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

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Arivia: Mar 17, 2011

Rupert Buttermilk posted:

This reminds me of the completely terrifying slaughterfish in Daggerfall. Jeeeeezus christ, take their look and sounds, and mix that together with an engine that really can't do water, and you've got a swimming nightmare.

And then just when you got used to them, in the deepest darkest dungeons were underwater things, dead bodies floating in water shrouded in tentacles that hit like trucks. As bad as slaughterfish were, it was worse when you were ambushed from behind by a dreugh for the first time, always in pitch-black water lost in a giant random dungeon.

# ? Jul 17, 2015 00:17

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# ? May 15, 2024 12:47

Rupert Buttermilk: Apr 15, 2007; 🚣RowboatMan: ❄️Freezing time🕰️ is an old P.I. 🥧trick...

Arivia posted:

And then just when you got used to them, in the deepest darkest dungeons were underwater things, dead bodies floating in water shrouded in tentacles that hit like trucks. As bad as slaughterfish were, it was worse when you were ambushed from behind by a dreugh for the first time, always in pitch-black water lost in a giant random dungeon.

gently caress Dreughs, too.

In case anyone is wondering what Daggerfall slaughterfish look like...

# ? Jul 17, 2015 00:28

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

Thyrork posted:

That rail gave me the greatest sense of dread riding it the first time, spent the entire ride expecting HORRIBLE THINGS to happen at any time.

And then nothing did. I calmed down by the time you were due to slam the whatzit into the thingymabob and cause the cascade. Ah, memories.

The thing that really messed with me was that, after the resonance cascade, you can actually return to the platform where you first disembarked from the tram (where you first get face-to-face with one of Barney's clones) and find survivors on the crumbling metal platform. However, it's scripted so that they fall to their death in the inky black void below. You can hear them scream and crunch-splat! in that typical Half-Life fashion, but then you might also hear Bullsquid noises. I don't know what was the deal with those sound effects but I knew that something awful was going to rise up out of the void and attack me.

Probably because I read that pre-release Sierra magazine that showed a lot of beta/soon-to-be-cut Half-Life material, I was convinced that there were all sorts of things in the game that were hiding from plain view. There was even a picture of a cut creature that had its "skeleton" rigging transposed over the model, which was something I was too dumb to immediately understand--so I assumed there was some kind of alien with constellations on its skin.

Rupert Buttermilk posted:

gently caress Dreughs, too.

In case anyone is wondering what Daggerfall slaughterfish look like...

I still play Morrowind regularly and Dreugh always stress me out because they're fast as hell, you're slow as poo poo, and swimming faster consumes stamina and makes it harder to fight back.

# ? Jul 17, 2015 03:03

Genocyber: Jun 4, 2012

I've been playing through Blood since I remembered I bought it on Gog on a sale and 1.) holy christ this is good and 2.) holy christ this is hard.

# ? Jul 17, 2015 03:10

Segmentation Fault: Jun 7, 2012

Genocyber posted:

I've been playing through Blood since I remembered I bought it on Gog on a sale and 1.) holy christ this is good and 2.) holy christ this is hard.

FirstPersonShitter posted:

It's time to talk about Blood.

Blood is the best old-school FPS there is.

Now I know what you're saying, it isn't Duke, it isn't Doom, it isn't Quake, if Blood is the best why isn't it iconic like those? I mean, I get where you're coming from, I said the same when my friend told me Blood was better than Duke. But I was wrong.

The real answer as to why Blood is so comparatively forgotten is that all those other games are for the weak.

Blood is really hard. Even on the easier difficulties it is hard. This puts a lot of people off. Blood on the second lowest difficulty is harder than Doom on Ultraviolent. The first level especially is a real trial by fire, as ammo and weapons are scarce and enemies are plentiful. But this teaches you the real lesson of Blood: that victory is in controlling your enemies, not just charging at them. Playing Blood like you'd play Doom gets you killed in about 5 seconds flat, by the most basic enemies in the first interior environment in the whole game.

