Early FPS Megathread: the kids need to learn about TekWar sooner or later

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Retro Games > Early FPS Megathread: the kids need to learn about TekWar sooner or later

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Mercury Crusader: Apr 20, 2005; You know they say that all demons are created equal, but you look at me and you look at Pyro Jack and you can see that statement is not true, hee-ho!

It was always weird that Half-Life 2 assumes that its Barney is the same one that says he'll buy you a beer in the beginning of Half-Life 1, when I'm pretty sure he's one of the early casualties. So I just pretend that Black Mesa cloned Barney a bunch of times like the Sheriff from Squidbillies.

# ? Aug 13, 2013 17:34

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# ? May 15, 2024 13:56

juggalo baby coffin: Dec 2, 2007; How would the dog wear goggles and even more than that, who makes the goggles?

I've noticed a lot of people (or at least a lot of people I've talked to) rag on HL1 for aging badly. Whereas to me it's aged perfectly fine. I didn't play it till a few years after it was out, definitely after I'd played deus ex, and it still impressed me. I've never encountered a game that managed to give a place such a sense of scale. Black Mesa feels unimaginably huge, partially down to the monorail sequence at the start but I think also down to how each part of the facility you go to feels like part of a larger complex, rather than isolated 'levels'.

It's difficult to articulate without it making it sound like I'm saying the level design was bad, but very few of the places you go feel like they were specifically designed as levels, rather it feels like they were structured first as like offices or labs and then had levels put over the top of them by breaking bits to block your path. Sections like Xen and the rocket testing place with the tentacles feel a lot gamier, but they still fit.

The variety involved in the gameplay is great too, how it shifts so frequently into different types of conflict. Going from fighting aliens in close quarters to the full scale military assault outdoor was a real thrill.

Maybe it's because we've seen similar individual set pieces done better in more recent games that people think HL1 has aged badly. But I haven't seen a game since that has put together so many of them into a cohesive whole, or been so varied. Quake and Doom seem like they've aged better because they are pure gameplay, and gameplay very rarely dates, tetris is still fun today. But half-life's world is still as convincing to me as it always was, in it's cohesion and sense of realism.

# ? Aug 13, 2013 17:56

RiffRaff1138: Feb 28, 2006; Every single motherfucker thinks they're gonna save the fuckin' world... Why not do something about the shitty economy or whatever instead?! Son of a bitch!

Mercury Crusader posted:

It was always weird that Half-Life 2 assumes that its Barney is the same one that says he'll buy you a beer in the beginning of Half-Life 1, when I'm pretty sure he's one of the early casualties. So I just pretend that Black Mesa cloned Barney a bunch of times like the Sheriff from Squidbillies.

That's a generic line that all of the security guards have. Barney is the guard with the flashlight, banging on the door, that Gordon's tram car passes right at the very beginning of the game.

# ? Aug 13, 2013 18:11

Zero Star: Jan 22, 2006; Robit the paranoid blogger.

RiffRaff1138 posted:

That's a generic line that all of the security guards have. Barney is the guard with the flashlight, banging on the door, that Gordon's tram car passes right at the very beginning of the game.

And then becomes the protagonist in Blue Shift, and ends up escaping Black Mesa with a group of scientists.

# ? Aug 13, 2013 18:14

Mercury Crusader: Apr 20, 2005; You know they say that all demons are created equal, but you look at me and you look at Pyro Jack and you can see that statement is not true, hee-ho!

I like my Squidbillies theory better, because then we could potentially get a character voiced by Unknown Hinson in the non-existent Half-Life 3. :allears:

# ? Aug 13, 2013 18:15

JLaw: Feb 10, 2008; - harmless -

jerkstoresup posted:

There are some simple cvars that I find improve the BMS experience:
code:
// In cfg/skill.cfg, add these
ai_reaction_delay_alert "0.35" // Time it takes for enemies to notice you. Default "0.1"
ai_reaction_delay_idle "1" // Time before enemies start firing. Default "0.3"

// and change these
bms_normal_jump_vertical_speed "250" // Increases jump height so you don't have to crouch jump everywhere.
sk_npc_head "3"
sk_npc_arm "1"
sk_npc_leg "1"
Or you can just put all of those in autoexec.cfg, but skill.cfg is where most of the damage/speed values are set.

