![]() We met so we could talk about Midway working on ports of Doom. They had an office probably halfway to Houston, two hours down highway 45. Jay Wilbur and I drove down highway 45 on the way to Houston. But Midway was known as a quality company back then. Other companies that worked on Doom ports, we didn't know them that well. John Romero: Midway had been around for decades. What was id's level of involvement with this port relative to the others, and why was it such a different type of port-still Doom, but more its own thing? John Romero at the 2018 Videogame Executive Forum. It's missing some geometry and levels, but it adds so much: new levels, new lighting, new audio. The versions on SNES, Jaguar, and 32X were missing bits and pieces here and there, but they were still Doom. Craddock: The interesting thing about Doom ports, for me, is that they were faithful to the original game. Romero set aside time to talk with me about multiple ports of Doom, as well as a wild three-week period spent converting Wolfenstein 3D to the Super Nintendo.ĭavid L. After Doom's release in December 1993, John Romero turned his attention to scouting for opportunities to collaborate on external projects related to id's games, namely strategy guides and ports. The studio started small and remained small through development of Commander Keen, Wolfenstein 3D, and Doom. It was a great fighting game, developed in an innovative way to maximize the system's capabilities of the time.Working at id Software in the 1990s was like working inside a bunker, only with more pizza, soda, and video games. So the Sega version doesn't have the full complement of sounds as originally envisioned.īut as for the game itself, there wasn't much to complain about. Because of the extra expense of the extra chip, some sounds had to be removed (the sounds were contained on a chip). Sega wouldn't approve it with the breakup, so a DSP chip had to be added to circumvent the problem. you gotta PLAY Ballz" which effectively washed out the punch of the line.Īnother strike against this game was the Sega version contained too much sprite breakup. The intro sequence to the game had a great double-entendre: "To be the champion, you gotta have Ballz!" Nintendo demanded that the wording be changed to ". Even some adds with eye-catching phrases ("Tell your mom you want Ballz for Christmas.") failed to convey what kind of game it was, or why anyone would want it. Everyone figured it was some kind of Tetris clone. The cover just had a bunch of balls on it. Accolade never figured out how to properly convey that Ballz was a fighting game. Unfortunately, this game bombed due to botched marketing. Unfortunately, for the Sega version, some had to be removed (see below).Īfter playing this game for a few seconds, you forgot that your character was just a bunch of spheres, but saw them as individuals, their whole much greater than the sum of their parts. Each character had its own set of sound effects, which gave them even more personality. And of course, defeating an opponent would have them burst apart into their constituent spheres: much more creative than simply having the opponent fall to the ground at one's feet.Īlso the sound effects added a lot to this game. The chimp could hang from invisible monkey bars, the ballerina could deliver a graceful and artistic "smackey". Like many fighting games today, each character had its own set of special moves (that were given in the game manual). The only way to really understand what made the game so great was to actually play it.Įveryone in QA loved playing this game. ![]() Unfortunately, it was impossible to convey the way they moved and the accompanying sounds in still images or in print. Even though the characters in this game were composed of merely spheres, they each had a distinct personality. I actually worked for Accolade when they were in the process of publishing it (I was in QA at the time, a game tester).
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