#me: no i been cooking and running around unlocking my map and collecting stuff

[cosmicangsts]

a 3 year toxic & abusive friendship just ended y'all! he literally got mad at me for spending MY money i set aside ages ago for something i wanted ( acheron ) & today msged me an ultimatum about our friendship while putting me down, expecting me to piss shit & cry & i DIDN'T & instead stood my ground & called him out on being a controller who doesn't see me as a person with a savior complex so he DIPPED! ♡ ( not without the classic ' i'm sorry u feel that way ' & ' caring for my friend is NOT a savior complex ' & making it all about himself u best believe it was OUTSTANDING but i literally don't care i've cried so much over u )

if the new trend is a breakup at the start of every year & it means decluttering my life of incessant negativity, then honestly i am HERE FOR IT

[zydrateacademy]

Review - The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

I never cared much for Zelda. My gaming life began with the likes of Unreal and Quake, later exploring the more intriguing worlds of Morrowind and Final Fantasy X. I was late to the nostalgic craze of Mario, Metroid, Pokemon and the likes of Zelda itself, though my brother would always gush about them as the years went on, while I delved into the Elder Scrolls and Assassin’s Creed franchises as my typical “favorite games” listing. Yet on a fateful evening outing with the family, I found myself with a brief demo of Breath of the Wild. Having a controller in my hand for the first time in probably a decade, I fell in love with the brief ten minutes I had with Link and his new world. It became an immediate Christmas wish, which was immediately fulfilled by my family within weeks of this request. My family was very excited that I wanted to try a Zelda game at all. So let’s get to it.

Link immediately awakes as much of a blank slate as I am, with nothing but amnesia and a female voice (quickly revealed to be Zelda herself) to guide him. We’re given something called a Sheikah Slate which looks like the lore’s own version of a Switch or iPad, and it basically serves as the game’s major MacGuffin that powers most of your abilities, map systems, and everything else. Apparently it’s an important device, as every major character and city leader immediately recognize it. From what I can understand in context, the device was in the possession of a team of champions that apparently died a hundred years prior. They fought against “Calamity Ganon”, the game’s major antagonist. You’re shown the castle off in the distance, but in the beginning Link is stuck on a massive plateau, and you need a wind glider to make it off alive. The old man helping you trades one after you learn the game’s four basic abilities, and the whole plateau serves as the tutorial. We get a stasis ability (for locking objects in a time field, of which you can manipulate its momentum), two different bomb types (one that rolls and a square for better control depending on terrain), a cryogenic that allows you to create ice blocks over water (which I often use to cross rivers) and a magnet (which does exactly what you’d expect it to). Other than the open world Dark Souls-esque combat, they serve as the game’s primary mechanics and they’ll each be used to solve every puzzle and find every chest throughout the game.  Sadly the game neglects to teach you how to cook, and I had to resort to google for that. Seems like it’s an oversight, but it’s one of the more fun mechanics, throwing a bunch of your gatherings in a pot to eventually see what might happen. It encourages experimentation which I enjoy, but if all else fails, throwing five durians or bananas in a pot will go a long way in of itself. The world opens up very quickly, as is usually advertised and mentioned in reviews. You can, in theory, immediately haul towards Calamity Ganon itself if you’re sneaky enough. I’m sure some YouTubers have already cleared it (quick research tells me it can be done in around 40-50 minutes), but more casual players would likely be crushed instantly. Instead you’re given several tasks, such as taming four Divine Beasts, massive mechanical creatures that roam Hyrule. They’re currently controlled by Ganon but you can retake them and they’ll all help during the final fight.

Beyond that, the world is ours. I admit I was feeling a bit dry of this genre after having around a thousand hours on Skyrim and a few hundred on the various Fallout’s, it’s a literal breath of fresh air as I found myself with a very simple goal: nab all the towers. In typical fashion more expected from the likes of Ubisoft, there are several towers to climb that unlock the maps of entire regions. I don’t mind this so much as it helps me get the lay of the land as well as a clear goal on the outset. I’d be very lost without them.

