It's the moment that you've all--well, some of you--well, a couple, maybe--been waiting for. I've popped in the Atari Jaguar version of Doom and given it its first run. I already have quite a few observations to share!
On the plus side, I am very pleased with the graphics. It's a step up from the 32X's offering, so crisp and clean despite the fact that it's all the same textures and edited maps. The Jag really shines in its high color CRY mode, offering better lighting effects for all textures and sprites, as it's able to show them all at more light levels than even the original DOS Doom! This also allows things to darken more realistically in the distance. In addition, there are some great strobing light effects in certain rooms that go beyond what Doom originally did.
JagDoom shows the enemies from all eight sides, unlike the 32X, and has seven more levels. The color depth is really demonstrated when you pick up a Radiation Suit--I had forgotten how awesome things really look when they're tinted that shade of green. The tinting is beautiful.
I swear the Imps are a darker brown in this version than on the 32X. Maybe it's just because they're not stuck at "fullbright", i.e. the shade they're shown at in the game's maximum possible lighting.
John Carmack programmed this version himself, and he was quoted as saying that he loved programming for the Jag. He believed it was the best Doom Id Software ever did. Also, if it had been optimized for the Jag, it would have been twice as fast and had twice the resolution. An exaggeration? Perhaps.
If you've kept track of my ever-expanding timeline-o'-Doom, you know that Doom II had already been released by the time JagDoom came out. For Carmack to say what he said--well, maybe he wasn't counting Doom II. After all, Doom II had more enemies by far, considering that JagDoom doesn't even have Doom's Spectres, Cyberdemon and Spiderdemon. It would have had a lot more content, but Id was given a smaller cartridge to work with, thus not enough space. Atari cheaped out on them.
JagDoom was based on the Doom 1.2 engine. I can't find enough info at this time to comment on what this means, specifically. Apparently a lot of updates after 1.2 were bug fixes, and JagDoom may have had its own fixes done for the Jag.
One bug in particular that plagues 32X and Jag both, possibly because they're both based off of 1.2, is that barrels can kill enemies through solid walls. They can also kill enemies at the top of platforms from the floor at the bottom.
There are more flaws that serve as serious downsides to JagDoom, despite my glowing commentary thus far. It should be noted that the D-pad on the Jag controller is tiny, meaning that it's kind of a pain to use. Don't get me wrong, it's not like a controller made for dolls, but it's too small for this kind of game, especially when you've been doing Halo multiplayer on a pair of sticks for the last several years.
Strafing is done the same way as on 32X, by holding down one of three buttons and the direction you wish to strafe at the same time. The most practical option for me has always been to double the "use" button as the strafing button. However, this leads to very annoying outcomes, because I end up not wanting to strafe very much. Every time I'm facing a wall and I strafe, my guy grunts like he's trying to open a door that's not there. This didn't happen nearly as often on the 32X. I hate it!
JagDoom's autoaim needs some work. So many instances where I've lost a ton of health could have been avoided if only I hadn't been shooting the wall instead of the enemy above/below me! I have to get pretty close before it's sure to register, otherwise it's pretty hit or miss (no pun intended).
For those who are curious as to where I am in the game, I've only just beaten the ninth level (tenth if you count Military Base). I got killed several times fighting the Barons, which is weird. They weren't that hard on the 32X, a system where I can't get them to infight with the Pinkies. Maybe it's because I didn't try it in the first place? But that's what they're there for! Well, sort of. I've also had some difficulties with the Jag because it doesn't always read Doom, and if it gets jostled I lose my progress. Since I already beat it years ago, I can do a pistol start on whatever map I want.
The early console ports of Doom are not the only games built off of early versions of the Doom engine, nor are they the only ones to feature improvements where possible. Heretic, released on the PC by Raven Software on December 23, 1994 (a month after JagDoom), features the ability to look up and down, as well as fly; it has sectors that can push the player, ambient sounds, translucency an inventory system. The tweaks they made to the Doom engine were huge compared to a bunch of new colors. They added to the realistic feel of the environment, and were unbelievably not replicated until SNES Doom featured translucency (albeit most likely using a completely different programming method). PC Doom, all the way through final Doom, handled partial invisibility with the fuzz effect, which turns the affected spite into a bunch of black pixels with only its shape intact. Vertically adjacent pixels are copied back and forth in a pattern (they appear to flow along the shape of the sprite). It ends up looking like a fuzzy shadow--or, you know, a bunch of flowing pixels.
