Doom (GBA)

Yup. It's Doom. Great! What more can one say?

Well, this is a 5-star review, so I may as well tell you the down sides:

1) Doom is a dark, dark, game. The GBA screen is a dark, dark screen. Put the two together and you've got a game that can only be played properly under the most perfect lighting conditions. This is a known problem of the Gameboy, so in Doom there are options to change the lightness/darkness of the graphics. You can also turn off "dynamic lighting" to see better, but that effectively flood-fills each room in the game with soft lighting, and so spoils the suspense of going into a dark room with simulated faulty flourescent lighting - but it is a way to get by if you're playing somewhere where you don't have good light on the GBA screen.

2) Mono sound effects. You'd expect this to some extent on the GBA, but do remember that in the original Doom, the stereo sound helped you locate the baddies. Also, the sound effects don't change level - so you can hear a monster as if it is right next to you (alarming) - but it might be two rooms away. This can be confusing.

3) Baddies disappear after being blasted. In the original Doom, you could tell where you were by the remains on the floor of the baddies you had already shot. In GBA Doom, the remains disappear after a couple of seconds. This could simply be due to memory limitations.

4) Baddies can be hard to spot. As another reviewer mentioned, the GBA screen is so low-res, that baddies in the distance are just a cluster of flickery pixels.

5) This is the original Doom. Is this good or bad? One thing is for sure, any Doom fan will know these levels inside out, so the game will hold no surprises for them. Perhaps it would have been better to create a new Doom WAD file specifically for the GBA. On the other hand, if you're new to Doom, it means that you can download the free version, and explore it on your PC when at home, and then take the GBA version out on the road with you.

The gripes above though, are just nit-picking really. The game is genuinely exciting to play (and I'm 35 years old!), and can make you jump out of your skin like the original could.

In summary - truly stunning. This game demonstrates what an awesome piece of hardware the GBA really is. I have no doubt this will inspire other games developers to bring out even more amazing games over the next few years.

What can I say ?, Fans of the original PC game will find this an almost perfect port of the PC game !. There are 24 levels in single player, the map mode is in, as are all the weapons and power ups. The gameboy advance is finally coming into it's own ( I also bought Lady Sia, Advance wars and Chu Chu Rocket all of which are exellent ! ).

The only problem comes from the size of the Gameboy advance screen as it is hard to see enemies far off in the distance. I've not played the link up side of things yet so I cannot comment on this.

TIP: Turn off the dynamic lighting effects as this will make things much easier to see !

The draw distance is impressive, letting you see the environment and your enemies from far away.
The level design is identical except for a few places to prevent the game from slowing down.

Four difficulties, each with an increasing amount of enemies (there can be up to 8 or 10 on the screen at once). Three episodes, 24 levels altogether. Don't forget the multiplayer co-op or deathmatch options!

The levels are big with lots of secrets and hidden switches (map mode is here to help). The weapons range from a chainsaw, fist, pistol,shotgun, chaingun, rocket launcher, plasma rifle and the legendary BFG which wipes out everything.

The gameplay is smooth, simple and instinctive (controls can be customised). I can safely say that DOOM for GBA is just as good as it ever was, but now you can play it anywhere you want. A faithful conversion that shouldn't have been possible. You will play this over and over because it's just that good!

OVERALL, VERY IMRESSIVE, A QUALITY GAME. I GIVE IT:
5 OUT OF 5