I Can't Believe It's GBA 3D! FPS Edition, Pt. 1 | Punching Weight [SSFF]

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It is estimated that there over a 1000 games made for Nintendo’s Game Boy Advance. No idea was too ridiculous for the GBA, except for maybe one - First Person Shooters. Despite hundreds and hundreds of games, there are only 13 FPS’s on the GBA and we’re gonna cover every last one! Welcome to PART ONE of our ode to GBA First Person Shooters, and in this episode it’s all about the ports!
☠Credits ☠
Written by Derek Alexander & Grace Kramer
Shot by Grace Kramer
Edited by Sober Dwarf ► / @soberdwarf and Derek Alexander
Music by ☠► hellstar.plus
Artwork and Bumper by Studio Goblin
☠► www.studiogoblin.co.uk
☠ More? ☠
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Explained: Castlevania vs Curse of the Moon ► • Explained: Castlevania...
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Doom Console Ports #2 (Jaguar/3DO/Saturn) ► • Doom Console Ports #2 ...
#stopskeletons #gba #gameboy

[@softgirlvelvet8446]

This channel is basically "Content no one asked for, but now that we have it we can't live without it."

[@vaaz_rodriguez]

I really wanted a video like this...

[@softgirlvelvet8446]

@@vaaz_rodriguez OK, fair enough. Maybe I was exaggerating in my comment since I kind of wanted something like this too.

[@WIImotionmasher]

Clearly nobody here watches Minimme

[@vaaz_rodriguez]

@@WIImotionmasher I do. But I like to hear different opinions too.

[@MrBoogiemoney]

Lol agreed

[@MishKoz]

You know the video's going to be good when there's super-compressed GBA Smash Mouth within the first 20 seconds

[@01100101011100100111]

Ś̸̱̺͗O̴͚̪͐M̷͙̍̕È̸̡̯̀B̴̯̮͑͆Ȯ̷̦D̷͎̽͘Ý̵̭͆

[@n2badsam420]

ONCE TOLD ME THE WORLD WAS GONNA ROLL ME

[@zacharywiebe5820]

I AIN'T SHARPEST TOOL IN THE SHEAD

[@awesomegamercz]

SHE WAS LOOKIN KINDA DOOM

[@expendableindigo9639]

Didn't expect to see you here.

[@NitroRad]

I always forget that 3D was possible on the GBA. Used to see the GBA versions of Bond and Medal of Honor at the store all the time and always wondered what they were like!

[@davidmcgill1000]

Just as possible as the consoles and PCs of the early 90's. CPU being just powerful enough to handle software rendering of 3D environments but not anything more complex. Dedicated hardware, typically with a graphics pipeline and DMA, greatly improve on the process but isn't required.

[@forgettablePyromaniac]

My boy only has 30 likes :(

[@arturomontenegro176]

@@forgettablePyromaniac 37*

[@linkthehero8431]

The GBA itself wasn't handling the 3D. 3D games for the GBA rendered the models in software and used the bitmap display mode to display the game. It's actually a clever way to bypass the limitations.

[@dyscotopia]

@@linkthehero8431 that's basically how early 3d pc games ran too. VGA cards didn't have any specific 3d hardware, but they had a chunky planar mode that could be used to draw big batches of pixels all at once based on precalculated look-up tables and some real time maths.

[@Mother_boards]

Get yourself a partner that looks at you like Derek looks at Medal of Honor: Underground for the GBA

[@minimme]

medal of honor underground is such a disaster I can't believe it exists lmao, everytime I see content about it I love how it's always without fail just like "wtf is this disaster" also nice vid topic ;)

[@niespeludo]

Before clicking the video I thought this was one of your videos from the notification bar. Love both you guys' channels. This is such a typical premise for one fo your videos, don't you have one on this topic as well?

