<html><head><title>Review of AcornDoom</title></head><!--(c) G.C. '98 A.R.R.-->
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<center><h3>Review of AcornDoom</h3></center>
<p>
 I suppose it was more by luck (and some helpful advice in the form of directions) than by anything else that my father and I ended up at the Acorn Southwest Show in the February of '98. As ever when we went to a show, there was no specific reason for going, but we planned to come away with <i>something</i>. On that score, we did more than admirably.
<p>
 For some strange reason, the first time I saw it, my brain didn't quite register the <i>Doom running at 800 x 600</i> message printed on a card stand on top of a monitor, with the accompanying comment about the lack of involvement of a PC card. Thankfully, it did register on the second viewing and I was able to come away with thirty-five pounds worth of (at that time, only) RiscPC AcornDoom.
<p>
<h4>Doom?</h4>
<p>
 In case you've never heard of Doom, it is probably one of the top ten PC games <i>ever</i>. It was the second in the dynasty that made <i>id Software</i> a very large games company indeed. The original game, Wolfenstein 3D, was one of the first 3D walkabouts ever: your character exists in a three dimensional world, in which he or she moves around and, in general, er... shoots things. However, Wolf3D had its graphical defects: there was only one height to the level, all the walls were orthogonal (i.e. were at ninety degrees to each other) and there were no lighting effects. <i>id</i>'s solution to this was Doom: here, you had many different levels, walls were superbly texture-mapped (they had graphics drawn on them), the number and variety of weapons greatly increased, there were more enemies (especially in Doom II) and there were, frankly, spectacular lighting effects, which <b>really</b> come to life in the Acorn version. <i>id</i> made excellent use of the new features to produce ledges, semi-transpent wall panels and a far greater diversity of types of level than could ever have been produced with Wolf3D.
<p>
 The story for Doom involves your character, an ex-marine, having to save Mars and then, in Doom II, Earth, from a whole host of strange alien creatures emerging through inter-dimensional gateways from the other side of the galaxy. The rest of your team dead, you have to make it through eight levels of ferocious fighting, against fireball-throwing imps, possessed humans and beasts from the depths of Hell, until you... No, I won't spoil that bit. After that, there's another twenty-five or so levels to get through, then thirty odd more and twenty after that and then... You're given a whole collection of weapons to choose from (if you can find them), from the simple pistol to rapid-fire, plasma-belching devices to turn whatever is coming toward you and looking less than amiable into a mess on the floor. It's therefore not a huge surprise that the game is suitable only for persons of 15 years and over; neither is the fact that half of my friends have been playing this since they were twelve.
<p>
 The gameplay is very good: the five levels of difficulty give a very good range for both the player's skill and the desired style of game, from an almost passive walk-through to complete and total murderous annihilation; the levels are, in general, well thought-out, fairly complex in places, but without getting too 'mazey' or becoming bogged down in linearity; most of the time (except, perhaps, on the lowest skill level) there's always something going on, unless you decide to retreat to taken territory for a while; the graphics are superb and are very well deployed; the light-sourcing makes for haunting playing, sometimes, and has, on more than one occasion, caused me to jump, adding to the player's immersion into the game, which is probably one of the most important elements of gameplay.
<p>
<h4>The History of AcornDoom...</h4>
<p>
 Around the time that Doom was just starting to come out, Eddie Edwards made the port of Wolf3D to the Acorn RISC machine. I think he hinted that something might be coming out afterwards and, indeed, he was working on porting the newly-released walkabout to our platform but, as is the way in the world, it was scuppered by legalities and, specifically, licence fees. An Acorn port of Doom was never to see the light of day.
<p>
 Wanna bet?
<p>
 So, around four years later, enter Andrew Rawnsley, manager of R-Comp, who produce <i>HTMLEdit</i>. A combination of Eddie Edwards' rejuvenated code and Andrew Rawnsley's skill in legal maneuvering allow R-Comp Interactive to bring you <i>the</i> PC port.
