Doom 64 90's Press Archive

[Immorpher]

Here is a Doom 64 90's press archive that I have collected in chronological order! From William's Entertainment thinking about putting Doom on the N64. To rumors of "Ultra Doom" and screen shots showing pyramids in the game. To its release and game critics trying to figure the game out. And also rumors of a sequel going by its early title of Doom: Absolution, which work would be instead shifted to Quake 64. Follow along month by month here: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/z151ztcuzrawaq7/AAAtbtujiavO2cWdcUgyYDaya?dl=0

Oh and we chat about our latest findings on the Doom 64 Discord: https://discord.gg/Ktxz8n

Edited February 12, 2023 by Immorpher

[Faceman2000]

This is awesome dude, thanks for compiling all this!

[Ralphis]

Here's a zip of the Gamepro scans I did years ago. Not all are Doom 64 but a lot of Doom related things and some other interesting things. Year_month format

gamepro.zip

[P41R47]

Awesome thread, pal!

Those old press articles are really sweet!

[Gez]

Looks like Press articles about Doom could receive additions...

[Lollie]

Recommend uploading all of these to Archive.org sometime. 👀

[Immorpher]

2 hours ago, Ralphis said:

Here's a zip of the Gamepro scans I did years ago. Not all are Doom 64 but a lot of Doom related things and some other interesting things. Year_month format

gamepro.zip

I didn't know about that May 1996 mention of Doom 64! I think it is significant because it indicates that Nintendo believed Doom 64 would be a launch title. Also I missed one of the Doom 64 ads too. I love all of the talk about the N64DD. People's imaginations were going pretty wild over that disc drive. :D

 

1 hour ago, Gez said:

Looks like Press articles about Doom could receive additions...

Indeed, that section can be exploded now haha.
 

43 minutes ago, Lollie said:

Recommend uploading all of these to Archive.org sometime. 👀

That is a good idea! I never exactly know what the rules for Archive.org are, but I have put MIDIs on it and I even found a Windows XP iso on it. And there are plenty of magazines there as well, so this would likely be fine by them.

[BlueThunder]

I remember it was the Ultra 64 forever until they changed it to Nintendo 64.  As a kid I was so upset when they changed it.

[A Nobody]

So it was going to be yet another Jaguar port. What was it with id giving devs the Jaguar version to work with for console ports? At least with PlayStation Doom you got Doom 2's levels which were made from scratch.

[ZeroTheEro]

6 hours ago, The Strife Commando said:

So it was going to be yet another Jaguar port. What was it with id giving devs the Jaguar version to work with for console ports? At least with PlayStation Doom you got Doom 2's levels which were made from scratch.

because it wasn't as harsh on the framerate? I wouldn't say those were made from scratch anyways.

[Boaby Kenobi]

Brilliant stuff here! Thanks to all for sharing.

[HeadshotTAS]

This is fascinating. I've never seen many of these beta screenshots that appear in a lot of these older magazines -- makes me wonder how exactly they obtained them to begin with. Here are some things that I've noticed while looking through here that catch my interest:

• While I've seen the infamous beta pyramid shot, the other screenshots that appear alongside it (starting with the June 1996 Nintendo Power) make me believe that the level that was contained in may have been an early version of Blood Keep. I'm basing this on one of the screenshots of that issue which features a scene similar to that which can be found in Blood Keep. Some of the screenshots of this level depict scenes unlike anything we got in the final product, which makes me wonder what happened there (assuming it actually is Blood Keep and not a scrapped level).
• The beta status bar that appears in a few shots. Instead of red, it's a white color, and it looks bizarre. Looks cheap and doesn't really fit the game at all. Glad that was changed!
• Apparently one of the beta versions of the Terraformer had cacodemons in it, and the red key door was in a different place to where it is in the final versions. Interesting.
• Beta medikit sprite in Scan Magazine February 1997. Looks incredibly different to what we're used to.
• The March 1997 Gamefan article mentions that the screenshots they used were pulled from a video. I was not able to find this video on YouTube. Do we have evidence that such a video exists? If so, maybe we'll have actual beta Doom 64 gameplay footage, which would be incredible. Some of the screenshots look insane and are unlike anything I've ever seen before.
• January 1997 Edge - Altar of Pain's sky is orange here for some reason, and what even is this screenshot? The floor is lowered well below where it should be, which is a thing in the final release, but you're not supposed to see it like that! By the time you reach that area, it should look normal. Very odd.
• April 1997 Computer & Video Games - A hell knight fights a cacodemon in Main Engineering. What? I guess an earlier version of this level had hell knights.

