Doom Advance, yet more talk

[deadnail]

Doom on Gameboy. Well I know some of you don't like the idea but I do. There seems to be some general confusion about it, though, so I think we should make another thread and try to clear as much of the game up as possible.

Gameboy Advance:
================
Launch Price = $99 US
32bit ARM CPU with embedded memory
2.9" Reflective TVT screen (40.8mm x 61.2mm screen size)
240x160 resolution (widescreen)
511 simultaneous colors during game -- 32,768 in bitmap mode
Input: Digital crosspad, select, start, a, b, l, r

As the movies made exceptionally clear the game will not have floor or ceiling textures. The architecture will also have to be simplified quite a bit (hell, it was in the PSX version of Doom and the GBA is no PSX).

Not much is known about the sound capabilities of the GBA but hopefully it will be on par with an SNES, which will mean wavetable midi and probably a limit of 4 to 8 sound effects at once on top of the music.

One of the most encouraging aspects of the GBA is the four player support (from a single cartridge no less), and as the id man said himself... airport lobbies will never be the same. =)

Deathmatch support should be a given, however, I am also looking forward to portable coop play. Considering the atmosphere of teamplay in today's console FPS games, team deathmatching and maybe even CTF might be included. It's not guaranteed (neither is deathmatching, honestly) but it would certianly extend the gameplay considerably (even with 2 man teams).

Some ports of Doom have had things removed for space reasons... we can only hope our old friends the Spider Mastermind and Revenant make it into this one... although dodging homing missles on the limited controls could be frustrating.

The controls also seem to be an issue of concern so I'll sum up the whole previous thread and my own comments about that right here:
D-Pad = Walk Forward, Backpedal, Turn Left and Turn Right
L = Strafe Left (Could also be a Strafe toggle)
R = Strafe Right (Could also be a Speed toggle)
B = Fire
A = Use (Doors, switches)
Start = Pause Menu
Select = Weapon Selection

Before I explain the weapon selection let me note that the controls should be completely customizable, so an auto-run can be just an option giving you L&R for strafing. Some (admittedly strange) people might prefer the strafe and speed toggles.

Hell, B could be fire and A could be speed. What about doors and switches? Double tap up on the pad. It's crowded but it's functional. =)

Now then, hypothetical. You're running along with your rocket launcher and come across a baron in tight quarters. For safety's sake you choose to take him down with your super shotgun instead. How would you switch to it?

Select, Select, Select, Select, Select
Plasma Rifle, BFG, Chainsaw, Pistol, Super Shotgun

That's gay, because you need to use your movement thumb (the pad) over to press the Select Button, the whole while that damn baron is pounding your head clean out your ass. Not good.
Instead, let's take a lesson from N64 Turok 2 and implement a weapon ring.

Press select and a ring of your current arms (maybe even with ammos listed by them for easy reference) pops up on screen. Now press a direction on the pad to select your weapon (assuming they don't include a bonus weapon like Doom64):

Select = Open weapon ring (press anything but a pad dir to cancel)
UP = Fist
UP-RIGHT = Pistol
RIGHT = Super Shotgun, Shotgun (twice to toggle)
DOWN-RIGHT = Chaingun
DOWN = Rocket Launcher
DOWN-LEFT = Plasma Rifle
LEFT = BFG
UP-LEFT = Chainsaw

There.. it takes a lot of words to explain it but really it's simple as hell and it wouldn't take an hour of playing to become a twitch gaming reaction.

So, in summation... a weapon ring is MUCH better than a cycle. Your choice when that baron comes at you:

Select Select Select Select Select
or
Select Right

It's up to you. =) Someone should let id know about this thread here... anyway, continuing...

Another concern might be quantity of levels... although I'm not worried. The cartridge could EASILY contain 8 to 16 megabytes of data.
SNES Doom = 2 Megabytes
Doom 64 = 8 Megabytes
You can see what they can do with space when it comes to console games, so anything between 4 to 12 megabytes of data should be PLENTY to cram an entire Doom 2 into, with space to spare. The only concern is how much can be displayed at once, so it seems that enemies will do more damage but not be as crowded (logical compensation).

We can hope, though, that they will have all of their side animations... that was one of the biggest flaws of SNES Doom (aside from not being able to circle strafe). Of course it's the better end of a decade since that port so we know that the problem won't be repeated.


