How does the DOOM reboot compare to the 1993 original?
Many of us remember playing DOOM for the first time and being blown away by the 3D environments and fast paced gunplay. I'm sure you can remember how revolutionary that game was at the time in terms of technology. But here we are 26 years later, with a critically praised DOOM reboot from Bethesda released in 2016 with a sequel coming soon. To celebrate this, lets have a look back and compare the original and 2016 reboot in terms of graphics, technology and gameplay.
Gameplay
One of the main praises of DOOM 2016 is how it recaptures the fast paced gunplay of the original, while adding modern touches that make it play smoother and more accessible to a modern audience. Movement is fast, enemies are more aggressive than the original and close up melee finishers encourage a fast paced, hit and run playstyle that seems to more successfully capture the vision of the original. The classic left and right restricted aiming is gone of course, with the typical fps aiming making combat on different elevations much more intuitive than the original. There is also more of an element of progression to the game. The original had different weapons that were picked up during the game. The reboot also has this, but also includes weapon upgrades that can make weapons more specialized, encouraging use of the whole arsenal for different situations.
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Enemies, as mentioned previously, are more aggressive and have much more interesting behaviors and attacks. Most enemies in the original move slowly and shoot projectiles at the player. In many points, this devolves the gameplay into strafing left and right to avoid projectiles while shooting at enemies until they die. The reboot makes enemies much more distinctive outside of their appearance. There are fast yet weak enemies that pressure the player to move, there are large, beefy enemies that require more attention to take down. This all serves to make the game more varied and interesting, as players employ different strategies to fight different enemies.
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So, while nostalgic players might prefer the original for it's 90's charm, it is undeniable that this modern re-imagining has made great use of modern technology and design to make the game better in many regards, while keeping the fast paced gameplay of the original.
Technology
The strange thing about the original DOOM was that it wasn't actually 3D. Enemies were actually sprites made to look 3D using different sprites to walk in different directions, angling them to face different directions. The levels themselves are a very complicated illusion that makes them look fully 3D. To simplify it, the game is all on one flat level. When you go up or down stairs in DOOM, you are not actually moving up and down, you are simply moving to a different sector of the level while the game creates the illusion of a 3D space at different heights. The reboot, of course, features a real 3D space. Environments are created in full 3D with no limitations. When the player moves to a different height, their character is actually at a higher elevation.
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In terms of graphics, the original has much lower resolution textures and sprites. Wall textures were these dimensions: 64x128, 128x128 and 256x128 pixels. There were no 3D polygon models, including environments and enemies. As mentioned before, enemies were traditional sprites. They had a limited number of sprites per enemy (up to 30), and switched between them for walking, shooting, being injured and dying. The reboot uses standard AAA 3D graphics. Textures are much higher resolution and are not just flat (having 3D elements to them). Enemies are 3D models, and no longer have the clear frames of animation that the original sprites had. The original's lighting was static for each room, which has been improved in the reboot. Levels have many different light sources that match the environment.
