"Let's talk about something that doesn't hold up"

I thought long and hard about how I should rate this monster. Be assured, that it is a monster. It's most likely one of the worst games you'll ever play and considering how amazing the original version of Doom is, that's quite a feat. Yet, herein lies the dilemma for this reviewer – do I review it as it stands today, knowing how Doom has fared in its console life? Or do I try to review it as if it had first appeared long ago in 1994? Certainly if I were to consider the library of available titles to the 1994 console gamer I would be more forgiving. After all, it its heart, this game is still Doom in some shape. That means that, at its heart, this game has at least a fraction of the epicness of one of the most timeless first person shooters ever created.

It is, perhaps, appropriate that this game exists on the Sega 32X. The 32X had a feeble existence, gasping for breath, and barely making it out six months before its fate was decided. Its pithy library of a scant three dozen or so games stands as a testament to how poorly it was executed. That said, the 32X is not, at its core, a bad idea. Consider the possibilities for a moment – a hardware upgrade that would breathe new life into an aged and dying console – for the Genesis was at the end of its lifespan in 1994 and the 32X might give it another one to two, maybe even three years. It could compete effectively with the Super Nintendo and, assuming a multiple console market was feasible, it might continue to be a triumph for Sega, locking them in as the 16-bit masters. The 32X itself was not a bad idea. The complexity of programming for its Q-Sound and its ridiculous price were both, however, bad ideas. Likewise, 32X Doom is not a bad idea, only having fifteen levels, and doing away with the episodic breakdown of the original game is, however, a terrible idea.

In the game you have very low resolution – bare this in mind – in an age of high-definition televisions and cheap widescreen technology some games just look better on Mom's fifteen year old, five hundred pound monster that still runs on basic cable. You ought to be playing 32X Doom on Mom's TV. The game does not look good at all if you inflate it in the slightest. It's already heavily pixilated and doing so makes it downright unplayable. However, given the right TV, and not stretching the image out, the game is almost playable. Almost. Everything is incredibly fuzzy and its hard to see whats what when you're moving, but at least you CAN see.

The environments aren't very detailed. This might seem like a huge con when you're standing still, trying to get a look at the environment. Once you start to move the Doom guy though, you'll realize just how satisfying it is that Mars is a barren place. If there had been any detail at all then I am sure the game would have become so fuzzy that it would have been impossible to distinguish anything. If you're familiar at all with a real version of Doom you'll notice that a number of textures are completely missing – no water in Hanger for instance. In other places objects are completely removed. The pillars in the area to the left of the entrance to the Hanger for instance – complete with the button that normally opens a secret passage. Some item drops are missing as well. If you're familiar with the SNES or GBA versions of Doom then you might be familiar with many of these modifications. If not, well, you'll no doubt recognize immediately what is missing.

The game is, at best, incomplete was well as it only includes fifteen levels from the game. There are a couple extra “hidden” levels such as the military base, the hidden level from the PC game's Knee Deep in the Dead episode, but the core game itself consists only of this basic collection of maps. One interesting feature of the game, however, is the level select option. There is no save function or continue feature but the level select will let you play any level at any time. Even without the level select the game is so short that anyone with even the slightest amount of experience in Doom ought to be able to blaze through it with ease. Even considering the hidden levels in the game, 32X Doom has fewer levels then Knee Deep in the Dead and The Shores of Hell.

Now, in retrospect, we can all look upon this and laugh, tell ourselves that this abomination is worth little more then scorn and derision – and there's some truth to that. In a world where Doom's source has been released publically there is absolutely no reason at all to buy this monstrosity of a game unless you're the type of person who would like to have a “complete” 32X library. However, considering the age it came out…the only other competitor for Doom on consoles was the Jaguar edition of Doom. It was a better version then the 32X game (or so I'm told) but ask yourself this – Did you have a Jaguar? No, you didn't. Do you have a Jaguar? No, you don't. Plenty of us had a Genesis/Mega Drive though and the thought of an upgrade for that system plus the possibility of playing one of the latest and greatest PC games was all to appealing. Computers were expensive as heck back then and there's a good chance that you didn't have one in the early 90s. Given these circumstances even this butchering might have considerable appeal.

The music is simply terrible, but here's a perk – you can turn it right off. The sound effects? Spot on surprisingly. Most of the sounds have been lifted directly from the PC game. The music might sound horrible but if you turn it off, well there's something frightening about the silence. And 32X Doom does preserve the Nightmare difficulty so even the game's thin selection of fifteen levels can provide some challenge to the computer-starved Doom aficionado.
Clearly how it would rate today is vastly different from how it might have rated “back in the day”. The real question for me, then, is to determine, as I said before, if I shall rate this game based upon today's standards or the standards of yesteryear. The more I think about it, the more I realize this IS Doom and I've the right to be forgiving to it. It has tremendous faults, it is by no means “good”, but for what it tried to accomplish back when it first came out? I've got to give it some credit, it took the barest essentials of what made a great game great and gave that experience to an audience that might not have had the opportunity to play the game otherwise. If GameFAQs support a point system, I would aware the game a 6.5/10 but in the absence of that I prefer to round down to a fair six points out of ten (the game by no means would have deserved a 7, even ‘back in the day') Check it out if you're a game collector and would like to round up the 32X library – but avoid it like the plague if you're any other kind of gamer.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 12/11/07

Game Release: Doom (US, 1994)