Graphics

Not bad for 240x160

As mentioned on the first page sidebar, the native resolution of the Gameboy Advance is 240x160. That’s quite a bit smaller than the 320x200 you were used to playing on the PC version (only 60% as many pixels). Surprisingly enough, the developers were able to shrink down everything, including the toolbar with your health and ammo meters, and keep everything legible and relatively easy to read. The game does come off looking somewhat pixellated, but veterans of the original Doom will be able to recognize all items and enemies quite easily. There’s even an option to have dynamic lighting in the game, which will maintain the dark shadows, flickering lights, and creepy corridors that added so greatly to the original’s atmosphere. My only complaint about the low resolution is that enemies in the distance are rather difficult to pick out. You might only have a couple of moving pixels to alert you that a doomed marine way out in the distance is taking potshots at you, or that one of the dog-like pink demons is making a hard charge at you.

BOOM

A pair of Barons

Run!

Spare me a light, sir?

The most difficult part about playing Doom is dealing with the poorly designed screen of the Gameboy Advance. As you may already know, the screen isn’t lit internally – you rely on the reflective properties of the screen to get enough light to your eyes so that you can see what’s going on. The problem, as is well documented on a number of different sites, is that the protective plastic covering on the screen is highly reflective as well, creating a perfect environment for glare. To play effectively, you need a non-direct source of light (overhead fluorescents are the worst), and to tilt the screen at an angle such that it’s lit, but not reflecting or glaring light back over top of the viewable area.

Keep shooting

Getting closer

BZZZZ!!!

Dealing with all of these limitations with a turn-based game like Advance Wars is one thing. Having to deal with it while playing a fast paced game like Doom is something else entirely. In order to combat the problem, the developers thoughtfully included a brightness adjuster, which can basically gamma correct the screen to help with visibility. Even with this adjustment cranked up, it can still be difficult to view all of the action in all but the most perfect lighting conditions. Changing the option from Dynamic to Static lighting can also help matters, but this takes away from the game’s atmosphere, and doesn’t represent a real solution. Overall, the poor implementation of the screen hurts Doom GBA’s value a good deal, but hopefully enterprising folks like the ones at Portable Monopoly can give GBA fans a permanent solution to the visibility woes.

Framerate

Getting back to the game itself, one other notable issue is framerate. For most of the game this isn’t an issue at all. Doom GBA runs smoothly, and as Kenn said “better than my 486 used to run it.” There are certain occasions when lots of enemies (over a dozen) are on screen where you’ll see notable chunking. But this doesn’t happen often enough to affect the gameplay a lot until the later levels. The developers did a superb job at shrinking things down to accommodate the GBA hardware.