Doom 64: The Real Doom 3

On December 10th, 1993, version 1.0 of the shareware version of Doom was uploaded to the FTP at University of Wisconsin. The sequel was released September 30th of the following year. On April 1st, 1997, Doom 64 was released.

Doom 64 was initially titled "The Absolution" but for unknown reasons Midway changed it. The name was retained for the final level of the game. Regardless of the name change, the game was a somewhat different beast from its PC origins. The original game, concieved as a mixture of Aliens and Evil Dead II, was nevertheless set largely in daylight or some approximation thereof. This had the effect of creating a feeling of relief when looking out upon those strange mountains after a few very long moments in the dark tunnels of the Phobos base, a snatch of daylight, however grey it was. Doom 64 on the other hand takes a more Aliens-style approach. The sky is dark and starry, a permanent night on an alien surface. The original version of Doom had no coloured lighting (a feature that wouldn't appear in id Software's own games until Quake 2) and while much of it was set in dimness or outright pitch blackness, much of it too was set in stark bright light. Doom 64's levels on the other hand would be nearly pitch-black if not for the dim glow spilling from the floors and ceilings providing light, just barely enough to see in some places.

While Doom on the PC had a focus on action, despite its dark tunnels, Doom 64 seemed intent on creeping the player out, creating tension and a sense of dread. The enemies and weapons were largely the same as always, but their appearances had been altered, in some cases quite drastically, and are overall much less cartoonish. Some of them had slightly different behaviour, as well- Lost Souls, the annoying flaming skulls that flew around and slammed into you, were much more aggressive; the Arachnotron fired two streams of plasma and the Pain Elemental, probably the most drastically different in appearance, fired not one but two Lost Souls. Some of Doom's monster lineup (such as the Spider Mastermind, but also most of Doom 2's new additions such as the Arch-vile and the Chaingunner) had been dropped due to cart space, and indeed the weapons themselves were less animated for the same reason. In the PC version, firing the shotgun resulted in the weapon being pumped- in Doom 64, the weapon, and its double-barreled counterpart, simply cocked back a bit, before resuming the ready position- behaviour which was previously seen in Quake. The plasma rifle no longer kicks back when you release the trigger, but does have a constant buzzing noise. A new weapon, called alternately the Alien Laser or the Unmaker, was originally described in Tom Hall's Doom Bible but never made it into the final game. The message upon pickup is "What the !@#%* is this!" and for good reason- it appears to be a lashing-together of alien and human technology framed by bones and dried skin. It fires a reasonably powerful laser that can kill a baron in a few seconds. However, where it really comes to shine are the 3 special keys scattered throughout the game. These keys serve two purpouses- the first and foremost is that they seal up the teleports in the final level from which an endless stream of monsters pour from, and the second is that they power up the laser. At its most powerful, the laser can kill the final boss in a matter of seconds.

Doom 64 had two basic settings- the haunted base, and Hell itself. The PC version of Doom often had a mixture of the two, particularly in its second episode where human technology and architecture was slowly being subverted. Tall steel support pillars became marble; monitors gave way to gargoyle reliefs. The third episode of Doom is set in Hell itself, and is portrayed in a fairly traditional way- hot, volcanic, under a red sky that could barely be considered a sky due to its nearly organic appearance. Doom 64's version of Hell is something else entirely, a much darker, more ambiguous world of caverns, ruins, forgotten tombs, small fortifications and structures floating in a void of misty nothingness. Thunder would roll out from the ominous clouds swirling over it, and in later levels the sky itself seemed to be on fire, huge flames broiling up in the distance. However none of the subversion present in Doom 1 can be seen in Doom 64- the two settings are kept wholly separate.

Doom 64 has often been compared to the original Quake, and it's easy to see why- aside from coming out within months of each other, Doom 64's environs, particularly its hellish portion, is similar in style and mood to Quake's. The original Doom's level design was in many places somewhat abstract, whereas design in Doom 64 is much more purpouseful. Its haunted castles and forgotten dungeons are reminiscent of Quake's... haunted castles and forgotten dungeons. They're both placing emphasis on moody lighting and unsettling shadows, with vaguely disturbing monsters to populate it. They both had a dark ambient soundtrack, as well, Quake's composed by Trent Reznor and Doom 64's by Aubrey Hodges, returning from the success he had with the similarly themed soundtrack for the Playstation version of Doom (which was mostly a "best of" version of Doom, combining Doom and Doom 2 into a single game.)

