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Doom 64 gets an announcement trailer

by: Sean Colleli -
More On: Doom 64

It was previously revealed that Doom 64 was getting ported to all major platforms, and would be something of a consolation offering after Id Software delayed Doom Eternal. If you pre-order Doom Eternal, you get Doom 64 for free; otherwise it will be available for purchase separately on March 20th, 2020.

This new trailer shows off the port in action for the first time. I have to say it looks quite a bit brighter than it was back on the N64 in 1997, which is a good thing considering how muddy and dark the original release was, but it almost looks over-saturated here. That, and the blood effects are...green? The last time I saw green blood in Doom was on the Game Boy Advance, so I'm not sure why they would change it here.

In any case, it's fantastic that the criminally underrated Doom 64 is getting a second lease on life. On N64 it had some issues; the aforementioned dim lighting made the game much darker and smudgier than it needed to be, and playing on an N64 controller was challenging. However underneath those issues beat the cybernetic heart of a true Doom experience, equal parts moody horror and white-knuckle action.

In many respects Doom 64 was a more fitting cap on the original trilogy of Doom games than even the eventual Doom 3; while Doom 3 steered hard into the horror aspects and is a masterpiece in its own right, it didn't embody the action-oriented soul of Doom 1 and Doom II. Doom 64 fit the bill beautifully, but outside of a masterful, unofficial PC source port by Samuel "Kaiser" Villarreal, Doom 64 never saw release outside of the original N64 version. Now, at last, fans can own this often overlooked but magnificent chapter in one of the most important first person series of all time.


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