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80% - A surprisingly smooth Doom-clone on the Amiga
When id Software opened a portal to the underworld, its army of fiendish monsters invaded the surface of Earth, barging into millions of households and abducting DOS owners, and the only way out was to play a game about them called Doom. What transpired next is elusive. All right, that is not quite what happened, but the point is, Doom was a phenomenal success, and the venerable Amiga by the time of the game's release was already trapped in its own aged hardware - a dramatic reversal of the two OSes' muscle, with DOS proving after 12 years of being on the market that it reigned supreme over any other, even the best console. Commodore's management and marketing department, meanwhile, since the Amiga's 1985 debut almost consistently shot themselves in the foot with their ineptitude (the Amiga was fully IBM-compatible, which, bizarrely, they seldom ever advertised). Perhaps the Amiga's death was inevitable, but Commodore certainly hastened it and its own, and id Software believed the OS was hopelessly underpowered and refused to port its game there.
In Europe, several small developers attempted to create at least the equal to the DOS classic, but on the Amiga. In short, most of these "Doom-clones" were average or unimpressive, but a few stood out, such as Black Magic Software's Gloom in 1995. It goes without saying that Gloom is a blatantly self-aware attempt at replicating the king of FPS games by rhyming with it not just in title, but in gameplay (even the expression "doom and gloom" is prone to puns), but it was also the first serious attempt to create a good FPS on the Amiga, bested only by Team17's Alien Breed 3D the same year. Other than consciously aiming for low hardware requirements much as id Software did with Doom, the main difference between both games is that, while they are set in a distant future and deal with a single space marine, instead of just demons, Gloom has the player fighting cult-driven sorcerers suspected of illicit activity and putting an end to that activity. It is a novel concept for a shooting game, and here it feels refreshingly original.
Loading up Gloom, we are greeted by an occult-themed logo for Black Magic, followed by a title screen consisting of a truly welcoming and not menacing - you guessed it - demon, accompanied by a catchy tune that sets the mood as it portends what literal inferno awaits. The setup is straightforward: select the keyboard, a joystick, or a CD32 Joypad. As a note, my computer's keyboard would get cranky when I press certain combinations of three buttons at once, and, while this is likely a problem with the Amiga Forever and WinUAE emulators, when holding down the joystick button for sidestepping, my character would get stuck in strafing. No rotating left or right. Therefore, I resorted to using a CD32 Joypad, and after rejiggering my keyboard to behave like one in Amiga Forever, I was ready. Also, be sure to set the "VIOLENCE MODEL" to "MESSY" in the menu; you will appreciate the results, trust me. There is very little story beyond what is in the manual, but we do have well-drawn intermission screens before each level featuring what I presume is my chief, who offers very concise statements, sometimes as valuable tips, for the current level. There are 21 levels divided into seven per episode: the cultist-controlled craft Spacehulk, the Gothic Tomb, and Hell. They are relatively short, but they all have beautiful walls, floors, and ceilings and are structurally molded in ways you would be glad to know deeper into this review. There is no map, but, thankfully, it is unlikely that one would get lost in any of the levels' halls of misery, not for long at least. As a downer, however, the maps are limited to floors and ceilings of the same distance, thus more resembling the archaic Wolfenstein 3D, to the dismay of Amiga zealots looking for something state-of-the-art. At least the levels were fun to play, and the game does what Wolfenstein 3D could not. For one, whole sections of walls may move and even rotate, and power-ups may linger around, such as thermo glasses for seeing enemies through walls and a power-up that upgrades the player's plasma gun's bullets so they reflect off walls once - all very useful stuff allowing for more variety and strategy. For another, wall textures may be animated or translucent and set to change, and the floors and ceilings now also textures. The floor and ceiling textures are the same throughout the level, but we tend to forget that. The game looks gorgeous even on a 68020 processor without expanded memory. Of course, this did mean slowdowns when the action picks up, but if that were too much for people with those computers then (which it was not for me in Amiga Forever), the floor and ceiling textures could be disabled or replaced with solid gray that gets dimmer as it gets farther away from the player.
What about the gameplay, you ask? It's marvelous. Everyone wants to kill Agent Black, the alias of the "Gloom Guy" sent to investigate the cultists' activity for the third and hopefully last time, but all he needs in self-defense is a plasma cannon, which he uses until the end. He begins with a firepower and firing rate of one both, which is less than ideal for settling any dispute, but it will work against the dim-witted cultist warriors early on. Later foes will prove problematic, but dispersed throughout are bouncing orbs to modify the Gloom Guy's gun. Orbs differently colored from the ones he fires will replace his gun's firepower, usually upgrading it, and those of the same color will increase its firing rate by one. In the latter case, if the rate is already five, the gun will fire two orbs in an arc at once for several seconds. Collect many orbs in a short span of time, and it becomes three, so do not squander your opportunity to waste your foes! You will relish the sight of watching your enemies' body parts flying across as you quickly obliterate them, enhanced by using the "MESSY" violence setting in the menu, which lets floors remain littered with your carnage. Even tiny droplets of blood occupy the screen as one progresses, which can be "wiped" off by pausing and unpausing the game if they become annoying. I admit, using an upgraded ammo type changes little about the gameplay beyond making enemies somewhat easier to kill when I am dealing with the same enemies such orbs are the ones I end up upgrading my gun with for a while, but, as I had early on, I can see the upgrade being significant when I push a wall to reveal a secret area containing them. Speaking of secret areas, they will prove helpful. Health items, which sardonically take the form of baby bottles, are sparse and many hidden in these areas. Besides the power-ups such as bouncing bullets, which provide an edge over the enemies as one hides behind walls, rarely, the player may play a fictional game called "Underkill" on a secret cabinet for an extra life. What that game is based on, I will let you find out (hint: it is from the golden age of arcade games). If the player dies, they lose the bouncy bullet power-up, the only non-ammo power-up that is not temporary and lasts one level, and they must reset with a firing rate of one, though they keep their ammo type. Lose all lives, and the player must restart the episode.
