What was the reception of Final Doom back in 1996?

[Endless]

Some of you know that, during modern day, Final Doom tends to have a generally good opinion, mostly on the side that everyone seems to agree that Plutonia is cool, but TNT Evilution kinda sucks when compared. But how was the general opinion back during its premiere year? What did the Doom fans think of it? What was expected? New levels? New maps? New gameplay?

 

While it's pretty easy to find magazine articles about the original Doom and Doom 2, it's a bit harder to do so for Final Doom, so I'd like to know better.

 

I'd love to read from any Doom veteran here that actually got to enjoy the game during it's initial release, or at least close to it.

 

[Graf Zahl]

Most reviews I read were quite indifferent about it, along the lines of "Yes, it is Doom, but we've moved on from this to more interesting things."

The biggest criticisms were that it was merely new levels, but no other feature enhancements. Duke Nukem 3D having provided quite a bit of technical advancements which very negatively reflected on Final Doom back in the day where many people thought that Doom's time was already over.

The high price point didn't really help either.

 

I bought it anyway - I quite liked Plutonia, but TNT had been a mixed bag from the start for me.

[purist]

My memory of it was similar to Graf Zahl. It was considered a bit of a lazy cash grab since there were no new monsters/weapons/features.

[ENEMY!!!]

Yes, I remember reading a few reviews which were along the lines of what Graf Zahl said.  I vaguely remember a few quotes from the PC Zone UK review, "As id themselves say, Technology moves on", "Legoland scenery" and "Fancy a game of Quake?". 

 

I hated the general "Doom is old hat now, move on to Quake" attitude of that era, but I also see a lot of merit in the criticism that, at the time of release, Final Doom didn't offer enough new content and mechanics to be worth the price, especially when it was up against the likes of Quake and Duke Nukem 3D, and especially with the controversy after it was originally going to be released for free.  Today's circumstances are of course very different.

[Nevander]

6 hours ago, purist said:

My memory of it was similar to Graf Zahl. It was considered a bit of a lazy cash grab since there were no new monsters/weapons/features.

Not only that but apparently the community at the time was planning to make one of them free, TNT I think. But then somehow it became a paid thing along with the Casalis making Plutonia and packaging them together. So Doomers weren't pleased. But Plutonia is very good so it was worth the price.

[Endless]

3 minutes ago, Nevander said:

Not only that but apparently the community at the time was planning to make one of them free, TNT I think. But then somehow it became a paid thing along with the Casalis making Plutonia and packaging them together. So Doomers weren't pleased. But Plutonia is very good so it was worth the price.

That's probably the most controversial aspect of Final Doom.

 

From what I know, instead of TNT: Evilution, we were going to have Perdition's Gate, which I think would've been better! but the id guys ultimately closed the deal.

[out_of_service]

I love Final Doom (Plutonia & TNT) and was totally excited when it originally came out. Beside the whole controversy,  I remember reading reviews saying "meh" it's just more of the same time to move on blah blah blah.

[zokum]

As I remember it. Considered a cheap cash grab in. A decent quality fan community project packaged as a new game. Doom 2 received some criticism for containing a lot of stuff from Doom reused. It felt more like a mission pack /expansion than a new game. Final Doom though took that to a new level. Very little new content. No new monsters, bosses or special effects. At least Doom 2 added new linedefs and monsters.

It isn't quite as bad as "The Master Levels" but as an overall standalone game it is one of the worst products id has ever released. The best element in it is by far Plutonia. The rest is on par with randomly downloaded 1996 pwads from ftp.cdrom.com.

If I were in charge of Team TNT and that product, I honestly would have provided a free "patch" for the game replacing the worst maps, bad design choices, etc after the release. In its current form, it's really bad. Sorry to say it.

[Rudolph]

If anything, the title "Final Doom" should have been saved for an enhanced edition of Doom II, much like Ultimate Doom was to Doom 1.

[TheMagicMushroomMan]

What are you doing with .25mm cannon ammo at your house, @Endless?

