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TheLazenby

The beauty of Doom 64

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I think that one of the cool things about Doom 64 is just the eerie beauty of the whole thing; I've never seen a game that has looked quite like that. ("Absolution" is even better, with the glowing lighting.) What areas stuck out for you because they just looked really cool?

My vote is a tie - most of "Dark Citadel" and the waterfall/steps room in "The Bleeding".

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It would have been a lot more beautiful if they included all the Doom 2 monsters (and maybe better new ones). INstead, Midway wasteed 450 freams on somes stupid animated fire skies (each using 150 frames); they would have been able to add in all the missing monsters and then some. They also needed a lot more textures, imo.

But I do agree, the eerie quake-like darkness does make the game more intersting then the normal doom and doom2's vivid bright technicolors.

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Yeah I loved Doom 64. Unlike Doom 3 it didn't really destroy the look of the original monsters. It enhanced them (except for the pain elemental, yuck!).

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Agree with you guys. Doom64 definitely oozes atmosphere much more than Doom2. Shame most levels were so short.
Thanks to Kaiser ofcourse for the addons i.e. TC and Outcast.

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Ezxariarch said:

It would have been a lot more beautiful if they included all the Doom 2 monsters (and maybe better new ones). INstead, Midway wasteed 450 freams on somes stupid animated fire skies (each using 150 frames); they would have been able to add in all the missing monsters and then some. They also needed a lot more textures, imo.

But I do agree, the eerie quake-like darkness does make the game more intersting then the normal doom and doom2's vivid bright technicolors.

the animated fire sky is actually generated, there is no data stored in the wad.

The n64 rom could only hold such little data, and there couldn't be any more data to be included in the game.

And you may not think it is, but there are over 300+ textures in doom64.

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Kaiser said:

the animated fire sky is actually generated, there is no data stored in the wad.

The n64 rom could only hold such little data, and there couldn't be any more data to be included in the game.

And you may not think it is, but there are over 300+ textures in doom64.

Oh, I thought the sky was a bunch of textures. I opened the Doom 64 TC and noticed 450 frames went to the sky. Thanks for clearing that up =).

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yeah, since I lack the algorithm to recreate the fire sky, we had no choice but to insert them as frames for the TC.

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yeah, since I lack the algorithm to recreate the fire sky, we had no choice but to insert them as frames for the TC.

I can't make any promises but I've been looking into it.

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Doom 64 was a bit uneven in some parts but for the most part was really nice to look at (provided you had the lights off and the brightness turned up). The new enemies, for the most part, looked more fiercesome and threatening than Doom 2's, particularly the imp, demon, cacodemon, lost soul, pain elemental, and archnotron. On the other hand, the zombie soldiers looked a bit weak and I could never distinguish a shotgun guy from an assault rifle/pistol/whatever guy. I also felt some of the death animations looked a bit lazy, particularly the arach's. It's also a shame that we didn't see "Midwayed" versions of the Spider, Arch, Chaingunner and Rev. Despite all that, I still love D64's look. The new textures looked great, particularly the gothic/hell themed ones (though the techbase textures looked good too, even if a lot of them didn't quite compare to Doom 2's). I also loved the new look of all the weapons, particulary the chaingun and super shotgun, even though they lacked any real animation.

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Doom 64 did have atmosphere, I'll give it that. A dark, gloomy place with eerie ambient music and the PSX sounds, all wrapped up in a new engine. However, to me, it feels like a different game: not Doom (not that I have a particular problem with that).

I personally find the PSX sounds sound contrived - like they have been delibereately tampered with to make them sound spooky, and therefore end up sounding artificial. As for the sprites, on the whole, I don't like them. Sure, they are bigger and higher resolution but, to me, many are blurry - like they were much bigger pictures and then carelessly resized using to much anti-aliasing into a blurred, non-defined jelly-monsters. Some are fairly crisp - the Caco and Demon spring to mind - but they look cartoony to me. They don't look bigger and meaner, they look like a comic book rendition of a Doom enemy

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I remember the sounds better... I like the creepy footstep sounds the imps made before they got some lead poisoning... The music is great too. I've always been a fan to all kinds of tech levels, so I liked the all the first levels a lot. The rotating light looks fun in the first map, the ground breaking machine is excellent and all those rooms that got built at the moment you entered them.

