Verticality is mostly always seen as indication of good and creative level design in the video game sphere - this is especially true for platformers for which I can see the case being made but I do think that holding this as some sort of universal fact limits creativity and can make everything feel the same; when all the designers are striking for the same goal of verticality it can all start feeling ridiculous.

I wouldn't say verticality always conducts to good level design. Point in case is the DOOM franchise, where my favorite official maps to date are still those designed by John Romero for Episode 1 (1993) which do have this element but it's restrained to the point of working well with the nuances of classic DOOM gameplay or even Sandy Petersen's Mt. Erebus where most of the enemy encounters happen in a horizontal fashion.

When this element gets out of hand you get things like Industrial Zone for Doom II which I appreciate for existing for being so ridiculous, having enemies on top of skyscrapers shooting at you and then having to jump off buildings to reach the bit of land where you need to go is interesting but it's not fun on the whole - all of this in a game where you cannot look up or down.

On this same line of thought, corridor and maze-like levels in first-person shooters are often seen as something boring and indicative of bad design but I especially don't agree with this at all.

DOOM 64 had to work with the limitations of the N64 which is partly the reason that there's an emphasis on back-tracking, compact level design (which conduct to what people call corridor-like/maze-like) and even absense of verticality.

Instead of a "DOOM lite" coming out of these limitations, the developers justified these elements by giving DOOM 64 an atmospheric and survival horror spin. Whereas 1993 and DOOM II are a gamer fantasy of being an overpowered macho marine listening to heavy metal and blasting through hordes of demons (okay maybe DOOM II on UV not so much); 64 exists to oppress you, scare you and make you realize you had claustrophobia all along and need a big open space to breath some fresh air.

The soundtrack was changed from renditions of heavy metal classics to oppressive atmospheric sounds. Deciding not to go with these dopamine-inducing tracks was a great choice thematically for 64, it does play with the theme of you being somewhere you don't really belong. Just have a listen to Final Outpost for example

I love the art design for 64: the darker color palette, the environments, the weapons and enemy re-design were all done incredibly well. My favorite redesigns probably being the Imp and the Pain Elemental, Nightmare Imps are also a really cool new addition.

Difficulty is also really important for me, I usually enjoy challenging things. I would say the hardest difficulty level of 64 (Watch Me Die!) sits somewhere in between DOOM II's UV and 1993's UV (closer to the latter) so I was not disappointed in this regard. I did play Sunlust on UV (cbt) before this so my concept of difficulty might be a little distorted.

The only reason I'm not giving this 5 stars is because I did feel the levels had some predictability to them, maybe a byproduct of me already having beaten 1993, DOOM II and Sunlust so it's harder to surprise me. I still miss that feeling of wonder and surprise that 1993 gave me though so that one is still my favorite.

This took me a long time to complete. After walking away from it out of frustration for months at a time, finally got around to finishing it tonight. The game is great from the start and extremely challenging at some points (there were a few random levels that were the death of me). Even though I was really frustrated at times, the challenge was perfect. It kept me engaged the entire time and kept me excited for the next level. I never once got bored. This is definitely one of my favorite games I’ve played in recent years.

Doom 64 is more Doom than Doom.

Doom fucking rules and Doom II does too. It's been a truth that's been revealed to me through my first time playthrough of each, and it's left me wanting more Doom. As it just so happens, Doom 64 provides just that.

Doom 64 is a bit of an oddity. It's existence on the N64 was meant to serve as the console's taste of the recent Doom craze. Most console ports would attempt to simply downscale the original game's levels and cram the engine onto low end tech, but Doom 64's approach was novel given that it's essentially it's own game. Yet, with this downscaled game came it's own modified engine, showcasing slight enhancements over the original game. Doom 64 has a much more intricate lighting system, which sets a mood to the game more than any of the id software titles ever accomplished. Levels maintain their lack of place from the original, but add a layer of tangibility due in part to the lighting.

The levels themselves can often be a mixed bag. There's decent maps to be found here, but there's also ones where I've felt more frustrated than I ever had with the series thus far. I would often find myself becoming lost way more frequently, with some evil progression markers being utilized that were never introduced to me before. Suddenly, I could shoot at a panel and have that trigger a platform lowering down. All the weapons from Doom II are present here, filling out the original arsenal, while adding yet another power weapon. This power weapon, while fun, is unnecessary for the weapon pool. Doom II has higher highs and lower lows than Doom 64 in terms of it's design, but neither quite match the competency of their forefather.

