DOOM is a legendary franchise that gave rise to the first-person shooter. Sure, it wasn’t the first but it was the one that pierced the popular zeitgeist. For those too young to remember DOOM is the reason you have Call of Duty and even to an extent, Fortnite. DOOM is a bloody good time in just about every form.
But there is one version of DOOM that is often overlooked. DOOM 64 came about at a very weird time. It was nearing the tail end of the Nintendo 64 lifecycle and Goldeneye had already changed the first-person shooter on home consoles. DOOM simply felt like old hat at the time, especially when ports of DOOM very almost as plentiful as AOL trial disks.
So, like most people I skipped DOOM 64 as I wasn’t looking for playing the game yet again. And as a PC gamer, the thought of a toned-down and much slower affair left me, like many, passing on the game. But let me tell you that this was a mistake as DOOM 64 is one hell of a good time.
What’s interesting here is that id had nothing to do with the title, instead, being developed by Midway who were no strangers to animated violence. But even more interesting is that the game was fully 3D, something that the original game was not. That an interesting note but the best part is that DOOM 64 isn’t based on an existing DOOM game and is instead another entry into the series. An all original entry at that, taking place just after Final DOOM.
For someone that has played DOOM on just about everything that I can run many levels in my sleep, getting to play some new in its classic form was like being a kid all over again. This remastering is exactly what I want from a project like this. While I never played the original I did read a little about it a remember people complaining about how dark it was. Looking back at video and talking with friends they tell me that was the case and also that the game itself was a bit choppy.
Thankfully, none of that is the case in this Switch port. DOOM 64 run silky smooth and I never experienced any form of slowdown. But what I did experience was classic DOOM in a new form. Monsters all have very different looks and feels while still holding onto their original designs. For a game as old as DOOM 64, it still managed to scare the bejeebus out on more than a few occasions.
You get so used to DOOM and how it’s laid out that nothing scares you anymore. Monsters lose their visual impact and nothing jumps out at you as you tend to know what is going to spawn where. With DOOM 64 this isn’t an issue as levels are all mixed up pulling from DOOM and DOOM 2 while still moving things about. I can’t tell you how fun it was to trip a switch and hearing an Imp or Baron breathing down your neck, spinning around at break-neck spin to make sure they aren’t on top of you.
The monsters are really the stars of the show here. Levels aren’t quite as memorable of the original games but they are well designed. DOOM is all about shooting monsters and traversing maze-like levels collecting keycards. It’s about as simple as it gets and still holds up just as well in 2020 as it did when it released. Weapons have weight to them. You need to understand ammo and what weapon works best in any given situation (just give me a super shotgun and call it good).
I often knock remasters for doing too much and changing the original experience or not doing enough leaving a game feeling like a cheap money grab. Thankfully, DOOM 64 isn’t either of those two things. What you get is an amazing DOOM experience, one that surprisingly more in line with the latest reboot of the series than you might expect. DOOM 64 is all about rending flesh from bone. The story, of which there is one, isn’t something important. You are a marine in hell and you need to murder everything that moves.
To say DOOM 64 is a blast is an understatement. There’s no other franchise that can set a mood quite like it, even more so at the time that it released. Dark corridors, some impressive lighting effects, guttural sound effects, and a ton of toys to help you rip and tear make DOOM 64 a must-own for any fan of the series. And at $5 across all platforms, you simply can’t pass this one over.
DOOM 64 is a fantastic update of a fantastic game
Final Score: 4/5
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