Redneckerz
Those long posts don't cover that red neck boy
In lieu of
celsowmbr
Doom 32X Resurrection thread let me highlight another upgrade to an oldbie Doom game, Doom 64! Doom 64: Merciless Edition II is a reverse enginereerd effort led by Immorpher, using the impossible works of Erick194's reverse engineering of Doom 64.
Features:
At a glance:
- New “Be Merciless!” difficulty makes the enemies more relentless, unpredictable, and agile. The player gets some boosts too!
- Menus have been reorganized for easier access, new defaults, and to accommodate the new extra features.
- New autorun and motion bob options. Motion bob can be disabled to reduce motion sickness and autorun helps with movement speed.
- Video menu now allows texture filtering, dithering, and interlacing to be turned on or off. Also the game’s brightness is extended.
- Display menu can turn off flashes and strobe effects, intermission texts, or new map statistics in the automap.
- New options for a HUD colors, transparency, and margins.
- There is a new “Retro Fighters” controller option and weapon switching has been adjusted.
- Story screens have been updated with a new introduction, ways to speed them up, and grammar corrections.
- Messaging system now supports colors and more lines. It is easier to notice secrets and new death texts from the community appear!
- Game saves now display the difficulty level of the save. Also the difficulty can be changed when restarting a level.
- Missing zombiemen sounds have been restored as well as a some missing texts.
- Features menu contains more options added from Doom 64 RE and a few new bonus ones as well.
- Code has been updated with a higher compiling optimization and updated rendering microcode.
- "Be Merciless!" Difficulty
- The “Be Merciless!” difficulty setting combines parts of the “Nightmare!” mode introduced in Doom 64 RE with the "Hardcore!" mode of Doom 64 EX and other tweaks. As opposed to exactly copying the difficulties of other Doom 64 ports, it is now an experience focused on brutal action. Enemies are more relentless, unpredictable, faster, and agile. However, the ammo bonuses are increased and the weapon switching is faster. Overall, it is a more violent experience which may appeal to fans of the newer iterations of the Doom series.
- Menu Reorganization and Defaults Menu
- Many of the menus have been reorganized and renamed to accommodate the additional options and accessibility. A new "Video" menu has been added to toggle the various new video modes. Then many of the new accessibility options have been added to the "Display" menu. There is also a new "Status HUD" menu to change how the HUD looks. Further, the "Password" menu option has been moved to the main menu for easier access. There is also a new "Defaults" menu to restore the game to the original Doom 64 settings, Merciless Edition settings, Immorpher's settings, or Accessible settings for increased accessibility.
- Movement Menu Options
- Many players have expressed motion sickness when playing Doom 64. There is an overall swaying motion which happens when the player is moving. This also causes the weapon to bob up and down which may be making some players sick. Now there is a slider which can reduce this bobbing motion to the point of being turned off. Digital movement in Doom 64 was restricted to "walking" speed, unless the "speed" button is pressed. The new "Autorun" setting defaults digital movement to running, where now the "speed" button slows the player down.
- Video Menu Options
- The option to turn off the classic N64 3-point linear filtering has been moved from the "Features" cheat menu in Doom 64 RE, to the main "Video" menu in the options. This allows it to be accessible without beating "Hectic" or using a pass code. Further, this option has been extended to filter skies only (like Doom 64 Remaster) or completely off (like Doom 64 EX). Doom 64 is known for being a particularly dark. Even at maximum brightness many screens still struggle with it. Now the brightness option has been extended. By default, this version sets the brightness to the original maximum value. However, it now can be extended even beyond that by twice without oversaturating the screen. Further, there are additional video options which utilize the Nintendo 64 hardware features, such as anti-aliasing, video dithering, interlacing, and color dithering. Some combinations have a nicely retro look!
