Doom 64 Is A Great First Person Shooter That Puts Some New Food On The Table.
I love the Doom series. I even bought the lame books that have very little to do with the actual storyline. I *still* play Doom on ZDaemon from time to time. Yes, Doom is a great series, and Doom 64 is one of the greatest games I have ever played on ANY system.
Gameplay : This is the ultimate FPS. No multiplayer? Go play Halo- Metal Gear Solid wasn't multiplayer and it is still considered one of the best games ever made. Black is a perfectly playable game and THAT doesn't have multiplayer, either. So, please. Stuff the tired "No multiplayer" arguments, because the horse is dead and you really need to drop the stick. See this game for what it IS, not what you wanted it to be.
Wanna know how to make this game the penultimate gaming experience? Do the following-
Unplug the phone, lock the door, and incapacitate all people around you so you are truly alone. Then, turn the lights around you OFF. Play at night. Crank that volume knob. And even better, turn the music all the way up in the options menu. Next, set your controls so that your strafe buttons are C-left and C-right. Make R your use button. And C-up or down your map, and the other one the speed button. Go ahead and cheat a little. Turn the brightness up a bit. Finally, select the "Watch me die!" difficulty. Fully optional, but for a REAL thrill, turn the status bar off. You will be wired after this.
And prepare to have your face rocked into a million pieces- this game is diabolical. The puzzles are sheer genius for an FPS, the level design makes it a challenge without it being too frustrating, and the enemies have been reworked from the ground up. Lost souls? Not an irritation anymore- these bad boys can strip away 40 points of your precious health without breaking a sweat. Baron of Hell? Eat a fireball and you will eat dirt. Nightmare Imps? The sneaky, invisible bastards will pummel you several times before you even know where they are.
And secrets aplenty- I won't spoil anything for you, but get the fleshgun and get all the artifacts from the secret levels. The way to reach the levels is ingenious, also. Not only is this game well designed, it's designed to be scary on levels that are just crazy to think about. All the demonic imagery will be enough to put most bible-schooled citizens in a terror induced cold sweat.
Everything about the gameplay is just amazing. ID did a very good job, and kudos to Midway for publishing it.
Gotta tear it all down now. The plot is fleshed out through intermission screens that show up periodically. Whoever wrote these cards were pretty good, if a bit heavy on thesaurus usage.
No, all the negative points here are for the ending. Gimme a freaking break.
Graphics : Yeah, muddy textures and animated sprites. Who cares? Remember what the guards looked like in Goldeneye? Rectangular guns? Goofy facial expressions? Ham fists incapable of plugging the gaping hole in their necks after you plugged them but good with the Sniper Rifle? I'm VERY glad the designers left the enemies as 2-d sprites, because this game would be very hard to take seriously with goofy character models. The lighting effects themselves are superb, when you can see them. And yes, there is light in this game. Go to the option menu for proof.
The weapons are all well designed and nice to look at (Especially the infamous "Fleshgun") but have no reloading animations that made the first entries so charming. Also, gone is the standard status bar. No pictures of good 'ol Flynn Taggart crying blood in this one, folks.
What's there is good, but it's hard to see...
Sound : Very, VERY creepy ambient music plays softly over the relentless carnage, punctuating the growls and grunts of pain quite nicely. Sometimes, this music will straight up scare the crap right out of you. Don't believe me? Go to level 23: Breakdown, and crank the volume up. Sit a little closer to that TV. And when the zombie groans and sounds of a lamb bleating in pain kick off a massive coronary, I swear I won't say "I told you so."
The effects themselves are quite crisp, if a bit utilitarian. The pistol sounds like a popgun, but this is Doom; your pistol IS a popgun. Get a shotgun to get the party started, and the rich boom that shakes your speakers and startles you out of your pants will happen only because YOU caused it.
This game was MADE for surround sound.
You don't see crates in Doom 64 for like, 15 seconds at least) pale in comparison to the awesome, soul-uprooting God-breaking gameplay that is Doom. It's true what the ads say- You never looked so good in black.