“The heart of Doom is very much still there.”

March 21, 2020 8:59 AM

How lost classic Doom 64 was revived for modern platforms [The Verge] “As if there weren’t enough doom in the world right now, this week sees the release of not one but two new Doom games. Doom Eternal [Previously] is the flashy AAA sequel with incredible graphics and accurately modeled viscera, of course, but you shouldn’t sleep on the other: the first rerelease of Doom 64, an underappreciated entry in the series’s history. Doom 64, as the name suggests, was originally designed for the Nintendo 64. It came out in 1997 and, unlike id Software’s previous two Doom titles, it was developed by Midway Games. It was the first Doom game to offer any sort of significant graphical upgrade on the original, had all-new levels, and — depending on your perspective — could easily have been considered a “Doom 3” had id not released its own game with that name in 2004.” [YouTube][Game Trailer]

• Doom 64 is the best Doom game you (probably) haven’t played [Polygon]

“But Doom 64 wasn’t a port or an aesthetic reboot of any of previous Doom titles when it was released on Nintendo 64 in 1997. It was an entirely new game that took place after the events of Doom 2, a game that was itself first released in 1994. Doom 64 is also a game worth revisiting, despite being developed by the now-defunct Midway Games instead of id Software. Throughout its brand-new campaign, Doom 64 kept the frantic pace and aggressive tone of Doom and Doom 2, while adding very little — mechanically, at least — outside of a new weapon that may not have been as forgotten as hardcore Doom 64 fans had long believed. Midway did change one aspect of the series, however: Doom 64 didn’t look anything like previous games in the series, or even games that would come later. The gameplay itself featured everything that made Doom great, while the aesthetics seemed only loosely based on what came before. Doom 64 had always been a strange beast, and was kept in the vault since its debut, with only a relatively small cult of hardcore fans remaining. It would be the last Doom game until 2004’s Doom 3, which substantially changed what it meant for a game to carry the franchise’s name until Doom (2016) rebooted the series yet again.”

• Doom 64 Is A Slower, More Satisfying Burn Than The Original [Kotaku]

“Doom 64 occupies an uncomfortably liminal space in the history of id’s storied shooter series. It has been largely forgotten until recently, yet it has never quite been obscure. It strikes a pace and tone somewhere between the classic games and the later, survival horror-tinged Doom 3. It shares a near-identical mechanical foundation with its more prominent PC forebears, but marries those rip-and-tear fundamentals with gloomy lighting, wavetable synth, and a genuine sense of sadness and dread. It’s why I prefer Doom 64 over the more straightforward sensibilities of the originals. Doom and Doom 2 are plenty of fun, too, but 64 is the more relatable, more affective experience for me because it’s an action game that makes room for sadness. [...] No matter how you play it, Doom 64 is a game out of time, already old when it was new. Just how many times have I run through these corridors, hunting for and hunted by evil? By dropping the dad-rock MIDI covers and acknowledging that the Marine is tired and scarred, Doom 64 gets a little meta by asking what is gained by going through the same rip-and-tear motions over and over again.”

• Eternal doom [Nintendo Life]

“Why is it so fondly remembered today? Because, with id Software’s supervision, Midway understood exactly what it meant to be a Doom game. Doom 64 isn’t concerned with story; sure, it includes a plot surrounding the rise of a Mother Demon in the wake of Final Doom, but even the game simply doesn’t care about such things. It immediately drops you into action, barely takes a breath before it plonks a shotgun into your hands and proudly points you in the direction of the nearest zombie. It doesn’t rewrite the formula, because why would it? Doom works because of its simplicity, so Midway simply did more of the same with bigger levels and more guns to collect and unleash. It’s a testament to the talent of that studio that Doom 64 feels so instantly playable in 2020. And in the very capable porting hands of Nightdive Studios – a developer that did the first two Turok games justice on Switch and other platforms, and is now working on a port of the equally underrated Shadow Man – this slice of mid-’90s action-adventure fits the Switch like a glove. The fifth Doom game to arrive on Switch (and not the last this year with DOOM Eternal also on the horizon) brings with it another take on a popular format that’s a perfect match for the console’s perpetual love for nostalgia and retro ports. [...] Changes include motion controls, naturally, and if you’ve played the studios other retro shooter ports – including Turok: Dinosaur Hunter and Turok 2: Seeds of Evil – you’ll know how well these work either in handheld mode or via a Pro Controller. There are more than 30 levels to slay your way through, including a newly-designed level that serves as an additional epilogue for the game.”

