Description, Analysis and Comparison of Doom and the Last of Us
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Adrián Navarro Pérez 23th October 2018 Description, Analysis and Comparison of Doom and The Last of Us ABSTRACT This paper focuses on two games: The legendary first-person (FPS), Doom (1993), developed by id Software and The Last of Us (TLOU), an action-adventure survival horror third-person shooter game developed by Naughty Dog in 2013. INTRODUCTION Describing, analysing and comparing old console games and PC-based games can be a complicated procedure though. Therefore, Miguel Sicart’s game mechanics definition, described on Defining Game Mechanics, and Björk and Holopainen’s design patterns definition, described on Game Design Patterns, is followed. Thus, game mechanics appear in italics and design patterns appear in bold, which can be clicked to retrieve more information about them to ease the read. Every design pattern mentioned along this paper takes into consideration The Gameplay Design Patterns Wiki’s definition if the opposite is not explicitly mentioned. -1- DESCRIPTION DOOM In 1993, id Software developed Doom, a science fiction horror-themed first-person shooter computer game. In this game, players take control of a space marine with no name, who has been later on popularly known as Doomguy. Divided into three-nine level episodes, and releasing one of them as shareware, Doom was played by almost 20 million people after two years since its release. In Doom, players face uncountable enemies and foes including cyberdemons, hell knights, imps, zombies, etc. Doom, as a game which made popular this particular gameplay, has always been considered as one of the most important computer games of all time because it Figure 1: Boxart for the Doom game. Illustrated by popularised the first-person shooter genre Don Ivan Punchatz. as well as the use of immersive 3D graphics and offering support for customised additions and modifications via packaged files in a data archive, also known as WADs. Figure 2: Doom gameplay: Doomguy shooting a demon with a shotgun. -2- Doom is considered also as a pioneer in terms of multiplayer. It is the responsible for creating the deathmatch mode, one of the most played online game modes nowadays. It was the first time that players were meeting with their friends anywhere in the world and play a couple of Doom games against each other over an internet connection and a modem. Furthermore, Doom's multiplayer was also considered as one of the most balanced deathmatch multiplayer games to date. Figure 3: Doom multiplayer deathmatch gameplay: A player confronting another one Doom’s popularity raised thanks to its ability to be modified or modded. Although id Software never thought that users could have wanted to design their own levels, foes or weapons, players made clear that they wanted to do so anyway. This is why id Software decided to release their own editing utilities and software for people who wanted to use and learn from the id Software’s d Tech 1 engine, which will be explained in further detail later on this paper, used in Doom’s development. The Doom successful franchise has continued realising more games such as Doom II: Hell on Earth (1994), Master Levels for Doom II (1995), Final Doom (1996), its sequel Doom 64 (1997), Doom 3 (2004), as the first reboot of the series and Doom (2016), as the second reboot of the series and Doom Eternal, yet to be released, as a sequel to the 2016 reboot. -3- Figure 4: Doom franchise. -4- THE LAST OF US TLOU is an action-adventure survival horror third-person shooter game which has won more than 200 Game of the Year (GOTY) awards and it is considered as one of the best video games ever made in the recent history of video games. Figure 5: TLOU reviews. Developed by Naughty Dog, the same developer team of game franchises such as Uncharted and Jack and Daxter, TLOU was released in summer 2013 for the PlayStation3 system and re-released as a remaster the following year, in summer 2014, for the PlayStation4 system, selling a total of 17 million units by April 2018. Figure 7: Boxart for TLOU game. Figure 6: Boxart for TLOU Remastered game. -5- In 2033, a brain-altering pandemic, known as Cordyceps Brain Infection, has spread and infected, from 2013 in United States, more than the half of the world’s population. Considering the hard situation which the world faces, a paramilitary group known as Fireflies has been established in order to restore USA’s government democracy, replacing it by a civilian-based government. As well as restoring such government with the use of force and encouraging civilian uprisings, Fireflies are also trying to find a cure for the pandemic. In the game, players will take Joel’s place, one of the infection