[@kylerclarke2689]

I thought of you as soon as I saw the video

[@zayaannashrid1374]

I was looking for your comment on here lmao

[@Falcnuts]

Aww lawd here he is

[@krakenloco]

Mini why u here when they be stealin your spaghetti

[@GeneralBolas]

I find MoHU to be very interesting, from a technical perspective. My immediate thought was this: they're scan converting actual polygons (rather than using Doom-style rendering techniques). The effect that's happening looks almost exactly like non-perspective correct interpolation of textures across a triangle. However, when you showed that the texture swimming stopped when it was emulated, that got me thinking. Maybe it's not so much that the game is missing perspective correction as it merely has *bad* perspective correction. That is, GBA hardware couldn't handle the numerical precision needed to do it. But for whatever reason, maybe the emulator preserves more precision in its emulated registers than the GBA. So while the inputs and outputs are all 16-bits, the intermediate computations may be done at 32-bit precision, thus making the game's attempt at perspective-correct interpolation more accurate.

[@THB192]

It definitely looks like something's wrong with the perspective correction since... I mean, even affine perspective doesn't normally look that bad, jeez. But how correct texturing could be reattained in emulation is baffling. See, the GBA doesn't actually have an FPU. So FPU precision isn't actually a relevant factor. Furthermore, the GBA is running on an ARM7TDMI@16MHz (that's an ARMv4T architecture... ARM is confusing), so it's actually a 32-bit system (often hamstrung by a 16-bit bus, but 32-bit nonetheless...).

[@SleepingCocoon]

MoH Underground GBA is one of the most incredible things i've ever experienced. i thought i was dying.

[@VGamingJunkie]

Can't believe it's on the same system as Nightfire 007.

[@xelyx13]

That MoH footage literally made me sick to my stomach.

[@SamuraiHonor]

Pain in eyes - check Pain in head - check Motion sickness - check What a doozy.

[@i.m.evilhomer5084]

Maybe it wasn't a good idea to have dinner while watching that segment. Thankfully, I'm just a bit woozy.

[@4ndr3ww1gg1n]

OMG that delicious texture warping on MoH...

[@VGamingJunkie]

It’s like the Ps1 game from Hell.

[@theycallmejojo6090]

Even on the GBA, the duke nukem theme sounds awesome.

[@TheIzzyNobreShow]

They call me Jojo it can’t NOT sound awesome.

[@EdBoi18]

Yeah, gba djent can’t be anything less than awesome lol

[@cosmicdoodles2992]

its the duke nukem theme, how could it not?

[@TheIzzyNobreShow]

NEW STOP SKELETONS FROM FIGHTING! It’s gonna be a good day today.

[@raph2954]

Izzy Nobre didn’t expect to see you here haha

[@yansproductions]

WOW, didn´t expect that you here...

[@WTFisTingispingis]

It's always a good day when Derek uploads.

[@Kippykip]

I loved that Doom II port on GBA! I made a patch last year to uncensor it and fix the palette issues too, I put it on my site and it got mirrored to romhacking.

[@chamoo232]

I also patched a copy for my EZ flash. Both Doom 1 and 2 with red blood. I also patched a few other games. Donkey Kong Country with original SNES color palette, Zelda and Mario games without voices.

[@Kippykip]

@@chamoo232 Wow I was looking for a DKC patch last year when I made the Doom II one! Looks like somebody finally did it!

[@chamoo232]

@@Kippykip The map, menu, bonus mini games and pretty much everything that is not taken from the Snes version still has the bright colored pastel colors but all the sprites and levels are back to their glorious original colors. I just wish there was also a patch for DKC2 and 3 but the creator of the patch said the color palette are stored a different way in those so his technique wouldn't work.

[@Ponaru]

Nice dude. I played your mod. :)

[@SeanJTharpe]

Nice!!! I wish I could learn how to do cool stuff like that!

[@raikohzx4323]

Medal of Honor Underground is so bad that they didn't even crop the Sten viewmodel's arms correctly, cutting it off visibly.

[@Drinkabeerandplayagameofficial]

The GBA really is such an impressive console in so many ways.

[@niiclife9316]

The GBA my favorite console of all time

[@drogado1]

Still my favorite handheld console.