It ain't all Doom and Gloom though (sorry), since Doom 64 is, indeed, more Doom. In fact, in some ways, it's more Doom than Doom ever was. Animations are slightly more violent, the tone due to the lighting feels much more in line with the horror genre than that first title — the look to Doom 64 is closer to the Doom I imagined in my head when I first heard about Doom.

Of course, the reality of that statement is that it's impossible for Doom 64 to out Doom what Doom was. After all, it's Doom. It's the real OG. But when I first imagined Doom, I imagined something more brutal, more visceral than what was provided. Doom 64 manages to feed me more of that mental image.

I've been thinking of ways to extend my thoughts about Doom 64, but at the end of the day, Doom 64 is just more of the same. The game doesn't break the mold in any real way, it's defining features are more to it's looks than to it's gameplay. There's a new weapon, but it doesn't really change anything to Doom's formula. As a reinterpretation of Doom, it serves as a neat footnote in the oddities of Doom's legacy, but that's about it.

I'm glad I experienced Doom 64, but the titans before it stand too boldly, casting it's shadow over it near completely.

Oh man, this is one of the best DOOMs I've played. After DOOM II left a bit of a sour taste in my mouth with a large portion of dodgy levels and a baffling final one, this was such a breath of fresh air.

Really had that same feel that the first game gave me, but with more dread. The sci-fi vibe kinda went out the window to make way for what at times felt more like a horror shooter.

Traps litter the levels, on edge in every room despite all the enemies lying in bits at my feet. Screams of "Ah ya cheap fuck" as the platform just before an exit dropped me into inescapable lava, changed into sighs of "That's what I get for sprintin' everywhere".

A friend told me that the programmer said he wanted players to feel like “helpless rats trapped in Satan’s maze”.

Mission Accomplished

Doom 64 is one of the early N64 games that blew me away with its dynamic lighting and updated art direction over the first two games to give the game its own unique dark theme and look.

Unfortunately, it was also the first game where I started experiencing frequent motion sickness (a somewhat common occurrence for me with modern first-person games) so I was never able to beat the game in its original platform and had to resort to watching my older brother play and beat the game.

With that being said, my experience from the levels I've played and from what I watched make this one of my favorite Doom games in terms of gameplay (a bit slower than perhaps other games but appropriate for this game) and level design.

Roda a 60 fps no 64 eu chamaria isso de milagre

O tom mais dark macabro também me agradou demais, salas escuras e claustrofobicas, vamo fingir que não era porque o 64 não aguentava cenário aberto e muito inimigo na tela sem ficar parecendo um slide show

Mas os devs souberam usar essa limitação de hardware pra dar uma vibe de "horror", o jogo é cheio de pinturas e objetos ai ui que dark

A soundtrack é totalmente ambient puxada pro drone, muito boa também

Os sprites também são únicos e foram feitos exclusivos pra essa versão também, ficaram lindíssimos

O jogo é mais curto que os outros (não vou falar que é porque o 64 é de cartucho)

Enfim jogo subestimado quem não jogou ta perdendo uma obra de arte tão boa quanto o primeiro jogo.

Um dos jogos com o level design mais satisfatório que já joguei.

Esse foi o primeiro DOOM que peguei para zerar na vida (Eu já tinha começado o primeiro DOOM antigamente mas a dificuldade sempre me fazia desistir) e minha experiencia não poderia ter sido melhor.

O ponto alto do jogo, além da jogabilidade fluida e responsiva, são os puzzles que fazem você passar de fase. É tudo muuuuuuuito bem pensado, com inumeros segredos e areas secretas para explorar. O level design do jogo é simplesmente brilhante BEIRANDO O SATISFATÓRIO. (O jogo usa as proprias limitações da época duma forma inteligente).

Senti falta de um mapa útil e a forma que as armas são organizadas não são as melhores pra jogos atuais. Fora isso o jogo tem 0 trilha sonora, porém os seus efeitos sonoros consegue passar uma vibe de suspense a todo tempo.

O jogo é tão bom que eu até relevei as mortes totalmente troll do jogo que você só consegue passar na tentativa e erro :)


PRÓS:
- Jogabilidade e level design magníficos.
- Envelheceu bem.

CONTRAS:
- Falta um multiplayer.
- Mapa caótico.

Doom 64 can be best described as "inoffensively OK". I do prefer it over the rather basic level design in most of Doom 1 and the creative but quality-wise inconsistent Doom 2, although there was definitely a lot more Doom 64 could have done with its enemy roster, even if the Chaingunner/Archvile/Revenant were cut due time/technical constraints. This becomes clearer after playing the new The Lost Levels add-on (seven new levels that were included in the rerelease of Doom 64 on modern platforms), which is a noticeable step up compared to the original campaign in terms of visual detail and encounter design, for reasons I will get into a bit later.

