Doom

"One of the best ports of Doom."

The original Doom was an extravaganza. Released on the PC in late 1993, it further capitalized upon the First Person Shooter craze that developer id Software brought upon the world a year earlier with Wolfenstein 3d. As a result, Doom was ported to almost every video game console that was up for sale during the mid 1990s. Just one of them was the Sony PlayStation. How did this port turn out? Read on for my review...

To start things out, let's talk about the story of Doom. You are a lone Marine soldier, the sole survivor of a demonic onslaught that has devastated the rest of your Marine unit on a military base overlooking Mars. Your objective is to shoot through, annihilate, or blow up any demons that come your way. The gameplay is that of a 3D first person shooter; putting things simply, you must run your way around almost 59 levels of mayhem and destruction and somehow escape your confined hell.

The graphics and the framerate are very good. All of the sound effects from the original PC game are here. I like the new music; it is very ambient and horror-themed compared to the hard rockin' tunes of the PC version. The controls are very well laid out and are very responsive.

Gameplay wise, this port includes most of the levels from The Ultimate Doom and Doom II. There are almost 60 levels, with 8 exclusive to this port as well as that Sega Saturn one. Unfortunately, the 24 maps taken from the original Doom are the ones from the Jaguar ports, which means they're edited down with some key features missing. Also, some levels from Doom II are missing (such as the extra Wolfenstein levels) and are replaced with the 8 new levels previously mentioned.

Overall this port is fantastic, and my only problem with it is that it's not exactly the most faithful port of the original Doom games. However, it is one of the most fun to pick up and play, so if you have a PlayStation and want the best FPS on the console, this is the one to get. Hell, this is probably the best console port of the first two Doom games outside of the Doom ports included in the Collector's Edition of the Xbox port of Doom 3. In other words: If you find it, buy it.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 07/05/06