Doom 64 Playthrough (Actual N64 Capture) - Staging Area

[Note: This video and description were originally posted on Youtube on October 1, 2018.]

This is part 1 of my 100% playthrough of Doom 64 on the Nintendo 64. This is not an emulator. This footage was captured directly from my Nintendo 64 using a real Doom 64 cartridge. I'm playing on Watch Me Die! difficulty.

I picked up a complete copy of Doom 64 off eBay about five years ago, but I didn't get around to beating it until now. Since Doom 64 chronologically takes place after Doom II, I decided to post playthroughs of the first two Doom games (on the Game Boy Advance) before getting to this one. Plus I had other first-person shooters that I wanted to post on my channel, such as GoldenEye and Perfect Dark.

But now that I've posted full playthroughs of Doom and Doom II for the GBA, it's finally time to post this game. Ever since I started my channel I've had a tradition (inspired by the Angry Video Game Nerd) of posting games each October that fit in with the Halloween theme. Normally this means Castlevania games, but I've nearly run out of those, so I've had to look to other series to fill the October slot. Luckily, Doom fits in perfectly with its demonic setting and chainsaw-related carnage.

Sadly, as a kid, I didn't really have much experience with the Doom series. I was certainly aware of Doom 64 as a teenager, but I never played it, and I simply assumed it was a port of the original PC game. But Doom 64 is actually a unique sequel to Doom II, and it was only released for the Nintendo 64, having never been officially ported to any other system, not even computers.

For an early N64 title, Doom 64 really took advantage of the system and ran fairly smoothly while staying true to Doom's roots. Although the game didn't really advance the series in the controls department (there's once again no jumping or manual vertical aiming), it did revamp some prior content (weapons, enemies) while adding entirely new levels. Overall, it's a solid title and a great addition to the N64 library.

However, one important thing to note is that this game displays incredibly dark, which sometimes makes it hard to see the levels. To counteract this, I increased the in-game brightness level to the max in the options menu.

The developers made the game dark to create a more foreboding atmosphere, but I think they went a little overboard. They even included a unique insert with the game to inform people that the game was naturally dark and that it was displaying properly on TV screens. I think I have decent capture quality though, so hopefully this playthrough will allow people to see the entire game running on actual hardware with sufficient clarity.

This will be a 100% playthrough in all three categories (enemies, items and secrets), including secret levels, except where level design/glitches prevent me from doing so.

In this first part I completed Map 1: Staging Area, and accessed the secret exit to Map 32: Hectic.

Recorded with the Hauppauge HD PVR and the official N64 S-video cable. I used a Toshiba model D-R550 DVD Recorder to upconvert the N64's native 240p signal to 480i so that the Hauppauge could capture the console's audio/video signal.

I'm using a standard Nintendo 64 controller.