I've found out that S.T.R.A.I.N. TC was illegally sold for Sega Dreamcast users back in 2002

[Dexiaz]

Hey there. Yesterday I was looking for scans of box copy of my PS1 Doom which are pretty strange, because it used Doom 64 screenshots instead of actual PS1 images. BTW, here it is:

Spoiler

 

And yes, the third screenshot is from Sega Saturn Doom, IDK why.

 

And you know what? I've found a cd image of Dreamcast Doom 2: S.T.R.A.I.N., which was pirated in 2002. THIS made my eyebrows lift to the heavens.

 

Some scan images of box and cd:
 

Spoiler

 

 

 

Text translation:
"This is a gift for Doom fans. At first it looks as usual Doom engine, but there is a lot of tricks with transparency [what?]. The color variety of levels with monsters' aggressiveness will make the Doom pro players happy. For newcomers it is not so easy to defend their right to life [lol]. STRAIN is the upgraded version of Doom 2. Authors provide the brand new monsters plus 32 extra levels. As for the rest - it's the same BLOODY MASSACRE of imps [why only imps?]. Anyway, you can describe this game as you want, as you can choose your favorite weapon [literally said "bazooka", eh]. Take the demons alive! [Well, this strange phrase is a reference to a russian retro comedy movie]

 

At first, I was sure that it's impossible to port custom WAD with dehacked to console Doom, because it's literally a big task for any modder nowadays. I've managed to download and test it by myself. At first you will see some Star Trek: The Next Generation Enterprise (I just never watched it full) trailer or some kind of intro (the hell???), after that you will see a menu of "nxDoom beta" sourceport. You can choose Doom 2 and STRAIN TC.

 

Those games were translated to russian (poorly), STRAIN TC doesn't cointain original music (it's just a Doom 2 music), but the dehacked patch works fine. As I can see, pirates stealed beta version of nxDoom sourceport, merged it with Doom 2 and S.T.R.A.I.N. wad and made a CD disks to sold for russian dreamcast users (also possible for ukrainian and belarusian people, but I can't be sure). BTW, there is an info it was sold in 2000, not even 2002. But this could be a mistake.

 

UPDATE: Thanks to my friend, he's recorded a small footage of this.

 

Edited April 6, 2022 by Dexiaz

[Dusty_Rhodes]

Wow that is fascinating. All that work just to pirate a wad. It's a great wad, I'm curious how it runs / plays on a Dreamcast.

[TheMagicMushroomMan]

"Holy fuck, Jim! DOOM 2 is so much cooler than the first one. They put fuckin' Picard in the game."

Edited April 4, 2022 by TheMagicMushroomMan

[thiccyosh]

And it worked? The dehacked patch worked? Without falling apart like a burger? Damn, that's impressive!

[Andromeda]

Weird that they couldn't get the custom music working.

[DannyMan]

Bootleg copy

[Redneckerz]

4 hours ago, Dexiaz said:

Hey there. Yesterday I was looking for scans of box copy of my PS1 Doom which are pretty strange, because it used Doom 64 screenshots instead of actual PS1 images. BTW, here it is:

  Reveal hidden contents

 

And yes, the third screenshot is from Sega Saturn Doom, IDK why.

 

And you know what? I've found a cd image of Dreamcast Doom 2: S.T.R.A.I.N., which was pirated in 2002. THIS made my eyebrows lift to the heavens.

 

Some scan images of box and cd:
 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

 

Text translation:
"This is a gift for Doom fans. At first it looks as usual Doom engine, but there is a lot of tricks with transparency [what?]. The color variety of levels with monsters' aggressiveness will make the Doom pro players happy. For newcomers it is not so easy to defend their right to life [lol]. STRAIN is the upgraded version of Doom 2. Authors provide the brand new monsters plus 32 extra levels. As for the rest - it's the same BLOODY MASSACRE of imps [why only imps?]. Anyway, you can describe this game as you want, as you can choose your favorite weapon [literally said "bazooka", eh]. Take the demons alive! [Well, this strange phrase is a reference to a russian retro comedy movie]

 

At first, I was sure that it's impossible to port custom WAD with dehacked to console Doom, because it's literally was a big task for any modder nowadays. I've managed to download it and test it by myself. At first you will see some Star Trek: The Next Generation trailer or some kind of intro (the hell???), after that you will see a menu of "nxDoom beta" sourceport. You can choose Doom 2 and STRAIN TC.

