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So Strife is an utter bastard of a game (seriously, what the hell, making one of the first sidequests make the game unwinnable is a dick move straight out of Sierra games) but I love it anyways. I really can't think of anything else quite like it, it's a bizarre hybrid of Deus Ex and Zeno Clash that predates both by 5 and 10+ years respectively.
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Jun 28, 2012 19:04
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WickedIcon posted:So Strife is an utter bastard of a game (seriously, what the hell, making one of the first sidequests make the game unwinnable is a dick move straight out of Sierra games) but I love it anyways. I really can't think of anything else quite like it, it's a bizarre hybrid of Deus Ex and Zeno Clash that predates both by 5 and 10+ years respectively. I love Strife. I discovered it a couple of years ago, expecting that its lack of fame was due to mediocrity, but man, that game was way ahead of its time in terms of gameplay. Not so much in terms of graphics, which sadly is probably why no one played it. And yea, it's full of dick moves. You can skip a large portion of the game depending on a choice you make near the middle (I won't spoil it, but let's just say the game earned it's tagline "Trust no one"). And I'm not talking Super Mario style "congratulations you warp to World 4!" I mean you miss out on over an eighth of the game you wouldn't normally even know was there. This part of the game, and the early sidequest you mentioned, made me realize why the choices that, e.g., Deus Ex gives the player do not cause significant changes later in the game, and why the people complaining about that in Deus Ex don't know what they're talking about. Having said that, the fact that a large part of the game was basically optional is kind of cool. It's kind of like the secret levels that other games of that era had, except Strife uses it to reward the player's choices. Pretty clever, actually. And anyone who can make a Doom engine game in the mid-90's where players are faced with important decisions has earned my applause. Strife is generally hard as the dickens, though. I never did pass the final boss. And I recall the other bosses being harder than anything in Doom or Duke Nukem 3D. Between this, the graphics, and the Sierra level of dickishness, I can see why this wasn't a best-seller. It's definitely a "gamer's game". edit: oh god and the big Inquisitor robots. Those were so hard. scared the crap out of me. I just read on doomwiki.org that apparently explosives don't fare well against them, so maybe that's why I found them so difficult... I remember one of my tactics was dropping grenades near them when they're somewhere below me. Hammsturabi fucked around with this message at 22:44 on Jun 28, 2012 |
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Jun 28, 2012 22:32
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Finished Thy Flesh Consumed, moving on to Doom 2. Those level designs, man. Some were pretty good, but some... God, what was it, House of Pain in Inferno? Hideous and terrible level design.
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Jun 29, 2012 01:56
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Strife was the first game I ever pre-ordered; I still run through it about once a year. The worst thing about the steal the chalice quest, was that in the demo it was the right thing to do, and in the retail game it screwed up everything. I thought the graphics in Strife were pretty good, but didn't Quake come out the same year? The cut-scenes and voice.wad content were quite the addition to the old doom engine. I was waiting for some good Strife chat!
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Jun 29, 2012 03:30
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Strife was something that I never played back in the day but I picked it up a few years ago and loved it. I never beat it though, I think I got lost in some level and gave up. Of course, samey looking mazes are pretty much the worst thing about lots of games of that era.
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Jun 29, 2012 03:37
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Babylon Astronaut posted:The worst thing about the steal the chalice quest, was that in the demo it was the right thing to do, and in the retail game it screwed up everything.  On one hand that's loving hilarious on the other hand jesus christ that's horrible game design. Also given that it's literally one of the first things you can do in the game I don't think it merits a spoiler tag really.
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Jun 29, 2012 03:54
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catlord posted:Finished Thy Flesh Consumed, moving on to Doom 2. Those level designs, man. Some were pretty good, but some... God, what was it, House of Pain in Inferno? Hideous and terrible level design. Thy Flesh Consumed is like one massive dick move, really. Doom II is so much better and more coherent.
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Jun 29, 2012 10:02
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Uh, it's called THE HOUSE OF PAIN for a reason.
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Jun 29, 2012 18:39
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KozmoNaut posted:Thy Flesh Consumed is like one massive dick move, really. Doom II is so much better and more coherent. I love how, after all the dick moves, I finished off the Spider Mastermind in Thy Flesh Consumed super easy. He got caught up infighting a Baron of Hell, and you only need three BFG blasts to take him down. The first time I died in Inferno was to the Spider Mastermind, I was expecting a tougher fight. Kazvall posted:Uh, it's called THE HOUSE OF PAIN for a reason. Looking at that level is like driving needles into my eye.
