Video game bad guys
(So sorry for the lag in updates, old chap. I've been finishing up a book. Yes, that one. You'll hear more about it soon.)
I love video games, but despite all the new games that the industry offers up all year every year, I spend more time replaying old favorites. Mostly because I'm busy and it's easier for me to put down the controller or mouse when I'm retreading old ground than when I'm caught up in some new story or sandbox to explore. Lately, I've been playing Final Doom. Final Doom is, for me, both a new and old game. It's old because id Software released it in 1996. It's new because my dad bought it for me the year it released, but I never finished it. It was the third Doom in as many years and I was just Doom-ed out in '96.
Final Doom contains 64 new levels divided evenly between two episodes: TNT Evilution (clever, clever); and The Plutonia Experiment. It does not introduce any new enemies, weapons, or power-ups. In fact, id Software's designers did not fire up their jackhammers and drills to build Final's 64 brimstone-coated playgrounds. They hired teams responsible for creating some of the most popular and intricate Doom levels available on the Internet and rolled them together into Final's new episodes.
The modern first-person shooter (FPS) game is soulless, linear, and usually military-themed. AKA, boring, at least for me. So the idea of playing through Final Doom, a shooter that carries its mid-90s-era design approach of "shoot anything that moves" and boasts sprawling levels seemed a pleasant diversion from today's bland, boring, one-track FPSes.
Final Doom is everything I hoped for. It's challenging, it's fueled by adrenaline, and it reminded me that Doom packs in, pound for pound, arguably the most impressive rogues gallery in video games: zombies, demons, fireball-throwing imps--and the Cyberdemon. I love, love, LOVE Doom's Cyberdemon. Everything about him--his design, his movement, his weapon, his sound effects, his level--screams "power" and "final boss," even though he WASN'T the final boss in the original Doom.
For those who can't (or are too young) to recall, step back with me to 1993. You encounter the Cyberdemon on the final level of episode 2, The Shores of Hell. You start the level in a room where Barons of Hell, the boss monsters from the first episode, have been impaled on all four walls. Seeing those Barons, such powerful foes reduced to wall decor, was the first indication that whatever haunted this level was going to kick my ass.
You open one of four doors and emerge in a small room filled with boxes of rockets and Lost Souls, fiery skulls that screech and swoop in to attack. You open fire--and off in the distance, something roars in white-hot fury. And it begins to walk around. Boom. Boom. Boom. Like thunder in the distance.
You swat the Lost Souls aside and move uneasily through the level, knowing you have to search out and destroy the source of the sound but wanting to do anything but confront it. Boom. Boom. BOOM. The footsteps grow louder like approaching war drums and you round one corner and there it is, a towering, horned monstrosity with circuitry for guts. It whips around, spots you, takes aim, and fires rockets in your face and down your gullet.
You throw yourself out of the way as the rockets explode on nearby pillars and walls, backpedaling as you shoulder your rocket launcher--or, if you explored every nook and cranny in the levels leading up to this most epic of showdowns, your plasma rifle or BFG--and begin a dance that will very likely level you broken, bloody, your heart hammering as loudly as the Cyberdemon's thunderous footsteps, but oh so satisfied that you slayed the biggest, most fearsome dragon Doom had to offer.
I love video games, but despite all the new games that the industry offers up all year every year, I spend more time replaying old favorites. Mostly because I'm busy and it's easier for me to put down the controller or mouse when I'm retreading old ground than when I'm caught up in some new story or sandbox to explore. Lately, I've been playing Final Doom. Final Doom is, for me, both a new and old game. It's old because id Software released it in 1996. It's new because my dad bought it for me the year it released, but I never finished it. It was the third Doom in as many years and I was just Doom-ed out in '96.
Final Doom contains 64 new levels divided evenly between two episodes: TNT Evilution (clever, clever); and The Plutonia Experiment. It does not introduce any new enemies, weapons, or power-ups. In fact, id Software's designers did not fire up their jackhammers and drills to build Final's 64 brimstone-coated playgrounds. They hired teams responsible for creating some of the most popular and intricate Doom levels available on the Internet and rolled them together into Final's new episodes.
The modern first-person shooter (FPS) game is soulless, linear, and usually military-themed. AKA, boring, at least for me. So the idea of playing through Final Doom, a shooter that carries its mid-90s-era design approach of "shoot anything that moves" and boasts sprawling levels seemed a pleasant diversion from today's bland, boring, one-track FPSes.
Final Doom is everything I hoped for. It's challenging, it's fueled by adrenaline, and it reminded me that Doom packs in, pound for pound, arguably the most impressive rogues gallery in video games: zombies, demons, fireball-throwing imps--and the Cyberdemon. I love, love, LOVE Doom's Cyberdemon. Everything about him--his design, his movement, his weapon, his sound effects, his level--screams "power" and "final boss," even though he WASN'T the final boss in the original Doom.
For those who can't (or are too young) to recall, step back with me to 1993. You encounter the Cyberdemon on the final level of episode 2, The Shores of Hell. You start the level in a room where Barons of Hell, the boss monsters from the first episode, have been impaled on all four walls. Seeing those Barons, such powerful foes reduced to wall decor, was the first indication that whatever haunted this level was going to kick my ass.
You open one of four doors and emerge in a small room filled with boxes of rockets and Lost Souls, fiery skulls that screech and swoop in to attack. You open fire--and off in the distance, something roars in white-hot fury. And it begins to walk around. Boom. Boom. Boom. Like thunder in the distance.
You swat the Lost Souls aside and move uneasily through the level, knowing you have to search out and destroy the source of the sound but wanting to do anything but confront it. Boom. Boom. BOOM. The footsteps grow louder like approaching war drums and you round one corner and there it is, a towering, horned monstrosity with circuitry for guts. It whips around, spots you, takes aim, and fires rockets in your face and down your gullet.
You throw yourself out of the way as the rockets explode on nearby pillars and walls, backpedaling as you shoulder your rocket launcher--or, if you explored every nook and cranny in the levels leading up to this most epic of showdowns, your plasma rifle or BFG--and begin a dance that will very likely level you broken, bloody, your heart hammering as loudly as the Cyberdemon's thunderous footsteps, but oh so satisfied that you slayed the biggest, most fearsome dragon Doom had to offer.