KainXavier

I don't mind a change in aesthetics from game to game so long as it still gets the point across. But you're absolutely right about Doomguy's face. His appearance helps shape our perception of what game he's from. If his hair is black hair, he's from DOOM 3. If it's brown, he's from DOOM I and II. Things get even murkier when you remove those zig-zag side-burns. I feel like DOOM Eternal's art style was a good compromise between DOOM 4's look and the original games. None of the colors were super saturated but they weren't dark either. Not that dark is bad! I just mean nothing from DOOM I or DOOM II would look too out of place in Eternal's universe. (The dopefish kind of stands out but it's still not as bad as Quake III's!) The level design was also pretty varied in Eternal so I'm not too worried about DOOM 6's future in that respect. That said, I would love to see more otherworldly stuff! Abstraction and surrealism are welcome too! I can't remember if it was DOOM 3 or RoE but there was a level near the end of the game that literally phased in and out Hell. It was utterly brilliant, and I'd love to see something like that return

The DOOM and DOOM II ports use Unity so that may be why. Are there any KEX engine games on mobile? Also, I didn’t mean that sarcastically. I genuinely don’t know.

There’s nothing wrong with doing what you love, but there’s nothing wrong with wanting to make a living off of it either. That’s all I was getting at. And you’re not wrong about the importance of a source code release. I very much doubt we’d all be enjoying DOOM 64 right now were it not for DOOM going open source. (Not to mention how pro open-source the emulation scene is.) I hate anti-consumer practices too but I felt like you were just trying to disparage Nightdive’s work. Yeah, it sucks that not all of Fresh Supply’s issues were resolved, but I still think it’s worth the asking price. You can always load the game’s files in your source port of choice afterward. And yes, the inability to purchase One Unit, Whole Blood by itself on GoG is shitty and anti-consumer. But you can counter that by purchasing the Fresh Supply bundle only when it’s on sale. You’ll get the original game, the remaster, and you’ll support Nightdive. It’s true that you’ll also support Atari, though. As for the Bethesda.net sign-in, I find it annoying but not anti-consumer. It’s optional and signing up means you can download add-ons and mods for your game as well as unlock some cosmetic items in at least one other. That said, Bethesda’s cookie policy is totally anti-consumer because it defaults to enabling the sale of your personal information. The menu also obfuscates the “accept my changes” button. Lastly, some of my ire also came from the fact that I see a lot of discussion about playing DOOM 64 in this forum but rarely does it involve supporting the official release. There’s also usually some kind of pretense to dance around that fact. Which hey, I get it, there are free (albeit legally dubious) ways to play the game. I’m not going to fault you if want to try before you buy or even if you really want to play the game and simply don’t have the money to spare. You do you. But please, just be honest about your intentions. Rant over and to get back on topic, I would love to play DOOM 64 co-op some day.

@Gibbon I regret agreeing with you now because it seems like your intentions for the source code released by Erik194 are not entirely altruistic. As a sourceport author yourself, are you really going to tell me that you wouldn’t like to be compensated for your work? People have been trying to reverse-engineer and port Blood for two decades. It wasn’t until M210 got involved with BloodCM in 2008 that things really started moving forward. And even then, it took another 10 years or so for us to receive a port comparable to the Nightdive remaster. Don’t get wrong, I love all of the community efforts made to preserve Blood, but I simply don’t understand the hate for Fresh Supply. Nightdive is one the few companies dedicated to keeping old games alive, and they are seemingly the only ones that give a shit about the FPS genre. Fresh Supply was also a chance to convince Atari to continue the franchise, and I don’t think anyone here would turn down a chance to play Blood III. As a game developer, I realize you have to have somewhat of a thick skin, but that doesn’t make posts like yours any less disheartening to read. (Hell, I don’t even work in the industry any more, and you’ve got me worked up.) We are fortunate in that some members of the Nightdive team have ties to this community. We are privy to information that often does not get shared elsewhere. Let’s try to support our own and not scare them away, no? (Not that @Edward850 really strikes me as someone who’s afraid of confrontation anyway. :p)

I’m a bit biased since I grew up with the device but the Unisonic Tournament 150 is my favorite Pong clone. It features two controllers with generously long wires, 7 games, and a light gun. The only downside is that its RF video output predates coaxial cables so you’ll need an adapter. That and a CRT for the light gun to work. (5 of the games are still playable without it.) As for obscure consoles, I feel like the Fairchild Channel F deserves a shoutout. It’s notable for two reasons. It was the first video game console to feature cartridge-based games. And more importantly, it was developed by this man. (I highly recommend reading Vintage Computing and Gaming’s interview with Jerry Lawson too!)

