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MajorRawne

In defence of Doom 64

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Just downloaded the Doom 64 Absolution TC for a proper playthrough. Realised I've previously downloaded it four times. I've been playing through a few levels to get a better feel of what the original creators were going for with Doom 64.

First off, this is a lot harder than Doom 2, which is good. It is very hard to see certain switches and I find myself feeling stuck sometimes, before spotting the switch. The Pink Demons actually look quite ferocious - it might be the limited frames of animation that made me think they looked stupid. Several maps in and I am starting to think that just maybe, I could come to like this game.

Can anyone tell me how to play the TC in a window? As in, not just reduce the size of the gameplay screen (which eliminates the HUD!), but to window the actual TC. My monitor is too big to play Doom fullscreen, its motion induces the kind of sickness seen only in The Exorcist.

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Pretty sure Doom 64 EX also supports windowed mode, so that might be the easiest way to get that, too.

Also support for uncapped framerates and GL_NEAREST_MIPMAP_LINEAR, so yay

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Doom 64 Absolution TC is quite good, i liked it a lot, the yeven put an easter egg in Breakdown in name of the original secret never found there... i found it in the TC actually.

[IMO]But, i recommend Doom 64 EX, it's more accurate, just like playing Doom 64 original on pc!.[/IMO]

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I didn't play Absolution TC for a long time, but judging by some screenshots it didn't even take into account that Doom 64's graphics were made with square pixels in mind. Distorted view - NAGL.

Maybe there are settings for that, I don't know, but beware nevertheless.

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I've heard of Doom 64 EX, but in my 64 Noobishness, thought it was the same thing as the TC. I'll definitely look into EX. However I also want to respect the team who put such incredible effort into The Absolution since they also had the PSX sounds and music at a time these were difficult or impossible to find elsewhere... even if the Hell Knight sounded like a Tasoth from XCom Terror From the Deep.

Which D64 levels should I look out for as particularly good/brutal?

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Doom 64 had really cool monster design, my favourite was cyberdemon because it was redisigned exquisitely

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As others have pointed out, Doom 64 EX is the best way to get the proper Doom 64 experience. The TC was more or less reverse engineered, which is admirable, but certain visual elements had to be downgraded--in particular the laser effect of the Unmaker, which was reduced to a flurry of sprites--and there were some noticeable sound issues (lots of popping and clicking).

However, if I recall correctly, the Absolution TC had several custom levels that were pretty damn good, which I do not believe are available on the EX version. Can anyone comment on this?

And MajorRawne is right, Doom 64 is definitely harder than Doom 2.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Q3QDmOMnNc

Here, a player finishes Doom 2--in Nightmare mode--in under half an hour.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54T21LE1HbY

Comparatively, here it takes a player over an hour to beat Doom 64--albeit on the hardest difficulty level--but not on anything equivalent to Nightmare. Doom 64 is a much slower game that involves a lot more puzzles, tougher enemies and several hordes that rival some of the more epic battles in Doom 2. It's really incredible that, this early in Doom modding (April 1997, less than four years after the original game's release), that there were mappers capable of developing maps that were this nice. It's brought down somewhat by infrequent use of height variation and dull textures that required creative lighting to look good, but it's a very complete and enjoyable product. Well, not entirely complete. Multiplayer was scrapped--a rather rash decision, considering how capable the N64 was of displaying four players simultaneously--and to this day, fans lament over the absence of this much needed feature.

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MajorRawne said:

I've heard of Doom 64 EX, but in my 64 Noobishness, thought it was the same thing as the TC. I'll definitely look into EX. However I also want to respect the team who put such incredible effort into The Absolution since they also had the PSX sounds and music at a time these were difficult or impossible to find elsewhere...

Kaiser, the primary developer of the old TC, is also the developer of Doom 64 EX, which is a mightily impressive piece of work :)

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Does Doom 64 need to be defended?

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Back in the early 2000s, when I was regularly insulted in the DoomWorld chat room, I remember Doom 64 getting a lot of flack. I also remember some non-Doom freaks at the time of its release dismissing it for its old school charm. There's not much to defend now, since so many from the community have grown to enjoy it.

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This thread is because I always end up slagging Doom 64 off, no matter what the original subject. I think I ended my last workplace security assessment with the sentence "But it's still better than Doom 64". Well maybe not, but it's time to give Doom 64 a fair chance.

What's with the death labs map, where monsters beam in every time you walk up a different staircase? Is it some kind of practice level? You can simply walk straight into the exit without even seeing anyone.

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Does anyone have a link to the DOOM 64 TC available? I've been wanting to try it for a while but I couldn't find a working link.