Doom 64 was a bit of a flop. It was not universally accepted as part of the Doom canon, and at the time was vastly overshadowed by Quake's fully 3D environments and monsters. Copies of it are hard to find nowadays and the Nintendo 64 is no longer in production. However, the game was ported, rather successfully I might add, to PC by a dedicated team of fans. Aside from some minour differences (and some majour ones like new levels) it's largely faithful to the original.

On August 3rd, 2004, Doom 3 was released. While its numbering would suggest that it is a continuation of the (rather sparse) storylines of Doom and Doom 2, it is in fact a retelling of Doom's story. Moving the action from Phobos to the more plausible Mars, it tells the story of the Union Aerospace Corporation and the utter decimation of its staff and the Marine units charged with their protection by an invasion from the forces of Hell itself- an invasion which you are witness to. Right way this sets it apart from the original game's plot- where in Doom and Doom 64, you are a soldier sent in to investigate and exterminate the threat (which draws from Aliens and its plot of the Marines investigating an abandoned colony only to discover a nestful of aliens) you are a soldier who has just been assigned to the place and were on your rounds when the invasion hit. Doom 3 seems to draw a great deal of influence from sources such as Event Horizon in terms of general aesthetics- in many places you will hear creepy whispering, and the appearance of any given area will without warning become a twisted, hellish version of itself- only to suddenly change back. Unfortunately any sense of dread or fright is undone by the nearly constant stream of action- around every corner is another monster to kill. While some would say this is what Doom is all about, I have to disagree. Doom 3's failings lie largely in its constant hinting at wanting to be something else but continually reverting to type. It wants to be System Shock 2 with its reliance on horror and telling an admittedly compelling story through audio logs, but those just seem tacked on to a generic post-Half-Life first person shooter.

Doom 64 has no pretensions. It is what it is- a significantly darker version of Classic Doom. It's a relic of the pre-Half-Life era, before the emphasis on realistic surroundings (realistic meaning a place that a person could believably live and work in, rather than plain empty rooms with no furniture, regardless of its overall setting of sci-fi or present day or historic/fantasy.) Its scares are more genuine than Doom 3 because it relies on a constant sense of dread that manages to persist even in the midst of a firefight. Doom 3 had very few truly tense moments- one in particular that I remember clearly is a hallway where a loud rumbling noise accompanied hellish symbols, strewn all over the walls and celing and floor, pulsing their way down the corridor- for once, you had no real idea of what was next. While such a visual effect was not possible in Doom 64, the older game managed to keep up its dark mood and maintain its creative roots in Aliens. It manages to do for Doom what Doom 3 failed to do- make Doom truly and honestly creepy.

Downtime

Apologies for the long wait since my last post. I'm still here, just trying to get myself more interested in posting here.

I should have a more substantial post soon.

10 games that have been very influential on me

Hi, sorry for the long wait since my last post. I suppose updates will be reasonably sporadic, but I'll try my best to keep this updated at least a couple times a month. Anyway today we're doing something a little special- ten games (or series) that have been particularly influential on me, whether its my tastes, my creativity, et cetera. These are in chronological order, from my earliest years as a gamer to more recently. This is by no means a comprehensive list- there are many other games that are influential on me but I wanted to stick with 10 or this entry would take up half a dozen pages.

Original Megaman series, particularly 2, 3, 4 and 5. I had spent my early gaming years with a NES, and while I had Mario, Superman, and a few other games it wasn't until I had played Megaman that I'd found a series that I deeply loved. I loved the idea that I could pick which level to go to and that the bosses all had weaknesses to some other boss weapon (which took me a while to figure out). I loved the enemy design, the music, the level design, everything. To this day 4 and 5 are my favourites; probably 'cuz they were the ones I actually owned.