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Yeah, the sounds/music were great, as I've mentioned in other threads relating to Doom 64. The sounds were lifted from the PSX version, so they're really hi-fi. The music is some of the most disturbing ambient I've ever heard, easily as good as PSX Doom's ambient sountrack.

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As I said, the problem I find with the sounds is that they feel contrived to be scary. They are all ramped up bass and lowered treble with a bit of reverb thrown in for good measure. It may make them atmospheric, but to me they went too far and, as a result, the sounds became very unrealistic.

They actually sound like a game, they actually sound like a console game to be precise. Fair enough, that's what it is, but to me they sound so much like that, it's a constant reminder that it is just a game. So it's less like "wow my shotgun has a cool sound" and more like "wow, my shotgun has a cool sound effect".

That doesn't mean I don't like them, mind you. I quite often load them into regular Doom just for a bit of fun.

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Enjay said:

That doesn't mean I don't like them, mind you. I quite often load them into regular Doom just for a bit of fun.


Do you have a link to a PSX/N64 sound wad? I downloaded one a while back but it's a bit odd (some of the sounds aren't there and otheres are replaced with Quake sounds).

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I think that the best part of doom64 was the Dark Citadel or Alter of Pain. These levels had a dark depressed feeling that made the atmosphere foreboding. And I have to give respect to Kaiser for the TC. That was excellent work and those Outcast levels were built brilliantly!

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I wonder why certain effects weren't possible with the Doomsday engine, though, such as the moving skies, the "beam" effect on the laser, etc. Other than that it's very true to the original.

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After looking back, I realized just how poor the Doom64 TC really is. If I only had a customized engine, the TC would of been more true to its n64 counterpart.

I am very dissapointed by the Doomsday engine mainly due to its worthless rendering system and difficult to use scripting.

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It's good for what it was trying to accomplish, despite its flaws. It's a hell of a lot better than playing it on a glitchy N64 emulator.

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I wonder why certain effects weren't possible with the Doomsday engine, though, such as the moving skies, the "beam" effect on the laser

Both of those CAN be done in Doomsday. Its not a case of the engine not being capable.

I am very dissapointed by the Doomsday engine mainly due to its worthless rendering system...

Worthless rendering system? Examples plz.

As you know I have already pledged to enhance the engine where needed for Doom64TC and have spent considerable time implementing a system which can recreate the original D64 lighting model near perfectly for 1.9.0.

Tell me what the shortcomings are and I'll address them.

...difficult to use scripting.

Well thats a simple one to answer - Doomsday doesn't HAVE a scripting system. XG is not and will never be, a scripting system.

You can't attempt to use hacksaw for cutting down a Giant Redwood and then complain that the tool doesn't do what you need it to do.

If you wanted a scripting system you should have ported ACS for jHexen into D64TC.

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Kaiser said:

After looking back, I realized just how poor the Doom64 TC really is. If I only had a customized engine, the TC would of been more true to its n64 counterpart.



Which particular features did you miss? It's hard to tell if you have never seen the original. The TC is the only Doom64 version I have ever played.

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well my take on doom 64 is this:

at first it didn't feel like i was playing a doom game until i got to the 13th map (cant remember it what it was called lol.) but imo it was just a little bit too dark, to the point to where i had to brighten up the game and my tv just to see what was goin on. now ive always wondered if someone made a doom64 wad? if so, where in the blue hell can i find it.

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Kaiser said:

After looking back, I realized just how poor the Doom64 TC really is.


I think you are being overly harsh. It stands as one of the best, highest quality, complete and professional TCs that have been made IMO. I'm only familiar with D64 through playing it a few times on a friend's machine and right through on an emulator myself, but I think you captured the basic essence of the game even if you may feel some of the detail wasn't there.

It's not my favourite TC because D64 is not my favourite incarnation of Doom but that doesn't detract from the quality of the TC. In fact, in some perverse way perhaps it indicates the quality of it.

In saying that, it's probably the only TC I have permanently installed and which I dip into quite a bit for a few minutes of alternative Dooming.

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I haven't seen any other TC (in which its attempt was to recreate another game) get as accurate as the Doom64 TC is to the original game. Of course it's not 100% exactly the same as the original, but it's close enough that it doesn't matter.

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Yeah, I don't think a TC could ever beat "Absolution".

The hell with Doom 3... I've already got the scariest Doom game. :-)

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