Console ports on the actual hardware

Hello, a Youtube user, KWKBOX, is playing through the Doom console ports on the actual hardware, it's pretty cool. They started off with the more ... technically challenged ports :-D

We had an email exchange and I'm posting the videos here in chronological order:

What's with the awful fake scanlines? You'd think the video quality of composite and/or S-Video would be enough.

Otherwise, not too bad. Quality recordings (i.e. not filming the screen with a camera) of gameplay on real hardware is not terribly common.

Bashe said:

What's with the awful fake scanlines? You'd think the video quality of composite and/or S-Video would be enough.

Otherwise, not too bad. Quality recordings (i.e. not filming the screen with a camera) of gameplay on real hardware is not terribly common.

Heh, well in his channel description, he mentions:

All gameplay is on original hardware and captured through a video scaler with added scan lines for the most authentic look and feel that can be recorded in HD video unless stated otherwise.

Fake scanlines are pretty awful. I leave them off on my framemeister.

ReFracture said:

Fake scanlines are pretty awful.

I agree. Whenever I use an emulator, I always make sure they are turned off. Accuracy is important, but you have to draw the line somewhere..

Gameboy Advance port of Doom. Things get hairy at e1m7.

I am not gonna lie, there were enough weird guesses and conjectures and half-wrong things said during the first 3 levels of the SNES playthrough alone that I lost interest in watching the rest of the series.

There's a wiki, it'd behoove people creating these kinds of things to do minimum research first IMO so as not to be repeating common misconceptions or saying things that are just outright wrong.

Quasar said:

I am not gonna lie, there were enough weird guesses and conjectures and half-wrong things said during the first 3 levels of the SNES playthrough alone that I lost interest in watching the rest of the series.

This is kind of why I really don't like "Let's Play" videos in general to be honest. If I want to see what a game looks like, I'd rather just see the game. The opinions and commentary of random people really aren't interesting - why would they be?

The only exception is if the person giving the commentary is actually really knowledgeable about the game and can provide insight, for example if they were one of the original authors of the game. A good example would be the vectorpoem/John Romero Devs Play Doom commentary where you had one of the game's authors *and* someone with a really deep knowledge of the game able to talk about it in a way that was interesting.

I personally don't get why "Let's Play" videos are even so popular. My immediate response whenever I'm watching a game video and the player starts talking is to immediately hit the back button and find a different video to watch.

The videos are interesting (to me at least) because they are played on the original hardware, I've grown to like these laid back guys, too.


But I understand why source port authors and hardcore players might cringe at some wrong assumptions 😁😁

On a related note, do the missing rotations on some of the console ports really influence the monster behaviour or is it only an aesthetic change?

VGA said:

On a related note, do the missing rotations on some of the console ports really influence the monster behaviour or is it only an aesthetic change?

An aesthetic change. But there are only 2 console versions with 1-sided monsters. The infighting behavior, for example, was simply removed from the 32X version I bet. It makes sense why. SNES Doom doesn't really count because it doesn't even run on the Doom engine. Still, they probably didn't implement it for the same reason.

But look at the SS enemies in level 31 of Doom II, or the 1-sided enemies in the PSX and Saturn versions of Hexen (yeah, it isn't Doom, but it's a modified version of the Doom engine anyway). They all infight.

buttspit said:

An aesthetic change. But there are only 2 console versions with 1-sided monsters. The infighting behavior, for example, was simply removed from the 32X version I bet.

No bettin' about it. There's an #ifndef MARS in the Jaguar source around the infighting code complete with a comment that says something to the effect of "We don't let bad guys fight each other on MARS since there are no rotations".

I am currently working on backporting Jag Doom to the PC, so this is timely for me ;)

(MARS was the working name for the 32X project for those not in the know).

Quasar said:

(MARS was the working name for the 32X project for those not in the know).

Yep. They went through a period of planet-related codenames. Mars was the 32X, there were plans for a standalone "Neptune" console that was cancelled, and then of course there was the Sega Saturn.

fraggle said:

Yep. They went through a period of planet-related codenames. Mars was the 32X, there were plans for a standalone "Neptune" console that was cancelled, and then of course there was the Sega Saturn.

I've been wondering what happened to the Jupiter for years :P

Some more details on the planet names:

http://segaretro.org/Planet_codenames

I never realised there were all these others.

fraggle said:

Some more details on the planet names:

http://segaretro.org/Planet_codenames

I never realised there were all these others.

I just found that myself, and the Jupiter is one of the worst ideas I've heard of, considering all the other gadget-like add-ons and fullblown consoles they were planning to push out in the meantime. If all those projects had made it to market, the Sega product line would look like a goddamn zoo.

I don't watch many Let's Plays, but this series on XCOM: Enemy Within is absolutely genius.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TpbTkbv4L2Y

The guy sounds a bit like Fernando from GTA: Vice City's "Emotion FM", but he's also a very patient player, really thinks through what he's doing, talks out loud about what he's thinking, which makes it really compelling.

Oh yeah he's also playing on the hardest possible difficulty on first sitting (although he had played the base game) and does remarkably well.

His run through of the Blade Runner game was also great.

Saturn port, highlights are usage of Doom 2 enemies in Ep1 (you need to check out e1m1!!!) dodgy sprite clipping, low framerate, bland texture replacements, slowest enemy projectiles ever, quicker player guns, ambient music. Oh and some rather poor attempt at transparency with dithering.

Fucking awesome port!

Could you edit the OP instead of posting them separately so we can just binge watch them instead of having to look through the thread?

I really like the 32x port of Doom, I like EVEN the music. I mean... it's broken, but all those grungy basses and out of tune leads sounded creepy to me and kind of ambient-ish too (though this is probably unintentional).

