Doom Comes to Xbox Live Arcade

Doom on Xbox Live

Bethesda announced today that a day Xbox gamers have been awaiting for a very long time has finally come: the original Doom is available for download from Xbox Live Arcade.

Scheduled for release today (it will probably be available by the time you read this), this crucial piece of video game history will cost you 400 Microsoft Points (US $5).

Doom, first released for the PC in 1993, is widely regarded as one of the most important video games of all time, because it propagated the 3D shooter as a major new genre for games, and was the first widely-available multiplayer game — footsteps hundreds of games have followed in. It’s also remembered as one of the most controversial games of all time, thanks to its excess of blood, gore, and satanic imagery.

Id Software’s classic game is fully Xbox Live compatible, so you can jump into deathmatch online, or team up with a friend to play through the game in co-op.

From the screenhots below, the technology used to power Doom seems downright archaic today. I can’t help wondering what it would be like if Id had given Doom an HD upgrade; not a full-blown remake, just higher-res textures, character models, etc., like Halo: Anniversary.