[Player Lin]

Read the video's description before asking shit.

Too lazy to post it to Doomworld or wherever related DooM. If you want to do just go ahead, link this topic or video are OK.
(But I'm not sure they didn't heard about this game, maybe they already know at all, I just don't know... )

http://youtu.be/8TUO56YOyjg

http://youtu.be/3aDckM-PaxE

Youtube sucks, stop ruined my 320x200 videos, goddamnit! Well, I just want to complete this fast so I just use the DOSBox's bulit-in recorder...

[TerminX]

Haha, that edited Duke3D pistol is hilarious.

[Komenja]

Those guns are pretty cool. And I love the red banners that say "Satan War." Such cheesy goodness.

[Player Lin]

TerminX, on 03 September 2013 - 07:48 AM, said:

Haha, that edited Duke3D pistol is hilarious.

But they called it SMG or something like that...

EDIT: oh, no I checked it again, they actually called it Uzi...(from the ammo pickup message)

[OpenMaw]

It's like Doom, and Duke 3D...


...But Chinese, and with all the joy removed.

[Marphy Black]

Thanks for these videos! This is really a fascinating find that could have very well been lost to time, so much appreciation for being willing to share it with us.

[Player Lin]

Commando Nukem, on 03 September 2013 - 08:27 AM, said:

It's like Doom, and Duke 3D...


...But Chinese, and with all the joy removed.

That's the problem when everything in this game are all Chinese when a non-Chinese user playing it...

At least it still playable but with crashing for no reasons...

[MrFlibble]

Thanks for sharing those!

The game looks pretty cool, even though there's a lot of "borrowed" content (I can't quite place the grenade throwing sound for example but it's definitely familiar - maybe the Gryphon Rider's attack sound from Warcraft II? not sure [Edit] It's actually the Troll Axethrower attack sound, and there are other sounds borrowed from Warcraft II as well.).

The game also has some features absent in Doom, such as friendly NPCs you can talk to (maybe crated with code from Strife?), as well as Duke3D-esque underwater areas, albeit with a water distortion effect that is not present in Build engine games.

What's with the automap in the second video though, is it possible to turn it off?

[Player Lin]

MrFlibble, on 03 September 2013 - 08:51 AM, said:

What's with the automap in the second video though, is it possible to turn it off?

Crosshair? It's looks like always enable, I didn't found a way to disable it...

[Jblade]

Looks cool - the company must be long dead though, why not put it online somewhere so people can check it out for themselves?

[Player Lin]

James, on 03 September 2013 - 09:18 AM, said:

Looks cool - the company must be long dead though, why not put it online somewhere so people can check it out for themselves?

Yeah, I already upload it on my M$ skydrive and if someone want the data, just PM me and I will send the link and some notices about how to get it works on my end.(But may not yours. )

EDIT:
Well, actually I suspected the maker was from/related the same company of publisher, I see the company's Chinese name in the installer screen, and their Chinese name just one word different with the publisher's one...hmm...but whatever, the publisher never cared this game again at all(the company of publisher still exist now but they never do/publishing such games anymore after MARS).....

[Person of Color]

[MrFlibble]

Player Lin, on 03 September 2013 - 09:16 AM, said:

Crosshair? It's looks like always enable, I didn't found a way to disable it...

No, the transparent automap that is displayed all the time in the second video.

Now there's another thing, you said that this is basically a hacked Doom game, but from the videos it certainly is not a simple hack that replaces resources and levels in Doom or Doom II. Here are some of the features that are definitely absent in Doom/Doom II but are present in MARS 3D:

• animated cutscenes
  
• friendly NPCs the player can talk to
  
• underwater areas with a light distortion effect
  
• there are nine weapon slots on the HUD, while Doom only has seven weapon slots (although there are nine weapons in Doom II, but four of them share two weapon slots)
  
• there is a flamethrower weapon and also grenades which are very similar to those in Powerslave, but definitely none of these weapons are present in Doom in exactly this form
  
• the first video seems to show a fog effect, but IIRC the original Doom/Doom II games don't use fog, although later versions of the engine itself are capable of this effect

True, most if not all of these features are present in other Doom engine games, like Hexen or Strife, but MARS doesn't seem to be a hack of any of those.

