First FPS better than Doom?

[Arbiter]

In my opinion it was Dark Forces:
- a more advanced engine supporting room-over-room, limited look up/down and polygonal models (e.g. Kyle's ship at the start and/or end of missions)
- alternate fire and new types of weapons: hand grenades, grenade launcher (aka mortar)
- larger levels
- puzzles
- plot

All of that came at the cost of higher system requirements (8 MB and 486 CPU IIRC).

Cons:
- no saves during missions
- no multiplayer

 

[Generic-Giant-Spider]

Quake 1

 

[Humbaba]

Blood is the only correct answer.

 

[Sjukob]

No such game has been made yet.

- a more advanced engine supporting room-over-room, limited look up/down and polygonal models (e.g. Kyle's ship at the start and/or end of missions)
- alternate fire and new types of weapons: hand grenades, grenade launcher (aka mortar)
- larger levels
- puzzles
- plot

You see, all of this means jack shit when Doom's core gameplay is so far above anything that even after 27 years since it's release nothing could surpass it. The only FPS game that can somewhat compete with Doom today is Quake, which is essentially a watered down Doom, but with added verticality on top. Additionally, Doom greatly benefits from it's source code being openly available to the public, over the years there were so many WAD and mod releases for Doom that even if you only play the good ones, they will probably last you a lifetime, and those WADs are some of the best levels you will ever find in video games in general, and the community still keeps making new ones even today. Also, if you are feeling brave, you can even try making your own one. The only other FPS that is like that is Quake, hence why I say that it's the only game that can be somewhat considered Doom's competitor, Build Engine games, for comparison, are mostly dead today.

You know, for a long time I wanted to write a long post about why retro FPS/boomer FPS or whatever they are called are a trap for the developers and that they will never be able to surpass Doom and should instead focus on trying to create something new, but I always feel too lazy to do it, may be I'll actually do it some day.

 

[Falksi]

Funnily enough I returned to Doom this past week for the first time in 30 odd years, and it was more enjoyable than 9/10 FPS games which I've played since (Quake 2, Hexen 2 and Fear 2 are the only 3 which come to mind which I enjoyed as much).

I'm not a huge fan of the genre anyway, but Doom's jump-scares and no-nonsense, arcade style action just make for a more intense experience. It's not fucking about trying to be a sim or a story, it's just a kill and scare fest backed with some nice-ish maps.

 

[catfood]

Quake. Being able to move in 3 dimensions offers better gameplay opportunities thatn being stuck on a 2D plane.

 

[Lemming42]

System Shock, otherwise Blood.

 

[whydoibother]

OG Doom feels bad to play, having played a lot of BRUTAL Doom. Honestly I don't see a reason to play the original, if you can get the mod.
Also, Doom is probably the kind of its own sub-genre of shooter, so the first better FPS is probably Half Life, which created its own subgenre when it came out. Slower, more atmospheric, more scripted, continuous levels. Best of Duke Nukem + that "cinematic" feeling that got too fucking popular after HL came out.

But that's my brain talking. My heart says, Shadow Warrior, Duke Nukem, Heretic, Blood, are all better than Doom. They aren't, really, but they are, kinda.

 

[Lemming42]

Oh, I always forget Heretic. I kind of like it more than Doom. The level design is generally better than Doom's post-E1 stuff, and the inventory system gives a whole extra level to the game that Doom lacks. Only downside is that all the enemies are a bit spongey, whereas Doom balanced out the spongey enemies with zombie soldier weaklings.

 

[whydoibother]

Oh, I always forget Heretic. I kind of like it more than Doom. The level design is generally better than Doom's post-E1 stuff, and the inventory system gives a whole extra level to the game that Doom lacks. Only downside is that all the enemies are a bit spongey, whereas Doom balanced out the spongey enemies with zombie soldier weaklings.

Doom has the best overall encounter design of the bunch. Except for the ambush enemies, which are like a jump scare behind some door or whatever, all the other games have boring encounters, even if the enemy diversity and behavior is good. Doom actually has good packs, that work well together.

