Released when Midway was known as Williams Entertainment
and now available as part of the "Greatest Hit" collection
for an affordable $20, this PSX compilation of "Ultimate
Doom" and "Doom 2" was an early example of how superior a
32-bit console the Sony machine was. With Jaguar and 3DO
versions of "Doom" handy when PSX "Doom" hit retail for the
Christmas '96 season, it was clear that Midway's team of
programmers ported the essence of one-player "Doom" (and a
small taste of multiplayer goodness) virtually intact and
with few compromises (namely the control pad interface and
low-resolution of TV sets). You can't say that about Art
Data's joke of a port for the 3DO (glitchy graphics,
horrible control and atrocious frame-rates), and the Jaguar
version was... well... shall we beat the crap out of an
amputated dog for the umpteenth time? Nah! :-)
So what is "Doom" for those who got to the PSX and gaming
party this late (shame on you)? Just the id Software
sequel to "Wolfestein 3D" that revolutionized PC gaming,
sold through the roof, made their creators filthy rich (has
Romero given away any more sports cars lately, or was that
Carmack?), and started a sea of clones and imitators that
failed to capture the brutal essence of the genre:
first-person shooter in which it's you versus a lot of
"them", and the heavy weaponery does most of the talking.
You play a nameless Space Marine stranded in an outer-space
station by your lonesome self, and there aren't any other
souls in the vecinity except the rapidly-awakening demons
of the undead (through a Hell gate, or some retarded sci-fi
cliche like that) eager to tear you a new ass****. You
must run around, collecting ammo/weapons/health/keys spread
throughout more than fifty levels, each of them designed
with cunning traps and somewhat tough puzzles (of the "how
do I get to that unreachable thing" variety) to keep you on
your edge at all times. You may have already played "Doom"
via its many imitators (on both PC and the consoles), but
how does the original stack up to 1998's new standard
bearers ("Goldeneye", "Unreal" and "Quake 2")?
GAMEPLAY / FUN FACTOR: B-
"Doom" was always meant to be played over a networked PC
with dozens of fellow gamers, and over fiendish levels
designed by hackers with no women in their lives and a lot
of free time. By supporting the Link cable PSX "Doom"
gives gamers with the budget and resiliance a chance to
play Deathmatch (against one another) or Cooperative (two
Marines sweeping through a level, killing the bad guys)
with two TV's/PSX's/copies of the game; a little too
impractical, but the option is a welcome addition. Since
the bulk of the game is a one-player blastfest, "Doom" has
the hook of having most of the game's legendary levels
(Threshold of Pain, The Focus, Refinery, Phobos Anomaly,
Hell Beneath... did Midway hire the guy who writes the
victory taunts in Capcom's fighting games to come up with
those titles?) available for immediate gameplay without the
hassles of configuring memory space and annoying booting
sequences, which were common on the PC version.
Resolution aside (it's a PC game ported to TV sets, so of
course they aren't that great), this game is a tough cookie
if you dare play through the many mazes and levels without
help from a map and/or cheats. Some of the levels pale by
today's standards in their size (too small) and constant
re-use of textures over and over again, which tend to give
the game a redish/brownish tint that gets annoying after
extended play. Analog or Mouse control isn't supported,
which means the old digital pad is your only trusy way
around the madness; although very tight and
well-implemented by 1996 standards, today's gamers are used
to analog controllers in their first-person shooters, as
well as an option to use keyboard commands. Although it
uses every button in the pad, "Doom" controls feel a tad
sluggish when the s*** hits the fan, and in this game that
feeling of impending death happens quite often and requires
nimble fingers; the controls are configurable, so the
set-up is up to your fancy (although you still can't jump
or move in 'true 3D', which isn't a fault of the game as
much as it is the fault of a gaming world that has moved
past the original game's technical limitations).
And despite all the drawbacks against it, "Doom" is still a
classic in the gaming community with enough demonic
atmosphere to fill a hundred episodes of "Buffy" and
"Millenium". It is as easy to learn and pick-up as it is
to master and survive its hardest-difficulty levels, and
the quest isn't for a prized possession or a trophy, but
for your own existence and self-preservation (the ultimate
reward a human being can aspire to accomplish). The Saturn
version of "Duke Nukem 3D" (with its Netlink support) and
N64's "Goldeneye" may have better bells and whistles, plus
gameplay innovations (humor, mission objectives) to boot.
But the gameplay of "Doom" is timeless, and good for a spin
or two after you're done playing with the new boys in town.
GRAPHICS / VISUALS: B-
A blistering 24-30 frames-per-second with minimal slowdown
here and there, and more "fake" lighting effects than you
can shake a BFG at. Those of us who'd rather sit on the
floor or recline in our sofas when engaging in gaming bliss
will have to put up with typical low-res visuals and the
pixely close-ups of the enemies and the walls (TV's cannot
emulate PC resolutions, yet!) that have become the
trademark of the series in every incarnation of the game
(except for the N64 cartridge, which 'blurs' the graphics
rather than pixelating them). Despite the positives
though, you can't get past the fact that videogames age in
dog years and that the PSX version of "Doom" is beginning
to look like a blind and deaf dog that needs carrying up
the stairs; those blocky pixels can only be ignored for so
long before your urge for eye-candy kicks in.
MUSIC / SOUND EFFECTS: B
Clean and sharp use of limited sound samples keep the world
of "Doom" a scary and fearful place you wouldn't want to
find yourself in late at night, or in (gulp) a nightmare.
Those painful shrieks of pain and demonic laughter
surrounding your run toward the next objective are still
very effective today, as are the moody musical tunes that
sometimes morph into atmospheric background noises that are
designed to put the player at the greatest degree of unease
possible (a concept id Software took even further with
"Quake" and its Trent Razor-composed soundtrack).
The crystal-clear quality of the voice samples and music,
however, isn't matched by the muffled and somewhat
mismatched sound of the weapons (the exploding barrels are
a good example); it's as if when the weapon is activated,
the sound of that machine takes over the music instead of
mixing itself with it (like a movie or TV show). For what
it's worth, "Doom" is a visual environment with enough
environmental sounds and musical cues to inmerse the player
in its world; it's like "Myst", only... not! ("Face/Off"
anyone?).
OVERALL: B-
A classic worth sinking your teeth into after you've played
the "Goldeneye" multiplayer matches and the "Tekken 3"/"Poy
Poy" bouts. It's one-player availability, dated graphics
and control schemes and multiplayer inconveniences (just
who out there actually 'Link' with another player?) give
"Doom" a place in the pantheon of all-time greats, but in
1998 that is only good enough for a 'B-'. Nostalgia can
only distract from the 2-frame animation of the Barons and
Imps from Romero and Carmack's booze-induced mind for so
long; other suggested first-person shooters worth checking
on PSX are "Alien Trilogy", "Disruptor" and "Powerslave".