posted by Fizz (11 comments total)

I did play doom64 for the nintendo and I gotta say, I remember being pretty upset about how terrible it was to play with the controller and the necessary restrictions to movement that entailed at the time.
posted by some loser at 10:08 AM on March 21, 2020 [1 favorite]

i remember playing this on the n64 as a kid and being a little disappointed by it (because at the time I was highly ranked in quakeworld, believed fps could only be keyboard and mouse). Now I'm old, don't have a real GPU in any of my computers and only play games on the Switch. This looks like a perfect nostalgia bomb for olds like me!
posted by dis_integration at 10:19 AM on March 21, 2020

I bought the hype and bought Doom Eternal. Haven't played very much yet. I'm finding it better than Doom 2016 so far. But there's something about it that still isn't clicking with me. It feels so floaty. I think it's the way you move in the game... it's like the camera is on the smoothest dolly in the world and moves just a little too fast. I keep feeling like I'm doing a 3-D flythrough of the environments (almost, but not as bad as, those 3-D real estate tours you can do of houses and apartments. Like I'm a floating eye.)versus running and gunning through. I get that they were going for Speed! Action! Non-stop! but there's something about the way it's tuned that keeps taking me out of the game. And the platforming, (jumping from wall to wall and climbing those walls especially) feels like a tech demo or something. I know it's not supposed to be "realistic" and I don't expect realism. But it just feels phony.

Though a pretty different game, Borderlands 3 did not do this to me. I got the illusion of being in that game for real, jumping and running around those environments in a natural way. All of these things are illusions, we're just staring at a 2-D screen imagining a lot of this stuff. Doom 2016 AND Doom Eternal fall into a sort of "Uncanny Valley" for me of just not being quite right.

Apparently, I'm in the tiny minority on this. And with the Corona incident, I'll keep playing and see if my opinion changes. I'm having fun. I'm just not immersed. Like my brain hasn't bought into the experience. It feels "off" like watching a movie with frame interpolation, or in 8k. It all feels fake, and keeps screaming at my Lizard Brain that it's fake fake fake.
posted by SoberHighland at 10:44 AM on March 21, 2020 [1 favorite]

I'm finding it better than Doom 2016 so far. But there's something about it that still isn't clicking with me. It feels so floaty. I think it's the way you move in the game... it's like the camera is on the smoothest dolly in the world and moves just a little too fast.

I think this is a configurable issue. My googling indicates you may want to edit the launch properties (on PC) and add

+set m_smooth 0

No luck if you're on a console though.
posted by dis_integration at 11:21 AM on March 21, 2020 [1 favorite]

Anyone remember the TV series called DOOMWATCH??

Now seem a good time to resurrect it.
posted by Burn_IT at 1:38 PM on March 21, 2020 [1 favorite]

Umm, I'm very wary of any tv/film Doom adaptations for obvious reasons.
posted by Fizz at 1:57 PM on March 21, 2020 [1 favorite]

Oh, hey, a game I can actually comment on! I loved Doom 64. I played it before the other early Doom games and because of that found the others to be less satisfying for it. Doom 64 was the game I considered the best of the pre-millennium video games for its mix of aesthetic and game play. Difficult enough to be challenging, eerie enough to be unnerving, with both the look of the game and the sound design keeping the challenges fresh and with a good build in levels to maintain the right amount of effort to reward.

I enjoyed GoldenEye quite a bit for some of the gimmicks involved around its 3D and enjoyed the Tomb Raider series, not so much Turok, but found Doom 64 to be close to ideal for the time. I'm sure there were plenty of games I missed out on that I might also have thought well of, but I did play many of the big titles that came out for Playstation, Neo Geo, and Nintendo 64 before dropping away from video games once I got a PC and couldn't find the same pleasure in keyboard oriented game control.
posted by gusottertrout at 4:00 PM on March 21, 2020 [1 favorite]

Anyone remember the TV series called DOOMWATCH??

I do and yes.
posted by Young Kullervo at 4:10 PM on March 21, 2020

Doom 64, as the name suggests, was originally designed for the

Commod..Nintendo 64, yes, that's what I meant.
posted by biffa at 4:39 PM on March 21, 2020 [4 favorites]

^^ I bet DoomRL can run on a C64.
posted by SaltySalticid at 8:32 PM on March 21, 2020 [1 favorite]

I bet DoomRL can run on a C64.

Somewhat related: https://old.reddit.com/r/itrunsdoom
posted by Wandering Idiot at 3:13 AM on March 27, 2020 [1 favorite]