Difference between revisions of "Sony PlayStation"

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The PlayStation port used different box cover art to other versions.

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

The game features a multiplayer mode, but lacks split-screen; two consoles have to be linked together instead. This makes 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.

Final Doom was ported to the console as well by the same developers, reusing the engine. It was released on October 1, 1996, including 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

A screenshot from the PlayStation version of Doom.

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.^[1] 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. Additionally, in the Final Doom levels the spiderdemon is not present (however, its sprites are still in the data for PS1 Final Doom. They just don't get used for whatever reason.), and the baron of hell and mancubi are rarely seen.

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 and is harder to kill due to having twice the hit points of an ordinary spectre.

Levels

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.

Doom

Final Doom

Ultimate Doom

Level 01: Hangar ¹
Level 02: Plant ¹
Level 03: Toxin Refinery ¹
- Level 56: The Military Base (secret level) ¹
Level 04: Command Control ¹
Level 05: Phobos Lab ¹
Level 06: Central Processing ¹
Level 07: Computer Station ¹
Level 08: Phobos Anomaly ¹
Level 09: Deimos Anomaly ¹
Level 10: Containment Area ¹
Level 11: Refinery ¹
Level 12: Deimos Lab ¹
Level 13: Command Center ¹
Level 14: Halls of the Damned ¹
Level 15: Spawning Vats ¹
- Level 55: Fortress of Mystery (secret level) ¹ ⁵
Level 16: Hell Gate ¹ ² ⁴
Level 17: Hell Keep ¹ ² ³
Level 18: Pandemonium ¹
Level 19: House of Pain ¹
Level 20: Unholy Cathedral ¹
Level 21: Mt. Erebus ¹
Level 22: Limbo ¹
Level 23: Tower of Babel
Level 24: Hell Beneath
Level 25: Perfect Hatred
Level 26: Sever the Wicked

Level 27: Unruly Evil
Level 28: Unto the Cruel
Level 29: Twilight Descends ²
- Level 57: The Marshes (secret level) ²
Level 30: Threshold of Pain ²

Doom II

Level 31: Entryway
Level 32: Underhalls
Level 33: The Gantlet
Level 34: The Focus
Level 35: The Waste Tunnels
Level 36: The Crusher
Level 37: Dead Simple
Level 38: Tricks and Traps
Level 39: The Pit
Level 40: Refueling Base
Level 41: O of Destruction!
Level 42: The Factory
Level 43: The Inmost Dens
Level 44: Suburbs
- Level 58: The Mansion (secret level) ²
- Level 59: Club Doom (super secret level) ²
Level 45: Tenements
Level 46: The Courtyard
Level 47: The Citadel
Level 48: Nirvana
Level 49: The Catacombs
Level 50: Barrels of Fun
Level 51: Bloodfalls
Level 52: The Abandoned Mines
Level 53: Monster Condo
Level 54: Redemption Denied ²

Master Levels

Level 01: Attack
Level 02: Virgil
Level 03: Canyon
Level 04: Combine
Level 05: Catwalk
Level 06: Fistula
Level 07: Geryon
Level 08: Minos
Level 09: Nessus
Level 10: Paradox
Level 11: Subspace
Level 12: Subterra
Level 13: Vesperas

TNT: Evilution

Level 14: System Control
Level 15: Human Barbecue
Level 16: Wormhole
Level 17: Crater
Level 18: Nukage Processing
Level 19: Deepest Reaches
Level 20: Processing Area
Level 21: Lunar Mining Project
Level 22: Quarry
Level 23: Ballistyx
Level 24: Heck

Plutonia Experiment

Level 25: Congo
Level 26: Aztec
Level 27: Ghost Town
Level 28: Baron's Lair
Level 29: The Death Domain
Level 30: Onslaught

1: ported from Jaguar Doom.

2: exclusive level.

3: entirely different map from PC version.

4: originally titled Tower of Babel in Jaguar Doom.

5: originally titled Dis in Jaguar Doom.

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 apparent example being rockets fired from the rocket launcher.
Some maps feature a new animated flaming sky.
The screen resolution was 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.^[2]
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.

