Doom Over Perfect Dark?

[A Nobody]

I was wondering, why do some people prefer Doom over Perfect Dark? Is it the simplicity? The Doom Marine? The weapons? Fighting demons? They like Doom, that's completely fine! I like Doom as well. I just find it odd that the former is more favored over a first person shooter that has so much more stuff and awesome gameplay. PD is the spiritual successor to Goldeneye, another great first person shooter. Made on an upgrade version of GE's engine, it adds a lot of new new content, and features not seen in the previous game. Perfect Dark has a lot more weapons, each with their own secondary function. One of the weapons is a Laptop Gun. A laptop that's a gun, that's also a turret...how insane is that? Perfect Dark's arsenal is amazing. It even features some of Goldeneye's weapons. The game also has both an amazing non-linear single player and upgraded multiplayer. It also has Co-Op and Counter-Operative. More stuff I'll list here...

 

+A hub area

 

+Fully customizable AI bots

 

+Challenges

 

+A lot of characters to play as

 

+Ability to change the music in multiplayer and the team names

 

+Cutscenes and voice acting

 

And so much more. It's such a great game. Very advanced for the N64, and is still ahead of its time. If you're not a fan of the console or if you wish Perfect Dark was on PC, then you can play it via emulation. The game is available on Xbox Live for the 360 and on Rare Replay for the Xbox One. I still wonder why some gamers prefer Doom over PD, even though they can emulate the latter.

[SOSU]

The two games are too different from each other to be comparable
This is like "Sonic vs Klonoa" (A food analogy would be apples vs spicy meatballs) both are different subgenres of platformers but the subgenres differentiate them enough to make the uncomparable :)

[[McD] James]

Doom is the king of first-person shooters. All other first-person shooters kneel at Doom's throne, begging for its table scraps. 

 

I played through about a quarter of PD on the 1964 emulator with a mouse injector on the highest difficulty right from the start (cause, ya know, piratey stuff), and found it to be both horribly outdated as well as far too easy due to the fact that I was using a mouse and keyboard. I used to be fine with playing first-person shooters with a controller, but it's no longer something I have any inclination towards. The mission designs are good, but the artificial intelligence is woefully stupid and slow to respond. As was the case in Goldeneye, the enemies just kinda idiotically shuffle around and fire at you only when they're in the mood for it. Whether you play the game with a controller or a mouse/keyboard (I've done both), the controls always feel a least a little clunky and unintuitive. 

 

I don't mean to knock Perfect Dark, but it's aged like sour milk. A full-on remake for the PC could potentially be great, but I'm not holding my breath. 

 

But besides all that, as SOSU has already pointed out, Doom and Perfect Dark are far too different to be directly compared. 

[A Nobody]

7 minutes ago, Ajora said:

Doom is the king of first-person shooters. All other first-person shooters kneel at Doom's throne, begging for its table scraps. 

 

I played through about a quarter of PD on the 1964 emulator with a mouse injector on the highest difficulty right from the start (cause, ya know, piratey stuff), and found it to be both horribly outdated as well as far too easy due to the fact that I was using a mouse and keyboard. I used to be fine with playing first-person shooters with a controller, but it's no longer something I have any inclination towards. The mission designs are good, but the artificial intelligence is woefully stupid and slow to respond. As was the case in Goldeneye, the enemies just kinda idiotically shuffle around and fire at you only when they're in the mood for it. Whether you play the game with a controller or a mouse/keyboard (I've done both), the controls always feel a least a little clunky and unintuitive. 

 

I don't mean to knock Perfect Dark, but it's aged like sour milk. A full-on remake for the PC could potentially be great, but I'm not holding my breath. 

 

But besides all that, as SOSU has already pointed out, Doom and Perfect Dark are far too different to be directly compared. 

To me, PD isn't outdated.

 

Well the game wasn't designed with PCs in mind, so that's why it was too easy for you.

[KVELLER]

I tried playing Perfect Dark a while ago with a controller and thought it was incredibly average, not to mention kinda annoying to control (which is made even worse by my lack of FPS skills with a controller). I didn't even get that far either, I only played a couple levels until I got to the first escort mission and had to deal with that stupid idiot getting in the crossfire. I guess it was important on its day, because you know, it's one of the first console FPS and all that, but I don't think it holds up very well.

[PsychoGoatee]

You mention cutscenes and voice acting, Duke had those in 96 baby! On Perfect Dark, if you like it better, it's better to you. I enjoyed it, played the port they did for 360 arcade, smooth fun game. I do prefer Doom, although with some source port stuff and mouse aim. And of course for the time and importance, can't top Doom.

