Eric noted the massacre is "gonna be like fucking Doom". He also noted it will be like "the LA Riots, Oklahoma City, WW2, Vietnam, Duke, and Doom all mixed together". Duke is Duke Nukem 3D, another first person shooter video game of the 1990s. They were also avid fans of Quake.
There is a long list of parallels between Doom, or first person shooters in general, and the Columbine massacre. First, let one note, this isn't saying video games motivated the massacre, though probably in part, in the sense of why they thought it would be 'fun', it is very superficial indeed to boil the motive down to that. Rather, this is about how elements of their modus operandi, not their motive, came out of Doom.
First, Eric carried his "berserk" in his pocket when he murdered and when he died. This was a piece of wood of some kind, maybe from one of the places he lived before Colorado which he seemed to remember fondly, shaped like a teardrop with a divot in the middle of it, which he carried as a kind of talisman. This is the most blatant reference to Doom. In Doom, there are white medkits which serve as health 'power-up's. There is also a black medkit, called a berserk, which is a special power-up which restores you to full health, and makes your punches kill the monsters for a short time.
Second, Eric shot at the bomb expecting it to explode. Surely because this happens in Doom and Duke Nukem 3D, e. g. with barrels of nukage in Doom.
Third, the fact that they each carried two guns, including a shotgun. This was obviously mimicking a first person shooter. In a typical "FPS" you switch between several guns. Like in Doom or Duke Nukem 3D, you start with a handgun, and the handgun stinks. It takes several shots to kill anyone. "Handgun only" is a special kind of handicap in a first person shooter to test your skills which one can find in several videos. You want to get rid of the handgun, and move on to the next gun, which is a shotgun. The next gun is a chaingun or in Quake a nail gun, something which fires quickly, in contrast to the stopping power of a shotgun. Next is a rocket launcher, and next after that is futuristic weapons that don't exist, like Doom's plasma gun, or Duke Nukem 3D's shrink ray. For the majority of the game, you are using either the shotgun or the chaingun, and if you play it properly, you switch between them depending on the monsters you face. This was obviously their idea with having a shotgun and a rifle in Eric's case, and a shotgun and a pistol in Dylan's
Fourth, each gun, or at least 3 of the 4, were 'straight out of Doom" as Eric said about his shotgun, which he named "Arlene" after a character in the Doom novels. Eric had a pump action shotgun, which you have in the original Doom. Dylan had a double barrel shotgun, which is the more powerful "Super shotgun" in Doom 2. Dylan also had a TEC-9, which is a version of the AB-10, which Eric referenced several times because its from the Doom novels. Arlene even uses it.
The only one remaining to explain is Eric's carbine rifle, but it seems plausible it was also from Doom given the others. In Doom, the "zombies" or "former human" is the first 'monster' or antagonist you face, and he had some kind of rifle which uses the same ammunition as your chain gun. The next antagonist is "shotgun guy" who is a bit harder to kill and has a shotgun of course.
In fact, given this, in all likelihood, they thought Dylan had the better weapons, even though Eric killed more and probably had the better ones, which says enough about Dylan as the possible mastermind.
Fifth, their outfits may have been inspired by former human and shotgun guy. Former human wears a tan shirt and shotgun guy a black one. Eric wore a white shirt and Dylan a black one. Again, if this is the inspiration, it suggests Dylan had superior rank.
Sixth, Eric says he will have to imagine his victims as monsters from Doom, either former humans or 'lost souls", flaming skulls
Seventh, Eric tried to make a kind of napalm flamethrower, probably his answer to Doom's rocket launcher. He even said it was "the suicide plan", and in Doom the quickest way to die is to shoot the rocket launcher too close to a monster or wall or some such.
Eighth, they told everybody in the library to stand up, and in a first person shooter your victims are all standing, not cowering under a table.
Nineth, they told everybody in "white hats" to stand up. The jocks wore white hats of course, but one wonders if this was because former humans, the Doom "zombies" have green hair, and this was a similar marker to them. "I see similarities between people and Doom zombies" wrote Dylan.
Tenth: Eric and Dylan called each other "indigo" and "green' respectively. Dr. Peter Langman speculates this was because Charles Manson's followers called each other colors. It may well have been, but why those colors is because when they played multiplayer, Dylan was player 1 and Eric player 2, and their colors were green and indigo respectively.
Eleventh, Eric mentions starting out at the bottom of the "food chain" at school, and this is used on the Playstation Doom poster.
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