Anyone have experience with this obscure fps? (MARS 3D)

I recently came across this MARS 3D game: http://forums.duke4.net/topic/6753-mars-3d-the-doom-clone-by-taiwanese/
Does anyone here know more of its relation to the Doom Engine and how to edit the contents of the .MAD file?
EDIT: Just noticed there are two .MAD files, one in the zip and a huge one in the iso. They have different headers. I tried hex editing in the IWAD header, but I get strange errors/crashes in WAD editors and source ports.

I can't tell for sure without access to the files themselves, but it wouldn't be the first time a game uses Doom's .WAD format for its data: e.g. there already is A.D. Cop, also using the .WAD format. However the level format is ever so slightly different than Doom's, enough that regular level editors cannot be used with it.

seen it on the doomworld FB group, looks like a very weird doom clone... from gameplay videos i seen also that game have some real crappy glitches in the levels and hilarious bad dub...

If you read through the thread, somebody uploaded the game and a few people poked at it a bit. They seem convinced it's not the Doom engine exactly, and I'm not sure if that's true or not, but Doom (and possibly Heretic?*) was definitely involved. I've taken a few shots at getting into the smaller MAD file without much luck, so I can only hope somebody with more skill looks into it.

*I don't remember which file it was, probably the larger MAD file, but there was a list of Heretic actors in there somewhere.

The fact that it uses a resource format similar to Doom -and perhaps even part of the level format- doesn't mean that the engine itself is anywhere near compatible or "ripped off" or "a hack" of Doom: without the source code available (at the time), it would be more cost-effective to write their own engine (using only the WAD format and the level format as a convenient and well-documented example), rather than reverse engineer the whole thing.

Lots of the resources are definitely modified Doom Doom2 and I think I saw a Hexen texture in there as well.

There's a bunch of stuff from DN3D in there.

The engine looks a lot like Build. It's got the rotating automap overlay, teleport-powered underwater areas, and even a startup screen that looks more like Build than Doom. It doesn't seem to have many of the other things we'd associate with Build. I'm going with what Maes said until I see more.

Strife textures, too.

Remember, the main difference between Doom and other competing engines at the time wasn't the features, as much as the optimization level. It wouldn't (and it wasn't) impossible for an external programmer to write a "Doom-like" engine, perhaps even blessing it with features unavailable in the original, but as it was bitterly proven, none did it nearly as efficiently as id themselves.

It was pointless to make a "Doom killa" game in 1994, if the engine required a Pentium to be playable. In 1996, it was much easier to emulate Doom or even DN3 visuals even with sub-standard coding practices, as you didn't have to worry about it running on a 386 or with 4 MB of RAM.

Someone converted the MAD file into a WAD over at Duke4.net Forums: http://mozai.com/temp/data/MARS.WAD

It has the sprites, textures and maps in it.

Yep, saw that a few days ago.

I saw Taiwanese in the forum link and thought of this god awful abomination for an obscure FPS.

Time to rip out everything we can and send it to R667

Would be nice if someone could edit the script to convert also the large MARS.MAD file. My programming skills sucks so I don't know how.

The large MARS.MAD didn't had useful things in it last time I checked it, it just for waste the CD's space, made it looks like full of data. Many games in Taiwan used CDs tend did that, when the actual game just about some MBs.

Bloodite Krypto said:

I saw Taiwanese in the forum link and thought of this god awful abomination for an obscure FPS.

Actually, Lot7P was "released", but not world-wide due failed to get license from Apogee Ltd.(3DRealm) for its Build engine.

I still try to find the enhanced version of Lot7P, but it may still shitty too. :3

Bloodite Krypto said:

I saw Taiwanese in the forum link and thought of this god awful abomination for an obscure FPS.

You know, I read once in a youtube video's comments for that game that the reason for the badguys slow movement and high attack speed (i.e the projectile firing badguys shooting a ton of projectiles) is because part of the AI was accidently tied to something affected by CPU speed.

I don't know how true that was. But I've also read a similar comment about the completely different game, beat em up 'FX Fighter', on Moby Games.