<p>
 I think some people in the PC world are taking some more notice of Andrew Rawnsley, because he's not stopping there: the next in the <i>id</i> 3D series, Quake, has already come, along with another famous game, Syndicate and also Abuse; it doesn't look like they're stopping.
<p>
<h4>Delving into the Depths of Doom...</h4>
<p>
 What you get for your money is the PC package <i>The Depths of Doom</i>, which includes, on three CD ROMs, <i>The Ultimate Doom</i> (that being the original version), <i>Doom II: Hell on Earth</i> and the <i>Master Levels for Doom II</i> CD, which contains twenty levels, produced by third-party Doom level authors and authenticated by the original crew, specifically designed to be as evil as possible, as well as over three thousand levels which have, more or less, just been pulled off the internet. In addition, you get two ADFS discs, one containing the AcornDoom player software and the other containing those <i>Master Levels for Doom II</i> I mentioned above, but here in an Acorn-readable format (using SparkPlug), in order to get around the strange, non-standard way the Master Levels are stored on the CDs.
<p>
AcornDoom will run in four megabytes, but eight is preferable. There is, at the moment, no distibution format other than CD. Although you <i>can</i> run AcornDoom on Archimedes, there is, thoroughly unsurprisingly, only an ARM 3 version.
<p>
 The box the game comes in, which is the same as the PC version, is fairly large, around 30 x 25 x 7 centimetres; opening it up, inside is cardboard construction designed to keep the box in shape (a job which, to be fair, it is very good at), which contains two compartments, holding the Doom manual, the Acorn version release note, the registration card and the envelope containing the three CD ROMs, each of which is contained in its own, envelope-like jacket, with a viewer through to the CDs' designs, so that the entire package would almost fit inside something the size of an A5 sheet of paper. Down to the local DIY store for another shelf unit, then.
<p>
 The Doom manual is quite thorough in both controlling the character and in detailing the different enemies, pickups and other game features available. These days, the back story for Doom and Doom II is fairly standard and almost tacky, but it isn't really important. Most of the front of the manual is taken up with installing the DOS and Windows&#174; 95 software; similarly, most of the back of the manual is taken up with fixing problems in the PC version, generally to do with sound systems. Oh, dear... The Acorn version instructions come on one page of A4: they include installing the software, getting a game started and useful tips on screen resolutions.
<p>
<h4>The Descent...</h4>
<p>
 Hard disc installation is required. However, you are given the choice of how much you want to install. At the very least, you have to install the actual AcornDoom reader software, which is about a meg big. In addition, you can choose to install the <i>Ultimate Doom</i> and Doom II <tt>WAD</tt> files; these contain the actual level data for their respective games. Installation of the Master Levels <tt>WAD</tt> files can also be done from here, as well as a link to the three thousand plus extra levels. The Doom and Doom II <tt>WAD</tt> files are copied to your hard drive from the PC CD originals, with the <i>Ultimate Doom</i> file weighing in at 13 megabytes and the Doom II files at 15. If you want to load any of the three thousand extra <tt>WAD</tt> files, you'll also need to have the <tt>WAD</tt> file from the respective Doom game loaded (some of these extra files are for Doom, but most are for Doom II); similarly, the Master Levels need to be able to get hold of the Doom II <tt>WAD</tt>.
