Member the games you used to play? We member. The basement at the Hardcore Gamer office has a section known as the Crust Room, with an old grey couch and a big old CRT TV. All the classic systems are down there collecting dust, so in an effort to improve the cleanliness of our work space, we dust off these old consoles every so often and put an old game through its paces, just to make sure everything stays in working order. We even have a beige computer with a floppy disk drive.

First-person shooters didn't begin with Doom. In fact Doom wasn't even the first first-person shooter developed by id Software, but it was arguably the best for its time and elevated to the popularity of the genre to a significantly greater level, paving the way for many popular shooters of the modern era. It was so popular that for a while after its release first-person shooters were colloquially referred to as Doom clones. In 1997 a game was released for the Nintendo 64 called Doom 64. With a ports of the original Doom appearing on other platforms besides PC and other subsequent games titled Doom II: Hell on Earth and Final Doom, one could be forgiven for thinking Doom 64 is the original Doom optimized for N64. This is actually not the case as Doom 64 is its own original game.

Doom 64 continues the story after the conclusion of the previous Doom entries. Following the conclusion of these games the UAC research installations were placed under quarantine due to the extremely high levels of radiation. Things seemed like they were running smoothly until a satellite sent a message to Earth indicating that something was alive amidst the radiation. The creature that had somehow previously avoided detection was resurrecting the demons. Once again Doom Guy is sent in to send the demons back to Hell. Unfortunately this is exactly what they wanted as this was elaborate trap laid by the demons to get him back into Hell.

Something that has always been curious about the Doom games is the nature of demons, Hell and how all that relates to other planets. On one hand it fits with a monotheistic religion where a single deity created the cosmos, where one could logically conclude that because of this gateways to Hell can exist on different planets. But here on earth different belief exist in different parts of the world with different countries having their own polytheistic pantheons which creates an argument that different planets would also have their own sets of gods and equivalent to Hell like the different religions on Earth have. Or perhaps this is putting too thought into a game about space marines shooting an ridiculously large number of demons.

The gameplay of Doom 64 doesn't deviate that much from its predecessors. The marine travels through labyrinthine levels, pressing switches and looking for color coded keys to open up new areas. While the player is trying to explore each area they're constantly encountering a seemingly endless force of demons. It's not uncommon at all for a switch to be flipped to access a new room or lower a pedestal for a key card and having hordes of demons spontaneously spawn. It's the formula that made Doom successful, and even though it expands on it by having some switches drastically change the layout of the environment, it wasn't enough to greatly revolutionize the series. When the approach to the advancing a franchise is more of the same but bigger, even purists can begin to grow bored with the formula.

In continuing with this general trend of moving forward while staying true to the original, the complete arsenal from prior Doom games is present with familiar enemies, but they look different. Each of the weapons has new sound effects and sprites, plus there's the additional new weapon called the Unmaker. Familiar demon enemies occupy the irradiated facilities, but like the weapons they have also received, a 64-bit facelift with new sprites.

Doom 64 is an often overlooked game in the franchise. This is for a few reasons, the first was being exclusive to Nintendo 64 for so long when more "mature" games were associated with PlayStation. The more important factor is this was the sixth permutation of a Doom game in a four year period, and as great and groundbreaking as Doom was in 1993, anything can get worn out. This is a shame because it's actually a good execution of the classic Doom formula. The gameplay mechanics are based on the previous installments and the overall look is an updated take on the original designs, creating something that at the time tried to feel both new and familiar. There's great level design filled with many challenges, making even seasoned Doom vets have to work to earn their way through Hell. It's not exactly groundbreaking, but it's a strong enough entry where it should be played by any fan of the original Doom games.

Doom 64 is the last of the Doom games to follow the classic format, and actually was the last game released until the drastically different Doom 3 came out in 2004. It's not the strongest entry in the franchise, but was a worthy send off of the series before it took a break and reinvented itself. It was ported to other platforms in 2020 such as PC, PlayStation 4, Stadia (RIP), Switch and Xbox One. It may seem weird to play a game ending in 64 on a platform besides N64, but after Sonic started showing up on Nintendo consoles, anything goes.

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