On Friday (July 26th), three classic Doom games (the original Doom, Doom II, and Doom 3) had surprise releases on current consoles, including Nintendo Switch. In the U.S., the Switch versions are priced at $4.99, $4.99, and $9.99, respectively. As a big fan of the classic Doom games, I was quite excited about the news.
That excitement evaporated quickly when I heard that the first two games required online logins to bethesda.net. Definitely not what I was expecting for a port of a 25-year-old offline game on a portable/console hybrid system. While some users on Twitter reported that you could get around the login requirements (after the initial sign-up) by switching to airplane mode, the whole thing left a sour taste in my mouth.
The backlash led Bethesda to change their tune, and they announced that the game will be patched so that the online login will be optional.
Since a fix is in the works, I went ahead and bought the first game late last night. The original Doom is one of my favorite games of all-time. I first played it on the Atari Jaguar, and again later on the PlayStation.
I had some fun replaying the first few levels, although I had some trouble remembering how to access many of the secret areas. But that just means I have to thoroughly explore the levels, all over again. Fine by me. 🙂
But even after just a short time with the game, I could tell that this was not a great port…even aside from the online login requirement. My biggest complaint is that the controls are not customizable. There are three control layouts, depending on which controller you’re using, but you can’t customize them.
Both the Jaguar and PlayStation versions (from the 1990s) allowed you to customize the controls, so why can’t a 2019 version on much more powerful hardware do the same? You have to use the analog stick to strafe, and I prefer using the shoulder buttons for that. And I can’t seem to find a way to zoom in and out on the map.
As some Twitter users have pointed out, the music plays a bit slower and doesn’t always sound right. I also encountered some minor sound effect glitches, and the game once froze up after returning the Switch from sleep mode.
This clearly isn’t a perfect Doom port, but of course, the game is still lots of fun to play. And at just $4.99 U.S., it’s a great deal. You just might want to wait for the patch to come if you don’t want to have to create, and log into, a new Bethesda.net account. I don’t know if that patch will have any other improvements or not. But despite the flaws, I am definitely enjoying Doom so far.
Note: The game has split-screen local gameplay, which sounds like a great addition. However, I have not tried that out yet.