I have never been used to Zelda’s style of gaming but I have taken full advantage of the tools the game has given me. Chief of which being the open world itself. A vast majority of my gameplay has mostly been collecting different armor sets so that I can better face a variety of situations and weather conditions, and there’s a ton of gameplay to be had with that goal alone. In the first town that you are directed towards, there was a fairly expensive (for a starting player) stealth suit. I farmed some enemies which helped a lot in learning how to use a controller again, and the stealth bonus helped me nab some DLC armor which I used for a majority of the early to mid game, dozens of hours due to their helpful bonuses. While looking to afford that initial outfit, I ended up running into a shrine or two, and found a little tree pixie (called Koroks), which help to expand my inventory. The simple goal turned into its own micro-adventure and that’s something I very much appreciate about this game, though that does have a problem attached to it, which I’ll mention later. If my readers know me, then you know I’m a stealth player. Hilariously there is a stealth mechanic on this game with a little noise meter next to the minimap but the game wasn’t really built for it. You can sneak in enemy camps while they sleep and steal their weapons but it’s not always an ideal tactic. There’s no clear indication of detection ranges so if you alert an enemy, all you’ll see is a question mark on their head and you have very little to do with that information. A bush does not conceal me, for example, for the simple fact that it’s not considered a ‘solid object’ by the game’s standards.

That does lead to another problem. The stealth mechanic is part of the alleged “play your way” that doesn’t always work. In terms of exploration, it might. There’s a lot you can do, like plugging balloons on bombs to make them float around, or throw metal weapons at enemies during a lightning storm. There’s so much to do with the world itself, but I found very little purpose in doing any of that except for water cooler conversations of “stuff I managed to do”. You CAN use a leaf weapon to blow the enemy off the cliff, but why bother if you can two-shot them or even use one of your infinite bombs to accomplish the same goal? So why would you want to waste to much time and potential health and food items finagling with the controls which you could just press Y a couple times and make the problem go away? Not that I mind the combat over much. It has the usual fare of dodge, parry, block, flurry and a variety of charge attacks that can be kind of fun to use. I like how enemies often have their own large variety of weapons and that will change how they fight. A lizard with a bow will very often try to keep at a range from me, doing a backflip which causes me to sprint to close the gap, only for them to do it again when I try to take a swing. The same enemy type with a spear however, can be quite aggressive poking me at a range, but staying at just the right distance to piss me off. It’s a lot of fun, though. I was rather afraid of puzzles upon my initial interest of this game, and has been a large part in keeping me away from the franchise. They tend to make me feel stupid if I take too long to solve them, but there is an extra level of “hurrah!” when I manage to figure out exactly what I need to do. There is another complaint attached to this however. As I completed a few dozen shrines (there’s something to the effect of 120 total) I noticed the rest usually require some gimmick to find or unlock. There’s one I’ve yet to discover because I need to be on a platform during a blood moon, the game’s respawn mechanic. The problem is, you can’t force those and they show up roughly every three hours of game time. So I imagine one of my last shrines will be me standing on that damn platform while I watch Youtube or play something else.

There’s also a few puzzles that demand use of the motion controls, which can be incredibly fickle and frustrating. Some are better than others but I found it to be more annoying than anything and I hope they minimize that mechanic in the future. I’ve still had to resort to video guides. The Divine Beasts act as the game’s “major” dungeons preceding a boss fight, and to get to the boss, their entire body acts as a mobile puzzle. One of them has three cylinders in its midsection that can turn four times and there was far too much going on for my brain to handle. I managed to do the flying beast and water elephant on my own (with some pointers from my brother but not to a full on guide’s extent) but some of their innards are just a bit too complex to me. The other complaint that I alluded to earlier, is world density. Yes, there’s a lot of nooks and crannies that will often hide a shrine, treasure, and a variety of weapons and upgrades. It can be profitable at times to simply pick a direction and start running, but this only works to a point. Between my position and my current goal (a tower, an armor piece, a town) there might be a single shrine, maybe two, on my way to find. There was however, a lot of pointless running. I heard a Let’s Player mention that they suspected the world was built first and was just filled it in with things later. Frankly, it shows. Yes it’s cute to find a stump or pile of leaves just slightly out of place, hiding a Korok creature but once you get back to running there’s a lot of open plains, fields, and vertical mountains to climb with very little to do in between and nothing to show for it except a padded hour count.  There was some controversy over the durability of weapons. I barely had much of a problem with it. Jim Sterling infamously bashed it which earned a fair amount of ire (which is not foreign to him) and even tried to negate the common compliment of “It forces you to adjust your strategy!” Still, I’m inclined to agree with that defense. Relying on a single type of weapon could make the combat stale pretty quickly, but there’s still some high level weapons I wish stuck around for longer. I did manage to acquire the Master Sword which is a permanent weapon that can run out of ‘energy’ and gives itself a ten minute cooldown but that’s very much a late-game item to acquire. Before that you’re basically stuck with a horde of guardian axes and knight’s claymores. I have run into the odd situation of having two or three weapons left but I discovered that shrines respawn during blood moons, so I simply found myself in those “Major Test of Strength” shrines which give you a single enemy with predictable attack pattern, serving as a miniature boss fight to help you get used to the combat mechanics. They drop two or three fairly decent weapons and a lot can be done with them. It’s just another thing to do in a fairly enjoyable game.