outbreak’s survivors, who protects Ellie, a girl who is immune to the plague which has devastated the world. Together, they will face uncountable dangerous situations along their path in order to find the Fireflies paramilitary group which might be able to produce a cure thanks to Ellie’s immunity. Figure 8: Joel and Ellie taking cover. -6- TLOU has an online multiplayer mode named as Factions MP. In this mode, players have to take care of a clan of survivors a total of 12 weeks, supporting either Fireflies or Hunters. Each player has the chance to obtain supplies for their clan’s sake and progress during each multiplayer match, which it is equivalent to one day. If at the end of a multiplayer match, enough sources are not gathered, the clan’s survivor might get sick or die because of hunger. However, if player gathers great amounts of sources in the following matches, he will be able to heal some of them. Figure 9: TLOU online multiplayer interrogation mode gameplay. TLOU franchise is going to be continued in TLOU Part II, as it was announced on December 3, 2016 at Sony’s annual PlayStation Experience event, featuring Ellie as the main playable character. Figure 10: TLOU Part II gameplay showed in the E3 2018. -7- ANALYSIS AND COMPARISON TECHNOLOGICAL AFFORDANCES AND CONSTRAINTS Doom was a game intended to run smoothly in 1993 personal computers (PCs). Since normal users had no access to powerful technology and at the same time each PC was completely different, id Software team had to deal with this thanks to the binary space partitioning (BSP) method. The BSP method, which recursively subdivides space into convex sets by hyperplanes1, together with the d Tech 1 engine made possible to recreate the feeling that Doom was being played in a 3D despite of Doom levels have always been internally represented on a two-dimensional plane (X and Z axis), with height differences added separately, which can be accessed through the use of elevators, creating the impression of movement through the Y axis too. However, players were still not able to perform actions such as aiming in the Y axis, even though sometimes there are enemies located in height places sometimes. This is why in Doom, thanks to the techniques described above, bullets impact in those targets as long as they aim in the X axis, considerably helping to build this 3D fictional world. Finally, there were actions who could never been recreated and nowadays are present in almost every first-person shooter such as jumping, crouching or laying down. Figure 11: A schematic diagram demonstrating how Doom represents levels internally. 1 It is not intended in this academic paper to further explain the technology beneath the d Tech 1 rendering engine. However, more technical information about it and how it works in Doom can be found here: Doom Rendering Engine and BSP method. -8- On the other hand, TLOU came out as an exclusive video game for the PlayStation3 game console. When a game is released just in one game console, the team perfectly knows the target platform, since all players have the same hardware and software, though the software version might vary depending on each user. Furthermore, TLOU was released at the end of the seventh generation of video game consoles. At the end of each generation, designers and programmers are more used to the technology that is available to them in order to ship a new game rather than when a new generation has just started. As a result of all this, Naughty Dog was able to develop one of the games which has taken most advantage of all the possibilities that PlayStation3 could offer. Other games were able to do the same under similar circumstances, such as Grand Theft Auto V, developed by Rockstar North and released in the same year as TLOU, 2013. As a conclusion, TLOU was published 20 years after Doom was released. This is why id Software had to struggle for achieving the 3D world they wanted to create while Naughty Dog just made use of Havok physics engine which allowed them from the very first beginning to design and create 3D experiences easily as well as other kind of features which id Software could never implement, such as aiming in the Y axis, not only in the X axis, jump over obstacles, crouching to take cover, etc. -9- INHERENT AND EXTERNAL FEATURES Inherent features are specific elements, mostly design structures, which define a game’s genre. Contrarily, external features are specific characteristics for a certain game, regardless its genre. Doom is a first-person shooter computer video game featuring the following design structures: Inherent: • Aim[1]: Players can aim in the X axis using the mouse. • Ammo[2]: Needed to shot weapons. It can be picked-up from dead enemies or found in certain locations when Doomguy walks over it.