The most standout thing about Doom 64 compared to other Dooms is its psychological horror atmosphere, one that's more in the vein of Quake 1 than Doom 3 with its jumpscares. So Doom 64's color palette is darker and more desaturated (while still being willing to use primary colors unlike Quake 1 and its endless Brown), but it's the oppressive dark ambient soundtrack that really hard-carries Doom 64's atmosphere. It's not even an understatement to say that the soundtrack is the atmosphere. It fits unsurprisingly well with continuously slaughtering demons by the hundreds in abstract industrial/hell-mazes without ever stopping to take a break. I find myself wishing that Doom would lean into the psychological horror more from a narrative and level design perspective as well (without turning the gameplay into a generic corridor shooter á la Doom 3), because as it stands the horror is exchangeable window dressing. But damn it's some good window dressing.

In terms of the new models and animations in Doom 64, it's kind of a mixed bag. I don't have an issue with the enemy sprites being pre-rendered early 90's 3D as opposed to the scanned clay models of the original, but a lot of expression has been lost on the new enemies. You can barely make out the angry grimaces on enemies like Zombiemen, Imps, and Mancubi, which did a lot to give them some extra personality. On the other hand, the redesign of the Arachnotron feels like a straight upgrade (its design was even used as the base for Doom Eternal's Arachnotron), making it looks more murderous and lethal that's better in line with its role in combat than the goofy "fatman on a chair" look it had in the originals. The biggest loss by far are the new shotgun reload "animations", which instead of the legendary original reload animations now just do the Quake 1 thing of moving the shotgun sprite back and forth. On the other hand, the Chainsaw now has twin chainsaw blades. It deals the same damage as the original, but it is twice as cool now.

Doom 64 plays near-identically to the first two Dooms, but there have been some tweaks. The SSG has a slightly higher RoF (1.77s -> 1.53s), and Cacodemons now consistently go down in two instead of three SSG blasts when the RNG felt like screwing you over. This helps speed things up in parts where there's not a major challenge going on (like fighting lone Hell Knights in tight corridors or the clean-up phase of a major fight where you're finishing off the last heavy demons) without making stronger weapons like the Plasma Rifle or Rocket Launcher useless, so I do welcome this change. You can no longer prevent Pain Elementals from spawning Lost Souls by hugging their face, now you will take a rocket's worth of damage if you try to do that. A new weapon has been introduced called the Unmaker, which on its own is like a hitscan Plasma Rifle and a redundant addition to your arsenal, but becomes an OP joke weapon once upgraded. You're better off pistol starting each level (yes, all Doom 64 levels are designed around pistol starts, and for maximum enjoyment you should play with pistol starts as well) so you don't have to pretend you can't just Unmaker your way out of a tight spot.

There are no new enemies in Doom 64 (not counting the Mother Demon), aside from the Nightmare Imp, which is an Imp reskin that moves twice as fast and throws out fireballs that move twice as fast, but I do dig its inclusion on paper. On paper this allows regular Imps to pose more of a macro-level threat with their slow fireballs cutting off your movement in the long-term, whereas the faster Nightmare Imp fireballs create micro-level threats that you need to immediately evade. In practice this distinction is kind of pointless since Imp fireballs are small and easily avoidable either way, and Arachnotrons, Mancubi, hitscanners and Revenants (if Doom 64 had 'em) are generally a better fit for that kind of setup anyways.

Lost Souls have been changed the most, they charge much faster and attack more frequently, but (thankfully) now take only one instead of two shotgun shots to take down. In a vacuum, I do prefer this change of Lost Souls being a high-threat enemy that screw you over harder but are easier to kill (outside of Lost Souls becoming unable to move around corners because of how frequently they try to charge at you in a straight line), as opposed to a tankier annoyance that always came in large numbers and took a noticeable amount of time to get rid of. The problem is how this change affects Pain Elementals. A weaker Lost Soul means Pain Elementals also pose less of a threat, which you could stunlock more effortlessly. This is probably why the Pain Elemental in Doom 64 now spawns two Lost Souls at once instead of one. However, this opens yet another can of worms, especially when the Pain Elemental is triggered into infighting (something more likely to happen in D64 since a Pain Elemental failing to spawn Lost Souls can now damage other nearby demons). At best, you get lucky and manage to kill the Pain Elemental with two rockets before it spawns two super-sonic Lost Souls that are in your face the next frame and cause your rocket to blow up in your face. At worst, the game grinds down to a halt as the sheer amount of coked-up Lost Souls create so much unpredictability that picking them off from a safe corner becomes the only viable survival tactic. Not that this never happened in the originals, but there Pain Elementals didn't tend to escalate things as fast. When looking at the Lost Soul changes in the grander scheme of things, I do prefer the original implementation, as it doesn't make fighting Pain Elementals as much of a chaotic fustercluck.