I also wanted to compliment the game’s way of leveling itself up. It’s essentially tied to story progress and Divine Beast slaying. Each mob has a few different variations, color coded for your convenience. Usually starting brown and going up to blue, then black and others. Each harder than the last, usually just wielding more powerful weapons and having a fair amount of hitpoints. Since a lot of my gameplay was exploring, getting towers and collecting armor, the game never advanced too quickly for me. I’d have a few scattered harrowing fights but the game did a good job of making sure I could take my time with it. The early game throws a few blue Moblins at you which are fully capable of one-shotting your measly four hearts, but I feel that was a sort of observation test for a player to absorb. It forces you to think about what your facing, change weapons and strategy. In practice, it just made me terrified of the color blue for a while. The game only starts throwing the tougher enemies at you once you defeat the bosses accompanying the four Divine Beasts. As the game’s major dungeons, completing them is often a test of everything you’ve learned and is as good a marker as any for “this player is ready for tougher enemies”. I am very pleased with this kind of development, as my first ten hours was spent killing jello blobs and bats for their parts so I could sell them and afford more arrows. The game never really went “Okay, time for the tough stuff” when I’m still using a wooden goblin spear. I don’t expect I would get much out of the game’s Master Mode, serving as a sort of New Game Plus except without anything you’ve earned, and is basically just a Hard Mode. The DLC has plenty more to offer which I will explore eventually but it sounds difficult, and I’ve never been any kind of Hard Mode player. Still, I was afraid of this game and I’ve been doing just fine in it so the DLC may not be as intimidating as I think. In conclusion, I’m having a lot of fun in it. It may not have lasting replayability (though I can think of a few ‘corrections’ to my early game to help things along) and after so long, I find there’s very little to actually find as I climb snowy mountains and angrily wait for a thunderstorm to pass. I’m far from done with it though, not while I still have goals in mind. I do have my sights on beating this one, and for a newer-aged millennial gamer, finding a Zelda game that I actually enjoy is an accomplishment on their part. I understand BOTW is a major genre shift for the franchise, and I hope they continue the trend if they want me as a returning customer. Until then, this game is very, very good.

[team-free-squiggle]

I have a sanders side idea. Sorry if it sounds bad. But what if the other sides were making Virgil feel bad. And like they didn’t mean to but they were planning something for him or they were just trying to keep a secret that would make him happy. That they wanted to surprise him with. And he thinks they’re upset with him or that they hated him so he leaves and goes back to living with the dark sides So the others go to find him and convince him to go back home.Prince/Anxiety if you need a ship.

This is actually perfect, oh my goodness, thank you so much for sending me this prompt! @damienswifeolicitydallysgirl! Sorry it’s taken me so long to get to it, though!

~~

A Present Different From the Past

~~Fandom: Sanders Sides

Prompt: above

Characters: Patton Sanders, Roman Sanders, Logan Sanders, Virgil Sanders, (sympathetic) Deceit Sanders, Thomas Sanders, OC Disinterest Sanders, OC Pride Sanders, OC Greed Sanders 

Relationships: None, just platonic super good friendships!