@whatup876 Oh, I’m definitely not advocating for Hugo Martin to lose his job! Like I said, I don’t think DOOM 4 would have happened without him. (And I honestly love DOOM 4!) I just think he should have less creative control in the future based on the direction he took Eternal in. One hand in the pie is fine. Two is too many. As for side stories, I’m definitely all for that! I would love to see a game that focuses on one or more of the characters introduced in Quake III Arena and Quake Champions. I think it’s a shame that Crash didn’t make some kind of appearance in Eternal, especially given all of the references to the other games. (I’ll be equally disappointed if we don’t get to play as Wrack in the eventual Quake 1 sequel.) Original IP would be good too! In terms of keeping each game’s universe distinct, I’d be okay with that but not for the DOOM series. The multi-verse is now canon, and it’d be a shame to see DOOM 3 not get its due. That said, I’m fine with the ties to the other games being kept lose. Like it’d be neat to see how the Soul Cube wound up in Eternal’s universe or if the Artifact in Resurrection of Evil really is the heart of the Icon of Sin, albeit in a smaller and weakened state. Hell, I could even see the Soul Cube or the Artifact being used as a plot device to explain away why one of the DOOM 3 protagonists now has Slayer-like powers. (I’d prefer not to of course! :p)

@Gibbon Okay, I understand what you’re getting at now. It would be nice to have a comparable, open-source solution so the community won’t have to depend on id, Microsoft, or its partners to port the game to future platforms. @OpenRift I would argue that Nightdive’s port is comparable to PsyDoom. I believe PsyDoom takes a more emulation-centric approach but the end-result is more or less the same. Both teams had to reverse-engineer the game engine and recreate any quirks specific to the platform it ran on. One team replaced the renderer with something that uses Vulcan natively. The other team probably wrote overrides for it so Vulcan winds up being used instead. Hell, the KEX engine could very well be doing this too. I’m not sure how much detail @Edward850 can go into because it’s proprietary, and he likely signed an NDA.

I’m confused because this is essentially what NightDive did. Are you wanting a new source port so mod support can be expanded? @OpenRift The new retail release is effectively using the original engine. The changes that were made are more about sound and video output rather than anything to do with gameplay. Edit: You can’t use the same code that was used on the Nintendo 64 because it won’t run on modern PC and console hardware. Are you wanting a Nintendo 64 emulator that runs DOOM 64 and has some QoL features hacked in?

The longer levels can be pretty tedious and stressful to get through, especially on higher difficulties. Being able to save anywhere would definitely help to mitigate that. That said, I do believe DOOM Eternal creates an auto-save after every arena battle. I just wish id would have tied Extra Lives to their checkpoint system. That would help smooth out some of the rough patches. Also, I found the Saving Throw rune very helpful so my vote would be for that. DOOM Eternal does feature cheats but you can’t progress through the campaign with them enabled. You can only play levels you’ve already completed, and even then you’re locked out of completing certain challenges. You can use cheats to complete Weekly Events, though! Lastly, congratulations on beating the Cultist Base! I would like to say the game gets easier, but that’d be untrue. You may want to avoid the Slayer’s Gate challenges, the Master Levels, and The Ancient Gods for now or altogether. You’re also probably going to hate fighting the Doom Hunter for the first time, for reasons you’ll soon discover. My advice is to dash a lot and maybe focus on attacking the unshielded parts of its body rather than stress yourself out by trying to constantly overload its shields and restore your plasma rifle ammo. Edit: One last thing, I’ve heard the Energy Shield mod for the chaingun helps early on, but I never used it much in my playthrough so I can’t say with certainty.

I get where you’re going with that but DOOM 4 / 2016 had both of those things. I don’t feel like DOOM 4 is over-designed and exclusionary. DOOM Eternal on the other hand... I’ve gone into specifics before but I don’t want to derail this thread. My general view is that DOOM Eternal has some really high highs and some really low lows, more so than any other game in the series. The Ancient Gods DLC failed to address the lows and in fact, doubled down on them. I brought it up here because I feel like Eternal’s narrative suffered from the same design process. I wouldn’t say the story is one of the worst aspects of the game, but it’s definitely all over the place and feels largely like a retcon. I also feel like the ending of TAG limits where they can go from here (without more retcons).