Doom 64's level design usually doesn't do stuff that's downright offensive (f.e. death pits, giving you almost no breathing room against an enemy horde, surrounding you with hitscanners, etc.), but at the same time its combat encounters aren't particularly outstanding. There's a general lack of time/space pressure in most encounters (i.e. being given too much space to move around in and/or there being not enough enemies to restrict that space), nor is there much of a Double Impact-style resource management pressure to justify the overall laidback intensity of the levels (doubly so if you are playing without pistol starts). Aside from that is the EXTREME overreliance on Hell Knights/Barons, especially in the "do the SSG dance against one or two Knights/Barons in a tight corridor" setup that gets reused for about a hundred times with little variation. I don't believe that the absence of the Revenant/Archvile is the cause here, because you can still get some good mileage off Arachnotrons and Mancubi (as The Lost Levels show). This brings me to my second point, which is that Arachnotrons and Mancubi are woefully underutilized in the main campaign. In the main campaign they primarily appear in some of the later levels and most of the climax setpiece levels (Dead Simpler, Cat and Mouse, Watch Your Step), but for most of the game it's Knights/Barons, (Nightmare) Imps, Pinkies, and Cacodemons. Even then Pinkies/Cacos are used similarly to the Knight/Barons where the winning strategy is doing the SSG dance while slowly moving backwards. Usually Pain Elementals, now an Archvile-level threat, and Lost Souls will be deployed to shake things up Although as I stated before, I have mixed feelings about them.

The Lost Levels fare a lot better level design-wise. So (Nightmare) Imps tend to be more effectively utilized for long-range harassment, the levels are more willing to make you fight demons from multiple directions, Arachnotrons tend to be used more often as turrets and just in general, and Knights/Barons aren't spammed as much. There are some tedious parts, like the blue key room in Thy Glory and the room design making you slowly take out major enemies one by one, but not every map can be a winner. Overall, definitely a good inclusion for Doom 64. For those who are interested, my favourite maps would be map 9, 15, 16, 22, 34, 35, and 37.

In terms of navigation, Doom 64's levels do have a tendency to fall in the "go backtrack and find out what this switch opened on the other side of the level" trap, where at best you find the newly opened gate or door by accident, and at worst you're running circles in an empty level trying to find out where to go next. The navigation in Doom serves to create small navigation puzzles between fights to keep players from tiring out (much like the platforming in Doom Eternal); it shouldn't be what you end up spending most of your playtime on. To prevent this, colored keycards should be used when the distance between a switch/key and the corresponding gate is large, as colored gates are easier to remember as a place you need to eventually go to, than if it were a locked generic door. But since Doom only supports three keycard colors (and because the more you add, the harder it gets to keep track of these colored gates), regular switches should be used when the distance between a switch and a corresponding locked gate is short. Alternatively, extra enemies can be spawned in to form a breadcrumb trail towards the now-opened gate, or the corresponding gate can be placed in your line of sight when hitting its switch. Not to say that Doom 64 never does this, but it's not always consistent in doing so. So there is even one level in Doom 64 which has an interactable Build Engine-style camera to show you what just opened in another part of the level.

Overall, a decent map pack. Try it out if you want to see what playing Doom with a Quake atmosphere feels like.

doom 64 is my personal favorite of the classic doom games (if we're talking base/original games so no ultimate doom). it's the most atmospheric of the three and in my opinion the most gorgeous. the lighting, colors, and skyboxes stand out to me more in memory than those of doom 1 and 2. it's also still a bloody ride of thrills and gibs. combat is just as chaotic as doom 2 but not as mean; feeling like it was more concisely designed a la doom '93. most encounters are great fun, and the arenas almost always complement the fights. they get into the large and experimental but still maintain fluid pacing and organized layouts, it's amazing. though some levels include a decent amount of backtracking which hampers the experience a bit. the revenants and arch-viles missing do make me sad but also frustrate me because they included pain elementals and lost souls while buffing them a lot. if you thought pain elementals were bad, wait till you see them spit out not one but TWO lost souls in this game. besides the backtracking and even more annoying pain elementals, doom 64 is a great experience. doom 64 feels like a mix between the first two dooms while also being its own thing with the visuals and emphasized horror which to me makes it an incredible doom game.

