The original Xbox version of Doom. Is it important? Or just bad? Opinions on Map 33 betray and e1m10 sewers?

[InfinitePossiblities]

So, I want to know. What options do you have about the original Xbox version of Doom?

[Devalaous]

It was...'okay' as the first *real* port of Doom without reinventing everything to fit on limited RAM and so on, had a bunch of bizarre bugs though, like all of Ultimate Doom using the E1 sky, which Activision doubled down on defending as 'intended'. The Master Levels port exclusive to Resurrection of Evil was the sloppy one of the three, three of the levels were cut for some reason (Paradox, Minos' Judgement and Mephisto's Mausoleum), TEETH and Bad Dream were reamed to 'Express Elevator I' and 'Express Elevator II' and the majority of the level names on the automap pointed to the wrong level. The only thing the port did right with Master Levels was the skies and maybe the music. Sadly, that port is under-documented on Doom Wiki, so I dont know of the cut levels still exist in the code, if they actually do work or what.

 

As for Sewers and Betray, I like em in a weird way. The first thing you must do, is realise and accept that they are NOT id-made or sanctioned levels, just sneaky easter eggs the developers snuck in, likely without approval. Sewers was removed from the Xbox 360 port, which was the successor of Xbox Ultimate Doom, and Betray was disabled in Xbox 360 Doom 2, BFG Edition Doom 2 and Unity Port Doom 2, until being fully removed in Unity port by a title update.

 

Sewers is 1994 jank, and ive attempted to polish it a few times. A real pro that could make it fit in with id' levels would be a remaster I'd love to play. I quite like the mazey sewer system, although it definitely points out that the missing WFALL textures were sorely needed, with all the height changes. Having to do it from a pistol stat or from E1M1 is also a pain, because all you'll have is the shotgun for almost all of the level. Due to this, I placed a second chaingun in a sideroom that previously had nothing in it, just to vary up the combat earlier. I also placed a box of rockets down at the end so there was a 'reward' for doing it when accessed from E1M1.

 

Betray is a much better level, and the bizzareness of all the liquid textures, the boxes in boxes in boxes design, strange layouts and the 'final' shootout in the multi-tiered liquidfalls all feel 'surreal', like Doomguy hit his head in Underhalls and is having one hell of a delirious bad dream. The balance is all off too, so if you play it, you'll have all the weapons much much earlier in the campaign, and also have seen a lot of the beastiary. I replaced all the nazis with chaingunners in the slightly-touched up version I included in a Unity port add-on I published, but havent yet adjusted the over the top weapon supplies iirc.

 

I made a small patch to make Ultimate Doom and Doom 2 play a little like the Xbox ports; the music is all slowed to the speed it is on the Xbox, and Ultimate Doom has the E1 sky for all episodes. The only reason I havent published it yet, is because I still need the Super Shotgun and item respawn sounds from the Xbox versions.

[InfinitePossiblities]

Noice 

[VL2M STUDIO]

Yeah the Xbox ports are well...unique in their way...but really underrated because they are pretty much exactly like their PCs counterparts, with a few quirks.

[Edward850]

17 hours ago, Devalaous said:

The only reason I havent published it yet, is because I still need the Super Shotgun and item respawn sounds from the Xbox versions.

They aren't actually different sounds, rather the sound system just plays everything back at 11khz regardless of the sounds header. Just hex edit the audio files to change their headers from 22050 to 11025.

Edited May 22 by Edward850

[Devalaous]

Yeah, Gez explained that to me earlier (He also supplied me with said slowed down midis), I just have no idea how to hex edit, never done it before in my life

Edited May 22 by Devalaous

[Gez]

I hate it for having somehow convinced people that Sewers and Betray ought to be part of the "complete Doom package" instead of rightfully ignored as nothing more than some dumb graffiti left by office vandals.

 

4 hours ago, Devalaous said:

I just have no idea how to hex edit, never done it before in my life

Everything you've ever done, the first time you did it, you had never done it before.

 

Hex editing is really easy. The only tricky part is knowing what values to change where. Here's a ten-step plan.

 

Firs step, install HxD, it's pretty much the best free hex editor available around.

https://mh-nexus.de/de/hxd/

 

Step two, open the Doom Wiki at DoomWiki.org and look for the sound article:

https://doomwiki.org/wiki/Sound

 

Step three, extract the relevant sounds from the IWAD with SLADE. Cf. wiki link above for list.

 

Step four, open your calculator and convert 22050 to hexadecimal. That gives you 5622.

 

Step five, remember about little endianness. So it's really 22 56, not 56 22.

 

Step six, do the same for 11025. That gives you 2B11, which in turn gives you 11 2B.

 

Step seven, open one of the extracted files in HxD, note how the third and fourth pairs of values are 22 56, change them to 11 2B, save.

 

Step eight, load that file and test. It works! Wowzers!

 

Step nine, do the same with the other files.

 

Step ten, congratulate yourself on having learned a new skill!

[Devalaous]

Thanks, I now have those sounds in the wads. A guy I know outside Doomworld has a particular softspot for the slower pace music and those different sounding SSG sounds due to first playing Classic Doom on his Xbox, so he'll be happy to have his childhood memories with the PC version now

 

Heres a possibly finished patch for Ultimate Doom that has two flavours, Xbox and Xbox 360. Run one or the other, alongside the sound wad, if you want the slowed sounds and item respawn sound. The main difference is that Xbox has the E1 sky for all four episodes and no health graphic replacements, while the 360 patch turns the medikits/stimpacks/berserks into the maligned pill versions, and uses the DMENUPIC graphic for E4's intermission (it was present in the 360 version files, I dont know if it was ever used, but its a neat graphic, so why not?). Theres also a widescreen version of said graphic included. Also yes, Sewers is included in both, even though it was cut in the 360 version. The Doom 2 version is bigger as it has stuff for TNT, Plutonia, Xbox Doom 2, 360 Doom 2 and PS3/BFG Doom 2, so im not done yet. I don't have access to my Xbox 360 anymore, so I wonder if the 360 version is where the map labels were shortened from 'Level 1: Entryway' to '1: Entryway'? Its like this in PS3/BFG, but not in Xbox. Sadly I cannot test this myself.