Wait, you might be getting the impression that the game's protagonist, Caleb, is not as badass as Doom Guy or Duke. No, he is more badass than either of them. Caleb is a gunslinger from a time in American history when the main activities were shooting the family dog, getting train-robbed, and dying a death of dignified starvation as your farm turned to dust and blew into the sky. So what? We've seen gunslingers before, nobody cares about cowboys anymore. But Caleb kicks it up a notch. Being a feared gunslinger wasn't enough for him, so he joined an evil cult and through his sheer awesomeness rose to the top. Caleb isn't a hero. He's a poo poo.

But then the evil god Tchernabog turns on him and has Caleb and his buddies murdered. For most people being murdered ends things there. Not Caleb though, the game opens with him rising from his grave to begin the murderous rampage to end all murderous rampages.

However, that's all backstory poo poo. Who cares about that in a classic shooter? But even without all that poo poo Blood would still be the best. Why? I can't give you a short answer in some sort of bullet-pointed list because I would just be listing all the components of the game. So it's the long answer.

First let's go with the main menu. That might sound odd, but all games back then opened with a big fancy splash screen with some sort of badass picture of the protagonist shooting guys with horns in the face. Not Blood, Blood just shows a demo of the first level of the game overlaid with the main menu text, set in classy art-deco font. Why? It's because no man on earth could draw something more badass than Blood's gameplay.

The level design friggin rules. Everything basically makes sense architecture-wise, maybe some liberties taken here and there, but it is themeatically consistent. It's all some twisted 1920s art deco poo poo, trains, castles, towns, mansions, funeral homes, loaded with secrets and references that cover the entirety of horror canon. There's a cask of amontillado reference in the second level. You think it's just a cute name for the bar, then BAM, guy loving walled up in there when you blow up a wall. The level everyone talks about when they talk about Blood is the evil fairground, where you can play fairground games with severed heads. But that's not my favourite. My favourite is the enormous haunted mansion, packed full of hidden rooms, bookcase doors, portraits that open to reveal secrets. You can spend aaages looking for secrets in there and you'll find tons of them. It's so interactive and so fun. You can even blow up parts of levels, allowing you to get to secret locations.

The enemies that populate these awesome goddamn levels are hosed up and creepy. Their sprites are unsettling, slightly misproportioned claymation looking motherfuckers and it fits the mood of the game perfectly. There are axe wielding zombies, an army of cultists with shotguns and tommyguns, fire-breathing hellhounds, fish that sound like eagles for some reason?, grinning gargoyles that swoop around like mad fuckers. Any one of them can gently caress you up easily if you're not careful.

The weapons are awesome. Well, ok, the pitchfork kind of sucks, but it's better than the fists you get in most of these things. Everything else basically one-ups the weapon selection in every other game. Pistol? Flaregun that shoots flares into dudes that cause them to burst into flames a few seconds later. Machinegun? Tommygun. Rocket launcher? Napalm launcher. Everything is better. A hairspray flamethrower is a basic tier weapon in Blood. The 3 types of dynamite really typify the gameplay. Including the alt-fire effects you have so many ways of using just the basic dynamite. You can throw it different ranges by holding down the button and have it explode on impact, or you can have it explode on a time delay and throw it and bounce it round a corner. Or you can set the fuse going then set it down at your feet, perfect for destroying chasing enemies. Then you get the proximity and remote detonation dynamite and you're playing chess with explosives.

I think in my haste I forgot to mention the alt fire. Everything (except the pitchfork which sucks) has an alt-fire. The tommygun sweeps hilariously back and forth to clear rooms. The flaregun shoots a starburst of flames. The soul-stealing skull staff serves as a sentry. It's rad.