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MajorRawne said:

The Pink Demons actually look quite goofy and comical

FTFY :P

Seriously, I thought some of the D64 monsters looked pretty silly, a bit like Disney examples of what something nasty is meant to look like and not cool Disney Bad guys either; the comical nasties. I'd cite the pinkie and caco as the best examples of that. And then, of course, there is the fact that all of the sprites are horribly blurry and look as if they have been resized using bilinear resampling from something bigger without the slightest care for how blurry and indistinct it made them. While I'm at it, I'm not a huge fan of the grainy-looking, subdued colours of the texturing either.

I'm not saying that D64 is a bad game; it's not. It had some really great features and is far better than many games. It is certainly not my favourite Doom though and there are certainly aspects of it that I don't like much at all. To be fair, I've always kind of viewed it as a not-really-Doom game but a close cousin. To me, despite the technology differences, it's almost more like a Quake game than a Doom one. That isn't necessarily a bad thing BTW. However, I really don't get the whole "the monsters are really cool" thing that surfaces quite a bit. My personal thought is that the "coolness" is as much down to them being a bit different and therefore novel to experienced Doomers.

And, yes, get Doom 64 Ex. It's the best way to play D64 on the PC (I like the TC too though). It's worth pointing out that you need a game ROM for Doom 64 Ex though.

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Enjay said:

And then, of course, there is the fact that all of the sprites are horribly blurry and look as if they have been resized using bilinear resampling from something bigger without the slightest care for how blurry and indistinct it made them.

They look adequate for renders.

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GoatLord said:

It's really incredible that, this early in Doom modding (April 1997, less than four years after the original game's release), that there were mappers capable of developing maps that were this nice.

What's even more incredible is that for you the history of DOOM modding starts in April 1997.

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Never_Again said:

What's even more incredible is that for you the history of DOOM modding starts in April 1997.


The first few years of Doom modding mostly produced very mediocre maps; there were certainly diamonds in the rough, but one look at the user-made maps for "Master Levels" reveals that, by 1996, most mappers' skills were still very crude. I'm commending the fact that these guys were making Doom 64 maps in late 96/early 97 of this quality, while so many others were still pumping out 94 era maps with huge empty rooms, monster spamming and repetitive textures.

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What I find cool about the sprites and textures having nothing in common with the original is that it makes the sound effects fit better. I find PSX Doom weird for that, these are Doom monsters and weapons but they don't make Doom sounds. (Of course people who started with PSX Doom won't feel that way.)

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Thanks Hectic, I'll give them a whirl soon.

Yeah, the first thing that struck me when I started playing DOOM on the PC was how different everything felt from the sounds to the lighting. I love both equally well, PSX DOOM for the fear and atmosphere, and PC DOOM for the sheer adrenaline rush and the FUCKING MASSIVE LEVELS. Was, that's what I was missing out on all these years...

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Doom 64 is amazing. There is no defending necessary.

Also I'm pretty sure Kaiser groans every time he hears about somebody playing the TC these days when EX is available.

The only thing I remember raging over was the end of Blood Keep, but I won't spoil that if you haven't made it that far. ;)

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Waffenak said:

Doom 64 had really cool monster design, my favourite was cyberdemon because it was redisigned exquisitely


I always liked the Doom 64 cyberdemon's design. The sleeker build along with vaguely-feline facial features and new AI makes it seem much more cunning. It basically went from a tyrannical brute to more of a sadistic hunter.

Cat and Mouse, indeed.

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Gez said:

What I find cool about the sprites and textures having nothing in common with the original is that it makes the sound effects fit better. I find PSX Doom weird for that, these are Doom monsters and weapons but they don't make Doom sounds. (Of course people who started with PSX Doom won't feel that way.)

Reminds me that I modified EX's soundfont to have the old PC sound effects again, purely to see what it'd feel like:



It's kind of funny. With Aubrey Hodges's sounds, the game definitely feels a lot scarier - probably because I never entirely mapped all the sounds to what was making them. Slap the old sounds back in, though, and suddenly it feels a lot more like normal Doom.

I can't help but notice one of the zombiemen death noises gets cut off now, though. Not a bug, of course, it's clearly designed for a shorter sound that was never meant to be modified.

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It definitely makes a difference with the PC sound effects. I wonder if anyone made any progress rebuilding the maps in Doom 2 style. That would REALLY be interesting.

As for playing the TC, it seems more ethical than encouraging people to download the ROM and you get the extra levels, so it still seems to have something to offer.

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I think some more people should try contacting Mr. Gilman about getting the original models and textures for a hi rez version of D64! He is on Facebook, and he confirmed to me that he still has them, but wouldn't respond wheni asked about them being used.. Let's show him there's an interest!:)

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MajorRawne said:

It definitely makes a difference with the PC sound effects. I wonder if anyone made any progress rebuilding the maps in Doom 2 style. That would REALLY be interesting.


Uh, have you entirely missed the "Doom 64 in Doom 2" project?

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Ragnor said:

Uh, have you entirely missed the "Doom 64 in Doom 2" project?

colour me interested in this...

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