DOOM/id stuff

Ah, that's a shame. I understand if it's a big overhaul but like you say, if things like gzdoom can do it off the bat, that makes me raise an eyebrow.

Back to gzdoom it is then. Shame.

No, it didn't have it originally. But in 2024 it's just nice to be able to physically see the monster ripping you a new arse imo!

Nah, I think it is fine to keep without. Can't recall when I last played Doom, but I played Dark Forces and Hexen keyboard only recently and still play great like that. QoL upgrades are nice to have, but re-releases like this should always stay authentic as much as possible and if they do add QoL features they should be optional. You should be able to play games as they were released, warts and all.

Not sure how anyone played original Doom with the normal mouse controls though. I only recently discovered that it was the developers' preferred control scheme, but pushing up to walk forward and down for back is madness. Would be ok if you could disable that, but not sure if the original release let you do that.

Indulge me in my Doom nerd-iness.

Interestingly, Doom technically does have height, there is a z axis in the game that stuff accounts for - positions of actors etc are 3-dimensional co-ordinates. It's just very selective in what actually uses it. The Z height is generally only taken into account for attacks and actor vs geometry collisions - which is why monsters appear to be infinitely tall for monster v player or monster v monster collisions.

It's how flying enemies are able to get through windows while walking ones are not, and why some monsters can be too tall to fit through doorways, etc. It's also why projectiles are able to pass over the heads of you and monsters despite you not physically being able to pass over their heads.

The "if it's in front of you, it'll hit" is due to the game's auto aim which basically sets the height of the attack correctly. It strips out the z positions of stuff at that point and just checks if a line coming out forward from you touches an enemy. At that point, it puts the z back in to get the position your shot hit. On projectiles it makes them fly in a straight line toward the height it selected. That's why the plasma/rocket can be awkward against stuff on ledges if it doesn't adjust the target height high enough. But it's also why if you stand on one side of a drop, which has a wall further in the distance, your shot hits the wall in front of you rather than the bottom of the wall.

Some engines actually let you disable the autoaim which is cool, lets you see that there is some 3D-ness baked into the engine.

Of additional interest, there's also a new weapon in the episode which doesn't auto aim vertically for a few different tech reasons apparently, which can make it quite awkward to use.

(Doom nerd mode off)

The main reason to have mouselook really for me is it just tends to feel a bit more natural on a mouse and modern wads often use verticality quite a lot, so it's nice to be able to take in that scale a little better. Some stuff looks a bit ugly from above though.

Most wads I don't bother though (hence why I use nugget doom as it only has a software renderer). Nice to have the option though.

Because PS1 Doom was the first version of Doom I played I don’t miss mouse look at all since the game doesn’t need it and playing with a pad feels so natural.

I can understand from a pure muscle feel perspective that even though Doom never had it on PC originally that if I was doing mouse + keyboard now it would feel strange that my right hand wasn’t doing anything. Like when you see drivers use an automatic and still keep a hand ready to change gear.

I’m pretty sure PS1 Doom did weird stuff like have triangle for shoot since it was before control standardisation. That’d probably feel awful to use now.


This is true on Playstation. I now have Doom, Doom 2, and Doom & Doom 2 all installed and operational.

(and all the others bar Eternal)

I think the first doom version I played was the GBA version. I bought it at the airport before a flight to new York in 2002 when I was... 11?

Dad had it on the pc but I remember getting ushered out of the room by my mum because I was too young, lol.

Grape flavour

Only play maps with no stairs

That or maybe what they thought people wouldn't use wasn't mouselook but the concept of strafing as basic movement. Wolfenstein 3D didn't even have dedicated strafe buttons iirc. I think by the time of Quake it was starting to become commonplace, but perhaps Doom was still expected to be mostly played with the arrow keys for turning and mouselook simply for turning faster.

I remember for example that MDK does let you strafe but it's mapped to some awkward keys by default, like they didn't think people would ever use strafing outside of sniper mode. Mapping them to A and D makes the game more similar to a regular shooter, and a lot easier.

Where's my facking mouselook

Yeah I suppose. I just wanted to play through this new version to check the music out really.

I'll spend my time seeing if I can locate the music instead. Probably be more productive than waiting for mouselook that probably won't happen

My addled brain thinks that was the case in the original secret level too?

I remember playing Doom on the school 486 during D&T. Given the age rating I guess the teacher shouldn’t have done that.