jdredalert wrote:Well, I would start with the graphics. Top-notch for the time, filled with all that violence and satanic imagery. Let's put emphasis on violence here, because while it looks silly and cartoony by today's standards, Doom's art is excessively gory, especially how the humanoid enemies get gibed and you can see the ribcage bones exposed, or Baron of Hell's torso ripping apart while it's intestines fell. That was a whole other level and even Mortal Kombat, which was infamous for its violence, paled in comparison.
More graphic depictions of gore and violence don't necessarily equate to try-hard edgelords. Again, consider Doom's inspirations. Aliens (which the game was going to be a licensed spin-off of, before becoming its own thing) was a movie that was also heavy on violence and gore. An increase in visual fidelity in media is always accompanied by an increase in detail for violence and gore in said media; just look at movies, and how they started getting more violent and gory as special effects, and video recording and reproduction, improved (fun-fact, it wasn't until the early 80s that special effects started getting recognized for Oscar Awards in Hollywood*). Similarly, though many people like to think of D&D as this colorful family-friendly fantasy game, it has some disturbing things if you really look at it. The
cacodemon is practically a direct rip of artwork of an astral dreadnought, and the latter looks much more detailed and gruesome than the caco's spritework, IMO.
* The first award being for Rick Baker's work on An American Werewolf in London. Despite being a movie from the early 80s, the gore effects were so well done that the director was astonished how well they still looked when more recently transferring the analog film to high-definition digital (after worrying a high-def transfer would expose the effects makeup as looking fake), and thinks they may have actually gone a bit overboard with it. Don't confuse a job well done as a try-hard attempt.
It's also not as if Doom was id's first rodeo when it comes to violence. Wolfenstein 3D was also criticized for its at-the-time excessive violence and unnecessary nazi imagery. Sure, it looks silly and cartoony today, but at its time it was pushing the envelope. Some years later, a significant improvement in tech, and replacing nazis with demons (and the creative freedom afforded by that), and Doom is a natural result. That video games were increasing in popularity of course meant it got more attention, both positive and negative.
The soundtrack, ripped straight from 80's metal bands, that although as you said were kinda popular a decade prior the game release, both metal bands and fans were always labeled as misfits, edgy and inappropriate. Unless you had some real open-minded folks, playing "Angel of Death" during a family reunion wouldn't end well.
Being labeled as misfits and edgy is different from being try-hard edgy. The former is how others see you, the latter is how you try to be seen. While "Angel of Death" may not be appropriate to put on at a family reunion, I doubt many people would listen to Metallica or Judas Priest in the early 90s to "prove" how edgy they were. Punk and Grunge were already taking the place of Rock and Metal for counter-culture by that time. Heck,
Blind Guardian was already a thing by the 90s, mixing metal and fantasy. There was definite nerdiness to be had with metal music even at that time.
Or the intermission texts: "Once you beat the big badasses and clean out the moon base, you were supposed to win aren't you? Aren't you?". That really sounds like trying to be cool for me.
Remember that id didn't put all that much stock in the game's story. It was barebones and not at all serious. Other action and sci-fi media had a similar tone as the original Doom, and as we see with the Ep 4 expansion (Ep 3's end with a rabbit head on a pike being turned into a joke, retroactively becoming Doomguy's pet rabbit Daisy and all your fighting was because she was killed), they weren't afraid of having fun with it.
My theory is that people tend to forget the impact of some of those aspects of oldschool Doom, especially when newer games, more realistic, violent and shocking (sometimes for no reason) games appeared. Doom rapidly became tame, silly and the graphic violence was banalized (even more after the whole Brutal mods craze).
I don't dispute the impact of old-school Doom, it was very controversial in its time due to its groundbreaking visuals and visceral gameplay. However, I question the assertion that its visuals and gameplay were a product of the developers trying to be "cool and edgy", rather than them being inspired to make something and staying true to that inspiration while succeeding beyond all expectations. Again, don't confuse a job well done as a try-hard attempt.
If the series had tried to back away from that, it would've been considerably worse.
