Title says it all really. The upcoming release of Doom 4 (D44m, Doom4?) made me realise that I haven't ever seriously touched the original, even though I feel it is a game I would enjoy, if only because of how I have enjoyed titles such as Serious Sam and Shadow Warrior. For those that know about this stuff, what is the currently best version of Doom I can purchase? Steam has a whole bunch of options, as does GoG. I have no idea what the difference is between Final Doom and The Ultimate Doom.
Bear in mind that I do also want a version that is compatible with custom WADs and mods, such as Brutal Doom. Thanks in advance.

I have come from the Doom community to help you!

If you want to play most of the wads that are out there, you're gonna want Doom II. That's pretty much because most level sets are made for it, as it's kinda the de-facto blueprint for a 32 map megawad. It's also got a much wider set of monsters than Doom, as well as the SSG...so most level designers generally target their WADs for Doom 2. It's worth having all the IWADs though, just because they're worth playing through at least once, and there are great mapsets out there for each one of them. Yes, even TNT.

As for the difference between each of the games -- The Ultimate Doom is basically a 1995 re-release of Doom 1, packaged with a new fourth episode called "Thy Flesh Consumed". Doom II is Doom II -- it's probably the most controversial amongst the official games because a lot of people don't like the level design. Those people are objectively wrong, of course, but that's a conversation for a different time. Final Doom is a collection of two megawads (a megawad is a full set of 32 new levels for doom 2) called The Plutonia Experiment and TNT Evilution. Plutonia is infamous for being really really hard, almost too hard for most people to have even finished it back in the day. TNT is uh...well some people like it. It's gained a lot of attention from the Doom community recently because of the recent passing of Ty Halderman, a community legend who pretty much single handedly maintained the /idgames database for the last 20+ years. Ty was a member of team TNT, and was arguably one of the most important figures in the evolution of the community. Other than that, it's a pretty mixed bag of some good and many bad levels.

All of the games that you can buy from Steam (except for The Master Levels) come with what's called an IWAD. That's the most important part of the purchase, cause that's what you'll need if you want to play with a source port. I recommend Zdoom or GZdoom because of their user friendliness, and because they come with all the bells and whistles that most newcomers expect. Plus you'll want GZDoom if you wanna play brutal doom. It's a pretty easy process: Download your source port of choice, place each game's IWAD in the same directory as the .exe, double click on the .exe and choose which game you wanna play. If you wanna play with a custom wad (sometimes they come in .pk3s or other packaged formats), you pretty much just drag the .wad file over the zdoom .exe and choose the game. It's really easy to pick up and play (and mod for) Doom, which is pretty much the reason the community still thrives today.

Hope that helps.

Pavera

Oh and PS: If you wanna check out the best mods and wads for Doom, check out the annual Cacowards! It's a Doomworld tradition each year to pick a bunch of the best mods that came out and write about them. You can also browse the idgames database for new levels dating all the way back to 1994. It's updated very consistently, and you can even rate & review wads that you love (or hate!). Have fun! :)

@pavera: Thanks a lot for the very comprehensive response! Appreciate it.

I came to help but that post above tells you everything. Oddly enough, my first complete playthroughs of Doom 1 and 2 came on that 360 version. Game's are still a whole lot of fun, and your difficulty choice drastically changes your experience. Goes from dumb fun to straight survival horror.

Both the Steam and GOG versions of The Ultimate Doom, Doom II and Final Doom will give you the files you need to set up ZDoom or Zandronum and other modern source ports. Stay away from Doom 3 BFG Edition though, since the wad files included in that one are different from the originals, with some graphics missing or changed - they can still be loaded up in Zandronum but will have compatibility issues, especially in multiplayer. Unlike the console versions of BFG Edition, it's versions of Doom 1 and 2 don't even have multiplayer on PC.

The GOG versions offer the best experience if you wanna play vanilla Doom, as they use the most recent version of DosBox and are properly configured, unlike the Steam version which uses an absolutely ancient version of DosBox made for Windows XP and which is incredibly unstable on Vista/7/8/10. The DosBox version included with the Steam release can of course easily be updated to a new one, but the GOG version works out of the box.

Also, sadly both the Steam and GOG versions of Master Levels for Doom II are missing a whole bunch of levels for unclear reasons, but those files aren't necessary for any source ports or mods.

I like Chocolate Doom because I'm into its relative purity in comparison to the other popular source ports, but since you're looking to play mods it's probably not what you're looking for. But fuck Brutal Doom, don't play that garbage.

There are some extra Doom 2 levels in the BFG iwad of that game, they're some of the best Doom levels ever. Play those if you get a chance.

Since it's all been covered, I'll just add this: You'll eventually dabble in Brutal Doom, no doubt, but the slightly lesser known Project Brutality adds a lot more and is way more customizable.