- Display Menu Options
- The "Display" options now contains a flash brightness option to make the game more accessible. Some parts of the game have intense flashing, particularly the first megasphere in "Holding Area", which has the risk of inducing seizures in some players. Now there is an option to reduce or turn off these flashes. And if you get tired of waiting through the intermission text screens, there is a new option to skip them. Finally, there is an option to display the map statistics in the automap screen, if you're a completionist.
- Status HUD Options
- There are more options now to modify the status bar and HUD. By default, the new colored HUD will be enabled, which changes color depending on armor type, ammo type, and health status. This can be disabled in the menu. Doom 64 by default has a margin around the screen to displace the HUD elements for older TV safe zones. Now this can be adjusted. Also the transparency of the HUD can be adjusted.
- Other New Default Options
- As mentioned the brightness has a new default setting, but also the sound volume default has been set to the maximum. This sets it slightly louder than the ambient music. Further, to honor Retro Fighter’s commitment to continuously improving their N64 controller designs, there is a new default option in the “Gamepad” menu. For controllers where all of the N64 buttons are accessible in one position, like the Retro Fighters controller, variants of the Super Pad 64, or the Hori controller, then the new “Retro Fighters” option might be the optimal layout.
- Story Screens Update
- The story screens now have the menu ambience as opposed to silence. When a new game is started, there is an abbreviated introductory screen adapted from the N64 manual and Doom 64 Reloaded. The "Demon" text has been changed to "Bull Demon" in the ending sequence and also the "Mother Demon" makes an appearance. The intermissions can be turned off any time in the "Display" menu, or by pressing buttons the screens can be sped up.
- Messaging System Update
- Inspired by the messaging system of the Doom 64 Remaster, now up to three messages (as opposed to one) will appear on screen at once. Hopefully this makes it easier to figure out what has been picked up or if you have found a secret area. The messaging system also supports colors now, where secrets and secret items will appear as blue. If you happen to die, stick on that screen for a while to see special messages from the Doom 64 community.
- Game and Save Management
- Now the memory pak save files include abbreviations for the difficulty. It is easier to keep all of those Doom 64 saves in order. Also if your playthrough of Doom 64 is getting too hard or easy, you can restart your game at the current level with the difficulty of your choosing. Which means you can change your difficulty midway through the game.
- Zombiemen and Text Restorations
- The third sight and death sounds in Doom 64 would go unplayed due to the limited randomization in the code. Now this randomization routine has been updated such that these sounds will be played. Also the missing "You pick up a medikit that you REALLY need!" has been restored.
- Other Updates
- With the new brightness setting, the infrared goggles have a less noticeable effect. However, now they have an overall boost to the gradient lighting without altering saturated colors. Exiting to "Hectic" will now show a stats screen and allow saving. Unusual capitalization and grammar has been fixed for the text screens. Weapon selection ending cycles have been altered to stop at the ending weapon, which is hopefully less confusing.
- Optimizations
- F3DEX rendering is replaced with the later F3DEX2 rendering. This should improve geometry calculations. Although this is not a major slowdown in Doom 64, it may result in a slightly more-stable frame rate and perhaps allow for more geometry in future custom maps. Further it is compiled with level 3 optimizations (O3), which improves code execution speed. In some code bases this can be unstable, but so far no issues have been found. Importantly compatibility with the original Doom 64 demos are retained.
- Features Menu
- These are bonus additions to the features menu added by Erick194 for Doom 64 RE!
SECURITY KEYS: Inaccessible in the original game, this will give you all the keys available in the level.
WALL BLOCKING: Inaccessible in the original game, this will allow you to walk through walls.
LOCK MONSTERS: Inaccessible in the original game, stops the movement of enemies.
MUSIC TEST: Inaccessible in the original game, you can test all of the music in the game.
COLORS: Added by Erick194, this turns off the colored lighting in the game.
FULL BRIGHT: Added by Erick194, all sectors will be at maximum brightness.
- These are bonus additions to the features menu added by Erick194 for Doom 64 RE!
Screenshots:
Links:
- RomHacking:
- DoomWorld:
- GitHub:
