Doom (32X)

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Doom
System(s): Sega 32X
Publisher: Sega
Developer: Sega of America
Supporting companies: id Software
Original system(s): IBM PC
Developer(s) of original games: id Software
Sound driver: GEMS
Peripherals supported: Six Button Control Pad
Genre: Action, Shooting
Number of players: 1
Release Date RRP Code JP 1994-12-03 ¥7,8007,800 GM-4003 US 1994-11-21 $69.9969.99 84506 EU 1994-12-04 84506-50 PT MD32X84506 UK 1994-11-30 £59.9959.99 84506-50 AU 199x $99.9599.95 FDOO02SXC BR 199x 152010 AS 199x
Non-Sega versions 3DO Archimedes Game Boy Advance IBM PC Jaguar PC-9800 series Super NES
ESRA

For the Sega Saturn game, see Doom (Saturn).

Doom (ドゥーム) is a first person shooter developed by id Software and released on December 10, 1993 for DOS-based IBM PC compatibles. It was later ported to numerous platforms, including the Sega 32X (as a launch title). It is widely considered to be one of the games that pioneered and popularized the first person shooter genre, and retains a large, dedicated fanbase to this day.

The player assumes the role of a nameless space marine and through use of a varied set of weaponry, must fight his way through moonbases on Mars and the depths of Hell itself.

Gameplay

The game is played through the eyes of the main character. The player navigates through the level and collects weapons, ammunition, powerups, and other miscellaneous items. Certain doors are locked via a red, blue, or yellow keycard which are hidden throughout the level. Eventually the player finds the exit and progresses to the next level. Every so often a boss is encountered, where the level ends upon defeating the boss.

Levels are often made more varied by use of gimmicks and traps such as elevators, poisonous pits, monster closets, and secret rooms.

Controls

General

D-Pad - Moves character. Holding while using the D-Pad moves character at running speed. Holding while using D-Pad makes character strafe instead.
- Fire.
- Use (Open/close door; Activate switch).

When in Automap:
D-Pad - Moves character.
- Zoom in.
- Zoom out.
- Activates/deactivates grid.

 START  - Pauses with options menu; Resumes.

You can swap , and button functions around in options. It will also affect automap controls.

3-Button Mode

Pressing  START  while holding - Scroll through available weapons.
Pressing  START  while holding - View Automap.

When in Automap:
Pressing  START  while holding - Toggle Follow mode on/off.
Pressing  START  while holding - Hide Automap.

The US manual has wrong information about Automap controls for 3-button controllers, further contributing to rushed feel of this title.

6-Button Mode

- Scroll up through available weapons.
- Scroll down through available weapons.
- View Automap.

When in Automap:
- Toogle Follow mode on/off.
- Scale up or down instantly.
- Hide Automap.

Pressing any button aside from D-Pad while holding  MODE  will bring up a corresponding weapon. Examples:  MODE + START  brings up fists/chainsaw (pressing again switches between them if player has the Berserk Pack),  MODE + brings up pistol, etc.

Using Six Button Control Pad is highly recommended. Cheats also require use of buttons that aren't available on Three Button Control Pad.

Weapons

	Fist
	When completely out of bullets, the game will automatically change the current weapon to the fist.
	Chainsaw
	Once the chainsaw has been obtained, it is impossible to re-select your fists as you can in other versions of Doom.
	Pistol
	Shotgun
	Chaingun
	Rocket Launcher
	Plasma Rifle

Despite being highlighted in the US manual, the most powerful weapon on Doom, the BFG 9000, is not accessible during normal play due to the third episode being removed.

Items

Ammo

	Clip
	Ammo Box
	Shells
	Box of Shells
	Rocket
	Rocket Case
	Cell
	Bulk Cell

Health and armour

	Health Potion
	Stimpak
	Medikit
	Soul Sphere
	Spiritual Armor
	Security Armor
	Combat Armor

Miscellaneous

	Radiation Suit
	Berserk Pak
	Backpacks
	Computer Map
	Invulnerability

The "blur artifact" (or "partial invisibility") and light-amplification visor, which exist in other ports of Doom, are not available on the 32X through normal play.

Enemies

	Former Human
	Former Human Sergeant
	Imp
	Demon
	Lost Soul
	Cacodemon
	Baron of Hell

Missing from this list, but which are present in the original IBM PC version of Doom, is the Spectre enemy (essentially a semi-transparent Demon) and the two strongest enemies in the game, the Cyberdemon and Spiderdemon (the latter due to episode 3 being cut from this version).

Contrary to what the US manual claims, enemies will not fight each other in this version of Doom (although they can still damage each other). Unlike the PC version, enemies only have front-facing sprites (which runs counter to the screenshots on the back of the North American box), however still have "waiting" code, meaning it is possible to sneak up on them. This leads to situations where an enemy appears to be looking at the player, but does not react to his or her movements from certain angles.

Levels

The 32X version doesn't name its maps, simply labelling them with numbers. The names below come from the original IBM PC version of the game.

On the 32X, the first two episodes are played roughly in order, save for E1M9 which is moved to the end of the game, and E2M8 which is missing entirely. No maps from episode 3 appear in this version.

Levels 16 and 17 can only be accessed if the player beats the game, starting from level 1, with no cheats enabled. The US manual again erroneously claims that there is a "wrap-around" feature, where as an example, it suggests starting at level 8 will see the player progress to level 15 before then tackling levels 1-7. Instead, the player will receive the "bad ending" after level 15, and be greeted with a fake DOS prompt.

	1 (Hangar; E1M1)
	2 (Nuclear Plant; E1M2)
	3 (Toxin Refinery; E1M3)
	4 (Command Control; E1M4)
	5 (Phobos Lab; E1M5)
	6 (Central Processing; E1M6)
	7 (Computer Station; E1M7)
	8 (Phobos Anomaly; E1M8)
	9 (Deimos Anomaly; E2M1)
	10 (Containment Area; E2M2)
	11 (Refinery; E2M3)
	12 (Deimos Lab; E2M4)
	13 (Command Center; E2M5)
	14 (Halls of the Damned; E2M6)
	15 (Spawning Vats; E2M7)
	16 (Fortress of Mystery; E2M9)
	17 (Military Base; E1M9)

History

Development

Doom arrived on a 24Mb (3MB) ROM cartridge, albeit at some point of time it was reported that it will be upgraded from 24Mb to 32Mb (4MB), making it the largest 32X game in development at the time. Most likely it didn't make it to 32Mb due to the third episode levels being cut out to save development time in order to become Sega 32X launch title. If we take a look at the size of known prototypes of this game then we will see that prototypes between September 6 and September 21 were larger than 3MB, as well as October 2 build.

Builds were leaked onto the internet in February 2008 on Hidden-Palace site.

Versions

The 32X port of Doom derives from the Atari Jaguar version, which adjusts level layouts in areas to ease with rendering, as well as potential hardware constraints, and/or aesthetics on a TV screen as opposed to a computer monitor. Despite this, the game managed to debut on the 32X before the Jaguar version was finalised. Leaked prototypes suggest that 32X Doom was originally more in-line with the PC version, the switching of levels occurring as an mid-development optimisation.

32X Doom does not run at full screen - while the system is technically capable of rendering a full 320x224 Doom image, a border is applied to mitigate performance concerns in some areas. Due to storage space limitations on a cartridge many decorative objects and textures are missing and monsters have only front-facing sprites, albeit it's still possible to sneak up on enemies in rare cases as their behavior wasn't changed to take it into account. Monsters infighting was removed. Demons wake up on sound only if player is directly present in their radius.

Interestingly, the 32X version updates its Automap in real-time when it's activated, while on PC the changes will show up only if you hide and view the Automap again.

The levels set is shared with Atari Jaguar version, both being in development at the same time. Most likely 32X levels were being ported from Atari Jaguar in-progress builds. Atari Jaguar family levels set contains heavily simplified layout of levels from PC original, some maps being completely different, using less textures and objects as well. Due to 32X version being rushed it ended up being released before Atari Jaguar version thus the levels set is unfinished in comparison. It's missing the third episode and there are occasional glitches: Hall of Mirror effect in Level 10, for example. You can't finish certain levels 100% as some monsters were misplaced outside of rooms.

The music was also noticeably changed, the developers deciding to remake the soundtrack with GEMS and keep it on the Mega Drive side only rather than use the 32X's PWM — having to make launch date didn't help the situation either. It is considered to house one of worst interpretations of Doom's music, with even the Super NES surpassing it in terms of quality.

The game now features a level select menu, allowing the player to select any level within the game; however, by using the level select, the game only presents the user with a DOS prompt at the end, instead of giving the true ending away. Curiously US manual mistakenly says that in such case the game will wrap back to the first level so player can complete the remaining ones.

On the 32X, Doom usually runs at around 15-20FPS - a long way from the PC version's 35FPS, but higher than several other versions, such as the 3DO, Super NES and even Sega Saturn. Sega suggested that the 32X Doom performed just as well as an Intel 486 PC clocked at 50MHz, though was far less expensive.

Interestingly enough, there are few builds of Doom 32X that were made after the final version. The files were named as "Doom RR", quite possible new revision was planned for the game. These builds contain no differences from final Doom 32X release much to public knowledge.