First of all, i’ve played the Nightdive version from 2020. That version has his own backloggd page but i choose to make my review on here since this one seems to be a little more popular.

Second: idk man but this game felt pretty mid to me. Maybe i played it at a bad moment. But the truth is i didn’t really vibed with this one

Re-skin was nice and all, and i appreciate the darker atmosphere, which to me felt more reminiscent of Quake.
Now, there are some design choices i didn’t really enjoy, like the maze-like level design and the extensive use of some of the tropes i hate the most about Doom, like very dark areas where you can’t see shit. It’s not scary, it’s just annoying. I understand that at the moment that might have been spooky as hell but believe me, that’s probably the design trope that has aged the worst for this kind of games.

So it’s not really a bad game at all but also there’s nothing here to write home about. All in all, is the most mid Doom of all. But yeah, if you’re a Doom fan this is a must, you’ll probably enjoy it a lot more than i did.

My prior experience with the Doom series consisted of what I perceived to be the main series (Doom, II, 3, and DOOM (2016)), minus Eternal which I haven't got round to yet. I picked this up on a whim and wasn't necessarily expecting something great, as it is not made by id Software. What I got was a genuine surprise, and certainly worthy of consideration as a main series title.

Doom II was an odd sequel, doing little to advance the presentational elements of the series, acting more as an expansion of the enemy roster than anything else. In contrast, Doom 64 feels distinct, eschewing the heavy-metal theatrics of Doom's musical compositions in favour of dark ambient pieces that give the game a palpable sense of atmosphere. The visuals aren't unlike prior Doom titles, but are adjusted to support this atmosphere, utilising the improved tech to deliver more detailed textures and sprites that trend away from the vibrancy of Doom and Doom II.

Doom 3's prioritisation of atmosphere is foreshadowed here, but without the need to sacrifice satisfying and fast-paced gunplay. While the atmosphere and gunplay are thus arguably at odds, I believe Doom 64's commitment to abstraction in its level-design, as opposed to Doom 3's move towards representational environments, facilitates a positive relationship between the two.

Regarding level-design, Doom 64 unfortunately follows in Doom II's footsteps, leaning hard into overly complex maps and annoying puzzles. While this is a shame, I do think it surpassed Doom II in this area for two reasons. For one, the maps on average don't go to the same extremes as Doom II. More importantly, Doom 64 at least compliments explorative, puzzle-solving gameplay with its new aesthetic focus. Wandering empty hallways trying to find whatever the hell you're supposed to do is more tolerable when the game's music is slow and moody, rather than adrelinine pumping.

On the whole, I loved Doom 64, even as I found some of its level-design quirks frustrating. It's a refreshing take on the Doom aesthetic, while featuring the same quality gameplay and enemy design that the series is renowned for. While the original Doom is still the best classic-style title for its focus, Doom 64 probably takes second place for me. Check it out if you enjoy this style of shooter.

EDIT: I forgot to mention the Lost Levels campaign added in the rerelease. It's really good, definitely hitting above average for Doom 64 levels.

É o que Doom 2 queria ter sido e não conseguiu. Doom 1 continua sendo meu favorito, mas o 64 é uma sequência digna pra franquia. É um jogo mais cadenciado e atmosférico, e os levels são bem mais focados em puzzle do que exploração, e funciona genuinamente muito bem, apesar que tenha seus tropeços. Algumas fases acabam tendo seções de combate com quantidade um tanto exagerada de inimigos (Nada no nível de Doom 2, mas são muitas as vezes que enchem de Pain Elemental, consequentemente enchendo de caveira que não sai da sua cola, muito irritante) e acaba ficando meio repetitivo as vezes.

Excelente, como toda franquia.
O level design volta a ser fantástico (com algumas exceções), e alguns inimigos foram retirados nesse game, mas não fizeram falta, sinceramente. Só acho que as lost souls são muito broken, tem hitbox bugado e dano MUITO alto, totalmente incoerente.
Fora isso, o clima sombrio que viria a suceder a série no próximo game, já começa a mostrar um esboço aqui, com uma trilha sonora bem mais mórbida e "aterrorizante".
Amei o estilo artístico desse DOOM, um dos meus favoritos da série.
O maior defeito do game, pra mim, é a final boss. Totalmente non sense, parece que é tudo na sorte, habilidades aleatorias, arena aleatoria, tudo meio fora dos eixos, mas no produto final não faz tanta diferença.