[General Topics] Menneisyys:
Ever wanted to play id Software’s evergreen title, Doom, on your 3D accelerated (currently, two models are capable of this: the Dell Axim x50v and x51v; but, in the near future, the O2 Flame will also have 3D support) Pocket PC? Now you can!

I’ve often elaborated (see for example this) on the forthcoming Doom clone DoomGLES. Fortunately, the author works really quick and has just released a playable alpha version.

Compatibility

Currently, it’s only compatible with WM5-upgraded Dell Axim x50v and x51v. It will NOT run on WM2003SE-based x50v’s. I’ve tested the title on a freshly hard reset x51v with the A12 ROM.

Installation

If you don’t have a real Doom around, you need to do the following:

create a subdirectory (it can be named anything - not necessarily “Doom”) on your storage card (you’d be better using a fast, well-optimized card because you will end up having to copy numerous files on it, which can take ages with non-optimized ones. Please see this article for more information on all this.)

download this file and decompress its contents into the Doom home directory on your card

download this file and decompress its content, doom1.wad, to the Doom directory

download this file and decompress its content, a subdirectory named OpenGLES, into the Doom directory. Make sure you don’t step into the subdirectory when copying stuff – that is, there must exist an OpenGLES directory inside your Doom home directory

If you do have the commercial version of Doom, instead of following bullet 3 and 4 (you will still need the contents of the ZIP file linked in bullet 2 in a directory), you will need to copy the doom.wad file to the main Doom directory of your storage card and extract the contents of this file to there.

Visuals

They are the same as with DoomGL and are, as far as resolution and lighting effects are concerned, way better than the original Doom you may have played back in 1993 (see for example the screenshots here to see how it looked like).

The speed of the game is extremely good – the animation has never become jerky.

Map

The map is also accessible (via the Home button by default).

Sounds

Unfortunately, there’s no music support, which is a pity because Doom had excellent music. Back in 1993, it was a treat to listen to the music on my, then, high-end Gravis Ultrasound (Classic) sound card.

As far as sounds are concerned, they are, as they should be, fully stereo. That is, you can hear the direction of an enemy.

Controls

There aren’t problems in this department either. You control the movement with the D-pad and the stylus as in most other Pocket PC FPS games; use the Action button to fire, the Messaging button to bring up the menu, the Contacts button to activate a door / switch etc.

You can redefine all these controls in the configuration file doomgles.cfg. It’s, fortunately, well-explained in the readme file; you must directly enter key codes in the file, which can’t cause you problems if you’ve already read my related articles on how the Windows Mobile operating system handles keycodes.

Problems

Unfortunately, the shareware version played on the A12 x51v just crashes on Level 2 when, behind the red door, after switching on the hidden switch in the room filled with poison, you use the lift packed with health packs to go down to the room full of enemies. I’ve tested this two times and I’ve run into the crash exactly at this position.

I don’t know whether the commercial version WAD file is also affected by this problem.

The future?

There will be implemented a lot of stuff; for example, multiplayer support, which is great given that, currently, there are no 3D accelerator-optimized FPS games with multiplayer capabilities. It's only the forthcoming Call of Duty 2 that is supposed to receive multiplayer support.

Verdict

Go give it a try if you’re a Doom freak and have an x51v or an WM5-upgraded x50v; you’ll like it!

Recommended links

Don’t forget to check out my other game reviews here. I also recommend the game reviews in the Smartphone & Pocket PC Magazine's Expert Blog by Ben Stanley, Al Harrington and Eric Pankoke.