The "sk" values are to give normal damage for the extremities and a small buff to headshots.

The ai_reaction values are what makes enemies so irritating to encounter. With the default values, an enemy will start moving 100ms after spotting them and start shooting 300ms later. If you're playing Counter Strike, those reaction times are forgiving. If you're playing a single player campaign, those default values are exhausting.

Also, Surface Tension Uncut expands on a great level in HL1 which BMS pretty much skips.

This is a great post and hopefully anyone thinking about playing Black Mesa will consider whether they might want to do these tweaks. It's true that there are a couple of off-putting design decisions in that mod, and dudes can have fun griping about those on the internet. But it's also true that you can rectify most of them with a few config changes and then enjoy some beautiful environments and fun exploration and combat.

Personally I only fiddled with the vertical-jump speed to give my crouch finger a rest, but in retrospect I probably would have appreciated the AI reaction changes as well. (I don't think all of these variables were widely known at the time I played it.)

# ? Aug 13, 2013 18:34

SaucyLoggins: Jan 4, 2012; Panstallions For Life

Since there doesn't seem to be one, would anybody be down with helping make something like Brutal Doom for Quake? Is there a Quake engine that the client code is written in C/C++ and not QuakeC?

# ? Aug 13, 2013 19:15

The Kins: Oct 2, 2004

IGN have posted the first gameplay footage of The New Shadow Warrior.

# ? Aug 14, 2013 15:20

Dominic White: Nov 1, 2005

The Kins posted:

IGN have posted the first gameplay footage of The New Shadow Warrior.

I just got my preview build of the game, too. Just about to try it for the first time.

Also, RoTT-2013 just got a huge patch. It's downloading 1gb of stuff now.

# ? Aug 14, 2013 15:57

The Kins: Oct 2, 2004

Dominic White posted:

Also, RoTT-2013 just got a huge patch. It's downloading 1gb of stuff now.

It's just bug fixes and little performance boosts, as well as God Mode getting nerfed in multiplayer. The patch notes claim that a big content update is coming next week, though...

# ? Aug 14, 2013 16:12

ExMortis: Feb 14, 2012; Let's RUNNING!!

The Kins posted:

IGN have posted the first gameplay footage of The New Shadow Warrior.

"15 Hilarious Minutes of Being Stuck in Godawful Cutscenes and Why the gently caress Did We Give Lo Wang a Funny Sidekick"

Cripes, I thought it was looking pretty good before this, that was just painful. As disappointed as I was with RoTT, at least you were actually playing a game almost 100% of the time.

ExMortis fucked around with this message at 18:44 on Aug 14, 2013

# ? Aug 14, 2013 18:41

Dominic White: Nov 1, 2005

Hrrm.. I've only played a little bit of the new Shadow Warrior so far, but it's not what I was expecting. Weirdly enough, it feels like a first-person take on Ninja Gaiden. It definitely has the feel of a character action game to it, with a lot of focus on avoiding enemy attacks with a quick dodge-dash move that tires you out if you spam it too much.

It's not really like anything I've played before. It's neither old-school nor current in its design.

Edit: The cutscenes seem pretty front-loaded. Once you're past the tutorial stuff and have your magic, it's just violence and demon-gibs the whole way down. You can also skip all cutscenes.

I have no idea why they decided to do a 15 minute segment and pick the one chunk with ten minutes of cutscenes.

Dominic White fucked around with this message at 19:05 on Aug 14, 2013

# ? Aug 14, 2013 18:43

Dominic White: Nov 1, 2005

So, on the subject of Shadow Warrior, the only long-ish cutscenes I've seen so far were those first couple right at the start. Why they made those the focus in the IGN video, I will never know.

