So what have I to report this time? I haven't played much more since the last article, to be honest, but I did beat the game. Yes, I've beaten the shortest of all the console ports of Doom, the 32X version, weighing in at a mere 17 levels. 16 if you don't take the secret exit in level 3 to Military Base. But why wouldn't you?
I was expecting a BFG, but like some people have noted, it's not in there. I thought "Ah, well, it has to be in Fortress of Mystery"--renamed "Dis" for the console ports. Not there. Nor is it where I thought it would be in "Refinery". It's in that spot in other ports, right in that pool of hellslime with the secret door. You'd think they'd make the BFG available without cheat codes, but they didn't. If the system can hold it in memory and run it via cheats, what was the big deal? Throw people a bone!
This brings me to another downside of the 32X version. The freaking border. Yes, there's a little bit of a border around the screen, made to look like one of the rocky textures in the game. It's not so bad, really. You get used to it. It's easy to ignore. However, when you're playing a game designed for a 90s TV screen on a flatscreen, it already takes up less than a full screen. With an (unnecessary) border added in, well, again--it could still be worse.
Despite the border, the one-sided enemies, the less-than-full lighting effects and the small number of levels, Doom for the 32X is still an intense little rampage.
I grabbed an invulnerability power-up recently and noticed that even the 32X version is different from the PC. Instead of making everything white, it just kind of throws a little bit of white tint on the screen. Not bad, but not on the level of the Jaguar.
Speaking of the Jag, my AV cable is in the mail. I'll be playing JagDoom for the first time in years before the end of the week!
Okay--now let's get a little bit of history. I've already shared a few factoids I've gathered from the hidden corners of the internet, but let's go deeper.
The 32X and Jag versions were developed side-by-side. That is, Id was working on them pretty much in tandem. They must have determined that they would need to edit their level set in order to keep cart space open and to keep memory available. See, cartridge games didn't have a whole lot of space back in the day. It seems like, from the beginning, there was an "official" base level set exclusively for consoles--one which the SNES ignored. And when I say "official", I mean a bunch of edited PC levels, and after the 32X--from the Jag on--at least two new ones with old names. I'm pretty confident that they finalized 32X Doom before this level set was complete, or else it would have had all the levels the Jag had. This is how the 32X managed to have the first console Doom out of the gate.
John Carmack had been asked to program Doom for the SNES using the FX Chip long before the SNES Doom was finally made (and not by him). Here's some of what he had to say: http://www.retrovideogamer.co.uk/index.php?topic=882.0. He liked programming for the Jaguar, which he apparently started working on before the 32X.
As concerns the 32X Doom, well, have a look at this quote:
"I spent weeks working with Id Software’s John Carmack, who literally camped out at the Sega of America building in Redwood City trying to get Doom ported. That guy worked his ass off and he still had to cut a third of the levels to get it done in time.
What amazes me now is that with all that going on, nobody at Sega was willing to say "Wait a minute, what are we doing? Why don’t we just stop?" Sega should have killed the 32X in the spring of 1994, but we didn’t. We stormed the hill, and when we got to the top we realized it was the wrong damn hill.”
~ Scot Bayless, senior producer at Sega of America from 1990-1994.
There you have it. Carmack was the driving force behind the 32X and the Jag versions. Developed together, but the Jag got a lot more attention in the end, because it was the second one released and more time was put into it. Is it possible, also, that Id learned a thing or two while porting it to the 32X? Could be.
This article's going to be rather short, since my life's been a bit crazy of late. Like always, I'll close with a timeline and add another event to it. Next week, we should be talking JagDoom!
