Doom64

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Doom64 is an anomoly in the doom franchise. For one thing it is exclusive to N64, and another its not develoepd by Id but instead Midway.

Well it got ported to PC on steam recently so I figured its time to officially try it out properly.

The controls are minimal and near perfect in classic Doom style. You can't look up and down, and aiming is automatic and minimal , i have always appreciated the minimalism of doom controls its just a perfect formula. One annoying thing about controls (using controller) Is switching to different weapons. You have to scroll through weapons slowly and it doesnt even say the text on the screen of what weapon youre about to scroll to, this could have been better. The artstyle in this game is very unique and cool looking. The enemies have this super memorable clay look and animation to them, the enemy designs are terrifying and badass and seeing the classic doom monsters recreated in this artstyle was really neat. You have almost all of the iconic doom monsters which need no introduction.
 
It also stands out for its music or lack thereof. When you think of Doom you think blood pumping exciting heavy metal, but in Doom64 the soundtrack is truly haunting creepy ambience and hellish soundscapes. You hear babies crying, people moaning in the distance, spooky keyboard drones, I loved the music and found it set a perfect atmosphere and felt like the True doom 3 horror game.

The difficulty was just perfect. I put it on the second hardest difficulty and found it to be extremely challenging at times, but only rarely felt bullshit. You play carefully and every monster encounter feels threatening and satisfying. The minimalist mechanics and shooting are easy to pickup but hard to master which makes it all the better. All of the guns serve a purpose and knowing when to swap back and forth is amazing.Like putting away your rocket launcher when those flying skulls are in your face or you risk blowing yourself up. The double barrel shotgun is amazing in its simplicity as well. The sound effect is super chunky and satisfying and the bullet particles spray all over the place and can mow down a group of enemies . The animation is oldschool charm the way it reloads.

When I said the rare times the difficulty was bullshit it would be like, getting to the end of a level, standing on a platform in the wrong place, and finding yourself lowered into a pit of lava that you cant escape from. Without any warning, you now have to play the whole level again (if youre not savescumming)
A few other times, youll fall into this pitch black pit, spamming the walls ttrying to escape, without finding anything, having to youtube it, and realizing theres a totally bullshit invisible path alongside the wall you gotta climb up.  This is more level design annoyances than real difficulty though.

The real star of Doom are the levels and how well theyre designed. Well Doom64 levels are pretty great for the most part. Although, for the first quarter of the game they are rather a bad first impression. The first quarter is some kinda rather bland warehouse complexes with not very impressive visuals, brown walls, and tedious switch hunting. But after the first quarter the levels really open up and you dive into hell and find all these amazing hellish medevial castles, arenas, boss fights, blood red skies and some really clever level design. Theres even a throwback to some classic Doom levels in the arena where you must survive style maps.

The game has 28 maps and maybe only 5 of them were not so great or more annoying than good.
Only a few times are the levels super unintuitive and bullshit, in these times it is things like walking in circles for 10 minutes having no idea what to do, only to find out for the first time and only time in the game, you have to SHOOT a switch on the wall. This only happens once or twice, and is totally a bullshit random niche thing that you have no idea you can do. A few other times, the walls will suddenly start crushing you without warning and no way to anticipate it. A few other times you have these trap rooms that shoot missles at you that are pretty annoying. Sometimes youll press a switch and have no idea what it does, only to have to jump down, and go back in the same room you hit the switch, where it opened another wall. Just kinda awkward design.

But besides those few annoyances the level design is really good. It is mostly kind of medevial castles more similar to things youd find in Quake or something, but they are really fun to navigate. Its not like Doom 2 where half of the game is a total tedious slog doing awful platforming vertical levels insane labryinth keyhunts. No,  its rather straight forward, but complex enough to be consistently challenging and exciting.

The way the levels are designed is not like previous doom games, in previous doom games you could kind of get away with circle strafing in a big area and easily kill all enemies, or sit in a doorway and wait for them to walk to you. Well in doom64 it feels a lot more linear at times, and A LOT more enemies at once. Youll be in a tiny cramped corridor with 50 enemies all around you and you need to act fast. You cant 'cheese' your way through any of the game, all of it is intense adrenaline pumping action. Theres always enough exciting pickups and items to find to keep your health and armor high so you never feel like its totally unfair.

I appreciate how dark and grim the whole tone of the game is from the music, atmosphere, hellish medevial level names, etc. Theres a handful of really stellar levels I wouldn't mind playing again and again. Maybe one day i'll even come back and 100% the game with achievements. Apparently theres a weapon where you can find various upgrades for it throughout the game but I never found any of the upgrades just the weapon.

The boss fights are super intense and more exciting than in previous doom games, in previous doom games they were a joke and you can easily exploit their AI, in doom64 theyre more of a threat and you have to actively be on your toes. The last boss in particular is insanely hard . The first time I did it I wasted all my ammo on the previous monster spawning phase, and just got destroyed at the boss. The next time, I saved my BFG ammo and carefully killed the enemies, and when the boss spawned I avoided a few of his homing missles and put some BFG into him and killed him rather fast. Overall, Doom64 is a great challenge, with mostly good/great levels with a few annoying level design choices, great artsyle and sound design, perfect minimalist arcade style mechanics..I think this game is the perfect game to play in short bursts, like 2-3 levels at a time. Its one of the best games i have found to quickly jump in and play for 20-30 minutes then quit again for awhile. I basically beat the whole game like this. Its perfect for short burst arcade style gaming.

8/10