Several years ago PCG reported on the early stages of a project by programmer James Lambert, who really loves the N64 and decided for the hell of it to make a version of Portal that runs on hardware first released in 1996.

Well, Lambert is clearly the type of chap who commits to something and then follows through, because he’s spent the time since then continually adding bits and bobs and now has something which, to my admittedly uneducated eyes, is the most impressive homebrew game I’ve ever seen.

    • Refurbished Refurbisher@lemmy.sdf.org
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      1 year ago

      Seeing as there’s zero Nintendo IP being used, I find that unlikely. The only company that would have any standing to go after him is Valve, and they historically don’t go after modders and such. You also need to own a copy of Portal to play this game. You basically patch a file in Portal with a bps patch that will “convert” it into a playable N64 ROM.

      • galloog1@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        What they need to do is get the licensing worked out and release it via gamepass or something. That would be a nice windfall for him and share this with with others.

        • Refurbished Refurbisher@lemmy.sdf.org
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          1 year ago

          Valve has been known to make fangames based on their IP available through Steam. Black Mesa is a good example.

          Of course, this would have to be distributed with an emulator, but N64 emulators don’t require any proprietary code to run.

  • SatyrSack@lemmy.one
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    1 year ago

    It feels like just playing Portal natively on the lowest settings possible. Which is a huge compliment, really.

  • IWantToFuckSpez@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    Crazy what people can do with the N64 with modern knowledge. There is this German dude on YouTube who modded Mario 64 to run at 60fps on the console, the game normally only runs at around 20fps even with the C compile optimizations turned on, which Nintendo left off in the original, it rarely hits 30fps. Now he’s making his own full fledged mod for the game. https://youtu.be/t_rzYnXEQlE

      • darkpanda
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        1 year ago

        Portal 2 also came out on PS3 and Xbox 360 but was a standalone and not part of the Orange Box. Portal 2 on consoles was interesting because I believe it also came with a Steam key for the game as well.

        • Meruten@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          1 year ago

          As well as a version of steam that ran directly on the console. You could login and chat with your steam friends, if I recall correctly.

        • tehmics@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          It did, I bought the ps3 version specifically because of this. I was able to play coop with my gf at the time via the same copy and cross play. Valve ahead of their time honestly