Also, you've posted the list of original game files here (not all files are completely visible on that shot though), and it seems like the sound effects for the game are WAV files that are lying in the directory. Now I don't know if those are actually utilized by the game or are just development leftovers, but IIRC Doom uses VOC files for sound effects, which are embedded in the IWAD. Also, "attract mode" demo records have filenames DEMO.1 and DEMO.2, while Doom, if I'm not mistaken, uses the LMP format for demos, and the default ones are again embedded in the IWAD.

All of this seems to indicate that MARS 3D might be an original game after all (in terms of engine that is) - either it was written completely from scratch or created by reverse-engineering of an existing Doom engine game, but not by simply hacking Doom. I fancy that it is not entirely implausible to suppose an original engine that imitates John Carmack's work. For example, Quiver is a low-budget game that pulls off quite a faithful recreation of Doom engine-wise.

Another possibility, of course, is that MARS could be a hack of some other 2.5D engine game, or maybe a game crated with some sort of 2.5D FPS game creation system (as is the case with Angst).

Hopefully someone of the experts like leilei will clarify these suspicions.

[Daedolon]

Those sounds and visuals from other games make it a pain to look at and listen to.

[Mr.Deviance]

Rise of the triad from the asian perspective.

[leilei]

Doesn't look like a "lazy 3d game creation kit" game to me, especially when you factor in the use of the HMI sound system (not exactly an audio library that can ever work with 'royalty free' licenses of such game creation kits)... so definitely not Doom engine either.

There's similarly also another Taiwanese alleged "doom engine" game out there with the Doom palette and virtua cop-ish gameplay. The name escapes me however. Probably worth knowing Legend of the Seven Paladins used the Doom palette as well. My guess for all that are artists that could be prototyping their assets in Doom editors and making a new palette+colormap would go against the transitional pipeline - then again there's LOTS OF TAIWANESE GAMES that use the standard Deluxe Paint palette as well.

It's like assuming no one has the know-how to write a sector-based engine but Carmack and Silverman therefore all Doom-clones are written by them.

[Player Lin]

For some reasons, I was felt it was not a doom engine but I saw some of glitches that happened on the doom engine, like the slime trails in the level 01 at some positions of the map...and after I checked the main exe and sure it was...

MrFlibble, on 03 September 2013 - 01:08 PM, said:

No, the transparent automap that is displayed all the time in the second video.

You did not read carefully the damn description on video.
I said I toggled the automap when playing...did you read it?
And yes, automap can be disable and enable by pressing TAB, disabled by default.

No Fullscreen-Automap in this game.

Mr.Deviance, on 03 September 2013 - 05:35 PM, said:

Rise of the triad from the asian perspective.

RotT?! Seriously...

---

I still don't know if it legally post the files of this game to public...

[Lunick]

You can always drop it my way

Would anyone actually get mad at this being put out there though, I'd be quite surprised.

[Player Lin]

Lunick, on 04 September 2013 - 05:31 AM, said:

Would anyone actually get mad at this being put out there though, I'd be quite surprised.

True, but common forum rules about warez(and it sure is) would be the problem I think.



OK, IT'S WAREZ, USE THIS WITH YOUR OWN RISK and click the spoiler, better not repack this shit with any reasons!

Spoiler

I only had M$ skydrive for this...

http://sdrv.ms/1a3J2Fe

The main game exe had CD check, you needed the image and use it on your first CD/DVD drive or the game doesn't works, I use the game on C:\MARS\ and the image mounted on D: in DOSBox, and it works. You may needed some tries I guess...don't know if my setup will work or not on other computer... good luck with it.

[Lunick]

Thankyou

[MrFlibble]

Again, thanks for sharing the game.

Player Lin, on 04 September 2013 - 05:19 AM, said:

You did not read carefully the damn description on video.
I said I toggled the automap when playing...did you read it?
And yes, automap can be disable and enable by pressing TAB, disabled by default.