Technical details

The disc contains several WAD files. Each map is in its own WAD file, ranging from MAP1.WAD (which contains MAP01) to MAP59.WAD. An additional archive, PSXDOOM.WAD, contains all resources, including several unused ones. This makes it a total of 60 WAD files.
The WADs use the same LZSS-based compression method as the Jaguar Doom port, however they are little-endian files, contrarily to the Jaguar's big-endian WAD.
The Doom PLAYPAL is different on multiple points:

Color values are stored as 16-bit little endian ABGR values (using the most significant bit for alpha and five bits for each color channel).
Index 0 is transparent in all palettes, and none of the other indices are transparent in any palette. Palette colors differ slightly from PC Doom's.
There are a total of 20 palettes. The first fourteen are equivalent to Doom's, though the tints are not necessarily identical.
Palette 14 is used for the invulnerability effect. Since this port uses a hardware renderer which ignores COLORMAPs, invulnerability is handled as a palette flash instead.
Palette 15 is used for the fire sky. Only the first 37 indices are actually used.
Palette 16 is quite similar to palette 0, with some odd differences. It is used for interface graphics such as CONNECT, NETERR, LOADING, PAUSE, LEGAL, STATUS, as well as IDCRED2 and WMSCRED2.
Palette 17 is used for the TITLE and DOOM graphics.
Palette 18 is used for IDCRED1.
Palette 19, the last one, is used for WMSCRED1.

The Final Doom PLAYPAL is even larger, with 26 palettes.

Palette 16 is used for the DOOM and STATUS graphics.
Palette 17 is used for TITLE and BACK graphics.
Palette 18 is used for IDCRED1.
Palette 19 is used for WMSCRED1.
Palette 20 is used for CONNECT, NETERR, LOADING, BUTTONS, PAUSE, and TILE.
Palette 21 is used for the SKY02 texture.
Palette 22 is a perfect copy of palette 0.
Palette 23 is used for the SKY04 texture.
Palette 24 is used for the SKY05 texture.
Palette 25 is used for the SKY06 texture.

All textures have power-of-two dimensions. When the image itself was not resized to fit the dimensions, the added areas are filled with black (index #255).
Textures are not composited. Instead, they are placed between T_START and T_END markers.
The TEXTURE1 lump merely enumerate texture dimensions in sequence. Textures are not identified by their name, instead they are enumerated in the same order as they appear in the WAD. However, each individual texture file already features its dimensions, making the TEXTURE1 lump rather redundant. Textures are not composited from multiple patches.

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. [1]

Inaccessible secrets in Final Doom for PlayStation

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.

All other secrets are fully accessible.

References

External links

Source code genealogy
Based on Jaguar Doom	Doom for Sony PlayStation	Base for Doom 64
Based on Jaguar Doom	Doom for Sony PlayStation	Base for Doom for Sega Saturn

[1] Harry Teasley interview at Doomworld

[2] Aubrey Hodges interview at gamescares

[1]

[2]

@@ Line 16: / Line 16: @@
 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 [[crusher|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.<ref>[http://5years.doomworld.com/interviews/harryteasley/page3.shtml Harry Teasley interview at Doomworld]</ref> 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. Additionally, in the Final Doom levels the spiderdemon is not present, and the [[baron of hell]] and [[Mancubus|mancubi]] are rarely seen.
+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.<ref>[http://5years.doomworld.com/interviews/harryteasley/page3.shtml Harry Teasley interview at Doomworld]</ref> 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. Additionally, in the Final Doom levels the spiderdemon is not present (however, its sprites are still in the data for PS1 Final Doom. They just don't get used for whatever reason.), and the [[baron of hell]] and [[Mancubus|mancubi]] are rarely seen.
 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, [[megasphere]]s can be found in the PSX/Saturn exclusive Ultimate Doom levels [[MAP29: Twilight Descends (PlayStation Doom)|MAP29: Twilight Descends]], [[MAP30: Threshold of Pain (PlayStation Doom)|MAP30: Threshold of Pain]] and [[MAP57: The Marshes (PlayStation Doom)|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 and is harder to kill due to having twice the hit points of an ordinary spectre.