Sonic the Hedgehog series. My mom had friends in Michigan (we lived in Cincinnati, Ohio, so they were quite some distance away and we only saw them a few times a year), and their daughter had a Genesis. I wound up discovering the Sonic games there, and being totally blown away by the gameplay, the bright lush colours, and of course the music. I liked the fast-paced gameplay edged with the sense that if you fucked up it could kill you. It pretty much quickly developed into an obsession that would stay with me for some 8 or 9 years. I wouldn't get my own Genesis until Christmas 1995, but that didn't stop me from having the Game Gear games and buying the comics every month. Pity the series has fallen so out of favour in the last 10 years.

Wolfenstein 3D. In the early years of the 1990s I didn't have a real PC, just an old Tandy from the 80s we used as a word processor. But my neighbor had a PC. I would go over there and play Simcity and this random game where you were a space probe on some ship and there was something out there that killed you. One day I sat down at his PC and there was a little something called Wolfenstein. Now, earlier that year we had bought a used PC, it was a 386 with no sound card, and I played lots of Apogee and Epic shareware games on it. I had heard of something called Wolfenstein 3D and the concept intrigued me somewhat- shooting Nazis always does, though I didn't really fully understand WW2, even after seeing Schindler's List and reading Elie Weisel's Night, until I had seen Saving Private Ryan. My neighbor had it, though, and I went and started it up, and was completely sucked in. It was just the shareware, but I spent many an afternoon sneaking my way through what I thought was this brilliantly-depicted Nazi dungeon, stabbing Nazi thugs in the back. Spent a lot of time wallhumping, as well. This was my first FPS, so of course it's significant.

Doom. Again, this was something I had on my neighbor's PC, and again it was just the shareware but I spent many an afternoon working my way through Phobos, shooting monsters in the face. I think this game gave me a sense of dread not even Wolfenstein did, and I would constantly come back to it over the next 3 years to play it. Around the time my parents divorced, I got a disc of shareware FPS games, Doom being one of them, and I've... never really looked back since. I've been playing this thing pretty much since 1994 and I really don't intend to stop, even though I rarely actually play the original maps anymore. (Just FYI: Doom 64 = best official Doom game ever.)

Duke Nukem 3D. The shareware version of this little gem I'd picked up the same year I got the shareware disc with Doom on it, and I loved it. I had no sound thanks to Quake, but I played through it so often I knew the maps like the back of my hand. I think my teenage self was thrilled by the idea of porn shops and a stripjoint, but that was only the first two levels; but the mere idea of a realistic-looking (at the time) environment in which to shoot things thrilled me. I've been waiting for Duke Nukem Forever ever since.

Half-Life 1 (and its expansions, particularly Opposing Force.) I did not get a chance to play this until 2000, when my mom bought me a brand new Gateway computer (which I named Zayats) to replace the crappy eMachine (and the other, broken crappy eMachine that it replaced) I'd been using for the past year, and before that was the 486 that I'd broken the sound on to get Quake 1 working (and it worked!) I had saved enough money from doing stuff for my grandfather in the afternoons so I went to EB and bought a used copy of HL1, and despite having to play in software mode with 64mb of RAM (which led to stuttering every few minutes, similar to what has plagued some HL2 owners) I was blown the fuck away. For years I'd been playing Doom and Quake and Duke Nukem 3D and, hell, I'd just bought Redneck Rampage earlier that year. I had no idea that there were games like this- an emphasis on story, with a slow-paced progression that focused on tension rather than KILL EVERYTHING THAT MOVES RARRRGH like we all grew up on. I played this bitch so much- and all the singleplayer mods for it I could bring down over my poopy little 56k modem on fucking AOL- that I burned myself out on it for a couple years. (HL2 would later revive my interest in the series.) The irony is, the Starship Troopers TC for Duke Nukem 3D had just come out when I bought Half-Life, and in its own way is very much inspired by Half-Life at times- even using some of its music. There are a few vanilla Duke3D usermaps that have the same feel and progression, as well- I think at least one of them is called Holiday Holocaust and I remember the contest that spawned it and a few other great maps. So it was a lucky thing for me that after playing all these Duke 3D maps I discovered where their style had come from.

