DOOMED

I'm currently wasting too much free time (Free time? What is "free time", Earth man?) playing a 17-year-old computer game on my G5 Mac.

And it totally rocks.

Great graphics, exciting game play, monsters with personality...

It is, of course, Doom.

I'm using a little app called Doomsday MiniStart which has the effect of playing Doom WADs on caffeinated crack. It adds pseudo-3D and multi-player capability plus a seemingly infinite variety of lighting and special effects that breathe new life into this classic. The Lost Souls never glowed so beautifully, the blood never splattered so liberally and let's not forget the sparking tracers of machine-gun bullets gaily ricocheting off the walls as they seek to slash your all-too-meager reserve of health.

I find myself constantly amazed at the genius of this landmark game, the note-perfect sound-design, the clever traps, the BFG-9000. It still has the ability to make me jump like a scared bunny at times, and I will never forget the breath-taking spectacle of turning a corner and walking into a huge room filled with literally hundreds of Cacodemons, Pain Elementals and Lost Souls... and the program didn't even breathe hard.

Bloody genius, that is.

I owe a large debt of gratitude to the clever lads who created Ministart, and I hope when I graduate to an Intel-based Mac there'll be a port of the app waiting for me.

=Lefty=