D64 TC, Love it or hate it?

Nice!

Can someone tell me why the Tc is not in Top Story?
This is an incredible mod, I can't believe that I'm playing it. It deserve the best honours.

I love it. It's great! (hmm great seems like an understatement)

i like it a lot. it definitely doesn't feel like doom, and i can't say i like how the textures or sprites look, but the map design is great, some of the best i've seen anywhere. nice work guys.

I haven't been playing it for very long at all. I know this sounds stupid, but in the second level, where do you get the yellow crad from? I've been all through the dark red-lit tunnels, got the chaingun, but I can't find the card or any other way to go.

This is probably going to sound like a criticism of the TC. It isn’t. This TC is probably the most professional TC that has ever been released. It feels like a proper commercial port of Doom64 to the PC.

What it has allowed me to do however, is compare Doom64 to PC Doom without other factors getting in the way (such as having to play one on a console or via an emulator and the other on the PC). I am able to play Doom64 on a modern feeling system and compare it fairly to Doom. That is assuming the TC is faithful enough to the original D64, and from my experience of D64 it certainly seems to be.

What follows is totally “IMO” and as such is neither right nor wrong. A closed argument I know, but so be it Jedi.

Doom64 is clearly a dark, gritty, sometimes unpleasant game with scary monsters, complex level architecture, hods of atmosphere, good gameplay etc etc. However, IMO, it simply isn’t as good as Doom.

The general look of the graphics doesn’t appeal to me as much. I don’t like the style of everything, even the tech stuff, looking a little worn out and rusty. I don’t like the fact that many of the graphics are a bit “blurry”. I don’t just mean because if Jdoom blending the pixels or whatever 3D accelerated ports do. I mean the actual graphics have had some sort of blur or antialias filter applied to them, presumably whilst resizing them to be suitable as sprites. But let's get into specifics:

The textures (and flats), as I have said are all a bit grubby. It’s a stylistic choice, but not one that appeals to me. I like my computer screens to look sharp and techy, and be surrounded by lots of “silver” and “shawn”. Tech areas IMO, should look as if they are bright, well lit techy places, or at least as if they could have been before things went horribly wrong. Everything in D64 is already a bit grubby, brown, and heavy looking in a similar way to some of the Quake bases or a Strog tech centre from QII. Quite a lot of them suffer from the “blurry” problem I mentioned too. Especially things like faces on the wall and demonic symbols etc. There also doesn't seem to be much variety in texture style throughout the game. See my later comment about the “sameyness” of the levels. Part of that is due to the lack of variety in the style of the textures I think.

The sprites (and monsters), I know this will sound odd given that they are bigger and higher resolution than the originals, but I find them a bit cartoony. They look more like drawings than the originals. The originals are quite crisp and sharp and give me a clear and realistic impression of what the monster is supposed to look like. Odd I know, with them just being a few blocky pixels tall. The D64 ones look too much like one artist’s view of what a monster should be like. They look like they are done for a game, a console game at that. Also, IMO they have some of the feel that makes a few of the Duke Nukem monsters look a little silly. Just look at the D64 Mancubus and try and picture it in Duke 3D. It’s not too much of an imagination leap is it? And of course, some of the monsters which really characterise Doom2, simply aren’t there in D64. Although, the new monsters in D64 are pretty cool.

The weapons, I feel on the whole are not as satisfying as the originals. I’m assuming that in this TC they work pretty much as they always did (especially as this is a TC based on a PC doom port), but: I think the fist looks like it is wearing a strange semi-boxer glove; the chainsaw looks cool, and is an interesting idea, but ultimately I think a single blade would be more useable just in the sheer handleability of the weapon; the pistol I simply don’t like the look of; the shotgun in the original doom is immensely satisfying and I think the “chopping” pump action cocking of the gun contributes greatly to that, with that missing, it’s just another gun; the super shotty again loses something by having only a limited on screen movement (despite the kickback); the chaingun, I quite like actually, the RL is OK; the plasma gun looks quite nice, but somehow feels slower or less effective; the BFG – I don’t like the look of it (see my earlier “blurry” comments) but I have to say I always thought the original could have looked better too. The demon laser is interesting. Unpowered up, it’s actually a bit crap, but I like the idea of being able to increase its power, and if you find all the powerups, it becomes pretty damned effective. Again, looks wise, it’s blurry. It actually almost looks like it was screen grabbed from a 3D model in another game and edited to fit the doom screen and (altered) doom palette. I know this isn’t a fault of the TC, but of the original weapon sprites. In fact, I think my “blurry” criticism can be applied right across the range of weapons. IMO they are the graphics that probably suffer most from this problem. Again, I know this isn’t a fault of the TC or Jdoom. It always bugged me in the original D64 too.