Drawbacks we can expect:
========================
-Simplified architecture
-No ceiling or floor textures
-Missing Sound Effects (growling, roaming sounds and such)
-Somewhat blockier textures (if memory becomes an issue)
-Reduced enemy numbers
-Less control than you are used to

Positives we can expect:
========================
-Portable Doom
-Portable Doom
-Portable fraggin' Doom! =)


Okay, is there anything of importance I missed? I still have an idea for a gamepad that's ten times better than a Dual Shock (or Dreamcast or X-Box pad) but I don't think that applies here. I just hope I don't get flamed for wanting Doom on Gameboy...

[masterhassan]

hell no, im waiting for this game too, but what did you say about a movie? is there a game boy advance doom movie? if so i missed it and tell where i can dl it. but if there isnt, i remebere that screen shot of gba doom 2 that was picture of the day a few days back was from a thing on a web site that was talking about how powerful teh gba could be, so they showed that it could run doom, since it was a quik thing that may be why there are no ceiling or floor teztures, that was a while back to, before they even anounced that doom was gonna be on gba. of course i could be completely wrong, which i ussually am. btu then if they wer gonna make a port to show how powerful they would probabyl include ceiling and floor textures if they could...this post is useless, i suck ...may the farce be with you

[stphrz]

You should go to work for Nintendo. I'm sold. I'm getting one of those puppies for sure now :)

[Lüt]

deadnail said:

Hell, B could be fire and A could be speed. What about doors and switches? Double tap up on the pad. It's crowded but it's functional. =)

If I'm not mistaken, a few ports have that already. JDoom I know does. I tell you it's damn annoying because when I play I tap like 20 keys every second so doors are always opening whenever I get near them. Of course, for PORTABLE DOOM it is much worth it!

It looks like there's new maps in that game too. It should only be a matter of time before somebody ports them over to the PC.

Do they give a MHz spec on the processor speed anywhere?

[stphrz]

Lüt said:

It should only be a matter of time before somebody ports them over to the PC.

Hasn't happened with the psx custom levels yet. Elbryan's site has a port of Redeption Denied. That's the only one I've ever seen... In fact I've been looking all over for psx Doom, 'cause I was thinking about doing it myself. Can't find a copy though. And no, I don't want to buy a copy off the net. I feel uneasy giving my credit card numbers on line or over the phone. Call me irrational....

[deadnail]

Lüt said:

If I'm not mistaken, a few ports have that already. JDoom I know does. I tell you it's damn annoying because when I play I tap like 20 keys every second so doors are always opening whenever I get near them. Of course, for PORTABLE DOOM it is much worth it!

It looks like there's new maps in that game too. It should only be a matter of time before somebody ports them over to the PC.

Do they give a MHz spec on the processor speed anywhere?

jDoom: Yeah, that's kinda where I got the idea. Yes, it's annoying as fuck when I walk to a door, stop moving, click use, then tap up to start moving again just to have the damn door shut on me 'cuz I did it too quickly. Of course, I have 120+ buttons at my disposal so that's unnecessary... the GBA has what, six? Ouch.

New maps? Probably, we can hope there's a whole batch of specialized deathmatch arenas. =)

No MHz specs have been released... and if they have, I haven't read them on a big site yet. Whenever http://planetgba.com opens up I'm sure they'll have the specs in full, miniscule detail.

As for custom maps for the PSX version... um, yuck. I did not like them very damn much at all and I don't want to play them again. I'd love to see a perfect conversion of D64 though, those maps were great!

[Lüt]

Stphrz said:

Hasn't happened with the psx custom levels yet. Elbryan's site has a port of Redeption Denied. That's the only one I've ever seen... In fact I've been looking all over for psx Doom, 'cause I was thinking about doing it myself. Can't find a copy though. And no, I don't want to buy a copy off the net. I feel uneasy giving my credit card numbers on line or over the phone. Call me irrational....

I ported a few of the Sega 32X levels to Doom1/Doom2. They weren't really different though, just heavily modified from Doom's original maps, so I used the original maps as a basis. Their rendition of Spawning Vats, although about 1/3 the size of the PC version, looked great. It had a black rock/gravel/metal/support3 theme. After I copied the exact thing to my map, I realized I probably coulda gone ahead and did my own conversion of the stuff that wasn't there in the 32X version.