 

[Curratum]

Imagine thinking a Star Wars game is a better shooter than Doom...

To answer the OP's question more specifically, there still is no shooter than is better than Doom.

 

[Talby]

Chub Gam 3D.

 

[schru]

This isn't to diminish the merits of other major shooters that came out after Doom, but it truly still is the most well-rounded FPS. The flow of the combat, the diverse enemy designs and the way they work in groups, the level design, and the feeling of the movement and weapons all come together to make for much better core gameplay than in any other shooter. The atmosphere and music are also very important, even if the graphics can't be approached in the same way as people might have seen them originally.

The possibilities opened up by fully 3-D engines and various particular developments are perfectly legitimate and in no way unimportant, but there wasn't a single shooter that perfected the formula in the same way Doom did. Id was on a very good path with Quake, but its gameplay needed some incremental polish and expansion, instead of being replaced by a vastly inferior take on a new engine.

Star Wars: Dark Forces is a nice, atmospheric game with good level design, but its technical developments mean little in the face of the very simplistic combat.

 

[Arbiter]

the diverse enemy designs and the way they work in groups ...

By initiating infighting.

Star Wars: Dark Forces is a nice, atmospheric game with good level design, but its technical developments mean little in the face of the very simplistic combat.

DF allows you to attack enemies located lower than the player with grenades, place mines and blow enemies off the ledges with explosives.

 

[Jenkem]

Half-Life.

Simple as.

 

[Great Deceiver]

Never happened

 

[gurugeorge]

I agree with Dark Forces too.

The problem is that there were actually a few games "better than Doom" in terms of offering more and better gameplay (Build engine games for example) but ID's strong suit was the fact that their games (and others' games on their engine) played smoother and slicker than any other comparable games, per player's PC poundage.

 

[Ash]

Duke Nukem 3D, Shadow Warrior. MAYBE. Both games feature more complex core gameplay, all of which is well-executed (vert aiming, true 3D level design and verticality, more elaborate interactivity, non-intrusive scripting, basic inventory, jumping & crouching), but Doom's Arsenal and AI -- the core combat fundamentals, are just too good. But I feel my love of Doom is heavily influenced by decades of unparalleled modification and the expansion pack (Doom 2 lol). Pure vanilla, the build games probably win. Factor in mods and it's Doom 1 & 2.

Doom also goes all-in on abstract level design, minimal realism or graphics whoring bullshit where stuff has to make realistic sense or look pretty, and as a result is very gameplay-oriented. Build games are still very abstract and gameplay-focused, but the introduction of some degree of realism perhaps holds the level design back in some cases. Definitely Episode 4 of Nukem 3D this is obvious. It's not a coincidence that this is the worst episode in the game.

Quake is another contender, but as another said it is steps back from Doom in some notable ways, namely arsenal and AI.

Unreal perhaps yet another, but enemy & encounter design is just too borked to compete with the almighty Doom.

Half-Life is not a contender in my opinion. Great classic but it is part game (70%) part interactive experience (30%) and that hurts its long-term appeal, fun factor and gaming prestige considerably. In my book anyway.

Cons:
- no saves during missions
- no multiplayer

Both pros, not cons!

 

[schru]

the diverse enemy designs and the way they work in groups ...

By initiating infighting.

That's another great feature of the game, but the way they're used together in various ways does in fact provide for great encounter design, and it's also important how each area was designed with specific enemy placement in mind.

Star Wars: Dark Forces is a nice, atmospheric game with good level design, but its technical developments mean little in the face of the very simplistic combat.

DF allows you to attack enemies located lower than the player with grenades, place mines and blow enemies off the ledges with explosives.

Those are nice additions, but they don't change the nature of the combat gameplay that much.

 

[JarlFrank]

No such game has been made yet.