Fallout 1. My first real foray into cRPGs, and I was just blown away. I think I was really pulled in by the intro; it was just so damned DARK. The rest was just incredibly fun. I'll never understand the die-hard fans, but I certainly know why they're fans in the first place. I bought Fallout around the same time I bought Half-Life, and the two of them are pretty much forever intertwined for me thanks to it, along with Duke Nukem 3D. But more than that, it kicked off my fascination with retro as well as the post-apocalypse. I doubt I'd ever be interested in the TV series Jericho if it weren't for Fallout. (Jericho just got cancelled, too, it's not coming back for a 3rd season, which has me so pissed I could skullfuck someone. CBS are a bunch of dickslaving barrel rolling twatdivers.) I'm never going to be a die-hard cRPG player (for one thing, I bathe) but I'll always find myself coming back to FO1 every few years.

Deus Ex. This was one of the first games I played after upgrading Zayats in 2002. I still did not have a video card (I'm not even sure I understood the concept of it at the time) but when I tripled my RAM Deus Ex was suddenly playable, though the sound was frequently fucked up and fuzzy. My first playthrough ended sometime in Hong Kong; I didn't really know what I was doing. A few months later I fired it up again and played through it, still having no idea what the fuck I was doing but I managed to beat it, and was frankly blown away by the fairly deep choice of endings. I particularly liked Paul's final discussion with you at the end (having gone out of my way to save him the second time around)... there was just something so FINAL about the last hour of Deus Ex. That's probably why Invisible War was such a fucking disappointment. But you know what? The 2nd time through (discounting the first, unfinished play that ended in Hong Kong) on a new PC (Dagon)? Now that I knew what I was doing, the 2nd time was a fucking TRIP. You notice so many things that you didn't the first time; somehow only the 2nd one is that trippy, the first is just wtfwtf what am i doing and the third is like yeah yeah i've seen this before. This game has proven quite influential on me because I see quite a few of the little things in it happening today.

Thief series. I admit it. My first contact with this series was an ISO of Thief Gold I got off of Suprnova. Same for Thief 2. This was back in 2004; I've since bought physical copies of all the Thief games (Thief 1 excluded, never saw any point), but I kept the Gold and 2 ISOs so I don't have to mess with the discs and worry myself half to death every time I want to play. But when I first played TG way back in March 2004 my mind was blown. I had been interested in the series after reading reviews of Thief 3, and I was like "that sounds cool, I should try it!" Not wanting to play 3 until I'd played the others (not like I could at the time anyway) I gave Gold a try and frankly I've never stopped being a fan since. Hell, that's how I found my way here- I was googling for help on the game locking up on me! I was completely drawn in by the steampunk world and the heady feeling of stealing stuff and getting away with it. Garrett was a great protagonist/anti-hero, and frankly the Haunted Cathedral (and the Old Quarter surrounding it) are one of my favourite parts of a game. I love a good stealth game, but Thief was more than just that, it was this amazing universe that just sucked me right the fuck in.

Half-Life 2 (and the episodes.) Well, uh, what can I say about this game? It's one of the best games I've ever played. It takes everything great about HL1 and makes it better, and it's obvious that the 8 years or so in between have also had their influence. You can tell Counter-Strike has had a bit of influence in the game as well, and possibly Day of Defeat. When the game first came out I didn't really care- having burnt myself out on HL1 I was too obsessed with Thief at the time to give a shit. Then a couple of friends of mine told me about Ravenholm and I was immediately intrigued, being the faggot for zombie horror that I am. So I bought it, with my first paycheck at my new job at the time. After discovering how much I hated Steam, and that the installer was a piece of shit, I finally got the game going and while it wasn't the best thing ever on my poopy little GeForce FX 5200, it was good enough for me to keep playing. I was SUCKED IN. It engrossed me on a level only Thief had done before. I think when I was on the airboat (a favourite sequence of mine, btw) and I was like oh shit that tower is about to fall on me oh shit oh shit then WHAM it slams down behind me, I realized, holy fuck this is the best game ever. Yeah, HL2 has its flaws (which I think the Episodes fix nicely) and yeah, not everyone likes rail shooters (and some of them think Halo is better which entitles them to death by AIDS fire) but for sheer atmosphere, presentation, et cetera... well, this game will continue to be one of my favourites for years. No, it's not all that innovative, being merely a refinement of HL1, but what it does, it does so well you can't help but not care about its flaws, particularly the rather shaky performance and other issues it had in the year or so after its release.