 

Those games were translated to russian (poorly), STRAIN TC doesn't cointain original music (it's just a Doom 2 music), but the dehacked patch works fine. As I can see, pirates stealed beta version of nxDoom sourceport, merged it with Doom 2 and S.T.R.A.I.N. wad and made a CD disks to sold for russian dreamcast users (also possible for ukrainian and belarusian people, but I can't be sure). BTW, there is an info it was sold in 2000, not even 2002. But this could be a mistake.

I Love this shit. So they used the NXDoom port (Which was quite a capable port for DC) and just made Strain an illegal but standalone game.

 

Russians were endlessly creative in this and not only made illegal mods, but also wholly new games using illegal/custom source code:

• Counter Strike for DC
• They Hunger Trilogy for DC

• Operation Trondheim: Special Forces - PC - Quake 3 Engine - Standalone RTCW mod by Sheppard - 2002.

• Operation Trondheim 2: Red Alert - PC - Quake 3 Engine - Standalone RTCW mod by Sheppard - 2002.

• Operation Trondheim 3: Iron Cross -  PC - Quake 3 Engine - Standalone RTCW mod by Sheppard - 2003.

• Soldier Of Empire/Soldier Of The Empire - PC - 2004 - Quake 2 Evolved Engine (Quake2Evolved) (From Quake 2 Evolved)  - Soldat Imperii, Fragmaker, Russobit M, Games Factory Interactive - Visually has some Doom 3 visuals, stencil shadows, limited normal mapping, self shadows - Still requires only Pentium 2 400 and 32 MB VRAM. - Russobit-M published it.

• Snake Pit - PC - 2004 - Cube Engine - Bilby Games Studio - Also known as Zmeinoe Gnezdo [Ru]

• Castle On Eczema - PC - 2005 - Quake 2 Evolved Engine - Also known as Exeter Castle, Medieval FPS but with Evolved UI - Zamok na Ehkze in Russian, Game Factory Interactive, Fragmaker - Russobit-M published it.

• Lendlease - PC - 2004 - Quake 2 Max Engine - (Quake2Max Engine) - Russobit-M published it.

• Specnaz Antiterror - PC - 2004 - modified Quake 2 Engine (Stencil shadows)

• Specnaz Antiterror: The Mission In The Balkans - PC - 2005 - modified Quake 2 Engine (Stencil shadows)

• Specnaz Antiterror: Afghanistan - PC - 2005 - modified Quake 2 Engine (Stencil shadows and smoothing)

• Specnaz 2

   

[Dexiaz]

I would like to record a video of this, but I can't manage to make emulators work without FPS lag (mostly it's a SOUND lag). People suggested to use Demul, but it plays sounds distorted. 10+ years ago, when I was used to play RE Code Veronica I've used Nulldc emulator, but it also lags now for me. I don't get how to fix this problem even with using google search. There are suggestions to use different settings inside the emulator, but I didn't find the good combination of those.

Edited April 4, 2022 by Dexiaz

[Ar_e_en]

I know that there are DOOM total conversions based on Half-Life and GoldenEye that were ported to the Dreamcast in the homebrew scene. I wonder if this STRAIN conversion was originally somebodies personal project that later became stolen by Russian pirates. Like - some guy uploaded this project to the web in the late 90's or early 2000's and then some Russian pirate group nicked it and placed it on a disk without anybody knowing.

[Redneckerz]

@Dexiaz Did you know Batman Doom got a similar treatment and was released as a merged WAD in 2001 for Dreamcast as Batman & Robin?:

 

 

Not seeing the Robin there, but hey, that's Russia!

Unironically Batman Doom actually would work well as a standalone game because its one of the most impressive TC's out there so this gets a legit pass lol. The translation was done by a company called Vector.

 

Simpsons Doom was also released standalone.

Edited April 5, 2022 by Redneckerz

[Dexiaz]

9 hours ago, Redneckerz said:

@Dexiaz Did you know Batman Doom got a similar treatment and was released as a merged WAD in 2001 for Dreamcast as Batman & Robin?:

 

No, I didn't seen that in place where I've got STRAIN for Dreamcast. But that's interesting, thanks!