Doom v1.0: December 10, 1993
Doom v1.1: December 16, 1993
Doom v1.2: February 17, 1994
Doom v1.4: June 28, 1994
Doom v1.5: July 8, 1994
Doom v1.6: August 3, 1994
Doom v.1.666: September 1, 1994
Doom II: September 30, 1994
Doom v1.7: October 11, 1994
Doom v1.7a: November 8, 1994
32X Doom: November 14, 1994
Jaguar Doom: November 28, 1994
Doom v1.8: January 23, 1995
Doom v1.9: February 1, 1995
The Ultimate Doom: April 30, 1995
SNES Doom: September 1, 1995
Doom 95: August 20, 1996
I was expecting a BFG, but like some people have noted, it's not in there. I thought "Ah, well, it has to be in Fortress of Mystery"--renamed "Dis" for the console ports. Not there. Nor is it where I thought it would be in "Refinery". It's in that spot in other ports, right in that pool of hellslime with the secret door. You'd think they'd make the BFG available without cheat codes, but they didn't. If the system can hold it in memory and run it via cheats, what was the big deal? Throw people a bone!
This brings me to another downside of the 32X version. The freaking border. Yes, there's a little bit of a border around the screen, made to look like one of the rocky textures in the game. It's not so bad, really. You get used to it. It's easy to ignore. However, when you're playing a game designed for a 90s TV screen on a flatscreen, it already takes up less than a full screen. With an (unnecessary) border added in, well, again--it could still be worse.
Despite the border, the one-sided enemies, the less-than-full lighting effects and the small number of levels, Doom for the 32X is still an intense little rampage.
I grabbed an invulnerability power-up recently and noticed that even the 32X version is different from the PC. Instead of making everything white, it just kind of throws a little bit of white tint on the screen. Not bad, but not on the level of the Jaguar.
Speaking of the Jag, my AV cable is in the mail. I'll be playing JagDoom for the first time in years before the end of the week!
Okay--now let's get a little bit of history. I've already shared a few factoids I've gathered from the hidden corners of the internet, but let's go deeper.
The 32X and Jag versions were developed side-by-side. That is, Id was working on them pretty much in tandem. They must have determined that they would need to edit their level set in order to keep cart space open and to keep memory available. See, cartridge games didn't have a whole lot of space back in the day. It seems like, from the beginning, there was an "official" base level set exclusively for consoles--one which the SNES ignored. And when I say "official", I mean a bunch of edited PC levels, and after the 32X--from the Jag on--at least two new ones with old names. I'm pretty confident that they finalized 32X Doom before this level set was complete, or else it would have had all the levels the Jag had. This is how the 32X managed to have the first console Doom out of the gate.
John Carmack had been asked to program Doom for the SNES using the FX Chip long before the SNES Doom was finally made (and not by him). Here's some of what he had to say: http://www.retrovideogamer.co.uk/index.php?topic=882.0. He liked programming for the Jaguar, which he apparently started working on before the 32X.
As concerns the 32X Doom, well, have a look at this quote:
"I spent weeks working with Id Software’s John Carmack, who literally camped out at the Sega of America building in Redwood City trying to get Doom ported. That guy worked his ass off and he still had to cut a third of the levels to get it done in time.
What amazes me now is that with all that going on, nobody at Sega was willing to say "Wait a minute, what are we doing? Why don’t we just stop?" Sega should have killed the 32X in the spring of 1994, but we didn’t. We stormed the hill, and when we got to the top we realized it was the wrong damn hill.”
~ Scot Bayless, senior producer at Sega of America from 1990-1994.
There you have it. Carmack was the driving force behind the 32X and the Jag versions. Developed together, but the Jag got a lot more attention in the end, because it was the second one released and more time was put into it. Is it possible, also, that Id learned a thing or two while porting it to the 32X? Could be.
This article's going to be rather short, since my life's been a bit crazy of late. Like always, I'll close with a timeline and add another event to it. Next week, we should be talking JagDoom!
Doom v1.0: December 10, 1993
Doom v1.1: December 16, 1993
Doom v1.2: February 17, 1994
Doom v1.4: June 28, 1994
Doom v1.5: July 8, 1994
Doom v1.6: August 3, 1994
Doom v.1.666: September 1, 1994
Doom II: September 30, 1994
Doom v1.7: October 11, 1994
Doom v1.7a: November 8, 1994
32X Doom: November 14, 1994
Jaguar Doom: November 28, 1994
Doom v1.8: January 23, 1995
Doom v1.9: February 1, 1995
The Ultimate Doom: April 30, 1995
SNES Doom: September 1, 1995
Doom 95: August 20, 1996
