Doom 64 is flawed

[WaKa]

I'm not sure how much of a "hot take" this is but I'm currently playing Doom 64 and I have to say... I don't really like it. When I see discussions about it the general consensus is that it's good and basically the missing link between Doom 2 and 3. That the atmosphere is great and it tries some really interesting things. I won't deny that it's a very interesting entry in the franchise and it's definitely worth a look. But the game is flawed, and they are some very glaring flaws that I don't see mentioned quite a lot, so I decided to make a list of them.

Note: I don't want to be overly negative because I still think it's worth a playthrough just to see how some things are changed up, but I also won't hold back any gripe I have with the game. For context: I always play in UV with pistol starts, I'm playing on Doom 64 EX and currently on level 23.

 

- The art style

 

Once you start Doom 64 you will realize how dark it is. I know this is for atmosphere purposes but is not fun when you get attacked by an enemy you literally can't see. I had to increase the brightness all the way up and it's still too dark. But maybe the game was made so dark because they wanted to sorta hide how awful the new sprites are. This is probably a matter of preference but I don't really like the new sprites, with the cacodemons being the hit the worst. As an additional note, it really sucks that the Zombieman and the Shotgunner share the same sprites. Before you could quickly prioritize enemies by their unique colors, but now the game lacks that element of gameplay. Is not THAT big of a deal because eventually, you'll get only shotgunners. But for those maps were both are in the same room? It sucks, especially since the shotgunners seem even more deadly than before.

 

The art style goes beyond "a matter of taste" and crosses the "affects the gameplay" territory. I already mentioned the zombie situation but there are some other aspects that seem minor but add up to the list of problems. Look at the original Doom bullet and rocket boxes, they're very easy to distinguish even in the middle of the chaos. Now, look at Doom 64, where both boxes are dark green with gray accents. Of course, one is more of a square and the other is rectangular, but can you be so sure when you're in the middle of an ambush where every millisecond counts? Similarly with shotguns dropped by the shotgunners, why are they so small and dark? It is too easy to not see them, especially with their bodies covering the gun.

 

- The monsters

Let's start with the good: The new nightmare imp is a cool addition. It's not terribly different than the original (they both die with a single shotgun blast) but their faster projectiles and semi-invisibility make them slightly more dangerous. I also appreciate that the Hell Nobles can attack each other now, it's a small addition but hey, gotta love infighting. The small changes add a little change to the formula but the basics are still there so the gameplay stays fun for the most part. All the other changes to enemies range from "Ok" to "What the hell". The what the hell is obviously the new Lost Souls and Pain Elementals. Look, everyone hates the regular Souls and PEs, so why the hell did they decide to make them WORSE? The new souls are more aggressive and faster, and while they die more easily they still are a huge threat. Getting ambushed by Lost Souls here can kill you, even if you are at full health, they are merciless. AND THEN there's the Pain Elemental, which now can spawn two souls at a time and their souls explode if they can't be spawned, so now you can't do the trick to prevent them from spawning souls on death. I'm all for a new challenge but I absolutely hate these guys, maybe I'm just salty because I lost many lives to them and I just need to "git gud", but damn, getting surrounded by these is a death sentence.

 

Now instead of the new enemies, let's talk about the ones that didn't make the cut. I can understand why the Chaingunner and the Archvile were cut, they needed to save some space on the cartridge. And you know, I hate them just as much as the next guy, but with their absence, the low-tier enemies are lacking a bit of extra threat and the high adrenaline of an Archvile encounter is gone. The nightmare imp isn't just enough to fill that space and the big encounters sometimes lack a bit of oomph. But the biggest loss by far is the Revenant, and due to the lack of variety with mid-tier enemies, the game relies too much on the Hell Nobles. If Plutonia is known as the Chaingunner and Revenant spam then Doom 64 should be known by the Hell Knights and Baron spam.

