Not quite perfect - but excellent nonetheless.
For many, scaling Mount Everest has stood as the ultimate challenge of one’s strength and endurance.
An achievement of a lifetime.
For long-time Doom players, however, there is an equivalent: NUTS.WAD.
And now - for the first time ever - it’s playable on a games console.
The fact that you might run NUTS.WAD at all is cause for celebration!
It’s only once you engage the enemies, however, that you know true horror.
As a MIDI rendition of Led Zeplin’s Kashmir plays in the background, the frame-rate continues to struggle.
The frame-rates came tumbling down barely able to scratch the 20 frames per second mark.
I must admit, I was confused - the PS5 is outperforming Xbox but it’s not clear why.
Scraping the bottom of the frame-rate barrel barely reaching 10 frames per second.
The ghost of Perfect Dark laughs in the distance.
While Carmack’s original BSP renderer persists below the surface, the development team made some serious improvements.
It’s a slick way to divide up the work across threads.
So what’s the benefit of going software rendered?
It’s not super noticeable during gameplay but once you see it, it’s difficult to unsee it.
So what about the PC version?
Aspects like field of view can be adjusted along with many other customisable options.
This is the equipment on which Bobby Prince composed the soundtrack so it’s very faithful.
The other option is FM synth and this one surprised me.
Speaking of which, music MODs exist as well.
This is a crazy new episode with new monsters, weapons and massive levels.
It’s also perfect for showcasing the new co-op features with up to 16 players running around.
While not quite definitive (not yet, at least), we can highly recommend this excellent release.