 

I can understand the lukewarm critical reception. It's easy to see why DOOM might have been considered a last-gen thing when more advanced (but less enduring) games like Duke were on the market. And then you had TNTGate, which angered some of the community, and TNT itself is still a divisive set of maps. Oh well, everything turned out okay if you ask me.

 

Even though I don't like Plutonia too much, that's what cemented it in history. If it was just TNT, it would still be seen as an enjoyable/not enjoyable curiosity at best, and a cash grab at worst.

[zokum]

It should be noted that Final Doom was released July 1996. The public beta of Quake, QTest was released February 1996. The first shareware version of Quake was released June 1996. The full game in August 1996.When it comes to gameplay and engine, Final Doom came out AFTER Quake. And it looked incredibly dated since everyone knew id had a more advanced engine fully working and playable.

People were playing Quake over the internet and 16 player LAN games. Compared to that, Final Doom was technically a very poor multiplayer game. It was obvious to everyone that id spent their time on Quake. Final Doom was a cash grab-in and for those who couldn't run Quake, or it ran horribly slow. Quake required 8 megs of ram and an fpu. In practice it was more or less unplayable on anything below a Pentium 75 as the code was tuned for the pentium line of CPUs.

Doom in 1993 was a technical marvel. Quake in 1996 was another major milestone in technology. Final Doom is a mediocre mission pack when compared to those.

[ENEMY!!!]

6 hours ago, TheMagicMushroomMan said:

Even though I don't like Plutonia too much, that's what cemented it in history. If it was just TNT, it would still be seen as an enjoyable/not enjoyable curiosity at best, and a cash grab at worst.

Yeah, I'm in a similar position, I don't personally like Plutonia that much, but I think that's mainly down to taste, because I never really got into that "knockabout" style of gameplay, rather than because of anything fundamentally wrong with it.  TNT for me is a mixed bag, some very good maps but also some duds. 

 

Nonetheless, I've still made a point of getting Final Doom alongside Doom 1/2 when getting the Collectors' Edition in 2006 and again more recently when I re-bought Doom on Steam (because it was cheap and I wanted to be able to log my playing time) - even though I haven't been bothered about the Master Levels.  I guess I think of it as too iconic these days not to pick up as part of the collection.

[ChopBlock223]

I thought they were cool because Doom was cool and it was more Doom with even more cool levels and music.

[BigMetalhead]

Ngl, but it's kinda sad to see that a passion project by the fans trying to keep the Doom spirit alive was kinda turned into a target by other fans at the time. It's understandable that fans got upset at a free project being turned into a product they have to pay for, but it also must've been a bit sad for TeamTNT to see ppl that were once excited to see your WAD get mad because id thought your WAD was good enough to be sold as a product.

 

Just a really unfortunate series of events where it's hard to put the blame on anyone.

[brick]

Quite frankly the whole "scandal" with Final Doom got blown insanely out of proportion over the years. Most mags didn't care much for it, most of the big ones didn't even bother reviewing it (I know for sure PC Gamer and CGW didn't), and Graf's post reminds me why, Doom was Old News as far as the industry was concerned. As for players, a few dozen people bitched about it on usenet, another few dozen fought back, the remaining million simply did not care. The online world was nothing like today back then, communities were tiny, and downloading hundreds of wads to see what was out there was virtually impossible (hence why all the !Zone compilations sold so well despite being hated on by pretty much everybody). This was a huge amount of levels that were at least guaranteed not to be completely horrible, and it even came with a Windows port (yes, this kind of thing was a big deal. And yes, Doom 95 was not very good). I'm almost certain this was the first content I played after Doom II, I wasn't able to start getting user wads off the internet until a couple of years later. I know the Evilution MAP31 bug also gets brought up so much, but honestly? in registered Doom 1.1 you couldn't even reload a mid-level save without having a VERY significant risk of getting softlocked because switches would randomly stop working. A missing key in a single level that could be fixed in seconds in DEU was nothing by comparison.

[Gibbon]

Pretty much the same as what everyone else said.  Relatively mundane reviews about how it is just an expensive add on without new enhancements.  While it wasn’t panned, it also wasn’t really recommended.  The reviews were enough for me to put it off, an easily swayed 11 year old.