 

BTW, my friend recorded a video of STRAIN wad. With all things I've mentioned in OP. BTW, my mistake, it's an Startrek Enterprise, not Next Generation. But it still strange.

 

Edited April 6, 2022 by Dexiaz

[Dexiaz]

Oh my...my friend (which recorded the video above) found this:

 

 

The text is (get ready!):

"This game takes place in the labyrinths of a fairy-tale land, which taken over by evil aliens. But there is a brave hero who will stop them. [Duke Nukem?] Armed with a molecular splitter the hero started the bloody massacre" [oh shi~!]

 

UPDATE:

http://rgdb.info/games/dreamcast-dc/doom-2

 

The list of homebrew illegal pirated Doom 2 mods.

 

Help me...I'm dying of laugh:

Edited April 6, 2022 by Dexiaz

[Ar_e_en]

58 minutes ago, Dexiaz said:

Help me...I'm dying of laugh:

Holy Shit! That is great! 

XD

[Dr. Vlad]

1 hour ago, Dexiaz said:

Oh my...my friend (which recorded the video above) found this:

Also, this is beyond good and evil. Look at the last CD in the bottom row (it's a photo from a lot on a Russian classified advertisements website). That's not even a joke, this CD release was documented on the resource Dexiaz posted.

 

But... Why do I keep talking about Chex Quest in the S.T.R.A.I.N. topic? The answer is contents of the S.T.R.A.I.N.'s image file. Looks like the "Kudos" group that illegally released S.T.R.A.I.N., used their previous Chex Quest release as a base. Just a quick look into the files data (note the Screenshot portion):

 

Edited April 6, 2022 by Dr. Vlad

[Ar_e_en]

2 hours ago, Dr. Vlad said:

But... Why do I keep talking about Chex Quest in the S.T.R.A.I.N. topic? The answer is contents of the S.T.R.A.I.N.'s image file. Looks like the "Kudos" group that illegally released S.T.R.A.I.N., used their previous Chex Quest release as a base. Just a quick look into the files data (note the Screenshot portion):

 

So this STRAIN conversion was possibly built off of a previous CHEX QUEST conversion? How would that work? I mean, I know that they shipped STRAIN together with all the DOOM 2 assets, but why use CHEX QUEST as a base? What were these pirates thinking?

[Dr. Vlad]

1 hour ago, Ar_e_en said:

I know that they shipped STRAIN together with all the DOOM 2 assets, but why use CHEX QUEST as a base

It wasn't clear in my words I think. The BIN file I was showing was not the actual S.T.R.A.I.N. itself, but a loading menu stuff. The one that you see immediately after Star Trek sequence. So Kudos were pretty lazy about that and just copy-pasted the paths to the screenshot file.

 

By the way, the music in the video Dexiaz posted is off-key, sounds weird etc. That's probably because nxDoom doesn't support regular MUS or MIDI music, and uses melodies converted to XM tracker sequences, provided in a separate WAD, DOOM_XM.WAD.

 

Also, there is a reference to a homebrew (?) named Ghetto pong. It's in the header of one of BINs.

[Redneckerz]

14 hours ago, Dexiaz said:

No, I didn't seen that in place where I've got STRAIN for Dreamcast. But that's interesting, thanks!

The link you later posted also has Batman Doom and actually seems quite solid

9 hours ago, Dexiaz said:

UPDATE:

 

http://rgdb.info/games/dreamcast-dc/doom-2

 

The list of homebrew illegal pirated Doom 2 mods.

 

Help me...I'm dying of laugh:

It almost seems like mismatch on purpose, because here is Hacx for Duke Nukem 3D in errr.. Doom:

 

 

I feel like they just merged WADS and called it a day in this case. Chex Quest and Batman Doom however seem a bit more consistent.

[Wadmodder Shalton]

Oh also there's these low-budget id Tech bootleg gems.

 

Alien Vendetta

Alien Quake (yes, that TC that was DMCA's by 20th Century Fox back in 1997)

Quake Zone, a weird bootleg that has on the back of the box art screenshots of Quake II, a screenshot of Doom 3 and a screenshot of what's supposed to be Unreal on the back cover.