Warnings: Deceit as a character (sympathetic though), Virgil thinking self-depricating thoughts, Anxiety (both as a character and as an emotion), Virgil angst because he misinterpreted stuff

~~Virgil loved his FamILY. He and the others were long past the point of considering Anxiety as a villain, were long past the point of making Virgil the outcast.

He was at every dinner (Patton’s cooking was amazing), did every adventure he could with Roman (the Prince was so reckless and needed someone to look out for him, I mean honestly. Virgil did enjoy the time they spent together, though). He always helped Logan when the logical side would study the stars, finding out that mapping constellations never failed to calm him down.

Even Deceit was a good guy, in Virgil’s book. And in the other’s. They had originally bonded over being the only two Sides to wear any form of Black, and their friendship had evolved ever since. Deceit was Deceit; Virgil knew that; but he also knew that Dee, like himself, was there for self-preservation. The two of them would often sit down in comfy beds, put on Netflix or some music, and would knit (or in Deceit’s case, crochet) or something similar. 

Virgil loved all of his FamILY. All the Sides. 

They were all good to each other, and all cared about each other. 

Then things started to change. 

First, it was Deceit. 

Virgil was always the latest down to breakfast, to most meals in fact; he had never once, in his life, not been last to the breakfast table.

Then, all of a sudden, Deceit came last. Every day, for about a week.

At first, Virgil had chalked it up to the snake staying up later to talk with the Figments more and more. Then Roman acted differently.

Whenever Virgil walked into the room, he looked like he had just shoved something behind his back. He would smile, make a grand gesture, and Virgil would always forget about it until later.

Next came Patton.

Patton could often be seen whispering with Deceit, and the two of them sitting with Roman, clearly hunched over something and talking secretivly.

Virgil knew something was wrong. There were almost questioning glances thrown his way, as if asking what he was still doing there. There was hunched over whispering that abruptly ended when he walked into his room.

By the next week, even Logan had joined in. No one invited him to anything anymore. 

Virgil still came down for meals, but was told that the other four needed movie nights for something. They needed Virgil to not be there. 

Logan was the one who told him that. He said he was sorry.

Virgil didn’t believe him.

That wasn’t what broke him, however.

No, it was when Virgil came down one time. He was fully intending to ask them what exactly was going on, what had made them all change their ways so suddenly around him.

He went into the living room, and paused. The four others were on the couch. And then suddenly, Patton and Deceit were cowering together, with Roman and Logan standing in front of them.

“Guys…? What’s going on?” Virgil was worried, for them, for himself.

“Go away, Virgil! You can’t be down here!” At first, Virgil thought it was Roman who spoke. Then his heart broke.

It was Patton. Patton wanted him away, didn’t want to be near him.

“Deceit, what - Patton, please - guys, what is happening?!” Virgil desperately tried not to cry out, confused and terrified. Terrified that they didn’t want to be with him anymore.

Deceit spoke up. “We don’t want you around, Virgil.”

The problem is, Virgil didn’t hear that it was Deceit. No, he thought it was Patton saying it again. So he ran.

He ran to his room, conjured a bag, and grabbed all of his stuff. He made sure his door was locked, so that he could make his escape without any of the others seeing him.

He walked over to his window, quickly crawling out of it. He had made it so his window was on the first floor of the house (even if the room itself was on the second floor), just in case of emergency. He was grateful for his foresight now, as he ran.

Thomas noticed it when Anxiety ran. He felt his Anxiety dripping away, running.

Virgil was gone.

Thomas sunk down. “Guys, where the hell is Virgil?”

Deceit, Patton, Logan, and Roman looked up. “He ran to his room, why?”

“Because I don’t fear Death.” Thomas smiled, looking around. He saw something on the coffee table.

“Oooo, were you guys doing a thing? Those look cool!” He pointed at the object.

Roman smiled. “Yeah, we were working on a present for Virgil actually. But he was always around, and it’s a surprise, so we had to send him away.”

Patton glared at Deceit. “Still, it was cruel to pretend to be me and say that ‘I’ wanted him gone.” 

Deceit sighed. “I don’t know what you mean, I just wanted Virgil’s surprise to be ruined.” Logan sighed.

