Review: Doom 64

Hello dear readers and welcome back to the game room. Today we'll be looking at a pretty sweet Nintendo 64 game, one I spoke of not too long ago in my collection additions segment, if you've been paying attention. Yes, I'm talking about Doom 64, Nintendo's very own incarnation of the first-person shooter classic. Having recently completed this game for the first time ever, which is admittedly a bit embarrassing considering that Doom is one of my favorite video game franchises ever, I'm ready to give it a proper review. So let's travel to the shores of hell as we take a look at Doom 64.

Released in 1997 for the Nintendo 64, Doom 64 is quite an interesting specimen because it was the first, to my knowledge, to do something completely original with the series. Up to that point, there were only three other games in the series: the original, Doom II, and Final Doom. The original had been ported to just about every console that was around at the time, including Nintendo's biggest rivals, the Sony Playstation and Sega Saturn. Both the PS1 and Saturn versions took a good deal of liberties from the original including a new soundtrack, sound effects, and a few new levels. However, for the most part it was running on the same engine as the original PC version. Enemy sprites, weapons, items and level design from the original all remained the same.

Meanwhile, Doom II had yet to be brought to any home console and Final Doom had only been released on the Playstation, but neither of these games really brought anything radically new to the table yet. Enter Doom 64, which started from scratch and did something very much original while keeping the core gameplay intact. The end result was a game that managed to be both new and familiar at the same time. I think this novelty of it is what I enjoyed the most. I've played Doom 1 & 2 probably a zillion times in my life and a good deal of Final Doom as well. I've also done several playthroughs of Doom 3 too. So, playing an entry in the series that I've never experienced before was just very refreshing.

Story-wise, the game seems to follow the events of the original PC Doom trilogy (I, II, and Final Doom), yet stands alone as its own game for the most part. Actually, from the level design, it reminds me a lot of movies like Alien and Event Horizon with the "haunted space ship" vibe going for it. There's a lot of long corridors with glowing computer monitors buzzing everywhere, sliding metal doors with that classic sci-fi spaceship sound effect, and very few wide-open outdoor areas which makes you feel like you are somewhere deep in space. It's also interesting to note that this game and Event Horizon came out in the same year, about 5 months apart, and Event Horizon has basically the same plot as the original Doom: an inter-dimensional gateway is opened up which causes hell to spill out. This has nothing to do with Doom 64 of course, it's just an interesting footnote.

Anyway, the gameplay is just as straightforward as any other Doom game- grab some weapons, blast the crap out of demons, and find the level exit. The game throws a few curveballs at you however, if you were expecting everything to be exactly like the earlier Doom games. For one thing, as I alluded to before, all enemies and items sport completely redesigned sprites and sound effects. Most are pretty similar to the originals, but some have interesting design choices- for example, Cacodemons now have arms with chains attached to them, the plasma gun has a constant buzzing electrical field, etc.

Enemies, weapons and items all sport newly redesigned sprites, like our friend the Cacodemon here.

The game is also notably darker than it's predecessors. It could just be the TV I'm using, but there were some points where I had absolutely no idea what I was doing until I increased the in-game brightness, and even then it was still hard to see what was happening. Actually, I imagine that back in the day it probably would've been pretty scary to play this game; considering the dark lighting effects in tandem with the chilling minimalistic music that plays in each level, I could definitely imagine being easily frightened playing this alone at night as a kid.

You'll find yourself stuck in a lot of hallways like this, where you can be ambushed quickly from any direction.

There's also some new types of mechanics too, such as items that only appear when certain conditions are met. For example, in some parts of the game killing all the enemies in a certain room is required in order to make a key appear, which just sort of materializes in after all the demons are dealt with. You can also look through little monitors at different parts of the level (often hidden ones), reminiscent of the security monitors in Duke Nukem 3D.

And lastly, there's even new enemies- only two to speak of, but still a fresh take on Doom that wasn't anywhere else at the time. There's the so-called "nightmare imps," which are just regular imps that have been re-colored and fire faster, more powerful projectiles at you. And there's also the "Mother Demon," the final boss of the game. This continued the Doom tradition to that point of having something entirely new as a final boss, and just as before, she's pretty effin' difficult.

Anyway, despite the changes the core gameplay concept is still the same- which is certainly fine with me, since I love Doom so much. There are a few notable flaws though. For one thing, the control scheme is a bit weird. You can use either the D-pad or the control stick in order to move around, but the control stick is far more responsive, meaning I mostly gravitated toward using that. However, strafing is an integral part of dodging enemy attacks and those buttons are mapped to the left and right bumpers. Maybe my hands just aren't big enough, but I find that when I use the control stick, I can only manage to reach one of them, which only allows me to strafe one direction. I don't have this problem when using the D-pad, so I found myself switching back and forth between to two which sometimes got confusing and led to a few unnecessary deaths.

Speaking of deaths, restarting a level after dying is a tad unnecessarily annoying. If you die, you'll automatically start over at the beginning- however, you'll be stripped of all of your weapons and ammo. There's a fairly simple password system that lets you restart with all of your items, but inputting it is kind of awkward. If you die you'll need to go back into the menu, select the password option, and then you'll be taken to the password entry screen. Your previously entered password will still be there- however, for some reason you won't be able to just start up the level again. You need to erase the last letter of the password, then re-enter it and hit start, at which point you'll be back at the beginning with your weapons again. Not too much of a hassle, just annoying to do every time you die.

Another unique and interesting feature of this game that wasn't present in any other game of the franchise, which I haven't actually completed myself but I've read about, is acquiring the three so-called "demon artifacts" in secret levels in order to make the final boss easier to complete. Secret levels were nothing new to the franchise; Doom 1, 2, and Final Doom all had hidden levels within. However, this was the first time that secret levels had specific objectives to them- to collect three "demon keys" that both upgraded the powerful "Unmaker" weapon and deactivated teleporters during the final boss that normally spawn in extra demons to deal with. Again, just another unique twist to the formula not seen in any other game (and also one that will likely give me a reason to revisit this game in the future).

The "Unmaker" weapon gives you this quaint message upon picking it up. 

In all, Doom 64 is a very fun game. It's Doom, so you pretty much can't go wrong there, but it adds plenty of twists and turns to the formula for fans of the earlier games to enjoy thoroughly. These days, the franchise has been turned on it's head numerous times, starting with Doom 3 all the way up the "reboot" (just so you all know, I really hate that word) released earlier this year. However, back in 1997 Doom 64 was the very first shakeup in the series, one that I think went over very well. If you're a fan of Doom and haven't had a chance to play it, I'd definitely recommend giving it a try. Thanks for reading.