On December 10th, Doom hit its 30th anniversary. And, John Romero and John Carmack got together to talk about Wolfenstein, DOOM and Quake. This is a must-watch video for all old-school FPS fans out there.
Speaking of Carmack, I really miss his QuakeCon speeches. When Carmack was still working at id Software, he would be talking for hours at each QuakeCon event. Sometimes, his speeches would last for over two hours. And man do I miss them.
I’ve embedded the video below but for some reason, it doesn’t seem to work. I’ve seen the same issue in other TwitchTV videos I tried to share a couple of years ago. The fact this error is still present is laughable. But anyway, if the embedded video does not work, you can watch the video from here.
As a reminder, the SIGIL and SIGIL II Megawads are available for free. So, if you are a die-hard Doom fan, you can download them from this link.
Speaking of Doom, I suggest taking a look at the following mods for it. Doom Voxel is a must-have mod as it turns all of its 2D sprites into 3D voxels. Aliens Eradication TC is a must-have mod for all our Aliens fans. Doom RTX is yet another must-have mod as it introduces full path tracing effects to the game. Then we have Brutal Doom: Black Edition, a mod that attempts to bring Doom 3’s art style to the game. And lastly we have Schism which is a Doom/Hexen/Heretic mashup using Brutal Doom, as well as Bloom (a crossover between Blood and Doom) and Half-Life Alpha.
Have fun and stay tuned for more!
John is the founder and Editor in Chief at DSOGaming. He is a PC gaming fan and highly supports the modding and indie communities. Before creating DSOGaming, John worked on numerous gaming websites. While he is a die-hard PC gamer, his gaming roots can be found on consoles. John loved – and still does – the 16-bit consoles, and considers SNES to be one of the best consoles. Still, the PC platform won him over consoles. That was mainly due to 3DFX and its iconic dedicated 3D accelerator graphics card, Voodoo 2. John has also written a higher degree thesis on the “The Evolution of PC graphics cards.”
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Wolfenstein 3D, the Grandfather of the FPS. Such a great game back in the day but completely forgotten by today’s generation because of outdated graphics and the game would possibly be seen as too hard by today’s standards. The game wasn’t too hard though. You just had to make a good effort to survive. It was easy to get killed pretty damn quick if you didn’t bring your A Game. I just replayed it 2 years ago and had a blast. The 90s were such a great era for gaming.
I played Wolfensfein 3D and Doom on the same day, and the issue with Wolfenstein is that it lacks diversity in it’s level visual design and is very flat compared to Doom, which has plenty of verticality despite it’s fixed vertical camera.
It also lacks the open sprawling levels that Doom has, makes it feel like a dungeon crawler, which it kinda was was considering it was based on idSoftwares previous game, Catacombs 3D, which has better visuals in it’s levels funnily enough.
This was released in 1992. “Today’s” generation wasn’t even born for 10 more years. I agree, it was a great game, so were Rise of the Triad, and original Duke Nukem, Doom, etc,. by those standards but it’s not forgotten because of outdated graphics and ABSOLUTELY not because it was “too hard”. We have a genre entirely dedicated to punishingly difficult iterative gameplay until they can commit to memory attack patterns, etc,. that Wolfenstien can’t hold a candle to for difficulty. I love living in nostalgia, but this is pure hyperbole. Maybe you meant it as such and I’m reading it wrong, but it’s “forgotten” because by the time the current generation started playing games, these games were 20+ years old and they were probably 10 years old. I know very few 10 year olds that are aware of and actively wanted to play a 20 year old game. The games are 30+ today. It takes a certain mindset to want to actively go back and play a 30+ year old game you’ve never played before.
You are the first person that I can remember that isn’t aware that the truly hard modern games are not the standard of difficulty of games these days. They are outliers. I have been gaming for a long time and I can tell you that in general the games are easier to beat today. They hold your hand more.
As far as my use of “today’s generation” I wasn’t writing a scientific paper just a comment on a game site. It seems to have bothered you that I wasn’t more precise with who I was referring too but I will probably continue to use that phrase for brevity in the future anyway.
