Note on the captures: Different generations of GBA had different screens, with game developers using different levels of gamma and saturation over the years to try to account for this. There's an ongoing debate about the "most accurate" way to correct for this on modern systems which is a bit of a minefield, so I have decided to present the games here in their raw un-corrected form. If nothing else, it's an interesting historical artefact. You'll notice that the colours look slightly washed out in a few of the games, and that's why! They were designed with the original non-backlit screen in mind. 🙂
I worked on Duke and Doom2. We did Duke first. Mark and Luke wrote the engine from scratch mostly in Arm assembly. With Doom2 the Duke engine was revamped by Chris. Unlike the developers for Doom who had to use the Jaguar version we were free to use our own engine. I worked at Torus for over twenty years and working on the GBA were some of the best times in my career.
I feel like when people talk about doom on the gba, the doom 2 port often gets overshadowed in favor of the less Stellar port of the first one. Being based on the jaguar version means that both the quality and the numbers of the levels is cut down signifcantly and yet the doom 2 port is fully fleshed out, 100% complete with everything the original had in it and top it off, it has actual multiplayer! How come people don't notice all of this and Say "wow the gba is much more powerful than we thought, we we're wrong about doom1, this port is amazing"
Lots of 3D racers/driving games too, way more than you'd expect. Some almost competitive with Playstation. Like most of these, the watercolor palette kinda makes a lot of them look uglier than they should've.
I probably would've loved most of these games back in the day, especially Dark Arena. I was obsessed with games that were technically impressive and even games where I could just fully explore a 3D environment. Even my friends were like "That game sucks why do you want to play that?" 'cause it's 3D on my GBA, duh!
That Medal of Honor: Underground sky reminded me of KnowledgeHusk's video on early CGI with those blank plain color backdrops. With the low res of the GBA its impressive how much environment textures they were able to cram on those GBA FPS games. It looked the best on Ecks vs Sever since the color palette was more contrasting and not too plain like Wolfenstein 3D or Serious Sam Advance and also not too dithered artifact looking like Back Track and not too much similar looking colors that blend together in kind of a mush when moving fast like Doom II.
Nice overview of the GBA FPS games! The top-down Medal of Honor game looks surprisingly great, speaking as someone who has never had any interest in the FPS games its based on. Of note, some of those games support multiplayer via system link and can be quite fun with a friend, like Doom2. I had a chance to record a video of that in multiplayer with a friend via MiSTer to show off the core a couple years back, with one player on a CRT and the other on HDMI and it was great fun. V-Rally 2 is another fun multiplayer experience on GBA we tried, well worth giving a go and truly impressive 3D for the system as well. Cheers!
Fun fact, Dark Arena is now on steam although its basically just a rom and a gba emulator tossed into a wrapper like all the other Piko interactive "remasters"
The GBA was well after my time, but as I'm moving forward through the newer generations of console titles in my collection I'm really looking forward to them.
Last year I finished Duke Nukem Advance, Dark Arena and Ecks vs Sever. Duke Nukem is the best one out of them but EvS does have its strengths. Dark Arena is alright but too simple compared to the others. Doom 1 and 2 are the best but my only complaint is the censorship. I recommend getting the GBADoom homebrew port.
The music issue with Wolfenstein 3D is a mystery - the music is actually all there in the game ROM and faithfully translated to the GBA's sound chip, but for whatever reason it was just never coded to play in the finished game. Whether this is because it created too much of a performance issue during playtesting or whether it was an oversight I can't say, but the music has been extracted from the cart so it's definitely all there - it just doesn't play, which is a shame. This aside, its a pretty solid port. It's the only contemporary console port to cram the PC version into a cart, all 60 levels, and without censorship to boot - all the other versions use a modified/cut down level-set that debuted in the Super Nintendo version.
Had to shrink the screen down to make these games (especially Duke Nukem) bearable to watch. Full screen on a PC is horrid, but when shrunk down to somehwere near the actual Gameboy screen size, it's fine.
good video. love your videos and am glad I found you as a youtuber. you make really good videos. excited for what the new year brings. liked your video with cheap mini retro consoles. I bought a miyoo mini plus, you should try buying it. it is fantastic. would also be fun with a video with GBA games, where you show the ones that are not FPS. would like to see what your favorites are. Greeting Andreas from Denmark 😊
In the early 2000s there was a rush to always have the best graphics even on systems like the gba were most gamers didn't really care about it since it was never going to be on par with a console or pc .but they tried anyway sometimes affecting the game play with poor frame rate and other issues.