 

- The maps

 

First of all, I'm not a mapper, some of the nuances and techniques to make a good map are lost on me. Still, I feel confident enough to call the maps a mixed bag. Don't get me wrong, there are some really good ones that are fun to explore and run around, and others that take advantage of the visuals to set the perfect atmosphere. The problem though is that not all maps are good, and many of them suffer from some common issues. The first one is that many maps suffer from the "Where the hell do I go now?". I don't know why this is and maybe I'm just rusty, but this happens too commonly to say that it's just a me problem. Maybe it's a lack of cues that don't tell you that "Hey, that closed door you saw 10 minutes ago? It's open now". That leads me to my next point: There's a lot of backtracking. And you know, this isn't a big issue, the original doom also had backtracing. But here? It feels like it's taken to the max. I don't know if it was used to save space on the cartridge or what, but you frequently go back and forth around the map, especially the large ones, to the point that it gets annoying to ride the same platform for the tenth time.

 

But the biggest problem with the maps for me is the traps. I know they want to show off their scripts capabilities but good god, I wish they didn't. There are two kinds of traps, we have the "Annoying but nothing serious" with the traps on the wall that shoot darts or missiles when it gets triggered, and then we have the "Bullshit" traps that unless you know about them you'll die. I'll admit that they were my biggest source of rage moments. Like in Map 15 with the homing rockets, if you don't know the best place to hide you're dead. Add some extra enemies to evade when you're almost finishing the map for extra fun. Or how about the sinking floor right at the end of Map 16? Oops, you didn't react on time, have fun watching your health slowly go down with no possibility of escape. There's also Map 23 with a platforming challenge near the end. You failed and you fell? Tough luck, try the whole map again. And those are only some traps, there are more out there. I'm all for a challenge but when you're near the end of a map don't add inescapable situations, is not a challenge at that point, it's utter bullshit.

 

- Nitpicks

 

These are admittedly small issues compared to the main ones, but they have an impact on the experience. To start with: the sound. I'm not talking about the music, because I can dig the more atmospheric bgm, but I'm talking about the enemy sounds. I've grown so accustomed to the original sounds that when I play this game my gameplay is a bit thrown off. Forgive me if I'm wrong but it seems like they mixed sounds from different enemies and even between different actions. It's hard to describe it since I haven't looked too deeply into the exact changes, but I've heard "Waking up" sounds coming from an enemy chasing me. Or if my memory isn't wrong, Pinkie sounds coming from a Lost Soul.

 

On a similar note, I really dislike the GUI. The Doom GUI is very iconic and effective with its job. The Doom 64 goes for a more minimalist style but in the process loses important information. Again, this may seem small but I'm someone who cares a lot about managing his ammo. I always try to never grab more ammo than what my maximum is, wasting it. With Doom, a quick glance to the corner of the screen before grabbing an ammo pack is all it takes to know if I'm good. With Doom 64? You have to switch to that weapon to know how much ammo you have. This also applies in more tense situations where you have to switch to a weapon quickly. It's very possible to switch to an empty weapon on accident in Doom 64, wasting valuable time.

 

Last but not least, there are also some issues with collision. It's common to see enemies getting stuck with geometry, especially Cacos and Pinkies. But it gets worse when you are swarmed by enemies because if they touch you at a specific angle you get stuck to the ground until the enemy is killed. If you get surrounded by Pinkies squeezing away is not a good strategy anymore. Speaking of pinkies, what's wrong with the chainsaw? Sometimes it gets "disconnected" from the enemy and it gives them enough time to react and attack you. This has happened to me more times than I want to admit and now I always jerk the mouse around whenever I chainsaw an enemy to avoid getting disconnected.

 

- Conclusion

 

I hate doom 64 lol

Edited January 17, 2022 by WaKa
Changing the title to something less clickbaity

[WaKa]

1 minute ago, gwain said:

I always thought doom64 and eternal were over rated too

 

conclusion this could have been a status post

 

Just now, jazzmaster9 said:

Wonderful opinion piece which could have been a status or blog post.