Production credits

id Software Development Team

• : John Carmack, John Romero, Adrian Carmack, Kevin Cloud, Sandy Peterson, David Taylor, American McGee, Shawn Green

Sega of America Development Team

• Programming: Jonathan E. Flamm, Banjo Bob Hardy, Toshiyasu Morita, Marty Franz, Rex Sabio, Unni Pillai
• Music: Brian Coburn
• Art: Jenny Martin
• Producer: Jesse K. Taylor
• Software Testing: Mike Baldwin, Joel Breton, Chris Lucich, Matt Underwood, Fernando Valderrama, Kim Rogers, Ben Cureton, Lloyd Kinoshita, Alfred Dutton, Sam Sallba, Stan Weaver, Mike Mansourian, Carey Camacho, Aaron Hommes, Jeff Loney
• Special Thanks To: Jay Wilbur, Dave Albert, JBM III

Source:

In-game credits

id Software Team

• Biz Guy: Jay Wilbur
• Biz Assistant: Donna Jackson
• Software Engineers: John Carmack, John Romero, Dave Taylor, Shawn Green
• Artists: Adrian Carmack, Kevin Cloud
• Designers: Sandy Peterson, American McGee
• Composer: Robert Prince
• Doom Logo: Don Punchatz

Sega

• Producer: Jesse Taylor
• Assistant Producers: Vincent Nason, Greg Becksted
• Product Manager: Tim Dunley
• Product Specialist: Nemer Velasquez
• Programming: Jonathan Flamm, Robert Hardy, Unni Pillai, Toshi Morita
• Art: Jenny Martin, Susan Greene
• Music: Brian Coburn
• Game Lead: Michael Baldwin
• Assistant Game Leads: Joel Breton, Christopher Lucich, Matt Underwood
• Testers: Fernando Valderrama, Aaron Loichinger, Kim Rogers, Ben Cureton, Lloyd Kinoshita, Aaron Hommes
• Manual: Carol Ann Hanshaw, Jay Wilbur
• Special Thanks: Haven Dubrul, David Albert, Robert W. Lindsey, Doria Sanchez

Source:

US manual

Magazine articles

Main article: Doom (32X)/Magazine articles.

Promotional material

NL flyer

Print advert in Power Unlimited (NL) #17: "Jaargang 3, Januari 1995" (1994-12-xx)
also published in:

• Power Unlimited (NL) #20: "Jaargang 3, April 1995" (1995-03-22)

Print advert in Super Juegos (ES) #33: "Enero 1995" (199x-xx-xx)

Print advert in Hacker (HR) #6: "05/1995" (1995-xx-xx)

Print advert in Strana Igr (RU) #1 (1996-xx-xx)
also published in:

• Strana Igr (RU) #2: "Mart 1996" (1996-xx-xx)

Television advertisements

File:Doom 32X US TVAdvert.mp4

US TV advert

File:Doom 32X US TVAdvert.mp4

Artwork

• 

  US prototype cover

Physical scans

Sega Retro Average
Publication Score Source GamesMaster (UK) 91

	91
Based on 1 review

Sega Retro Average

Publication Version Score Beep! MegaDrive (JP) NTSC-J 75 Computer & Video Games (UK) 94 Computer + Video Giochi (IT) 90 Electronic Games (1992-1995) (US) NTSC-U 91 Electronic Gaming Monthly (US) NTSC-U 84 Famitsu (JP) NTSC-J 75 FLUX (US) NTSC-U 83 GameFan (US) NTSC-U 87 GamePro (US) NTSC-U 93 Gamer (GR) 81 Gamers (DE) PAL 60 Games World: The Magazine (UK) PAL 91 Game Informer (US) NTSC-U 78 Hobby Consolas (ES) 90 Joypad (FR) PAL 92 MAN!AC (DE) NTSC 84 Mega (UK) PAL 95 Mega Force (FR) PAL 92 Mega Fun (DE) NTSC-U 87 Micro Kid's Multimédia (FR) 100 Micromanía (segunda época) (ES) 93 Mean Machines Sega (UK) PAL 92 Player One (FR) 95 Play Time (DE) PAL 87 Power Up! (UK) 95 Power Unlimited (NL) 78 Saturn Fan (JP) NTSC-J 78 Sega Magazine (UK) PAL 96 Sega News (CZ) 80 Sega Power (UK) PAL 95 Sega Pro (UK) PAL 94 Sega Pro (UK) PAL 84 Sega Force (SE) 100 Sega Saturn Magazine (JP) NTSC-J 88 Todo Sega (ES) 91 Ultimate Future Games (UK) 91 VideoGames (US) 80

	88
Based on 37 reviews

Doom (32X)

32X, JP
Cover
Cart Manual

32X, US
Cover
Cart Manual

32X, US (Not For Resale Cart)
Cart

32X, EU
Cover
Cart Manual

32X, PT
Cover

32X, AU
Cover
Cart

32X, BR
Cover
Cart File:Doom32-32X-BR-Manual.pdf Manual

32X, Asia
Cover
Cart Manual

Technical information

Main article: Doom (32X)/Technical information.

References

NEC Retro has more information related to Doom