Quake 4-in-1 Compilation

Edited April 6, 2022 by Wadmodder Shalton

[xX_Lol6_Xx]

10 hours ago, Dexiaz said:

Help me...I'm dying of laugh:

Hilarious XDDD

[Dark Pulse]

 

Fuck Chex Quest, I need me some Splatterhouse Trilogy and ESPECIALLY Chrono Killer.

[kwc]

On 4/6/2022 at 1:06 AM, Dexiaz said:

 

 

Well it's nice to know somebody watched Enterprise.

Edited April 9, 2022 by kwc

[Dark Pulse]

15 hours ago, kwc said:

Well it's nice to know somebody watched Enterprise.

I did too. It was underrated.

[Kyle07]

On 4/9/2022 at 5:38 PM, Dark Pulse said:

I did too. It was underrated.

Dito.

 

I watched it around 2009? And I would have watched more of it.

But I was anyway completely new to Star Trek in 2009. So I watched some episodes from all series.

[Dark Pulse]

19 hours ago, Kyle07 said:

But I was anyway completely new to Star Trek in 2009. So I watched some episodes from all series.

I'd still argue TNG was the best, but I'm pretty biased because I watched a LOT of that with my mom growing up (it was in first-run active syndication when I was a kid).

[cybdmn]

On 4/4/2022 at 8:06 PM, Redneckerz said:

I Love this shit. So they used the NXDoom port (Which was quite a capable port for DC) and just made Strain an illegal but standalone game.

 

Russians were endlessly creative in this and not only made illegal mods, but also wholly new games using illegal/custom source code:

• Counter Strike for DC
• They Hunger Trilogy for DC

• Operation Trondheim: Special Forces - PC - Quake 3 Engine - Standalone RTCW mod by Sheppard - 2002.

• Operation Trondheim 2: Red Alert - PC - Quake 3 Engine - Standalone RTCW mod by Sheppard - 2002.

• Operation Trondheim 3: Iron Cross -  PC - Quake 3 Engine - Standalone RTCW mod by Sheppard - 2003.

• Soldier Of Empire/Soldier Of The Empire - PC - 2004 - Quake 2 Evolved Engine (Quake2Evolved) (From Quake 2 Evolved)  - Soldat Imperii, Fragmaker, Russobit M, Games Factory Interactive - Visually has some Doom 3 visuals, stencil shadows, limited normal mapping, self shadows - Still requires only Pentium 2 400 and 32 MB VRAM. - Russobit-M published it.

• Snake Pit - PC - 2004 - Cube Engine - Bilby Games Studio - Also known as Zmeinoe Gnezdo [Ru]

• Castle On Eczema - PC - 2005 - Quake 2 Evolved Engine - Also known as Exeter Castle, Medieval FPS but with Evolved UI - Zamok na Ehkze in Russian, Game Factory Interactive, Fragmaker - Russobit-M published it.

• Lendlease - PC - 2004 - Quake 2 Max Engine - (Quake2Max Engine) - Russobit-M published it.

• Specnaz Antiterror - PC - 2004 - modified Quake 2 Engine (Stencil shadows)

• Specnaz Antiterror: The Mission In The Balkans - PC - 2005 - modified Quake 2 Engine (Stencil shadows)

• Specnaz Antiterror: Afghanistan - PC - 2005 - modified Quake 2 Engine (Stencil shadows and smoothing)

• Specnaz 2

   

 

Behind many of those releases where a russian bootleg label called Fargus Mutlimedia. They often took mods from various modders and sold them on CDs. I own maybe a dozen of those RtCW stuff. They aren't exactly standalone mods, they contain complete copies of the game and the mod.

[Dexiaz]

Actually, original Fargus didn't sold the mods. There were fake Fargus releases. Pirates used Fargus lable to earn more money, because Fargus was a mark of quality.

Edited April 18, 2022 by Dexiaz

[Rudolph]

On 4/5/2022 at 3:38 PM, Redneckerz said:

Unironically Batman Doom actually would work well as a standalone game because its one of the most impressive TC's out there so this gets a legit pass lol. The translation was done by a company called Vector.

And it is objectively a better game that the official Batman & Robin game.