Doom 64 (1997)

This particular Doom title is a faithful remaster of the 1997 Nintendo 64 classic, brought to modern systems by Nightdive Studios, a renowed studio when it comes to these kinds of adaptations. Rather than a simple port, the game received visual enhancements, smoother controls, and QOL improvements like widescreen support and quick saving. It retains the gritty, hellish atmosphere that set it apart from other classic Doom entries, with a darker, more oppressive tone reinforced by moody lighting and eerie sound design. Particularly this is one of my favorite Doom entries simply because of it's atmosphere alone, very different from it's predecessors, this is also the reason why I like the hated Doom 3, I feel both of them have the very same proposal when it comes to the feeling it tries to provoke from the player.

The gameplay remains tight and responsive, preserving the series' hallmark fast-paced combat and maze-like level design. And even though the previous entries also had similar formulas, the level of "maze-like" is very high on this this one, starting from the first few levels, and never changing until the last level, which can be a bummer for some. The levels are more puzzle-oriented than in Doom or Doom II, which gives the game a slower, more methodical feel, which not everybody is a fan of, so I would only play this one if you can enjoy both approaches. Weapon feedback is satisfying, and combat retains its classic rhythm without feeling outdated.

A notable addition is the new “Lost Levels” campaign, which acts as an epilogue and ties into the lore of Doom Eternal, making this version more than just a nostalgia trip. Critics and fans alike praised the remaster for its atmosphere, improved visuals, and the care put into updating it for PC. Particularly I was not interested in playing this part of the content, but I advise fans don't skip this section. However, some noted that the game can be excessively dark by default, requiring manual brightness adjustments, which was also a thing in the original game, but more easily fixed on this remaster. A few quirks from the original remain, but they don’t detract significantly from the experience.

I would also advise trying to play the secret levels, in order to make the final one way easier, this way to unlock some secrets that makes the final boss less challenging, and it can be very challenging, unfortunately for me I didn't followed my own advise. Another standout for me is that this one feels harder than other Doom titles, at least for me, even while not playing at the highest difficulty level, you can easily die at least once on every single level. Overall, Doom 64’s 2020 release is a strong, atmospheric shooter that respects its roots while feeling polished on modern hardware, it is a must play for fans of FPS titles in general, even more so now that it is more easily playable on modern platforms, no excuse to skip this one.

Doom 64 is a sort of a kooky epilogue in the classic Doom continuum.

Even though Doom 64 sounds like it could be just Doom on Nintendo 64, it's completely its own game. Sure it has most of the same weapons and enemies as Dooms I and II but the levels, gameplay feel and vibe are pretty different. And the graphics are completely new (and mostly uglier excluding nifty lighting effects).

Gameplay is the most familiar feeling out of the three aforementioned. It's mostly good. Guns and enemies behave mostly the same but there's some differences and additions. There's a new lame gun, for example, and Pain Elementals are now absolutely hideous looking and a total... pain to kill.

The levels are also mostly good and quite reminiscent of the orginal games. The levels are ambitious and complex, which is to be applauded, but here and there they make you realize just how well thought out levels were in Doom I and II. In Doom 64, monster closets are a lot more common and deadly, and there's more infuriating "platforming". It's easier to not know where to go too, and the levels don't feel like they were designed to be completed after restarting. The Xbox version I played of course had saves so I was able to use those, but in the first two Dooms I typically try to amp up the stakes by not loading the game after dying. Here? Not a good time. Especially since in Doom 64, you also seem to take a lot more damage (on the highest difficulty at least).

Also, the final boss fight is horrible. I would say it's the stupidest boss fight I have seen in a long time but having played through No More Heroes 2 recently I have to be careful wit these statements.

While I may seem quite harsh on many aspects of the game, Doom 64 still is pretty fun to play. That's the main thing that matters, right? And while it falters in gameplay, graphics and level design, it at least delivers on the atmosphere. The game sounds positively demonic with its dark ambient soundtrack. Lots of alien and unnerving sounds abound. This goes a long way of transforming the original Doom's power fantasy spectacle into a horror tinged experience. And the horror tones are underlined by the moody lighting effects and darker environments.

Doom 64 may not be perfect and it may feel like a cheap substitute for the real thing but it's still Doom at its heart. Thus, it can't be all that bad.

