Doom. It's a simple word that can cause ripples through the gaming industry. The franchise is legendary for its controversial satanic theme and innovation. After producing several great titles under the Doom franchise, id Software is now preparing to unleash Hell upon the gaming industry with Doom 4. But why should anyone be pumped up that the franchise will continue?

The Doom series created an aftermath that most people wrote off as a joke. It was January of 1993 when id Software wrote that they expected Doom to be the number one cause of decreased productivity on offices around the globe. This became mostly true when businesses had to implement a rule of "no Doom on the clock" mainly to free up server space that was being eaten alive by on-the-clock Doom deathmatches. The popularity of this game grew to become so massive that more computer users were reportedly installing Doom than Microsoft's new Windows 95 operating system – even though Microsoft had spent a huge fortune in advertisements for their new software. This caused Bill Gates to consider purchasing id Software for a short period.

The impact of such a revolutionary first person shooter when the genre technically didn't exist caused any other shooter to be referred to as a "Doom clone." Even the popular Duke Nukem 3D was looked upon as a clone of the series due to a hefty amount of similarities. It took the gaming community four years to slowly accept the term "first person shooter" rather than write everything new off as a ripoff of id's masterpiece.

Thanks to amateur designers, Doom is a highly customizable game that can have any textured altered with WAD files. Enemies can appear as basically anything one can imagine from Pokemon to the cast of the Ghostbusters films. Many game designers today owe their big break to their love of creating quality WADs for Doom. Some of these designers even helped out with the creation of Final Doom.

Doom had basically fallen off the video game grid in the late 1990s and early 2000s as the game and its engine both severely showed their age. Popularity of the series waned severely until id announced that Doom 3 was in the works. It was announced later that Doom 3 would require demanding PC specs in order to run smoothly, and the fans had no problem upgrading in order to enjoy the return of their cherished series.

Modding was in style yet again with the release of Doom 3. The first mod, known as the “duct tape mod,” added a mounted flashlight on top of every weapon in the game. This ended the annoyance of having to switch to a flashlight in order to get past dark areas that may have enemies hiding. Modders also created a redone version of the first Doom using the Doom 3 engine – and might I add that it’s fucking amazing.

A port of Doom 3 was later released for the Xbox home console with Deathmatch and split-screen co-op modes for Xbox Live. If this wasn’t enough to get fans into a frenzy, the Collector’s Edition of the game came in a detailed tin package with ports of The Ultimate Doom and Doom II to boot. It was one of the highest selling games for the Xbox in 2005 and actually gave Xbox players something to enjoy besides Halo 2.

The things I’ve mentioned in this recap in no way tell the entire legacy of the Doom series. It’s been the subject of a Hollywood film, amateur projects turned pro, and controversy while linked to American terrorism. It is a series that has never let us down, and it will return to us with Doom 4. Why should we buy Doom 4? I don’t know about you, but I’m still trying to find a reason not to.

From the shadows, this is Debaser.