DOOM 1993 (NSP, XCI) ROM + v1.2.0 Update

DOOM 1993, the classic first-person shooter game that pioneered the multiplayer Deathmatch and was developed by id Software, returns as an incredibly fun and challenging modern-day shooter. With relentless demons, insanely destructive guns, and fast, fluid movement, players will engage in intense, first-person combat as they obliterate demon hordes in the depths of hell during the single-player campaign, or compete against friends in various multiplayer modes.

GAMEPLAY

Doom is a first-person shooter presented with 3D graphics. While the environment is shown in a 3D perspective, the enemies and objects are instead 2D sprites rendered at fixed angles, a technique sometimes referred to as 2.5D graphics or billboarding. In the single-player campaign mode, the player controls an unnamed space marine—later unofficially termed “Doomguy”—through military bases on the moons of Mars and in hell. To finish a level, the player must traverse through labyrinthine areas to reach a marked exit room. Levels are grouped into named episodes, with the final level of each focusing on a boss fight.

While traversing the levels, the player must fight a variety of enemies, including demons and possessed undead humans. Enemies often appear in large groups. The five difficulty levels adjust the number of enemies and the amount of damage they do, with enemies moving faster than normal on the hardest difficulty setting. The monsters have simple behavior: they move toward their opponent if they see or hear them, and attack by biting, clawing, or using magic abilities such as fireballs.

The player must manage supplies of ammunition, health, and armor while traversing the levels. The player can find weapons and ammunition throughout the levels or can collect them from dead enemies, including a pistol, a chainsaw, a plasma rifle, and the BFG 9000. The player also encounters pits of toxic waste, ceilings that lower and crush objects, and locked doors requiring a collectible keycard or a remote switch. Power-ups include health or armor points, a mapping computer, partial invisibility, a radiation suit against toxic waste, invulnerability, or a super-strong melee berserker status. Cheat codes allow the player to unlock all weapons, walk through walls, or become invulnerable.

Two multiplayer modes are playable over a network: cooperative, in which two to four players team up to complete the main campaign, and deathmatch, in which two to four players compete to kill the other players’ characters as many times as possible. Multiplayer was initially only playable over local networks, but a four-player online multiplayer mode was made available one year after launch through the DWANGO service.

PLOT

Doom is divided into three episodes, each containing about nine levels: “Knee-Deep in the Dead”, “The Shores of Hell”, and “Inferno”. A fourth episode, “Thy Flesh Consumed”, was added in an expanded version, The Ultimate Doom, released two years after Doom. The campaign contains very few plot elements, with a minimal story presented mostly through the instruction manual and text descriptions between episodes. In the future, an unnamed marine is posted to a dead-end assignment on Mars after assaulting a superior officer who ordered his unit to fire on civilians. The Union Aerospace Corporation, which operates radioactive waste facilities there, allows the military to conduct secret teleportation experiments that go wrong.

A base on Phobos urgently requests military support, while Deimos disappears entirely, and the marine joins a combat force to secure Phobos. He waits at the perimeter as ordered while the entire assault team is wiped out. With no way off the moon, and armed with only a pistol, he enters the base intent on revenge. In “Knee-Deep in the Dead”, the marine fights demons and possessed humans in the military and waste facilities on Phobos. The episode ends with the marine defeating two powerful Barons of Hell guarding a teleporter to the Deimos base. After the battle, the marine emerges from the teleporter and is knocked unconscious by a horde of enemies, awakening with only a pistol.

In “The Shores of Hell”, the marine fights through corrupted research facilities on Deimos, culminating in the defeat of a gigantic cyber demon. From an overlook, he discovers that the moon is floating above hell and rappels down to the surface. In “Inferno”, the marine battles through hell itself and destroys a cybernetic spider-demon that masterminded the invasion of the moons. When a portal to Earth opens, the marine steps through to discover that Earth has been invaded. “Thy Flesh Consumed” follows the marine’s initial assault on the Earth invaders, setting the stage for Doom II.