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Jun 29, 2012 19:08
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catlord posted:I finished off the Spider Mastermind ... and you only need three BFG blasts to take him down.  Or is it her? I've heard people refer to spider masterminds as "her" a lot. I know the original manual refers to her as mommy in some form.
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Jun 29, 2012 19:16
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I've always thought of the Spider Mastermind as a "her." It's actually really strange to see somebody refer to her as a "him." Source: Doom II manual. Kins, could you update the OP to provide links to the "Zandronum" engine? It's a stupid goddamned name and after we stopped talking about it, I had completely forgotten what it was called. It might save people some grief trying to Google a misspelled bullshit word. Cream-of-Plenty fucked around with this message at 19:44 on Jun 29, 2012 |
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Jun 29, 2012 19:41
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KozmoNaut posted:Doom II is so much better and more coherent. I find it difficult to believe someone actually said this with sincerity. Kazvall posted:Uh, it's called THE HOUSE OF PAIN for a reason. Inferno is the best episode with the best levels 
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Jun 29, 2012 19:44
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Mak0rz posted:I find it difficult to believe someone actually said this with sincerity. Compared to Thy Flesh Consumed? Yeah, D2 is a hell of a lot better.
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Jun 29, 2012 19:45
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Mak0rz posted:I find it difficult to believe someone actually said this with sincerity. Some of the city levels are a bit 'eh', but on the whole, it's better.
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Jun 29, 2012 19:46
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Hammsturabi posted:And yea, it's full of dick moves. You can skip a large portion of the game depending on a choice you make near the middle (I won't spoil it, but let's just say the game earned it's tagline "Trust no one"). And I'm not talking Super Mario style "congratulations you warp to World 4!" I mean you miss out on over an eighth of the game you wouldn't normally even know was there. This part of the game, and the early sidequest you mentioned, made me realize why the choices that, e.g., Deus Ex gives the player do not cause significant changes later in the game, and why the people complaining about that in Deus Ex don't know what they're talking about. Eh, it's possible to introduce meaningful choices with significant consequences without making the player feel like they've been screwed out of a large chunk of the game or hosed over mechanically. Strife didn't manage it, and Deus Ex went too far in the opposite direction, but Alpha Protocol managed it admirably. quote:Strife is generally hard as the dickens, though. I never did pass the final boss. And I recall the other bosses being harder than anything in Doom or Duke Nukem 3D. Between this, the graphics, and the Sierra level of dickishness, I can see why this wasn't a best-seller. It's definitely a "gamer's game". I've beaten Doom 1 and 2, Quake 1 and 2, Descent, and Blood legit. Strife? Forget it. I've never beaten it without cheating and I don't think I ever will. Babylon Astronaut posted:I thought the graphics in Strife were pretty good, but didn't Quake come out the same year? The cut-scenes and voice.wad content were quite the addition to the old doom engine. I was waiting for some good Strife chat! It came out in summer of 1996, so, some time after System Shock, Terra Nova, and Descent came out, so the graphics already didn't look that good; it also came out just before - as in less than a month before - Quake, which is probably the worst possible timing.
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Jun 29, 2012 20:01
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Kakumei posted:Compared to Thy Flesh Consumed? Yeah, D2 is a hell of a lot better. I guess. At best I would say they are equal, but I tend to enjoy even Thy Flesh Consumed more than Doom II. A lot of the levels in the sequel just feel like a chore. Doom II managed to redeem its level design 15 years later with No Rest for the Living, however. That was pretty great.
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Jun 29, 2012 20:12
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Okay, jesus. Now I need to play Strife. Should I play it in a classic Doom style, or would mouse look ruin it?
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Jun 29, 2012 20:13
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Fren posted:Okay, jesus. Now I need to play Strife. Should I play it in a classic Doom style, or would mouse look ruin it? Mouselook doesn't ruin it at all. Throw that puppy into gzdoom and have at it. Bear in mind that Strife's level numbering doesn't directly correspond to the order you visit the levels in, and consequently if you're using something like QLZD or ZDLSharp it has a tendency to drop you into the middle of the game. Select "new game" from the in-game menu once it loads.
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Jun 29, 2012 20:43
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Did they remove SiN from Steam? VV I thought the first two, three maps were pretty bad, but the rest were pretty good, though E4M7 I think, wasn't too great. catlord fucked around with this message at 20:55 on Jun 29, 2012 |
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Jun 29, 2012 20:43
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Thy Flesh Consumed, apart from map 1, is really goddamn good.