The sounds. I quite like the sounds. Indeed, I quite often play doom with the PSX sounds wad loaded (same sounds). But again, to me they are not as crisp as the originals. They sound like they have been designed and contrived to be scary by cranking up the filters used on them and frankly, again they feel “consoley”. The fact that they are all low treble echoey sounds may be consistent, but makes you wonder if the Doomguy has something wrong with his hearing, or maybe has the graphic equaliser settings in his helmet screwed up. Why would things sound like that in a big, open, out door area?

The music, I like the music. Not better than the original, but perhaps equally well. It’s very atmospheric and I like collections of ambient sounds as a game background . I also like the original (well Doom1 especially) music a lot as well.

The levels, these are good - no question about that. The use of traps, lighting, advanced architecture, scripting and so on is very impressive and a tribute to both the original levels and the skills of the mappers who converted them for this TC. The new levels are great too. Again, however, there is something about the feel of them that doesn’t appeal to me as much as in some other levels. I think perhaps I could be spoiling myself with this one, playing so many maps one after the other, but the maps seem to be becoming a little “samey”. The puzzles to get the keys seem to have a similar, almost predictable, feel. Often the map lets you see the key (or possibly a key requiring door) quite early on, but you know you are going to have to go away, find a switch in an alcove, retrace your steps, find what has changed and gain access to the key/door. I know that can cover many, many doom levels but there is something about the feel of these puzzles that seems to be getting repeated over and over throughout the game. I can’t quite put my finger on it but I think it comes down to a lack of variety in how the logic of the levels play out, even in levels that may be fairly different in architecture or concept. In saying that, to me there doesn’t seem to be enough variety in architecture and concept anyway and the delineation between level settings is not as clear as it should be, especially compared to the very clear settings of Ep1, Ep2, Ep3 and the 3 basic scenarios within Doom2.

So, there you have it. I know it sounds like I’m really coming down heavy on D64 and the TC. I’m not. As I said at the outset, it’s a good, enjoyable game, but for me, it simply doesn’t hold a light to the original Doom. To me, it isn’t Doom. It’s an incredibly similar game, but with its own style, atmosphere and everything else that goes with it. It’s not Doom. It’s Doom64, and I prefer Doom. That's not to say I won't keep this TC on my HD and dive into it every now and again when I feel like playing something that isn't really Doom - I will. It's like having another game rather than a Doom TC.

Livo: This TC suffers from "Invisible switch syndrome", in the dark lit tunners with red traingles there is a big pillar thats lit up right?, look around that and you'll see a switch in an indent, which is nearly invisible (because its the same coulor as the textures) from a casual pass

too bad my system refuses to run jdoom, oh well...

Enjay said:

The general look of the graphics doesn’t appeal to me as much. I don’t like the style of everything, even the tech stuff, looking a little worn out and rusty.

..... The reason for this I think, is because of Doom64's pretty limited palette for textures. See, it has very smooth pink and blue/gray colour gradients for the sprites (examples would be the pinky and bfg/plasma/chainsaw), but these colours are not much good for most textures. Which is why the D64 textures are mainly kind of monochromatic (although the coloured lighting does help to alleviate this).

Just look at the D64 Mancubus and try and picture it in Duke 3D. It’s not too much of an imagination leap is it?

..... Good point, it would totally fit in Duke3d's monster style actually (a style I did never like for the most part). I must say, although I like many of the D64 sprites, the mancubus was one interpretation I didn't like.

I think the “chopping” pump action cocking of the gun contributes greatly to that, with that missing, it’s just another gun; the super shotty again loses something by having only a limited on screen movement (despite the kickback)

..... I totally understand this - the shotguns and unmaker really feel underpowered without any decent recoil animations. Must say though, I absolutely love the design of the Unmaker.

Interesting commentary there though Enjay, it would kind of point towards Doom's popularity (in your case anyways) being due to more than just the distinctly fast and punchy (especially the weapons) gameplay because basically, D64 is exactly the same as Doom in gameplay terms - same enemy attacks, weapon attacks, physics and items, but you still prefer the original[s].

Well, christ. I fucked that one up. Oh well.

I've been trying for hours now to get this thing to work to no avail. I can get the music to work just fine and everything else, but trying to run a Doom64 game always crashes, I don't get it, I just get the standard Windows "Would you like to send an error report" deal.

