Reviews// Doom RPG (Mobile)

Cellphone games are, by and large, crap. Not every single one of them, but an alarmingly high percentage of them. The contributing factors to this trend are many - the tiny file sizes, awkward screen shapes, lack of multiple button presses, the fact that phones are made to call people and not play games on, and many more. But far and away the most obvious reason why most of them stink on ice, is because - god bless ‘em - developers are so used to making the same games over and over again on other 'systems' that they have absolutely no idea what to do with a cellphone.

That is where John 'I make systems do shit you didn’t think they could' Carmack comes in. Around a year or so ago, Mr. Carmack decided he wanted to try his very highly regarded programming hand at a new medium. Something to challenge him, and, at the moment, there is no medium more challenging than cellphone games. When the highest rated games on a platform invariably involve a pack of cards, then you know an uphill battle is in store. So rather than trying to squeeze a full-size game onto a teeny tiny platform, Carmack and his team of crack coding elves over at id Software decided to really figure out how to best tackle the system.

For those who don’t know, cellular devices provide a series of conundrums for developers. Firstly they are generally no more than 400k in total size, making them relative in size to some NES games (which in case you aren’t aware, are not known for their length of play-time). Graphically however, cellphones are capable of displaying graphics on a par with the best of the 16Bit generation. Meaning you either get games that are very underwhelming graphics-wise or painfully repetitive. Then there is of course the inclination to make somewhat 'action-y' games that can be played in quick spurts, as the system is usually used very briefly during commuting or while erm, 'dropping the kids off at the pool'. Heh. However, the complete inability to press more than one button at a time renders split second timing and fast action nearly impossible.

Okay, enough set up, what about this game? Well, to be honest, it’s bloody great, as they say in England. No really, I know there’s a lot of set up above to convince you otherwise, but it just makes it all that much more impressive. DOOM RPG, while sounding absolutely absurd, is a rather genius and elegant solution to all of cellular gaming’s problems.

The game is presented in the classic first person perspective, practically invented by id (if you ask them or any of the millions of DOOM fans worldwide). The famous status bar appears at the bottom, marines face in tow, and your current weapon/item of choice is front and centre. And while you might be expecting a super old school 'Shining in the Darkness' style (each step you take is one space on a grid and one frame of animation) the game actually does a startlingly good job of replicating the 'Mode7' style scaling of the original DOOM games. However, knowing that the arrow keys are in no way a replacement for the mouse and WASD keys, the game does confine you to grid-based movement. Imagine those old PC corridor crawlers mixed with the DOOM engine for animation, and you’ll have a pretty good idea of what is on offer.

While we're on the topic of graphics - since they are one of the outstanding features of the game - the enemies are relatively well done, and appear to be lifted directly from the original DOOM code. While they only consist of two frames of animation, one static and one for attacking, they do look good, and seeing them move around in a three-dimensional space is pretty sweet when compared to most other cell phone offerings.

Also, a nice blood spray animation is used whenever you strike one of the nearly 40 enemies and each weapon has its own effect. From the shotgun's hard blasts to the plasma rifle's glowing green spheres, all your old favorites are here and faithfully recreated in miniature form: all except the chainsaw, which is sadly missing, but probably wouldn’t have worked out quite so well in the turn-based combat.

That’s right - turn-based combat. Basically, if you are facing an enemy and holding a weapon that will reach them (obviously an axe wont work for long range attacks) you click the action button (OK button or #5) and the game calculates - based on your stats, the weapons, and the enemies stats - if you hit it and how much damage you did and vice-versa. The only weakness to this system is that you have no way of knowing how much damage each creature can take. While this can be frustrating at some points (should I use a health pack or take one last shot and hope he goes down? Use the health pack!) it does help keep the feel of the original games a little more intact.