DOOM review by Tyson
Overall
Buy
Doom is one of those games that has appeared on just about every gaming platform available. The Atari Jaguar gets its port and for the most part this one of the better console ports of Doom despite a few disappointing elements of this port.
Gameplay
The Doom story has stayed the same from the PC version. You play as the last surviving marine in a demon infested military base set on the Mars moon of Phobos. It's now up to you as the lone surviving marine to fight through all the various demons. Like a lot of games from this time there isn't a whole lot of story told through the game. Most of the story is told through the instruction book. Thankfully though games like Doom don't rely much on story but more on its gameplay.
The gameplay of Doom is set to be fast and action packed. The game uses a first person view point so you see everything through the eyes of marine and this works well. Each level you play through is built around you going from the start section of the level to the exit section of a level. While this sounds boring the game does do a few things to spice this up. You will need to collect red, blue, and yellow card keys or use switches to open up doors to further your progress throughout levels. Exploration gets more complex throughout may levels when teleporters are added into the level design. While the jaguar port doesn't contain every level from the PC version if does include nearly all of them. You get 22 of the 27 PC levels and this is more then many of the other Doom ports on other consoles. Also unlike the PC version you cannot save your game but you can start from the last level you have unlocked from the main menu screen.
During the exploration of the levels you will fight many various enemies. Lots of zombie humans and various hellish demons await to do battle with you. Thankfully you do get many weapons to help fight them off. Classic weapons like a pistol, shotgun, and a chaingun can help you mow down lots of the easier enemies but then weapons like a rocket launcher, a plasma rifle, and the awesome BFG-9000 help you take down some of the tougher ones. All of the weapons you get plus the various enemies you fight help make the combat very fun in this game. There is always something fun about using a rocket to blow up various demons into a messy goo. Sadly though the toughest enemies like the rocket shooting Cyberdemon and the Spider Mastermind are not available in this port.
Control
Since Doom was originally a PC game its control setup has suffered when being ported over to the consoles. Thankfully this version has an advantage over the other console ports thanks to the Jaguars controller number pad. With the number pad you can instantly select a weapon by using its associated number pad key. Other console versions have you using a button to cycle through the weapons and this number pad makes it the best setup out there. Other then that the rest of the controls work well. You use the direction pad to move and the A,B, and C buttons to do various actions like strafe, shoot, run, and activate items or open doors.
Graphics
The graphical power of the Atari Jaguar helps make this one of the better looking ports of Doom. While the frame rate does suffer at times at least the game is played in a full screen mode instead of a bordered window like many of the other console versions. Also the graphics do have a bit of graininess to them but they still look better then some of the other console ports. I also experienced some weird ghosting issues with the game but I think this is either due to my tv, game cart, or jaguar since I am not seeing this effect on the various videos that I have seen from other people playing the Jaguar port.
Sound
If there is one chink in the armor of the Jaguar port of Doom then this is it. The Jaguar version does not play any background music during the levels. This removes a lot of the mood while playing Doom. What is weird though is that you get the background music at the title screen or level result screen. Outside of the missing background music at least the various sound effects like guns shooting or enemies growling sound great.