Pistol Start Episode 1: Doom

I first played Doom off of a shareware Quake CD. Every now and again I would fire up Knee Deep in the Dead, blast through some demons, and shake my fist as the game reminded me that I would need to purchase the full version to play the next episodes. That was back in the 90s; my childhood. It wasn't until 2007, the year I began college, that I got the game off of Steam and played it through. I've been playing Doom and Doom 2 ever since, but over time I've found that my tastes have expanded. While I still enjoy the game, it's become much easier as I’ve grown familiar with every level. The plethora of mods and maps for Id's classic shooter have helped, but recently I began to crave reliving the experience of playing Doom for the first time. Enter the “Pistol Start” challenge.

The idea is simple: begin every level by wiping your inventory with a cheat code so that you start with only a pistol, fifty bullets, and full health. No hoarding rockets for boss fights or blazing through zombies with the shotgun. No more armour-scavenging at the end of a level so that I can start the next with obscene amounts of protection. Doom went from nostalgic to hellish with a few simple keystrokes. For the first time in years, I used the punch attack to kill imps and zombies in an attempt to save ammo and actually ran away from fights. My illusions of demon-slaughtering grandeur were torn down. I learned to appreciate every stray weapon lying around on the floor and gained newfound respect for the ammo soaking cacodemon. After I laughed at the seeming absurdity of the situation, I realized that I had discovered a whole new side to one of my favorite titles and I loved every second of it.

Having my toys taken away made me appreciate them all the more when I had to pry them out of the cold dead fingers of my foes or sniff them out in a secret area. Defeat was a hair’s breadth away and victory was sweet, if fleeting. In a world where games have spiraling upgrade and RPG systems, it was refreshing to be presented with a naked challenge at the beginning of every level. I think part of my masochistic appreciation for this challenge stems from most games, old and new, placing the player in a position of great power.

Some argue that the appeal of videogames is the fulfilment of a power fantasy. Videogames offer an interactive fiction that lets a player fill the shoes of an unstoppable space marine or invisible assassin in a safe way. This way, you don’t have to build up a real life body count to indulge in the classic combat fantasy. However, the same space frees the player to pursue opposite indulgences. In real life, being in danger is terrifying and uncertainty is profoundly uncomfortable in even the best of circumstances. In a game, players can explore those situations and feelings in much the same way as the aforementioned combat fantasy: with a comfortable degree of separation. And there is something to be said for the tense thrill of vulnerability. Doom’s pistol start challenge combines the two elegantly, while also exposing new textures to the existing maps. Item placement and architecture made each map feel even more distinct as the flow of my playthrough was determined by the amount of weapons and ammunition the designers rationed out to me and in what order I could acquire them.

The experience was more than just selecting the hardest difficulty. Higher difficulty settings usually increase enemy counts, hit point values, and incoming damage. Simply put, they inflate. It’s the simple mathematics of more shots to kill plus fewer shots to die equals increased difficulty. The Pistol Start cannot be described so simply, as it fundamentally changes the player’s thought process. I went from asking myself “how do I win this fight?” to pursuing a flow chart of possibilities that began with “is this fight even worth it?”

Too often developers focus on making single player games power trips or chart progress with a skill tree rather than player growth. Playing Doom with the pistol start challenge has made my appreciation for the game grow. Perhaps in the future I will take on other challenges - though the only one I can think of at the moment is completing Dishonored without upgrades or spells beyond Blink.