<p>
 It is quite possible to load up your <tt>WAD</tt>s from the CDs, providing you copy the <tt>WAD</tt> files for any additional levels to your hard drive, RAM disc or a floppy first, because you'll need one of the original game CDs in the drive at all times. A defect of loading from CD ROMs is, especially if, like me, you're only blessed with a two-speed CD ROM drive, loading extends from a few seconds to a few minutes; also, unless you have a machine loaded with memory, AcornDoom will need to access the <tt>WAD</tt> from time to time, when it needs to load a new level or graphic, which freezes the game for about half a second to a whole one, which is not the most helpful of things to have happen to your game just when you're trying to save yourself from dying at the hands of some demonic assassin. Indeed, being a bit strapped for hard drive space (I'm currently reading less than four megs), for the purposes of this review, I loaded the <i>Ultimate Doom</i> <tt>WAD</tt> into RAM, from where loading <i>flies</i>. Also, for AcornDoom to recognise your <tt>WAD</tt>, it will need to have the filetype set to <CODE>DoomWAD</CODE> (&16C); because the Doom CDs are DOS formatted, <i>DOSFS</i> will be able to set the type automatically with the <SAMP>DOSMap</SAMP> command, providing that you have <tt>!CDFix</tt> running: this fixes the bug in <i>DOSFS</i> which prevented <SAMP>DOSMap</SAMP>s working on CDs; you can find this inside the <tt>!DoomInst</tt> directory, in <tt>Maximum</tt>; inside the application is a file called <tt>Mappings</tt>, into which you should put all <SAMP>DOSMap</SAMP>s you normally use, as the normal <SAMP>DOSMap</SAMP> command seems to fail once <tt>!CDFix</tt> in installed; for best results, put <tt>!CDFix</tt> in your boot sequence, perhaps inside <tt>!Boot.Choices.Boot.Tasks</tt>.
<p>
 In case you were wondering (and you have a PC card), the versions of <i>The Ultimate Doom</i> and <i>Hell on Earth</i> supplied on the CDs are fully installable; however, if you want to install the Windows&#174; 95 version, you'll need the PC card-compatible <i>DirectX</i> drivers, which allow Win&#174;95 games to redraw their windows in a faster, more memory-efficient way, using the same method as RISC OS has always used. Hmm... Another useful thing on the PC Doom CD is the <i>Doom FAQ</i>, found in <tt>DMFAQ66A/TXT</tt>, <tt>DMFAQ66B/TXT</tt>, <tt>DMFAQ66C/TXT</tt> and <tt>DMFAQ66D/TXT</tt> in the root directory.
<p>
<h4>Prepare to Meet thy Doom...</h4>
<p>
 There are two ways to start an AcornDoom session: double-click on a <tt>WAD</tt> file or double-click on <tt>!DOOM</tt>. This brings up the main AcornDoom Setup window, which gives the name of your main <tt>WAD</tt> (either the original Doom or the Doom II <tt>WAD</tt> file) and of any additional <tt>WAD</tt> level files you choose to load; the window also has buttons to bring up the screen resolution configuration and network mode setup. A slight niggle here would be that the author has been working in a desktop outline font while designing the software and, if you're running in system font, some of the text does not fit in the space provided. From an option on the menu, you can reconfigure both the functions of the mouse and the keys to your tastes.
<p>
 At the moment, network support is not included for AcornDoom, although RCI has promised to make the network drivers available from their site, which is all very well for people with internet access, but not for the rest of us.
<p>
 A nice feature of AcornDoom to show off to your PC friends is the desktop play mode. Either by setting so in the AcornDoom configuration or by pressing F12 when in full-screen mode, the game drops into a standard RISC OS window and you can play from there. You can change the scale factor of the AcornDoom window, get the AcornDoom info box or quit.
<p>
<img src="../../Images/ManMouse" width=247 height=146>
<p>
 There are a few prices to pay, however. Clearly, playing in the desktop is going to make the game more sluggish, but the effect isn't as bad as you might think. One clear problem is the inability to specify AcornDoom as the target for any keypresses you make, so, as you play the game in the desktop, the keys you press also affect the other desktop tasks and, similarly, is is quite possible to accidentally quit AcornDoom by a series of wrong keypress in Edit while AcornDoom is going in the background. Another point to note is, due to AcornDoom's use of a different palette in 256 colour modes to RISC OS, a 256 colour AcornDoom game running in a 256 colour desktop may not display colours quite right, so that a thirty-two thousand colour mode is sometimes necessary. Furthermore, although you can change the zoom factor on the AcornDoom window, using adjust on the arrows does not cause them to operate in the opposite direction.
