Worst and Best Doom port?

Post Reply New Topic

This is another discussion thread I decided to do because I sometimes like discussing with others.

For me, the best Doom port is the PSX port, because it has great colored lighting effects, removes the levels that took at least 10-15 minutes, even if you knew how to beat them (hint hint, Downtown), a really good ambient soundtrack that is a breath of fresh air from the metal soundtracks from the PC, and balances out the enemy abilities so levels are more fair and not so hardcore, despite the Ultra-Violence difficulty using Doom 2 monsters in Doom 1 maps. An awesome port in my opinion.

The worst port in my opinion, is the Sega Saturn port. I originally voted the 3DO, but it had pretty good musical renditions of the soundtrack, so I let it pass. Anyways, the Sega Saturn is, get this, a port of the PSX port, that was a port of the Jaguar port, which was a port of the PC port. It is basically the PSX version, but much, much more laggy and lacking the colored lighting, that resulted in levels like Club Doom looking pretty bland without the colored lighting. In more ways than one, it is worse than the 3DO and 32X port in my eyes.

So what are your personal best and worst Doom ports? Feel free to reply.

I'm only versed in PC ports, and I used to be fond of Doom Legacy because from the beginning it allowed a reliable, no-frills, coop play in peer-to-peer mode just like the original, while also retaining its look and feel.

Since it died, the next best thing has been GZDoom, for very similar reasons. It is stable, and not spreading itself thin chasing every single feature out there.

The worst port is probably Doomsday Engine one. They're forever buried in new useless features and a constant flow of bugs, and the few attempts I made at reliable cooperative games always blew up in my face. Talk about having the priorities wrong.

Well, it depends on how loosely you want to use the term "port".

As far as unofficial source ports, I like ZDOOM. I usually have to configure it a bit to get it just how I like it, though.

As far as official ports, most of them are based on the Jaguar version that id made themselves, so I'd have to pick the Jag original. There's a WAD (or two) that ports it to the PC, it's kind of neat to play every once in a while...some things are a little more polished than the PC version, but a lot of things are also simplified and watered down a little.

They also ported the Jag version to the GBA, and I like playing that sometimes (especially with ROM patches), but for the most part, I just play The Ultimate DOOM on the PC.

The Playstation port was great, especially the music. The Jaguar port didn't have any music, but was more "accurate" that the other ports. I remember being annoyed that the PS port didn't have Nightmare difficulty setting, and was missing a couple of enemy types, but still I had lots of fun with it.

Best: Playstation

Worst: Super nintendo

PSX Doom is probably the best I've played, but this may be a distorted selection as I've never seen the PC versions. A bit disappointing though that it couldn't make use of a memory card, and relied on the antiquated "password" save system. Interesting by the way that the OP implies that levels taking more than 10 minutes or so to complete are undesirable - nothing wrong with a few seriously challenging levels, so long as the puzzles are not unfair or obscure, or the adversaries impossible!

The SNES version was probably as good as you were entitled to expect of the technology as far as graphics etc were concerned, but was spoilt by the fact that you couldn't even save at the end of a level, and had to play through an entire episode (6 or 7 levels) in one sitting!

The N64 version was very interesting and innovative, but can't be legitimately regarded as a "Doom port", as the levels were entirely new and the monsters radically redesigned. Gameplay was also let down to some degree by the awkward control pad.