 

*Plays Doom 64 for the 300th time and downloads Doom Eternal*

 

Oops, I'm new to Doomworld, I didn't knew that status posts were a thing

[Astronomical]

I would like to open with the fact that Doom 64, NRFTL and plutonia are tied as my favorite commercial campaigns, and this is me reflecting on his criticisms (That while valid are still subjective).

7 minutes ago, WaKa said:

The art style goes beyond "a matter of taste" and crosses the "affects the gameplay" territory. I already mentioned the zombie situation but there are some other aspects that seem minor but add up to the list of problems. Look at the original Doom bullet and rocket boxes, they're very easy to distinguish even in the middle of the chaos. Now, look at Doom 64, where both boxes are dark green with gray accents. Of course, one is more of a square and the other is rectangular, but can you be so sure when you're in the middle of an ambush where every millisecond counts? Similarly with shotguns dropped by the shotgunners, why are they so small and dark? It is too easy to not see them, especially with their bodies covering the gun.

I would recommend turning up the brightness if you are playing the night dive re-releases.  Other than that I always pick up ammo unless i'm almost full, and Hit scanners have similar amounts of health and therefor can be killed on sight.

15 minutes ago, WaKa said:

 

But the biggest problem with the maps for me is the traps. I know they want to show off their scripts capabilities but good god, I wish they didn't. There are two kinds of traps, we have the "Annoying but nothing serious" with the traps on the wall that shoot darts or missiles when it gets triggered, and then we have the "Bullshit" traps that unless you know about them you'll die. I'll admit that they were my biggest source of rage moments. Like in Map 15 with the homing rockets, if you don't know the best place to hide you're dead. Add some extra enemies to evade when you're almost finishing the map for extra fun. Or how about the sinking floor right at the end of Map 16? Oops, you didn't react on time, have fun watching your health slowly go down with no possibility of escape. There's also Map 23 with a platforming challenge near the end. You failed and you fell? Tough luck, try the whole map again. And those are only some traps, there are more out there. I'm all for a challenge but when you're near the end of a map don't add inescapable situations, is not a challenge at that point, it's utter bullshit.

I used midlevel saves, it's a very plutonic level design quirk to have traps you need to be caught in before you understand how they work and after can be defused.  Platforming sucks I will give you that.  As well as getting lost that's also bad.

 

The rest of you post are all issues that are apparent even if they weren't problems I care about.

 

13 minutes ago, gwain said:

conclusion this could have been a status post

The guy doesn't have followers, and a thread can promote discussion and point's I may have not considered, and as a mapper I will definitely think more about the ways people think about doom.  I wouldn't have known about that otherwise if he posted this as a status update.  Though using status updates as a method of reviewing wads is an interesting idea considering how status updates are more like posts than the mediocre review section.

[Cursed Lemon]

Doom 64 is one of my favorite games of all time and I can't relate to pretty much any of these complaints

 

Except

 

The motherfucking chainsaw collision problems

 

I play either Doom 64 Retribution or Brutal Doom 64 nowadays depending on my mood and thank actual god they fixed that problem.

[WaKa]

Alright, if I got it right next time I want to write a post/review of a wad I should make a status right? Then again, I feel like this could be an opportunity to discuss some of the features of Doom 64. Like really discuss the in and out of game design with Doom 64 idiosyncracies as a starting point. (Or maybe I'm exaggerating and this will turn into another opinion thread lol)

 

30 minutes ago, Astronomical said:

Insert comment here

 

- I'll give you the brightness point since at the end of the day you can modify the brightness as much as you want until you reach your desired level. It still kinda bothers me because I had to resort to changing the brightness level of my monitor since the in-game options don't go bright enough (Then again, maybe I'm blind lol)

 

- The hitscanners? To be honest, I mostly bring up this point because I'm reminded of the start of Map 21 where you start in a room surrounded by six hitscanners, with a mix of zombiemen and shotgunners. Your priority is of course kill the shotgunners first, but how can you know which one is one? Is not THAT big of a deal since it's the very start, you can try again many times until you're lucky. But you know, a flaw is a flaw and it's impossible to deny that this is bad design.

