ClanGen
TODO: THIS
Doom
Doom is one of the first fps shooters ever made, released in 1993 with its sequel Doom II (which plays very similarly to the original but with some new demons+maps). I'm honestly terrible at it, but it's really fun to play regardless, LMAO.
I found it at some point because of its music, which is really neat! A lot of it is sort of ripped off from rock adjacent bands of the era, so :P Thanks, flimsy copyright law of the era
Modern Doom
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DoomTube
A ton of my Doom enjoyment comes from Doomtube, aka Doom on YouTube!
Decino - By far my most watched Doomtuber. He does videos where he plays through viewer submitted Doom maps, but he also does Doom code analysis videos!! His analysis videos are where most of my interest in Doom as a game rather than just its music came from, heavily recommend if you have any interest whatsoever in coding or how games work!! :]
MtPain27 (pronounced Mount Pain 27) - Runs the show called Dean of Doom on his channel, in which he reviews a Doom wad and its maps every episode, running through the levels and rating them based on quality and difficulty. Episodes last anywhere from 20 to 40 minutes on average! Also has published music for Doom wads to use on his channel.
Xisumavoid - Technically not a DOOM YouTuber (he posts mostly Minecraft), but he HAS posted Doom, and his Minecraft skin is literally Doomguy, so he counts.....totally......He's very silly with the game, not the greatest at it, but honestly, that makes it more enjoyable since his experience is more similar to mine. :) There's also a couple Doom Eternal livestream vods from him I'm very slowly making my way through!
Coincident - I don't watch him a ton, but he's "that one guy who made it through okuplok ultra violence difficulty with one save" to me, which is HUGELY impressive. The video is 7 hours long. He played Doom for 7 hours straight for that (and technically, it was even LONGER since he's spent maybe years practicing on stream...insane man.) I've also spent more time than a normal person would staring at his profile picture. It captivates me.
MarphitimusBlackimus (aka Revenant100) - He has vibes, man. Insane vibes, actually. You won't understand unless you watch the following quadrillogy:
How to Play
Note for later, make a better tutorial on how to install+play
To say it briefly, you need a SOURCE PORT (application where you play the game) and an IWAD (file containing info the source port needs like textures, colormaps, and levels). Optionally, you can also have a PWAD (file that replaces parts of an iwad, usually for fanmade maps).
For a source port, I use and recommend gzdoom. It works for Mac too! Go to their website and install.
For an IWAD, you want doom.wad and/or doom2.wad. You can find and download them on github if you look.
If you want to play a PWAD, go to Doomworld and be happy.
Some PWADs I found neat include Ancient Aliens, Eviternity, Eviternity 2, and Tangerine Nightmares.
As a bonus, there's also Fruit Salad, but I would not recommend for beginners :P It looked fun from the video Decino posted, being a collecetion of short combat puzzles, but I cannot beat it, HAHA.
Half Life
Waiting for Half Life 3 since ~2015....I jest, HAHAHA. Half Life is a series of (really great) fps games containing HL1, HL Opposing Force, HL Blue Shift, HL Decay, HL2, HL2 episode 1, HL2 episode 2, and now HL Alyx. The joke is that while HL2E2 was released in 2007 and HL2E3 was promised in a few months, the company behind Half Life, Valve, just went radio silent about it for 13 years :P
Honestly, I'm good with the lack of news; it's just kind of funny to me. Makes a better surprise when stuff like Valve dropping a whole HOUR LONG 25 YEAR ANNIVERSARY DOCUMENTARY happens.
Me Playing
I got into Half Life originally because my dad played it (and eventually made me play HL2 when I wanted to see gameplay but he didn't want to play), but then the interest went completely dormant for a couple years until I watched a random video essay on it which made me jump straight into obsessing over it, HAHA.
I myself haven't played very much of it because my computer is a mac, but when I was able to borrow a windows computer for a couple hours, I literally spent so much time in the prologue before you even get into danger just because it is SO fun to interact it with HL2's physics engine...You think people who spend hours stacking cans are insane until you have cans in front of you, ripe for stacking. It is so inexplicably fun........
Half Life Roleplay Series
There is no talking Half Life without mentioning the quite shocking amount of videos falling into genre I will call "half life roleplay series".
Freeman's Mind
The first one of these I ever saw, and the almighty classic!! My dad showed me Freeman's Mind around the same time he showed my Half Life as a whole because he didn't want to play Half Life 1 himself because of the "low quality graphics" (which...is now really funny to me because Doom has ruined my perception of what makes a game "advanced". I get so impressed by being able to LOOK UP AND DOWN... "What the frick?" Yeah. Me too, man.).
Freeman's Mind is great though. It's a series started by Ross Scott back in December 2007, and it's still going to this day! In each 10 to 15 minute episode, Ross Scott commentates on the game's happenings as if he's really the protagonist, Gordon Freeman, or at least Ross Scott's version of him: "Follow the thoughts of Dr. Gordon Freeman, a 27 year old physicist and neurotic individual."
Perhaps not the GREATEST thing for a 9 year old (me au passé) to be watching, and there's some dated jokes in there, but hey. It's a great series!! HAHA.