[amackert]

I'm not a fan of mission-oriented first person shooters. I prefer more simplistic (yet chaotic) arcade-style gameplay, stuff like Doom, Heretic, Painkiller, Serious Sam, etc. I think Perfect Dark (and Goldeneye, Timesplitters) are fine games, they just aren't to my tastes. I prefer to play those in multiplayer.

[A Nobody]

4 hours ago, PsychoGoatee said:

You mention cutscenes and voice acting, Duke had those in 96 baby! On Perfect Dark, if you like it better, it's better to you. I enjoyed it, played the port they did for 360 arcade, smooth fun game. I do prefer Doom, although with some source port stuff and mouse aim. And of course for the time and importance, can't top Doom.

Oh right, Duke Nukem 3D did it. What I meant was that they were implemented into PD's engine, which is an upgraded version of Goldeneye's. GE didn't have cutscenes and voice acting.

[ReaperAA]

16 hours ago, The-Heretic-Assassin said:

I still wonder why some gamers prefer Doom over PD, even though they can emulate the latter.

 

Because:

1) Doom is available on PC without need for emulation.

2) Doom is more fast paced.

3) Wide variety of modern source ports available.

4) Is very moddable and has tons of maps to last a lifetime.

5) Some people like its simplicity.

6) Some people are not interested in story/mission based games.

 

Also Doom was more revolutionary. A lot of things u mention about PD already existed in other fps games:

1) Each weapon with alternate firing modes (Unreal had those)

2) Fully customizable AI bots (Unreal Tournament had those)

3) Cutscenes and voice acting (Duke 3D had those)

4) A hub area (Hexen had hubs)

5) Multiple characters (Hexen had those, as well as many other games)

 

[Xcalibur]

Reaper covered it well. Doom is a pioneer, and it offers simplicity and flexibility. it gives you huge potential for modding and expanding on it, and it's built up tons of content over the years.

 

Perfect Dark is a great FPS for sure, but it's mission-based and limited by comparison. it's great at what it does, but it can't go beyond that.

 

also, while they're both FPS, they have a fair amount of differences between them.

[A Nobody]

12 hours ago, Xcalibur said:

Reaper covered it well. Doom is a pioneer, and it offers simplicity and flexibility. it gives you huge potential for modding and expanding on it, and it's built up tons of content over the years.

 

Perfect Dark is a great FPS for sure, but it's mission-based and limited by comparison. it's great at what it does, but it can't go beyond that.

 

also, while they're both FPS, they have a fair amount of differences between them.

How is PD limited?

[Jello]

1 hour ago, The-Heretic-Assassin said:

How is PD limited?

 

I'm assuming it's because you can't create new levels or content for it. It was great at what it did, and I still love it. Aside from the alien missions later in the game, those got really irritating really fast, especially on harder difficulties. But 20 years later I still pull out the N64 and Perfect Dark when my brother visits so we can play some multiplayer. Because he won't play any game with mouselook or dual-analog aiming. He's old-school like that.

[Avoozl]

18 hours ago, ReaperAA said:

 

Because:

1) Doom is available on PC without need for emulation.

Yes, but Perfect Dark did get a special enhanced emulator for mouse and keyboard control support, it also runs much better than on the original hardware this way as long as you have the right settings set.

[Avoozl]

31 minutes ago, Jello said:

 

I'm assuming it's because you can't create new levels or content for it.

Actually you can with the GoldenEye Setup Editor which also supports Perfect Dark. ;)

[ReaperAA]

3 hours ago, Avoozl said:

Yes, but Perfect Dark did get a special enhanced emulator for mouse and keyboard control support, it also runs much better than on the original hardware this way as long as you have the right settings set.

 

This is good to know. But how does the mouse movement feel compared to the native PC FPS games? I assume it wouldn't be as good.

[A Nobody]

11 hours ago, Avoozl said:

Actually you can with the GoldenEye Setup Editor which also supports Perfect Dark. ;)

Plus there's mods such as Goldeneye X and more.

[Korozive]

Doom has the best story of any game: Just F@#king Kill Everything!!!

