Favorite Doom port?

Dragonsbrethren said:

SNES Doom has unresponsive controls. I can't believe people actually put uncut levels above the game playing well. Maybe if they had cut the levels down a bit, it would've run better.


The 3DO version was released after the PSX version.

It has some input lag but I have no trouble getting used to it, like many others. That's why it's not such a big deal to us.

Dragonsbrethren said:

I can't believe people actually put uncut levels above the game playing well.

I don't.

SNES Doom is rather weak as a dynamic shooter, it's hard to argue with that. But it was still impressive as a three-dimensional adventure, something that wasn't very common on 16-bit consoles.

DoomUK said:

Most if not all of PSX Doom's sound effects were a step backwards.

They work well in Doom 64.

Da Werecat said:

I don't.

SNES Doom is rather weak as a dynamic shooter, it's hard to argue with that. But it was still impressive as a three-dimensional adventure, something that wasn't very common on 16-bit consoles.

Yeah, I'm looking at the game as a whole, and the 32X version blows it away in that regard. SNES is impressive technically, but it's way too slow to be any fun when you have any other version available (outside of maybe 3DO, which I've never played, but it looks terrible). Uncut levels and the extra boss monsters won't change that. 32X Doom is actually fun.

Really the lack of the boss monsters is Jaguar version's biggest failing. I'm sure they could've included them, if the SNES version managed it, even if they had to make them always face the player. That would've been better than even more Barons.

32X Doom just cutting a third of the levels, presumably to keep the cart under 3MB since adding them only adds a few KB to the ROM, is also disappointing. And the seemingly unfinished bad ending...

Dragonsbrethren said:

32X Doom is actually fun.

Shame about that DMCHOSHO soundtrack

Whoa, happy to see all the SNES port love up in this thread. Same for me. My first version of Doom for quite a while, and it left a huge impression. The music in particular sounded awesome in it, and I will never under any circumstances agree that PSX or Doom64's music is more "doom" or better in any way than the originals. The MIDIs managed to make me feel like a "some lonely dude who's fighting for his life" just fine. Waltz of the demons or They're going to get you alone are better at that than the entirety of 64's or PSX's soundtracks, IMO.
Not to say that Doom 64 isn't wicked awesome on it's own merits.

Also, while SNES doom did indeed have some rather slow controls, in my book it wasn't a disadvantage. You had to think ahead a bit, sometimes strafing would take a moment and you would get hit by a fireball that should've been easy to avoid, and that only feels like the character misstepped or stumbled a bit, making you feel more vulnerable. You could still maneuver and dodge just fine once you got used to it, even though most of the time the game didn't really require it. Quick aiming was more important and I think SNES Doom had some pretty strong autoaim going on, I remember my plasma bolts flying a bit sideways and my shotgun blasts hitting enemies that were standing reasonably off-center on the screen.

SNES Doom to me is essentially the slightly more tense and slightly more atmospheric version of Doom. It also has better music distribution among it's levels (e2m1's fits much better, no spoiling waltz of the demons in a totally unfitting level before limbo, the more fitting track for e2m2/e2m3, no hundreds of Demons on the prey reuses, better music for Pandemonium) and I'm glad it cut out some of the levels it did. I see no reason to play any other versions of the original Doom apart from the PC version and the SNES one. I can understand the PSX port but personally I couldn't care less about it.

Eris Falling said:

Shame about that DMCHOSHO soundtrack

Luckily there's an off option, heh.

Dragonsbrethren said:

Really the lack of the boss monsters is Jaguar version's biggest failing.

I'd say, it's the new texture scheme. E1 is not E1 enough without the blue carpets. It's a shame that PSX Doom inherited Jaguar assets.

I loved the texture changes. The lack of variety (part of the reason why the carpets are gone) kind of sucked, but the new themes all improved the levels IMO. E2M7 is particularly good looking, while the original map felt straight out of the alphas (because it mostly was).

I actually agree that almost all of the maps look better in the 32x/Jag versions. Maybe it's rose colored since 32X was the first version I owned but Spawning Vats and Phobos Anomaly in particular are much cooler. The opening to e1m8 and barrel blasting all of the shotgunners is better than the original open to the map. Spawning Vats just looks way better all around

Re: E2M7

Well, the original E2 looked like it could use some additional texture work, so it was for the better, I suppose.

But the metal vats in Spawning Vats no longer looked like metal vats anymore at least in the PSX version.

PSX Doom.

As far as the Jaguar/32X maps versus PC maps goes:

- Hate the loss of detail and loss of areas.
- Hate the texture changes to E1.
- LOVE the texture changes to E2 and E3.

Heck, that's what started me on this project that I never finished:

http://www.doomworld.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&postid=730265#post730265

With the limited texture selection and limited amount in each map, E1 really had to change or you'd get sick of seeing those same two STWAR textures everywhere for 8-9 maps straight. I like the metal and brick themes they added in the middle to mix things up - E1M5 reminds me of Plutonia's brick techbases.