Doom

Movies of most of these runs are available from the COMPET-N website. She quotes endlessly from the Bible and it ridicules [religion] to some extent.". In addition, a few players have also managed to complete Doom II in a single run on the Nightmare! difficulty setting, on which monsters are twice as fast and respawn some time after they have been killed (level designer John Romero characterized the idea of such a run as "[just having to be] impossible"^[13]). Dr Indarjit Singh, the editor of the Sikh Messenger and patron of the World Congress of Faiths, said: "EastEnders' Dot Cotton is an example. Achievements include the completion of both Doom and Doom II on the Ultra-Violence difficulty setting in less than 30 minutes each. The BBC was criticised of anti-religious bias by a committee in the House of Lords, examples of this suggestion included EastEnders. Devoted players have spent years creating speedruns for Doom, competing for the quickest completion times and sharing knowledge about routes through the levels and how to exploit bugs in the Doom engine for shortcuts. In 2003, Shaun Williamson who played Barry Evans, said that the programme had become much grittier over the past 10 to 15 years, and found it "frightening" that parents let their young children watch.

There are well over 50 different Doom source ports, some of which remain under active development. Erin Pizzey, who became internationally famous for having started one of the first Women's Refuges, said that EastEnders had done more to raise the issue of violence against women in one story than she had done in twenty-five years. Fans then began porting the game to various operating systems, even to previously unsupported platforms such as the Dreamcast, PSP and the iPod, and adding new features such as OpenGL rendering and scripting, which allows WADs to alter the gameplay more radically. However, a helpline after this episode attracted over 2000 calls. Interest in Doom was renewed in 1997, when the source code for the Doom engine was released (it was also placed under the GNU General Public License in 1999). Complaints against a scene in which Little Mo's face was shoved in gravy on Christmas day, were upheld by the Broadcasting Standards Council. Although the popularity of the Doom games dropped with the release of Quake (1996) and afterwards, the games have retained a strong fan base that continues playing competitively and creating WADs (the idgames FTP archive receives a few to a dozen new WADs each week as of 2005), and Doom-related news is still tracked at multiple websites such as Doomworld. As EastEnders is shown pre-watershed, there were worries that scenes of this storyline were too graphic for its audience.

However, several game journalists have also contrasted the relatively simplistic gameplay in Doom unfavorably with more story-oriented first-person shooters such as Half-Life. EastEnders is often criticised for being too violent, most notably during a domestic violence storyline between Little Mo and husband Trevor. It was voted the "#1 game of all time" in a poll among over 100 game developers and journalists conducted by GameSpy in July 2001^[12], and PC Gamer proclaimed Doom the most influential game of all time in its ten-year anniversary issue in April 2004. In 2002 EastEnders also won an award from the Mental Health Media Awards held at BAFTA for this storyline. Doom is widely regarded as one of the most important titles in gaming history. The chief executive of the NSPCC praised the storyline, for covering the subject in a direct and sensitive way, coming to the conclusion that people were more likely to report any issues relating to child protection because of it. However, although Harris did design Doom levels, they were not simulations of Columbine (see Harris levels). The child abuse storyline with Kat and her uncle Harry, saw calls to the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) go up by 60%.

A rumor spread afterwards that Harris had designed Doom levels that looked like the halls of the high school, populated with representations of Harris's classmates and teachers, and that Harris practiced for Columbine by playing these levels over and over. Though, one campaigner noted that in some ways the storyline was not reflective of what was happening at the time as the condition was more common among the gay community. While planning for the massacre, Harris said that the killing would be "like fucking Doom" and that his shotgun was "straight out of" the game^[11]. The long-running storyline of Mark Fowler's HIV was so successful in raising awareness that in 1999 a survey by the National Aids Trust found teenagers got most of their information about HIV from the soap. The game again sparked controversy throughout a period of school shootings in the United States when it was found that Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, who committed the Columbine High School massacre in 1999, were avid players of the game. The stars of Coronation Street in particular aligned themselves with Mary Whitehouse, gaining headlines such as 'STREETS AHEAD! RIVALS LASH SEEDY EASTENDERS' and 'CLEAN UP SOAP! Street Star Bill Lashes 'Steamy' EastEnders'. David Grossman.^[10] Doom prompted fears that the then-emerging virtual reality technology could be used to simulate extremely realistic killing, and in 1994 led to unsuccessful attempts by Washington state senator Phil Talmadge to introduce compulsory licensing of VR use. Her criticisms were widely reported in the tabloid press as ammunition in its existing rivalry with the BBC.

Col. She also felt that EastEnders had been cleaned up as a result of her protests, though she later commented that EastEnders had returned to its old ways. It has been criticized numerous times by Christian organizations for its diabolic undertones and was dubbed a "mass murder simulator" by critic and Killology Research Group founder Lt. However Whitehouse also praised the programme, describing Michelle Fowler's decision not to have an abortion as a 'very positive storyline'. Doom was and remains notorious for its high levels of violence, gore, and Satanic imagery, which have generated much controversy from a broad range of groups. She was also critical of language such as 'bleeding', 'bloody hell', 'bastard' and 'For Christ's sake'. The game's development and impact on popular culture is also the subject of the book Masters of Doom by David Kushner. She made reference to representation of family life and emphasis on psychological and emotional violence within the show.

