#doom clone

STAR WARS: DARK FORCES

This is the first game in the very confusingly titled series of Kyle Katarn games. You play as Kyle (of the previously mentioned Katarn fame), a former Stormtrooper turned mercenary for the Rebellion, taking on missions to uncover a hidden Imperial plot. The first mission of this game is actually the original Legends version of Rogue One, you're tasked with stealing the Death Star plans and getting them to Princess Leia. After that, you're uncovering a new Imperial super weapon project: The Dark Troopers. You may know these from the Mandalorian season 2, they're the big robots Luke Skywalker beats the shit out of. However, since you don't have a lightsaber, they're much more intimidating in this game.

Released 1995 for MS-DOS. For a game that literally pre-dates Windows, this is great. Holds up incredibly well, the 2D spites are so charming, the level design is really good, the game is fully voice acted, it balances it's difficulty well. And if you play the remastered version, it has full controller support that's integrated really well. If you don't understand how impressive that is, keep in mind this game predates the thumbstick. The game is great, almost no notes.

...except...

FUCK LEVEL 3

WHO'S IDEA WAS IT AT LUCASARTS TO MAKE ME WADE THROUGH SHIT FOR HALF AN HOUR WHILE I TRIAL AND ERROR MY WAY THROUGH THEIR STUPID PUZZLE AND PLATFORMING

For context, level three consists of wading through pitch black sewers while you look for a hidden weapons facility supplying super weapons for the Empire. It is technically very impressive that a 1995 Doom clone has swimming mechanics. This game is so wildly ahead of its time, it's actually insane how many industry leaps it makes.

However when you use those very impressive swimming mechanics to make me SWIM THROUGH A RIVER OF SHIT SEVERAL TIMES JUST SO I CAN HIT THE RIGHT SWITCHES TO PROGRESS THE LEVEL, SUDDENLY I'M NOT AS ENTHUSED ABOUT YOUR OUTSTANDING MECHANICS

Also, this is the weapons dealer you're sent to find, his name is Moff Rebus and...yeah. I mean, give them credit, he definitely looks like a guy who would hide his lair deep in a river of human feces

Most people probably know DOOM from the memes. And of every video game in Human history, DOOM is perhaps the most worthy of this. It is one of THE video games that created the modern video game industry.

I don't mean contemporary video game industry. I mean having recognizable characters and stories in video games.

A step before DOOM was Wolfenstein 3D. Wolfenstein 3D was perhaps the first successful pseudo-3D game. The transition to 3D was not something that was done especially well until the PS3 era, (OoT-excluded), but Wolfenstein made you think it worked.

DOOM was made by the same company. It took everything Wolfenstein did, and ran with it. We didn't have a name for First Person Shooters, so we called them DOOM clones. DOOM was the game you brought to LAN parties. DOOM was a game that every - single gamer played.

Even further, DOOM was deterministic enough that you can learn to play it blindfolded. DOOM is light enough that you can play it by daisy chaining shoes with chips, it's light enough to play in coffee makers. This was helped by the fact DOOM was spread as shareware, (the rough equivalent would be free downloads).

Is it too much to ask to have space zombies with laser beams attached to their frickin heads?!