What makes the weapons feel so good are the death effects. Heads pop off and you can kick them around. Burning cultists run around screaming till their skin drops off and their skeleton collapses into a hissing, spitting pool of blood and melted fat. Gibs fly far and wide. The voodoo doll makes people melt. The screams of the dying are harrowing, the sound design and voice acting work is incredible. Other games give their evil wizards gibberish cod-latin or backmasked clips of the developers saying 'floppy dicks'. Not Blood. Their cultists have their own language. The manual has a translation guide. Why? Because it's loving rad, that's why. I talked about Caleb earlier, but his voiceactor does more to make him awesome than the awesome backstory. Caleb has range. One minute he's muttering showtunes (that's right, MOTHER-FUCKIN SHOWTUNES), talking to himself absent mindedly, then he's cackling with evil glee as men explode, screaming. Duke is a one-trick pony, mumbling stolen movie one-liners in a voice so monotone it sounds like he's suffering from steroid-induced bell's palsy. Caleb has a shitload of lines, tons of them context sensitive to individual levels.

The only thing really left to mention are the power-ups. Weaker men use medikits to heal themselves. Caleb uses them to patch his coat. What really sustains him are the still-beating hearts of his dead enemies and also hosed up eyeball abominations. Move over berserk pack, guns akimbo is here. One of the most memorable early setpieces in the game is when you're on a train (hell yes train) and you have basically just gotten a tommygun and the guns akimbo powerup. Now you have two tommyguns. The next carriage is a dining car full of like 30 goddamn cultists. You know what to do.

Basically Blood owns and you should play it. Right now. It's on gog.com for far less money than it's worth.

# ? Jul 17, 2015 03:12

Amethyst: Mar 28, 2004; I CANNOT HELP BUT MAKE THE DCSS THREAD A FETID SWAMP OF UNFUN POSTING
plz notice me trunk-senpai

Blood is ok but whoever made the decision to make the most common enemies high damage hitscanners had a brain disease.

# ? Jul 17, 2015 03:18

Dominic White: Nov 1, 2005

Amethyst posted:

Blood is ok but whoever made the decision to make the most common enemies high damage hitscanners had a brain disease.

It seems really unfair if you're trying to play it like Doom, but you're not really meant to. There's a reason why the game gives you a metric shitload of dynamite. You open a door, quickly strafe past, then clear with explosives before moving in.

# ? Jul 17, 2015 03:27

Amethyst: Mar 28, 2004; I CANNOT HELP BUT MAKE THE DCSS THREAD A FETID SWAMP OF UNFUN POSTING
plz notice me trunk-senpai

Yep and that's essentially the only viable strategy for a huge portion of the game. There's also a reason why high damage hitscanning enemies are something designers should be careful with.

# ? Jul 17, 2015 03:46

david_a: Apr 24, 2010; Megamarm

Doesn't Blood have some bug where the difficulty level gets maxed out whenever you save/load or was that another game?

# ? Jul 17, 2015 04:03

Rupert Buttermilk: Apr 15, 2007; 🚣RowboatMan: ❄️Freezing time🕰️ is an old P.I. 🥧trick...

david_a posted:

Doesn't Blood have some bug where the difficulty level gets maxed out whenever you save/load or was that another game?

I thought someone here mentioned that the bug is that the difficulty levels are reversed (easy is hard, hard is easy). Has this been fixed?

# ? Jul 17, 2015 04:37

Shadow Hog: Feb 23, 2014; Avatar by Jon Davies

Rupert Buttermilk posted:

I thought someone here mentioned that the bug is that the difficulty levels are reversed (easy is hard, hard is easy). Has this been fixed?

Respectively: that's what I heard as well, and nope!

# ? Jul 17, 2015 05:09

Douk Douk: Mar 17, 2009; Take your pervert war elsewhere.

Blood is loving awesome because it's all high-risk, all the time. You're not there to dodge projectiles swiftly with the grace of an angel, you're there to gently caress poo poo up. Your main weapon's either both barrels of a sawed-off or motherfucking dynamite. The latter half of the weapons all serve to clear rooms and blast people apart. You're not going to get by nice and clean. Caleb is a conniving, diehard piece of poo poo that likes his hands bloody.

There's nothing like it as far as old school FPSes, and maybe even most modern FPSes. No matter how many super shotgun blasts you fire, no matter how many sticky-bombs you detonate, no matter how many shrunken aliens you squish, nothing will be as satisfying as hurling a bundle of dynamite in a crowded room and see every single thing inside of it rendered into scorched gumbo. The most common enemies packing heat means that you can't stop to strategize or assess the situation, just go loving nuts and splatter everything with a pulse. That's the only way to make it. It's nonstop, dark, twisted carnage.