[@TheIzzyNobreShow]

Drink a Beer and Play a Game look who I see here

[@dimkacracker]

being a kid playing zelda/megaman/legacy of goku 2 and buus fury/pokemon games, then going over to friends to play halo 1 on xbox, the good ol days.

[@camerong7365]

Ikr, especially for those who had an S/NES as a child, and were able to play games like Mario bros. 3 and Mario World and not to mention it doesnt just have ports it has really good games like Mario and Luigi Superstar Saga.

[@GermanPeter]

When I first got Doom 2 on the GBA, I didn't even understand that it was such a technological marvel. I only said "Oh great, it's Doom 2 on the GBA, neat!" and enjoyed it greatly. Later on I realized how lucky I was that it could even exist in such a playable state :D

[@thatplacebehindthebush54039]

I was hoping you'd mention "kill.switch". It was one of my favorite gba games back in the day. While technically not first-person, it is a pretty polished, well-done 3D shooter (especially by GBA standards). Here's hoping you get the opportunity to cover it in a future vid ✌

[@SpongeMagic]

It's great knowing that the developers behind the port of Doom II on the GBA also made Sonic X on the Leapster.

[@Xilefian]

GBA is the perfect hardware for demonstrating why ray-caster engines are not as performant or efficient as raster-span "doom-like" engines.

[@THB192]

You mean BSP rendering engines? Also, why is it the perfect hardware for that?

[@pilcrow182]

@@THB192 Your comment's old, but I'll answer anyway. The GBA was made in an era where both engine methods were understood, but it straddled the line between them power-wise: generally a bit slow for ray-casting, but fast enough to run a BSP tree at full speed. That power level emphasized the difference between the two rendering methods -- a little bit better specs, like the DS, and you probably wouldn't be able to tell them apart by system performance alone.

[@warhammernerd52Daxx-Lorenzo898]

13:30-17:07 James Rolfe *needs* to review Medal Of Honor Underground

[@dvdbytes4348]

This was back in the time when ports were still fun and pushed limits. When consoles were each different beasts. Where the PS1 got a port of Quake II of all things. I miss those days. They were exciting.

[@flyingninja1234]

Me too.

[@SomeOrangeCat]

System limitations made developers really apply themselves.

[@garfieif8187]

@@SomeOrangeCat "I beg to differ!" -every Philips CD-i developer In all seriousness, I agree

[@crazydingo3]

N64 also got a quake 2 port.

[@dvdbytes4348]

@@crazydingo3 Yeah but that's my point the N64's quake 2 port was radically different and Quake 2 should have been out of the ps1's reach, but somehow they made it work. Quake 1 also had a Saturn and N64 port and they are also radically different. Which is why that era was so much fun. The ports were radically different and actually played to the strengths of the systems. And I miss those days, cause now the only outlier is the NX and even that's minimal.

[@GamerGuysReviews]

Well, SSFF, Earth Defense Force 5 releases next month, so I eagerly await "Why Earth Defense Force 5 is Amazing" video featuring special guest Mark Bussler from Classic Game Room.

[@luchadorbeaux1698]

Been collecting lots of handheld lately so i am really into these gb and gba vids. Thanks!

[@summerlaverdure]

The MOHU music is actually kind of well-composed considering the limitations of the hardware

[@pedrinhoatmc]

Love how SSFF loves emulation! I'm also in love with the Wii U recently because of that. That controller is a dream station for emulation. It might look really janky but has great build quality, it's light and the buttons and sticks feel amazing. I'd also like to point out that the screen represents the state of the art in lo-fi LCD, hahahahahha. Playing some Nightfire on that gamepad feels almost like playing on the official GameCube screen back in the day, with that crunchy sound.

[@ChristopheKonig]

Your work on these videos is amazing. So interesting, love to hear about all these forgotten games. Thank you for existing.

[@householdrecordings]

Medal of...some honor, I guess.

[@dvdbytes4348]

Medal of Dishonor ?

[@lintlickerben]

I found this channel and I'm just nonstop watching these videos! So much effort put into these, great job!