<p>
 RiscPC AcornDoom also allows you to configure your screen resolution: you can stick with the normal 320 by 240 screen, but the game is <i>much</i> improved by throwing the engine into 800 x 600, 640 x 480, or even 480 x 352: distant objects become visible far more quickly and foreground objects snap into sharp focus; in a game like Doom, the ability to see the approaching enemy just a few seconds earlier is much appreciated. Along the same lines, Eddie Edwards has given AcornDoom 24-bit colour mode support: banded lines of grey across ceilings turn into smoothly changing colours; in particular, shades of red fading off into the distance often turn grey, a problem fixed with 16.7 million colours. The effect, especially if combined with a bigger mode, is quite something.
<p>
 However, there are a few limitations. You won't be able to run very large modes with 24-bit colour without the game dropping back into the desktop, because of the maximum 2 megs of VRAM in the Risc PC. Most computer games do something known as <i>screen banking</i>: it is possible to arrange that the game is drawing one frame while you are looking at the previous one and, when the new frame is finished, the monitor is reset to read from that last frame, while the game draws on the next one. If this wasn't done, the monitor might display the new frame in the top half of the screen and the old one in the bottom! This sort of <i>tearing</i> makes a game flicker and so is very bad news; this is the same reason why computer monitors filmed for television appear to flicker and have a line running across the middle of them. Because the monitor is going to be reading from one frame while another is being written to, the computer needs to have enough VRAM available to store the screen size twice over: AcornDoom usually uses three! A screen of size 640 x 480 x 16.7M, while two <i>screen banks</i> are being used, would take up about 2.3 megabytes, which is more than any RiscPC can handle. 480 x 352 x 16.7M, when using the normal three screen banks, just about fits in on a machine with 2 megabytes of VRAM. Machines with only 1 megabyte of VRAM can display in normal 320 x 240 resolution in 24-bit colour, or in 800 x 600 x 256 colours, but only with two banks, which makes the game slightly slower. Should you not have the memory to display your chosen resolution in full-screen mode, the game will start up and stay in the desktop. Another problem is that, if you boot the game up in a 24-bit colour mode and you intend to play, at some point, in the desktop, make sure your desktop is in 16.7 million colours too, otherwise you'll just get a grey window, whether you later change your desktop mode or not.
<p>
 Once you have configured your settings and clicked on the <i>DOOM</i> button, the game code starts up, with a multi-tasking loader and accompanying threats of death in an enumerable variety of forms. A graphical display, in the form of a filling bar, is provided to show how far through the loading process the game is.
<p>
 Even though the loader is multi-tasking, don't be tempted to make use of the feature: anything more than moving the mouse around and possibly moving a window as the task loads causes AcornDoom to crash as it finishes loading. In fact, sometimes it crashes even if you don't, although performing actions certainly does make it almost inevitable. AcornDoom has also been known to crash at some random interval during the game, although this is far, far less common. Most of this can probably be put down to the C compiler used: although it <i>is</i> <i>Acorn Desktop C/C++</i>, it's an alpha release, which means its very early and likely to contain a whole host of bugs which were plucked from the final version.
<p>
<h4>Anyone Home?</h4>
<p>
 If you have an early RiscPC and load up AcornDoom expecting growling and snarling sounds from your vicinity, you might be a little disappointed by the actuality, which could be quiet clicking sounds. AcornDoom currently requires a 16-but sound system to output the game's sound; RiscPC 700s have this as standard, but earlier RiscPC 600s, which have not had their sound system upgraded to a 16-bit version (you'll know if you have; or, at least, your bank balance will), do not have the required hardware, and a crackle from the sound system could either be a door closing or the Cyberdemon launching a missile into you from behind. However, R-Comp Interactive are close to fixing this problem.
