Doom XBLA ArcadeHITS Review

As you may have already discovered, Doom has been added to Xbox Live Arcades arcade HITS programme. Reducing it’s price from 800msp to 400msp.

This makes a big impact on the games value for money, and while 800 points I considered to be a little high at £6.80, for £3.40 Doom offers you a lot more for your money, and might even be the best deal on Xbox LIVE right now.

 

Doom on XBLA is a faithfull conversion of all 4 chapters of the original Doom, with slightly enhanced graphical resolution. On bigger TV’s this can make the games creatures appear very blocky or blurry however. The game is still a joy to play, very atmospheric, and includes all of your favorite levels and original soundtrack, as well as online multiplayer, 200 achievement points and 2 secret gamerpics to unlock.

The controls are smooth and fluid, moving around with the control sticks is a breeze, however weapon selection can be a little fiddly and unresponsive, it’s on the Y and B buttons instead of the D-Pad like most modern games.

In Doom, you play as a marine of the UAC corperation working on Mars while an experiment with teleportation wrenches open the very gates of hell itself. After the ensuing carnage, you are teleported to the companies Phobos lab and it is clear you are the only person left alive, and you must fight your way, literally, through hell and back to get home to earth alive.

Doom’s gameplay is relatively simple, your task during each level is to seek out new weaponry to defend yourself with, and make your way to the exit, which is contained in a seperate room with the word EXIT written invitingly above the door. All the while, blasting the hell out of everything that moves, and finding keycards and switches to help you progress through the levels.

Doom’s plot is a simple one, and never aims to be anything more than an excuse to blast hundreds of demons back to hell. That said, it never needs to be anything more. The levels vary from simple, to incredibly long and complex designs which adds a decent amount of variety to the game.

For it’s XBLA iteration, the game is presented in 4:3 aspect ratio, and the rest of the screen is surrounded by a black border, which I think is a bit of a shame, there is ample space for some nice artwork there. But at the same time, I could admit that might detract from the games atmosphere.

Consisting of 4 chapters, each containing 9 levels, 36 in total. Most of the initial levels are relatively short, and the first chapter can be finished in about 20 minutes. However a lot of the later levels can be quite complicated and can often take up to 15 minutes each to get through. So there is a good 2 to 3 hours of gameplay to be had especially if you ramp up the difficulty to obtain the achievements. So while the game
is short, and beyond achievements, offers little replay value, for 400 points 2 to 3 hours of play offers incredible value for money.

Overall Doom is a neat little package of retro hyperviolence that no self respecting over 18 would want to miss out on at it’s newly reduced price. It offers a good amount of high quality gameplay in addition to it’s multiplayer modes.

Verdict:
Value: 4/5
Gameplay: 4/5
Presentation: 3/5