Doom has appeared in several forms in addition to games, including a comic book, four novels by Dafydd Ab Hugh and Brad Linaweaver (loosely based on events and locations in the games), and a film starring Karl Urban and The Rock released in 2005. She regarded EastEnders as a fundamental assault on the family and morality itself. A retelling of the original Doom using entirely new graphics technology, Doom 3 was hyped to provide as large a leap in realism and interactivity as the original Doom, but received mixed reactions when released in 2004. Mary Whitehouse argued at the time that EastEnders represented a violation of 'family viewing time' and that it undermined the watershed policy. The franchise remained in that state until 2000, when Doom 3 was announced. EastEnders has received both praise and criticism for most of its storylines which have dealt with difficult themes, such as violence, rape and murder. When, three years later, 3D Realms released Duke Nukem 3D, a tongue-in-cheek science fiction shooter based on Ken Silverman's technologically similar Build engine, id Software had nearly finished Quake, its next-generation game, which mirrored Doom's success for the remainder of the 1990s and significantly reduced interest in its predecessor. It is also shown on the British Forces Broadcasting Service's main TV channel, BFBS1, to members of HM Forces stationed around the world.

^[9]. In Ireland, it is shown on RTÉ One at the same time as BBC One, which is also widely received in the country. The popularity of Star Wars-themed WADs is rumored to have been the factor that prompted LucasArts to create their first-person shooter Dark Forces. In New Zealand, it was shown by TVNZ on TV One, but is now on Prime. Doom's principal rivals were Apogee's Rise of the Triad and Origin Systems' System Shock. Currently the series is seen in Australia only on pay-TV channel UK.TV. Some of these were certainly "clones"—hastily assembled and quickly forgotten about—others explored new grounds of the genre and were highly acclaimed. The series was screened in Australia by the ABC from 1987 until the early 1990s.

Dozens of new first-person shooter titles appeared following Doom's release, and they were often referred to as "Doom clones" rather than "first-person shooters". The American PBS channel, KOCE-TV ran the show one episode per week from 1990 to 1993. There is also a Doom-based game released by a breakfast cereal maker as a product tie-in called Chex Quest, and the United States Marine Corps released Marine Doom, designed to "teach teamwork, coordination and decision-making". Episodes from prior years are still shown on various PBS stations in the US. The game engine was licensed to several other companies as well, who released their own games based on it, including Heretic, HeXen, Strife and HacX. At that point, Dish stopped its double-helping schedule, and now maintains the schedule of airing the new programmes consistently one month behind the UK schedule. The total number of copies of Doom games sold is unknown, but may be well over 4 million^[8]; Doom II alone has sold for over $100 million. In approximately February, 2005, the programming reached the point of being one month behind the new shows being aired in the UK.

Doom became a killer application that all capable consoles and operating systems were expected to have, and versions of Doom have subsequently been released for the following systems: DOS, Microsoft Windows, QNX, Irix, NEXTSTEP, Linux, Apple Macintosh, Super NES, Sega 32X, Sony PlayStation, Game Boy Advance, RiscOS, Atari Jaguar, Sega Saturn, Nintendo 64, the Tapwave Zodiac and 3DO. Dish first broadcast two weeks' worth of shows each week to get caught up. The popularity of Doom led to the development of a sequel, Doom II: Hell on Earth (1994), as well as expansion packs and alternate versions based on the same game engine, including The Ultimate Doom (1995), Final Doom (1996), and Doom 64 (1997). In June, 2004, the Dish Satellite Network picked up EastEnders, airing episodes starting at the point where BBC America had ceased broadcasting them, offering the serial as a Pay-per-View item. Main articles: Doom clones, Versions and ports of Doom, Doom spin-offs and homages. It is still shown on BBC Prime in Europe, Africa, and Asia, and on BBC Canada in Canada. A typical launcher would allow the player to select which files to load from a menu, making it much easier to start. The series aired in the United States until BBC America ceased broadcasts of the serial in 2003, amidst fan protests.

Third party programs were also written to handle the loading of various WADs, since the game is a DOS game and all commands had to be entered on the command line to run. EastEnders is aired around the world in many English-speaking countries, including New Zealand and Canada. Several thousands of WADs have been created in total: the idgames FTP archive contains over 13,000 files^[7], and this does not represent the complete output of Doom fans. The current series has now finished. A few WADs have been released commercially, including the Master Levels for Doom II, which was released in 1995 along with Maximum Doom, a CD containing 1,830 WADs that had been downloaded from the Internet. The series goes behind the scenes of the show and talks to some of the cast members. FTP servers became the primary method in later years. The show is presented by Angelica Bell and available to digital viewers at 8.30 PM on Monday nights.

Around 1994 and 1995, WADs were primarily distributed online over bulletin board systems or sold in collections on compact discs in computer shops, sometimes bundled with editing guide books. As part of the BBC's digital push, EastEnders Xtra was introduced in 2005. Notable ones were samples from Beavis and Butthead and the famous orgasm scene from When Harry Met Sally.... They are showing 5 episodes which means that 5 week's worth of episodes are shown every 4 weeks, which results in a catch-up rate of around 3 months a year). Some addon files were also made which changed the sounds made by the various characters and weapons. EastEnders is usually repeated on BBC3 at 10:00 PM and old reruns can often be seen on UKTV Gold (As of February 2006, UKTV Gold are showing episodes originally aired in November 2002. Although the majority of WADs contain one or several custom levels mostly in the style of the original game, others implement new monsters and other resources, and heavily alter the gameplay; several popular movies, television series and other brands from popular culture have been turned into Doom WADs by fans (without authorization), including Aliens, Star Wars, The X-files, The Simpsons and Batman. On Wednesday 28th December 2005, Eastenders aired for the first time on a Wednesday night as part of the New Year's Eve storyline leading up to Dennis' death.