@whatup876 Honestly, Eternal ignores most of 2016’s lore too. Like @Quasar said, it feels like Hugo doubled-down on whatever he thought was cool regardless of what was already established. I’ll take it a step further and say Hugo also responded the same way to any criticisms levied at the game. In a way, it’s good that Eternal had a game director with such a singular vision. Hugo’s drive is probably what pulled DOOM 4 out of the development hell it was in, and DOOM Eternal just built off of that. The downside is that giving one person so much creative control can lead to some really polarizing results, which is exactly what happened with Eternal and The Ancient Gods. I suspect the DLC was already underway or at least in pre-production by the time of Eternal’s release. The nature of game development during a pandemic probably limited their ability to re-write and re-record the dialogue. Still, I feel like id could have done more with less. Hell, I would have been okay if TAG ended with Davoth fleeing and the Night Sentinels claiming Immora. That would at least give a potential sequel more wiggle room and also prove that DOOM is, you know, eternal. As it stands now, I really don’t see how Eternal’s narrative can continue without shifting focus to another character or acknowledging that there’s a multi-verse and begin interweaving DOOM 3’s lore and possibly the mobile games’. I also really, really hope Davoth is discredited so we can get away from the “I planned this all along.” retcons.

Okay, I’m going to channel my inner Hugo. DOOM 6 will be released as a duology that explores the past and sets up future events. In the first game, a now de-powered Slayer wakes up in an alternate universe on a planet not unlike Earth. The human-like beings are conducting the same kinds of experiments which lead to disaster in the Slayer’s previous two lives. The inevitable happens and Hell invades. The Slayer does what he can, but the people of this new world are doomed. Eventually, the Slayer is forced to activate a weapon which wipes out all life on the planet, including himself. The gateway to Hell has been closed, but the game ends on a dark note as the camera zooms out to reveal the now ruined planet is Mars, and we’re in the DOOM 3 universe. The second game takes place in yet another universe with a protagonist not unlike the DOOM Slayer. Events mirroring past games play out and Hell invades. Unlike past games however, the invasion succeeds and the Slayer’s doppelgänger is killed. This is where the game’s story really begins. The doppelgänger, or the Slain, is revived in Hell and charged with a mission: He must stop others like him in order to protect his soul and the souls of his loved ones. This leads to a campaign that spans space, time, and multiple universes, eventually culminating into the events of the Ancient Gods. We learn that the Slain is fated to die but also that his past self will ultimately kill the future Slayer. One of the Slain’s missions is to retrieve the heart from the Icon of Sin in Eternal and bring it to Mars in the DOOM 3 universe. The Icon of Sin is what kills off the Martians and forces the Slayer to sacrifice himself. This is also where the Artifact from Resurrection of Evil comes into play. It’s literally the heart of the Icon of Sin. We also learn that the Slain is an unreliable narrator. He is not a Dark Lord but he serves one. What we know about Urdak and the Makyrs may also be untrue. There are also glimpses that the Slain may be attempting to undermine Hell’s effort to conquer all of reality. Maybe that’s why he’s fated to die. Maybe that’ll play a role when DOOM 7 comes out and features characters from the DOOM 3 universe.

I agree with @Rudolph and @hybridial that most games could stand to be shorter. Since Half-Life has been brought up, I’ll use it as an example: Half-Life has an interesting premise that goes nowhere for hours. It’s not until you hit Xen that things get really interesting and that’s like 10 - 15 hours in. Opposing Force is interesting in that you assume the role of an antagonistic force to the hero of the main game. However, it also sits on its thumbs for like seven hours. Blue Shift stars an otherwise supporting actor, and it manages to hit all of the best plot beats that the other two do, and it does so in only 3.5 hours! Blue Shift is clearly the perfect length.

True, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try or that we should accept things as they are now.

Orzo's basically treated like rice anyway so I could see that working. My family always did a Picadillo-type dish except we called it Picadilli. As for Skyline, I don't understand the appeal of putting chili on spaghetti, but given the amount of shredded cheese, I could see it working once it all starts melting together. I usually eat spaghetti with a meat sauce made from marinara, vodka sauce, or alfredo but on rare occasions, I'll do a cheddar-based sauce. Cheese also pairs well with spicy stuff. I just wonder how creamy Skyline's chili is. Maybe it works because there are no beans? Edit: @Aaron Blain Okay, the cinnamon and cocoa probably explain why this works. Thanks for the insight!