Doom is, to my mind, the greatest game of all time. It's a seminal early FPS from the early 90s, in which you play as a space marine running around the space stations moons of mars, and, later the halls of Hell itself, fighting an array of unholy demons that have been pouring through a gateway between the two worlds, whilst all your fellow humans have been turned into gun-toting, bloodthirsty zombies. It was unbelievably impressive when it came out, and plays like a dream even today, as there is immense satisfaction to be found in running around the various levels blating away at hordes of the undead whilst desperately trying to avoid running out of ammo.

The original game had 3 episodes- Knee Deep in the Dead, The Shores of Hell and finally Inferno. Ultimate doom simply adds another episode, namely Thy Flesh Consumed, which a the time of its release PC Zone nicknamed 'Thy Cash Consumed', highlighting the fact that it was simply another attempt to squeeze money out of the franchise. This is a little unfair, as the new levels are all very well-constructed and highly enjoyable, althought they do not follow a straightforward learning curve as found in the earlier episodes. A cynical view would be that they are just a collection of decent wads thrown together, although that criticism could also be appropriately levelled at Doom 2, but who cares if the levels are good?

Ultimate Doom came out one year after doom 2 came out (1994 and 1995 respectively), and so at the time it did seem something as a step back, as it contains none of the new enemies from Doom 2, nor the excellent super-shotgun. There are no new visuals, just new levels, and the last episode does feel a bit tacked on, as the original Doom release was utterly perfect in and of itself, but on the whole its still a worthy addition. It is easy to understand why people were less than impressed by this update of the original game at the time, especially when PC Zone had earlier given away 1000 user-made WADS (levels, many of them of retail-quality) free on a single cover-cd, and though the original Doom release from 1993 will always be the definitive version, Ultimate Doom is still a brilliant package overall.