Doom review – a ludicrous yet compelling return to shooter basics

id Software returns to the original Doom with a reboot that captures all the crazed, adrenaline-pumped purity of the original

The original Doom was a carnival of overstatement. There's the ludicrous premise: Martian moons invaded by demons. There's the silent protagonist: a buzz-cut, space marine who sprints hyperactively through monotone corridors, firing shotgun rounds into the faces of occult-ish monsters. There's the deafening, pitiless soundtrack, inspired by so many thrash metal bands of the late 80s. And then there's the brawny name of its apex weapon: Big Fucking Gun.

Gore, guns and braggadocio. This trio of male power fantasies helped to define and, arguably, tar, an entire medium. Regardless, the game, made by a group of friends who first met in a lake-house in sweltering Louisiana, was widely celebrated. Doom made millionaires of its young designers, a group that included the wunderkind programmer John Carmack, who last month was awarded a Bafta fellowship, the Academy's highest honour.