The first level editors appeared in early 1994, and additional tools have been created that allow most aspects of the game to be edited. In March of the same year, as Peter Fincham became the BBC One controller, rumours were sparked that EastEnders could air in a new time slot. Several to-be professional game designers started their careers making Doom WADs as a hobby, among them Tim Willits, who later became the lead designer at id Software. Newspaper reports indicated that the show faced being taken off air for a fortnight after a storyline shortage, however this was denied by the BBC. Gaining the first large mod-making community, Doom affected the culture surrounding first-person shooters, and also the industry. In February 2005, there were reports that the EastEnders schedule was threatened due to production problems. The ability to create custom levels and otherwise modify the game, in the form of custom WAD files, turned out to be a particularly popular aspect of Doom. This was to coincide with the relaunch of the channel and helped BBC3 break the one million viewers for the first time with 1.03 million who watched to see Mark Fowler's departure.

Main article: Doom WADs. In early 2003, viewers could watch episodes of EastEnders on digital channel BBC3 before they were broadcast on BBC One. Due to its widespread distribution, Doom hence became the game that introduced deathmatching to a large audience (and was also the first game to use the term "deathmatch"). An episode of EastEnders Revealed which was commissioned for BBC3 attracted 611,000 viewers. Two player deathmatch was also possible over a phone line by using a modem. EastEnders Revealed is the only BBC Choice programme to last the entire life of the channel and is still running on BBC3. However, Doom was the first game to allow deathmatching over ethernet, and the combination of violence and gore with fighting friends made deathmatching in Doom particularly attractive. In 1998, EastEnders Revealed was launched on BBC Choice (now BBC3), the show takes a look behind the scenes of the show and investigates particular places, characters or families within EastEnders.

Doom was not the first first-person shooter with a deathmatch mode—MIDI Maze on the Atari ST had one in 1987, using the MIDI ports built into the ST to network up to four machines together. In this first head-to-head battle, EastEnders claimed victory over its rival. In addition to the thrilling nature of the single-player game, the deathmatch mode was an important factor in the game's popularity. The move immediately provoked an angry response from ITV insiders, who argued that the BBC's last-minute move - only revealed at 3.30 PM on the day - broke an unwritten scheduling rule that the two flagship soaps would not be put directly against each other. It also received the Award for Technical Excellence from PC Magazine, and the Best Action Adventure Game award by the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences. This caused some controversy as it clashed with Coronation Street, which at the time was moved to 8.00 PM to make way for an hour long episode of rural soap Emmerdale at 7.00 PM. In 1994, it was awarded Game of the Year by both PC Gamer and Computer Gaming World. EastEnders then added its fourth episode (shown on Fridays) on August 10th 2001.

Doom was also widely praised in the gaming press. EastEnders output then increased to thrice after Coronation Street added an extra episode - in response to competition from EastEnders. ^[6]. Realising the futility of the situation, Grade decided to move the show to the later 7:30PM slot, but to avoid tabloid speculation that it was a 'panic move' on the BBC's behalf, they had to "dress up the presentation of that move in such a way as to protect the show" giving "all kinds of reasons" for the move . One such presentation to promote Windows 95 had Bill Gates digitally superimposed into the game. Originally EastEnders was shown twice weekly at 7.00PM, however it soon moved to 7.30PM as Michael Grade did not want the soap running in direct competition with Emmerdale Farm; the BBC had originally planned to take advantage of the 'summer break' that Emmerdale Farm usually took in order to capitalise on ratings, but ITV added extra episodes and repeats so that Emmerdale Farm was not taken off over the summer. The game's popularity prompted Bill Gates to briefly consider buying id Software, and led Microsoft to develop a Windows 95 port of Doom to promote the operating system as a gaming platform. EastEnders is currently aired at 7.30PM on Tuesday & Thursday and 8.00PM on Monday and Friday, the omnibus is aired on Sunday, though the exact time differs.

In late 1995, Doom was estimated to be installed on more computers worldwide than Microsoft's new operating system Windows 95, despite million-dollar advertising campaigns for the latter. For the past 20 years EastEnders has remained at the centre of BBC One's primetime schedule. At the Microsoft campus, Doom was by one account^[5a] equal to a "religious phenomenon". EastEnders was perhaps at its least popular in the year 2004, its lowest ever audience share was 28% in early 2005. Intel, Lotus Development and Carnegie Mellon University are among many organizations reported to form policies specifically disallowing Doom-playing during work hours. Sonia's shock birth in 2000 was watched by 19.3 million viewers and in 2001, Mel's marriage to Steve Owen was watched by 22.5 million viewers. This prediction came true at least in part: Doom became a major problem at workplaces, both occupying the time of employees and clogging computer networks with traffic caused by deathmatches. Despite a decade and a half of high ratings it was most popular in the early 2000s, attracting an average of 15 million for most episodes and peaks of upto 25 million for the climaxes of popular storylines.

In a press release dated January 1, 1993, id Software had written that they expected Doom to be "the number one cause of decreased productivity in businesses around the world". In comparison, the smallest amount for an EastEnders episode was around 6.2 million in 2004, higher than the lowest of its rivals Coronation Street and Emmerdale. In 1995, The Ultimate Doom (version 1.9, including episode IV) was released, making this the first time that Doom was sold commercially in stores. This was its largest audience ever, the largest amount of viewers for a soap episode, the 4th largest audience for a British television channel ever and the highest television audience for a single channel of the 1980s. Although most users did not purchase the registered version, over one million copies have been sold, and the popularity helped the sales of later games in the Doom series which were not released as shareware. In 1986, just under two years since it had been on air, EastEnders attracted 30.15 million viewers, for the Christmas episode in which Den handed a divorce letter to wife Angie. Released as shareware, people were encouraged to distribute Doom further, and did so: in 1995, Doom was estimated to have been installed on more than 10 million computers. The launch show attracted 17 million viewers in the 1980s, this was perhaps helped by the amount of press attention it received, something which continues today.

