PS1 Doom Has Been Backported To PC, Along With Its Amazing Soundtrack

Best version of the game for me. Love that soundscape that takes the atmosphere to the next level.

@Sketcz Slightly funny story, but because I had an import PS1 I had to use the CD swap trick to play Doom on it. This would mess up which music tracks it used, which meant the levels would use the heavy metal tracks that were supposed to play on the map screens between levels and those map screens would get the atmospheric tracks.

I do agree Doom works well with aggressive music and the game playing those wrong tracks actually fit the game really well! I wonder if it's possible to switch the tracks around in this port... 😉

Isn't Psydoom a few Years old :>?

@Sketcz You’re not alone! I know of two others who prefer Prince’s soundtrack besides myself. Prince’s opening track, which sounds like some badass 80s metal riff, is indeed potent in its ability to induce the desire to kick demon butt.
Though, i must confess, i haven’t given the 32bit music much of a chance.
I enjoy your comparison!
Also, the phrase, “chainsaw enema”, kinda makes one squirm, yeah? haha i like it

@Sketcz I think you're probably in the majority. I only knew the PC versions of Doom 1 & 2 and was a bit surprised when I found out they changed the music. As a metal head I appreciate the original soundtrack but I also kinda like the ambient stuff. The title screen music is pretty badass imo...

https://youtu.be/atdyHvLhJXo?si=jZ7tfSmy3tA-Mv-W

...but not nearly as memorable as the Metallica and Slayer riffs that were in the PC version.

@Sketcz Yeah, the change in the music is unexpected and it's definitely not to my taste. I wonder if they were following some trends of the time. Even Doom 2 on PC started to go toward more atmospheric music compared to the first game. That might have had an influence. I also wonder if it might have been easier. For 2D platformers and shooters, short music loops were acceptable. As the scope of games got bigger with 3D(faked or real), short loops didn't work as well. For Doom, the musical pieces were more complex and the loops had to be longer, so maybe atmospheric sound was easier. In this case, they wouldn't have to compose new music as much as do new arrangements, so it might not apply — certainly not as much — but that goes back to my initial point about trends at the time.

I looked into Doom 2's soundtrack before posting and it's surprising how different it is. I did detect at least two references to Alice in Chains songs, but the energy level of the soundtrack is toned down from the first game.

@Sketcz I'm pretty sure the vast majority of Doom fans prefer the original PC version's music. Athough that's not saying the PS1 version's music is bad, as it conveys an atmosphere of horror and dread as opposed to the original's "rip and tear", and suits as a decent remix of the original game.

Speaking of which, the 3DO version actually has live instrumentals, which only came about because the CEO of the porting company was absolutely clueless about game design. He also thought you could easily port Doom to a new platform by purchasing a retail copy of the PC version of Doom, and add new monsters and weapons using a paint program.

https://youtu.be/AjEx292Ph8M

@Sketcz I guess it comes down to what you're looking for, or, more precisely, listening for.

I'm not listening for some '90s heavy metal music track, but a soundscape that actually enhances Doom as a hellish fps game, that properly draws me in, and that creates a genuine sense of tension, discomfort and fear. I'm after a total immersion into that world and a more scary and tense experience, not some head banging moshing while I try to score kudos points for how creatively I can kill things. And I also don't rush through it like I'm just trying to get on some leaderboard or something.

Not that I don't like heavy metal (love me some Enter Sandman), and not that I don't think the original Doom tunes sound great for what they are either--I wouldn't have a single complaint if in some alternate universe the Aubrey Hodges version had never existed so there was only the original music and that's all I ever knew--but they're not even remotely as well matched to a game called Doom that's about all the terrifying forces of Hell ascending upon mankind with you as the only person there to try and stop them all on your own alone, as the Aubrey Hodges soundscape in my personal opinion. Unless that's not how you see the game at all.

Many people play Doom almost like a speedrunning or achievement/trophy exercise, where it's about trying to look cool and badass or whatever as they rush through it while never even stopping to smell the roses, even more so with the modern Doom games that lean way more into this style of play, and I have no doubt some fast-paced heavy metal soundtrack fits that kind of mentality more.

And, of course, the heavy metal soundtrack is the original, so most people are going to pick it because it's the original and it's not Doom without it to them. Which also rings true if you're in your late teens or whatever and the first Doom game you played was also Doom [2016].

But, to me, the original Doom soundtrack is very energetic and high intensity and quite obviously "gamey", whereas the Aubrey Hodges soundtrack is something I could genuinely believe the likes of Ridley Scott or Stanley Kubrick might have picked if they'd made a Doom movie back in the day. In video game land it's basically the Contra approach vs the Super Metroid approach in terms of audio. And I know what I'd personally pick every single time.