“Nonetheless, I think Virgil might have taken it the wrong way. Why else would he have ducked out again?” 

“Quack.” Patton said. Roman’s eyes widened.

“Oh no, he would have - oh Roman, you dunce…” the Prince began to mutter to himself.

“Let’s go find Anxiety!” Patton declared, and Thomas tried to transport them all to Virgil’s room. 

No one moved anywhere.

“It’s unlocked, clearly.” Deceit murmured. Logan looked at the yellow side in surprise.

“How would you know that?” The logical side was confused.

“Because I totally don’t keep mine locked all the time.” The Side pointed out. 

Logan was still confused. “But Thomas is the Host, he has to be able to go anywhere. He has to be able to find all of his Sides, to have them all.”

“But only if the Side is there.” Patton spoke up, looking up at Thomas with widened eyes. 

“He has to be able to find all of his sides - so the room is only gonna be unlocked if the side in question is in there.” 

Deceit shook his head, showing that he agreed.

“Thomas, focus on Virgil. Take us to him, you are the only one of us who can find him.” Logan was saying. 

‘Thomas took a deep breath, trying to remember exactly what he felt like whenever he was around Virgil. He found that feeling, and tried to throw it through his mind, to see if he felt anything similar anywhere in the mindscape. And he did.

He focused on the small response, that felt like Virgil, and sent himself and the others there. Lo and behold, Virgil was there. But there were others there too. Others that Thomas had never met.

Deceit stepped in front of Thomas protectively.

“Disinterest, Pride, Greed. What the fuck do you think you are doing.” The Lying Side’s voice was low and dangerous, and sent shivers down everyone’s spine.

Anxiety was back in working order.

“He was running, crying! How could we not bring him back here, to care for him!” Greed smirked. Deceit glared.

“Lying is my department. You just want to collect another little toy, don’t you, Greed?” 

The green side stepped back indignantly.

Roman stepped up by Deceit, surveying the situation. 

Virgil was surrounded by the Dark Sides. Disinterest, Anxiety’s opposite, was in a corner standing lazily. Not a threat.

Greed - Roman’s own opposite - had just been taken care of by Dee.

Pride was Logan’s opposite, the only one left. 

Roman decided to take charge, literally. 

Pride opened his mouth, but he never got a word in edgewise.

The Prince ran up to the orange side, pulling out his sword, and hit him on the head with the hilt of the sword.

Disinterest still watched casually from the corner, staring at his nails halfheartedly.

Roman helped Virgil, who had been on the floor, up.

“Anxiety. Come with us.” Deceit’s voice had a hard edge to it that made them all shiver, because they knew that he was telling the truth for once. 

Thomas transported them, wide-eyed, back to the Light Side’s house. 

Virgil was shaking, and though Patton tried to hug him, the Anxious Side shied away.

“Virgil, what happened?” Thomas’ voice was soft, sad. Virgil flinched. 

“I ran to them. They crowded around me, asking me to tell them how they could take you over. Greed, remember. But then you came in and saved me. Thanks for nothing, by the way.” Virgil glared at them, taking the other Light Sides aback.

“Virgil… what? Why would you go… to them?” Patton’s voice was soft, saddened. Virgil whirled on him, fight starting to kick in now that flight hadn’t worked.

“Because of you! Because for the last month you all have been acting weirder and weirder around me! Because you’re my FamILY and I love you and I don’t think you love me anymore! Because I came down to ask you what I had done to make you all hate me and I couldn’t get a word in, even, because you - you, Patton! My Best Friend! - said you didn’t want me here!”

Virgil wasn’t crying like he had been when he left. Flight was gone. Fight was in.

Until Thomas stepped in.

“Virgil… I can’t speak for what they did or did not do… but what I do know is that there is a very good reason for their behavior. And it’s not my story to tell, so I shall leave. Just don’t duck out again?”

Virgil saluted Thomas, who nodded and smiled back as he ducked out.

“Quack.” Said Patton.

Logan decided to speak up.

“Virgil. First off, I must apologize. For whatever we might have made you think or feel. We just… we wanted to do something for you.”

“For me?” The anxious side repeated, stunned.

“Yes!” Patton spoke up eagerly. “Can we give it to him, guys?!” The others nodded, so Patton bounded up and handed a wrapped package to Virgil.

