Doom 64
Reviewed by Tobias Condit-Schultz
Doom 64 by Williams Entertainment. People are calling it the best Doom
ever- but is it?
Doom 64 does have the MOST important part of video games, fun. Yes, D64
(as I will call it) is a very entertaining game while you play it, and it's
easy to look back on it and call it even more fun. Suffice to say, D64
carried the same fun factor of original Doom over from PC to N64- and even
a little more. Fun Factor: 100%
Graphics- now this is wear some criticism comes in. I will compare
it to MacDoom- at least in my opinion, the better between PC and Mac.
D64's graphics are very good-looking and smooth, but, to put it frankly,
Doom (for Mac) had a much higher level of detail. And if you had a good
enough computer, it could probably go just as smooth. Also, D64 is a VERY
dark game, which can get in the way in some levels. It comes close to
seeming like just a cheap trick to make it harder for you in some levels.
However, in others, it can be very cool, setting the mood for the game.
The enemies. They all look much, much cooler, but, for some reason
Williams took at all the coolest enemies, i.e. chaingunner, revenant,
spider mastermind, arch-vile... There doesn't appear to be any reason for
this, however. In fact, I would have liked to see what a revenant would
look like in 64-bit graphics. And I know it's been said before, but adding
the nightmare imp does NOT make up for taking out all the other bad guys.
The weapons. On the most part, they look cooler. I will start from the
bottom. The fist is a cool-looking hand in a glove, and it's sometimes fun
just running around with berserk 'vaporizing' things. Besides that, it's
useless, like in original Doom. The chainsaw is perhaps the coolest weapon
in the game, a double-bladed killing machine. Remember how you sort of
went just up and down in the original game with the chainsaw? No more.
The screen shakes and, as far as I can tell, no enemy can escape from the
chainsaw's grasp. It is probably one of the most powerful weapons in the
game. The pistol is a very very cool weapon- it has perfect aim (unlike
the original doom), makes a cool sound and is relatively powerful.
Unfortunately, somebody at Williams was stupid enough to put the shotgun in
the first room of the entire game, so the pistol is, in effect, outgunned
from the start. The shotgun is not cooler-looking than the original. I
don't have much to say about it except that the reload sequence involves
the shotgun moving back and forth, and that's all. The super-shotgun is
smaller than in the other game, but has better aim. The reload sequence is
gone, just like in the shotgun. The chaingun. Apparently, Williams loves
buffing up the rapid fire guns. The chaingun is loud and extremely
cool-looking, and can do the same to cacodemons and pain elementals that it
could in the other game- in fact, better. It's even usable on other
enemies, and will freeze them, as well. The rocket launcher is now better
looking, as are it rockets, but it seems to lack the rapid-fire it did
before. And the plasma-rifle. Sometimes I think it could be much better
than the BFG 9000, sometimes not. There's a little tube that runs up the
gun filled with blue electricity (what non-physicists call plasma) that
buzzes constantly. The noise isn't annoying, and is in fact cool,
reminiscent of the 'dormant' chainsaw's chugging. The plasma rifle's fire
is now much better. It's quieter, faster and much stronger. It makes a
MUCH cooler sound than it did before, sort of a little hit that sounds and
feels better than the original. The BFG. It looks a WHOLE lot cooler,
shoots pretty much instantaneously, and it's fire IS cool looking, but it
seems to lost all of it's power (mancubuses do no longer succumb to one
hit). There is a flash on the screen when it hits, which is cool, but on
the whole, the BFG has lost its power. The laser gun. This weapon on
the whole pretty much stinks even if you do get all those pentagrams. It
is hard to use, NOT cool looking, but four times more powerful than the
BFG 9000 (that is, as soon as you get all it's powerups in the secret
levels). That isn't very impressive if you look at it, because the BFG
isn't all that strong in this game anyway. However, it only takes ONE cell
no matter what, so I guess this COULD be the most powerful gun.
And the auto-map: The texture map is pretty much completely useless unless
you want to find out if a pit is full of poison or not. It is mostly a
nuisance (you have to press the map button twice to get to the better one).
And the auto-map looks the same as in original Doom (one thing), however,
it isn't adequate for the few three-dimensional things in D64. No matter
what the manual says, the auto-map also never changes (except for the
switches being flipped, which is useful), and is therefore useful only in
navigating the many dark mazes in the game. The 'looking' mode is useful,
though, and although the zoom function is a little hard to trigger, the
move around mode isn't. Graphics: 90%
Music: The music is pretty much non-existent, it sounds more like people
screaming in the distance or silence to me. It does set a mood, though.
There's only one track that vaguely has a rhythm, I forget where, though.
Don't turn this game on for its music. Music: 30% (really low --
I take the music for how good it is, not what mood it sets).
Sound FX: The sound is really good in D64. From the shotgun's cool
sounding (pathetic looking) reloading sequence, to the cyberdemon's roar as
it's body explodes in tons of tiny explosions, this game has some of the
best sound I've ever heard. The monsters all sound cool when they roar,
shoot and die, and the weapons all sound cooler than before. The plasma
rifle has some of the best sound in the game, I think. Sound FX: 100%
Saving: You can use a password, although the controller pak makes
life a lot easier. Either way, I always stop if I die, though, because you have
to start at the beginning of the level (the only time you can save). This
builds up frustration quickly, especially if you miss the password/control
pak screen (easy to do) and have to beat the level before, as well. As far
as I can tell, one of the few games with a good save feature was original
Doom. In fact, that was one of the best things, and Williams should have
been smart enough to carry it to N64. As a penalty, most D64 levels are
relatively short, not like the immense mazes filled to the brim with
secrets and enemies in original Doom. Saving: 20% (very very low)
Control: The control in D64 is exemplary, better than most video
games. Its very sensitive at lowest sensitivity, which makes for beautiful,
precise control all the time. Impossible-looking jumps are easy- dash onto
the platform, then tilt slightly back on the stick to stop from going over
the edge. The control pad, although useful when you want perfectly
straight run's turns, seems to make him go slower than the stick. Also,
the speed button doesn't seem to do anything, and if it does, it's hard to
tell. Control: 95%
Replay value: This game has three secret levels, and I think three
more only accessible with codes. The secret levels aren't accessible
through the other secret levels, you have to find how to get to them in
other levels. The best part of secret levels is the fact that there is a
'pentagram' piece in all secret levels that make your laser more powerful.
There are 4 different levels of difficulty, which will make for
replayability in the short run. Replay value: 99%
Overall: This game obviously has extreme points, low music and bad
saving, while everything else has high marks. That is unfortunately how it is.
Average: about 76.28%
Overall: 90%