You know, i have heard a lot of good/bad things about doom on this 
group, and now that i finally have had a copy, i would like to try to give
a little better recommendation on whether to buy it or not.

First, yes, i have doom for the PC. I have played the whole thing thru on
the PC, not to mention i have gotten thru about 100 different wads found
on the Net. 

Second, i used to be a pretty good doom player, deathmatch-wise. My roomate
proclaims to be one of the best on the Internet (and he should be, the number
of people he has beaten across the country in the past year.) He and i have
discussed what we both think of doom, and i think we and i can offer a
better review than all the technical jargon you hear about the game.

Ok, so here it goes:

Doom for the PSX is better than i expected, overall. Let's first talk about
the good things:

1)The music and sound has improved for the most part. As people have said,
there is nothing like turning off all the lights and cranking the stereo
up to really get into this game. On a TV, the larger screen allows a
player to get into it a lot more than with a monitor. Personally, i have a
27", so it really can make me jump. 

2) It is harder than the original. This may be b/c i am not used to the
joypad, but moreover, veteran doom players will notice some of the bonuses 
have been taken out, such as some of the invisibles, super-health
power-ups, etc. (Experienced players will be a bit surprised with what
they find (or what they don't find,) in the dark room in E1M5. I hope they
don't make the same mistake i made. =) But it also seems to me that there
are more monsters in certain parts of levels too. maybe i haven't gone
thru doom on the PC recently, but it sure seems that way. 

3) This doom *IS* darker. i can't tell you how much of a difference this
makes. rooms that have pulsating lights don't come back on as quickly as
in the PC. And with no gamma corrction, you are just screwed. 

To be honest, this doom kinda reminds me of the Alien-Doom wad that someone
on the Net came up with for the PC. It's downright eerie, and hearing in
the backround the screams of the monsters can really get to you. And it
seems to me the game runs in pro-logic mode, or at least surround, b/c i
can hear the monsters coming up on me thru my rears on my stereo. 

But there are some downsides:

1) Missing parts of levels. It seems that Williams took the easy way out
on a lot of stuff. For example, some of the maze in E1M6 has been taken
out. Also, on E1M6, they make getting the Red key too easy. On the PC, you
had to go into a giant room, and when you grabbed the key, the walls a
thru the room opened up, making it a little challenging to get out of
there. All of that is gone, which really upset me. Also, they have taken
the height out of the game too. a lot of levels that had stairs in parts
have been converted into ordinary corridors. And towers and high walkways
now are an easy jump down. I am not sure if Williams did the latter for
more realism, but i am not too thrilled with it. I know there is a level
in Doom II that is just a huge, abandoned city, and if it has been reduced
to 2 level houses, i will be very angry. 

2)It is graphically inferior tothe PC. Although it runs a bit faster than
most PCs (with the exception of Pentium 100s), the detail is lost. some of
it was mentioned in the last comment, but a lot of it was in the textures
of the walls, the computers that used to everywhere are gone. Also, some
of the walls have been altered. The PC doom has a futuristic look to it,
(which should be expected since you are in space, technically,) but this
doom is more dungeon-like. this is really a minor point, but one that has
kind of bothered me. But regardless of all the technical mumbo-jumbo you
hear, it doesn't look as nice on the PSX as it does on a PC.

Some other points:

1)Controller: I have heard a lot on this too. I have 2 things to say on
this: (1) if you are a keyboarder, andyou think the PSX doom controls
suck, you might want to try it again. Keyboard is soooo damn slow. Period.
You should not be complaining about the controls. (2) If you are a mouser,
well, then it is harder. Like i have heard before, if you don't use the
mouse, you are not a real doom player for the PC. The mouse/keyboard
control is by far the superior setup to play doom by. So, as a mouser, what
do i have to say about the pad? Personally, i don't have as big a
complaint as some mousers might. It really acts as a mix between the mouse
and keyboard. To be honest, this was the only thing holding me back
initally from getting Doom for the PSX.  But i can say that the pad is
more than acceptible compared to the keyboard. And the more you practice,
the better you will get. My roomate has only been playing it for a few
days, and he already is able to spin around and make a lot of remarkable
shots. He also has gotten pretty good with the strafe/run technique, so i
know that being a fast player is very possible. As to whether he is going
to be as fast with the pad as with a mouse, i don't know, but it looks close.

So, with all this in mind, i would have to recommend this game. For me, doom
got boring a long time ago, but playing it on the playstation has
revitalized my interest in it. I guess the best way to decide whether you
should get this or not would depend on how much you play the PC doom. If
you play PC doom a lot, you probably won't enjoy this version as much.
However, if your PC doom has gotten lost somewhere on your one gigabyte
hard drive, i would check this game out. And if you have never played Doom
before, or don;t own a computer, i would highly recommend this. 

well, that is just what i think. i did have more to say about this, but i 
am late now for a meeting. if you have any questions, email me at

jtjacobs@mtu.edu

jared