I've had a lot of fun so far studying how things evolved side-by-side between the consoles and the PC releases, but I haven't proven yet how they intertwine. Some people don't believe they ever did in any meaningful way. Maybe they're right. I'll delve deeper and return with more information! In the meantime here, again, is the timeline, featuring one new event:
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
Heretic: December 23, 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
On the plus side, I am very pleased with the graphics. It's a step up from the 32X's offering, so crisp and clean despite the fact that it's all the same textures and edited maps. The Jag really shines in its high color CRY mode, offering better lighting effects for all textures and sprites, as it's able to show them all at more light levels than even the original DOS Doom! This also allows things to darken more realistically in the distance. In addition, there are some great strobing light effects in certain rooms that go beyond what Doom originally did.
JagDoom shows the enemies from all eight sides, unlike the 32X, and has seven more levels. The color depth is really demonstrated when you pick up a Radiation Suit--I had forgotten how awesome things really look when they're tinted that shade of green. The tinting is beautiful.
I swear the Imps are a darker brown in this version than on the 32X. Maybe it's just because they're not stuck at "fullbright", i.e. the shade they're shown at in the game's maximum possible lighting.
John Carmack programmed this version himself, and he was quoted as saying that he loved programming for the Jag. He believed it was the best Doom Id Software ever did. Also, if it had been optimized for the Jag, it would have been twice as fast and had twice the resolution. An exaggeration? Perhaps.
If you've kept track of my ever-expanding timeline-o'-Doom, you know that Doom II had already been released by the time JagDoom came out. For Carmack to say what he said--well, maybe he wasn't counting Doom II. After all, Doom II had more enemies by far, considering that JagDoom doesn't even have Doom's Spectres, Cyberdemon and Spiderdemon. It would have had a lot more content, but Id was given a smaller cartridge to work with, thus not enough space. Atari cheaped out on them.
JagDoom was based on the Doom 1.2 engine. I can't find enough info at this time to comment on what this means, specifically. Apparently a lot of updates after 1.2 were bug fixes, and JagDoom may have had its own fixes done for the Jag.
One bug in particular that plagues 32X and Jag both, possibly because they're both based off of 1.2, is that barrels can kill enemies through solid walls. They can also kill enemies at the top of platforms from the floor at the bottom.
There are more flaws that serve as serious downsides to JagDoom, despite my glowing commentary thus far. It should be noted that the D-pad on the Jag controller is tiny, meaning that it's kind of a pain to use. Don't get me wrong, it's not like a controller made for dolls, but it's too small for this kind of game, especially when you've been doing Halo multiplayer on a pair of sticks for the last several years.
Strafing is done the same way as on 32X, by holding down one of three buttons and the direction you wish to strafe at the same time. The most practical option for me has always been to double the "use" button as the strafing button. However, this leads to very annoying outcomes, because I end up not wanting to strafe very much. Every time I'm facing a wall and I strafe, my guy grunts like he's trying to open a door that's not there. This didn't happen nearly as often on the 32X. I hate it!
JagDoom's autoaim needs some work. So many instances where I've lost a ton of health could have been avoided if only I hadn't been shooting the wall instead of the enemy above/below me! I have to get pretty close before it's sure to register, otherwise it's pretty hit or miss (no pun intended).
For those who are curious as to where I am in the game, I've only just beaten the ninth level (tenth if you count Military Base). I got killed several times fighting the Barons, which is weird. They weren't that hard on the 32X, a system where I can't get them to infight with the Pinkies. Maybe it's because I didn't try it in the first place? But that's what they're there for! Well, sort of. I've also had some difficulties with the Jag because it doesn't always read Doom, and if it gets jostled I lose my progress. Since I already beat it years ago, I can do a pistol start on whatever map I want.
The early console ports of Doom are not the only games built off of early versions of the Doom engine, nor are they the only ones to feature improvements where possible. Heretic, released on the PC by Raven Software on December 23, 1994 (a month after JagDoom), features the ability to look up and down, as well as fly; it has sectors that can push the player, ambient sounds, translucency an inventory system. The tweaks they made to the Doom engine were huge compared to a bunch of new colors. They added to the realistic feel of the environment, and were unbelievably not replicated until SNES Doom featured translucency (albeit most likely using a completely different programming method). PC Doom, all the way through final Doom, handled partial invisibility with the fuzz effect, which turns the affected spite into a bunch of black pixels with only its shape intact. Vertically adjacent pixels are copied back and forth in a pattern (they appear to flow along the shape of the sprite). It ends up looking like a fuzzy shadow--or, you know, a bunch of flowing pixels.
I've had a lot of fun so far studying how things evolved side-by-side between the consoles and the PC releases, but I haven't proven yet how they intertwine. Some people don't believe they ever did in any meaningful way. Maybe they're right. I'll delve deeper and return with more information! In the meantime here, again, is the timeline, featuring one new event:
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
Heretic: December 23, 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
