i hadn't actually played Hovertank 3D - the predecessor to Catacomb 3D, and I think, the first 3D game id Software ever made - until yesterday, and here's what I have learned: it looks phenomenal. Catacomb's texture mapping was impressive, but this is one of those cases where "cutting edge" doesn't compare favorably to "state of the art," if you will.
I wish there had been more early 3D PC games with a flat shaded style like this. There were certainly a bunch of early 3D games, but they were usually more ambitious, with fully-3d-projected arbitrary polygons. This raycasting approach is faster than any of those were, and it gives a simpler, more cel-shadey tone.
The video doesn't do it justice; I recommend downloading it, or at least playing it on Archive. Suggest hitting Ctrl+F12 about 10 times to give it some more CPU cycles.
every once in a while i think about trying to put more effort into the game i was working on back in like 2015 (pic 1) that was meant to invoke exactly this energy - although I hadn't seen Hovertank at that point. It was actually inspired by 3D Construction Kit / Virtual Reality Studio games such as 3D-Trek.
I found these on shareware discs when I was a kid, and I couldn't figure out for the life of me what I was supposed to do, but the aching loneliness of the worlds and the inorganic-ness of the linear movement and limited options for interacting really stuck with me.
i was also proud of this - i taught myself just enough about shaders to develop this "drone's camera freaking out from getting shot with an energy weapon" effect. i felt like this was exactly the kind of raster trick someone would have developed for a game like this in 1992, albeit at a much lower resolution.