Crazy how many of these exist. Far more than I would have expected. Fantastic job for compiling this thing!

[xvertigox]

Dude, fucking A. This is mint. I'm a huge fan of old/obscure/lost media.

 

The retromags and abandonware mags links are fantastic. I'd also highly recommend checking CGW Museum. I've had heeeaps of fun reading through CGW chronologically and playing games as they release.

[Azuris]

What a great Collection :) I love such old Articles.

"Enemies won't pixelate even at close range."

I somehow like this Frase :D

[SiFi270]

This is really impressive, but one thing I can't seem to find is a poster @Revenant100 once shared with little bios for monsters and the player, and blamed the resurgence of demons on a lone "Arch-vial" (sic) the Marine didn't manage to kill in a previous adventure.

 

[Immorpher]

On 1/27/2021 at 6:55 PM, HeadshotTAS said:

 

• The March 1997 Gamefan article mentions that the screenshots they used were pulled from a video. I was not able to find this video on YouTube. Do we have evidence that such a video exists? If so, maybe we'll have actual beta Doom 64 gameplay footage, which would be incredible. Some of the screenshots look insane and are unlike anything I've ever seen before.
• January 1997 Edge - Altar of Pain's sky is orange here for some reason, and what even is this screenshot? The floor is lowered well below where it should be, which is a thing in the final release, but you're not supposed to see it like that! By the time you reach that area, it should look normal. Very odd.
• April 1997 Computer & Video Games - A hell knight fights a cacodemon in Main Engineering. What? I guess an earlier version of this level had hell knights.

Crazy how many of these exist. Far more than I would have expected. Fantastic job for compiling this thing!

I didn't even notice most of those details! And indeed I think Gamefan came with a CD with gameplay videos. But the archive I found didnt have that CD. It definitely exists somewhere and someone has one! Just a matter of hunting it out.
 

On 1/27/2021 at 7:14 PM, xvertigox said:

Dude, fucking A. This is mint. I'm a huge fan of old/obscure/lost media.

 

The retromags and abandonware mags links are fantastic. I'd also highly recommend checking CGW Museum. I've had heeeaps of fun reading through CGW chronologically and playing games as they release.

 

Nice! I dont have anything of that magazine, so I should scour it across 1997 to see if it perhaps has a reference of the console release. :)
 

On 1/28/2021 at 3:05 PM, SiFi270 said:

This is really impressive, but one thing I can't seem to find is a poster @Revenant100 once shared with little bios for monsters and the player, and blamed the resurgence of demons on a lone "Arch-vial" (sic) the Marine didn't manage to kill in a previous adventure.

 

I don't recall seeing that poster! But it does fit with an early storyline for Doom 64. I would love to see that and archive it!

[Quasar]

On 1/27/2021 at 5:55 PM, HeadshotTAS said:

The March 1997 Gamefan article mentions that the screenshots they used were pulled from a video. I was not able to find this video on YouTube. Do we have evidence that such a video exists? If so, maybe we'll have actual beta Doom 64 gameplay footage, which would be incredible. Some of the screenshots look insane and are unlike anything I've ever seen before.

Unfortunately the video being referred to was E3 showroom footage.