Games and series that would've been on this list but I really had to pick and choose: Metal Gear, Stalker, Silent Hill, Blood, Metroid, Resident Evil, Final Fantasy 7 (my first true jRPG), Day of Defeat, Counter-Strike (a very negative influence until a couple years ago, actually), several others. I may do another list with these games in the near future.

"What does a scanner see? Into the head? Down into the heart?"

Today I watched A Scanner Darkly (2006) for the second time. This film, an adaptation of the Philip K. Dick novel of the same name, is notable for its interpolated rotoscope animation, a feature you've probably seen in a number of Charles Schwab commercials. (The process, incidentally, is done by the same guy.) I would argue that it is also notable for being Keanu Reeves' best performance. I am by no means a Keanu fan, but he really pulls off his performance in this film brilliantly. I've often felt that the best sign that an actor has been cast in your film well is how good he sounds in voice-over. There are exceptions, of course- there probably would not have been a better choice than Harrison Ford for Blade Runner (ironically, another film based on a Phil Dick novel) but he has completely the wrong voice for the voiceovers used in the original film; however, this is probably a bad example due to the fact that the voiceovers were a hotly contested issue during the making of the film and nobody involved actually wanted it in, it was a studio decision. Hence its very noticeable absence in the Director's Cut and Final Cut. But I digress; the point is that Keanu's voice-over suits the film well. He sounds tired, depressed, confused, and disillusioned.

This is the second time I've watched the film, as I've said before, but it wasn't until this second viewing that the full impact of the movie really hit me. When I had first watched it, I found it to be a good film, rather dark, occasionally funny, then it was over and I moved on. The second time around, though, I realized just how dark and fucked up it was. It portrays a future America "seven years from now" in the grip of a drug epidemic- a powerful new drug, Substance D, has hit the streets, and American troops are fighting an unseen war overseas over it. To fight this drug at home, the government has instituted a powerful surveillance program. Anyone and everyone can be spied on in any way at any time. Privacy laws have been flung out the window, and anyone even remotely considered to be part of the Substance D problem is subject to intense scrutiny. You can even be spied upon in your own home, without knowing it. Protagonist Bob Arctor (Keanu) is an undercover cop (codenamed "Fred" at the Orange County Police Station) who has been assigned to infiltrate and watch over a group of junkies, supplied by Barris (played very well by Robert Downey Jr.) in the hopes that Barris, and Arctor's girlfriend Donna (a virtually unrecognizable Winona Ryder), would lead them higher up the chain. In the process, however, he himself becomes addicted, and the resultant paranoia and identity crisis are the focal point of the film. Already quite disillusioned, and world-weary from the things he's seen in his work, he becomes much more so as the drug takes hold of him, and in a particularly dark, thought-provoking scene, he walks home from work musing on his job, on Bob Arctor the supposed drug fiend, and states that nothing makes sense to him anymore, wondering if a scanner sees things better than he does.

The soundtrack is a brilliant work, evoking the original Blade Runner score, though obviously a little more modern in spots. The use of violin in the opening credits is heart-wrenchingly appropriate, and the music is fairly consistently dark and thoughtful throughout. The music fits perfectly with each scene, particularly the aforementioned "What does a scanner see?" scene as well as a scene where he gives a disjointed speech, the first hint to his disillusionment and world-wearinss to a gathering of Bear Lodge members.

The science fiction in this film is relatively minimal; you're not going to see flying cars a la Blade Runner's 2019. Probably the most sci-fi element in the whole thing is the scramble suits, which are worn by undercover agents while working in the police station so that their coworkers do not know who they are. To this end I think a person who says (as a purely knee-jerk reaction) "I don't like sci-fi" (and are likely thinking of some spacefaring thing such as Star Trek) can enjoy this film.

