Switch finds its id
Huge guts, small console
The Ultimate Doom and Doom 2: Hell on Earth recently “dropped” on Switch, to the immense surprise of anyone who hadn’t been paying attention to the fact that Doom has been released for every single gaming system since the dawn of the industry.
Okay, I’m being facetious – the original Doom hasn’t been officially) released on a Nintendo system since the impressive Game Boy Advance ports, though of course the 2016 game of the same name received a celebrated encore on the Switch, now clearly a prelude to the reveal of proper Doom. Unfortunately, my first impressions aren’t exactly hot as hell.
A lot of criticism has been thrown at the games for requiring a Bethesda account to even begin playing. While I don’t find this the tremendous hassle and breach of privacy it’s been made out to be, it is odd to have a required login for a single-player only game, particularly one as seasoned as lovely old Doom. On top of this, the games have been presented in a slightly incorrect aspect ratio that results in uneven pixels; again not a dealbreaker, but somewhat strange given just how easy superior versions are to get hold of. The music, unusually, runs a little too slowly, which has a somewhat drastic effect on the games’ atmosphere. More pressingly, there’s also removed content – the extra Doom 2 episode “No Rest For the Living” (present in the PS3, 360 and BFG Edition ports) is entirely absent, though the Master Levels expansion has been included. It’s a strange hodgepodge even before getting into the total absence of Final Doom, though – whisper it – that hot mess isn’t a huge loss.
Some of these issues can likely be patched out, but it remains to be seen whether they will be. In the meantime, the ports are only £3.99 each, which is more than a fair price for two of the best games ever. If you already have them on PC, though, and harbour no real desire to chaingun cacodemons on the toilet, the Switch version is a pretty easy pass.
Oh! Oh! They released Doom 3 too!! But nobody cares.
