Sony PlayStation



The Sony PlayStation version of Doom was a conversion of Doom and Doom II by Williams Entertainment. It was released on November 16, 1995 and ran with a modified version of the Doom engine used in the Atari Jaguar port. It featured 28 levels from Ultimate Doom, 23 from Doom II and 7 original levels.

Multiplayer was unusual for a console game in that split screen was unavailable; two consoles had to be linked together instead. This made the multiplayer truer to the original, but it was done at the sacrifice of accessibility. Presumably two players (or more) running on one console would reduce the speed of the game dramatically.

The Final Doom conversion onto PlayStation used the same engine and team who brought Doom and Doom II onto PlayStation. It was released in October of 1996. It included a mixture of 30 levels from Master Levels for Doom II, TNT: Evilution, and The Plutonia Experiment. The instruction booklet, however, erroneously states within that the game contains 30+ levels. Although the box does not mention the Master Levels, the back cover of the instructions indeed acknowledges their inclusion. It also has support for the PlayStation Mouse which the former did not.

John Romero is quoted on the back cover, calling this the "best DOOM yet" and is credited as "Creator of DOOM".

Gameplay
The rendering engine has been rewritten to utilize the PlayStation's 3D hardware. This renderer allows enhancements such as higher color depth, alpha blending and colorized sectors.

The original Doom levels are based on the Jaguar version, and therefore, as with all ports based on this version, the simplifications to the map geometry and texturing versus the PC version are carried over. The maps from Ultimate Doom's Episode 4 and Doom II contain similar, although less changes. Overall, this means that the number of unique textures per map is lower than in the PC version. Further examples of simplifications would be the omission of crushers in Ultimate Doom, and the reduction of large vertical heights. These changes are done mainly for performance reasons; however, there is still noticeable slowdown in certain levels, particularly when playing on the higher difficulty settings.

The game uses fewer enemies; this especially applies to the cyberdemon and the spiderdemon, which appear less frequently. There is no arch-vile because the developers felt they could not do him justice on the PSX, because it had twice as many frames of animation as other monsters. The final boss from Doom II is not in the game and the final level "Redemption Denied" instead contains one or two spiderdemons, depending on the skill level. Also, as the corresponding secret maps are missing, the game lacks the Wolfenstein SS and Commander Keen enemies.

Unique to the PSX and Saturn ports, monsters from Doom II appear in Ultimate Doom levels, but only when the game is played on "Ultra Violence". Also, megaspheres can be found in the PSX/Saturn exclusive Ultimate Doom levels MAP29: Twilight Descends, MAP30: Threshold of Pain and MAP57: The Marshes, with the latter additionally featuring a super shotgun. A tougher type of spectre, the nightmare spectre, has been added. While the regular spectre looks like a partially invisible demon, the nightmare spectre has its colors inverted, is twice as fast, and is harder to kill due to having twice the hit points of an ordinary spectre.

Exclusive levels

 * MAP16: Hell Gate (from Jaguar Doom, originally titled Tower of Babel)
 * MAP17: Hell Keep (from Jaguar Doom, entirely different map from PC version)
 * MAP29: Twilight Descends
 * MAP30: Threshold of Pain (final level of Ultimate Doom)
 * MAP54: Redemption Denied (final level of Doom II)
 * MAP57: The Marshes (secret level, entrance from Twilight Descends)
 * MAP58: The Mansion (secret level, entrance from Suburbs)
 * MAP59: Club Doom (super secret level, entrance from The Mansion)

Removed Doom levels include Hell Keep, Slough of Despair, Dis, Warrens, They Will Repent, Against Thee Wickedly, And Hell Followed, and Fear. Removed Doom II levels include Downtown, Industrial Zone, Gotcha!, The Chasm, The Spirit World, The Living End, Icon of Sin, Wolfenstein, and Grosse.

Further differences between PlayStation and PC version

 * All of the gameplay, texture, and map changes from the Atari Jaguar version have been retained for the original Doom maps. Less significant changes were made to the Thy Flesh Consumed and Doom II maps, however, some of the larger maps were cut from the game.
 * Many animations had frames cut, making them seem choppier, one example being rockets fired from the rocket launcher.
 * Some maps feature a new animated flaming sky.
 * The screen resolution is changed from 320x200 to 256x240. New graphics were made for the menu and intermission backgrounds, fonts, and status bar to fit this resolution.
 * Largely pre-recorded ambient background music for all levels using a simplistic form of wave sequencing, rather than wavetable/MIDI generated audio. Aubrey Hodges created the music and reused certain songs (the symphonic rock/metal theme, most noticeably) in Doom 64.
 * The sound effects are different to the PC version, and were later reused in Doom 64. Said sound effects also have echoed effects in closed-off parts of the levels (any area with a ceiling).
 * All weapon sprites have been reduced in size. The Super Shotgun was redrawn for the American and European versions of Final Doom, giving it a "sleeker" appearance.
 * Different status bar. The one used in this game has a darker tone (more black rather than gray in the original) and does not feature the listing of the remaining ammo of all types on the right side like the original.
 * There is no Nightmare! skill level.
 * Different cheat codes.
 * Passwords are used for loading; while they store numbers as map level, skill level, health, armor and ammo, the numbers for the latter three tend to be rounded. There is no Memory Card usage.

Bugs

 * A rocket launcher blast originating from a player's rocket launcher shot does not do any damage to him/herself whenever he/she is facing a corner where the walls are aligned in an angle of 90 degrees. The player must also be facing slightly off the corner's edge and be as close to it as possible. A series of images demonstrating the phenomenon in the Final Doom level Crater can be viewed here: [1] [2] [3] [4]
 * A glitch where the screen becomes black and the text "TEXTURE CACHE OVERFLOW" is displayed may occur, crashing the game.

Inaccessible secrets in Final Doom for PlayStation
All other secrets are fully accessible.
 * In Level 9, Nessus, there is a walkthroughable (transparent thickness) wall, with a revenant behind it (on the harder difficult levels: may be a different enemy on lower levels). On this ledge -- which is above the corridor containing the four teleport pads -- there is a megasphere and, around the corner, the BFG9000.  Many cannot get onto this ledge, but, for those that do, the BFG9000 in the top right-hand corner can (with difficulty) be taken, but because you cannot physically enter the area it resides in, the game never reports you as having found that secret.
 * In Level 29, The Death Domain, there is a switch missing which prevents the player from being able to access an area on the west side of the map.