...well it's on the thumbnail Rees, also I owned a gameboy advance like that as a teenager and now thoughtout the many years ..I don't seem to have it now??? Did you steal mine, is that it Rees!!
Some of these definitely look like rushed, shovelware. The wolf3d port while functional and works well, yeah the frame rate could be a lot better and the music missing does just strike me as it just needed to get out in the most minimally functional form. Serious Sam Advance again just barely functional/playable, could've used a lot more polish there. The Metal of Honor game almost looked like it was kinda ambitious with different height floors and stuff but yeah looks like it could've just used some polish and could've been better. Same with the paintball game... wonder if that's the same engine, though yeah that one seems to be the most cynically shovelware of the bunch yeah, though having a 3D engine at all is already pretty ambitious, but if they weren't willing to have the time put in to it, making it some overhead view game would've been far better.
Note on the captures: Different generations of GBA had different screens, with game developers using different levels of gamma and saturation over the years to try to account for this. There's an ongoing debate about the "most accurate" way to correct for this on modern systems which is a bit of a minefield, so I have decided to present the games here in their raw un-corrected form. If nothing else, it's an interesting historical artefact. You'll notice that the colours look slightly washed out in a few of the games, and that's why! They were designed with the original non-backlit screen in mind. 🙂
I worked on Duke and Doom2. We did Duke first. Mark and Luke wrote the engine from scratch mostly in Arm assembly. With Doom2 the Duke engine was revamped by Chris. Unlike the developers for Doom who had to use the Jaguar version we were free to use our own engine.
I worked at Torus for over twenty years and working on the GBA were some of the best times in my career.
What would you say are other GBA games from Torus we should check out?
I feel like when people talk about doom on the gba, the doom 2 port often gets overshadowed in favor of the less Stellar port of the first one. Being based on the jaguar version means that both the quality and the numbers of the levels is cut down signifcantly and yet the doom 2 port is fully fleshed out, 100% complete with everything the original had in it and top it off, it has actual multiplayer! How come people don't notice all of this and Say "wow the gba is much more powerful than we thought, we we're wrong about doom1, this port is amazing"
I loved D1/2 on GBA as a kid. They got me into portable FPSs
I even made a clock using the graphics, v=IIIN8V_FJJQ&t=36
Did you happen to work on Ashen? its a shame it was N-gage only, I loved it!
I must admit there where more FPS titles than I expected there, and a number of them ran far better than I thought they could given the hardware.
Lots of 3D racers/driving games too, way more than you'd expect. Some almost competitive with Playstation. Like most of these, the watercolor palette kinda makes a lot of them look uglier than they should've.
I probably would've loved most of these games back in the day, especially Dark Arena. I was obsessed with games that were technically impressive and even games where I could just fully explore a 3D environment. Even my friends were like "That game sucks why do you want to play that?" 'cause it's 3D on my GBA, duh!
Doom 2 modder here, ive actually ported dark arena guns to doom 2, fun little game
Idk how this new video got recommend to me, but as a young retro gamer who wasnt even alive when Gba was sold, this was an interesting watch!
I gotta say a massive thank you for the proper subtitles. Love people who do them for their videos.
Can't believe you know who Lucy Liu is, but Antonio Banderas is "the other guy". Just find it funny.
That Medal of Honor: Underground sky reminded me of KnowledgeHusk's video on early CGI with those blank plain color backdrops.
With the low res of the GBA its impressive how much environment textures they were able to cram on those GBA FPS games. It looked the best on Ecks vs Sever since the color palette was more contrasting and not too plain like Wolfenstein 3D or Serious Sam Advance and also not too dithered artifact looking like Back Track and not too much similar looking colors that blend together in kind of a mush when moving fast like Doom II.
Nice summary, great video 👍
Nice overview of the GBA FPS games! The top-down Medal of Honor game looks surprisingly great, speaking as someone who has never had any interest in the FPS games its based on. Of note, some of those games support multiplayer via system link and can be quite fun with a friend, like Doom2. I had a chance to record a video of that in multiplayer with a friend via MiSTer to show off the core a couple years back, with one player on a CRT and the other on HDMI and it was great fun. V-Rally 2 is another fun multiplayer experience on GBA we tried, well worth giving a go and truly impressive 3D for the system as well. Cheers!
