It’s hard to believe that we’re now celebrating two decades since one of the most influential games of all time. I’d estimate I still load it up at least once a week, as it’s still my number one blow-off-steam game. Still, there just aren’t many games with that kind of longevity.

I’ve been recently playing through a recent modification for Doom 2 entitled “Winter’s Fury”, and have been simply amazed at the effort put into it. Granted, people have had about 15 years to tinker with the Doom source code, adding plenty of new features to the game, but that is some real dedication. And of course, there’s Brutal Doom (a note to the cautious: lots of blood and guts).

Today I watched John Romero play through the first episode of Doom in celebration of the anniversary and it still amazes me the kind of lightning they were able to capture in a bottle with that game. I recall the first time I ever saw (not played) Doom was at a science fair I attended at a local community college back when I was in fifth grade. It was running on a laptop and the person playing knew all the cheat codes. It wasn’t until later that I got my hands on the shareware disks and could play it myself, but it was certainly a pivotal event in my experience with video games. I have the developers from the golden age of id Software to thank for the inestimable hours of fun blasting away demons. John Carmack’s recent departure from the company seems to punctuate and wrap up that legacy.