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Tag: id software

  • New Doom Mod Is Basically A Badass Indiana Jones Game

    New Doom Mod Is Basically A Badass Indiana Jones Game

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    Doom is still a very good first-person shooter, even if it’s nearly 30 years old. But that first, world-changing chapter did lack something that its predecessor, Wolfenstein 3D, had plenty of—Nazi killin’. Thankfully a new total conversion mod for Doom, called Venturous, has fixed this and in the process created a whole Indiana Jones-inspired game.

    Cyberpunk 2077’s Phantom Liberty DLC Probably Won’t Change V’s Fate

    Released all the way back in 1993, the original Doom from id Software was a big step forward for video game technology and also helped popularize the first-person shooter genre. Even today, three decades later, people are still playing and modding Doom and all of its sequels. So it’s not shocking that in 2023 someone has spent a lot of time on a brand-new total conversion mod for the original Doom that turns the game into a Nazi killin’ adventure that sees you spanning the globe as you look for the lost city of Atlantis.

    Venturous, developed by PixelFox, came out earlier this month but in the last week has become more popular as folks have discovered this rad adventure-themed GZDoom mod. I just came across it today and ended up getting distracted for about an hour playing it instead of doing my job and writing about it.

    Pagb666 / id Software

    What immediately stood out to me about Venturous is how heavy guns feel. Even the starting pistol is no peashooter and can take down rooms of Nazis in a few seconds. I also like how the mod plays around with darkness, especially in the first level. You have to use a torch to see in some areas. And you can only hold the torch while using the pistol, which has limited ammo, forcing you to sometimes fight in the dark if you run out of handgun bullets. However, you can also toss the torch to light up areas and make combat easier in these dark hallways. Or you can even chuck the flaming torch at enemies and set them on fire.

    The mod has seven maps split across three areas with each map featuring new weapons and enemies. I especially love the MP40 SMG as it sounds menacing and does a lot of damage very quickly. The new lever action shotgun is also just as good and dangerous as any shotgun found in official id Software shooters.

    Developer PixelFox—who had only created two maps before this massive project—explained that they made this mod because they wanted to play an “Indiana Jones-style adventure” in a retro shooter engine. So after a year of learning how to create something like a total conversion mod pack, PixelFox has finished Venturous.

    You can download and check out Venturous yourself for free. Just a heads up before you hop in: You’ll need to download and install GZDoom and get that all set up first, and this particular total conversion requires the data file from the original Doom, not Doom II. But once you have that sorted, you’ll be able to enjoy this mod and three decades’ worth of other cool stuff, too.

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    Zack Zwiezen

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  • Cyberpunk 2077 Now Contains A Hidden Doom Clone Starring Keanu Reeves

    Cyberpunk 2077 Now Contains A Hidden Doom Clone Starring Keanu Reeves

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    Cyberpunk 2077 players have discovered a new arcade cab hidden in an abandoned church just outside Night City. This new arcade machine, added as part of Cyberpunk 2077’s free 2.0 update, lets you play a Doom-like retro shooter starring Keanu Reeves’ character, Johnny Silverhand.

    Cyberpunk 2077’s Phantom Liberty DLC Probably Won’t Change V’s Fate

    Cyberpunk 2077’s 2.0 update and its massive Phantom Liberty expansion have added a lot of new content and features to the already-huge first-person RPG. But who cares about that stuff? (Editor’s note: A lot of people, actually.) Personally, I’m more excited to see that even in the horrible dystopian future of Cyberpunk 2077 people are still making and playing Doom clones. Some things never change, I guess.

    To play this new arcade machine, you’ll need to go into the badlands outside Night City and head south to find a lone, abandoned church just north of a protein farm, which is also a fast-travel point. So if you’ve already unlocked the farm for fast travel, feel free to zip over to save yourself a drive into the badlands.

    Regardless of how you get there, enter the church, and on the right you’ll find an Arasaka Tower 3D playable arcade machine.

    Buy Cyberpunk 2077: Amazon | Best Buy | GameStop

    Sam Bram II / CD Projekt Red

    Arasaka Tower 3D is very clearly an homage to classic id Software shooters like Wolfenstein 3D and Doom. You play long-dead rockerboy Johnny Silverhand fresh off his historic bombing of one of the world’s most powerful megacorps’ headquarters as he tries to escape the tower, blasting numerous guards as he ambles—surprisingly slowly—toward freedom. Aside from the lack of speed the gameplay looks surprisingly retro, including the fact that you can’t look up or down, as was the case in many classic ‘90s shooters. The full game is about 10 minutes long or so and includes five levels complete with secret doors.

    Read More: Every Change In Cyberpunk 2077‘s Massive 2.0 Update

    Do you think people in the Cyberpunk 2077 universe have modded Arasaka Tower 3D to death and got it running on ATMs and other weird devices, like how Doom is playable on just about anything in our world today? I hope so. I hope some nerds have made it fully open-source at this point and created whole new levels for it, too.

    I guess once you’re done playing Araska Tower 3D you can go and play the rest of Cyberpunk 2077, including the new expansion. I hear it’s like Doom but you can look up and down now. Wild stuff!

    Buy Cyberpunk 2077: Amazon | Best Buy | GameStop

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    Zack Zwiezen

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  • The Weirdest Console, With The Worst Resident Evil 4 Port, Is Getting Emulated

    The Weirdest Console, With The Worst Resident Evil 4 Port, Is Getting Emulated

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    Some wonderful maniac is developing an emulator that will one day let people play Zeebo games. And…oh wait, you might be asking “What’s a Zeebo?” Fair question! Well, it’s a fairly obscure digital-only console released outside of the United States in 2009 in just two countries. And while it’s not a great console with a library of beloved classics, it’s still nice to see that someone is working hard to preserve this odd piece of gaming history.

