Deconstruction: DOOM - Part V: Pickups

While the general rule of FPSs and games in general is "pick up anything that's not nailed down," DOOM offers a selection of interesting pickups that make the player rethink that idiom.  While no pickup is strictly bad for a player, some have timers or other properties that can make a Player sidestep them if they don't need them just yet.

Of course there are the weapons and the ammo for them, which have uses discussed in Part III.  Beyond that, there is a Backpack which gives you some ammo for every weapon, as well as doubles the amount of ammo you can carry of each type.

Because of the ammo cap limitation, sometimes you don't want to pick up an ammo clip, shell, rocket, or cell if you are near the cap, because you won't get the full extent of the pickup, which can make you reconsider what weapon to use to "waste" some ammo in battle to make full use of the nearby pickup.

Health-wise, there is a similar system.  There are two kinds of Medikits which raise your health by 10 or 25, to a maximum of 100.  However, your health can actually reach 200 by use of Health Potions, which raise your health by 1, but can break the normal 100 "max".  However, if you try to pick up a Medikit while your health is 100 or above, you do not pick it up.  But you do pick up Health Potions even if you've capped your health completely.  So you may want to sidestep Health items until necessary.  This also holds true for Soul Spheres, which add 100 Health to a max of 200.

Armor also has a similar, though less robust system.  You can get Security Armor which bumps you directly to 100 (and you don't pick it up if you're already there) and Combat Armor, which bumps you directly to 200.  Armor Bonuses add 1 to the maximum of 200.

I always wondered if the Doomguy had 200 heads or something.

The interaction between armor types can be noticed right from the first level.  In E1M1, there are 3 Armor Bonuses in front of a Security Armor.  By picking up the Armor Bonuses first, you raise your armor from 0 to 3, and then picking up the Security Armor raises your armor from 3 to 100.  There are 3 more Armor Bonuses in the same room, against the walls, and if you then pick up those, your armor increases from 100 to 103.  You learn this quickly, and begin to understand the quirky nature of the system, and it affects your later choices about what to collect and when.

One other interesting quirk of Armor is that Security Armor protects from 1/3 of the health damage dealt, while Combat Armor protects from 1/2 of the damage.  If you last picked up Combat Armor, your armor drains to below 100, and you pick up Security Armor, your protection actually decreases.  This can also change the strategy of the player when deciding whether to pick up fresh armor or not.

Beyond the basic powerups of weapons, ammo, health, and armor, there are a number of other protections, such as Radiation Suits, which protect against acid and lava for a minute before wearing off.  Players want to be careful about when to grab them and plunge into an acid-soaked channel, because they don't know how far it is to the other side, if there even is another side.

Partial Invisibility and Invulnerability help during battle, and Light Amp Visors allow you to see dark rooms as if they were brightly lit.  All of these have timers, as well, so players have to decide if their situation warrants their use before grabbing them.

Berserk Packs give you a nice health bonus, but also give your fists incredible strength for the level, but this is at the cost of the range of weapons.  You can kill the 5 lowest-health enemies in one hit, but you have to get close enough to do so.  While this seems like a pickup you want to collect immediately, so you always have the option to switch to fists, the health bonus may make a player rethink when to pick it up.

Some pickups are always good to collect, however.  Computer Maps let you see the whole level, and last for the entire level.  Keys open up new areas of a level, which are almost always necessary for advancement.

With this small but intricate selection of pickups, DOOM becomes a much more strategic game than a simple run-and-gun.  This also paved the way for later games to consider that not all pickups should necessarily be held onto and stored for use whenever a player likes.  This has come to apply even to weapons now, giving the player a greater feel of realism -- after all, even a Space Marine probably can't hold eight weapons at once.

Read Part VI:  Enemies