AUSRETROGAMER

The Pop-Culture E-Zine

You are here: Home / Archives for Doom

Doom

Book Review: Hurt Me Plenty – A Glorious Reload of FPS History (2003–2010)

By

Strap in, load up, and check those corners—Bitmap Books’ “Hurt Me Plenty: The Ultimate Guide to First-Person Shooters 2003–2010” is a pixel-perfect deep dive into one of gaming’s most explosive and transformative eras. If you’ve ever reloaded a shotgun with a flick of the mouse, cowered in a duct waiting for your shields to recharge, or yelled “headshot!” at your screen in triumph, this book is your new bible.

Following the much-lauded I’m Too Young to Die, which chronicled the rise of the FPS genre from 1992 to 2002, Hurt Me Plenty picks up the story right where your LAN cable left off—covering the genre’s maturing years. From the raw adrenaline of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare to the haunting chill of Cryostasis, this 464-page beast charts the golden (and sometimes glitchy) era when shooters burst through the mainstream and embedded themselves in gaming’s DNA.

First things first: the book is gorgeous. Bitmap Books has once again gone all-in on production values. The hardback tome uses high-grade paper, vivid Pantone inks, and a cover by artist Ian Pestridge that absolutely slaps. It’s the kind of book you leave out on your coffee table just to start conversations—and then suddenly lose three hours to reading.

But it’s not just about good looks. The content is deep, lovingly detailed, and gleefully geeky. With nearly 220 games featured—from juggernauts like Half-Life 2, DOOM 3, Halo 2, and BioShock, to cult classics (The Ball, Zeno Clash) and beautiful disasters (Kwari, anyone?)—this is a love letter to the FPS in all its chaotic glory. Each entry is packed with sharp commentary, development tidbits, and screenshots that hit you right in the nostalgia gland.

There’s also a real reverence here for the evolution of the genre. Hurt Me Plenty doesn’t just list games; it contextualizes them. It examines the industry’s shift from World War II fatigue to modern warfare spectacle. It digs into the rise of multiplayer-only titles, the impact of digital distribution, and even FPS oddities that never made it past the alpha stage. You’ll find yourself thinking, “Oh yeah! I remember that game!”—or better yet, “How did I miss this?”

Interviews with legends like Ken Levine (BioShock), Minh Le (Counter-Strike), and Tim Willits (DOOM 3) offer rare behind-the-scenes insight that elevates this from mere catalogue to oral history. Harvey Smith’s foreword sets the tone with thoughtful reflections on design, agency, and the enduring power of the first-person perspective.

If there’s a flaw here, it’s simply that you’ll wish there were even more. You’ll be tempted to fire up a dozen Steam wishlists and blow your weekend revisiting forgotten gems like Breakdown, NecroVision, or Urban Chaos: Riot Response.

Whether you were bunny-hopping through Quake Live, creeping through the nuclear shadows of S.T.A.L.K.E.R., or modding your way through Garry’s Mod, this book hits you with wave after wave of “oh wow” moments. It’s part time capsule, part celebration, and 100% essential reading for anyone who ever peered down the barrel of an AK-47 in search of pixels and glory.

Final verdict: Hurt Me Plenty is a masterfully crafted tribute to the games that shaped a generation—and to the players who lived, fragged, and respawned through them. Buy it, read it, and then boot up an old favourite and relive the magic.

Score: 10/10 — One shot, one thrill.

Where to buy and how much?

The Ultimate DOOM Collection

By

The BFG9000 of Doom Collections!

There are collectors, then there is Mahmut Saral, or more appropriately known as ‘DoomCollector‘.

The DoomCollector’s DOOM gear is on another level, seriously. We have watched and re-watched the video and notice new DOOM paraphernalia, like DOOM Vodka and DOOM Nutella (Ed: What??!!) which is quite darn cool. Oh yeah, the background music is so soothing.


source: Mahmut -DoomCollector- Saral

Play DOOM on the Husqvarna Automower!

By

Rip, shear, mow, tear and play DOOM!

The legendary 1993 video game DOOM will be released on robotic lawn mowers this Northern Hemisphere spring (our Autumn).

