As evinced by how frequently the terms have been used on Usenet, "Doom clone" was more common than "first-person shooter" until the late 1990s.

A Doom clone is a computer game that mimics the gameplay of the 1993 first-person shooter Doom. That is, the player explores a three-dimensional world seen through the eyes of the protagonist, and uses various weapons to kill usually monstrous enemies.

Due to the popularity of Doom, a large number of clones appeared throughout the 1990s. Games in this genre are now known as first-person shooters, but "Doom clones" was the more common term until the late 1990s. The term "Doom clone" is still used occasionally, mainly in reference to early first-person shooters.

In modern usage, the term sometimes has negative connotations. The gameplay in Doom (as well as many of its clones) was relatively simple-minded, mainly relying on "shooting everything that moves", and featuring dumb enemies that do little but move towards and shoot at the player. Reference to Doom is sometimes used to contrast with modern first-person shooter games which usually involve more strategy-oriented gameplay and enemies with sophisticated artificial intelligence (for example, Halo: Combat Evolved).

Although the simple-minded action in Doom has become less popular with time, some games such as Serious Sam (2001) have deliberately returned to it.

Doom-likeness is sometimes also associated with the game's "2.5D" graphics, as opposed to full 3D which was introduced with Quake (1996).

List of games

Among the games commonly counted as Doom clones are those based on the Doom engine, which include:

• Chex Quest (1996)
• Heretic (1994)
• HeXen (1995)
• Strife (1996)

Games that use different engines include:

• Blood (1997)
• Star Wars: Dark Forces (1995)
• Descent (1995)
• Duke Nukem 3D (1996)
• Rise of the Triad (1994)
• Serious Sam (2001)

References

• Turner, Benjamin & Bowen, Kevin (December 11, 2003). Bringin' in the DOOM Clones. GameSpy.
• Google Groups Usenet archive