
	Platform GameBoy Advance Genre Shooter Publisher Activision Developer David A. Palmer Prod. ESRB M (Mature) Released Q4 2001

- Good controls - It's fun blasting stuff

- Some slowdown - Some choppiness in framerate - Pixilated graphics

Review: No One Lives Forever (Playstation 2) Review: Soldier of Fortune II: Double Helix (PC)
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Doom

Score: 8.0 / 10

When I heard that this game was coming to the Gameboy Advance I thought it was crazy talk. First person shooters seldom translate well onto a console, trying to squeeze such a game onto a tiny portable with nothing but a directional pad and a couple of buttons looked like it would have a questionable outcome at beside. Surprisingly, this edition of Doom is actually quite good. It comes onto the handheld relatively intact, and the controls are solid, providing a fun, but certainly not perfect,

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- GameBoy Advance Game Reviews
- Shooter Game Reviews
- Games Published by Activision

experience.

The presentation of the game is serviceable, but far from exquisite. The visuals are far more pixilated than other titles on the GBA, looking like the old PC game that it is. Handheld games are not known for their pristine graphics, so this can easily be overlooked, however there is some slowdown and choppiness that cannot. It largely happens in areas where there are lots of enemies to deal

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with at once as well as in some of the bigger environments in the game. This is the sort of thing that is quite annoying under normal circumstances, but combine this with a lengthy road trip and a pension for motion sickness and we've got trouble with a capital T that rhymes with P, that stands for "puke". So, provided you haven't just downed a tall, cool glass of curdled milk and have set out with your buddies for that 3 hour drive to the ski lodge, Doom's visuals get the job done.

Gameplay, though, is what carries Doom. The blasting is still as fun as it ever was with the expected weapons: chainsaws, shotguns, and, of course, the BFG, among others, and an equal number of evil monster-types with zombies, demons and such. Don't expect adaptive, highly intelligent enemies though, the monsters here are gluttons for punishment who can't seem to get enough punishment, well, at least until they're blown to bits. I was quite pleased to see that the controls work well for Doom on the GBA. After being reduced to a whimpering heap on countless occasions playing various FPSs on consoles skepticism ran high before playing this game in regards to controls. Everything is responsive and straight to the point, just run around blasting stuff. At its core there's nothing but shooting at anything that moves, nice and primal.

There are some notably absent aspects to the GBA version of Doom, that being a few of the levels and a boss being cut from the roster simply out of a lack of space for them on the cartridge. It's hardly the end of the world, but worth noting.

If platforming, strategy, racing and such just isn't doing it for you and some mindless blasting looks like the order of the day then Doom is definitely one to look for on the GBA. Despite some graphical problems there is still a lot of fun to be had with this game.

- Mr. Nash
(December 20, 2001)