First showcased as a one-off and as a tribute in connection to the 30th anniversary of DOOM in December 2023, the game is now being released as a proper product feature to 30,000 robotic lawn mower owners.

The DOOM installed lawn mowers have already made waves across the globe, after being showcased at DreamHack Winter 2023, where Husqvarna organized the world’s first multiplayer DOOM tournament on a non-gaming device. “This is one hell of an update”, says Björn Mannefred, Robotics Software Engineer at Husqvarna.

The original shareware episode of DOOM (1993) will be released as a free update for owners of Husqvarna’s robotic lawn mower range Husqvarna Automower® NERA. This means that  approximately 30,000 end-users will be able to play the game during a limited time between April to September 2024!

We reckon lots of lawns will be overgrown between April and September this year…


source: Husqvarna



10 Years Of Classic Gaming at PAX Aus

By

Cheers to 10 years of inducing intoxicating gaming nostalgia at PAX Aus!

Another PAX Aus is done and dusted, but this was no ordinary year, it was the 10th year the event had been held here in Melbourne (Australia, not Florida).

For this celebratory year, the Classic Gaming (CG) area was moved from its usual Freeplay section to the main Expo Hall, rubbing shoulders with modern AAA gaming heavyweights and indie devs.

Starting the Classic Consoles (as it was known back then) area in 2013 with Retrospekt, Retro Domination and our (Ausretrogamer) team, we knew it would be a hit with attendees of all ages – which not even Melbourne’s inclement July weather could stop anyone getting their nostalgia hit at the inaugural PAX Aus event.

Over the years, the Classic Gaming area has grown from strength to strength, with its popularity ensuring that it returns at every PAX Aus – with an even bigger floor space! The inaugural teams may no longer be involved, but the baton change with the Weird and Retro and the Press Play On Tape Podcast crew has ensured the growth and sustained popularity of the Classic Gaming area.

For the tenth anniversary, the Classic Gaming area didn’t disappoint, with a plethora of amazing machines from yesteryear to tickle every nostalgic nerve in the body. From all of our old favourites from the 8-bit and 16-bit era (hello Atari, Commodore, Sega and Nintendo) all the way through to some darn awesome old-school PC power – and whomever thought of using the Dance Dance Revolution mat to control your (Doom Slayer) character in Doom (cheekily christened Doom Doom Revolution) should be given a knighthood! We hear that we have to now call Aaron (aka: Blahjedi), Sir Aaron of Press Play On Tape podcast, from now on 😉

Doom Doom Revolution!


image & video source: Aaron ‘Blahjedi’ Clement – PPOT

Back in 2015, Skott Kellett proposed to include pinball in the Classic Gaming area, which was an instant hit! The pinball section has now become a permanent fixture of the Classic Gaming area, ensuring gamers can get their mechanical hit via the silverball game. Skott is still the main wrangler of the pinball section, with games provided by Reality Games Australia, Mr Pinball Australia and the Australian Pinball Museum. We were lucky enough to experience some quite rare and hard to find pinball games, from Dutch Pinball’s The Big Lebowski, CGC’s Cactus Canyon Remake, Pinball Brothers‘ Queen, to American Pinball’s amazing Galactic Tank Force, complete with tank tracks and backbox turret!

But wait, there was more! PLAION Australia had the yet-to-be released Atari 2600+ console on display, which was impressive. We have been quite critical of Atari over the years, but even we are quite excited to get our hands on the new 2600+ console!

Last but not least, it is the people that bring the Classic Gaming area to life that we love the most, from the CG showrunning team members to the PAX Aus Enforcers, and the public that come in and reminisce with us about systems and games from a long long time ago.

See you at PAX Aus 2024!

We are going home – to the Classic Gaming Area!

Here are a few of the nostalgia inducing systems and displays!

Pinball in the Classic Gaming area is as popular as ever!

Classic Gaming is nothing without the awesome people that make it happen and for those that come and visit!



DOOM Ring: The Ring To Rule Them All

By

Hot on the heels of DOOM running on a Commodore 64 comes the DOOM Ring – you’ll have to squint, but we assure you it’s DOOM!