I watched the game footage with my eyes half open, to simulate some blurring. :) That improved some of them.
Fun fact, Dark Arena is now on steam although its basically just a rom and a gba emulator tossed into a wrapper like all the other Piko interactive "remasters"
Quite a nice list, several titles to try out for sure. Cheers!
The GBA was well after my time, but as I'm moving forward through the newer generations of console titles in my collection I'm really looking forward to them.
Last year I finished Duke Nukem Advance, Dark Arena and Ecks vs Sever.
Duke Nukem is the best one out of them but EvS does have its strengths. Dark Arena is alright but too simple compared to the others.
Doom 1 and 2 are the best but my only complaint is the censorship. I recommend getting the GBADoom homebrew port.
The music issue with Wolfenstein 3D is a mystery - the music is actually all there in the game ROM and faithfully translated to the GBA's sound chip, but for whatever reason it was just never coded to play in the finished game. Whether this is because it created too much of a performance issue during playtesting or whether it was an oversight I can't say, but the music has been extracted from the cart so it's definitely all there - it just doesn't play, which is a shame. This aside, its a pretty solid port. It's the only contemporary console port to cram the PC version into a cart, all 60 levels, and without censorship to boot - all the other versions use a modified/cut down level-set that debuted in the Super Nintendo version.
The enemy sprites in that Medal of Honour look like Sonny from Police Quest, in all his glorious pixels.
Interesting subject. I never would have thought to try a FPS on the GBA. I guess my favorite GBA were all the metroidvania games and the JRPG stuff.
Had to shrink the screen down to make these games (especially Duke Nukem) bearable to watch. Full screen on a PC is horrid, but when shrunk down to somehwere near the actual Gameboy screen size, it's fine.
good video. love your videos and am glad I found you as a youtuber. you make really good videos. excited for what the new year brings. liked your video with cheap mini retro consoles. I bought a miyoo mini plus, you should try buying it. it is fantastic. would also be fun with a video with GBA games, where you show the ones that are not FPS. would like to see what your favorites are. Greeting Andreas from Denmark 😊
I remember that cracktro!! God that's a throwback
In the early 2000s there was a rush to always have the best graphics even on systems like the gba were most gamers didn't really care about it since it was never going to be on par with a console or pc .but they tried anyway sometimes affecting the game play with poor frame rate and other issues.
that first medal of honour game on the GBA reminds me of the original on the playstation
...well it's on the thumbnail Rees, also I owned a gameboy advance like that as a teenager and now thoughtout the many years ..I don't seem to have it now???
Did you steal mine, is that it Rees!!
Good vid. But I'm pretty sure the Ecks vs Sever games were licensed from the film, not the other way round.
This isn't Pee-wee's Big Adventure...
That 'Medal of Honor: Infiltrator' game looks like cannon fodder
There's a patch for Doom 1/2 to bring them closer to the PC versions
I’m surprised how many there are. I’ve not played a single one
GBA was a fantastic system for multiplayer Mario kart in uni lecture theatres 🤣
It's pretty funny that one of the best FPS games for the GBA (Ecls vs Sever) is a licensed product from one of the worst movies ever made.
Some of these definitely look like rushed, shovelware. The wolf3d port while functional and works well, yeah the frame rate could be a lot better and the music missing does just strike me as it just needed to get out in the most minimally functional form. Serious Sam Advance again just barely functional/playable, could've used a lot more polish there. The Metal of Honor game almost looked like it was kinda ambitious with different height floors and stuff but yeah looks like it could've just used some polish and could've been better. Same with the paintball game... wonder if that's the same engine, though yeah that one seems to be the most cynically shovelware of the bunch yeah, though having a 3D engine at all is already pretty ambitious, but if they weren't willing to have the time put in to it, making it some overhead view game would've been far better.
Yes
Dark Arena
I love that instead of being a Doom Clone it’s trying to look like Marathon with several enemies straight up being Marathon enemies remixed
nope, life’s too short to enjoy Doom, Doom II, Duke Nukem Advanced, Ecks vs Sever, Wolfenstein, Serious Sam
😂
Moddeur doom 2 ici, j'ai porté les armes de dark arena pour doom 2 si ça interesse qqun
no. but the GBA easily has some of the best portable RPG games ever made.
God, Medal of Honor genuinely made me ill just watching it. Truly horrible.