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Jun 29, 2012 20:46
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catlord posted:Did they remove SiN from Steam? Yeah, I think they did... You can only get the recent 'Sin: Episodes' as a standalone now.
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Jun 29, 2012 21:03
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Mak0rz posted:Doom II managed to redeem its level design 15 years later with No Rest for the Living, however. That was pretty great. NRFTL is absolutely bonkers. That does make it pretty great.
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Jun 29, 2012 21:37
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Convex posted:Yeah, I think they did... You can only get the recent 'Sin: Episodes' as a standalone now. Dang that sucks. SiN is actually pretty fun and the Episode is just bleh.
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Jun 29, 2012 21:46
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Install Gentoo posted:Dang that sucks. SiN is actually pretty fun and the Episode is just bleh. Yeah, SiN was a bit of a legendary mess at launch, but after patches I honestly felt like it was a solid successor to Duke3D. I remember there being quite a few levels with multiple solutions, although it really didn't get up to speed until you started fighting less generic guys with guns, and more crazy cyborgs and monsters.
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Jun 29, 2012 21:50
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Yeah there's a lot of different paths through the levels and the game. A few levels can end up entirely skipped if you do the right things in previous ones. I think I had the game for like 4 years before I ever played one of the sewer levels, since there was stuff I unknowingly did in the previous levels every previous play through that removed that path.
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Jun 29, 2012 21:58
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Hammsturabi posted:I love Strife. I discovered it a couple of years ago, expecting that its lack of fame was due to mediocrity, but man, that game was way ahead of its time in terms of gameplay. I haven't played this game in more than 10 years and yet I had a dream featuring the punch dagger last month.
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Jun 29, 2012 22:59
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Hey you! Do you want to play a terrible level that is basically a straight line full of enemies? Well, I have the level for you! http://www.doomworld.com/idgames/?id=16775 !    (All images shamelessly stolen from the /Newstuff review of it.) In all seriousness, this is my first DooM2 map that I felt was at least passable quality for the internet, but if anyone plays it, don't expect too much.
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Jul 1, 2012 00:07
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Some dumb idiot posted:In all seriousness, this is my first DooM2 map that I felt was at least passable quality for the internet, but if anyone plays it, don't expect too much. Yeah, no offense but that opening definitely needed work. I played for about a minute and died to the waves of hitscanners with no health in sight after getting punked by the imps in the first room. On another note - are there any other good megawads that came out recently? I'm just about to finish Plutonia Revisited - it was fairly decent but I liked Plutonia 2 a lot more. PR has some irritating switch hunts/awkward level progression and at least one where I ended up completely stuck and ended up warping to the next level. Not to mention, I'm tired of Caughtyard/Dead Simple-style maps at MAP07 - they rarely do anything really new. It does have a lot of good bits but I can't think of any levels that really stood out to me, either.
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Jul 1, 2012 07:09
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This is sort of the unofficial Cult of Carmack thread, I hadn't seen this 20 minute interview with JC before; about head mount displays that he's hacked up and added some of his armadillo aerospace (rocket science!) technology to improve the motion sensor noise filtering, etc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYa8kirsUfg
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Jul 1, 2012 07:38
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Encryptic posted:On another note - are there any other good megawads that came out recently? Have you played Reverie, Jenesis, or Doom 2 Unleashed? All those came out last year. I've only played some of Reverie so I don't know if the other two count as "good".
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Jul 1, 2012 16:25
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SavageMessiah posted:Have you played Reverie, Jenesis, or Doom 2 Unleashed? All those came out last year. I've only played some of Reverie so I don't know if the other two count as "good". I have played a lot of jenesis and I would consider it a pretty solid wad, with consistent themes. Definitely worth checking out if you need another 32 maps.
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Jul 1, 2012 21:34
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Hadlock posted:This is sort of the unofficial Cult of Carmack thread, I hadn't seen this 20 minute interview with JC before; about head mount displays that he's hacked up and added some of his armadillo aerospace (rocket science!) technology to improve the motion sensor noise filtering, etc Yeah Carmack is the first guy to ever actually make me want to use a VR display.