 

- I'll admit that the ammo issue may be related to my autism lol. Like I said before, I hate to waste ammo (and health and armor). If I have, let's say... 151 bullets left and I see an ammo box? I'll try my best to not pick it unless I have 150 or less. I've been burned by ammo starvation maps before, I'm not gonna lose a single one. So this little quirk of mine makes me more critical of situations where you can grab stuff at the wrong time. That's why I have an issue with the bullets and rockets boxes being too similar and the shotguns dropped by hitscanners being too small. I know this is an extremely minor issue to most, but hey, every little issue adds up.

 

The rest of your post I'm fine with since different playstyles and all that jazz.

 

7 minutes ago, Cursed Lemon said:

Doom 64 is one of my favorite games of all time and I can't relate to pretty much any of these complaints

 

Except

 

The motherfucking chainsaw collision problems

 

I play either Doom 64 Retribution or Brutal Doom 64 nowadays depending on my mood and thank actual god they fixed that problem.

 

I wonder, is the chainsaw issue fixed in the Bethesda release?

[Cursed Lemon]

4 minutes ago, WaKa said:

I wonder, is the chainsaw issue fixed in the Bethesda release?

 

Beats me, I played it for about five minutes then went back to Doom 64 EX to cleanse my pallet lol No mouselook having ass shit

 

iTs AbOuT aCcUrAcY

 

Well I guess we should pillarbox the motherfucker and force people to play in 240p30

Edited January 16, 2022 by Cursed Lemon

[roadworx]

you have a lot of valid points.....howeverrrrrr.......i think you're blindly hating the pain elemental and lost souls a bit too much. the chaingunner, arch-vile, and rev being cut are an *enormous* loss, as they're all fantastic enemies; their removal limits both the amount of area denial that's possible in the game as well as situations in which you can quickly be killed if you make the wrong move, which in turn heavily limits the number of gameplay scenarios. it only makes sense to make more dangerous some remaining enemies like the lost soul and pain elemental (which is a great enemy btw). especially the lost soul - a low-health flying enemy that can actually pose a threat and not simply be really annoying is great.

[Morpheus666]

As a big fan of Doom 64, i get some of the critique's you listed in your OP Post. However i will say that it seems to me like your trying to like something you don't actually enjoy, Doom 64 is one of those games where it's widely praised by the community however not everyone actually likes it or will enjoy it. You have to be prepared to go into the game and forget everything you knew about any of the other Doom games, because while it still is Doom by heart/gameplay, it's a entirely different and refreshing take on the Doom Formula, it's imo no different then Doom 3. It's a game in the series that not everyone will like, and that's completely fine to not like it, everyone is allowed to have a opinion.

[msx2plus]

imo the pain elementals are hugely improved (i am a glutton for punishment) and the maps are probably the best of any commercial doom release, def right alongside plutonia in its cunning and eagerness to rustle the player.

 

def agree that not distinguishing the hitscanners is a huge issue, though, and that not showing ammo counts for all weapons creates a bit of a headache, especially back when you had to cycle through weapons one at a time on console and just remember what you have in stock. item visibility could be better but generally speaking it gets the job done.

 

d64 is a bit inscrutable at first, it's full of cryptic traps and weird pseudo-puzzles in a way that the other commercial doom games really aren't, and i think there is a fundamental difference in approach to d64 as opposed to the other commercial doom games that divides people: the original was pretty tightly designed with high readability and quick learnability in mind, while d64 feels extremely intentionally alienating and hostile. d64 was the first time i played a game, said "i don't think i'm having fun, per se", and loved it.

[TheMagicMushroomMan]

31 minutes ago, WaKa said:

Alright, if I got it right next time I want to write a post/review of a wad I should make a status right?

No, your post has enough effort and content in it to constitute a thread, regardless of whether or not people agree with the points you make. I don't think other members should tell other members what to do, as long as they aren't breaking the rules.