It also plays very strangely. It's neither traditional old-school or really much like anything modern except for possibly Bulletstorm. Apparently some ex-Bulletstorm devs are involved with the game, so that makes some sense. My Ninja Gaiden comparison feels about right, too - you want to charge up attacks, lunge in, withdraw with a few dashes and repeat. It's very fast and mobile.

I'm really not sure what I think of it so far, but I'd be lying if I said it wasn't satisfying to chop a dozen demons at a time into tiny chunks. The locational damage system is nuts, and most enemies can survive losing a limb, too.

# ? Aug 15, 2013 00:01

proof of concept: Mar 6, 2005; by FactsAreUseless

Does the preview build have multiplayer implemented? If so how is it?

# ? Aug 15, 2013 15:30

The Kins: Oct 2, 2004

proof of concept posted:

Does the preview build have multiplayer implemented? If so how is it?

There's no multiplayer. At all.

# ? Aug 15, 2013 15:35

A Fancy 400 lbs: Jul 24, 2008

The Kins posted:

There's no multiplayer. At all.

Are you sure it's not just TEN exclusive? :v:

# ? Aug 15, 2013 15:42

Yodzilla: Apr 29, 2005; Now who looks even dumber?

Beef Witch

I'm okay with no multiplayer and I'm glad to hear it's something a little different. Definitely more interested now.

# ? Aug 15, 2013 16:30

Dominic White: Nov 1, 2005

Alright, just finished the Shadow Warrior beta. It's basically the shareware episode - 3 (upgradeable) guns and a little under the first third of the levels and the first boss, which came to a good couple hours long.

It took me a while to get used to it, but I'm really liking it. Once things get up to speed, you're fighting some pretty huge swarms of enemies, like 6-8 or so melee types in a swarm with 4-6 ranged fighters while a heavy leader type throws around fireballs and raises the dead to fill in the ranks you've thinned out. Like Bulletstorm you get extra XP for mixing up kills or killing with environmental elements like explosions. And EVERYTHING explodes when shot, from lanterns to cars to arcade machines to piles of fireworks to even wall-mounted torches for some reason. Some of the explosion chains are ridiculous.

There's three kinds of currency - Ki crystals (for new spells), Karma (basic XP for combat, spent on personal upgrades like more health, better money drops, etc) and Cash (spent on upgrading weapons or buying ammo). You can level up and buy bullets at any time. I only had enough money to fully upgrade one weapon (Uzis, upgrades to Dual Uzis) and partially upgrade another (Crossbow/Sticky Bombs) by the end of the beta, although the menu implies there's a New Game Plus mode in the full game, too.

The levels are much more old-school in their design than Hard Reset. I was only finding a quarter or so of the secrets in each level, and they're pretty open for exploration. The final full level in the beta is an old-school key-hunt that keeps looping back on itself, with old areas repopulated with new enemy groups. I'm pretty excited about this one now. The writing and wisecracks are pretty dumb, but knowingly so. It's not quite Shadow Warrior as it used to be, but I'm not sure that anyone actually wanted that.

And yeah, no multiplayer. Good - it's a huge waste of development resources 95% of the time.

# ? Aug 15, 2013 17:06

Mak0rz: Aug 2, 2008; 😎🐗🚬

Dominic White posted:

And yeah, no multiplayer. Good - it's a huge waste of development resources 95% of the time.

I certainly agree with this, but I find an issue nowadays is that games (especially FPS titles) that have no multiplayer are probably going to be slammed by reviewers because of it. Then a lot of developers just shoehorn it in to please them and then get poor reviews for having hackjob multiplayer modes.

It's bullshit and I hate it. Not every game that isn't an indie platformer or something needs multiplayer.

# ? Aug 15, 2013 17:47

haveblue: Aug 15, 2005; Toilet Rascal

There was a study going around a while back that showed that including multiplayer in a game universally increases sales even if it's hastily hacked-together garbage. I guess having the MULTIPLAYER bullet point on the box generates more impulse buys than it loses readers of negative reviews.