Playtime: 18 minutes

Review

I'm old enough to have owned a PC that didn't even have Windows and i remember playing Doom (the shareware version) back in the day. No up/down aiming, arrow keys as the default for movement (i didn't even have a mouse at first), no reloading, no jumping. Just shooting, picking up items and getting lost because you can't find some stupid key. After all, that's what you want from a quick-paced action game right? Trying to figure out which brown-grey squares you can interact with to find a key?

The game also has an unavoidable second-long delay between each menu screen. So going back from settings, controls, input takes forever. Ugh.

Beat on the hardest difficulty. I can't believe I never had this game back in the day given how much I played Doom 1 and 2, Goldeneye and Perfect Dark. It was probably because the rental shops never had it so I never knew it existed. I started off with the settings, upping the mouse sensitivity and upping the fov to around the middle. I didn't like the fish bowl appearance of max fov. Some of the levels were familiar because I played fan remakes on Doom 4. The amount of challenge was great. I had to make use of most ammo pickups and pretty much never had full ammo for any weapon for long. I rationed my ammo types to try and make use of every available pickup. Chainsaw for pinkies, shotgun for general purpose mid range and killing weak enemies, super shotgun for tougher enemies as long as I had room/cover to dodge, chaingun was best for lost souls and pain elementals but I also used it for general purpose, rockets for groups of tough enemies, plasma any time I was going into a suspected ambush so I would have the highest dps, and BFG only used a few times for ridiculous groups (like at the final boss). The new laser gun was interesting because it combined the high dps of the plasma rifle with the accuracy and hit scan of the chaingun, making it extremely effective at all ranges. It could even shoot between the bars that plasma could not fit through, and almost every cyberdemon was conveniently behind bars. I did not need health and armor pickups as much because I made sure to secret hunt to leave each level in great condition. I found most secrets. A few times I used no clipping to figure out how to get the secret, and a few I had to look up (usually tricky ones involving precise timing, platforming and shooting switches). If there was a soul sphere, mega sphere or combat armor that I could not figure out how to get, I looked it up. I only found 1 of the secret levels.

Most of the levels were excellent, and I especially liked the ridiculously large battles that put my strafing skills to the test, bobbing and weaving around while having zero safe space. Figuring out what switches did was obnoxious at times but I never needed a walkthrough. The teleporting items and enemies, and traps added a new aspect of challenge, but they could be very annoying. I hated the level with the minigame of guessing which pillar a soul sphere teleported into. I ended up no clipping to find out where it was. The final boss was a massive difficulty spike. I did not know I could use my 1 alien artifact to close off a monster spawner so I killed everyone the hard way. I circle strafed around the room full speed bombing them with BFG blasts. The pain elementals and lost Souls were the largest threats because they could be difficult to avoid, could box me in and could make me hurt myself with rockets. After I ran out of energy ammo I used the chaingun. After that I focused the mancubi with rockets because their shots were more difficult to avoid. The rest were easy after that. Then the final boss herself killed me so many times until I figured out what to do. She was a Heretic/Hexen boss without the useful item system to make it manageable. I had to circle strafe around at full speed to stay ahead of the damn homing missiles while smoking her with rockets. Try to weave in such a way to avoid the flame shots, use the buildings as cover, and get the health and armor pickups. Then I did the lost levels and found the challenge to be even greater. Some of the big ambush fights put the challenge through the roof and I almost never had full ammo for any weapon, or health/armor over 100. The final level started off insane but became easy once I cleared a safe spot to hold up. Since the level gave me a fully powered up laser gun, the cyberdemons and final boss all died in seconds without even damaging me. I did not even use the BFG. I used invulnerability to target the pain elementals with rockets and chaingun first, then the mancubi.

This game is basically Doom 2 with proper 3D levels, greatly enhanced visuals and sound, new features, intricate new maps and a respectable challenge. The new graphics and sounds on the weapons really enhance the sense of power and impact, especially for the chaingun. My only real complaint (other than some of the levels being a bit too intricate) is the weak reloading animations for both shotguns and how the pistol and shotgun zombies look nearly identical. The weak shotgun animations fooled up my timing a bit because in Doom 2 I relied on the animations to let me know when I could shoot again. The developers really dropped the ball there, but that is only a tiny part of an otherwise excellent game. I did like the more powerful imp variation but I missed the enemies that did not make it into this game; chaingunner zombie, arch vile, revenant and spider mastermind. They really could have gone all out to add variations of more enemy types and even some brand new enemies. The game is still Doom, and rather than being just a port is its own separate thing. That puts it on the same level as Doom in my book; a legendary masterpiece.

