A YouTube user has released a step by step guide to playing Doom in his channel called vexal. That should not surprise anyone except for the fact that the tutorial involved playing Porsche 911 with its steering wheel and gear shift acting as controllers.
The game involved was Doom's classic version, and you will purportedly need a flash drive to run it on Porsche's computer. According to YouTuber Matt Swarthout, there are only three steps involved, but you can add a fourth, which is to buy a Porsche 911 first if you don't currently own one.
Porsche 911 Doom Mod
First, you have to start the computer in debug mode. This is supposedly done by plugging in a flash drive that contains a file with the car's VIN number into the media USB port. Swarthout even explained how it is made possible through a "new global computer standard" for cars that seeks to ensure mechanics can access car computers easily.
His lengthy explanation of the first step also indicated that the mod could possibly work on other cars. He then started the Porsche, which dutifully showed the display in debug mode.
Swarthout finally inserted the Doom CD and proceeded on fiddling with the settings. There was no mention of any mod or tweak so that the game recognizes the new computing platform it is running on. He merely turned the steering wheel to the left and right, and the perspective moved accordingly. He also used the gear shift to do other actions in-game and honked to shoot.
Just A Stunt
Everything looked awesome especially after the game continued on while he began to drive around with the Porsche. Unfortunately, the video is just a stunt. The Doom mod is nothing but a marvel of video editing. It seems that the disc inserted did not contain the actual game but just a Doom gameplay video. According to Game Rant, it was only a matter of syncing his movements with the footage running on his dashboard. So the steering wheel or the gear shift are not really serving as controllers.
It is not yet clear if you can really play Doom in your car's computer given the fact that a player was able to run it on the new MacBook Pro's Touch Bar.
The video in itself, however, is already quite impressive because the entire affair has fooled even media outlets who have treated it as if it is real. The Verge, for example, posted a warning exhorting gamers not to try it.
"Playing Doom using your Porsche 911 as the controller is not great, because cars are meant for safely driving from one location to the next," The Verge's Megan Farokhmanesh said.
Swarthout's YouTube channel is also filled with other mods. Some are simpler and others are, well, safer if you will. But you probably need all the luck determining which are real from those merely produced using visual trickery.