The version of the game being run is RP2040 Doom (designed to be run on a Raspberry Pi Pico RP2040) that’s been modified to generate grayscale graphics. It runs on a tiny printed circuit board  along 4 score lines to wrap into a ring shape.

According to James,

“I wanted to see if this was a useable technique. It isn’t. The result was very fragile, and I lost the connections to the capacitive pads and USB port during encapsulation.”


source: Ancient

story source: technabob



DOOM on the Commodore 64 is so RAD!

By

DOOM has been run on a multitude of devices – if it has a screen, then DOOM has ran on it! With this being the case, why not have DOOM run on the trusty 8-bit micro, the Commodore 64?

As you can see from the video below, that is exactly what we have here – a DOOM tech demo going by the title of RAD-DOOM which enables gamers to play DOOM on their Commodore 64 via the RAD Expansion Unit by Frenetic.

The RAD Expansion Unit contains a Raspberry Pi that takes the role of a CPU replacement for the Commodore 64. The graphics are still rendered by the original VIC-II chip. All technical details of RAD-DOOM can be found in Frenetic’s GitHub repo.

The gameplay starts off with keyboard controls, with the 1351 mouse control enabled later on. The special settings menu is visible from time to time where graphics rendering options and screen presets are available.

It’s amazing (and darn awesome!) what is still possible on the 41 year old 8-bit computer! Long live the C64!


source: emulaThor



The Legend Of Zelda Reimagined As A FPS DOOM VR Game

By

Imagine the original The Legend Of Zelda being played in the first-person perspective like Wolfenstein or DOOM, in VR!

Imagine no more, as the below video shows a re-imagining of the NES classic, The Legend of Zelda, as a first-person virtual reality game! This impressive mod works with QuestZDoom, so we can finally becomes fans of playing The Legend of Zelda in this perspective (unless the VR makes us queasy!!).

We hope this video stays up. If it is gone by the time you get here, then know that Nintendo has meddled and killed off creativity!


source: SugaryNoe



I’m Too Young To Die: The Ultimate Guide to First-Person Shooters 1992–2002 – Book Review

By

Just in time for Christmas comes Bitmap Books’ I’m Too Young To Die: The Ultimate Guide to First-Person Shooters 1992–2002 book, making the perfect gift for those that are into video games history of the First Person Shooter variety.

There is no doubt the 1990s laid the foundation of one of the most enduring gaming genres, the First Person Shooter, or as we lovingly call it these days, FPS. We recall in high school getting a 3.5″ floppy with the shareware version of Wolfenstein 3D. To say the game blew our mind, would be the understatement of the century! Even with our humble low-spec PC, the game ran at a phenomenal speed. DOOM and DOOM II (and their many many community made WAD files) kept us very busy during the mid 90s, which almost cost us a few exam results at college! Once Quake hit our computers, followed by GoldenEye 007 on the Nintendo 64, the FPS genre had embedded itself in gaming folklore, with many fans around the world enjoying the gaming experience. Ah, those were the days.

I’m Too Young To Die: The Ultimate Guide to First-Person Shooters 1992–2002 by Stuart Maine captures the fledgling days of FPS during its experimental and formative years, from 1992 till 2002. The book captures everything there is from the FPS golden age, covering some 180+ titles, from 007: Agent Under Fire through to Zero Tolerance and ZPC!

For the uninitiated, the book has a great intro by the author, Stuart Maine and a Foreword from one of the pioneers of the genre, John Romero. It then breaks down the genre in its constituent parts, so if you had never played an FPS, you most probably will after reading the overview and breakdown. Whether obscure oddities or genre-defining behemoths, first-person shooters transported players to alien worlds, alternate universes and the shores of Hell itself, and in doing so helped to trigger the 3D-graphics arms race.

The meat of this heavy book is the coverage of 180+ FPS titles, containing in-depth research and hundreds of eye popping screenshots. I’m Too Young To Die covers it all, from the classics that defined the genre, including DOOM and Quake, Half-Life, Deus Ex, GoldenEye 007 and Halo; multiplayer-only games such as Starsiege: Tribes, Unreal Tournament and Quake III, along with mods like Counter-Strike and Team Fortress; experimental games that pushed the genre in new directions, including Gun Buster, Codename Eagle, Assassin 2015 and Trespasser; forgotten games like ZPC and ReVOLUTION; and hidden gems like Dust, Wrath of Earth and Azrael’s Tear.