Also, I have a bias towards old classics so it will show in my comments from time to time. When you see me rambling on about the good old days you can always use the scroll wheel 🙂
I was throwing LAN parties in `91 rocking out to ROT, Doom, DOOM II, eventually Quake, Descent, etc,.. I played through all of the classics. It was my life. I can tell from your comments that you and I are very likely near the same age. Wolfenstein was not that hard of a game (maybe it’s why my nic was what it was at lan parties). Today’s hard games are only outliers because the market is flooded with games. In the 90s it was nowhere near the size it is today. We didn’t have a ton of different genres. Sure, I agree, a lot of games hold your hands more, but you kind of want that for some folks, don’t we want the hobby to spread or are we elitists? I do wish more games supplied options to disable that hand-holding when they have it, and some games do offer that. The market in the 90s was just much smaller. I’m not bothered, it’s just a fncking conversation, hopefully civil for once. You and I are probably cut from similar gaming fabric when it comes to our age and what we grew up playing. I’m just pointing out some reasons on why I feel your argument that games aren’t hard like they were back in the day is likely a biased supposition. 200-300 games (and that’s a REALLY generous estimate) were released on PC in 1992. I bet 200-300 were released this month.
The top 10 games in 92 were (supposedly)
1. Wolfenstein 3D
2. Lemmings
3. Dune II
4. The Secret of Monkey Island
5. The Lost Vikings
6. Alone in the Dark
7. King’s Quest V: Absence Makes the Heart Go Yonder
8. SimCity 2000
9. Prince of Persia
10. Flashback
None of these fit the bill except Wolfenstein 3D, and maybe Prince of Persia if you liked jumping platformers so … I just feel like you’re letting your bias and nostalgia win here, but it’s all good. I’m going back to debugging 64bit stacks in windbg and reverse engineering software. I had some time to reply while waiting for my heap dump to finish.
I agree that there were were far, far fewer games released in the 90s than modern times but I was referring to the general difficulty level, not quantity.
I will go as far as to say that the vast majority of modern games are pretty much dog sh*t anyway that I would never spend my time on so maybe my frame of reference is skewed.
As far as age goes I will turn 61 this month and have been gaming off and on since 1980 and for years before that at the arcades on occasion. I think I might be the oldest of the old farts here but I have met numerous gamers that were in there 70s over the years and still enjoying gaming. With some of us it’s a lifelong hobby.
I can see myself still gaming in my 80s but not with as challenging FPS games probably. If John keeps the site going then I will probably still be around here annoying the kids 🙂
Pouring one out for us old bastards… riding down to the arcade and putting quarter after quarter in on Dragon’s Lair, buying Atari 2600 Programming Cart and writing code at like 8 years old. Simpler good times. 😀 I wish you a happy birthday, hope it’s a good one.
Oh come on, it’s more than graphics and difficulty.
The graphics are too basic and uglyish, levels are too samey and confusing/labyrinthic, too few enemies, weapons…
The game is just prehistoric to squeeze any enjoyment out of it unless you played it back then and have some nostalgia for it.
You couldn’t even pay a teenager to play it, it’s not even fully 3D for an FPS, kids would frown upon it in disgust. The gameplay is not worth more than a look on YT for 5 minutes these days.
Thanks John, good find.
Still remember playing Doom on a friends IBM, in 1998.
Scared the sh*t out of me.
The first time I saw DOOM, I was perusing a local Egghead Software, and it was running on one of the display PCs. Looking out a window and seeing those cloud-topped mountains is still one of my greatest gaming moments.
trying to figure out the best way to play old doom on modern pc so i can load up these wads. any suggestions?
There must be, oh IDK, a trillion YT videos about that…
GZDoom if you want a modern take on Doom. Chocolate Doom if you prefer to play in a more classic way.
The legends of PC / FPS gaming! Every time I see them stream, present, or talk, I have to watch and listen, especially the legendary John Carmack!
Cannot believe it’s been 30 years since the release of Doom. Remember playing Wolfenstein 3D as a 6yo kid in 1995, and soon after Doom…The good ‘ole days during the golden era of PC gaming!
“Long hair: A thread. I get a lot of comments on my hair, and while it’s something I am known for, what’s less known is that my long hair is important to me culturally, too, and the older I get, the more it matters. 120 years ago today, the “haircut order” was issued.
I wear my hair long as a proud Yaqui and Cherokee man, and will continue to do so until the day I die.”
John Romero, January 11, 2022
I didn’t know that. Awesome.