 

(I don't mean that to insult anyone though, I get the whole "oh no, another person calling something overrated" thing can be annoying, but this post is fine because there's actual effort here instead of "DOOM64 is garbage amirite?").

 

However, I'd avoid using terminology such as "X is overrated", because some members get irritated by that. It can also be percieved as offensive if you're talking about the work of another community member (example: you have members from Nightdive active here who worked on the DOOM64 port). In short, you wouldn't have recieved that response if it wasn't for the title of your thread. Starting out a thread by telling people that you think something is overrated hardly ever produces a healthy conversation, even if the intent isn't meant to be combative.

Edited January 16, 2022 by TheMagicMushroomMan

[El Juancho]

How is doom 64 overrated, no one talks about that game lol

[msx2plus]

3 minutes ago, TheMagicMushroomMan said:

In short, you wouldn't have recieved that response if it wasn't for the title of your thread.

 

just about always best to portray your personal experience, ie "Doom 64 totally misses me", "I just don't click with Doom 64", etc, rather than making a generalized statement. i'm pretty invested in how people vibe with games and media in general, so knowing somebody is out to share their experience rather than just provide a critical takedown of some kind will get me pretty interested. i'd hazard that's true for most people, i think. it creates more interesting discussions, too.

[Astronomical]

47 minutes ago, El juancho said:

How is doom 64 overrated, no one talks about that game lol

Until everyone did, in the community it was a huge deal.

 

1 hour ago, WaKa said:

I'll admit that the ammo issue may be related to my autism lol. Like I said before, I hate to waste ammo (and health and armor). If I have, let's say... 151 bullets left and I see an ammo box? I'll try my best to not pick it unless I have 150 or less. I've been burned by ammo starvation maps before, I'm not gonna lose a single one. So this little quirk of mine makes me more critical of situations where you can grab stuff at the wrong time. That's why I have an issue with the bullets and rockets boxes being too similar and the shotguns dropped by hitscanners being too small. I know this is an extremely minor issue to most, but hey, every little issue adds up.

If Doom 64 required more ammo rationing I would agree but I didn't have an issue with it imo.  If you decide to make posts like this status updates, I'll definitely tune in.

[Jello]

43 minutes ago, TheMagicMushroomMan said:

No, your post has enough effort and content in it to constitute a thread, regardless of whether or not people agree with the points you make. I don't think other members should tell other members what to do, as long as they aren't breaking the rules.

 

(I don't mean that to insult anyone though, I get the whole "oh no, another person calling something overrated" thing can be annoying, but this post is fine because there's actual effort here instead of "DOOM64 is garbage amirite?").

 

However, I'd avoid using terminology such as "X is overrated", because some members get irritated by that. It can also be percieved as offensive if you're talking about the work of another community member (example: you have members from Nightdive active here who worked on the DOOM64 port). In short, you wouldn't have recieved that response if it wasn't for the title of your thread. Starting out a thread by telling people that you think something is overrated hardly ever produces a healthy conversation, even if the intent isn't meant to be combative.

Agreed wholeheartedly. There's enough content and thought put into the original post to warrant a new post. WaKa was asking for a discussion. And that should be absolutely fine, and welcomed.

 

I personally disagree, I love the ambiance of Doom 64, I love the dark environments. I think the Lost Souls in it were how they always should've been: more aggressive in their attacks, but weaker in health. On shotgun blast should take them down. I loved the new Cacodemon design, really I loved all the redesigns except, as WaKo mentioned, the zombieman and the shotgunner being essentially the same sprite with some different coloration. That was bad.

 

I think the level design was on par with what you would find in Ultimate Doom, and often times it seemed better than some later levels in Doom 2. It wasn't perfect, but we've been spoiled by almost three decades of user made .wads that were made without a deadline to get a game to market. I think it did really damn well with bringing new levels to Doom. And the soundtrack is so bleak, depressing, and atmospheric that it deserves a mention.

