Why original Doom doesn't support mouselook?

[Dr. Durr]

I like to think that when you aim in software mode, Doomguy looks around without moving his head up or down.

[Maes]

Free looking in Heretic and later idtech1-based games is just a convenience hack to allow for extended gameplay features like flying or hitting overhead enemies. It's kind of necessary in certain Doom 64, places, too. To a minor degree it gives extra value to existing architecture, without that meaning that it's supposed to look "right" or anything.

[Koko Ricky]

Kinda necessary in some places in Doom 64? The original game doesn't have mouselook, so I dunno what you mean by that, although some of the puzzles are certainly easier to solve with mouselook on Doom 64 EX or Absolution.

[Maes]

GoatLord said:

Kinda necessary in some places in Doom 64? The original game doesn't have mouselook, so I dunno what you mean by that, although some of the puzzles are certainly easier to solve with mouselook on Doom 64 EX or Absolution.

Hmm you are probably right, I'm thinking of some jumping puzzles in Absolution where there were major height differences and a characteristic "cubic" cave-like room. No idea if the N64 version had absolutely no way to look up/down, though.

[Mithran Denizen]

No, you can't look up or down in the original Doom 64. From what I can tell, the engine was perfectly capable of allowing it, as you can see with the vertical recoil of the chaingun for example, or the movement of the intro map camera. I guess midway didn't think it added all that much to the gameplay. Or maybe they didn't like the look of the sprite billboarding at steep angles, I don't know.