(Many years later these alpha versions were sanctioned by id Software because of historical interest; they reveal how the game progressed from its early design stages.) The first public version of Doom was uploaded to an FTP run at the University of Wisconsin on December 10, 1993. Ever since EastEnders began on the mainstream BBC One, it has achieved some of the highest audiences in British television history. In addition to news, rumors, and screenshots, unauthorized leaked alpha versions also circulated online. Aside from that, the 10pm repeat showing on BBC Three attracts an average of 500,000 viewers, whilst the Sunday omnibus attracts a further 3 million. The large number of posts in Internet newsgroups about Doom led to the SPISPOPD joke, to which a nod was given in the game in the form of a cheat code. An average EastEnders episode attracts a total audience share between 45% and 50%. The development of Doom was surrounded by much anticipation. Based on market research by BBC commissioning in 2003, EastEnders is most watched by 16 - 24 year olds, closely followed by 25 - 34 year olds.

The ability to create custom scenarios contributed significantly to the game's popularity (see the section on WADs below). But the battle between EastEnders and Emmerdale saw EastEnders come out on top with 200,000 more viewers on the 1st December 2005. Wolfenstein 3D was not designed to be expansible, but fans had nevertheless figured out how to create their own levels for it, and Doom was designed to take the phenomenon further. However, this indirectly helped increase the audience of digital channel BBC Three as 1 million (10% share) tuned in to see the second showing. Another important feature of the Doom engine is a modular approach that allows the game content to be replaced by loading custom WAD files. The episode of Emmerdale, which saw the departure of one of its more popular characters, attracted 8.3 million viewers leaving EastEnders with 6.6 million for the funeral of Den Watts. Another benefit was the clearness of the automap because it could be displayed with 2D vectors without the risk of overlapping. Weeks after this, ITV again scheduled episodes of Emmerdale against EastEnders.

This two-dimensional representation does, however, have the benefit that rendering can be done very quickly, using a binary space partitioning method. In autumn of 2005, EastEnders had seen its average audience share increase, with the unearthing of Den Watts' body and the marriage of Sharon and Dennis. This leads to several limitations: it is, for example, not possible for a Doom level to have one room over another. John Yorke immediately stepped into her position until a few weeks later when Kate Harwood was announced as the new executive producer. Most significantly, Doom levels are not truly three-dimensional; they are internally represented on a plane, with height differences added separately (a similar trick is still used by many games to create huge outdoor environments). But through her short reign she led EastEnders to some of its most healthy viewing figures in months. Carmack had to make use of several tricks for these features to run smoothly on 1993's home computers. This was one of the reasons storylines such as the 'Real Walford' football team were suddenly ignored.

Monsters can also become aware of the player's presence by hearing distant gunshots. She is also said to have torn up many of the scripts that were planned and demanded re-writes. The player is kept on guard by the grunts and gnarls of monsters, and receives occasional clues to finding secret areas in the form of sounds of hidden doors opening remotely. It is reported that the cast and crew did not get on well with Kathleen Hutchison as she had them filming up to 12am. The life-like feeling of the environment was enhanced further by the stereo sound system, which made it possible to roughly tell the direction and distance of a sound's origin. He also brought back long serving script writer Tony Jordan. In contrast to the static levels of Wolfenstein 3D, those in Doom are highly interactive: platforms can lower and rise, floors can raise sequentially to form staircases, and bridges can raise and lower. John Yorke who led EastEnders through what Mal Young (the then head of BBC drama) said was one of its most successful periods in 2001, returned to the BBC as the head of drama, meaning his responsibilities included the running of EastEnders.

The advance from id Software's previous game Wolfenstein 3D was enabled by several new features in the Doom engine:. But in January 2005, after just four months it was the end for Kathleen Hutchison. Doom's primary distinguishing feature at the time of its release was its realistic 3D graphics, then unparalleled by other real-time-rendered games running on consumer-level hardware. It indicated a fresh start for EastEnders after declining ratings in 2004. Main article: Doom engine. Whilst she was there she set about reversing the previous executive producer's work. ^[5]. Kathleen Hutchison went on to axe Den Watts, Andy Hunter, Juley Smith and Derek Harkinson.

A heavy metal-ambient soundtrack was supplied by Bobby Prince. And within a few weeks later the producers announced a major shake-up of the cast with the highly-criticised Ferreira family, first seen in June 2003, set to leave at the beginning of 2005. The graphics, by Adrian Carmack, Kevin Cloud and Gregor Punchatz, were created in various ways: although much was drawn or painted, several of the monsters were digitized from sculptures in clay or latex, and some of the weapons are toy guns from Toys "R" Us. Kathleen Hutchison who had been the producer of hospital drama Holby City, was announced as the new executive producer. Most of the level design that ended up in the final game is that of John Romero and Sandy Petersen. However, EastEnders was at a disadvantage as Emmerdale had began half an hour earlier, and the press were reporting viewers were bored with implausible and ill thought out storylines. Designer Tom Hall wrote an elaborate design document called the Doom Bible, according to which the game would feature a detailed storyline, multiple player characters, and a number of interactive features.^[4] However, many of his ideas were discarded during development in favor of simpler design primarily advocated by Carmack, resulting in Hall in the end being forced to resign due to not contributing effectively in the direction the rest of the team was going. Emmerdale was watched by 8.1 million people.

