom is one of its strongest points. With very limited technology, id managed to create a scary and realistic setting, and became one of the first truly immersive gaming experiences in existence. Pushing the engine to its limits (and using a few ingenious level-design tricks as well), the designers were able to emulate realistic lighting, special effects, outdoor environments, and surprisingly intelligent enemies. Most of these groundbreaking gameplay elements can only truly be appreciated by viewing the levels in the editor, where individual sector-based lighting, sound holes for monster activation, and single-ended teleporter-wall monster-chambers can shed some light on why this game worked so well.
Compare this game to any new FPS on the market and you'll notice something: Besides the fact that newer games have considerably better graphics, AI, and engine capabilities, the original feel of the Doom games has never been re-captured. And, as a matter of opinion, I think Doom is just as fun as any of the games coming out today. Actually, compared to most of the garbage on the market, Doom is MORE fun!
Alright, alright, I know what you're saying. "Sure, Doom was a good game, but I can't deal with those crappy old graphics, and I don't like playing with the Ctrl-Alt and arrow keys." Your prayers have been answered! Thanks to a source code release and several ongoing source code projects, Doom has been given a modern facelift, with full 3D models, mouse and WASD support, special lighting effects like lens flares, high-res textures, support for resolutions up to 1600x1200x32 with AA... the works! These restorations have been done with loving respect for the original, and the gameplay experience has remained almost entirely the same as before. Even the models are painstakingly based on the original sprites. Of all of the source code projects, I reccommend jDoom with the jDRP resource pack and the Doomsday launcher.
So, here are the morals of the story: 15 year old games can still be great... Graphics aren't everything... Shooting mindless zombies is tons of fun... "Get the Key and open the door" can still be engaging... the best cure for a horde of zombies is a chainsaw... life is short...
and Doom will never die.