 

So long story short, Doom 64 was fantastic. It's not quite the same, but I think most of the changes made to the gameplay enhanced the game further. It was a far cry better than SNES Doom, or Saturn Doom, and I would say it was better than Playstation Doom because it was a new experience, not a rehash of older levels that you could play on PC.

[Edward850]

1 hour ago, Cursed Lemon said:

Beats me, I played it for about five minutes then went back to Doom 64 EX to cleanse my pallet lol No mouselook having ass shit

 

iTs AbOuT aCcUrAcY

 

Well I guess we should pillarbox the motherfucker and force people to play in 240p30

Well no, those are entirely unrelated circumstances. Mouse look would achieve literally nothing and in fact literally break the game in some cases (the sky rendering would completely bust, various visual effects are only designed to be seen at one pitch and pitch aiming can be use to sequence break switches). Widescreen and high framerates do not.

 

1 hour ago, WaKa said:

I wonder, is the chainsaw issue fixed in the Bethesda release?

No. The chainsaw issue is the same one from Vanilla Doom, the chainsaw can't hit anything not actually in the same blockmap as that things origin, because it literally doesn't exist in the place to be tested against for collision. Changing this would change far more than the chainsaw behaviour, so much like any other source port that isn't ZDoom, it's better left untouched due to the greater implications.

 

Unless you are doing a multiplayer/deathmatch focused port. Deathmatch it makes a lot of sense to fix given those same implications pretty much don't exist when you are only dealing with players, plus nobody wants their SSG to completely whiff in CTF, that can actually be quite horrid.

Edited January 16, 2022 by Edward850

[Cursed Lemon]

39 minutes ago, Edward850 said:

Mouse look would achieve literally nothing

 

Nothing except, you know, having mouse look.

[Edward850]

7 minutes ago, Cursed Lemon said:

 

Nothing except, you know, having mouse look.

Indeed it is shaped like itself, however what else aside from the mentioned breaking of visuals and sequences? The game isn't exactly Quake after all, verticality doesn't affect the combat all that much.

Edited January 16, 2022 by Edward850

[Cursed Lemon]

1 minute ago, Edward850 said:

Indeed it is shaped like itself, however what else aside from the mentioned breaking of visuals and sequences?

 

I mean maybe I'm alone in this but I would trade being able to aim by myself for looking down at an item and discovering that the 2D sprites are, incredulously, two-dimensional.

[Edward850]

Well sure, but that alone isn't really a good reason expose the visual issues. A bit of insight, Doom64 isn't really any different from vanilla Doom, the level format is almost identical, however it brings to the table a renderer that can be told to keep rendering things behind pieces of geometry, this is how you get things like the floating platforms in MAP01 that you see right at the start. The catch with this is when you have things like transparent grates on floors working as a cross path between two hallways and looking down that grate reveals there's nothing actually underneath it, a sector can sill only have one floor and ceiling, it's just level design can setup the illusion of two overlapping paths. The illusion only works if you can't change the pitch of the camera. So without redesigning all these level structures while also introducing new features to the level format and engine itself, unlocking the camera pitch didn't really make much sense and produced more problems than it would add functionality.

Edited January 16, 2022 by Edward850

[TheFocus]

doom 64 is far from my favorite, but overrated? i don't know about that.

[Shepardus]

I like Doom 64, but it does have its flaws. Perhaps my biggest issue with it is the lack of arch-viles, revenants, etc., which leads to a lot of hell knight/baron combat (still better than shotgunning barons in Doom 1). This is one reason why Doom 64 for Doom II is so compelling - it reinterprets Doom 64 as a vanilla-compatible PWAD for Doom II, but also does its own thing by incorporating the cut enemies into the levels. It doesn't achieve as thick an atmosphere as Doom 64 (which is one of the things I think Doom 64 did very well), but it's arguably more fun than the original game.