DahrkDaiz said:

I've been trying for hours now to get this thing to work to no avail. I can get the music to work just fine and everything else, but trying to run a Doom64 game always crashes, I don't get it, I just get the standard Windows "Would you like to send an error report" deal.

heh, you get "don't sends" I hate XP and all it's "don't sends".

I rather enjoyed this TC, although I haven't finished it.
eye of the storm is where I got to.. on I own doom difficulty.
I like where parts of the levels where changed, gave more play value to levels I have memorized..

Ah, I've got it working, but now I have a question, I'm loving the game and all, but are the secret levels of Doom 64 (the secret levels that have the artifacts) accessible the same method? I can't seem to access them (I know Hectic was pulled out).

DahrkDaiz said:

Ah, I've got it working, but now I have a question, I'm loving the game and all, but are the secret levels of Doom 64 (the secret levels that have the artifacts) accessible the same method? I can't seem to access them (I know Hectic was pulled out).

Nope. Those artifacts that power up the Unmaker are now gotten in different methods now. The first one is now nearly impossible to get (It was now well hidden in a different secret level than Outpost Omega), but the other two artifacts remain in the same areas they are, but there's a different way to get to them now (haven't tried getting the one at 'The Lair', so I don't know if a method of getting it there is different, seeing as I forgot the first Artifact >_<

Although I said above that I like the upgradableness of the weapon I do have a bit of a problem with it: Am I right in saying there is only one of each power up item in the whole game? If so, missing the first one screws your ability to upgrade at all. You've got this potentially very powerful weapon, but because you were unable to find one little secret, it's going to remain underpowered for the whole game, regardless of what you find from that point on.

To me, there should be a few chances to find item 1 (starting off quite hard, and then possibly getting a little easier), less chances to find item 2 and one chance for item 3. Of course, if it's like that already, ignore me, but I've only found one of each item after quite a lot of searching both in the TC and the original game. Maybe I'm just crap at finding them though.

I'd rather it be so that if you missed the first one, you could still pick up the other two for a lesser upgrade (of course, this was probably the way it was in the original, but it's still a little annoying). Also, if you missed the first artifact, you can't use any of the switches in the final map, thus making it a whole lot harder.

Ichor said:

Also, if you missed the first artifact, you can't use any of the switches in the final map, thus making it a whole lot harder.

True, true. I do quite like the idea of the artifacts requiring each other to be found, but it does seem a bit much that one little mistake/omission early in the game can have such dire consequences (both for the weapon and the last level).

Whatever, I just finished my second go through the TC. I think the style of the game/TC is especially good and suited to the levels from about map22 onwards.

Ah, well I've yet to continue on from my last save cuz I want to get those artifacts, is there a faq/guide on telling you how to get them? Finding secrets in Doom like the artifacts isn't the easy thing in the world to figure out on your own :\

And now a bit of how I what I think of the TC: I think it's excellent, sure it's not a perfect conversion, but it gives the same enemies, same level styles, and most importantly, the same feel of the game. I found myself screaming out loud as I was being chased by nightmare imps in a hallway with a Hell Knight at the end I was heading for. Now _that's_ what Doom 64's all about. Just amazing work.

DahrkDaiz said:

I found myself screaming out loud as I was being chased by nightmare imps in a hallway with a Hell Knight at the end I was heading for. Now _that's_ what Doom 64's all about. Just amazing work.

The nightmare imps catch me out every time. I know the speed of a Doom fireball, and can quite happily side step them at leisure. I’m not used to enemies firing two high speed fireballs in short succession. I see them get ready to fire, I start moving, I see them fire, but at my leisurely pace I continue to move sideways and get clipped by the first one and whilst swearing at myself for getting caught yet again, the second fireball crashes home and often kills me. A nice change of pace, but perhaps I should have practised regular doom with -fast monsters a bit more. Oh, and I love the nightmare caco too. The translucent red colour really works, and they're mean muthas too.

Ah yes, that cacodemon is a real bitch, transparenty, fast as hell, and shoots 2 fireballs at a time.

What I like most about this game is abundance of traps in the game. I've beaten both Doom 1 and 2 (playing Plutonia atm with Doom 64) and it seems Doom 64 likes to trap you (like going into a seemingly empty room and having a ring of lost souls appear around you). Or falling in a pit and being attacked by Spectres in a dark room. Or pressing the "exit" button, but to only have 4 barons of hell come up for the pillars in the 4 corners of a locked room. Yeah, the active changes in the landscape make this the best doom imo.