The title of the game was picked by Carmack:. The following day the show received its lowest ever ratings (6.2 million) when ITV scheduled an hour long episode of its usually less-popular soap, Emmerdale against it. When the game design phase began in late 1992, the main thematic influences were the science fiction action movie Aliens and the horror movie Evil Dead II. On 21 September 2004 Louise Berridge, the then executive producer, quit following massive criticism of the show. The development of Doom started in 1992 with John Carmack creating the new game engine, the Doom engine, while the rest of the team finished Spear of Destiny. EastEnders won the battle with 8.4 million viewers (41% share) whilst Coronation Street lagged behind with 7.3 million viewers (36% share). Main article: Making of Doom. In 2001 however, the soaps clashed for the first time.

. In order to maximise ratings the BBC and ITV are usually careful to avoid scheduling clashes between their flagship soaps. Aside from the single-player game mode, Doom features two multiplayer modes playable over a network: "co-operative", in which two to four players team up against the legions of Hell, and "deathmatch", in which two to four players fight each other. Its main rival for ratings is usually Coronation Street. The monsters have very simple behavior, consisting of either walking toward the player or attacking by throwing fireballs, biting, and scratching (though they can also fight each other). EastEnders is one of the more popular programmes on British television and regularly attracts between 9 and 13 million viewers, while the show's ratings have fallen since its initial surge in pouplarity, the programme continues to be largely lucrative for the BBC. There are 10 types of monsters (Doom II doubles this figure), including possessed humans as well as demons of different strength, ranging from weak but ubiquitous imps and red, floating cacodemons, to the bosses which survive multiple strikes even from the player's strongest weapons. This remains the highest rated episode of a soap in British television history.

The player faces them in large numbers, on the higher of the game's five difficulty levels often encountering a dozen or more in the same room. In the Christmas of 1986, it attracted a massive 30.15 million viewers who tuned in to see Den Watts hand over divorce papers to wife Angie. The enemy monsters in Doom make up the central gameplay element. Research suggested that people found the characters true to life, the plots believable and, importantly in the face of criticism of the content, people watched as a family and regarded it as viewing for all the family. There is a wide array of power-ups, such as a backpack that increases the player's ammunition-carrying capacity, armor, first aid kits to restore health, and blue demonic orbs that boost the player's health percentage beyond 100%, up to a maximum of 200%. As mentioned, EastEnders proved highly popular and Appreciation Indexes reflected this, rising from 55–60 at the launch to 85–5 later on, a figure which was nearly ten points higher than the average for British soap opera. The player starts armed only with a pistol, and brass-knuckled fists in case the ammunition runs out, but larger weapons can be picked up: these are a chainsaw, a shotgun, a chaingun, a rocket launcher, a plasma rifle, and finally the immensely powerful BFG 9000. A precursor in UK soaps also set in a East End market was ATV's Market in Honey Lane between 1967 and 1969.

Doom is notable for the weapons arsenal available to the player, which became prototypical for first-person shooters. 'Exclusives' about EastEnders storylines became a staple of tabloid buyers daily reading. The levels are sometimes labyrinthine (the automap is a crucial aid in navigating them), and feature plenty of hidden secret areas that hold power-ups as a reward for players who explore. By Christmas of 1985, the tabloids couldn't get enough of the show. Among the obstacles are monsters, pits of radioactive slime, ceilings that come down and crush the player, and locked doors for which a keycard or remote switch need to be located. This referred to Leslie Grantham, and set the tone for relations between Albert Square and the press for the next 20 years. The objective of each level is simply to locate the exit room that leads to the next area (usually labeled with an inviting red EXIT sign), while surviving all hazards on the way. Within weeks the headline they had all dreaded had appeared — EASTENDERS STAR IS A KILLER.

Being a first-person shooter, Doom is experienced through the eyes of the main character. Press coverage, already intense, went into overdrive. Main article: Gameplay of Doom. Detailed reactions were taken after six months and since then regular monitoring has been conducted. The expansion pack Ultimate Doom adds a fourth episode, Thy Flesh Consumed, chronicling the marine's return to Earth. Following the launch, both group discussions and telephone surveys were conducted to test audience reaction to early episodes. After destroying the final boss, the Spider Mastermind, a hidden doorway opens for the hero who has "proven too tough for Hell to contain", leading back home to Earth. The reviews were largely favourable, although after three weeks on air, BBC One's early evening share had returned to the pre-EastEnders figure of 7 million, though EastEnders then climbed to highs of up to 23 million later on in the year.

The player climbs down to the surface, and the final episode, Inferno, begins. The next day viewing figures were confirmed at 17 million. After encountering the Cyberdemon, the truth about the vanished moon is discovered: it is floating above Hell. Both Holland and Smith could not watch, they both instead returned to the place where it all began. In the second episode, Shores of Hell, the player journeys through the Deimos installation, whose areas are interwoven with beastly architecture. Anticipation and rumour grew in equal measure until the first transmission at 7pm on 19 February 1985. It ends with the player fighting the Barons of Hell and afterwards entering the teleporter leading to Deimos, there getting overwhelmed by monsters and seemingly killed. The press were invited to see Elstree and meet the cast and see the lot - and stories immediately started circulating about the show, about a rivalry with ITV (who were launching their own market-based soap, Albion Market) and about the private lives of the cast.

Knee-Deep in the Dead, the first episode and the only one in the shareware version, is set in the high-tech military bases on Phobos. Julia Smith was uneasy about the late start as EastEnders no longer had the winter months to build up a loyal following before the summer ratings lull. In order to beat the game, the player must fight through three episodes containing nine levels each (see Episodes and levels of Doom). The launch was delayed for a second time until February 1985 due to a delay in the chat show Wogan, that was to be a part of the major revamp in BBC One's schedules. A UAC team from Mars is sent to Phobos to investigate the incident, but soon radio contact ceases and only one human is left alive — the player, whose task is to make it out alive.^[2]. Simon May (music) and Alan Jeapes (visuals) created it, and it remains one of the strongest title clips in television. At the same time, Deimos vanishes entirely. Through the next few months, the set was growing rapidly at Elstree, and a composer and designer had been commissioned to create the title sequence.