“Oh, and Virgil?” Deceit spoke up as Virgil sat on the couch.

“Yeah?” He paused before opening the present, looking up at Deceit. 

“Patton didn’t say those things - it was me. We really really don’t want you here.” 

Virgil smiled, still confused. And then he realized - they had made something for him. 

That’s why they had been avoiding him - not because they hated him, but because they were doing something for him to show that they truly cared about him!

Virgil felt more than slightly stupid. 

“I’m sorry guys, I didn’t think, I… I’m sorry I assumed the worst.” He finished quietly.

Roman grabbed Virgil’s wrists, letting the Anxious side look at him as he smiled.

“Why, Panic! at the Everywhere, we love you for that. You are what keeps Thomas - and therefore us - safe. You are supposed to assume the worst, and hey, we know your fight - or - flight reflexes work!” Roman smiled.

Virgil giggled, Roman somehow managing to cheer him up with those few words alone. 

He nodded, finally opening the present. He pulled out the handmade cat ear wireless headphones, smiling widely.

They were black, with purple accents, and each side of the actual headphone had a handmade version of Virgil’s logo on it. 

He slipped them on his head, smiling.

“I love them so much, thank you!” Virgil was happy. The others were glad he liked it, and were admittedly slightly upset that they hadn’t thought of the potential of Virgil having an adverse reaction to a surprise.

But as they all cuddled that night happily watching Tim Burton movies together, they knew that they wouldn’t trade each other for the world.

They were a FamILY. And they would always be there for each other, no matter what.

Fight or Flight, am i right?

~~

I hope you enjoyed!

~~

Tag List

(Sanders Sides)

@astraastro

@madly-handsome

@amber1594

@lie-lie-birdy

@thebaagelboy

@justanotherpurplebutterfly

@ravenclawunicorn1

@ako1209

@princessbelix

@water13girl

@romanasanders

@deathshadowrules

@virgils-jacket

@fandomsofrandom

@cochroachkappa-blog

@zoeyheys

@chipminkle

@6tick6tock6

@maizieandbirds

@panic-at-theeverywhere

@not-my-patton

@cookieturtleart123

@confinesofpersonalknowledge

@generalfandomfabulousness

@thegirlofwolvesandfangs

@toujours-fidele

@light-it-on-fire

@ghostmaster83

(All)

@birdybabybird

@awesomelissawho

@funsizedgremlin

@surviving-an-ocean-of-fandoms

@teacupfulofstarshine

@am-i-heaven-or-am-i-hell

[postgamecontent]

DOOM

Original Release Date: December 10, 1993

Original Hardware: MS-DOS PC

Developer/Publisher: id Software

Wolfenstein 3D had dramatically shaken up the PC gaming market upon its arrival mid-way through 1992. Together with the gorgeous Ultima Underworld, id Software's speedy action game made it clear that smooth first-person worlds were the next big thing. It's hardly surprising the clones started rolling in, some of them improving on Wolfenstein in very clever ways. But at this stage of its history, id Software wasn't the sort of developer to stand still and wait for others to catch up to them. By the end of 1993, before Wolfenstein had even had the chance to blow out the candles on its second birthday cake, id Software would render it, and virtually every game aping it, obsolete.

DOOM was one of those beautiful moments in gaming history where a number of very talented individuals synchronized to put together some of their finest work. Wunderkind programmer John Carmack produced an engine that was frankly mind-boggling in its time. It wasn't true 3D, but it could fake it pretty well. Most importantly, it was fast, effect-heavy, yet still ran like a charm on relatively low-spec hardware. Artist Adrian Carmack (like Buster and Babs, no relation) was finally in his element, cutting his imagination loose to create dreary, fantastical spaces along with the ghastly creatures that inhabited them. Designers John Romero and Sandy Petersen created a collection of levels that have become iconic thanks to their combination of tricky architecture, clever enemy placement, and tons of secrets. Before it was anything else, DOOM was simply an outstanding, awe-inspiring, single-player action game with a unique atmosphere and just the right amount of complexity.  