[ZeMystic]

1 hour ago, Shepardus said:

I like Doom 64, but it does have its flaws. Perhaps my biggest issue with it is the lack of arch-viles, revenants, etc., which leads to a lot of hell knight/baron combat (still better than shotgunning barons in Doom 1). This is one reason why Doom 64 for Doom II is so compelling - it reinterprets Doom 64 as a vanilla-compatible PWAD for Doom II, but also does its own thing by incorporating the cut enemies into the levels. It doesn't achieve as thick an atmosphere as Doom 64 (which is one of the things I think Doom 64 did very well), but it's arguably more fun than the original game.

 

I like to second this. Doom 64 For Doom II is a really good alternative for those who aren't too keen on plain ol' Doom 64. The maps are in most cases 1:1, except for most of the traps which you mentioned as your biggest issue with the maps. Also the new midis are so god damn good in it. It's personally not my cup of tea, I like to stick to Doom 64, but it might be up your alley.

[Murdoch]

Largely concur. There are a lot of beautifully atmospheric moments but so many of the maps are just absolutely awfully laid out and/or insufferably dickish. I still haven't managed to finish it even after two attempts. 

[Synuś Vader]

psx doom is better

[Synuś Vader]

6 hours ago, Shepardus said:

I like Doom 64, but it does have its flaws. Perhaps my biggest issue with it is the lack of arch-viles, revenants, etc., which leads to a lot of hell knight/baron combat (still better than shotgunning barons in Doom 1). This is one reason why Doom 64 for Doom II is so compelling - it reinterprets Doom 64 as a vanilla-compatible PWAD for Doom II, but also does its own thing by incorporating the cut enemies into the levels. It doesn't achieve as thick an atmosphere as Doom 64 (which is one of the things I think Doom 64 did very well), but it's arguably more fun than the original game.

D64D2 HAS SUCH A GOOD OST 

[thiccyosh]

Everything you've listed here is exactly what I've felt during my playthrough of Doom 64. I wouldn't call it overrated because of those points, I would consider Doom 64 as the most ok Doom game I have played. Because do keep in mind that Doom 64 was released for the Nintendo 64 and of course they had to work with limitations, so that is probably the reason why the gameplay feels like Doom 2, but without most of the Doom 2 enemy cast and with way shorter maps at the same time. And in order to compensate they focused more on atmosphere, slightly more evilness with tricks and traps in maps and especially with the Pain Elemental. And lastly, the most important one: fancy lighting.

 

However this doesn't excuse the wonderfully stilted BFG9000 in Doom 64, I don't know why this BFG here feels so wrong in Doom 64, but this weapon here feels less powerful than the BFG in Doom 2.

 

In conclusion, Doom 64 is very ok for a Doom game, I'd still recommend it nontheless because it's fricking Doom.

[Faceman2000]

10 hours ago, Cursed Lemon said:

 

Beats me, I played it for about five minutes then went back to Doom 64 EX to cleanse my pallet lol No mouselook having ass shit

 

iTs AbOuT aCcUrAcY

 

Well I guess we should pillarbox the motherfucker and force people to play in 240p30

What an incredibly obtuse take.

[noob_killer012345678]

Never played TBH

[Rudolph]

I definitely do not understand why anyone would call Doom 64 "overrated": it is a Nintendo 64 spin-off that for the longest time was not legally available for purchase and as such had been sort of forgotten by most until very recently. According to Wikipedia, even back then, the reviews were not overwhelmingly positive. If anything, I wish the game had been overrated and done so well that Midway would have gone on to make a direct sequel instead of moving on to produce a straightforward (and forgettable, I would argue, despite the great original soundtrack!) port of Quake.

Edited January 16, 2022 by Rudolph

[Mr Masker]

12 hours ago, Cursed Lemon said:

 

Beats me, I played it for about five minutes then went back to Doom 64 EX to cleanse my pallet lol No mouselook having ass shit

 

iTs AbOuT aCcUrAcY

 

Well I guess we should pillarbox the motherfucker and force people to play in 240p30

Did you want a modern remake or something? if people want to play Doom 64 then this remaster's objective is to give them a working, usable doom 64, any modern enhancements are optional.