A defensive response from base security fails to halt the invasion, and the bases quickly get overrun by demons, all personnel getting killed or turned into zombies. Everyone was in agreement, East 8 was to be tough, violent on occasion, funny and sharp - and it would start with a bang. Suddenly, something goes wrong and creatures from Hell come out of the teleportation gates. Once they decided on these they returned to London for a meeting with the BBC. He is forced to work for the Union Aerospace Corporation (UAC), a military-industrial conglomerate that is performing secret experiments with teleportation between the moons of Mars, Phobos and Deimos. After they decided on the filming location (BBC Elstree Studios in Hertfordshire), Smith and Holland set about creating the 24 characters needed in just 14 days. The player takes the role of a nameless space marine, "one of Earth's toughest, hardened in combat and trained for action", who has been deported to Mars for assaulting a senior officer when ordered to kill unarmed civilians. The project had a number of working titles — Square Dance, Round the Square, Round the Houses, London Pride, East 8. It was the latter that stuck (E8 is the postcode for Hackney) in the early months of creative process.

The background is only given in the game's manual, and the in-game story is mainly advanced with short messages displayed between the game's episodes. However, in February 1984 they didn't even have a title or a place to film. Doom has a science-fictionhorror theme, and a simple plot. Julia Smith and Tony Holland had just 11 months in which to write, cast and shoot the whole thing. . The target launch date was originally September 1984 but this was postponed due to Michael Grade - the new controller of BBC One - preferring a January start. The franchise again received popular attention in 2004 with the release of Doom 3, a retelling of the original game using new technology, and an associated 2005 Doom motion picture. They also looked at Brookside but found there was a lack of central meeting points for the characters, making it difficult for the writers to intertwine different storylines.

The series lost mainstream appeal as the technology of the Doom game engine was surpassed in the mid-1990s, although fans have continued making WADs, speedrunning, and modifying the source code which was released in 1997. They came to the conclusion that Coronation Street had grown old with its audience, and that EastEnders would have to attract a younger, more socially extensive audience ensuring that it had the longevity to retain it for many years thereafter. Originally released for PC/DOS, these games have later been ported to many other platforms, including nine different game consoles. They also identified that it has had difficulty in replacing 'big' characters such as Len Fairclough and Elsie Tanner, something which is arguably still present to this day, with the exit of Karen McDonald. The Doom franchise was continued with Doom II: Hell on Earth (1994) and numerous expansion packs, including The Ultimate Doom (1995), Master Levels for Doom II (1995), and Final Doom (1996). Only after EastEnders begun did Coronation Street start to feature black people for example. Its graphic and interactive violence^[1] has also made Doom the subject of much controversy reaching outside the gaming world. When developing EastEnders, both Julia Smith and Tony Holland looked at influential models like Coronation Street, but they found that it offered a rather outdated and nostalgic view of working-class life.

Distributed as shareware, Doom was downloaded by an estimated 10 million people within two years, popularizing the mode of gameplay and spawning a gaming subculture; as a sign of its impact on the industry, games from the mid-1990s boom of first-person shooters are often known simply as "Doom clones". This was the beginning of a close and continuing association between EastEnders and audience research, which though commonplace today was something of a revolution in practice. It is widely recognized for its pioneer use of immersive 3D graphics, networked multiplayer gaming, and the support for players to create custom expansions (WADs). There was anxiety at first that the viewing public would not accept a new soap set in the south of England, though research commissioned by lead figures in the BBC had revealed southerners would accept a northern soap, northerners would accept a southern soap and those from the Midlands, as Julia Smith herself pointed out, didn’t mind where it was set as long as it was somewhere else. Doom (or DOOM)^a is a 1993 computer game by id Software that is among the landmark titles in the first-person shooter genre. Smith and Holland then went about putting ideas down on paper, they decided it would be set in the East End of London. The variation DooM, stylized after the game's logo, is also occasionally encountered, but has fallen out of use almost completely in recent years. The outline that Reid presented was vague: two episodes a week, 52 weeks a year.

Note a: The variations Doom and DOOM have both been used in official contexts. The first people to whom David Reid, then head of series and serials, turned were Julia Smith and Tony Holland, a well established producer/script editor team who had first worked together on Z-Cars. URL accessed on November 15, 2005.. In February 1983, two years before EastEnders hit the screen, the show was nothing more than a vague idea in the mind of a handful of BBC executives, who decided that what BBC One needed was a popular bi-weekly drama series that would attract the kind of mass audiences ITV was getting with Coronation Street. Planet Rome.ro. It was the brass at BBC who had the last laugh, however, as EastEnders became wildly popular and displaced Coronation Street from the top of the ratings for the rest of the 1980s and 1990s and partly the 2000s. 1993: Doom. One news source went as far as to accuse the channel of only having the guts to air the soap after Patricia Phoenix, arguably Britain's premier soap diva, left Coronation Street.

Romero, John. Critics first derided the new offering, as it was clear that BBC wished to bridge the gap between the network and its competitor, ITV. URL accessed on November 15, 2005.. It started airing on the night after a major ident change for the channel, with the show representing the "new face" of the BBC. The "Official" Doom FAQ. EastEnders was launched at a critical moment in the BBC’s history and was intended to demonstrate the BBC’s ability to produce popular programming. Leukart, Hank (1994). Aside from this soap opera staples of youthful romance, jealousies, domestic rivalries, kitchen disasters, gossip, community fund-raising events and extra-marital affairs are regularly featured.

