In Extremis is usually called a Doom clone (at the time I wrote this, there were practically just two sources on the web that contained some information about the game, and both labeled it such). Simply for historical reasons, this is incorrect.
Doom, as we all know, was released in December 1993, two weeks before Christmas. In Extremis was released less than two weeks later, still in the nick of time for the holiday business. The timestamps on the data files (as with most French games, all the resources are seperate files, not bundled in some archive) show that it was in development since at least early April. It must have been nearly finished by the time the developers had a chance to take a look at Doom.
Apart from the chronology, you will soon discover that In Extremis is a game quite different from Doom, both in engine and gameplay. The engine is similar to Wolfenstein 3D, with angular walls, but blocks can have different textures on different sides, and the textures can be animated. The screenshots on the box show textured floors and ceilings too, but either this was taken out of the final version, or I just never found out how to enable it.
Even if floors and ceilings thus always remained ugly gradients for me, In Extremis is optically more lush than any pre-Doom shooter I have ever played. There is even a sort of colored lighting, and when you walk, your vision bops up and down, just as you might imagine it would when walking in high-end power armor.
As for gameplay, In Extremis is not your typical fast-paced action game. The enemies you meet on the first level pose little actual danger. The amount of ammo you start out with is more than sufficient. What you have to do is log in to various terminals and enter the right code. I suppose this will eventually unlock other levels. I never really figured it out, but I'm giving the codes, which I found somewhere, below.
Speaking of misconceptions, it should be stressed that In Extremis was not, as Home of the Underdogs claims, created by Delphine, the makers of Another World and Flashback. It was the first game of an upstart company, Blue Sphere. They continued to make 3D action games, and as far as I know, still exist today.
Passwords
Level Password GOTO code C200 IJEKAH B101 JBHGAD A002 CJBAIK ATILAHUN B103 FIJGAD C204 KADBEI ZENDOR56 D305 JDKCHB STRADIUS C207 CHIGAK TARRACI12 B108 HDGJAE A009 BGJAF CARTOONO C210 AFBJDH GOREXZ73 B111 JEAGHI ALTEA117 A012 ABFEKI B113 AIDCJF C214 EFGHJC RAMDAC38 D315 IJHGBA E416 EIABDC D317 JFBADG EPSILON4 F518 AEDKGB G620 KCFGIB H721 HEAJDF NEAREND1 H719 KFGCJD I822 GDEAJF CENTRAL7 G623 HEFDKB H724 JGCDIB H725 CDAJKE ARKETYPE F526 EFIBAG PRACTIX4 I827 BHAJKG F528 HJKDCF ANTARESS G629 FKIEJG CLEENEND