- a more advanced engine supporting room-over-room, limited look up/down and polygonal models (e.g. Kyle's ship at the start and/or end of missions)
- alternate fire and new types of weapons: hand grenades, grenade launcher (aka mortar)
- larger levels
- puzzles
- plot

You see, all of this means jack shit when Doom's core gameplay is so far above anything that even after 27 years since it's release nothing could surpass it. The only FPS game that can somewhat compete with Doom today is Quake, which is essentially a watered down Doom, but with added verticality on top. Additionally, Doom greatly benefits from it's source code being openly available to the public, over the years there were so many WAD and mod releases for Doom that even if you only play the good ones, they will probably last you a lifetime, and those WADs are some of the best levels you will ever find in video games in general, and the community still keeps making new ones even today. Also, if you are feeling brave, you can even try making your own one. The only other FPS that is like that is Quake, hence why I say that it's the only game that can be somewhat considered Doom's competitor, Build Engine games, for comparison, are mostly dead today.

You know, for a long time I wanted to write a long post about why retro FPS/boomer FPS or whatever they are called are a trap for the developers and that they will never be able to surpass Doom and should instead focus on trying to create something new, but I always feel too lazy to do it, may be I'll actually do it some day.

Doom and Quake are the perfect examples of why releasing your engine source code a couple years after the game's release is a really good move.

No other games have as much immortality as those two. Even 20, 30 years from now we'll still see new shit made for them.

 

[anvi]

All these games are super important and pushed things forward in good ways. Shame it all hit a brick wall and now the only thing that improves is graphics and it cannibalizes everything else.

 

[Curratum]

The most beautiful part of all of this is that Doom is still getting tons of fresh, great content every year and you can keep playing it, ad infinitum, and it's still as good as ever.

 

[anvi]

They were so inventive, new gamers probably don't know you couldn't aim up or down in the early FPS. Wolf3d was completely flat, no hills, no stairs, no ledges. People played with left hand on cursor keys, right hand on the mouse, and the mouse only turned you left and right. Felt a bit like driving a turret, but it was still awesome. Unless I'm remembering wrong I think in Doom people still played the same way, cursor keys and mouse just did left and right. But they added some verticality to it with ramps and ledges, but you just had to aim left right with the mouse and the game would auto do the y axis if you got the x axis right. By System Shock 1 you could aim up and down but not with the mouse, and it wasn't even good keys. Again people still played with left hand on cursor keys which did forward backward and strafing so there were no nearby keys for look up/down. So I think they went with PgUp and PgDn.... Amazing game but damn, it's still a bit like driving a tank.

I remember playing Quake and having full mouse look with one hand, it felt great but it took some getting used to. It was also in Quake that I first saw people talking about switching to WASD. That took some getting used to as well, but it's better and more comfortable. The perfect control method sort of evolved with the games.

 

[Ash]

They were so inventive, new gamers probably don't know you couldn't aim up or down in the early FPS. Wolf3d was completely flat, no hills, no stairs, no ledges. People played with left hand on cursor keys, right hand on the mouse, and the mouse only turned you left and right. Felt a bit like driving a turret, but it was still awesome. Unless I'm remembering wrong I think in Doom people still played the same way, cursor keys and mouse just did left and right. But they added some verticality to it with ramps and ledges, but you just had to aim left right with the mouse and the game would auto do the y axis if you got the x axis right. By System Shock 1 you could aim up and down but not with the mouse, and it wasn't even good keys. Again people still played with left hand on cursor keys which did forward backward and strafing so there were no nearby keys for look up/down. So I think they went with PgUp and PgDn.... Amazing game but damn, it's still a bit like driving a tank.

I remember playing Quake and having full mouse look with one hand, it felt great but it took some getting used to. It was also in Quake that I first saw people talking about switching to WASD. That took some getting used to as well, but it's better and more comfortable. The perfect control method sort of evolved with the games.

I recall most people actually played with keyboard-only, and various kinds of fucked up control schemes until WASD was standardized. Then later mouselook.

 

[Pound Meat]

Doom 3.