 

Everyone was about Quake then.  Doom was just a stepping stone to greater things, everyone wanted 3D accelerators and to move on quickly.  I bet if you asked anyone what we would be playing in 2022, they would have quipped at quantum holographic pocket computers..  not still playing Doom :)

[Thelokk]

If I remember correctly, it was generally massively overshadowed by Quake's hype / release. That thing was getting 10-page spreads on mainstream gaming magazines. Can't remember a single article on Final Doom. 

[Doomkid]

3 hours ago, brick said:

Quite frankly the whole "scandal" with Final Doom got blown insanely out of proportion over the years. Most mags didn't care much for it, most of the big ones didn't even bother reviewing it (I know for sure PC Gamer and CGW didn't), and Graf's post reminds me why, Doom was Old News as far as the industry was concerned. As for players, a few dozen people bitched about it on usenet, another few dozen fought back, the remaining million simply did not care.

I want to quote this for emphasis. There was a grand total of like 20 people who were upset that Final Doom was a paid product, although there were a handful of gaming magazines that said "It's not bad, just meh and outdated". I didn't even know they were iwads until after I downloaded them from some page that had a bunch of wads in 2002 or so. I think the person uploading said wads might have also thought they were pwads, since they were right next to Memento Mori and such on this old list.

 

I was pretty harsh as a kid - I really do like Doom64 a lot and have for some time, but when I first saw it in the 90s, I honestly felt kind of ashamed by how old and crusty Doom64 looked compared to Goldeneye, or any other polygon-based games. (It might be hard to tell now, where everything from 1985 to 2000 gets lumped in this singular pool of "retro gaming", but the difference was stark for a brief few years).

 

Just giving that context because when I learned that they sold two megawads for cash, it did seem strange and lazy to me as a kid, like id were tarnishing their reputation or something. My child self registered them as being clearly inferior to MM with it's balls-to-the-wall soundtrack and ample custom textures. I didn't care much though, I got them for free and I kinda figured most other people did too. My opinion as a kid basically boiled down to: "who would pay for wads when there's so many online for free, lol?"

[Rudolph]

Also, in defense of Final Doom, it was a standalone title that featured twice the maps and provided a greater challenge than Doom II.

 

Imagine if we could have gotten that for Ultimate Doom as well! :P

[zokum]

Id are the ones to blame for FD, not Team TNT. I do think Team TNT delivered a sub par product, but id accepted it. I would probably have done the same as Team TNT if I were in that position. Like I said earlier I would have patched FD to be a better product. Replaced maps and put them into a lost levels bonus episode. Fixed bugs, added more textures etc. It would have been neat if Final Doom had received the occasional update, much like the current Unity Doom does. The world might not have been ready for that kind of game experience back in the mid 90s. Not everyone had internet access. It would have been a neat product though.

 

[LadyMistDragon]

21 hours ago, brick said:

Quite frankly the whole "scandal" with Final Doom got blown insanely out of proportion over the years. Most mags didn't care much for it, most of the big ones didn't even bother reviewing it (I know for sure PC Gamer and CGW didn't), and Graf's post reminds me why, Doom was Old News as far as the industry was concerned. As for players, a few dozen people bitched about it on usenet, another few dozen fought back, the remaining million simply did not care. The online world was nothing like today back then, communities were tiny, and downloading hundreds of wads to see what was out there was virtually impossible (hence why all the !Zone compilations sold so well despite being hated on by pretty much everybody). This was a huge amount of levels that were at least guaranteed not to be completely horrible, and it even came with a Windows port (yes, this kind of thing was a big deal. And yes, Doom 95 was not very good). I'm almost certain this was the first content I played after Doom II, I wasn't able to start getting user wads off the internet until a couple of years later. I know the Evilution MAP31 bug also gets brought up so much, but honestly? in registered Doom 1.1 you couldn't even reload a mid-level save without having a VERY significant risk of getting softlocked because switches would randomly stop working. A missing key in a single level that could be fixed in seconds in DEU was nothing by comparison.