# ? Aug 15, 2013 17:49

toasterwarrior: Nov 11, 2011

Dominic White posted:

How does the melee feel? Are you doing actual combos or do fodder enemies get gibbed instantly while it takes more for bigger guys? When you said "character-action" game, it brings DMC, Bayonetta, and Ninja Gaiden to mind so my interest is piqued.

# ? Aug 15, 2013 18:05

Mercury Crusader: Apr 20, 2005; You know they say that all demons are created equal, but you look at me and you look at Pyro Jack and you can see that statement is not true, hee-ho!

haveblue posted:

There was a study going around a while back that showed that including multiplayer in a game universally increases sales even if it's hastily hacked-together garbage. I guess having the MULTIPLAYER bullet point on the box generates more impulse buys than it loses readers of negative reviews.

The sad thing is that the online multiplayer for most of those games pretty much dies within a month or so. Every XBLA game that had multiplayer may as well not have had it; tried playing Doom or Duke Nukem 3D on Live and it's a wasteland where you maybe find one other opponent with lovely ping at any given time. And there are a ton of first-person shooters on the market, and unless your name is "Call of Duty," "Battlefield," "Counter-Strike," or "Team Fortress 2," have fun not playing with anybody.

I remember a few years back, some of my friends said I should've just skipped the Wii version of NBA Jam and went for the Xbox/PS3 version because it would have online play as if it mattered. Not too long later they tell me nobody really plays it online anyway, so the extra $10 for online wasn't really worth the cost. Unless your friends are super into the same game as you are, has the same platform you do, and can allocate the same time to play said game with you, I always found online multiplayer in most games to be pointless (at least after the first month).

# ? Aug 15, 2013 18:10

Dominic White: Nov 1, 2005

toasterwarrior posted:

How does the melee feel?

Pretty fun. Horizontal slashes around head level will tend to instantly decapitate smaller enemies, but you'll often find yourself just slicing off an arm or a leg and having the enemy continue to fight without the limb. Diagonal slashes when an enemy is weakened will even do the classic Shadow Warrior shoulder-to-hip slice thing. By the end of the beta I found myself mostly using the stickybomb/crossbow hybrid for damage dealing, although I'd specced myself for ranged combat. You can probably do a lot more melee damage if you invest in sword skills.

# ? Aug 15, 2013 18:12

Throckwoddle: Jan 3, 2012; You wanna dance?

Does the Twin Dragon expansion get any better? I'm on the second level and I just can't work myself up to go any further.

# ? Aug 15, 2013 18:37

closeted republican: Sep 9, 2005

Throckwoddle posted:

Does the Twin Dragon expansion get any better? I'm on the second level and I just can't work myself up to go any further.

Twin Dragons is the weakest out of the two SW expansion packs. You're not missing anything special by skipping it.

# ? Aug 15, 2013 18:47

A Fancy 400 lbs: Jul 24, 2008

Speaking of that, once I finish replaying the main game, which of the Duke 3D expansions are worth it? I've only played Atomic Edition before.

# ? Aug 15, 2013 18:50

Meat Beat Agent: Aug 5, 2007; felonious assault with a sproinging boner

Duke DC and Caribbean are both solid, though DC has that huge Smithsonian level that's so huge and nonlinear that I get lost in it for like an hour every time. Lots of fun other than that part though.

The Christmas one sucks.

# ? Aug 15, 2013 18:53

Throckwoddle: Jan 3, 2012; You wanna dance?

A Fancy 400 lbs posted:

Speaking of that, once I finish replaying the main game, which of the Duke 3D expansions are worth it? I've only played Atomic Edition before.

Duke it out in D.C. and Life's a Beach are both really fun, although if you dislike huge sprawling levels you won't like D.C. Skip the Christmas one, there's nothing redeemable about it.

