Pistol start is refreshing (and now officially supported by at least two source ports)

[zmodder]

I have long heard that many maps, especially the ones from the original Doom and Doom2, are tailored to pistol start. That kind of makes sense because the designers probably wanted to make sure the maps are still beatable without having to load a previous save after player dies. I didn't take it seriously until I found that both crispy-doom and prboom-plus now support the "-pistolstart" command line option, which provides a fluent experience for pistol starters.

 

Now I am playing Doom with that option, and that's refreshing! I become more appreciative of weapon placing, e.g., the shotgun at the start of E2M2 wouldn't make sense without pistol start. E2M9 is now more fun. I used to be quite conservative with ammo consumption and as a result I (1) tended to use less effective weapons just because of its ammo abundance and (2) conserved too much ammo so that subsequent levels would become a cake walk. Now knowing I will always enter the next level with a clean slate, I care less about conservation and there is actually more fun. Levels also become more interesting and challenging.

Edited March 1, 2022 by zmodder

[Ralphis]

Odamex also supports this, either via command line or in the skill selection menu.

[fabian]

Woof also supports it. 

[bradharding]

Doom Retro as well.

[Gibbon]

ReBOOM too:

https://github.com/atsb/ReBOOM/search?q=pistolstart