One type of enemy, a spirit in the Gothic Tomb, can pass through walls, and I especially like how it appears as if they are awakening out of coffins on the walls, adding a whole new layer of spook. It is rare to see a team of developers attempt a take on a popular work and manage to capture the style and essence of that work. Gloom really is the Doom for Amiga, or rather a little more than Wolfenstein 3D with a Doom look and feel. It is a disappointment to see maps limited to a single-story framework, but the game retains a tongue-in-cheek attitude combined with a sense of difficulty that the enemies, one of which is actually ripped off from Doom, promise to provide the player with. Clearly, the New World Order could have sent along a gunner on the Gloom Guy's side, but they did not, because they new the game would have been boring. Actually, they did. A multiplayer mode exists where the second player can fight alongside the first, either on the same computer, over a serial connection, or a modem (!), which was such an underappreciated piece of hardware in the world of Amiga games at the time, with the ability to chat. Alternatively, the two players can gun each other and try to deplete each other's lives. It is an average mode, but the levels are reasonably small. As evidence that Black Magic sought a high-quality title with an extensive shelf life, the game will accept user-created levels with their own textures and sound effects. As for the things I would change about the game, I would favor room-over-room architecture, mouse support, being able to rotate and strafe at the same time, and add a setting with options better than the rubbish 3×3 pixel mode. Fortunately, an edition of the game called Gloom Deluxe has that setting. Also, just mowing down monsters and advancing can potentially get repetitive, though I have not reached that moment yet despite beating the game once.
VERDICT: I can conclude with endless jokes involving puns about the names of this game and the one it imitates, but Gloom is Doom Jr. On the Amiga. It is smaller, but it's got the wits and atmosphere seldom seen in Amiga games. With Commodore having condemned itself to perdition, nothing, of course, could have raised the Amiga from its grave, but, the flaws notwithstanding, the game was just one of the treats for anyone who held onto their Amiga for as long as possible, granting reprieve to those knowing they would need to switch to Microsoft. May the Amiga rest in peace, indeed, except that the zombie system would see more commercial releases for a few more years.
In Europe, several small developers attempted to create at least the equal to the DOS classic, but on the Amiga. In short, most of these "Doom-clones" were average or unimpressive, but a few stood out, such as Black Magic Software's Gloom in 1995. It goes without saying that Gloom is a blatantly self-aware attempt at replicating the king of FPS games by rhyming with it not just in title, but in gameplay (even the expression "doom and gloom" is prone to puns), but it was also the first serious attempt to create a good FPS on the Amiga, bested only by Team17's Alien Breed 3D the same year. Other than consciously aiming for low hardware requirements much as id Software did with Doom, the main difference between both games is that, while they are set in a distant future and deal with a single space marine, instead of just demons, Gloom has the player fighting cult-driven sorcerers suspected of illicit activity and putting an end to that activity. It is a novel concept for a shooting game, and here it feels refreshingly original.
Loading up Gloom, we are greeted by an occult-themed logo for Black Magic, followed by a title screen consisting of a truly welcoming and not menacing - you guessed it - demon, accompanied by a catchy tune that sets the mood as it portends what literal inferno awaits. The setup is straightforward: select the keyboard, a joystick, or a CD32 Joypad. As a note, my computer's keyboard would get cranky when I press certain combinations of three buttons at once, and, while this is likely a problem with the Amiga Forever and WinUAE emulators, when holding down the joystick button for sidestepping, my character would get stuck in strafing. No rotating left or right. Therefore, I resorted to using a CD32 Joypad, and after rejiggering my keyboard to behave like one in Amiga Forever, I was ready. Also, be sure to set the "VIOLENCE MODEL" to "MESSY" in the menu; you will appreciate the results, trust me. There is very little story beyond what is in the manual, but we do have well-drawn intermission screens before each level featuring what I presume is my chief, who offers very concise statements, sometimes as valuable tips, for the current level. There are 21 levels divided into seven per episode: the cultist-controlled craft Spacehulk, the Gothic Tomb, and Hell. They are relatively short, but they all have beautiful walls, floors, and ceilings and are structurally molded in ways you would be glad to know deeper into this review. There is no map, but, thankfully, it is unlikely that one would get lost in any of the levels' halls of misery, not for long at least. As a downer, however, the maps are limited to floors and ceilings of the same distance, thus more resembling the archaic Wolfenstein 3D, to the dismay of Amiga zealots looking for something state-of-the-art. At least the levels were fun to play, and the game does what Wolfenstein 3D could not. For one, whole sections of walls may move and even rotate, and power-ups may linger around, such as thermo glasses for seeing enemies through walls and a power-up that upgrades the player's plasma gun's bullets so they reflect off walls once - all very useful stuff allowing for more variety and strategy. For another, wall textures may be animated or translucent and set to change, and the floors and ceilings now also textures. The floor and ceiling textures are the same throughout the level, but we tend to forget that. The game looks gorgeous even on a 68020 processor without expanded memory. Of course, this did mean slowdowns when the action picks up, but if that were too much for people with those computers then (which it was not for me in Amiga Forever), the floor and ceiling textures could be disabled or replaced with solid gray that gets dimmer as it gets farther away from the player.
