Doom clone

Doom clone is a term used to refer to a computer game with similar gameplay as the 1993 first-person shooter "Doom". That is, the player explores a three-dimensional world seen through the eyes of the protagonist, and uses various weapons to kill usually monstrous enemies. Due to the widespread popularity of "Doom", many games that featured a similar first-person gameplay style were compared to it, usually unfavorably. During the 1990s, most such games were generally considered to be merely clones of the original "Doom".

The genre has grown and developed considerably since then, with games like "System Shock" and "Half-Life" distinguishing themselves from "Doom" with new innovations in gameplay, presentation and technology. As a result, games in this genre are now known as first-person shooters, or in the case of System Shock, first-person adventures. However, "Doom clones" was the more common term until the late 1990s, and is still used occasionally, mainly in reference to early first-person shooters.

In modern usage, the term sometimes has negative connotations. The gameplay in "Doom" (as well as many of its clones) was relatively simple-minded, mainly relying on "shooting everything that moves", and featuring unintellegent enemies that do little more than move towards and shoot at the player. Reference to "Doom" is sometimes used to contrast with modern first-person shooter games which usually involve more strategy-oriented gameplay and enemies with sophisticated artificial intelligence (for example, "Half-Life 2", or "Far Cry).

Although the simple-minded action in Doom has become less popular with time, some games such as "Serious Sam" (2001) have deliberately returned to it.

"Doom"-likeness is sometimes also associated with the game's "2.5D" graphics, as opposed to full 3D which was introduced with "Descent" in 1995.

List of games

Among the games commonly counted as Doom clones are those based on the Doom engine, which include:
* "Heretic" (1994)
* "HeXen" (1995)
* "Chex Quest" (1996)
* "Strife" (1996)

Games that use different engines include:
* "Marathon" (1994)
* "Rise of the Triad" (1994, based on the engine of Wolfenstein 3D)
* "" (1995)
* "Witchaven" (1995)
* "Duke Nukem 3D" (1996)
* "Gloom" (1996, one of the first successful "Doom" clones for the Amiga home computer system)
* "Blood" (1997)
* "Shadow Warrior" (1997)

ee also

*GTA clone
*First-person shooter

References

* Benjamin Turner & Kevin Bowen (December 11, 2003). " [http://archive.gamespy.com/articles/december03/doom/clones/ Bringin' in the DOOM Clones] ". GameSpy.
* Chris Crawford, " [http://www.erasmatazz.com/library/JCGD_Volume_8/Design_by_Cloning.html Design by Cloning] ", Journal of Computer Game Design
* [http://groups-beta.google.com/ Google Groups Usenet archive]