9.5+/10

I had a lot of fun with this one. I felt my money was well spent and that I got a great value out of my purchase. I was actually surprised myself to get a little spooked on a couple occasions when a monster would appear behind me or right next to a door.

This is an older shooter and I really needed to use the quicksave feature to get past some of the harder rooms and bosses. I was playing on the 2nd from hardest difficulty. I was looking into the save features of the Nintendo 64 version and as far as I can tell you can't save mid-level, only at the end of a map. I would not have been able to finish this game on the original 64 at the difficulty I played!

I recommend this game to any Doom fans and fans of classic shooters in this sort of style. The game is very atmospheric, and it has some great music. Graphics are pretty good.

I also will admit that I may prefer to play this with a mouse (though I haven't tried Doom 64 on PC.) I imagine that is a lot easier to control. Don't get me wrong, the controller is just fine and I'm used to playing the original Doom with a controller too it completely works.

For a doom game not made by ID it's not bad.

When Doom 64, Quake 64, and Quake2 (N64) had come out, I was rather busy playing all the subsequent second/third generation shooters of Doom such as Quake2, SiN, Unreal Tournament and (eventually) Half-Life on my PC nonstop. I never liked console FPS (with the exception of maybe Goldeneye 64, mostly due to local co-op) so I had little incentive to purchase or even rent something that I figured would play like a port on second rate hardware. I just now am checking these out. I have to say, I am somewhat impressed.

Though it is of course very dated, this game shines in several ways. It's got a great haunting atmospheric sountrack that really fits the mood of a Doom game. While the orignal doom was more of a NIN Pretty Hate machine feel (Bobby Prince), this brings back that original feel of the Dark Ambient Classic OST of Quake (Trent Reznor). The textures and art style in the early maps are also very authentic and feel like the Quake era of ID. Later Maps are stylized in a way reminiscient of Doom 2. There are lots of gothic looking textures and portraits that remind one of Hexen as well. As far as the art/textures is concerned this is top notch for fans of ID's classics. The maps themselves are also quite good, containing both secrets and enough variety to have kept me interested, and not too terribly puzzling as to warrant a great 'find the switch' scavenger hunt. There are a few run-strafe puzzles which require you to know how to RUN (C-Left) and this was not immediately obvious to me as you walk rather fast.

The weapons in Doom64 are rather unintentering. But more or less emulate what one might expect. For me personally almost every game ID has ever made since Doom2 has always been about the SUPER SHOTGUN. Limited control and accuracy on a console controller make this even more true. a powerful weapon with large spread and enough gusto to take a few baddies out in one peek around the corner is an instant winner, and the recipe for spelling out your foes' DOOM has not been expanded upon with any refinement until Unreal Tournament brought us the Flak Cannon (but that's another story)

In any case this is a pleasing game that is not a painful degenerative hand me down of a PC title. It has it's own maps and is interesting in it's own way, has not been heavily censored or adulterated by nintendo's standards (I find this suprising) has a decent soundtrack, has hidden secrets and maps, has it's own 'cheat' system, has enough ID references to keep a fan entertained. But most importantly, it actually 'feels right' in every way classic doom game ought to. you can strafe and attack, whip around corners, and do all the things one would wish to do in a setting that feels the way doom should feel. The experience is complete with a compatible haunting Dark Ambient soundtrack, phantasmagropic imagery, and other little details (wall 'clipping' is present if you get too close to walls, which while unintended i felt was a nice touch) all these things are important in my opinion to provide a authentic doom experience. Curiously enough the game was not made by ID but only under the franchise, yet this feels right. There are some things that are a bit weird. Most of the weapons dissapoint me, and there is no multiplayer (but i wasn't looking to play with others so i am fine with that), and there isn't a freelook with the joystick, which would very much have been possible in this era, but imo the gameplay does not suffer for it, and it even may feel more 'original' with it not being present.

I would recommend it for a single play one night if you're not afraid of looking to relive some moments of Doom, hexen, heretic, quake and all that jazz albeit in a refreshed way.