[@joeyparkhill8751]

Getting a headache from.seeing that flash in MoH Underground

[@bell1615]

Coming back, I recently found out that Doom 2 GBA does the same sort of "low detail" thing to wall textures when you play on Nightmare to conserve performance. Pretty neat.

[@VGamingJunkie]

Doom 2 actually used a clever method of improving performance, it actually added to the geometry in most cases to decrease your visibility so it didn't have to render as much. This is a much better method than just stripping things out and makes it feel more dense and detailed.

[@VGamingJunkie]

One interesting thing to note is that most of the small changes made to levels in Doom II GBA actually add more detail, in order to obscure the player's visibility so that it doesn't have to render as much on screen. For instance, in The Crusher level, there's a massive pillar added into the first large room so that not all of it has to be rendered at once. In the Industrial Zone (In addition to being split in half for memory reasons), I noticed walls added to sections and a snaking hallway is added to Bloodfalls. So, in most cases, detail is expanded rather than subtracted. It's a great trick that actually leads to a more pleasing looking product in the end.

[@GrizonII]

I’d like to see someone port something like LSD: Dream Emulator to the GBA.

[@PeruvianPotato]

Now that would be interesting

[@rjmario2234]

i get so excited for these really weird and ambitious gba titles.

[@blackneos940]

Porting: Proving that just because you can, doesn't mean you always SHOULD.....

[@AkumaKristian]

That description of MoH: Underground is now my favourite thing ever. The graphing calculator comment was gold.

[@ZeOHKay]

I remember that you livestreamed these games a while ago. Glad to see you're revisiting them (as well as some new ones.)

[@lady1kaka]

This is the kind of content I subscribed for ♥️

[@samueljansen6372]

Just found your channel and subscribed. I use to play both Doom gba games a lot. Doom 2 had this real bad glitch where every time you started a new map, your armor would not change or provide any protection until you picked up more. If you started a map with 200% armor, you were pretty much naked and wouldn't have functional armor again unless you picked up a megasphere.

[@danielhernandezhs]

14:48 That's actually a good representation of what acid feels like

[@TheDegradingSeeker]

These are always so interesting! Can't wait for part 2. Thanks for the shout-out btw!

[@tycho7006]

Always nice to see one of these videos, it's interesting to see how far developers can push older hardware!

[@RetroDeathReviews666]

The kind of quality content I came here for :') I love all of your videos dude, huge appreciation for this one too since the GBA fps are ones that NO ONE talks about!

[@justanotheryoutubechannel]

As crazy as this sounds, I prefer the graphics of Nightfire GBA to the GameCube/PS2/Xbox versions. I mean sure, it sounds insane, but the horribly low resolution, crawling edges, and colour-banded 8-bit colour textures look much more like Goldeneye N64, and it’s superior sister, Perfect Dark. It’s kinda cool, I really do like the look of the N64 games, and the GBA graphics kinda recreate that.

[@leeartlee915]

The “review” of Medal of Honor mighty be the finest moment in all of Punching Weight. Well done people. Well frickin’ done.

[@TheTogoRojo]

You have come a long way. Great vid.

[@Trainy2]

Love the content, man. Very detailed and in depth looks at things. Nerdy awesomeness

[@SuperEvilduck]

I remember the stream you and Calvin did on GBA-FPS years ago. It's an almost nostalgic topic at this point.

[@brokenscart7989]

Interesting how serious sams music sounds like it’s from an original gameboy

[@bfish89ryuhayabusa]

My god, Medal of Honor is the Manos: The Hands of Fate of games. Your enthusiasm for unplayable messes reaches out to the MSTie in me.

[@sinmenon4347]

idk what I loved the most: the reviews of these absolute treasures or your wonderful and very handsome dog

[@SeriousBeats]

Most underrated channel been around since before 50k subs

[@niespeludo]

Been here since Journey of Sillius and Metal Storm... Happy Video Game Nerd days.

[@ChevyCamaroIsBetter]

Anyone remember retroware tv? Lol

[@chrishansen1282]

He has no idea what he's talking about

[@CrashThompson]

I've been here long enough to remember you and Calvin originally discovering Medal of Honor on that one livestream you did back when Derek was still in Alaska. I laughed my ass off when I saw that for the first time. It's nice to see it get some proper Punching Weight love. Great ep guys!

