I felt I will start at the beginning. I will be directly comparing classic Doom series to Half-Life 1 with it's expansions. Now I will not be talking about Half-Life 2 with it's episodes since their stories is vastly different. Besides, I already got plenty to talk about prior to that. Alright I will be covering one of my biggest similar game topics ever.
Now I am aware there isn't much story within classic Doom games. What we do know is a group of scientists attempted to open a gateway to Hell. Which led to most humans among Mars & it's moons to die. Only one space marine is left to take on the carnage unleashed. Now in Half-Life 1, they had a similar concept.
A group of scientists including the main character himself Gordon Freeman to open a portal into a parallel universe. Which also led to a mysterious race of aliens to quickly kill most people in this facility. Gordon has to take arms to stopping this threat before it gotten any worse. Keep in mind, Doom predates Half-Life 1 by five years.
There is a few select similarities among their enemies. Like those that has guns quickly fire at you sometimes before you even notice them. Doom II does bring these demons & evil spirits to Earth. Of course, most of humanity got wipe out while Gordon was able to prevent such a thing happening. In both cases, someone unlikely ends up becoming the hero.
Yes sure it is more believable that a space marine could do that but a scientist taking on several sides during one particular event. Now give that guy a drink lol. Obviously, in Half-Life's case we get to see more of the science side of things. I should mention in Final Doom, Jupiter with it's moons also had demons too.
I know what a lot of you are probably thinking. Why would you do a comparison like this? I fail to see how they are similar Jack or my personal favorite their stories alone are too vastly different, Half-Life is not a rip off. I honestly wasn't going to call Half-Life a Doom rip off. I felt to those who actually are Doom rip offs that Half-Life does plenty to differ itself.
Of course, late in their campaigns our heroes goes to another plain of existence. Obviously we got a different universe to well Hell. A different universe could have up to infinite possibilities alone. But Hell is for the damned. Both heroes also get to use experimental weaponry during their games. Yes very different weapons I know but it is something they have in common.
Just the basic FPS differences between these two, I can't say Half-Life stands as a rip off game. Although it likely was inspired by Doom series. I haven't got to play Doom 64 personally. But I played everything else. Now I do need to mention the expansions that do matter here. All three expansions for Half-Life 1 all happened during the main game through several points of view.
Half-Life: Opposing Force shows us the military's side. Half-Life: Blue Shift s reveals a security guard's view. Keep in mind, Valve still haven't confirm or deny if these expansions are canon to the story. Otherwise, Barney from Half-Life 2 was that security guard from Blue Shift. Anyway, Half-Life: Decay has two female scientists working together.
There actually is a secret level where you play as two enemy characters. This was originally from PS2 port of Half-Life 1. No Rest of the Living episode for Doom II further confirms you are the only human left alive. More proof is in Doom 64's ending. Yes I know Midway made that not those under contract by id Software or the team themselves.
Doom allows a much bigger off screen kill count while the situation in Half-Life 1 was eventually gotten under control by Freeman. Yes, G-Man is a mysterious character whose goal still one of Valve's biggest mysterious. Classic Doom didn't have anything like G-Man at all. But it sure had Cyberdemon.
My point is Half-Life 1 does enough to stand on it's own. It doesn't' deserve to be called a Doom clone for any reason whatsoever. I just couldn't help both involve opening to another plain of existence that led to so many deaths. Yes I know Doom series is more into the future. I will say this would still a fun topic to talk about.
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