URL accessed on November 15, 2005.. In the early 2000s, EastEnders covered the issue of euthanasia with long-established characters Ethel Skinner and Dot Cotton, Kat Slater's abuse by her uncle Harry as a child, the domestic abuse of Little Mo Slater by husband Trevor, Sonia giving birth at the age of fifteen and then putting the baby up for adoption, prostitution, agoraphobia and drugs. Player profile for Thomas "Panter" Pilger. However, EastEnders still featured hard-hitting issues such as Mark Fowler discovering he was HIV positive in 1991 and the death of Gill, murder, adoption, alcoholism and domestic violence. ^  Hegyi, Adam (1992). As the show progressed into the nineties, less screen time was spent on these issues, perhaps reflecting the change in government. URL accessed on November 15, 2005.. Such storylines include Sue and Ali’s baby's cot death, Nick Cotton's homophobia, the rape of Kathy Beale in 1988, Michelle Fowler's teenage pregnancy, drug dealing, prostitution, mixed-race relationships, shoplifting, sexism, racism, divorce and muggings.

GameSpy. Above all, we wanted realism’. GameSpy's Top 50 Games of All Time. She also said: ‘We decided to go for a realistic, fairly outspoken type of drama which could encompass stories about homosexuality, rape, unemployment, racial prejudice, etc., in a believable context. ^  GameSpy (2001). Creator/ producer Julia Smith declared that 'we don't make life, we reflect it'. URL accessed on November 15, 2005.. The programme makers emphasised that it was to be about 'everyday life' in the inner city 'today' and regard it as a 'slice of life'.

Basement Tapes: quotes and transcripts from Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold's video tapes. Arguably the difference between them was whilst Brookside confronted issues it was more sensationalist and EastEnders tried to maintain realism. ^  4-20: a Columbine site. Brookside had also launched as a social realist drama, leading the way for more conservative soaps like EastEnders to follow. URL accessed on November 15, 2005.. However EastEnders has for the most part remained a populist series and has generally avoided the arguably tougher stories of Brookside. Accuracy In Media. In the eighties, EastEnders featured gritty storylines involving drugs and crime, representing the issues faced by working-class Britain much as Coronation Street did in the 1960s but updated for an age of social breakdown.

Video Games Can Kill. Created in Thatcherite Britain during the worst economic recession in Britain since the 1930s combined with high unemployment and rocketing crime rates, EastEnders tried to represent this in the social realist tradition. ^  Irvine, Reed & Kincaid, Cliff (1999). Examples include Den Watts, James Wilmott-Brown, Steve Owen, Andy Hunter and Johnny Allen. URL accessed on November 15, 2005.. Another recurring character type is the smartly dressed businessman, often involved in crime, who is seen as a local authority figure. GameSpy. These characters are seen as being loud and interfering but most importantly, responsible for the well-being of the family and usually stressing the importance of family, reflecting on the past.

Bringin' in the DOOM Clones. Some families feature an stereotypical East End matriarch such as Lou Beale, Pauline Fowler, Mo Harris and Peggy Mitchell. ^  Turner, Benjamin & Bowen, Kevin (2003). Key people involved in the production of EastEnders have stressed how important this idea of strong families is to EastEnders. URL accessed on November 15, 2005.. The 2000s saw a new focus on the largely female Slater clan before the return of emphasis to the Watts and Mitchell families. Sales. The Watts and Mitchell families have been central to most of the notable EastEnders storylines and Peggy Mitchell in particular is notorious for her ceaseless repetition of such statements as "You're a Mitchell".

^  Doom Wiki (2005). Tony Holland drew on the names of his own family for his characters. URL accessed on September 3, 2005.. The first central family was the Fowlers, consisting of Pauline, Arthur, Mark, Michelle and also the closely related Beale family - Pete, Lou and Ian. /idgames database. Co-creator Tony Holland was himself from a large East End family and such families have typified EastEnders. ^  Doomworld. EastEnders was built around the ideas of "clans" of strong families and each character having a place in the community.

URL accessed on November 15, 2005.. It is rumoured that the fictional borough of Walford was named after the areas of London that the creators hailed from - Walthamstow and Stratford. Reel Splatter. However, the show's producers actually based the square's design on the real life 'Fasset Square' in the East End. Bonus movie: Bill Gates "DOOM" video. In reality, an Albert Square does exist in the East End, in Stratford. ^  Lombardo, Mike. The postcode for the area "E8" was one of the working titles for the series.

ISBN 0-3755-0524-5.. The strongest claim to being the 'real' Albert Square is held by Broadway Market in Hackney, a short pedestrianised road that features a weekly market and established street vendors. Masters of Doom: How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture, Random House Publishing Group. Walford has the fictional postal district of E20, thus fans have also tried to pinpoint the location using this, however, realistically London East postal districts stop at E18, the show's creators opted for E20 instead of E19 as it was thought to sound better. ^ ^a  Kushner, David (2003). Walford East, is a fictional tube station for Walford, with the aid of a map that was first seen on air in 1996, it has been established that Walford East is located between Bow Road and West Ham, which realistically would replace Bromley-by-Bow. URL accessed on November 15, 2005.. In the past, fans have tried to establish the actual location of Walford within London.