SavageCorona said:

Could you edit the OP instead of posting them separately so we can just binge watch them instead of having to look through the thread?

The easiest way is to go to his channel and check out the playlists for the Doom one. I didn't post that because it starts with Brutal Doom and that doesn't fit with the rest of the videos.

I noticed while watching the Saturn episode that the game does in fact have nightmare spectres as stated in the manual. I had been told this was in error but the spectres that were rendered as nightmare spectres in the PlayStation version clearly take six shotgun shots to go down, meaning they have double the normal health and are in fact, nightmare spectres, albeit not being rendered differently from normal ones. The game's manual even acknowledges the quirk by showing the same picture for nightmare spectre as for the normal spectre, whereas the manual for the PlayStation version showed a mostly black spectre there instead.

tl;dr: it's super dark!

Dat chaingun though.

fraggle said:

I personally don't get why "Let's Play" videos are even so popular. My immediate response whenever I'm watching a game video and the player starts talking is to immediately hit the back button and find a different video to watch.

Modern games are very narrative-driven. Gameplay-wise, what does (say) GTA V offer that GTA IV, or III didn't? So, if one is mildly interested in catching up on a narrative but has not the time or inclination to actually play (especially if as per this example, there's very little new on offer from a gameplay perspective) then a Let's Play lets them do that.

But there's other things. Minecraft LPs are incredibly popular. MY niece (age 9) watches a lot of them. She plays Minecraft herself, tentatively, on a tablet; the LPs are of experienced players able to do things and see things she couldn't reach herself, not least mods (which she has no access to).

I think we're just the wrong age for them Fraggle ;) Have you not noticed that a lot of web content is moving to Video? It rather locks me out. For example I think I'd love the content on "Shut Up And Sit Down" if I could more easily consume it in text form, but it's all videos... Text I can read on the train, or whilst waiting for an elevator; I can cache it via Instapaper (and other things) for consumption offline (useful this weekend as I spent hours waiting in A&E :( )...

fraggle said:

I personally don't get why "Let's Play" videos are even so popular. My immediate response whenever I'm watching a game video and the player starts talking is to immediately hit the back button and find a different video to watch.

You and me both, although I find most any videos of games give me motion sickness after just a few minutes, especially Doom. Demos running in the actual engine aren't as bad but, even then..in small doses. But I certainly don't want to listen to some clown spout off about whatever.

Ack I always get pissed about the Saturn version of the game. It could have been great but was handed off to a shit developer and ported terribly. My thoughts on the subject have been iterated several times on the forum so I won't go on another rant..needless to say a real wasted opportunity.

Use3D said:

You and me both, although I find most any videos of games give me motion sickness after just a few minutes, especially Doom. Demos running in the actual engine aren't as bad but, even then..in small doses. But I certainly don't want to listen to some clown spout off about whatever.

it's more because they often share stories, are funny, and just put you in a good mood. think of it as a talk show, but with gameplay in the background.

I think it also might be because anyone that was like me, and watched older siblings play video games from an extremely early age, are the sort that are more likely to watch the stuff. The way you talk about not liking LPs sort of sounds similar to what I've heard really old people say about video games.

Ha, too bad we all get old eventually, might as well start early: Fuck robots, they don't deserve rights.

Jon said:

But there's other things. Minecraft LPs are incredibly popular. MY niece (age 9) watches a lot of them. She plays Minecraft herself, tentatively, on a tablet; the LPs are of experienced players able to do things and see things she couldn't reach herself, not least mods (which she has no access to).

I think Minecraft videos are a special case, because it's different to other games. If you're watching a Minecraft video, you're probably seeing something that somebody else has built and wants to show off, how to do a particular thing, or some unique entertaining thing you can do (Minecraft's open nature lets you pull off all kinds of creative stunts). So in the Minecraft case I understand why it's interesting - it's not just a commentary on the game, they're showing something interesting or useful that you want to see.

I think we're just the wrong age for them Fraggle ;)

Maybe, yeah. I just don't get it. To use an analogy: if you were watching a film, you might want to watch with the director's commentary turned on to learn more about the film. But it would be absurd to have a "some random dude's commentary" track. But that's kind of what a "Let's Play" video is - just someone talking while they play a game. With an analogy like that, strongly narrative-driven games actually make it even more strange, since at least with a skill-based game they might have something interesting to say about the techniques they're using. Kind of like going to the cinema and having the person in front of you talk through the whole film.

But yeah, I'm probably just out of touch and I expect it's a sign that I'm getting old. One of an increasing number of things which just make no sense to me to be honest :)

fraggle said:

But yeah, I'm probably just out of touch and I expect it's a sign that I'm getting old. One of an increasing number of things which just make no sense to me to be honest :)

Probably because you're watching the current Youtube overabundance of Let's Play. The original idea that manifested on Something Awful was to show something informative, i.e particular gameplay sequences and techniques. It's still like that, but it's much harder to find due to the numerous imitation and mutation.

fraggle said:

Maybe, yeah. I just don't get it. To use an analogy: if you were watching a film, you might want to watch with the director's commentary turned on to learn more about the film. But it would be absurd to have a "some random dude's commentary" track.

What about MST3K?


But yeah I'm annoyed by gameplay videos with commentary, especially when they start with the player (and thus the game feed) not doing anything, or just doing boring things (like running in circles in the start room) while he spends ten minutes explaining that he's going to show gameplay eventually.

I've been told that the term "longplay" can be used to find gameplay video without commentary.

As for watching movies with some random dude's commentary, we all have a friend or a relative who provides this service whether we want it or not. :)