Of course, DOOM was more than that. Having seen how players enjoyed cooking up their own levels for Wolfenstein 3D, Carmack made DOOM easy to modify right from the start. This not only resulted in a veritable avalanche of user-created levels over the years, it also led to some interesting full-scale conversions. Intrepid users were re-skinning DOOM with everything from Star Wars to Sailor Moon. Some of those creators would go on to professional gaming careers after cutting their game dev teeth on DOOM mods. It's even said that LucasArts was inspired by one such mod when they decided to create their own DOOM clone, Dark Forces. It honestly felt like the timing couldn't have been better to embrace the community and harness their passion in this way.

Another big advancement from Wolfenstein was in DOOM's multiplayer features. While internet gaming was still a long way away from its current ubiquity, more and more computers were being fitted with the hardware needed to communicate with others. Dial-up BBS services and direct computer-to-computer connections were seeing regular use from those who had added a modem to their machines, while network cards that allowed users to link computers in physical proximity to one another were starting to be appreciated outside of offices and computer labs. A wave was building, and someone at id Software was smart enough to see it coming.

There were a couple of different ways to play DOOM with other players. While the co-op mode was surely enjoyed by some, it was the game's player versus player mode, coined 'Deathmatch', that really took off. Now, DOOM was certainly not the first first-person shooter to include a versus multiplayer mode. Indeed, even the lowly Game Boy had Faceball 2000, a 16-player first-person game based on an Atari ST title called Midi Maze. But a multiplayer game is only as good as its core mechanics, and no other title in the genre had better core mechanics than DOOM. As limited as its multiplayer features were, DOOM's Deathmatches proved to be a big hit with players. Indeed, the fevered response to this part of the game ended up heavily informing id Software's direction over the next several years.

To tell the truth, however, I rarely played DOOM in multiplayer. While I was able to get my father to finally give a little on letting me use his computer, it was obvious that physically bringing it to someone else's house wasn't going to happen. It wouldn't be too much longer before I got my own computer, but by that time there were newer, shinier games to play at LAN parties. On top of that, while I was allowed to play DOOM more or less as much as I wanted to, nobody in my family was very big on mailing away to unlock shareware. For the longest time, my entire experience with DOOM was with its first episode, Knee-Deep in the Dead. It would be a couple of years before I actually bothered to play the rest of it for the first time, and I think that when I did, it was on the extremely rough Super NES version of the game.

I had already gotten my PC well before that version was released, but I never bothered playing the rest of DOOM on there. Why not? Well, DOOM 2 was out, and it was somehow even better than the original. It only added one new weapon, an amazing double-barreled shotgun, but the level designs were the stuff of legends. It was more evolution than revolution, but at this point in time nobody was going to complain about that. It was newer, more complex, and perhaps most importantly for me, sold in a package in stores. It wasn't until after I had finished DOOM 2 several times that I got a hankering to go back to the original to play the remaining episodes. While I've played through the full game several times now, the playthrough I did in preparation for this article was actually the first time I did so on the PC version.

As always, your mileage may vary from mine, but I think DOOM holds up amazingly well for a game that will be a quarter of a century old next year. Yes, the genre has come a really long way since DOOM's release, but I feel like there are things the game still does better than just about any other first-person shooter. First, and I think foremost, is the speed of the game. There's nothing realistic about how fast the DOOM marine can make his way through the stages, but realism wasn't exactly a big concern here. DOOM posts your time at the end of each level, comparing it to a par time. It's practically daring you to speedrun the game. The first time you pick your way through each stage, seeing that par time can be a bit sobering. But you know that it can be done, which encourages you to find more efficient paths through the levels.

Importantly, you don't need to be fast. There's no penalty for taking your time. There's no real reward for going faster, either. Some secrets will require you to be speedy, but that's as close as the game gets to giving you a kewpie doll for blazing through like a maniac. No, should you choose to take full advantage of the game's top speed, you'll likely be doing it because it feels really good to play at that level. Getting right in a monster's face before they even know you're there and putting them down with a shotgun blast is an incredible feeling, particularly if you found yourself feeling scared and vulnerable at the start. That's one of the funny things about the game. The atmosphere is oppressive enough that you feel like you're weak when you just start playing, but in actuality the DOOM guy is a veritable demi-god.

