First GOTM finished for October 2023. You always hear about how it can run on anything, how it defined a genre, how much fun it is to rip and tear. While this is my first time playing Doom, I quickly came to understand the love for it. The soundtrack and atmosphere lend itself well to a playthrough in October, and the howls, grunts, and growls of the enemies as they stalk you is legitimately creepy. The weapon variety is good, the power-ups and item pickups are fun and often located in a tense area of the map, and the movement is surprisingly good for an FPS without twin-sticks. Some very annoying level design (especially in later levels) keeps it from being top-notch, but this one is a banger and you should give it a try.

While the apparent claim by John Romero that this is "the best DOOM yet" is of ambiguous veracity, I find it hard to deny that this is indeed the best possible way to experience the original DOOM and/or The Ultimate DOOM. It comes across as a "greatest hits" that compiles all the best parts of each 90s DOOM title: the top-notch level design of the original game and the enemy variety of the sequel, all glued together by the ambiance, atmosphere and mood of DOOM 64 on account of the darker color palette, dynamic lighting and Aubrey Hodges's brilliant sound work.

It's impressive how much a game's feel can change when it's given a different voice and a subtle change of wardrobe; PSX DOOM perfects the balance of horror and carnage in a manner that surpasses even DOOM 3. Even the darker colors and overall more moody take on the levels' aesthetics manages to feel wonderfully dreary without over-relying on shades of brown and gray like DOOM 2, leaving the game feeling reminiscent of System Shock with its flavor of horror imagery against colorful backdrops.

Honestly, the only real gripe I have is that in spite of how much effort was put into breathing new life into the original game they didn't have the decency to stick the Super Shotgun anywhere across all 3 episodes. It's not like I'm complaining about being forced to make use of the entirety of the original game's consistently-reliable arsenal, but there's something about the idea of being able to wield DOOM 2's crowning achievement without having to subject myself to its level design that makes me yearn.

Played on PC using a total conversion mod that makes the PSX version of the game fully playable in GZDoom, which sidesteps what are otherwise issues for this port such as performance issues or the necessity of a controller. As you can probably glean from the rest of this little writeup, I stopped after beating The Ultimate DOOM and didn't bother playing through DOOM 2 in this configuration - I just didn't feel like putting up with 30 levels of harshly varying quality just to reap the benefits that were (mostly) retroactively implemented into the otherwise-superior original game here.

(Replayed on Ultra-Violence with the DOOM CE Conversion)

DOOM has always been one of my favorite shooters ever made, a very influential game to me and gaming as a whole. Looking for different ways to experience it after getting the urge to play through all of it again, I heard about the PSX port that is apparently a large tonal shift from the original game. After playing, I can definitely say that much is true. The atmosphere has been made much more sinister and dreadful with the new lighting, the music has been taken from an adrenaline-pumping thrash backtrack with occasional slower groovy tracks to a full-on droning and haunting ambient soundtrack that makes the world around you much more hellish. Playing on the Ultra-Violence difficulty is the way to go, not frustratingly brutal and but too forgiving. Absolutely my favorite way to play DOOM, very close to perfect, still think that the last chapter is way too easy to get lost in though.

With Quake just mere months away from release, DOOM found its way to the Sony Playstation in late 1995. Dubbed the "Custom Playstation Edition", DOOM PS1 is an incredibly unique, more mature take on the PC original. The lighting has been revamped to create a horror-themed atmosphere, alongside an entirely new soundtrack. Having played every officially released version of DOOM, I can safely say this ranks as the best of the 90's console ports. Every change works for the better in this iteration; the darker level design and ambient soundtrack all work together to create a game that feels fresh and exciting. There's a new sense of dread that awaits down every corridor. You'll work your way through a pitch black room, illuminated only by a pulsating cobalt light with the growls of demons coming at you in every direction. Gone is the fast-paced, heavy metal angst of the original, and in its place is a tension fueled nightmare that more than earns its title: DOOM.

Doom is just one of those games. It's probably one of the most well designed and intrinsically fun games I've ever played. It has perfect balance and excellent pacing. The enemy design is impeccable with great weapons to murder them with. It has a fundamental understanding of the combat dance you have to do when you play these ganes and why that's endlessly enjoyable. I'm not sure if every level is to my taste, but I can't think of a really awful one either. It's just perfect. Just skip episode 4 though, it's not worth your time.