One game you can buy on Xbox Live Arcade (XLA) is Doom. Ultimate Doom in fact, which has the original three episodes of Knee-Deep in the Dead, The Shores of Hell and Inferno, and then the extra fourth episode of Thy Flesh Consumed.

It’s been fun playing through it again and I found the first three episodes to be incredibly easy whilst the fourth is an utter pain in the arse. But that makes sense since that final episode was made after Doom 2 and by that time ID were pretty damn good at churning out sadistic maps.

I did have a go at playing on Nightmare skill but for my pitiful skills it’s too much. Respawning enemies is just plain cruel. I also tried playing online but nobody seemed to want to. Perhaps if Gom gets it, I can whoop him at it

Anyhoo, I’ve had a lot of fun on single player trying to get 100% on all the levels and it’s scary how many of the secrets I’ve remembered. Help was at hand though for the ones I couldn’t remember from this excellent site. All of various Doom maps are listed here with nifty animated pictures showing where the keys, secrets and teleporters are.

Whilst I was searching for that I came across this site as well, where the author has done pseudo 3D renders of all the original Doom maps, which just look ace! Like this one of E1M1:

Tangent aside, the main thing I’ve realised is that Doom is still fun. It still has the potential to scare pants off you (pesky imps and dark rooms) and is damn sight more fun than any recent FPS I’ve played on the PC. Yes, the music grates and it looks cheesy but the intense atmosphere is still there. I’m hoping Doom 2 and Final Doom will appear on XLA at some point as well since Doom 2 was my fave!

Edit: It appears Doom isn’t for sale on XLA in Germany :(