The levels in DOOM aren't just wild arenas for you to run and gun in, either. They're quite thoughtfully designed, and while they're built to be broken, you'll likely need to take a careful approach to them your first time through. Some levels lean more into tricky combat situations, while others are more like puzzles. The variety helps the game stay fresh even though your abilities won't expand all that much through the course of it all. As in Wolfenstein, many of the levels are built around locked doors that require you to find special keys. But DOOM has a lot more tricks in its bag to make that less of a chore than it sometimes was in Wolfenstein.

The level designers themselves appear to have learned a lot from the previous game. There's less of a sense of running from one end of the level to the other, then back again. It's not entirely free of tiresome backtracking, but it's considerably better than Wolfenstein was. And it had to be, since players could easily access a map of where they'd been at all times. Trying to confuse the player with winding labyrinths simply wasn't going to work as well here if the player had already been through the section in question once before. There was no merit to making the player cover that type of obstacle more than once if the game is mapping everything for them as they go.

Things have changed over time, but there was a point in this genre's history where each game's weapon selection counted for a lot. DOOM's selection is increased over Wolfenstein's, but it's still somewhat small compared to a lot of games that followed. It's also quite meat-and-potatoes outside of perhaps the BFG 9000. Nevertheless, the arsenal in DOOM feels better than most other first-person shooters. I can take or leave the pistol that you start with, but every other weapon is pretty much as awesome as it can be. The iconic DOOM shotgun is incredible, offering a sick amount of stopping power if you're willing to get up close. The chain machine gun shreds through enemies nearly as fast as it shreds through bullets. The rocket launcher is almost as deadly to the player as it is to the enemies, but it's the only way to go with some of the tougher monsters. The plasma gun combines power and speed, while the BFG is basically a smart bomb.

Even the melee attacks are great. The chainsaw is absurdly powerful and pure chaos to use since you have to get right up in the enemy's pixelated face. The basic punch attack might seem like it's worthless until you pick up the adrenaline power-up. Suddenly, your fists have the same effect on demons as a well-placed rocket. The second game is so confident in this selection of weapons that it only adds a powered-up double-barreled shotgun to the mix. It takes a bit longer to reload than the single-barreled version and chews through ammo at double the speed, but you'll have a hard time going back once you've tried it out. Besides the weapons, there are also a lot of other items to grab. Some will give you a temporary boost, while others will stay with you until you die. Rewarding the player with useful items is a better way of encouraging them to find secrets than Wolfenstein's treasures, especially since DOOM doesn't keep score the way that game did.

Apart from the visuals, the only thing that can make DOOM hard to go back to is that there are quite a few elements of its gameplay that are very much its own language. For example, enemies can be at a variety of elevations, but you can't move your aim up or down. Just point in the right direction and the bullets will do what they need to. You'll also come across areas where you apparently need to jump, but there's no jump button. That's because DOOM guy doesn't really jump at all. He runs through the air, Wile E. Coyote-style. You can use that quirk to get across gaps, but I suspect if you haven't played DOOM before, you wouldn't figure that out very easily. Otherwise, I think DOOM is still just as outstanding as it ever was and should be fun for anyone even today.

It's incredibly easy to play DOOM if you want to. The game is readily available through Steam, GOG, and other digital retailers. There's a great iOS version that is sadly deprecated in iOS 11, and the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 have good versions up on their respective shops. Realistically, you can find a version of DOOM for almost any platform you want to play it on, provided that platform supports homebrew. It's typically one of the first ports anyone does after a new piece of hardware has been cracked. One point: be wary of the official ports on earlier consoles like the Super NES, 3DO, Saturn, and so on. Even the generally-decent PlayStation port uses simplified versions of the stages, cuts out a few monsters, and doesn't quite run at the right speed. I should stress that most of these ports were quite impressive given the hardware, but truly accurate console versions of DOOM weren't really a thing until the Xbox port included with DOOM 3.

As was the case with Wolfenstein, id Software quickly got to work on something that would make the game they just released obsolete, at least from a technology standpoint. Unlike that situation, however, id's newest would face some pretty stiff competition, the most popular of which came from their old publisher, Apogee. I'll be taking a look at that game next time around.

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