[@i.m.evilhomer5084]

Oh....I should've watch this before eating, because that footage of the Medal of Honour GBA game made me feel woozy.

[@sadslavboy]

having done acid, thats actually a pretty apt description. kudos

[@RetroDawn]

Blue2=Electric Bluegaloo! The fact that you put the best jokes of the video in a 6 second clip was astounding. 14:17

[@akufromthefuture7159]

Thank you for this video and the sequel. I had doom 1 and 2 and wolfenstein roms already, plus ecks vs sever and serious sam. All have huge issues with controls and other things, but being roms, you can speed up the slower games. I digress. Your videos helped me fill my catalog of gba games. So thank you. On a Bluetooth controller with custom settings, it has improved many of them.

[@Leecho]

I love it! Thanks guys.

[@corvid_lenore]

I’m so happy to see more Punching Weight

[@foxx64]

Derek! I remember watching you and Calvin play these games all those years ago. A video that would make dukegbafpsfan proud!

[@raph2954]

Seeing this in my feed made my day :)

[@Nikko2I]

I walkedthrough MoH:Underground back then on my GBA. The only thing I remembered that there was some really strange colorful intro with bananas and whole experience felt like an fever dream that refuse to end.

[@IkesDaddelbox]

The thing that blew my mind in the Nightfire port is how it handled lighting. The spotlights in the first level actually cast light on the environment that dynamically moves with their positions. It looks absolutely unreal to me.

[@Fox_Moulder]

Omfg, that acid painting was freakin awesome!!!!

[@ugzz]

You're videos are great, personally i have no love for the GBA, never owned one, never even played one. But these videos have me completely hooked.

[@michaelsantoro9864]

Excited to see coverage of the game Back Track.

[@konoha1993]

I love stuff like this. It's like discovering there was a Metroid Prime game for the n64 or something

[@BirdGaffron]

This is why I love this channel. Primo Derek and Grace!

[@ToshisGarden]

Think you guys would ever do an SSFF episode of some sort on all the different releases of Ninja Gaiden? Even with just the classic series, there were LOADS if differences! The arcade, NES, Master System and Game Boy versions all featured Ryu and several other characters, but the gameplay and overall story was usually VASTLY and ambitiously different across the different formats. And then, even with the new series, they continue the trend by mixing familiar themes and characters from different versions with an all new look, feel, and playstyle, and they give us amazing oddities like Ninja Gaiden: Dragon Sword! I would LOVE to hear you guys talk about all of this stuff in one of your segments!!

[@atlusgoth5000]

Nintender still dominates the handheld market with the switch, good video guys!

[@liampalmer7527]

Cool shark magic eye. Way to take it back to the 90's hardcore.

[@Thompson51]

Great list. Subscribed.

[@raphaelturtle4146]

I could have sworn you did this video before..... thought it was a reupload. I'm losing it I guess. Cant wait to watch

[@user-zo9dc1lu3q]

Great video !!! I'm waiting for the second part of this masterpiece ! That little dog is so cute. P.S. Hail to the GBA baby !

[@heckmedia2398]

I remember seeing ads for the MoH: Underground for GBA in an F.Y.E. back in the day, and I almost bought it. Dodged a locked-on bullet, there.

[@adamsfusion]

One more ding about the Serious Sam game is that you won't land a hit UNLESS your reticle has changed to that second form. The game doesn't actually feature hitscan weapons, instead the game is always checking to see if an enemy is ahead of you, signals, then applies damage to the enemy when you press fire. This differs from contemporary and even classic games in that the ray for line of sight is calculated before you even fire. And it's super clunky. They did it to save CPU resources, but it's really _hit or miss_

[@CatalystOfFire]

I seem to remember Ecks vs. Sever was pretty cool. I could be HUGELY wrong on that, but that's what I remember.

[@NGB1122]

GOODNESS MAN! Your additude and charisma are infectious! I love you and I can't get enough. But we need to go deeper, with even more hardware limitations. We need to cover ... calculator games.