Okay, you got me. I did not read the entire description.

But my point was that it's a bit inconvenient to watch the video when the automap is on the screen all the time. It's probably easier to play that way but certainly not easier to watch.

leilei, now that the files are available, will you be able to verify if this is a Doom engine derivative or not? Maybe this game was created by reverse-engineering some Doom engine game or other after all, since it does not seem like an ordinary hack of any officially released Doom engine game?

[Marphy Black]

Once again, thank you, Player Lin, for sharing this game with us. After a rockin' hour and a half or so of game time, I'm proud to say that I was able to complete MARS 3D. Unless there are any secret levels hidden away, there are seven maps total. However, the title screen does show a couple of locations that I never witnessed during my playthrough, so there really could be something more tucked away somewhere.

As has been pointed out by now, the game doesn't actually use the Doom engine, but it does clearly lift a number of ideas (and textures and sprites) from Doom and Duke 3D. There's even a Jetpack item, although unlike Duke's, it lasts forever until it vanishes when you leave the level, like Doom's Berserk. Even with all of the copied ideas, there are a few neat little features to be seen. It's not entirely obvious in the built-in demo video that Player Lin posted, but the weapon in the third slot that fires ghostly skulls actually transforms enemies into friendly allies for a short period, causing infighting (although the enemy in the demo immediately turns hostile against the nearby barrels).

Overall, although hopelessy dated for its time in 1997, I found this to be a fun little shooter. Despite the odd crash here and there, MARS 3D is heaps more playable than Legends of the Seven Paladins.

And just for fun, I recorded a gameplay video of the last level which showcases the final boss fight and the thrilling ending. Skip to 2:40 to get straight to business:

[Player Lin]

MrFlibble, on 04 September 2013 - 06:22 AM, said:

Okay, you got me. I did not read the entire description.

But my point was that it's a bit inconvenient to watch the video when the automap is on the screen all the time. It's probably easier to play that way but certainly not easier to watch.

I taken a half hour for those stupid texts in the description...

Yeah, because I had use the automap to prevent "get lost" on the level, and just because I'm recording the game so I don't want you guys watching about I'm trying to find the damn right way to exit, and it waste time and my hard disk space...

[Lunick]

So, do we know if this borrows any sort of engine? There also looks like there is netplay, someone should work that out

[MrFlibble]

Player Lin, on 04 September 2013 - 06:34 AM, said:

I taken a half hour for those stupid texts in the description...

Oh, I didn't mean to say anything wrong about your description, it's just that I jumped straight to the videos (a picture's worth a thousand words, you know... especially if it's moving pictures ), and the automap got me into a figure-ground dilemma

All your efforts at making this game known to public and sharing the files are very deeply appreciated, many thanks to you yet again

[OpenMaw]

So the game suddenly turns into a Predator-spin off in the end, eh?

That's just... Weird.

[Player Lin]

Whatever, the resolution of original video (320x200) also made thing worse when YouTube just compressed the video...


I'm surprise it's only have 7 levels... (RinyRed's video showed it's level 07: Skynet City, the final BOSS just waiting for our protagonist...), I wander if there're more levels in the data or not...

Commando Nukem, on 04 September 2013 - 07:19 AM, said:

So the game suddenly turns into a Predator-spin off in the end, eh?

That's just... Weird.

I won't surprised...the whole game just weirdness as some kind of experiment project... they just mixed elements of famous movies/games and produced this...uh, nothing-related-the-name-of-title of game...

[MrFlibble]

Player Lin, on 04 September 2013 - 07:22 AM, said:

I wander if there're more levels in the data or not...

BTW, does it actually use the WAD file format or some other format to store data?

[MusicallyInspired]

Anyone ever play an old DOS fpa called Nerves of Steel? My dad picked it up once on CD when we were kids. Thought it might be good. It wasn't. I still might have the CD around somewhere. Don't remember who made it.

Apparently it was a company called Merit Software.

[Player Lin]

MrFlibble, on 04 September 2013 - 07:29 AM, said:

BTW, does it actually use the WAD file format or some other format to store data?

Maybe, but its header just weird......