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Jul 1, 2012 22:53
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Encryptic posted:On another note - are there any other good megawads that came out recently? I'm just about to finish Plutonia Revisited - it was fairly decent but I liked Plutonia 2 a lot more. PR has some irritating switch hunts/awkward level progression and at least one where I ended up completely stuck and ended up warping to the next level. Not to mention, I'm tired of Caughtyard/Dead Simple-style maps at MAP07 - they rarely do anything really new. It does have a lot of good bits but I can't think of any levels that really stood out to me, either. Besides those already mentioned, I'd recommend the 1994 Tune-Up project (lots of phenomenal maps), Hell Awakened (probably on HMP, it's ridiculous on UV), and Doom Core (from the same author as Reverie). If you're into short, tough maps, KSSHT was pretty fun, and Base Ganymede from the same author is a good OG Doom megaWAD that avoids just rearranging the deck chairs of the good ship id. And DTWID, I guess, if you haven't played it yet. I preferred E2 and E3 to E1, though.
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Jul 1, 2012 22:56
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Thanks for the recommendations. I started Jenesis this morning. I'd apparently already downloaded it based off the mention in last year's Doomworld Cacowards and it's a solid megawad so far after playing the first four levels. I'll snag the others for later as well. Edit: Heh, I just witnessed the phenomenon (completely unintentional on my part) of getting a Revenant seeker fireball to orbit you. I was tempted to wait to see if it was in stable orbit or if it would have eventually spiraled in and hit me but I just ended up booking it around a corner and letting the fireball hit a wall somewhere after it lost track of me. Encryptic fucked around with this message at 01:21 on Jul 2, 2012 |
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Jul 2, 2012 00:57
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ZDoom has finally gotten its first stable non-SVN release in nearly two years. Version 2.6.0 is out now! GZDoom will probably be a little longer due to trouble with updating the webpage. Cream-of-Plenty posted:Kins, could you update the OP to provide links to the "Zandronum" engine? It's a stupid goddamned name and after we stopped talking about it, I had completely forgotten what it was called. It might save people some grief trying to Google a misspelled bullshit word. Also, what are the best options for patching up Thief Gold and 2 for modern systems. I got them on Steam recently, and I figure I should add proper info for them into the OP. The Kins fucked around with this message at 08:44 on Jul 2, 2012 |
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Jul 2, 2012 08:41
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The Kins posted:ZDoom has finally gotten its first stable non-SVN release in nearly two years. Version 2.6.0 is out now! Taffer Patcher will cure what ails ye. And here's a Thief Gold edition too. They say 'sort of' on the page but I've been using it for ages and haven't had an issue. edit: And I just feel like adding that to anyone who hasn't tried these games, you really should. They're nice and cheap on GoG and Steam now and you honestly won't find a more characterful, well designed and intriguing pure stealth game. The community is very much like Doom's as well, in that new maps are being made all the time. Rev. Melchisedech Howler fucked around with this message at 13:01 on Jul 2, 2012 |
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Jul 2, 2012 12:59
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I can't help but think that the mechanics and story of ”The Binding of Isaac” would work as a custom Doom2 mod.
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Jul 2, 2012 13:15
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Rather Dashing posted:Taffer Patcher will cure what ails ye. And here's a Thief Gold edition too. They say 'sort of' on the page but I've been using it for ages and haven't had an issue. One Man Show posted:I can't help but think that the mechanics and story of ”The Binding of Isaac” would work as a custom Doom2 mod.
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Jul 2, 2012 13:20
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The Kins posted:I want to do something like this, but the official ZDoom/GZDoom builds will never, EVER support permadeath and/or saving non-savegame data in any form because one of the developers is weirdly stubborn about only supporting linear Doom-style games where you can save at any time. There are unofficial builds that offer this sort of thing, but it'd be a bit of a pain to force players to set up a whole new source port just for one mod. On the other hand, it's not unheard of for mod (especially TC) developers to just package the mod with the appropriate build of the engine; WGRealms and Attrition both do this, so you can just unzip and play rather than needing to figure out how to combine the mod with an eduke32 install. I already play a lot of Doom Roguelike; I'd play the poo poo out of a Roguelike Doom.
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Jul 2, 2012 19:58
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I can imagine playing DoomRL from a first person perspective in real time. It would probably be pretty fun even just as random squigglies. Basically OBLIGE with more gameplay depth to make up for the more boring levels. Trying to add in a little more structure to each level while still keeping the random geometry would also be amazing. Like Left4Dead but with a lot more randomization in the level design.
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Jul 2, 2012 20:35
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