Games from the past

In our high-tech era, no one will be surprised by games with realistic graphics, cool special effects, real sound, etc. After all, not so long ago, many were glittering in the eyes of "were cut" in Quake, Doom, DukeNukem, Ufo, ... The younger generation in general probably does not know that such games were once the masterpieces of the game industry.
Now many, and if you take separately the "developers", then almost everyone has a pocket computer or a communicator. It should be noted that there is quite a lot of power there. I myself once was fond of such experiments, and now I want to tell a little about the good old games of the last century on mobile devices. All this is again provoked by some idleness on weekends and an attempt to diversify the use of the old ebarahl. Yes, it's about usable and free ports of old games, which are specifically “sharpened” for handhelds.


Here are the devices on which I started this whole thing:

1. Asus MyPal A620. (Windows Mobile 2003, Intel PXA 255, 400 MHz)
2. Qtek 9100 - Htc Wizard (Windows Mobile 6, Texas Instruments OMAP 850 - 195 MHz)

3D Shooters. Oh, they are gods of their time! We all close our eyes and remember how thundered: Quake, Doom2, DukeNukem. On these masterpieces and stop, because apart from them I could not find anything more or less working and playable.
')
1. Quake
The first game (or rather the port) that I came across is Quake. The first version. In order to play, you need to get the original game files, and specifically - pak, resource files. They (pak0.pak, pak1.pak) can be downloaded from sites with old games, or from the distribution of the game. I took the files from the directory where I put Original Quake. Further, not less important, we copy files to the device to the root, that is, the path is / Quake /, or to the memory card, also to the root is / Storage Card / Quake /. I did not read readmi.hht, so I was busy for a long time until I understood what the problem was, when the game did not start, but flew with a strange error. After I dropped the files to the root, everything worked right away. With the installation of all. Now about playability.
Basically, these ports of games make it so that you can play with your fingers and buttons, because the models are different and all have their own characteristics. On the communicator, I could not set the landscape mode, because after setting I could not exit the menu :) I made a screenshot from the PDA. It took about 10 minutes to master the control, while adjusting to walk and shoot with the touchscreen and buttons at the same time. Settings graphics, sound, control - are available, so if something worries - you can fix it. Actually everything - the meat went further!

Results:

+ good old quake with meat sounds and monsters
+ good governance, but not the plane
- on the communicator with 195 MHz it works slowly, but at times, from the workload of the scene.
~ The graphics look faintly on the screen, but this is not a problem.

Immediately interested in the possibility of a network game that is provided there (!). It’s a pity it didn’t work, ActiveSync didn’t allow to connect 2 devices at the same time, in short, it was dancing like this - nothing. I tried to make a server on a PC, but I couldn’t connect from a PDA, on the contrary, it didn’t work either. Very broken off, and in the end just moved on to the next game.

I was satisfied, here are some screenshots :

The console works :)

Normal mode, inconvenient, but functionally

Landscape mode is better, control is completely from the buttons.

2. DukeNukem
I learned about this game completely by chance, when I came to visit a friend (it was in the 90x), he already had a “powerful” computer, speakers, and other pribludy. He showed me DukeNukem3D. She immediately liked the beautiful graphics, interesting in general. Settled, shot, dispersed. What time has passed xs, I stumbled upon it again, but already in the form of a port. So the installation: it's easier here, because you only need one resource file (DUKE3D.GRP) from the original kit. We copy it to the game folder and launch it; nothing depends on the path, unlike Quake. The process has begun ...
The game is immediately tuned to landscape orientation, control is again incomprehensible, you must click on all the buttons until you catch up with what's what. 5 minutes for everything and fight.
I must say that Duke is faster than Kwaki, but not by much. So, the rest of the gland will fly. Settings graphics, sound, control - are present.

Results:

+ landscape mode
+ good speed on weak devices
~ slight confusion with control

Screenshots:

Beautiful logo

Convenient menu

The game itself

3. DoomII
And finally - doom. no - Doooooom. My favorite game since childhood. I must say that the choice is great here - there are a lot of ports on various platforms, including mobile phones. For windows mobile, I dug 4 pieces. However, the most convenient / fast / bug-free was only one “qfDoom”. Here you will need the original doom2.wad file. It is placed in the folder with the game, everything is simple, without unnecessary gestures. A distinctive feature of this port is the presence of a configurator, that is, first we start the configurator, select the desired card (you can start from the first one), type HUD (keyboard, several options), options (FPS, No monsters, Respawn) and start the game itself. Everything works extremely fast, even on my communicator (195 MHz). Brakes are not noticed, except for scenes with crowds of monsters. Graphics looks beautiful, I remember immediately IDDQD / IDKFA and into battle. The control is convenient, you can use your fingers (stylus), you can use the buttons. The menu also has all the features: video, sound, control. 2 minutes was enough to have to start chopping up monsters. Now sometimes I play around in transport :)

Results:

+ many settings
+ speed, even on weak glands does not slow down
+ landscape mode
~ small shoals when controlling movement with a finger.

Screenshots:

Logo

Landscape mode with keyboard

Landscape mode

4. References and materials
(c) id Software, 3D Realms

Quake - quake.pocketmatrix.com
DukeNukem3D - spv3d.tk
Doom - did not find links, but there is an archive

Archives of games, without resource files:
Quake - 224 kb
DukeNukem3D - 421 kb
qfDoom - 298 kb