Need help ID'ing this Doom 2 retail box (pics)

[Doominion]

(no pun intended in my thread title)

There are a bajillion Doom websites out there but I can't seem to find one that would help me identify who/when/where this "big box" copy of Doom II that I purchased came from, so I'm hoping someone here can. If this is the wrong website or forum to be looking for help about this kind of thing just let me know and I'll be out of your way.

Album with high res pics: http://imgur.com/a/UJqzz

I picked it up from a yardsale awhile back for a buck. It looks like a generic copy of Doom II CD-ROM for Windows 95, but every single one of these I've seen online (ebay included) are all of a version that has the various box logos and UPC in different places. Another big difference is the ID logo, which is white on my copy and not yellow like every other one I've seen. The logos are also placed differently on the CD itself. The jewel case has no paper inserts on the front or back. The CD is mint new so I don't think the jewel case was swapped but I can't be certain. Finally, the system requirements on the side of the box are worded slightly differently.


I've been comparing this to copies listed on ebay and Google Images, among other websites, and can't find one like it. The Doom wiki has a pic album of the different designs on CD-ROM releases but it doesn't include this one. Is there a website that tells the history of the retail box designs for Doom?

I'm located in the US so I'm not sure how likely it is that this is some kind of rare international packaging or something.

Any help is appreciated!

[Trilinear]

I'd say it's probably a bootleg, judging by the non-legit looking id logo.

[fraggle]

There are lots of different versions of the Doom II CD. That looks like a later version (with the Doom 95 port included instead of the DOS version). I think it's probably legit.

For reference this is what my own "Windows 95 version" looks like. Our CDs appear to match up. I don't have the cardboard box for mine and you don't have the cardboard insert for the CD box, so we don't have much else to compare.

I'm curious about this gallery you say is on the wiki (can you link to it?) because I haven't seen it before, although I am the author of this image - it's a different Doom II CD I also own. That CD is from the Depths of Doom collection, which is essentially the same thing, though has a different CD label.

Trilinear said:

I'd say it's probably a bootleg, judging by the non-legit looking id logo.

No, that's a perfectly legit id logo, albeit from later in their history. Earlier Doom 2 boxes used the old yellow and purple "id" logo (see eg. here). The "Windows 95" releases of Doom came out around the same time as Final Doom - ie. ~1996, well into the Quake era. If you Google "Quake box" you can see Quake 1 and 2 releases used that same "imperfect stamp" version of the logo.

[BlueFeena]

Edit: DERRP. Sniped by Fraggle.

Some things that might help us out:

• What version of Doom 2 is in the box? Extract the wad file and tell us the file size. Anything other than Doom 2 1.9 is almost assuredly a bootleg.
  
• Does the disc have any Dos executable at all? Doom 2 is not a Windows game, so the only way it can be running on Windows 95 with a 640x480 resolution is if the game is loaded through Doom95.
  

The id software logo seen on the box is the one used from the late nineties, for Quake 2 I believe. Ditto for the ESRB logo; I forget if my Doom 2 1.7 box has an ESRB logo on it; Final Doom is the only one I can remember with an ESRB logo. All of this would put this release of the game somewhere around 1997-1998.

[fraggle]

BlueFeena said:

Does the disc have any Dos executable at all? Doom 2 is not a Windows game, so the only way it can be running on Windows 95 with a 640x480 resolution is if the game is loaded through Doom95.

The "Windows 95" versions of the game were re-releases and (as I recall, though I don't have the CD to hand right now) didn't include the DOS versions. It was just Doom 95.

[Doominion]

Wow you all seem to know your stuff! Thanks for the quick replies.

BlueFeena said:

What version of Doom 2 is in the box? Extract the wad file and tell us the file size. Anything other than Doom 2 1.9 is almost assuredly a bootleg.

DOOM2.WAD is 14,263 KB (13.9 MB) (file modified 5/29/1996)

...and I just read README.TXT and it includes these two tidbits:

DOOM2 v1.9: CD-ROM version

Included on this CD-ROM are two shareware products we offer, the original DOOM v1.9 and the new HERETIC v1.0 games.

-------------------------------------------------

BlueFeena said:

Does the disc have any Dos executable at all?

Are those .EXE? Here's a pic of the CD's contents http://i.imgur.com/4MolW7l.png (DOOM2.wad is off screen at the very bottom).

fraggle said:
I'm curious about this gallery you say is on the wiki (can you link to it?)

