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Doom 64

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Reviewed by Tobias Condit-Schultz Doom 64 by Williams Entertainment. People are calling it the best Doom ever- but is it? Doom 64 does have the MOST important part of video games, fun. Yes, D64 (as I will call it) is a very entertaining game while you play it, and it's easy to look back on it and call it even more fun. Suffice to say, D64 carried the same fun factor of original Doom over from PC to N64- and even a little more. Fun Factor: 100% Graphics- now this is wear some criticism comes in. I will compare it to MacDoom- at least in my opinion, the better between PC and Mac. D64's graphics are very good-looking and smooth, but, to put it frankly, Doom (for Mac) had a much higher level of detail. And if you had a good enough computer, it could probably go just as smooth. Also, D64 is a VERY dark game, which can get in the way in some levels. It comes close to seeming like just a cheap trick to make it harder for you in some levels. However, in others, it can be very cool, setting the mood for the game. The enemies. They all look much, much cooler, but, for some reason Williams took at all the coolest enemies, i.e. chaingunner, revenant, spider mastermind, arch-vile... There doesn't appear to be any reason for this, however. In fact, I would have liked to see what a revenant would look like in 64-bit graphics. And I know it's been said before, but adding the nightmare imp does NOT make up for taking out all the other bad guys. The weapons. On the most part, they look cooler. I will start from the bottom. The fist is a cool-looking hand in a glove, and it's sometimes fun just running around with berserk 'vaporizing' things. Besides that, it's useless, like in original Doom. The chainsaw is perhaps the coolest weapon in the game, a double-bladed killing machine. Remember how you sort of went just up and down in the original game with the chainsaw? No more. The screen shakes and, as far as I can tell, no enemy can escape from the chainsaw's grasp. It is probably one of the most powerful weapons in the game. The pistol is a very very cool weapon- it has perfect aim (unlike the original doom), makes a cool sound and is relatively powerful. Unfortunately, somebody at Williams was stupid enough to put the shotgun in the first room of the entire game, so the pistol is, in effect, outgunned from the start. The shotgun is not cooler-looking than the original. I don't have much to say about it except that the reload sequence involves the shotgun moving back and forth, and that's all. The super-shotgun is smaller than in the other game, but has better aim. The reload sequence is gone, just like in the shotgun. The chaingun. Apparently, Williams loves buffing up the rapid fire guns. The chaingun is loud and extremely cool-looking, and can do the same to cacodemons and pain elementals that it could in the other game- in fact, better. It's even usable on other enemies, and will freeze them, as well. The rocket launcher is now better looking, as are it rockets, but it seems to lack the rapid-fire it did before. And the plasma-rifle. Sometimes I think it could be much better than the BFG 9000, sometimes not. There's a little tube that runs up the gun filled with blue electricity (what non-physicists call plasma) that buzzes constantly. The noise isn't annoying, and is in fact cool, reminiscent of the 'dormant' chainsaw's chugging. The plasma rifle's fire is now much better. It's quieter, faster and much stronger. It makes a MUCH cooler sound than it did before, sort of a little hit that sounds and feels better than the original. The BFG. It looks a WHOLE lot cooler, shoots pretty much instantaneously, and it's fire IS cool looking, but it seems to lost all of it's power (mancubuses do no longer succumb to one hit). There is a flash on the screen when it hits, which is cool, but on the whole, the BFG has lost its power. The laser gun. This weapon on the whole pretty much stinks even if you do get all those pentagrams. It is hard to use, NOT cool looking, but four times more powerful than the BFG 9000 (that is, as soon as you get all it's powerups in the secret levels). That isn't very impressive if you look at it, because the BFG isn't all that strong in this game anyway. However, it only takes ONE cell no matter what, so I guess this COULD be the most powerful gun. And the auto-map: The texture map is pretty much completely useless unless you want to find out if a pit is full of poison or not. It is mostly a nuisance (you have to press the map button twice to get to the better one). And the auto-map looks the same as in original Doom (one thing), however, it isn't adequate for the few three-dimensional things in D64. No matter what the manual says, the auto-map also never changes (except for the switches being flipped, which is useful), and is therefore useful only in navigating the many dark mazes in the game. The 'looking' mode is useful, though, and although the zoom function is a little hard to trigger, the move around mode isn't. Graphics: 90% Music: The music is pretty much non-existent, it sounds more like people screaming in the distance or silence to me. It does set a mood, though. There's only one track that vaguely has a rhythm, I forget where, though. Don't turn this game on for its music. Music: 30% (really low -- I take the music for how good it is, not what mood it sets). Sound FX: The sound is really good in D64. From the shotgun's cool sounding (pathetic looking) reloading sequence, to the cyberdemon's roar as it's body explodes in tons of tiny explosions, this game has some of the best sound I've ever heard. The monsters all sound cool when they roar, shoot and die, and the weapons all sound cooler than before. The plasma rifle has some of the best sound in the game, I think. Sound FX: 100% Saving: You can use a password, although the controller pak makes life a lot easier. Either way, I always stop if I die, though, because you have to start at the beginning of the level (the only time you can save). This builds up frustration quickly, especially if you miss the password/control pak screen (easy to do) and have to beat the level before, as well. As far as I can tell, one of the few games with a good save feature was original Doom. In fact, that was one of the best things, and Williams should have been smart enough to carry it to N64. As a penalty, most D64 levels are relatively short, not like the immense mazes filled to the brim with secrets and enemies in original Doom. Saving: 20% (very very low) Control: The control in D64 is exemplary, better than most video games. Its very sensitive at lowest sensitivity, which makes for beautiful, precise control all the time. Impossible-looking jumps are easy- dash onto the platform, then tilt slightly back on the stick to stop from going over the edge. The control pad, although useful when you want perfectly straight run's turns, seems to make him go slower than the stick. Also, the speed button doesn't seem to do anything, and if it does, it's hard to tell. Control: 95% Replay value: This game has three secret levels, and I think three more only accessible with codes. The secret levels aren't accessible through the other secret levels, you have to find how to get to them in other levels. The best part of secret levels is the fact that there is a 'pentagram' piece in all secret levels that make your laser more powerful. There are 4 different levels of difficulty, which will make for replayability in the short run. Replay value: 99% Overall: This game obviously has extreme points, low music and bad saving, while everything else has high marks. That is unfortunately how it is.

Average: about 76.28% Overall: 90%

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