Doom Ports You know Nothing About

To say Doom is an iconic game is quite an understatement. This game was arguably the reason PC gaming did not die out in the early to mid-1990’s as the old mainstay, point and click titles, popularity was waning quickly. PC game sales across the board were seeing lower numbers, partly thanks to the rise in popularity of consoles such as the Super Nintendo. Then the rumors of the upcoming Sony Playstation and Sega Saturn hurt PC sales even more, making it tougher to be a PC gamer than it was in the 80’s. Then in 1993 PC gamers got their flag waving over the heads of console gamers game, Doom by id Software. Suddenly PC gaming was cool again, even more so than console gaming at the time – even if only for a brief period. Nothing on consoles compared to Doom, I mean nothing. This game was so far removed from what consoles were trying at the time that it was not even funny. The kick in the teeth of console gamers was that the graphics in Doom were actually A LOT better than they were in the previous first person shooter style game, Wolfenstein 3D. No longer were gamers shooting Nazis and trying to stop Hitler, no now they were shooting Hell spawned bloodthirsty demons that had just your corpse on their minds.

id Software did something cool with Doom after it was no longer a sales force at retail – they released the source code so fans could port the game to consoles and other computers. This was a great move by the company and only seen as a good thing, as it should have been viewed. This list is not all source ports of Doom but ports nonetheless, and done by fans who love the classic FPS.

First up is Doom for the Nintendo Entertainment System. This is not nearly even as detailed as the Super Nintendo version of Wolfenstein 3D. Graphically, the NES port is rough (even Star Fox on Super Nintendo had more detail than this game as it stands). There is not a lot going on in the video other than showing the developer is going for something like Doom. I am including it in this list because the NES is such a popular console.

Next, we have Doom for the ZX Spectrum. This computer is one of many that we never got in North America (such a shame as there are some gems on this one). This has not stopped fans of the computer, and Doom, from porting the classic first-person shooter over to the, clearly not powerful enough to run it, computer. There is a lot more here that screams DOOM than the previous entry in this list. Still, the game is rough but playable as the video shows. The developers behind this one did an excellent job getting the feel and look onto the 8-Bit computer.

Okay, now we are getting near 3DO play window size with these ports of Doom. The Commodore Vic-20 is not able to produce anywhere near full screen graphics but what is here is enough to get the feel of the id Software classic right. The colors are absolutely hideous though, worse than the NES version above, yet there is still more gameplay on display.

If you are still in college, or have your college stuff laying around somewhere, then odds are you have a Ti-83 Plus calculator handy. If so, you are in luck because now you can play Doom on that bad boy, and it is quite a good port to boot. Check out the gameplay in the video above (it starts at about 7:50). Impressive for the calculator if I do say so myself.

Do you find yourself wanting to do something with your E-Ink screen device other than reading books on it? Well, you are in luck because, considering this is a Doom list, you can play Doom on those things now. No longer do you have to settle for reading Stephen King’s twisted thoughts, you can play through an equivalent representation of them from id Software. The graphics are a little rough as the screen simply cannot update quick enough to make this a viable option. For that reason this version is more of a “tech demo” style thing than actual game.

Finally, we have the “WTF” entry with Doom running on Android Wear. Yes, you read that right. Doom running on a 2.5 inch screen and it runs quite well, funnily enough. As you can see in the video the controls are implemented via swipes and then shooting by tapping circles on the screen. Not the most ideal way to play Doom but could be a good time killer if you don’t have anything else on your watch.

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