Also, I know the current consensus on Brutal Doom/PB is that it literally went back in time and destroyed all video games forever and resurrected Hitler and shot a turtle, but it's worth judging for yourself after you've boned up on the vanilla stuff. Even as an old-school fan, I think it breathes a ton of life into the game. But yeah, milk vanilla for all it's worth first.

So if I'm just looking for a way to use my Steam keys to replay Doom (and Doom II) in their mostly-original forms, just with mouselook and at 1080, what's my best bet? A Source port? Is there a quick rundown of the differences between them, and is there one that's generally considered the 'best?'

I remember liking zDoom for mostly-original Doom play, but with the modern comforts you'd expect. That was a while ago though, no idea how it compares to the other stuff mentioned. That was using the wads that came with ultimate doom on steam I believe.

The doom community is usually pretty split on Brutal Doom. The height of its controversy was probably a few years back, around the time Back to Saturn X and Doom the Way Id Did came out (two mods that were made for Vanilla Doom within the original engine's precise limitations). It was really frustrating at the time for mappers to pour a lot of work into balancing their maps for vanilla gameplay and then hear people complain that it doesn't work well in Brutal Doom. It's one thing to play our mod with BD, we really don't care how you do it, but to criticize it for not playing well with a mod it wasn't intended for was just infuriating. I remember when I worked on D2TWID (the sequel to doom the way id did), we actually considered adding some dummy data to the WAD that would block people from being able to load it with BD. We never did that though...that would have just been petty.

Honestly, my opinion is that people should enjoy Doom however they like. BD is an alright mod -- it's the most famous one outside the community, but it's definitely not the best and it's CERTAINLY not the "definitive" way to play Doom. It fundamentally changes the gameplay of Doom (for the worst in my opinion, but that's just mine), and I think it just revises the true spirit of Doom into a silly gore-porn-fetish fantasy. Yeah Doom was bloody, but it wasn't about the blood and gore.

As far as source ports go, I would recommend ZDoom first and foremost. It's compatible with pretty much every gameplay mod out there, and it works with UDMF (universal doom map format) which is basically a fancy map format that allows mappers to do a lot more *stuff* to their maps than the normal Doom or Boom formats. It's probably the best way to play it with modern responsive controls and high resolutions while still retaining the true look and feel of Doom. You can pretty much trade in ZDoom for GZDoom if you want too though I think GL lighting looks really weird in doom and washes out a lot of the atmosphere of areas with high lighting contrast, but again -- opinion.

If you're looking for a trve kvlt Doom experience, look no further than Chocolate Doom. It's an excellent source port that lets you live out your 1993 nostalgia fantasy in all its grainy glory. It takes a little more configuring than ZDoom though, as you'll have to go through a setup menu (old school, with the garish blue screen and everything) to configure pretty much everything before hopping in. If you wanna play any WADs with it, you'll either have to launch through the command line and add "-file name.wad" after the exe, create a batch file, or just create a shortcut to the .exe and add -file after the target.

You can also try out a port called Crispy Doom if you're looking for the retro-chic look with some quality-of-life modernizations. For one thing, it bumps its base resolution up from 320x200 to 640x400, which is what makes it look "crispy". It also lets you turn on some small things, like corrected blood color, randomly mirrored corpses, jumping, etc. It also removes the vanilla limits, which greatly expands the amount of wads that you can play with it. Otherwise, it's still pretty much Chocodoom, since it's just a fork of that source. I've been playing with this port lately and I really like it so far.

If you want multiplayer, get Zandro -- it's pretty much your only option unless you wanna get competitive. Do yourself a favor and avoid the community.

There are a million and one source ports for Doom, but the above are probably your best bets for jumping straight in. Have fun!

Isn't it sad that when I read the title of this thread I immediately was confused thinking "Multiple PC versions? Is the new DOOM on windows store or something?" So yeah, in conclusion, publishers need to STOP naming sequels the same name as the original fucking game.

This might also help: http://doom.wikia.com/wiki/Comparison_of_Doom_source_ports

Played prboom plus recently. Pretty good! Very faithful to the original while being relatively user friendly still fixing some of the issues with the original game (something Chocolate Doom does not).

Thanks for the advice all. With zDoom, you don't even have to place the wads in the same directory, it just finds them.
Anyway, I bought the Doom pack because of the sale, played it through Steam a few times, with the old school WASD + Arrows controls. Eventually remembered this thread existed, and followed @pavera's advice.

I'm just going to let this stock image represent my feelings on how it was to play Doom through zDoom after playing through some of the DOSBox version on Steam. Everything is a significant step up, including that great music.

If you're into trying multiplayer download Zandronum. It comes with a server browser that downloads .wad files automatically. A lot of the stuff you'll find is totally crazy like a Doom rts, Doom Megaman Deathmatch or a server where you literally play Mortal Kombat against other people.