Part of why this film really grabbed me, this second time, was because I realized how much it hit home. We are rapidly becoming a society where privacy laws are considered draconian, and certainly there is a war "over there" that many of us don't really understand anymore. It also brings to mind the long-running (and long-lost) War on Drugs, which the government will never win, but is willing to destroy lives forever in its relentless pursuit of an unattainable victory. I feel that many of us are going to feel like Bob Arctor, if we don't already- disillusioned, tired, confused, and unsure of who we are and how we got here. Nothing will make sense anymore, not that it ever did in the first place. The things that happen to Bob Arctor mirror the things that happen to us. We are destined to be screwed over, and not only do we not see it coming, we won't even realize that it's happened. To us, it will seem like an accident. "If a bomb is wired to a car's ignition, then obviously there is an enemy.... But if an accident, or a series of accidents, occurs..., over a period of natural time..., then the victim, whether a person or a party or a country, can never marshal itself to defend itself." (That's from the book, by the way.) And in that regard, we're doomed.

Introductory post.

I suppose I should start with an introduction. I'm Andrew Joseph Ritter, "Andrew" or "Andy" to some, "Joey" to others. The use of my middle name stemmed from a period in my late teens when I had grown frankly sick of my first name and insisted that people use my middle name. At this point, most of the people who know me online know me as Joey, while my family and most of the people in the Real World that I meet now call me Andy or Andrew (I don't care which.)

I've had a rather interesting, screwed up life that can be summed up as "delayed". I'm 25 years old and have yet to graduate college. I did not get my driver's license until my 24th birthday (the exact date, in fact) and a long and convoluted setup that enables me to go to college proscribes me from getting a job until I graduate. And, I suppose I should note (though it feels more like a footnote than anything else) I am fully deaf in my right ear and use a hearing aid in my left.

At this point in time, I am a journalism student, a majour I have finally decided on and am serious about. I've considered a couple of other career choices in the past, and while it is considered perfectly normal for college students to change their minds over time I've gotten nothing but grief.

But that's neither here or there- I'm going to try to keep my personal life out of this blog, as it's a bit convoluted and nobody cares except me anyway. However, I will occasionally bring up my background as rationale for an opinion or other statement that I may make; your knowledge of this background should thus help you understand why I've said something.

I've created this blog because as a journalism student I came to realize that with increased usage of the internet- to the point where the infrastructure itself may not be able to handle it- journalism itself will increasingly be centered around the internet. Newspapers may never die, and neither will magazines, but I have no doubt that in the future they will serve mainly as outlets for internet-based news organizations. Thusly, with my goal of being a columnist some day, I feel it's only smart to begin now, with this blog.

Some of you know me from Livejournal as dethtoll. Let me make it perfectly clear- this blog is not a mirror for my Livejournal. My Livejournal was started some 7 years ago (has it really been that long? How time flies!) partly as a lark, and partly because the school counselor encouraged me to keep a journal. However, it has since devolved into the dumping grounds of my mind, full of an unfocused rage at my personal life, lashing out at the people I am angry with, unsupported opinions on all manner of things, plus the random meme, liberal doses of offensive humour, and random images designed to destroy the layouts of people viewing their friends list. I use LJ as a social networking site of sorts, since I abhor the cesspool of humanity that is Myspace and other such places such as Facebook. It's where I post on Mandatory Metal, the very existence of which is the tail end of a rather long story which has no place here.

What does have a place here is my commentary on, well, lots of things. Music, films, video games, books, comics, art, politics, culture; the things that make me angry, sad, happy, or disillusioned. This is not a politics blog; nor is it a gaming blog, nor is it a webcomics blog (or for that matter a webcomics-hate blog), or any other kind of specific blog. This is just a quiet space for me to post my thoughts. There will be reviews, there will be thoughts on gaming as a culture, there will be politely worded posts that are barely containing my rage over something that makes me angry. You may see the occasional bit of profanity here- I do not believe in self-censorship, and profanity sometimes gets across a point, emotion, or thought across far more efficiently than a lot of carefully worded prose. (I believe I just created a topic for myself to discuss in a later post.)

A word on the naming of this blog: I picked "Steel Like Vines" due to the image it provokes of structures like rising construction and the ubiquitous communication tower, stretching into the sky, climbing whatever it can- even itself- to be taller than the last. Much of my aesthetics stem from themes portrayed in many post-rock and post-metal albums (post-metal being a topic I'll discuss eventually) and this sort of thing is no exception.

To conclude, this is my attempt at formality- I hope you enjoy.