[CyberDreams]

Of course i love Doom more. I wouldn't be on a forum talking about Doom. For me it's a lot easier to just pick up and play but i think i played Perfect Dark first so i am nostalgic for it. There is an old thread on here that talks about Perfect Dark when it was new and it seemed that most people didn't like it all that much. I mean, this is a Doom forum so it makes sense. PC FPS gamers vs a console only game? Yeah... :p

 

For me the N64 controller is an odd one. Even as a kid i found it weird and i cannot for the life of me go back to playing any game with it comfortably. But emulating Perfect Dark on PC or playing the Xbox 360 arcade version (which is also included in the XB1 game "Rare Replay") is a decent way to play the game nowadays if you can't stand using the N64 controller like me.

 

IMO the game hasn't aged as well as Doom but it still has its charm. Decent story, graphics are good for an N64 game, sounds are good ect. Some missions can be a pain but i always liked playing multiplayer with the bots such as the "turtle bot" which is slow but has a stronger shield, or the "revenge bot" which will always go after the person who last killed it first (i think).

 

All in all i think it was an improvement over GoldenEye due to including bots for MP and it even included some maps from it as well (although i can't remember if it had the awesome "hit locations" on enemies like GoldenEye 007 did). But i don't think you can really compare it to Doom. I mean, a game from 1993 compared to a console only game that came out in 2000? Nah...

 

Either way both are great games in there own way. 

[VanaheimRanger]

Are you planning to make some Perfect Dark maps soon, Assassin?

[A Nobody]

2 hours ago, guitardz said:

Are you planning to make some Perfect Dark maps soon, Assassin?

Oh I haven't thought on that, but sounds like a great idea! :)

[banjiepixel]

There are many things that could make a video game very popular even decades after it was released. It could be just the timing of release or marketing. Sometimes the game is just so damn fun or just extreme well designed and that brings people back to it. And in some cases active community just builds around the game for some other reason.

 

For Doom, big part of the success has been easy access and having been easy to mod too. Releasing it as shareware, making creating user created content easy and eventually making the engine open source were pretty much perfect string of actions to make Doom popular even decades later. Doom also happened to first one that really perfected first person shooter design, bit similar like Street Fighter 2 was real proper fighting game that everybody started to copy. And like Doom, atleast some versions of Street Fighter 2 do get some real play even in 2019. Pac-Man is also another game that is still pretty popular today.

 

Sure, Perfect Dark may have more awesome stuff in it but is it actually as well designed game as those examples? I have not played Perfect Dark much so I can't be sure but I do feel that it just isn't as solid package as my examples. Ease of access also just isn't there compared to Doom, Street Fighter 2 and Pac-Man that have been released on almost every platform ever made. Those games are also more cartoony or abstact compared to Perfect Dark that tried to be more realistic using technology that didn't really allow it. Besides, Timesplitters 2 was much better game anyway and made PD obsolete.

Edited March 23, 2019 by banjiepixel

[Jaxxoon R]

I played Perfect Dark on an actual N64 a short while ago. I guess it was okay, it ran poorly and I don't particularly recall any of the cutscenes, but it functioned well and had a funny animation quirk where if you looked down while crouching Joann Dark would contort horrifically.

 

I'd sum it up as a legally-distinct Goldeneye sequel.

 

Forgot to mention, but I really liked the main menu theme.

Edited March 23, 2019 by Jaxxoon R

[Xcalibur]

On 3/20/2019 at 9:19 PM, Jello said:

 

I'm assuming it's because you can't create new levels or content for it. It was great at what it did, and I still love it. Aside from the alien missions later in the game, those got really irritating really fast, especially on harder difficulties. But 20 years later I still pull out the N64 and Perfect Dark when my brother visits so we can play some multiplayer. Because he won't play any game with mouselook or dual-analog aiming. He's old-school like that.

pretty much this, lack of moddability is the main limitation. also, to my knowledge PD is only on the n64 and hasn't been ported.

 

modding can give a much longer life to games. there are many examples, like all the romhacks of NES classics, and the rise of randomizer for alttp, metroid, and others. ppl make content even if it involves working with assembly code or other challenges, so if you make modding easy, and the game is well-built and has lots of potential, that's the perfect recipe. ports are also important for accessibility, they allow more ppl to play and make content.

[banjiepixel]

2 hours ago, Xcalibur said:

pretty much this, lack of moddability is the main limitation. also, to my knowledge PD is only on the n64 and hasn't been ported.

 

There needs to be something about a game that allows strong community to form around it. Modding and multiplayer are some of the most powerful features to keep people playing the game. Also access is a huge factor, imagine if Doom had been released only for snes like the Perfect Dark was released only for N64, I am sure that not many people would care about Doom now if that would had happened.

