Doom 32X

[mrbigreddog]

Why are you calling it Doom SNES... It's just Doom!
Why are you calling it Doom PC... It's just Doom!
Why are you calling it Mega Drive? It's just Sega Genesis!
Picky Picky!

[Chilly Willy]

But those are also incorrect names and not reviewed on this Sega site!

But they are being discussed in the same thread. Any review of Doom for the 32X will include references to other Doom versions, so it's to be expected that the thread would refer to the 32X version as Doom 32x as a shorthand to Doom for the 32X (two whole words less every time!).

[Bablefish]

I don't think the 32X version is all that bad.

[mrbigreddog]

I don't think the 32X version is all that bad.

You know... I was playing it the other night, and Made my TV Zoom-In to where it was just showing the game, and not the boarder. It really made it seem smoother! And when I sat all the way back on my couch! I thought it was damn fun!

[Curryman123]

This is a very lousy port of Doom.

-only 14 levels from the PC original, and the 2 alternative levels at the end are very lame.
-The music quality is piss poor, with some tracks being composed of fart noises.
-Target aiming is shite, and it's especially difficult to aim when you are on the run. At least, the Snes version was more forgiving in this aspect, seriously.
-Resolution could have been better, especially for a 32-bit version.
-Only 7 Enemy types with only front animations.

I can complete this version in 30 mins or less.

5/10

[Ecco]

^When people say the resolution could have been better, that means the pixels are too big and blocky, right? (Just to make sure I know what people are talking about.) At least the constant scaling is fast & smooth as you move through the stages. The framerate doesn't bother me, yes slightly choppy, but overall the 3D scaling looks smooth IMO. What do other folks think???

Music is bad, but sound effects are good, which is most important.

Aside from bad music & giant pixels, do people agree that the gameplay is good? Seems nice to me but I never played any other version of Doom.

[sheath]

I think the gameplay is great in Doom 32X, and I don't recall any framerate drops below 30FPS. I like the music on a Model 1 Genesis and find the sound effects great. I don't even care about the missing levels as I never play Doom long enough to get to them anyway.

[Ecco]

Yeah the gameplay seems great to me too. (Haven't played other versions of Doom and haven't played a lot of first-person-shooters in general.)

The framerate doesn't bother me but I know it bothered at least the reviewer of the game. I have no idea how many frames per second, I just notice it can be very slightly more choppy at some points (like turning fast with a lot of enemies present seems to drop a couple frames), but still overall the game runs fast and smooth all the time IMO.

[Azathoth]

Personally I like the music. For those that don't like the music, did you even like the original PC version when played on a then-current PC?

The biggest strike I have, is like mentioned above, the enemies don't have anything but a front-facing sprite. You may not miss this if you've not played a lot of Doom, but having the enemies instantly aim toward you as soon as you look into a room is a huge atmosphere breaker compared to the other versions where the enemies walk around and even fight amongst themselves. A big portion of the whole Doom atmosphere is busted because of that omission. Come on, even the back of the freakin' box shows enemies walking backwards! I guess they thought the 32X version was so awesome they'd just use PC screenshots since nobody would tell the difference.

Not having the extra levels sucks, I guess you could put that up to poor memory allocation topped off by the 32m cap on 32X titles.

[sheath]

I was pretty sure I've posted this elsewhere, but here is my Doom Comparison page, which covers DOS, Jaguar, 32X, PS1, 3DO, Saturn and SNES versions. The 32X game is 24Mbit, 3MByte as opposed to Doom PC's and Jaguar's 4MByte. I think the biggest weaknesses of 32X Doom in comparison is the lack of turning enemy sprites (there is still infighting though) and the smaller window size, though this is the same size as the SNES and playable 3DO screen sizes. Also, Doom 32X has a higher and more consistent framerate than Jaguar Doom, or DOS Doom running on DOSBOX on my Dual Core 2.2 Ghz PC.

[Curryman123]

Regarding the gameplay, I would like to quote someone to get my point across.

"One problem with this version is the absolute goddamn near-uselessness of this port's auto-aim function. Yes,I know I complain frequently about some of the stupid fucking things that auto-aim does, but at least it's competent enough on the PC and in every other port to be considered useful.Here it's just shit. Unless you are aiming with pixel-perfect precision along the horizontal axis, 9 times out of 10 the game's just going to ignore u and leave you firing at the walls like an idiot,wasting ammo."

I am a Doom fan, and I can fully relate to this point. Auto aim is shit in this version. Sure the Snes version has frame rate issues, but they adjusted the auto aim accordingly, which makes it less annoying. Here, poor auto aiming mixed with not so stellar speed makes the game play bit frustrating. If you don't know why I'm bitching about the speed, play the PC version. I can take out 2-3 soldiers with my shotgun in the PC version, not here.

[sheath]

Ewe, auto aiming! I'd have to say that this game is hardly pixel perfect, but I appreciate that my bullets clearly hit the walls to the left or right, or straight below, enemies when I haven't even come close to hitting them. I also didn't notice any difference in the targeting of any of the versions I recorded. But then, when people complain about "bad collision detection" in beat-em ups I never understand what that means either.

[Curryman123]

Ewe, auto aiming! I'd have to say that this game is hardly pixel perfect, but I appreciate that my bullets clearly hit the walls to the left or right, or straight below, enemies when I haven't even come close to hitting them. I also didn't notice any difference in the targeting of any of the versions I recorded. But then, when people complain about "bad collision detection" in beat-em ups I never understand what that means either.

The auto aiming here is especially problematic when you are trying to shoot enemies far away that make up 5 pixels, and you keep missing. Also, the speed of the game won't let you adjust your aim right onto the enemy, and you tapping on your d-pad in order to get the aim pixel perfect while the enemy chips away at your health. Not very fun to say the least. I don't care how realistic this makes the game, It's wasn't originally like this.

[sheath]

What do you mean by the speed of the game?

[Curryman123]

The speed isn't smooth as the PC version.