Doomworld (1998). In 1993, George Street was added, and soon after, Walford East tube station was built. The Doom Bible. Then in 1986 he added an extension to the set, building the fourth side of Albert Square and in 1987 Turpin Road was added which included buildings such as The Dagmar. ^  Hall, Tom (1992). The EastEnders lot was built and designed by Keith Harris, who was a senior designer within the production team. URL accessed on November 15, 2005.. This was done by a number of means, including chipping at the buildings with pickaxes.

Interview with John Carmack. But as the set was built in the early eighties, it had to be made to look as if it had been standing for years and years. ^  Doomworld. Thus, central to Albert Square is The Queen Victoria Public House. URL accessed on November 15, 2005.. Firstly, the square is named Albert Square after Prince Albert, the late husband of Queen Victoria, who then went on to die in 1901. The Doom instruction manual (unofficial transcript). It is thought that Albert Square was built around the early 20th century, indeed heavy research was done by the show's creators to support this.

^  id Software (1993). These themes that were found for the setting can still be found in a present day episode of EastEnders. URL accessed on December 4, 2004.. A real East End spirit — an inward looking quality, a distrust of strangers and authority figures, a sense of territory and community that the creators summed up as 'Hurt one of us and you hurt us all'. Game ratings. However, delving further into the East End, they found exactly what they had been searching for. ^  Entertainment Software Rating Board. The show's creators were both Londoners, but when they researched Victorian Squares they found massive changes in areas they thought they knew well.

While contributing to the game's visual authenticity by allowing effects such as highlights and shadows, this perhaps most importantly added to the game's atmosphere and even gameplay; the use of darkness as a means of frightening or confusing the player was an unseen element in games. EastEnders is set in the fictional London Borough of Walford, however the central focus of the show is that of the equally fictional Victorian square named Albert Square. Varying light levels (all areas in Wolfenstein 3D are fully lit at the same brightness). . Full texture mapping of all surfaces (in Wolfenstein 3D, floors and ceilings are not texture mapped); and,. Despite lengthy criticism of the show from the critics, in October 2005 it won the prestgious National Television Award for most popular Serial Drama which EastEnders has won several consecutive times in the past ten years. Non-perpendicular walls (all walls in Wolfenstein 3D run along a rectangular grid);. It has been running ever since, generating strong viewing figures for much of that time, and has been the UK's highest-rating programme on numerous occasions.

Height differences (all rooms in Wolfenstein 3D are at the same altitude);. EastEnders is a popular BBC television soap opera which was first broadcast on 19 February 1985. EastEnders: The Inside Story. The EastEnders Programme Guide. Public Secrets: EastEnders and its Audience.

EastEnders: The First 10 Years: A Celebration. Lulu is a big fan of the show. On Friday the 11 November 2005, EastEnders was the first British drama to feature a two minute silence. Osymyso a.k.a Mark Nicholson, one of the UK's original bootleg artists created a track based on remixed scenes of the Pat vs Peggy showdown.

This includes the 1980's, 1990's and so far the 2000's. Since EastEnders began in 1985, at least one of its episodes have rated higher than any other British soap opera throughout each decade. EastEnders was the inaugural winner of the 1999 BAFTA for best continuing drama. However, it proved very unpopular with the viewers and was replaced with a remix of the original theme tune only 11 months later, from 11 April 1994 (Also the first Monday edition of the show).

In 1993, the show's theme tune was updated to a Jazzy version, first heard on 11 May 1993. Albert Square is built on the site last used for building works in the 1980s Auf Wiedersehen, Pet. When Barbara Windsor joined in 1994, she was only contracted for ten episodes. The roads around Albert Square are not built to scale: they look real but some can only take one car at a time.

The Queen visited the set in 2001 and was shown around by actresses Wendy Richard and Barbara Windsor. A vocal version of the theme tune called 'Anyone can fall in Love' reached number 4 in the charts in the summer of 1986 and was sung by Anita Dobson (Angie Watts). Oxfam was the main outlet used for the actors costumes when the series was first made. The War memorial on set features names of people involved in EastEnders along with past stars.

Leslie Grantham originally auditioned for the part of Pete Beale but was thought too good looking so was instead cast as Den Watts. Pam St Clement (Pat) has 125 pairs of earrings from which to choose and fans still send her earrings in which she wears in the programme. The famous double-handers when only two actors appear in an episode was originally done for speed: while they film that, the rest of the cast can be making another episode. Researchers, from the BBC, went to the East End and visited 'Fassett Square' in the 1980’s.

Before the Spice Girls, Emma Bunton was cast as a troubled youth in the soap. Martha Ross, mother of television presenter Jonathan, has been an extra in the programme, as a market stallholder, since its inception. Robbie Williams has made a cameo appearance on the telephone in the Queen Vic and is a big fan of the show. Brad Pitt is such a fan of the soap that when BBC America took EastEnders off the air in 2003, he and his then wife Jennifer Aniston joined a petition of 15,000 US fans demanding the cable channel reinstate it.

George Michael, Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston are also fans of the soap. Madonna and Guy Ritchie are rumoured to be big fans of the show, with Madonna's favourite character being Dot Cotton. Sheila Hancock has appeared in the soap playing Barbara Owen. Susan Tully who played Michelle Fowler has directed some episodes since leaving.

There is a shop in Walford named Barratt's Bargain Corner, cleverly incorporating the BBC's initials. In 2001 EastEnders went head to head with Coronation Street for the first time, EastEnders won the battle with 8.4 million viewers (41%) while Coronation Street attracted 7.3 million (36%). EastEnders holds the record for the highest rated soap episode in Britain. EastEnders was the 1st most popular UK search term in 2005.

EastEnders was the 4th most popular UK search term in 2004. EastEnders was the 2nd most popular UK search term in 2003. Between 2001 and 2002, EastEnders was the 10th most searched-for TV show on the Internet.