<p>
 In a similar vein, the music is stored in MIDI format, so you'll need either MIDI hardware or software to hear it. However, the music is far less important than the sound: playing Wolfenstein 3D, I found that the sound made it much easier to detect where the soldiers were coming from and also how far away they were, but I regularly play Wolf3D with the music off. In general, I just fire up Digital Symphony and play something in the background or put in a CD. Except for the CD, which is independent of the computer's sound system, it is important to load <tt>!DOOM</tt> before loading up the music player or, more specifically, it is important to load the <tt>DOOMSupp</tt>(ort) module; it is this module which controls AcornDoom's sound system and, if this is loaded after your player, the AcornDoom sounds will override anything under it.
<p>
<h4>The Power to Play?</h4>
<p>
 When purchasing AcornDoom, I was concerned that my lowly ARM 610 would be too slow to play AcornDoom on; one popular Acorn magazine said just this. However, after a talk with one of the people manning the R-Comp table, who I later discovered to be Andrew Rawnsley himself, I decided that the speed wouldn't be too much of a problem and I don't think either of us were wrong. Sure, I won't really be able to <i>play</i> the game in anything other than 320 by 240, I wouldn't show it to my P233 MMX-owning friends and some levels really do crawl but, most of the time, the engine does between seven and ten frames per second, which, at the lowest end, is perfectly fine and, at the upper end, is comfortable; sometimes, a low frame rate has actually been an advantage.
<p>
 Anyone playing on a StrongARM at twenty (or so) frames per second will probably have a difficult time on my machine, but I'm accustomed to that sort of speed. On the other hand, my 2 megabytes of VRAM will give a substantial speed boost but, even if I didn't have that, I'd still be able to play the game: I've played AcornDoom with the cache off for a while and been able to get used to that. The point is that, unless your machine is <i>very</i> slow, you'll manage. The fact that there is an ARM 3 version just goes to show that it is possible to play on those machines.
<p>
 Something quite remarkable that came out of my speed tests in AcornDoom was that 24-bit colour is such a small drain on processing power as to be unnoticable as I played!
<p>
<h4>Caught by the Wolf...</h4>
<p>
 Finally, a word for those of you who'd like to play AcornDoom, but don't have a RiscPC or an ARM 3: if you don't already have it, get Wolfenstein 3D; it may not have the graphical and technical excellence of AcornDoom (or its weapons' keyboard autorepeat), but the theory's all the same and it's still a pretty good game. Most everything I've said here about AcornDoom's gameplay I can apply to Wolf3D; even though I'm now Doom-equipped, I am still known to boot up Wolf3D from time to time. It's also <i>extraordinarily</i> cheap these days.
<p>
<h4>Conclusions...</h4>
<p>
 The final verdict? If you're a fan of 3D walkabouts and if you have the hardware, get this game! There are so many levels to choose from and the game has been so well put together, it's almost a must, especially for the price its being sold at. All my complaints have been little quibbles I have to include because I can't be <i>totally</i> nice and, indeed, many of them may have been fixed by the time you read this. At a time when everyone thought that an Acorn Doom game would never come about, R-Comp Interactive have sprung this on us in the first of a series of PC conversions.
<p>
Name: AcornDoom<br>
Authors: John Carmack, John Romero and Dave Taylor<br>
Port: Eddie Edwards, with Andrew Rawnsley<br>
Status: Commercial, price 35<br>
Availability: R-Comp Interactive<br>
<p>
Name: Wolfenstein 3D<br>
Authors: John Carmack and John Romero<br>
Port: Eddie Edwards, with Daniel Simms<br>
Status: Commercial, price (on the 100th <a href="../Paper">Risc User</a> disc) 5.85 (for those who get <a href="../Paper">Risc User</a>) or 10 (for the rest of you)<br>
Availability: Beebug<br>
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