[Revenant100]

On 1/28/2021 at 2:05 PM, SiFi270 said:

This is really impressive, but one thing I can't seem to find is a poster @Revenant100 once shared with little bios for monsters and the player, and blamed the resurgence of demons on a lone "Arch-vial" (sic) the Marine didn't manage to kill in a previous adventure.

 

I don't have access to any scanner that would allow me to properly scan this poster, but I've at least just now taken several pictures so all of the demon descriptions can be read.

[Rudolph]

It sucks that they had to scrap the Doom 64 sequel in favor of a mere Quake port for the Nintendo 64.

[Immorpher]

On 1/31/2021 at 10:34 AM, Revenant100 said:

I don't have access to any scanner that would allow me to properly scan this poster, but I've at least just now taken several pictures so all of the demon descriptions can be read.

Awesome! It was a two sided poster it seems? I seen the one side with the Electronic Gaming Monthly on the front, but not the back side with all of the enemy descriptions. Do you know which EGM issue it could have came with?

[Revenant100]

15 minutes ago, Immorpher said:

It was a two sided poster it seems? I seen the one side with the Electronic Gaming Monthly on the front, but not the back side with all of the enemy descriptions. Do you know which EGM issue it could have came with?

Yes, the backside of the poster contains the descriptions for the demons and Doomguy. However, I don't know what issue of EGM this came with. I bought the poster on its own, and the only identification the seller indicated was the year "1997".

[Dexiaz]

Sergeant looks like NPC from Doom 3, lol.

[SulfurOccult]

On 1/31/2021 at 7:34 AM, Revenant100 said:

[posters]

Those 3D renders look like they must have been the source of the sprites, cool!

[Immorpher]

On 2/2/2021 at 11:23 AM, SulfurOccult said:

Those 3D renders look like they must have been the source of the sprites, cool!

Yes I think so too! Perhaps with different lighting and editing afterwards. But ya there's quite a few 3D renders in the archive. Too bad the 3D models seem to be lost!

Edited March 4, 2021 by Immorpher : to be or not to be, that was my edit!

[Immorpher]

Courtesy of the king of twitter 64, @IsannKeket, pointing it out, there's a blurb of Doom 64's original expected release date added to the archive: https://twitter.com/IsannKeket/status/1368306854862880768

[Azuris]

Quote

There hasn't been a bad Version of Doom yet

 

Did they expect the 3DO Version released in April 96 lol?

[Immorpher]

3 hours ago, Azuris said:

 

Did they expect the 3DO Version released in April 96 lol?

And, although the SNES version of Doom was a feat to be playable on the console, it was just too much for the system. I am thinking they may be considering the original ports of Doom and that Doom 64 was supposed to be a new entry into the series (and simply not a port). So the other system ports are kinda ignored for them, perhaps?

[Immorpher]

On 1/27/2021 at 6:55 PM, HeadshotTAS said:

The March 1997 Gamefan article mentions that the screenshots they used were pulled from a video. I was not able to find this video on YouTube. Do we have evidence that such a video exists? If so, maybe we'll have actual beta Doom 64 gameplay footage, which would be incredible. Some of the screenshots look insane and are unlike anything I've ever seen before.

So I wasn't able to find that E3 footage. But I did find some late-stage beta footage of Doom 64 and it's in the archive now. The first issue of UK's N64 magazine came with a VHS tape (April 1997) and it has footage of the third level of Doom 64.

Friend of the N64 community, Timson, provided this VHS recording: 

And here's another recording of it: 

 

[out_of_service]

On 1/31/2021 at 8:34 AM, Revenant100 said:

I don't have access to any scanner that would allow me to properly scan this poster, but I've at least just now taken several pictures so all of the demon descriptions can be read.

 

DOOM 64 POSTER

I still have this poster folded up neatly somewhere in the attic. I'm gonna have to dust it off and hang it up on the wall! Love Doom 64!

[Dark Pulse]

On 3/6/2021 at 4:46 PM, Immorpher said:

...Hasn't been a bad version of Doom yet?