When I picked up Bethesda’s latest releases of the original DOOM trilogy for my Xbox One I could tell something was a bit off with them. Yes there was the annoying email requirement we have all slammed to death but beyond that something was bothering me that I couldn’t quite get my hand on. I am not the most die-hard of DOOM fans and as such haven’t spent a ton of time with the original versions. In fact most of my time with both titles came from the Xbox Live Arcade releases. But now thanks to John Linneman of Digital Foundry I finally have my answers.
For anyone who might not know, John and Digital foundry as a whole do deep dives into the technical aspects of a game. In the video above the new versions of DOOM are up for analysis and John does a wonderful job highlighting the deficiencies in these new versions. First the music is wrong, which I could get used to personally but still odd. Next were various graphical inaccuracies ranging from lighting to aspect ratio. The game is also using a capped framerate meant for old CRT’s which gives an inconsistent look as you play. typically this type of framerate inconsistency doesn’t bother me, I mean I play N64 games on the regular for crying out loud, but with DOOM it was really gross. Thankfully DOOM 3 is all good!
If you are looking to play DOOM or DOOM II on current gen take a watch of the above video and decide for yourself if these issues bother you before jumping in. Thanks again to John for another awesome analysis!