PC Gamer US reviewed and it got an 80. I assume you're referring to the UK original?

[brick]

22 minutes ago, LadyMistDragon said:

PC Gamer US reviewed and it got an 80. I assume you're referring to the UK original?

I meant the UK one (that's the one I read at the time) but I would have assumed the US one also wouldn't have. Thanks for the correction!

[Apprentice]

Got it as a Christmas present back in '96, at first I thought it was a re-package of the original Doom and Doom II. Was plesent surprised that it were new 'episodes', it was years later that I read about the controversy . . .

[joepallai]

Since I didn't have internet back then, I thought it was the coolest thing ever.   Playing them, I liked TNT better at the time (easier and more exploratory) but ended up being influenced more by Plutonia Experiment.   

[Koko Ricky]

I played Final Doom for PS1 quite a bit back in the day and was intrigued by all the missing maps that were only on the PC version. It held a kind of mystique for me, which was broken once I actually played it decades later and realized the PS1 version is far better in terms of atmosphere and map selection. I'm still disgusted by some of those custom textures on PC. 

[zokum]

3 hours ago, Koko Ricky said:

I played Final Doom for PS1 quite a bit back in the day and was intrigued by all the missing maps that were only on the PC version. It held a kind of mystique for me, which was broken once I actually played it decades later and realized the PS1 version is far better in terms of atmosphere and map selection. I'm still disgusted by some of those custom textures on PC. 

I like the idea of stripping all the worst maps / textures / ideas out of FD and end up with a 32 map megawad. The overall product would be better even if it had less content. Since a PS1 uses CD for storage, the amount of maps wasn't a problem. Individual map size and bad content was most likely the real factors when cutting content. Less is more.

[ENEMY!!!]

Not many of the old reviews from 1996 are around on the internet, but I found the following one from GameSpot which was quite typical:

https://www.gamespot.com/reviews/final-doom-review/1900-2558714/#comments-block-32375913

 

The PC Zone UK magazine with the Final Doom review is also up on the Internet Archive:

https://archive.org/details/PC_Zone_42_September_1996/page/n71/mode/2up?q=final+doom

The other quote I vaguely remembered from the PC Zone UK review was, "Those people who still play Doom do so (a) in a vacuous attempt attempt to cling onto a utopian bygone era of gameplayer which never really existed, or (b) to play deathmatch."  I remember having felt a bit attacked by that as an old school Doomer in those days.  At 62%, though, the PC Zone review wasn't quite as negative as the GameSpot review (46%).

[Endless]

33 minutes ago, ENEMY!!! said:

Not many of the old reviews from 1996 are around on the internet, but I found the following one from GameSpot which was quite typical:

https://www.gamespot.com/reviews/final-doom-review/1900-2558714/#comments-block-32375913

 

The PC Zone UK magazine with the Final Doom review is also up on the Internet Archive:

https://archive.org/details/PC_Zone_42_September_1996/page/n71/mode/2up?q=final+doom

The other quote I vaguely remembered from the PC Zone UK review was, "Those people who still play Doom do so (a) in a vacuous attempt attempt to cling onto a utopian bygone era of gameplayer which never really existed, or (b) to play deathmatch."  I remember having felt a bit attacked by that as an old school Doomer in those days.  At 62%, though, the PC Zone review wasn't quite as negative as the GameSpot review (46%).

That review is full of vitriol and hate towards Doom fans lmao

 

Little did they knew, 3 decades, we are still here :P

[Gez]

This thread reminds me there isn't anything yet about Final Doom over there...

[Koko Ricky]

3 hours ago, zokum said:

Individual map size and bad content was most likely the real factors when cutting content. Less is more.

Oh for sure. PS1 Doom had nearly 60 maps, which wasn't a big deal since most of them were small or medium-sized. Final Doom has some pretty hefty, ambitious maps, so it makes sense to cut so many of them out. A few Master Levels maps were shoehorned in to fill out the initially dismal map count. To me this makes it a very unique entry in the series, a compilation of three map sets where pretty much every map is enjoyable if not great.