I can’t quite believe that I’ve been writing about Doom since 2012, and here we find ourselves in the far-flung future of 2022. Turn the clock back another ten years, all the way back to 2002, and you’d find me discovering the vast universe of custom Doom content for the very first time. I could never have suspected then how deeply I’d ultimately venture into that universe… or how I would contribute to it in my own small way. For the last decade I’ve tried to pay tribute to the projects that inspired me to open a map editor all
Tag: STRAIN
Nihility: Infinite Teeth
Believe it or not, when Doom first came out it was actually pretty scary. A genuine 3D space seen in first-person? Just you and the nightmares lurking all around; roars and snarling in the distance. Enemies attacking from the darkness, from behind, opening doors and riding lifts in order to chase you down. Nowhere was safe. In 2022, it’s hard to even convey what that experience was like. There’s simply no way to recreate the revelatory, revolutionary way Doom felt. No way to impart the context in which it appeared, the blissful ignorance we had back then… of what all
Arcane Dimensions
Many of my favorite Doom WADs — STRAIN, Scythe, Apostasy on Amalthea — are a bit of a mess. They’re works of undeniable (if undisciplined) genius, yet full of strange creative choices and huge fluctuations in quality. The mod we’re about to talk about may not be a Doom WAD, but it follows in that proud tradition just the same. It’s a profound, landmark achievement for its respective modding scene… but at the same time, the edges could have used a good amount more sanding. I’ve wanted to get into Quake mods for a long, long time… but moving into a new mod
30 Games That Made Me Who I Am: 1997
1997’s “game” is a late entry on this list. If you looked at the thumbnail previews before today, you might have been able to identify a screencap from Turok: Dinosaur Hunter, which is most certainly not what is pictured in the banner above. I wanted desperately to feature Turok as a part of this retrospective, as a game very dear to my heart, and one of the first I can recall that was a real social gaming experience. I didn’t own it, so I was forced to go to friends’ houses and play, and those friends and I spent many
A DIGITALEIDOSCOPE Exclusive: 13 Most Memorable Maps
It’s the holidays! Another Doomsday just a few days ago, with Christmas and New Years right on the horizon. There’s another sort of holiday to celebrate today, too: the 25th episode of What’s Awesome, Doom?, and just over three years that I’ve been doing the column! Yeah, I’ve really only done 25 episodes in all that time. What a professional! To celebrate the holiday season and these big landmarks, I’ve put together a special episode: one of those Top Ten lists the internet loves so much. Except this is a Top 13 — my personal most memorable maps: three official
Memento Mori II
Doom turns 21 tomorrow. That’s right — my baby is gonna be old enough to drink. Before it turns to a life of debauchery and sin, though, I thought we’d take a look back at the baby pictures. Or the toddler pictures, more like. This is Memento Mori II, one of the earliest — and greatest 32-level megaWADs of all time. What can I say about it that hasn’t been said before? I have to confess that I didn’t play the Memento Mori twins when they came out in ’96. I didn’t touch them until 2002 when I first got
STRAIN (And Why It’s A Good Idea to Double-Check Your Research)
There’s a little Doom WAD called STRAIN. It’s pretty great. If you’re like me, you might even call it The Greatest. I’ve been pondering what I want to say about STRAIN for a long time. There’s a lot to be said. So I’ve been pondering a whole lot but not writing much of anything. Not much of substance, at any rate, and the deadline I’d set for myself was creeping closer and closer: September 14 — you’re going to post that essay on STRAIN before then, you bum, and you can’t weasel your way out of it! Don’t think I
Wire Brush
In an attempt to offset the daunting scope of the last two WADs, this month I’ve got something short and sweet: rf’s Wire Brush. As much I enjoy single-level WADs, they don’t usually stick with me the same way bigger megaWADs do. They don’t leave that indelible impression on me the way the Suspended in Dusks do, or the Memento Moris, or the STRAINs. So the fact that I remember this one years later is a pretty good indicator of quality. (Disclaimer: It may also have something to do with me just really, really liking rf’s stuff, and also also