Legendary shooter. Legendary collection.
To help promote their latest game, iD Software released into shops another game (carrying a suspiciously familiar-looking logo upon its case insert), sitting alongside the pre-order boxes for Doom 3. The original Doom; a game that I had spent far, far too long playing during the early Nineties, a game that had sparked an interest in the FPS genre that I still have today. Excited, I grabbed the box, skimmed over the details on the back, and marched up to the checkout having immediately decided what I would be spending my hard-earned cash on.
The Doom Collector's Edition is a re-release of the Ultimate Doom (Doom, with its extra episode Thy Flesh Consumed), Doom II, and Final Doom. It also contains a second CD-ROM, which has all manner of things Doom 3-related on it - but, let's face it, you're not buying this for the bonus content. All the original .WAD files are on the first CD, which are run with the (rather good) Doom95 launcher. The are no DOS executables on the CD, to my knowledge - in other words, this is a Windows-only affair, although of course the WADs can be used with any version of Doom on any operating system. (My dreams of Acorn Doom will come true, oh yes)
In the UK, you can get hold of a copy of this for a mere £10 - the same price as most budget games, these days - which to me is excellent value. A tenner for three of the best games that were ever released, which while a little long in the tooth compared to some recent games, or, indeed, just about anything released post-1995, are still great fun. Plug in the headphones, turn of the lights, and scare yourself to death when a Cacodemon appears from around the corner. It's Doom.