[@spic9h592]

In case anyone's curious, the magic eye that is flashed across the screen at 15:03 is of a shark.

[@poke548]

Fun Fact: Medal of Honor: Underground didn't COMPLETELY scare Rebellion off from handheld FPSs. They would later go on to make Star Wars Battlefront: Renegade Squadron for the PSP. (Which was clunky, and often didn't perform so well, and didn't really hold a candle to its console/PC predecessors in terms of raw gameplay, but by all accounts, is actually not a half-bad game.)

[@maximumoverstat]

no joke, that bond game was my first fps, like ever. don't know why, but i've still got my copy to this day.

[@Novous]

2D consoles all struggled heavily with 3D graphics. They had tiny slow, cheap, CPUs but could fake being faster because a hardware chip did the drawing of sprites. When PCs, being general purpose machines, switched to 3D, consoles couldn't keep up. The Saturn was the last 2D designed one. It slapped an extra chip on to help "fake" 3D but it was so much of a "2D" machine it drew rectangles (because they're just sprites) instead of the now universal, drawing triangles. The Amiga also greatly suffered with the advent of 3D because it was much like a console internally with hardware sprite acceleration (a hardware "blitter", (b)lock (l)ine (t)ransfer chip for drawing sprites).

[@alistair4909]

Favorite video game dog? Toriko from the Last Guardian

[@cupriferouscatalyst3708]

I assume he's already been suggested a hundred times, but KK Slider is one good dog. Maybe not the cutest puppy but definitely one of the most musically talented ones!

[@TheDoctorProfessor]

Man, I remember when you and Calvin were going through some of these games on Space Money Octagon!

[@colefitzpatrick8431]

14:24 Blue 2: Electric Bluegaloo. Bro. I don't know if anyone else caught it, but that is in quality taste.

[@clay25e]

My favorite part was the shark in the magic eye image.

[@sonofradium4835]

If you try to whip that red skeleton to stop him from fighting, he’s just gonna keep getting right back up.

[@MichaelCutts7]

7:40 Oh Maaaaan, that’s a choice. I wish every pause screen had the Duke theme

[@sauravmohammed5221]

Love this series!

[@SlapNuts4Life]

15:03 ha! It’s a shark! Oddly enough I couldn’t get my eyes to do it on my 4K TV but they did it right away on my iPhone 🤷‍♂️

[@drownsinkoolaid4203]

Been waiting for this episode to happen ever since that one, incredibly dumb, but admittedly fun stream :D

[@slushdrinker]

15:02 nice shark

[@fconstraints]

Talk about memory lane! I had most of these!

[@JomasterTheSecond]

"It's time to kick some gum and chew ass... and I'm all outta ass." ~Dick Kickem Advance, 2002

[@Tactical_wulf5.56]

Lol doom 2 for the gba was my first time playing doom 2 and I beat it. And had fun doing it. I can't wait for this Christmas where I'm getting doom 3 bfg edition which comes with both doom 1&2 that run smoothly

[@kylerclarke2689]

Some of the best content on the entire site.

[@MathewHaswell]

I only know of Rebellion through their comics. They've owned and published the 2000 AD magazines/books since 2000.

[@shutter-chan]

That MoH footage is so mind inducing it literally made me feel dizzy.

[@Dzuno18]

I played both Doom 1 and 2 on the GBA. While playing Doom 1 wasn't too different for me since I originally played it on SNES (which I deeply love since it was my first fps game I played and the first of many versions of Doom I would play years later), Doom 2 on the GBA was my first time playing this sequel. I remembered how I was amazed how everything about Doom was done well in the sequel since it introduced new levels and demons. Also, I definitely love the music in the GBA version of Doom 2 and to me it sounds better than the original PC version

[@DanZero77]

I took a chance on Duke Nukem Advance at a local used game store and I wasn't disappointed. Then I found out Torus made the GBA port of Doom II and a little known FPS called Ice Nine which is pretty uncommon to find out there but not nearly as expensive as you may think. Great games.