Is there a way Doom 64 could have been better?

[Deleted_Account]

My first exposure to Doom was back in 1993 when it was first released on PC. It didn't take very long for it to be ported to so many consoles afterwards, I was actually quite shocked.

As for the topic at hand, to add to my earlier post;

I think if Doom 64 allowed the player to look up & down, and jumping like Quake, it would have been received better when it was first released. And the same goes for it having multiplayer. Ah but what the heck do I know? As for me, I loved the game back in 97 and I still have a place for it in my heart in 2015. I still have the original N64 cartridge and system, and they both work fine.

[Koko Ricky]

Enjay said:

Did the sprites need to be bigger for the N64? What I mean is, could the original PC sprites have been used (or ones of similar size) and thereby allowed more sprites in the cart or did they need to use bigger sprites for some reason?

The N64 was known for its lack of pixelation, even though it turned everything into a blurry shit mess. So the larger sprites were likely seen as an attractive aesthetic. I would have gone with normal size sprites, that would have probably left room in for the missing enemies.

[Buckshot]

GoatLord said:

The N64 was known for its lack of pixelation, even though it turned everything into a blurry shit mess. So the larger sprites were likely seen as an attractive aesthetic. I would have gone with normal size sprites, that would have probably left room in for the missing enemies.

You mean mipmapping and dithering of pixels and textures, which weren't "shit" as you state. It was a graphics hardware acceleration effect, as the N64 used silicon graphics grapjhics processor (similarly found in the SGI indy line of systems), much alike the 3d accelerator cards in pc's of the time, and still effects applied today.

[Jaxxoon R]

But applied to such low-res assets, it looked like shit.

[Dragonsbrethren]

Very debatable. That "blurry shit mess" allowed games to scale textures without them looking horrid. The only example in Doom 64 are the skies (the clouds are particularly awful looking without filtering), but it makes a huge difference in games designed with it in mind. If you have an N64 emulator, try forcing point sampling -- I'll take blurry over that pixelated shit mess.

That's coming from someone who forces nearest neighbor in Quake and Doom ports, but those games were designed knowing the textures would be pixelated. They didn't stretch textures 4x (or more!) their original resolution, stretch them, distort them, etc. The bilinear filtering and mipmapping allowed N64 games to get away with doing that, and the results are usually good looking.

[Da Werecat]

I don't think it looked like shit. Doom 64's assets work much better with filtering than classic Doom's.

MeetyourUnmaker said:

Tech center looks like it has a more complex layout to me.

Well, it has more details for sure. It also has a lot of right angles and corridors. Although the part I'd really like to nitpick is that north-eastern section made of copypaste rooms - even remembering it from the picture kinda makes me yawn. Tricks And Traps is a more varied (if gimmicky) map, especially if we count gameplay.

I love Doom 64, but it was relatively modern in its approach to level design, which means more plausible orthogonality and less quirky gameplay-oriented geometry.

[Jaxxoon R]

Might have something to do with the fact that Doom 64's assets are higher-color and higher-res that classic Doom.

And the textures wouldn't need to be stretched if the N64 didn't have such a stupidly small texture cache.

[MeetyourUnmaker]

Da Werecat said:

I don't think it looked like shit. Doom 64's assets work much better with filtering than classic Doom's.


Well, it has more details for sure. It also has a lot of right angles and corridors. Although the part I'd really like to nitpick is that north-eastern section made of copypaste rooms - even remembering it from the picture kinda makes me yawn. Tricks And Traps is a more varied (if gimmicky) map, especially if we count gameplay.

I love Doom 64, but it was relatively modern in its approach to level design, which means more plausible orthogonality and less quirky gameplay-oriented geometry.

IDK man, I just felt when I played through the first half of Doom 2 that a lot of the maps felt pretty bland and lacked detail compared to Doom 64, and I heard it just gets worse.

I liked how the maps in Doom 64 had little slits in the walls for torches and stuff everywhere. There wasn't as many curves in the map geometry but there was a lot more sectors used for stuff like over arches, wooden beams, lighting, etc.

[gaspe]

MeetyourUnmaker said:

IDK man, I just felt when I played through the first half of Doom 2 that a lot of the maps felt pretty bland and lacked detail compared to Doom 64, and I heard it just gets worse.

I liked how the maps in Doom 64 had little slits in the walls for torches and stuff everywhere. There wasn't as many curves in the map geometry but there was a lot more sectors used for stuff like over arches, wooden beams, lighting, etc.

Ok, but consider the fact that Doom 64 came out 3 years after Doom 2. In that period of time the people started to make their own levels and they were able to refine the style.

[Buckshot]

The biggest mistake I see here is trying to compare doom1/2 to doom 64.

its like trying to compare doom 1/2 to doom 3.

completley different ballpark of approach. simular stories and characters and all are FPS'ers.... but ones action themed and the other is horror themed.

[Koko Ricky]

I should make it clear that I don't think Doom 64 looks like shit. The problem is that the limited RAM capacity forced the textures in most N64 games to be of a very low resolution, so some games looked really bad. Others looked great. Doom 64 looks pretty damn good, although when I play the EX version, I prefer it to be unfiltered, because I like big fat pixels.

[Avoozl]

I don't like the filter in Ex much because it's not the same as the filter the N64 version has, but I understand it's not possible to be implemented.

[VGamingJunkie]

GoatLord said:

I should make it clear that I don't think Doom 64 looks like shit. The problem is that the limited RAM capacity forced the textures in most N64 games to be of a very low resolution, so some games looked really bad. Others looked great. Doom 64 looks pretty damn good, although when I play the EX version, I prefer it to be unfiltered, because I like big fat pixels.