But wait, there is more! Even though the focus of this book is from 1992 to 2002, it acknowledges the precursors to first-person shooters, by charting the genre’s inception and evolution through maze and role-playing games, from Maze War, Spectre and 3-D Monster Chase, through to MIDI Maze, The Colony and Corporation to name just a few.

The in-depth interviews with industry legends such as Ian and Chris Andrew (the Freescape games), Scott Miller (Apogee and 3D Realms), David Doak (GoldenEye 007 and TimeSplitters), Randy Pitchford (Gearbox Software), Karl Deckard (Metroid Prime and Valve’s Prospero), plus many more is a huge highlight of what is an outstanding book. There is always something new that we learn in interview from people that were there at the time.

As we mentioned from the top, this book would be a great Christmas gift for yourself or someone that is into first-person shooters. We’ve read lots of gaming related books over the years – all being quite good, but this one is our current favourite – it’s brilliant!

Specifications & Where To Buy:

  • Title: I’m Too Young To Die: The Ultimate Guide to First-Person Shooters 1992–2002
  • Publisher: Bitmap Books
  • Pages: 424 pages
  • Size: 210mm × 297mm
  • Print: Edge-to-edge high quality lithographic print.
  • Cover: Hardback. Sewn binding for enduring quality and the ability to lay flat for ideal double-page image viewing. Spot varnished cover and dust jacket highlighting key elements against a matte background.
  • Price: AU$69.99
  • Buy from: PixelCrib – the gaming culture specialists and purveyors of rare, high-quality video game memorabilia and collectibles



Disclaimer: I’m Too Young To Die: The Ultimate Guide to First-Person Shooters 1992–2002 book was kindly provided by PixelCrib for this review.

Hacker Runs DOOM on Electronic Badge

By

Wish we were as clever as programmer Phil Ashby.

DOOM seems to be able to run on anything electronic with a screen, so Phil didn’t want to miss out. He took his electronic Tidal badge from the 2022 ElectroMagnetic Field Festival (aka EMFCamp) in the UK and got it to run DOOM, yes, DOOM!


source: HonekaiMedia

story source: technabob



The Worst DOOM Copycat

By

By: D.C. Cutler, U.S.A.

There were a lot of “Doom” copycats after the game’s enormous success; “Bloodwings: Pumpkinhead’s Revenge” is probably the most unusual rip-off. There are moments while playing it where I’m not sure what my objective is or if there even is an objective.

Clips from the “Pumpkinhead” sequel are spliced into the game. The movie is bad, so the clips are jarring and clunky. The movie might be slightly better than the game, but neither are worth a second glance in a bargain bin at a store. The game doesn’t seem to have any purpose than to collect “Tantanik Crystals” that allow you to play the movie and then the player can grab items from the clips. Sound exciting? It’s not. The first-person view is like seeing through the Predator’s eyes, the visuals are so murky and dark red.

Doom Clonesource: old-games.com

The game is as twisted as the terrible film. “Bloodwings” doesn’t make a lot of sense and it’s hard to follow, like so many cheap horror films. I enjoyed the first “Pumpkinhead” film, which was released in 1988. The first film, starring Lance Henriksen, is predictable at times and the plot is rather basic. Stan Winston directed “Pumpkinhead”; I always thought the evil creature in Winston’s film looked like the “Alien” franchise Xenomorph. Winston did win an Academy Award for Best Visual Effects for James Cameron’s masterpiece “Aliens” two years before he directed “Pumpkinhead.”

The “Pumpkinhead” film is corny, but it’s a fun, watchable corny. Henriksen slightly overacts when he is connected to the killer beast, but he makes it as believable as possible. Henriksen is one of those actors that you believe in every role. He brings a dramatic weight to “Pumpkinhead.” He’s a big reason why I liked Winston’s movie. The film has a great first act that pulls you in. There is nothing about the sequel or the “Bloodwings” game that is engaging.