    Comparing Resident Evil 4’s Chainsaw Demo To The Original Game

    The Zeebo launched in Brazil in June 2009, and later that year came out in Mexico. (And by 2011 it was all over.) The budget console was basically a phone with a controller that connected to your TV. Games and apps on the Zeebo were built using BREW, the same software that powered many early flip-phone games, though the specs inside the Zeebo were a bit more powerful than your average non-smartphone. Still, it wasn’t a powerhouse of a console, and that was kind of the point: to provide people in parts of the world who might not be able to afford expensive, imported consoles with a way to play video games and surf the web via 3G. It was also digital-only to circumvent piracy, forcing players to buy games through its online store. And now, someone is building a PC-based emulator for this strange, nearly-forgotten machine.

    As spotted by GamesRadar, on August 1 developer Tuxality uploaded a video of themselves fiddling around with their made-from-scratch Zeebo emulator. While only a few games will boot in the emulator—and they don’t work very well yet—it’s still impressive to even see this much work being put into a device that most folks haven’t even heard of.

    Infuse – Zeebo multiplatform emulator / Qualcomm BREW reimplementation development #2

    In the video, we see Tuxality boot up Zeebo Family Fun Pack and Crash Bandicoot Nitro Kart 3D. While Family Fun Pack loads up fine, Crash Nitro Kart 3D displays some intense graphical issues. Still, progress is progress. And yes, big publishers and studios including Activision, Capcom, EA, Disney Interactive Studios, and id Software saw their games released on the Zeebo.

    Tuxality calls their emulator Infuse, and says it’s a “high-level” Zeebo emulator that’s been written entirely from scratch based on “clean reverse engineering attempts.” The developer also says that Infuse supports macOS and Linux and could (in the future) be easily ported to the Nintendo 3DS as a fully native application.

    As for when you’ll be able to play the Zeebo edition of Resident Evil 4, aka the worst way to play that game, Tuxality doesn’t say. It’s likely at least a year or more away from being fully released to the public.

    While some might post the very overused Ryan Reynolds “Why?” gif in response to someone making a Zeebo emulator, I’m excited that fan developers and modders out there are continuing to do the work that game companies won’t do to preserve video game history. Yes, even the weird and less-than-great parts of game history need to be preserved. If anything, those are the bits that will disappear first, and that would be even worse than playing Crash Bandicoot on a flip phone console from 2009.

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    Zack Zwiezen

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  • Microsoft Explains Why You’re Waiting So Long For Those Xbox Exclusives

    Microsoft Explains Why You’re Waiting So Long For Those Xbox Exclusives

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    Microsoft revealed some exciting new first-party games like InExile’s Clockwork Revolution and Compulsion Games South of Midnight at its June 11 Xbox Showcase. But others like Fable and Avowed were first teased years ago and still don’t have clear release dates. What’s taking so long?

    Thank You, PS Plus, For Making My Backlog Even Bigger

    Xbox Game Studios head Matt Booty recently said in interviews with Axios and IGN that the industry is still catching up to a new reality that major projects are simply more complex due to new hardware and rising audience expectations. 4K graphics, ray-tracing and other graphical improvements have made development harder and more expensive, while Microsoft itself had to manage a transition period beginning in 2018 when it snatched up tons of new studios, including those under the Zenimax acquisition like Bethesda, id Software, and Machine Games.

    “I think that the industry and the fans were a little behind the curve on sort of a reset to understand that games aren’t two or three years anymore,” Booty told Axios. “There are higher expectations. The level of fidelity that we’re able to deliver just goes up.”

    “One, gen 9 hardware is awesome—ray tracing, all the stuff we can do,” he told IGN. “But that trickles down through everything through how the assets are build. Like in Forza Motorsport, how the cars have to be built, how the lighting’s got to be done, how the track’s got to be set up, all the detail. The expectation is very high. Games are just getting more complex in terms of the interactions that are expected.”

    There are plenty of examples that back up Booty’s point about games taking longer. Ghost of Tsushima took Sucker Punch six years, the longest the studio had ever spent on making a single game. Final Fantasy XVI is in a similar boat, arriving seven years after the last game in the storied fantasy-RPG franchise. Exceptions like Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, a dense 35 hour action adventure and game of the year contender made in just three years, only undermine how rare that turn around time has become.

    At the same time, it’s clear Microsoft in particular has struggled to iron things out in its post-acquisition production processes. Halo Infinite’s anemic post-launch support and the poor state of Redfall at release have shown that even when a big game finally arrives, it’s not without problems. Microsoft founded The Initiative back in 2018 but we’ve yet to see anything vaguely tangible out of Perfect Dark. Instead, it’s now reportedly relying on a partnership with Crystal Dynamics to push development forward on the game.

    While games like State of Decay 3, Gears 6, and Everwild were all missing from the Xbox Showcase, Microsoft is hinting that they could make an appearance at other events throughout the year like Gamescom or The Game Awards. Even so, it’s not clear their re-emergence will include substantial gameplay reveals or definitive release dates versus CGI trailers. In the meantime, fans finally have Starfield and Forza Motorsport to round out the year. And if Booty’s right, a parade of hits will begin to follow shortly after.


                               

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    Ethan Gach

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