# ? Aug 15, 2013 18:53

closeted republican: Sep 9, 2005

A Fancy 400 lbs posted:

Speaking of that, once I finish replaying the main game, which of the Duke 3D expansions are worth it? I've only played Atomic Edition before.

Life's a Beach and Duke it out in DC are by far the best out of the three. Nuclear Winter is poo poo and feels more like the type of half-assed TC made when Doom 1 was popular than a professional expansion pack. I only replayed it to get the achievement for beating it in Megaton.

# ? Aug 15, 2013 18:53

Jblade: Sep 5, 2006

Throckwoddle posted:

Does the Twin Dragon expansion get any better? I'm on the second level and I just can't work myself up to go any further.

I thought it was far far better than Wanton Destruction - the first couple of levels aren't great but it does improve in quality later.

# ? Aug 15, 2013 18:59

Throckwoddle: Jan 3, 2012; You wanna dance?

closeted republican posted:

Life's a Beach and Duke it out in DC are by far the best out of the three. Nuclear Winter is poo poo and feels more like the type of half-assed TC made when Doom 1 was popular than a professional expansion pack. I only replayed it to get the achievement for beating it in Megaton.

That is what dnwarp is for. You even get two achievements for doing it that way.

Speaking of cheats, are they disabled in Shadow Warrior Redux? I can't seem to get any of them to work.

# ? Aug 15, 2013 19:04

Mercury Crusader: Apr 20, 2005; You know they say that all demons are created equal, but you look at me and you look at Pyro Jack and you can see that statement is not true, hee-ho!

Throckwoddle posted:

That is what dnwarp is for. You even get two achievements for doing it that way.

Speaking of cheats, are they disabled in Shadow Warrior Redux? I can't seem to get any of them to work.

They work, but they're a bit touchy. Only used them once to goof around the first stage a bit, since I wanted to clear the game legit. And I still need to get around to finishing up the last two expansions.

Anyway, the Thief Collection is on sale for $4.74 on Steam. I've only played the first for a bit, and am unfamiliar with the other two. Are the latter two any good?

# ? Aug 15, 2013 21:34

Cream-of-Plenty: Apr 21, 2010; "The world is a hellish place, and bad writing is destroying the quality of our suffering."

Mercury Crusader posted:

They work, but they're a bit touchy. Only used them once to goof around the first stage a bit, since I wanted to clear the game legit. And I still need to get around to finishing up the last two expansions.

Anyway, the Thief Collection is on sale for $4.74 on Steam. I've only played the first for a bit, and am unfamiliar with the other two. Are the latter two any good?

I actually like the second one more than the first, but would generally consider it more of the same. If you like the first one, I don't see why you wouldn't like the second. I can't say much for the third one, however.

# ? Aug 15, 2013 21:51

Convex: Aug 19, 2010

I love Thief 2, it's one of the most atmospheric games ever. Also it has Goldeneye-style difficulty levels, in that you actually get more objectives and bigger levels to explore on higher difficulties. And it has about a million custom levels on the internet, a lot of which are better than the main game itself.

Also, no more of the silly zombie / dino missions that kind of ruined the first one.

# ? Aug 15, 2013 22:05

Throckwoddle: Jan 3, 2012; You wanna dance?

Mercury Crusader posted:

They work, but they're a bit touchy. Only used them once to goof around the first stage a bit, since I wanted to clear the game legit. And I still need to get around to finishing up the last two expansions.

Anyway, the Thief Collection is on sale for $4.74 on Steam. I've only played the first for a bit, and am unfamiliar with the other two. Are the latter two any good?

Thief 2 has some fantastic missions, but it has none of the tomb raiding kind of stuff. I prefer the first one for that reason, but if you were more into the burgling missions you will probably like 2 better. Deadly Shadows is kind of mediocre and feels really cramped and constricted both in level design and your gear. I would just skip to the Shalebridge Cradle and play that one bit, personally.