Sounds like the Expansion Pack would have really helped it since it boosts the RAM a great amount. As for texture cache, Rare figured out how to sort of get around it with multi-layered textures to fill in the detail and the results were usually much better than your standard N64 game.




Really, though, Doom 64 could have been far worse. All the Sega Saturn got was the Ps1 Doom but without any colored lights and a drastically worse frame-rate. At least they went through the effort to give the N64 game its own graphics and levels.

[esselfortium]

Even with the expansion pack, the texture size would still be limited due to the 4096 byte (i.e. 4kb, the size of a flat in Doom) texture cache. In the N64's later years, a few developers managed to figure out methods to work around this after Nintendo opened up the system's microcode to developers, but most games had to just deal with minuscule textures.

[MeetyourUnmaker]

I thought the low res textures actually helped Doom 64 for its gritty look. Same applies to Half-Life 1 and MK Mythologies.

[VGamingJunkie]

http://www.gamefabrique.com/storage/screenshots/n64/duke-nukem-zero-hour-05.png


I considered Duke nukem Zero Hour as having fairly good textures compared to a chunk of N64 games. Guess it's because the textures rely more on tiling than being stretched out.

[MeetyourUnmaker]

MetroidJunkie said:

http://www.gamefabrique.com/storage/screenshots/n64/duke-nukem-zero-hour-05.png


I considered Duke nukem Zero Hour as having fairly good textures compared to a chunk of N64 games. Guess it's because the textures rely more on tiling than being stretched out.

ZH at first has decent textures but iirc, the graphics become more on par with N64 standards in the later levels. Plus, it's a game from around 2000 or so

[Drilbur]

Slightly more maps, like maybe 30-32 excluding secret maps. Multiplayer options, like Co op play. And of course, the monsters that were cut out.

[HorrorMovieRei]

Doom 64 is probably my second favorite Doom game(after the first one ofcourse). I love the horror oriented atmosphere and style. But the the game feels empty without the missing monsters. I'm not gonna lie, most of them are a pain in the ass and the bizarre n64 controller wouldn't have made them any easier to avoid, but not having them just doesn't feel right.
I'm actually surprised no one ever tried modelling the missing monsters in the Doom 64 style actually. I've seen some very talented 3D artists make high-poly Doom models, but no one has ever tried giving them a more gritty look and rendering sprites from them.

But then again, I don't know dick about 3D modeling, so it's probably easier said than done :/

[Marnetmar]

^Actually, that's exactly how D64's sprites were made :p

[HorrorMovieRei]

I know. So in theory it should be easy for modders to remake the missing monsters in the Doom 64 style, right? We just need to draw a cool concept of what they might have looked like on Doom 64, and a skilled modeler to make a model based on the sketch.

[Doomkid]

I just want to ask, what control scheme do you guys use when playing on an actual N64?

I like to call my setup the 'deformed 360' layout, using the D-Pad as the 'w s d a' keys, and the joystick for turning, holding the controller's left and center grips. The Z button is used to fire with my right hand, the L trigger is my 'run' button, and i have to do a slighly awkward reach to B for opening doors and A for changing guns, but overall this layout is a gazillion times better than the default.

In goldeneye, this layout is called 'solitaire'.

What do you guys do?

[ReFracture]

To me.. co-op and deathmatch is all that could have realistically been added... but it might have necessitated further butchering things.

Support for the expansion pak and a larger cart was impossible due to neither existing at the time of Doom 64's release. Too bad the sequel was cancelled.

[Doomkid]

2 player splitscreen would have been phenomenal. I'd rather have it with the occasional slowdown than not have it at all.. and I think the fact that it didn't have it is why it's overlooked by everyone but Doom nuts these days.

[VGamingJunkie]

This probably wasn't meant to be co-op anyway, given the more intentionally horror-based atmosphere.

[ReFracture]

The level design is also obviously intended for solo play, traps and sections of levels closing off behind you and whatnot. The fake room over room effects would also not work at all in co-op.. and there's plenty of those.

If there's one basic thing they could have done to make me happier, it would be always run so I don't have to hold R while strafing.

I use control preset 3.

Z: Attack
C-UP: Use
Dpad-UP: Map
R: Speed
C-Left: Strafe Left
C-Right: Strafe Right
A: Weapon Backward
B: Weapon Forward

I increase the control stick sensitivity to about 1/5, then completely max the brightness because this game is dark as hell.

That's how I play Doom64 on N64.

[Doomkid]

Maybe 2 player deathmatch with like, 3 basic maps would have been better. It certainly would have been better than the messy Goldeneye stuff ;)

[dg93]

I tried playing Doom 64 and I couldn't make it past the 2nd level. I constantly got lost because I found it really difficult to navigate in dark maps. I prefer the PC version of Doom than all the other versions. Doom 64 would have been a lot better if the lighting was a little brighter in the maps.

[jdagenet]

the_miano said:

I tried playing Doom 64 and I couldn't make it past the 2nd level. I constantly got lost because I found it really difficult to navigate in dark maps. I prefer the PC version of Doom than all the other versions. Doom 64 would have been a lot better if the lighting was a little brighter in the maps.

There's a brightness setting in the game that you can use to increase the brightness. You can always turn the brightness up on the T.V. As well if the built-in brightness meter isn't enough.

[ReFracture]

Yeah with some adjustment the game is very adequately visible.