Doom mopping the floor with its competition (video)

[Koko Ricky]

<object width="420" height="315"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/6x9FkbLwO0s?hl=en_US&version=3&rel=0"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/6x9FkbLwO0s?hl=en_US&version=3&rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="420" height="315" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object>

DOUBLE EDIT: For fuck's sake, how do you embed YT videos on here? Anyway, this YT user has compiled several hours of FPS montages covering the genre's entire history. This video, covering 1992-1994, showcases a number of popular and obscure shooters. It's interesting how Doom stands out SO MUCH in an era where most FPS were clunky, ugly and extremely limited.

[Mechadon]

Use the [yt] tag. Then put the bit from the address (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=________) between the tags.

[NiuHaka]

I freaking adored Corridor 7, Arena and System Shock. 94 must have been my year.

[Gez]

Noob doesn't know to use the kicks in Shadowcaster. Gets pwned by jumpy.

Didn't really showcase In Extremis' greatest technical achievement, which was colored lighting.

Funny he took one of the FormGen mission packs to illustrate Spear of Destiny. I guess it was so that people wouldn't tell him he used Wolf 3D footage?

And Ultima Underworld II still completely pwns despite showing one of the blandest areas of the game. Look at all these 3D objects -- tables, chairs, shelves, paintings...

[durian]

Heh. I remember quite a few of those pre-DOOM games - looking back now at the contrast, it's unsurprising I got so hooked on DOOM.

[bcwood16]

Sweet, that was cool to watch.

I missed out on quite a few of those or never got to finish them :(

Tempted to try to trace some of those down and have a blast :)

[40oz]

Never heard of or played Dracula, but that was definitely TNT.WAD's MAP01 music playing there. What's that aboot?

[Vermil]

I've seen many of these videos before and actually own some of the non Doom games in this one.

Wolf3D and Doom are famous for being smooth and such for the time they were made, right down to the controls; Very few of those non-Wolf or Doom engine games seemed to have ability to strafe/sidestep and/or run for instance.

[mouldy]

jesus.. I remember at the time doom seemed impossibly realistic compared with anything i'd seen before.

[hex11]

It looks like they missed Hired Guns (Amiga/PC, 1993). I played the hell out of that one, but never really got into those other non-doom engine games.

[NiuHaka]

40oz said:

Never heard of or played Dracula, but that was definitely TNT.WAD's MAP01 music playing there. What's that aboot?

Yeah, I have only seen this game played one other place before. Watch the "A Visit to id Software" video below and go to 9:10 and you can see John Romero playing it. Not sure about that music though.

[Vermil]

In 1897, Bram Stoker released the novel 'Dracula'. In 1973 and 1992, films were released, both called 'Bram Stokers Dracula' inspired by the novel. In 1994, a group of games all called 'Bram Stokers Dracula', were released on PC and various consoles of the time.

The PC got got an FPS:

[Maes]

Gez said:

And Ultima Underworld II still completely pwns despite showing one of the blandest areas of the game. Look at all these 3D objects -- tables, chairs, shelves, paintings...

It did so at the cost of being practically unplayable (or even un-executable) on average hardware of its day, and with the visuals reduced to a postage stamp.

What Doom really had that set it apart is that it hit the "sweet spot" between having impressive visuals (texture mapping, lighting, height variations, large view area), captivating and fast-moving REAL TIME gameplay and reasonable system requirements.

Remove any of these factors and you'd get either polygonal or mixed approach engines with a lot of geometry limitations or too advanced engines at the cost of performance, almost-static gameplay, or comparatively slow-paced gameplay (e.g. simulation games, role-playing).

The extreme of having static gameplay but top-notch visuals would be of course Myst (though not technically a 3D engine) or FMV games. Ultima was a weird case, as the intention was clearly that of providing an improvement over the classic "Dungeon Master" gameplay, with emphasis on in-place first-person battles, rather than switch to a super-fast first-person-swordfighting gameplay. That's why it didn't make certain compromises that Doom did.

[Gez]

Oh, I know the tradeoff in speed and display size. After all, Carmack wrote the Wolf3D engine in an attempt to show he could make a faster texture mapped raycaster than Ultima Underworld (1).

Since the Underworld games focused more on immersion, interaction, and dialogue with NPCs than on adrenaline-fueled combat, it was a good balance for it.

And there really should be a modern reversed-engineered "port" of the Underworld engine to play these wonderful games in high-res now. UW2 is high up in my personal roster of Most Bestest Computer Games Evar; it deserves a modern exe to play it.

[Tarnsman]

So I was watching his 1996 vid and Final Doom has gameplay from E1 instead. Haha

[Jaws In Space]

Those red monsters from Hovertank 3D & Catacomb 3D looked like the Pinky Demon.

[Koko Ricky]

40oz said:

Never heard of or played Dracula, but that was definitely TNT.WAD's MAP01 music playing there. What's that aboot?

This particular YT user overlays some of his montages with music from other games.

Also, Mayes hit the nail on the fucking head. Some of these games did, in fact, have advanced features that weren't in Doom, but the performance cost was too great. I don't recall if it's this video or an adjacent one, but there's a clip of a Robocop game that has fully polygonal graphics, but is visually repugnant and miserably slow. Of course, Doom's art direction played a part, too. Despite all of these examples employing cartoonish graphics (including Doom's), there's something about id's approach--perhaps the incorporation of photography and figurines, as well as a total refusal to use thick outlines on everything--that gave it a sense of realism that stood out above the rest.

[Clonehunter]

Vermil said:

The PC got got an FPS:

Never liked the hud on this game. Too fat and screen consuming. Do we really need the big monster face on the top? Granted, I didn't play this game for that long and maybe there was an option.

[MegaTurtleRex]

nice video, so many games i never even heard of

thanks for sharing

[dew]

a lot of the music seems misplaced. cybercon 3 uses sysshock menu theme. also i thought the guy made a mess of showcasing ultima underworld 2 and doom. in a sea of flat wolf3d clones, these two marvels had actual heigth variation, but he chose footage of the flattest areas he could find.

[NiuHaka]

Clonehunter said:

Never liked the hud on this game. Too fat and screen consuming. Do we really need the big monster face on the top? Granted, I didn't play this game for that long and maybe there was an option.

This was a common trick used to squeeze as much performance out of the game as they could. None of the game is actually being rendered beneath the HUD. It is similar to how doom did it when the screen sized was reduced and you get that fat border around the screen.