Doom for Game Boy Advance

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Both Doom and Doom II have been released for the handheld console Game Boy Advance.

Doom

A screenshot from the GBA version of Doom

In 2001, a Game Boy Advance version of Doom was released by David A. Palmer Productions. It has several differences from the original game:

  • Simplified levels based on those of Jaguar Doom.
  • Neither cyberdemons nor spiderdemons are present, but rather the final level has rather several cacodemons.
  • Spectres are either removed or replaced with demons.
  • The only secret level remaining is E1M9.
  • Part of E2M2 has been removed, although a few rooms remain, though they are inaccessible. Because of this, you cannot obtain 100% secrets on this level.
  • Part of E2M5 was taken out.
  • E2M7 is quite different.
  • E2M8 is completely different.
  • E3M1 is completely different.
  • E3M2 has been removed.
  • Some of E3M6 has been removed.
  • No E3M9; E2M8 is the original E3M8.
  • All music is "shifted ahead" (E1M1 uses E1M2's music, E1M2 uses E1M3's music, and so forth, until E3M3 is reached).
  • The BFG9000 can be found in secret areas of Episode 2, The Shores of Hell.
  • No crushing ceilings.
  • The blur artifact and light amplification visors are also removed.
  • Health potions and spiritual armor give 2% instead of 1%.
  • The monsters' blood is green, and the Doomguy's face does not bleed.
  • Monster corpses vanish after a few seconds.
  • Much Hell-related and gory imagery is missing (impaled bodies, etc.)
  • Ultra-Violence mode is renamed "Nightmare"; true Nightmare mode was removed altogether.
  • The game can only be saved between levels.
  • No animated intermissions.
  • In vanilla Doom, the Tower of Babel appears to be "built" during episode 2: with each intermission screen, the tower becomes a little larger, growing from a foundation to a full tower. This does not happen in GBA Doom.
  • Altered ending text: episode 4's ending screen appears instead of the famous "bunny" ending (probably to avoid an M rating).
  • Demon death sound is replaced with imp death sound.
  • When the player finds a secret, the message "A SECRET IS REVEALED" is displayed in the center of the screen.
  • A bug makes palette index 0 transparent.
  • if you take out the game cartridge and put it back in it will still be frozen but you can hear heaps of sounds.
  • The status bar had no "%" sign and used a different font for its numbers.
  • One option available is "static lighting", which makes the light amplification visors useless. This was most likely done for performance reasons, as the frame rate increases when the light calculation code is skipped.
  • When you collect a invincibility power-up, rather than the colors go black and white, the screen has a deep blue haze.

The GBA version of Doom also came with eight brand new deathmatch levels. These levels have not been released commercially on any other system.

Playing Doom multiplayer on GBA systems is only possible by connecting the GBA systems using a separate Game Link Cable, GBA Wireless Adapter or other similar accessory for connecting the devices.

Weapons that appear in GBA version

Enemies that appear in GBA version

Doom II

File:Gba1.gif
Doom II on the GBA

Torus Games of Australia developed Doom II for the GBA, which was published by Activision. Note that this game is not a port of the original Doom engine, but instead runs a custom engine shared with several other GBA first-person shooter games called the Southpaw Engine. The differences between the GBA Doom I and Doom II (besides the maps):

  • All maps and monsters are present.
  • The demon was given its original death sound.
  • The original status bar numbers are used.

Differences from the original Doom II not already mentioned:

  • The super shotgun's shells are flesh coloured, just like the face's blood.
  • The super shotgun reloads faster.
  • Dropped weapons and items give full ammo, instead of half.
  • The box of rockets gives ten rockets, not five.
  • The music tracks "Between Levels" (MAP04) and "Getting too tense" (MAP28) were dropped, most likely due to cart space. In their place was "Into Sandy's City" and "Evil Incarnate", the music to MAP09 and MAP31 respectively.
  • "I'm Too Young To Die" does not give double ammunition; it only reduces damage.
  • Revenant missiles do not smoke when homing, and are fired from the revenant's waist (~32 units high, like all other missiles).
  • The arch-vile's flaming sounds are missing and the explosion sound (DSBAREXP) is played when the attack is initiated. Also, the flames appear lower in the player's view.
  • The BFG's tracer attack uses the BFG plasma balls explosion sprites and the explosion sound used for the BFG plasma balls impact is the standard explosion sound rather than its own.
  • Industrial Zone and The Chasm are split into two maps each to avoid slowdowns and memory constraints.

External links

Source code genealogy
Based on
Jaguar Doom
Doom for Game Boy Advance Closed source
Based on
Southpaw Engine
Doom II for Game Boy Advance Closed source