And, I mean, watch older footage of someone just playing the game naturally without any modern Internet mindset of how it's supposed to be played:

https://youtu.be/K0nlO87evhY?si=WF3CbwQuT33bkBQ4&t=30

They're not speedrunning, they're not "ripping and tearing", and, despite the music being more heavy metal and high energy in the original there, the way they are playing is very deliberate, considered and nuanced. In fact, they're playing in a way that seems to line up more with a Doom game like this imo:

https://youtu.be/A9xVaHDaQ30?si=E8nhjFHnKqeVKRfz&t=97

And that's exactly how I personally played it back in the day too. Of course, I played the PSX version first, so go figure.

And, remember, when the original DOS version of Doom first released, it didn't come with WASD + mouse control as the default. In fact, I'm not even sure that was an option at all originally. So, I question how many people way back in the days of the original game that started it all were actually zipping their way through it like possessed bats out of Hell using entirely keyboard controls, and, as I recall, clunky ones at that, even though the original music sounds like it would be more suited to that kind of play.

It's also interesting that when Quake rolled around, id and Trent Reznor didn't stick with the more high intensity, high action music approach, but went with something far more similar to that Aubrey Hodges ambient and atmospheric soundtrack there too:

https://youtu.be/dPQO03UmicE?si=GfPoSaF0M3hlmaKW&t=157

So, I go back to saying I guess it comes down to what you're looking for, or, more precisely, listening for.

Each to their own.

PS. I wonder how both versions would fair if experienced in VR, where total immersion and a sense of very real presence is key there.... I mean, I guess you could just pretend you were listening to some kickass Iron Maiden or Pantera on your Sony Walkman while killing the hordes of demons, kinda like the modern Guardians of the Galaxy movie action scene approach, but I know what approach I would prefer by a million miles. I'm more Alien Isolation VR and Half-Life: Alyx style all the way.

@Sketcz I get that the tracks aren't for you, but there's probably another way to write what you did in a more positive frame of mind. This is very subjective for all of us. I'm just happy we have multiple ways to play the game in 2024.

@RetroGames Er, that "older footage" is only from 2010.

Aside from that, as a total n00b at Doom, I can appreciate where you're coming from! Jumping in for a first playthrough a few years back, I had to tread carefully, looking around for keys and traps, and using resources and the level layouts to my advantage in combat. In terms of later FPSes, I'd put my Doom experience more in Goldeneye territory, as opposed to Call of Duty. Someone who grew up with the game might see it differently, though!

Later games (including Doom II) might amp up the "rip and tear", but the first one does a good job of balancing the tension of navigating creepy environments and being ambushed by powerful enemy forces- and I think the soundtrack generally fits well, with the metal tracks showing up more often in simple, combat-oriented levels, and the more spooky, atmospheric stuff accompanying exploration.

Haven't played the PlayStation version of Doom 1, but Doom 64 similarly tips things further in that horror/exploration direction, and both the atmospheric soundtrack and coloured lighting work in tandem to enhance this. But you probably won't find me humming the soundtrack afterwards!

Not sure how many of you know this but Aubrey Hodges, the person behind the soundtrack to the excellent PS1 Doom, also did the soundtrack to Doom 64. That's why many of the sounds and "music" tracks are the same.

@smoreon "Er, that "older footage" is only from 2010."

True, but 14 years is eons in the Internet age, and I think just on the cusp of when everyone started letting the Internet tell them what they're supposed to think and how they're supposed to act. So my main point there was just to demonstrate how I think most people actually played classic Doom before them younger folks and Doom [2016] apparently corrected us all that Doom is about going all hell for leather at all times, focussing on racking up kudos and presumably a bunch of achievements/trophies, and little more.

Yeah, you wouldn't want to be humming the tunes from PSX Doom and Doom 64. One of the tracks [or more] has the sounds of babies crying. Creepy stuff.

@Sketcz Yeah that’s the method that mixes the tracks up, because it scans the TOC of the first disc and then assumes it’s still that disc loaded after you’ve swapped them.

I got my console modded eventually too, but for quite a while I was whipping the disc out while it was still spinning as if you got the timing right it would load the correct TOC for the disc. Can you believe the CD drive eventually broke in my PS1? 😂

@RetroGames Yeah, I'd agree that there have been some cultural changes (including the internet's role in our lives) since around 2010, but things like YouTube, online gaming, gaming discussion, and social media were alive and well even before then. Doesn't the very existence of these videos on a major gaming channel make that self-evident? (I don't know, I suppose this could vary depending on perspective and age. But 2010 wasn't that long ago!)

Good point about Doom 2016: until that, the last entry was what, Doom 3? That was definitely not a "rip and tear", speedy, action shooter! (The more action-heavy "BFG Edition" didn't exist back in 2010, either!)