 

Sure, if Doom would had been snes exclusive, we could had eventually gotten modding via romhacking but Perfect Dark has the problem that N64 emulation can still be pretty crappy. Doom would be still more accessible and many people would prefer it more.

[Xcalibur]

1 hour ago, banjiepixel said:

 

There needs to be something about a game that allows strong community to form around it. Modding and multiplayer are some of the most powerful features to keep people playing the game. Also access is a huge factor, imagine if Doom had been released only for snes like the Perfect Dark was released only for N64, I am sure that not many people would care about Doom now if that would had happened.

 

Sure, if Doom would had been snes exclusive, we could had eventually gotten modding via romhacking but Perfect Dark has the problem that N64 emulation can still be pretty crappy. Doom would be still more accessible and many people would prefer it more.

indeed. Doom wins because it checks off all the boxes: quality design, easily modded, and ported everywhere.

[A Nobody]

12 hours ago, Xcalibur said:

pretty much this, lack of moddability is the main limitation. also, to my knowledge PD is only on the n64 and hasn't been ported.

 

modding can give a much longer life to games. there are many examples, like all the romhacks of NES classics, and the rise of randomizer for alttp, metroid, and others. ppl make content even if it involves working with assembly code or other challenges, so if you make modding easy, and the game is well-built and has lots of potential, that's the perfect recipe. ports are also important for accessibility, they allow more ppl to play and make content.

Perfect Dark is moddable, and it's released on the Xbox 360 and One.

[banjiepixel]

1 hour ago, The-Heretic-Assassin said:

Perfect Dark is moddable, and it's released on the Xbox 360 and One.

 

It's not a very accessible because the only practical legal way to play it on a console that not many people have. And why should people care when there were Halo and Call of Duty games released between the original N64 release and the remaster on Xbox 360 and One. Sure, Perfect Dark could be moddable in theory but in most cases doing that requires doing illegal stuff to make it possible. Doom has had always strong support to modding from the start and you do not need to do anything illegal to do it. Engine is open source so people can make changes into it without any hacking and it is extremely easy to buy Doom games these days and use them legally for modding purposes. It is also the simplicity of Doom that enables it to be so popular for user created stuff, there is a good reason why Quake 1 and Quake 2 are less popular to mod than Doom. Tools for doom modding are also pretty powerful these days and they are very user friendly.

 

And why Perfect Dark? Why not to just mod and play Half-Life? Why even care about Perfect Dark when Timesplitters exists? Also why Perfect Dark and not the original Goldeneye that people actually like more? Is there any real reason for people to even play Perfect Dark these days? Why wouldn't you instead play Halo or Call of Duty or atleast something more advanced and modern? What makes Perfect Dark so special?

[wheresthebeef]

Its a very random comparison, but honestly Doom and Perfect Dark are so different that your preference comes down to personal taste. I wouldn't call either one subjectively better than the other, either.

 

More appropriate comparisons would be stuff like Timesplitters vs Perfect Dark vs Goldeneye as those are actually all directly related and similar or why someone would prefer Doom 64 over Doom PC.

[therektafire]

On 3/20/2019 at 8:19 PM, Jello said:

I'm assuming it's because you can't create new levels or content for it

Actually you can, it's kind of a PITA though, there is a level editor available https://github.com/carnivoroussociety/GoldEditor but it's not all in one like GZDB, you need to make the model in an external editor like Blender then patch it over an existing level in the editor (that's how you have to do things with roms, you can't make new level slots, you can only replace original ones), also the map format is a bit weird since you have to have a separate model group for each "room" in the map (the game divides maps into "rooms" to save space and performance and it connects them with "portals" which are less like Build portals and more like Source visibility occluders) which makes the overall workflow of making the map take longer especially if you are trying to make it in an editor like GZDB because then you'll need to bring it into a more complex editor to divide it. And the "scripting" system (which I believe is mostly used for AIs) is kind of janky and not particularly intuitive whatsoever

[Barry Burton]

PD is great, but not on real hardware I'm afraid. The FPS dips regularly into single digits, which is really not fun. I think Rare squeezed a little too much out of the N64. The Xbox remaster plays worse. It looks great, but aiming sucks and isn't even close to being as accurate as the N64 version, even with modern FPS controls. Best way to play it is with 1964 and mouse injection, and even then it's way too easy. The multiplayer is dope though.

 

Doom is just not a fair comparison...