Shephard's Mind
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Barney's Mind
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Half Life VR but the AI is Self Aware (HLVRAI)
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Half Life Full Regret (aka Half Life Coop)
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Half Life VR but the Civilians are Self Aware (HLCIVAI)
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Heretic
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Hexen
Hexen!! One of the first games I can remember ever playing!! It's a first person shooter sequel to Heretic, now with new (pretend it's 1995) modifications to the Doom engine, particularly scripting events and the ability to move walls horizontally.
The game's known for being really confusing to play, with a lot of the gameplay ending up quite "find the integral switch you missed because it's hidden in the corner you'd never think to check. btw you need to search 5 different maps for it. maybe it's not there, actually." I haven't played through the whole game ever, actually, having stumbled upon a broken scripted sequence that didn't do what it should've (:P), but honestly...yeah, HAHAHA. Hexen stays dear to my heart regardless <3
My Experiences
I first played this game when I was probably 8 or 9; I liked watching my dad play it, but at some point, he didn't want to play it, so he just told me to play instead. I made him turn on godmode so that I wouldn't take any damage, HAHA. I also just. didn't use any the weapons that consumed ammo, which is 3/4 of them, because I didn't want to waste ammo. Which...absolutely fascinating way to play, but I WAS still in single digit ages.
My most influencial memory of Hexen is not actually a memory of playing it but a nightmare I had that involved a monster from it. I was in the minecraft nether strip mining to do...something.., and it was just There as a hostile mob. I initially was like "??? what was that" when I woke up since I had the nightmare probably when I was 11-12, but I did realize it was an afrit from Hexen the same day. Yeah, I'm not sure why I remember this so clearly.
Sprites
I am INSANE about Hexen's monster designs, actually. I want to do an actual page on them eventually (the only thing stopping me is the turning them into gifs), but for now, I am alright to say that I love this silly torso guy. He makes me happy :)
Also, here is an afrit since I mentioned them. They curl into little coal balls when they sleep!
Second to last sprites I want to mention are those of this lizard sorcerer dude. His death animation is SO silly...The skeleton is only one frame of it, I am 100% going to have to gif that one day so that I can stare at it forever.
Last sprite I want to mention is this tree. I'm not sure man, it's such a tree. I like it.
Mafia
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Minecraft
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Pokemon
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Skullgirls
Technically, I say just "Skullgirls", but there's 2 main games called Skullgirls (developed by the same company), a traditional fighting game to be played on computer and a simplified mobile fighting game for handheld devices. The latter is the one I play!
The main thing I love about this game is the character designs + artstyle! There's currently 18 playable characters, with only 2 of them not being girls. Which...Skullgirls... :P
I also appreciate how you're not forced into paying for anything; you can get everything you can pay for if you play enough, and even paying for stuff still requires you play the game to benefit.
My Favorite Characters
Peacock is 100% my absolute favorite. She's the first character you play as and aruably the "protagonist" of the game (though the story's multiple branch format doesn't make it easy to have One Single Protagonist), so maybe that's why I initially got attached to her, but! She's this sort of insane traumatized child who loves cartoons and murder, so what's not to love? I also just have a really fun time playing as her. She's a ranger, so tons of projectiles, and she also has a special ability that lets her go into a pocket dimension then pop out. Unfortunately, devs changed her pocket dimension ability to be activated via button rather than swiping down, so there went my muscle memory :( I was probably the only person sad about this change, HAHA...I don't think I've seen anyone fight with her the same way I did, but it was fun while it lasted. The Peacocks I use are Rerun (my first fighter ever :)), Ultraviolent (sort of a vanilla character, but she's decent - I upgraded her because there weren't any better gold Peacock varients), and Dream Catcher (again following the pattern of not being "great", but she was my first diamond fighter, so I love her <3). There is quite an obvious trend of her not being the best character to use meta-wise but me using her anyway just because I love her :P
Second favorite is Squigly! She is lowkey a polar opposite to Peacock in vibes, being an undead opera singer from a rich (now all dead) family who got their money from the mafia. She was saved from dying and is kept "alive" by Leviathan, her family's parasite (creature that bonds to a person's body, gives them supernatural powers in exchange for nutrients). She's pretty neat to fight with too! The main Squigly I use is Bio-Exorcist, whose ability is effectively to drain health from her enemy while standing near them. It's really nice because she's healing the damage she's taken and is able to inflict percentage based damage, which is good because most defending fighters have a LOT of hp, at the same time. She's probably my strongest fighter. The fighter card I want probably the most (have been wanting for since I started, HAHAHA) is also a Squigly: Lovecrafted. She doesn't heal herself like Bio-Exorcist, but she bleeds the enemy (makes them take percentage based damage over time) and prevents them from healing while near her, which is HUGE...I keep getting beaten up by enemies who can heal.
Finally, my third favorite and the last character I've ranked, Fukua! Her existence was originally an April Fools joke, being a clone of another character, Fillia, but I really like the way she feels when playing. Her combos are neat, and it feels great to force open openings via her attack lobs of love, which can't be blocked if the enemy is on the opposite side of the screen from her. (It used to always be unblockable, but I understand why they changed this :P) She also has healing via another one of her attacks (inevitable snuggle, incredible name by the way), which I like. The Fukua that I use is Phantom Threads, which I love because she really easily gains attack bonuses and heals herself.