[InfinitePossiblities]

Well. I just helped someone add something cool to the Internet. Congratulations on finishing your project! I'll recommend it to people who would be interested in this kind of stuff.

[Devalaous]

Doom 2 patch to make it have the Xbox version's slowed music and sounds, and access to Betray. Three versions; Xbox, original XBLA release, and the PS3/BFG Edition with all the bad censoring, and two bonus patches to have the pill graphics and slowed sounds (and fixed Map 31) for TNT and Plutonia. Doom Classic Complete did not have slowed music, at least it doesnt on my PS3 emulator, kind of a shame as I wanted to hear TNT's music at a lower pace. Fun fact about the PS3/BFG version of Doom 2: The copy of Betray inside it, was actually changed after the 360 version, as most, but not all, of the nazis were outright removed. Makes me wonder if someone on the team assumed it was a normal level, started censoring it, only to be told 'leave it, its not an accessible level' before the last nazi was deleted. That lightly-changed version is included, as are the dreadful IDKFA and Keen maps.  

 

I'll make a proper thread for these, alongside with some other 'fun' ways to play Doom and Doom 2 some other time, but I figured I'd leave a beta/RC version here so people can experience some of the 'Xbox experience'

[InfinitePossiblities]

Well. That's awesome!

[DankMetal]

On 5/21/2024 at 3:50 AM, Devalaous said:

A real pro that could make it fit in with id' levels would be a remaster I'd love to play.

Huh, that's actually an interesting idea.

I do not consider myself a pro, but i could try to make a "Sewers the way ID did/ would have made", maybe with a style similar to The Shores of Hell?

[amackert]

The bonus maps for this version are terrible, but the port overall was pretty good for the time (and is still not bad if you're used to the MS-DOS original's look and framerate). It was a great bonus for those of us that bought the Collector's Edition of DOOM 3, or got the standalone expansion pack later down the line. Keep in mind perspective is somewhat important here--the best console version of DOOM we had up to that moment in time was the PS1 version, and the XBOX one was a big step up for a lot of people.

Edited May 31 by amackert

[AmethystViper]

As someone was only able to experience classic Doom until the version was included in the Xbox of Doom 3 (for the brief that I could since at the time it was borrowed many years back), I can say that it holds up kinda well today in my opinion after playing it on my Xbox 360 after getting a secondhand copy of the game. Not a fan of the bonus maps to be honest. Something funny I kinda discovered while playing the classic Doom in Doom 3's Xbox port is that the Right Stick button also functions as a Use button since I always get annoyed that the A button is the useless "Repeat Last Message" whereas X is the Use button, especially after being used to the Unity port's controller configuration on non-Nintendo systems.

[Devalaous]

On 5/26/2024 at 2:28 PM, DankMetal said:

Huh, that's actually an interesting idea.

I do not consider myself a pro, but i could try to make a "Sewers the way ID did/ would have made", maybe with a style similar to The Shores of Hell?

 

Theres basically two ways to remake it: 'Faithful', as the map was originally made for E3M1 and was the start of a planned full episode, and 'Psuedo-Official', where it gets turned into a proper E1 map to fit the 'E1M10' slot. The former would be easier, would just need to detail it and align textures and tune the balance. Second means all those cacos, lost souls and the barons at the end would need replacing, and the giant water maze would become nukage, adding a lot of stress as you try to navigate those winding halls on a timer while bumping into all sorts of incidental combat.

[DankMetal]

13 minutes ago, Devalaous said:

 

Theres basically two ways to remake it: 'Faithful', as the map was originally made for E3M1 and was the start of a planned full episode, and 'Psuedo-Official', where it gets turned into a proper E1 map to fit the 'E1M10' slot. The former would be easier, would just need to detail it and align textures and tune the balance. Second means all those cacos, lost souls and the barons at the end would need replacing, and the giant water maze would become nukage, adding a lot of stress as you try to navigate those winding halls on a timer while bumping into all sorts of incidental combat.

I don't know if i would want to get rid of the cacos, i kinda like that as a concept for a secret map, where it shows a new type of enemy or a mechanic that you will never see until the next episode.

The barons will be removed, along with the hellish textures.

The titular sewers will be reworked, and if i end up poisoning the water supply (which i will probably do, you gave me an interesting idea), it's gonna be a short section and one you don't need to visit ever again.

I will start working on this map later, since i will be very busy this week.

[Robo_Cola]

Personally I like the port but a lot of it is nostalgia for me.  When that particular port came out, my previous computer had died on me --ironically, a BSOD while playing Doom-- and I had no way of playing Doom and a lot of other games for quite some time.  Needing my Doom fix, I saw that Limited Edition Doom 3 at my GameStop for a good price and put many hours into it for a few years.  At the time, I didn't really notice any of the glitches other members here pointed out, and thought the additional secret levels were actually pretty cool (I don't claim to have good taste).  My biggest complaint about it is that the cheat codes are very easy to activate accidentally in-game.

If you ever see the game at a low price, I recommend it for the sole purpose of split screen with friends and the neat G4 extras.