I can't really disagree with that since games like Doom came from a time before a mouse was common place, and some of those games 3D engines were'nt really designed for freelook. You could see it very plainly in something like Duke Nukem 3D. I couldn't ever put my finger on it but something just looked 'strange' when you looked up and down.

Very much agree with all three really, especially level design. I was entranced with Call of Duty 4 like everyone else at the time but that kind of linear cinematic shooter design took over way too much of the industry and became fucking boring as hell within a couple years. Hopefully games like Far Cry 3 are showing publishers there is another way.

I think Doom sucks ass compared to modern shooters. It seems the person who wrote the article died too many times in modern shooters and was like "Fuck this! I miss the good old days!'

Vanilla Doom isn't very playable for me anymore, however with the Brutal Doom mod it's a totally different ball game :
Vanilla doom didn't have flying kicks and finishing moves!

I very much agree with level design but not high skill ceiling. The first one is self-explanatory after seeing that lovely picture in the article but the latter is based upon my view of delusional superiority that automatically comes after winning, this is further enhanced when you view a game solely for winning and avoiding to lose and nothing in between (see also the expression "easy to learn, hard to master"). I see a challenge as a means to an end, thea idea to survive a problem like avoiding to become bored (this is important in entertainment) and if it's used well it's a nice, but not vital icing on top of a good cake (cake being the actual gameplay).

I never realized how much the Halo dude looks like a ripoff of the Marine from Doom. Then again, I never did much multiplayer with Doom.

I like Doom but this article is laughable really.
Doom's main merit comes from it being the first to popularize the genre but that's mostly it.

Doom's superior leveldesign?
Thanks to its advanced game engine Doom looked very flashy when it was new but when you disect its levels it's just two thirds of futuristic spacebase levels with the same textures used over and over again and 1/3 of hell levels with textures used over and over again compare that to the levels from Dark Forces for example.

The rest is a matter of taste mostly, everyone has a different oppinion on how a good FPS should be.

Thing is, IMO the Doom levels would be a lot of fun even without any textures. Dark Forces wasn't bad - but it lived through oozing this Star Wars atmosphere and the badass Kyle Katarn. In terms of "actually playing it" it was never as much fun as Doom - aiming up and down was a PITA (no mouse support for that!) and you needed it for those darn ceiling mounted turrets in the later levels.

The same holds true for Quake (and to a lesser extend to Quake 2). Gameplay wise the levels were perfect - but with no sign of visual realism. The monsters were perfectly designed - each with their unique abilities and patterns.

Look at the games that were "speedrunned" the most - those are the ones that were truly outstanding in game/level design. And not from "being the first to popularize the genre".
Doom/2 is/was one of the most popular game in the speedrunning scene. In fact I think the scene came from Doom with it's recording ability included. Watch some of the Grandmaster/Nightmare speedruns and then rethink what you wrote about "high skill ceiling".
That point is something that really hinders me replaying Doom. Not being able to look up and down really annoys me. And when it's enabled (most source ports can do this) it somehow looks totally wrong.
Autoaiming is something that I always turn off if possible (ini-hacks, etc). In fast paced run&gun games I'm a rocket launcher junkie and I want to decide where I shoot (leading, splash damage tactics).
As for Doom - I guess in the old days many people still played with only the keyboard which is even more crude than gamepad, so that assistance was required for the same reasons it is today on consoles.

Two words dude : Brutal Doom

No ifs and no buts, just install and play it. It's totally insane!
This mod revived for me that sense of mad destruction and carnage I felt playing the vanilla game as kid.

I've already watched them and I've a friend who is very likely one of the best players in Doom. What's your point? That the awe of high skill surpasses the realization of my remark regarding delusionary superiority as a ripple effect of winning? No way.

The levels are good from a gameplay point of view but they make no rhyme or reason in what they are supposed to display. There are catwalks through green goo for what? There are balconies with enemies, why just to have them there? etc. etc.
If you look at Doom's levelmap you're supposed to be in certain buildings like powerplants or a refinery but they don't look like that at all.
In Dark Forces on the other hand, if it displays a sewer, a prison or a mine it at least does a much better job in making you believe you are there.
Since when is speedrunning a measure of anything other then how quick a level is done?
It is not a measure of how good levels are designed.

They're abstract level designs. This is a bit like griping about how Picasso is a terrible artist because none of his paintings are identifiable.

The levels are designed to be fun and unlike more recent games, there isn't any meaningful pretension towards realism in that regard. They do have titles like refinery and power plant, but I doubt very much that anybody seriously considered those to be anything other than titles. Anyways, most folks refer to them as things like E1M1 anyways.

You might not like it, but that's exactly what it is. If you've ever seen the playthrough with John Romero's commentary, it's pretty damned clear that him and the other level designers were putting a similar level of effort into the design as a typical painter would into their paintings.

There's a certain amount of personal taste here, but it's absolutely ridiculous to suggest that the levels were anything other than masterful. Sure, 20 years on, there has been a lot of innovation in terms of level design, most notably the ability to stack rooms on top of rooms and have moving sectors, but somehow developers don't typically bother to put the same level of care and it shows.

Well I guess that depends what you want from a game. I guess you are the "suspension of disbelief" type that wants a certain type of "realism" to get totally absorbed in the game world. And I'm totally with you on that - I love games that create detailed worlds and set them in motion (like the Elder Scrolls games or Far Cry or Dark Forces back in the day).

But speedrunning a game is a sign of another quality: Perfect flow, the urge to "master" the game. In this case the realism, story, atmosphere become meaningless, it the pure game design that count. As I said - the levels don't need textures at all - they're just the playing field for the player trying to get as good as possible. To draw a parallel to the MP world: in my Q3A time most of the really skilled players played in an abstract maze - all textures and effects turned off.

While creating detailed believable worlds certainly is a merit on its own, I see creating levels that can induce that perfect flow as the higher art - and that is something Doom/2 and Quake excelled at. And as with abstract art the result may be not for everyone.

When Doom came out it was easily one of the visually most stunning games of it's time - and then you saw it in motion. When I played it the first time I really was in a lost Mars moon base with a refinery, a reactor and whatnot crawling with horrible monsters. And I nearly shit my pants in that first playthrough - it definitely was a horror game. I'll be the first to agree that this aspect of the game hasn't aged well (as i.e. in comparison to Silent Hill). I seems ridiculous now to be afraid of a colorful, broadly smiling Cacodemon unexpectedly rising from a pit.
But the other aspect, the flow, the perfect rhythm, the balancing of enemies and weapons - all that stayed for those that can appreciate it.