Enjay said:

The textures (and flats), as I have said are all a bit grubby. It’s a stylistic choice, but not one that appeals to me. I like my computer screens to look sharp and techy, and be surrounded by lots of “silver” and “shawn”. Tech areas IMO, should look as if they are bright, well lit techy places, or at least as if they could have been before things went horribly wrong. Everything in D64 is already a bit grubby, brown, and heavy looking in a similar way to some of the Quake bases or a Strog tech centre from QII. Quite a lot of them suffer from the “blurry” problem I mentioned too. Especially things like faces on the wall and demonic symbols etc. There also doesn't seem to be much variety in texture style throughout the game. See my later comment about the “sameyness” of the levels. Part of that is due to the lack of variety in the style of the textures I think.

I also like "Silver" and "Shawn" and those "sterile" textures, and the first thing I thought when I played it, was "So this is where id Software got the idea for 'Quake' from."

Actually, those Nightmare Cacodemons shoot 3 fireballs at a time, at least in hard difficulty.

insertwackynamehere said:

I also like "Silver" and "Shawn" and those "sterile" textures, and the first thing I thought when I played it, was "So this is where id Software got the idea for 'Quake' from."

Pfft, no, besides Doom64 was released after Quake.

Heh, level 3 of ultimate hell has LOTS of large windows with shawn2 on them XD (all the textures in the frames are aligned too! i love shift-select XD)

I just got done playing a few levels from the TC, and I have to say... I was blown away. I don't think the textures could've been more spot on, the enemie sounds and sprites were exact. Im going to get killed for saying this.. but I prefer the TCs atmosphere more than I do regular doom.. Its just a whole lot darker and gloomier.

deathbringer said:

As anyone can find out from READING THE MANUAL XD

Not quite. The nightmare Cacodemons are not in Doom 64, unless they actualyl mean the super strong pain elementals... and if tat's in there... that'd be cool. Pain elementals that shoot 2 lost souls instead of one that's mean! But I see that there are cacodemons that are firing two balls? That WASN'T in Doom 64. Oh well. I should play it before I talk aobut it anyway.

Indeed, nightmare spectres (greenish colored) and the speedy nightmare cacodemons are exclusive to the TC, which makes for some variety since some doom2 enemies were absent from the original game. Also some enemies were slightly altered. The nightmare imp throws two fireballs rather than one in the TC, and the Motherdemon's attacks are more insane than before (fireballs that divide upon hitting something).

Ralphis isnt lieing about it crashing at all i have the same exact problems as him and im pretty sure im using all the stuff im suppose to be..also its a cool game in all but the graphics are reallie worse then doom2 and classic doom games....but yeh its cool i just hate all the bull shit it giving me

It seems to start up fine and everything but right before it actually goes into the game it crashes to desktop, no messages or anything. I can't figure it out I even applied the newest snapshot into the directory.

when the TC crashes like that, its more likely that the files are not installed properly (mostly because the doom64.dll isn't loaded).

either because the installer didn't install them right, or someone just doesn't pay attention to readme.txt files.

below are all the files that are installed. if you selected your main doomsday directory, all files should of been placed properly

/doomsday/bin/doom64.dll
/doomsday/data/doom64/doom64_abstin.wad
/doomsday/data/doom64/doom64_abstin.gwa
/doomsday/data/doom64/auto/D64_data.pk3
/doomsday/data/doom64/auto/D64_data2.pk3
/doomsday/defs/doom64/*ded files
/doomsday/run/doom64/*files
/doomsday/run/doom64/demo/2demo1.cdm, 2demo2.cdm, 2demo3.cdm
/doomsday/doom64.ksp (this file should belong where kickstart2 is installed)

doom64.ksp should be beside kickstart, and that will load its configurations. just select the doom64 game and just have the doom2.wad ready. (no need to load the d64 wad as it will automatically be loaded, treated like jdoom.wad)

I've finally got my hand on this sucker, and three words can sum up my feelings:

HOLY FUCKING SHIT!

I was grinning like a complete idiot when I saw that you'd managed to get the intro in... in fact I'm STILL grinning like and idiot! the effort you lads have put in really shows!, hell the only reason I'm replaying and not playing it right not is that I'm getting the music wad as well. Ad a fan of Doom, Doom64, and jdoom, I can say with full authority:

BEST DOOM TC EVER!

Ct_red_pants

What can we say? We worked our asses off so you could grin your asses off :P