What about the gameplay, you ask? It's marvelous. Everyone wants to kill Agent Black, the alias of the "Gloom Guy" sent to investigate the cultists' activity for the third and hopefully last time, but all he needs in self-defense is a plasma cannon, which he uses until the end. He begins with a firepower and firing rate of one both, which is less than ideal for settling any dispute, but it will work against the dim-witted cultist warriors early on. Later foes will prove problematic, but dispersed throughout are bouncing orbs to modify the Gloom Guy's gun. Orbs differently colored from the ones he fires will replace his gun's firepower, usually upgrading it, and those of the same color will increase its firing rate by one. In the latter case, if the rate is already five, the gun will fire two orbs in an arc at once for several seconds. Collect many orbs in a short span of time, and it becomes three, so do not squander your opportunity to waste your foes! You will relish the sight of watching your enemies' body parts flying across as you quickly obliterate them, enhanced by using the "MESSY" violence setting in the menu, which lets floors remain littered with your carnage. Even tiny droplets of blood occupy the screen as one progresses, which can be "wiped" off by pausing and unpausing the game if they become annoying. I admit, using an upgraded ammo type changes little about the gameplay beyond making enemies somewhat easier to kill when I am dealing with the same enemies such orbs are the ones I end up upgrading my gun with for a while, but, as I had early on, I can see the upgrade being significant when I push a wall to reveal a secret area containing them. Speaking of secret areas, they will prove helpful. Health items, which sardonically take the form of baby bottles, are sparse and many hidden in these areas. Besides the power-ups such as bouncing bullets, which provide an edge over the enemies as one hides behind walls, rarely, the player may play a fictional game called "Underkill" on a secret cabinet for an extra life. What that game is based on, I will let you find out (hint: it is from the golden age of arcade games). If the player dies, they lose the bouncy bullet power-up, the only non-ammo power-up that is not temporary and lasts one level, and they must reset with a firing rate of one, though they keep their ammo type. Lose all lives, and the player must restart the episode.
One type of enemy, a spirit in the Gothic Tomb, can pass through walls, and I especially like how it appears as if they are awakening out of coffins on the walls, adding a whole new layer of spook. It is rare to see a team of developers attempt a take on a popular work and manage to capture the style and essence of that work. Gloom really is the Doom for Amiga, or rather a little more than Wolfenstein 3D with a Doom look and feel. It is a disappointment to see maps limited to a single-story framework, but the game retains a tongue-in-cheek attitude combined with a sense of difficulty that the enemies, one of which is actually ripped off from Doom, promise to provide the player with. Clearly, the New World Order could have sent along a gunner on the Gloom Guy's side, but they did not, because they new the game would have been boring. Actually, they did. A multiplayer mode exists where the second player can fight alongside the first, either on the same computer, over a serial connection, or a modem (!), which was such an underappreciated piece of hardware in the world of Amiga games at the time, with the ability to chat. Alternatively, the two players can gun each other and try to deplete each other's lives. It is an average mode, but the levels are reasonably small. As evidence that Black Magic sought a high-quality title with an extensive shelf life, the game will accept user-created levels with their own textures and sound effects. As for the things I would change about the game, I would favor room-over-room architecture, mouse support, being able to rotate and strafe at the same time, and add a setting with options better than the rubbish 3×3 pixel mode. Fortunately, an edition of the game called Gloom Deluxe has that setting. Also, just mowing down monsters and advancing can potentially get repetitive, though I have not reached that moment yet despite beating the game once.
VERDICT: I can conclude with endless jokes involving puns about the names of this game and the one it imitates, but Gloom is Doom Jr. On the Amiga. It is smaller, but it's got the wits and atmosphere seldom seen in Amiga games. With Commodore having condemned itself to perdition, nothing, of course, could have raised the Amiga from its grave, but, the flaws notwithstanding, the game was just one of the treats for anyone who held onto their Amiga for as long as possible, granting reprieve to those knowing they would need to switch to Microsoft. May the Amiga rest in peace, indeed, except that the zombie system would see more commercial releases for a few more years.
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- FreeMediaKids
- May 28, 2024
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