Doom 64

"A different sort of Doom. (Review of The Absolution, the PC version of Doom 64)"

To bring a bit of clarity to you, what I mean in the title is that this review is of The Absolution. The Absolution is from a skilled team of Doom modders. It's a near-flawless recreation of Doom 64, built on the Doomsday engine, and requiring the Doom II WAD file to run. It's hosted on the Doom Depot. But on to the real review. Please note that I'll be rating the game in comparison to the original Doom, and Doom II.

Graphics: 9/10

An improvement over the console version of Doom 64 is the brightness. The game is simply much easier to see. The sprites are all different from their original selves.

The weapons look better. The pistol now looks semi-automatic, and not like an old revolver. The Plasma Gun now has a dancing tendril of electricity flowing down a glass tube along it's top. The shotguns got shafted, however. Due to size restraints of the N64 cartridges, the basic shotgun had no pump-action animation; only a sound of a shotgun pump. Likewise, the double-barrel shotgun doesn't actually get hand-loaded; there's just a few clicks, and you're ready to fire again. That's faithfully retained in The Absolution.

The enemies look fantastic. Regular Zombiemen and Shotgun Guys look moldier and meaner, Imps look downright vicious, Bull Demons are bulkier, the Cyberdemon will make you wet yourself, and so on.

The original Doom 64 employed anti-aliasing to make the sprites look better up-close, and so does The Absolution.

The textures are quite nice. From the rusty, sterile steel of the early levels, to stone riddled with pentagrams and demon faces, they always amaze. Doom 64 also had scrolling skies, which, of course, The Absolution has, too. While not the most advanced, it helps with the realism.

The Absolution also adds a bit. By default, the Doomsday engine adds blood splatter when a character is damaged. It looks very out of place, and the Doomsday blood is a much louder shade of red than the normal blood. This, and the lack of any advanced shotgun animations, keeps the graphics from achieving a perfect ten.

Sound effects: 8/10

This, sadly, is mostly stock. All of Doom's console incarnations share the same sound effects, which are different from the PC version, in that they're more realistic. While it would have been nice to hear some new noises, they're adequate.

The enemy sounds work well. The almost sad zombie sounds work well for your former-humans, and the Imps have their trademark "RAHR!". In a matter of personal opinion, the Hell Knight enemies have the best sounds. Once you hear the noise these seven-foot-tall, goat-legged beasts makes, you'll probably agree.

The weapon sounds are also mostly stock. When I say mostly, I mean that the new weapon, the "Unmaker", exclusive to Doom 64, has it's own sound. Being a laser weapon, I didn't expect a very powerful sound. But the Unmaker has an irritating, whining sort of beep for a firing sound. As for all the other weapons, they have normal, fitting noises. The pistol has a somewhat underpowered "Bang bang bang!" to it, and the shotgun has it's distinct "BOOM! Ch-chank!". The Rocket Launcher has it's "Whoosh!", and the BFG has it's long, grinding windup, and blaring explosion.

The reason these only got an 8 was the overall stock nature of these sounds. They're used in every console Doom iteration. But I suppose you can't have it all. An 8 is still a very good score.

Music: 9/10

Doom 64 had a very ambient soundtrack, made mostly of eerie noises. There's aren't really any recognizable patterns to the tracks, but they certainly fit the frightening atmosphere. Now, The Absolution doesn't, by default, come with this music. There are two WAD files that can be downloaded. A low-quality, 21 MB file, or a high-quality, 54 MB file. Without one of these, The Absolution uses the regular MIDI music from Doom II, and that really doesn't bode well with this game. I highly recommend the high-quality file, if you can spare the time.

Control: 10/10

The beauty of playing The Absolution is that Doom was meant to be played with a keyboard and mouse. There's no argument. No point in beating around the bush; the N64 has a rather goofy controller. With your left hand the keyboard and your right on the super-accurate mouse, you'll find no better way to control Doomguy. Also, since The Absolution is entirely customizable, you'll be able to create your own control scheme, for the utmost comfort.

Story: 3/10

Alright, here's a pretty low point. The original Doom 64 had a pretty darned corny story. As a matter of fact, so did the original Doom. And Doom II! Doom 64's story is about a demon called the Mother Demon, a beast with incredible rejuvenation powers, which is bringing back all the demons and zombies you knocked down in your past adventures. How dare she! It's your job as the only survivor of the past crisis (Code-named 'DOOM') to venture into Hell yet again, and destroy the Mother Demon.

Got that? It's quite cheesy, but Doom was never about the story. It was about the massive, sprawling levels and the fast-paced demon-killing action.

Gameplay: 10/10

This is it, the truly important part of the game. Doom 64, thankfully, doesn't stray too far from the tried-and-true Doom formula. Kill demons, explore, kill more demons, get a key, open a door, kill more demons, wander around aimlessly for an hour, find the exit. Doom 64 doesn't really do anything different, though there's more of an emphasis on horror elements and clever level design. Doom 64 had scripting, though, something the original lacked. Enemies can now teleport after you, say, pick up a key in a seemingly empty room. However, it becomes quite easy to predict. There's a few other things that scripting brings, but you can discover those as you play.

Overall: 9/10

The Absolution is nearly perfect. Some extra levels are added, though. There's also an entirely custom-made expansion, The Outcast Levels, available at the Doom Depot. (Though it's incomplete) The cumbersome password system from the original Doom 64, which rounded off your health, armor, and ammo numbers, and only allowed saves between levels, has been replaced by quick, easy saving, just like the originals on the PC. This is very nice, believe me.

Well, there's not much else I can say. If you have the WAD for Doom II (hopefully a legal copy), why shouldn't you play this? Doom 64 was a great game, and a wonderful adaptation of Doom, but The Absolution makes it much more accessible. If you like Doom, even remotely, give The Absolution a try.

As something of a PS, I'd like to say that what may have sounded like an advertisement in this review was actually just my enthusiasm.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 12/13/06