Anyways, I started playing System Shock and I'm loving it so far, but could someone please explain the wire puzzles to me? I get that I'm trying to get the bar to fill, but I'm awful at this kind of stuff and can't figure out what I'm trying to do so I've just brute forced them which takes way too long.

# ? Aug 15, 2013 22:06

Prenton: Feb 17, 2011; Ner nerr-nerrr ner

Duke Caribbean is easily the best of them. DC has too many sprawling levels ( that don't play nice with the map ) and they're all a bit samey apart from the secret level.

Personally, I thought Thief 2 was the best but I'm a sucker for voyeuristic "unroot the secrets of this sinister mansion/warehouse/church/bank etc" missions. Thief 3 has fundamental technical problems that nobble it.

# ? Aug 15, 2013 23:34

Bouchacha: Feb 7, 2006

Thief 2 is an upgrade over the first in pretty much every category, unless you loved fighting zombies, dinosaurs, and the tricksies woodsies peoplesies. There's a great mix of levels involved, and the majority of the time you're a thief breaking into a place run by humans. Still, T1 has some really amazing levels, and I enjoyed the story and lore a lot more.

I really tried Thief 3 but the sticky controls were such a pain in the rear end. Thief 2 felt so precise, which fit into the game style. Pressing forward moved you forward immediately. Pressing forward in T3 would initiate a slow lumbering crawl that would eventually pick up. Also, the game was unbearably purple.

# ? Aug 16, 2013 06:29

KozmoNaut: Apr 23, 2008; Happiness is a warm
Turbo Plasma Rifle

Throckwoddle posted:

Anyways, I started playing System Shock and I'm loving it so far, but could someone please explain the wire puzzles to me? I get that I'm trying to get the bar to fill, but I'm awful at this kind of stuff and can't figure out what I'm trying to do so I've just brute forced them which takes way too long.

I don't think there is a system, you just have to find the combination that fills the green bar. Try the wires in every combination one by one. If you hit one that increases the green bar, that's where it's supposed to go, move on to the next wire.

Or you can use a logic probe to bypass it.

# ? Aug 16, 2013 10:27

A smug sociopath: Feb 13, 2012; Unironically alpha.

Total Biscuit did a look at the new Shadow Warrior.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfMjYBLWlik

He's completely in love with it. From what's shown, the combat looks wonderful and the dismemberment system looks crazy as hell. I think this made the game jump to the top of my most anticipated games list, along with Saint's row 4.

# ? Aug 16, 2013 11:23

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# ? May 15, 2024 13:56

Dominic White: Nov 1, 2005

His grumbling about the ammo system (in particular being able to buy it from the weapon upgrade screen) is a bit daft. You get plenty of ammo normally, but the entire theme of the game seems to encourage playing how you want, so you CAN spec your character to find 20% more money and 20% more ammo and if you ever do run out of bullets, you've got the option of buying a top-up for your favorite gun. Just how many times have you played a shooter where you've got a really powerful weapon and just can't use it because the level designed forgot to put any of that kind of ammo where you need it? Well, you can bypass that at the cost of some of your savings.

As I was running a heavily gun-specced Wang (ooerr), I spent the entire last third of the beta on a stickybomb rampage. The enemies gib soooooo good. Especially if you stick one enemy with all three stickybombs. It's really nice to know that you could probably play the whole game with just the sword, too.

Edit: Here's my preview. It is such a pretty game.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that there's even some cute easter eggs that aren't counted as secrets, like near the end of the first level if you choose to walk down the road instead of getting into your car, you'll see 'Road Ends In 300m' signs, 200m, 100m, and then you'll find yourself walking into a painted cloth backdrop that looks like a road stretching off into the distance. But in one corner there's a little tear. If you look through it, you can see Hard Reset on the other side, with plastic models of enemies scattered around.

It's the kinda thing you don't see much these days..

Dominic White fucked around with this message at 13:08 on Aug 16, 2013

# ? Aug 16, 2013 12:58

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Retro Games > Early FPS Megathread: the kids need to learn about TekWar sooner or later

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