I believe this is the gallery I was looking at: http://doomwiki.org/wiki/Cover_art#Compact_Discs_for_Doom_games

I'm wondering if this is as simple as an international release that doesn't pop up very often? Not included in my pic album are the other box contents: an installation guide for windows 95 and MS-DOS (standard size white paper, multiple sheets stapled at the spine); business reply mail for "GT interactive software's free technical support"; and the Doom II instruction manual with "designed for Microsoft windows 95" logo and a yellow ID software logo on the cover.

Thank you all for your help so far!!

[Trilinear]

fraggle said:

No, that's a perfectly legit id logo, albeit from later in their history. Earlier Doom 2 boxes used the old yellow and purple "id" logo (see eg. here). The "Windows 95" releases of Doom came out around the same time as Final Doom - ie. ~1996, well into the Quake era. If you Google "Quake box" you can see Quake 1 and 2 releases used that same "imperfect stamp" version of the logo.

I'm definitely familiar with the "stamp" id logo, but the presentation of it here strikes me as being suspect (e.g. unusual white margin and it's proximity to the edges of the logo suggests photoshopping without regard to alpha transparency, "Software Inc" underneath I've never seen before in conjunction with the stamp, and would expect a "TM" rather than an "R" as the trade mark symbol).

[GreyGhost]

I wouldn't be surprised if it's an early version of the "stamp" logo, which would make the box more valuable than its contents. As for the usage of "TM" or "R" beside corporate logos, I think that depends on whether or not the logo's registered in whichever country the software's published in.

Doominion said:

Are those .EXE?

The DOS executables should be in the DOOM2\DOOM2CD folder - if it exists on your CD. They also have slightly unusual names.

[Doominion]

GreyGhost said:

The DOS executables should be in the DOOM2\DOOM2CD folder - if it exists on your CD. They also have slightly unusual names.

Here's the contents of the folder DOOM2: http://i.imgur.com/KlCyJeu.png

and here's the contents of DOOM2CD (folder within DOOM2): http://i.imgur.com/SFge6hD.png

(all these images are now in the album I linked in my first post)

[BlueFeena]

Your root Doom2 folder contains the data for the installer. The Doom2_1.9.1 - Doom2_1.9.5 represent each floppy that very old versions of Doom2 came on. The stuff in Doom2CD are the original DOS executables, albeit renamed so they can temporarily ran off of a CD-ROM. If you run the INSTALL.BAT from the Doom2 directory, from within a DOS emulator, it will more than likely create a proper DOOM2.EXE and SETUP.EXE in the folder you specify.

Fraggle pretty much nailed it and I apologize for potentially misleading you into think you have a bootleg copy of Doom2; it looks like you have a genuine re-release of Doom 2 1.9 with Doom95 packaged in. I simply hadn't seen such a thing before, and was distinctly under the impression that the only Doom game that came with Doom95 was Final Doom.

Interestingly enough, I see no IPXSETUP, DM, or SERSETUP executables, though I guess Dwango95 was designed to supersede them. Maybe they're in the root folder on the CD-ROM?

[Doominion]

BlueFeena said:
Interestingly enough, I see no IPXSETUP, DM, or SERSETUP executables, though I guess Dwango95 was designed to supersede them. Maybe they're in the root folder on the CD-ROM? [/B]

I don't see those files anywhere on the CD.

Do you think this is worth any more than any other big-box copy of Doom 2?

Thanks for all your help!

[GreyGhost]

BlueFeena said:

Fraggle pretty much nailed it and I apologize for potentially misleading you into think you have a bootleg copy of Doom2; it looks like you have a genuine re-release of Doom 2 1.9 with Doom95 packaged in. I simply hadn't seen such a thing before, and was distinctly under the impression that the only Doom game that came with Doom95 was Final Doom.

Ultimate Doom also saw a Doom95 release for "The Depths of Doom Trilogy" in 1997 and the "Quake and The Ultimate Doom Compilation" in 1998, possibly on its own as well.

Interestingly enough, I see no IPXSETUP, DM, or SERSETUP executables, though I guess Dwango95 was designed to supersede them. Maybe they're in the root folder on the CD-ROM?

IPXSETUP.EXE & SERSETUP.EXE are there, in the disk images for DOS Doom, though I can offer no explanation for DM.EXE's absence.

i[]Doominion said:[/i]
Do you think this is worth any more than any other big-box copy of Doom 2?

I think it would be for the unusual logo if nothing else, the Doom95 CD itself turns up fairly often on eBay.