# ? Jul 17, 2015 06:25

Amethyst: Mar 28, 2004; I CANNOT HELP BUT MAKE THE DCSS THREAD A FETID SWAMP OF UNFUN POSTING
plz notice me trunk-senpai

gently caress yeah! Blood is mothercunting, facemeltingly fuckawesome!

# ? Jul 17, 2015 07:06

Douk Douk: Mar 17, 2009; Take your pervert war elsewhere.

I'm a bit biased and rowdy esp. towards Blood

# ? Jul 17, 2015 07:31

PaletteSwappedNinja: Jun 3, 2008; One Nation, Under God.

Douk Douk posted:

There's nothing like it as far as old school FPSes, and maybe even most modern FPSes.

That sound a lot like both versions of ROTT and I'm guessing it's also true of a bunch of '90s FPS games too terrible to remember.

# ? Jul 17, 2015 07:45

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

Douk Douk posted:

Blood is loving awesome because it's all high-risk, all the time. You're not there to dodge projectiles swiftly with the grace of an angel, you're there to gently caress poo poo up. Your main weapon's either both barrels of a sawed-off or motherfucking dynamite. The latter half of the weapons all serve to clear rooms and blast people apart. You're not going to get by nice and clean. Caleb is a conniving, diehard piece of poo poo that likes his hands bloody.

There's nothing like it as far as old school FPSes, and maybe even most modern FPSes. No matter how many super shotgun blasts you fire, no matter how many sticky-bombs you detonate, no matter how many shrunken aliens you squish, nothing will be as satisfying as hurling a bundle of dynamite in a crowded room and see every single thing inside of it rendered into scorched gumbo. The most common enemies packing heat means that you can't stop to strategize or assess the situation, just go loving nuts and splatter everything with a pulse. That's the only way to make it. It's nonstop, dark, twisted carnage.

Some players claim that the quality of weapons in an FPS hinges on its shotgun (ala Doom), but I think they're wrong. It hinges on the quality of its lobbed explosives, and apparently it's extremely hard to get right. It's a balance of physics, timing, fuse length, ammo capacity, explosion radius and spectacle. And of course the quality of the resulting gibs.

For instance, the dynamite in Redneck Rampage feels unsatisfying to use. The physics are unpredictable and you're very likely to blow yourself to smithereens alongside the enemies. It just isn't a very good weapon, but honestly none of weapons in RR are particularly good.

The pipe bombs in Duke Nukem 3D are much better, although the physics are still a bit iffy at times. The remote detonation, perfect blast radius and high damage make up for it, though.

Shadow Warrior's grenade launcher was hard to use perfectly, but had enormous destructive potential once you figured it out. Essential for clearing out rooms ahead of time due to the good bounce and enormous blast radius.

The grenade launcher in Quake is a real classic. Good arc, reasonable distance, good bouncing characteristics for trick shots, and the blast radius is nicely contained with good, but not excessive damage potential. In Quake 2, the thrown hand grenade was a dud, but once you got the grenade launcher, you were back to the glory days. I guess the Q3 grenade launcher was OK, but did anyone ever use it? I certainly didn't, it just didn't fit the pace and map layouts.

But the dynamite in Blood? That's perfection. Nice flat arc with good distance, impact/timed/remote/proximity detonation, big damage, controlled blast radius and very satisfying visuals and sound, especially when you manage to gib a whole group of zombies in one blast. I know some are annoyed that you can't bounce the normal version because it explodes on impact, but I think it fits the pace of the game perfectly. Unless you're specifically setting traps, you don't have time to wait for it to blow, you need that explosion right now, not in 5 seconds. And the secondary fire is perfect if you're being chased, drop a surprise for them.

One of the worst things in a game is explosives with excessively long fuses, giving the enemies far too much time to scatter. Blood nicely sidesteps this by just having it blow the gently caress up right away.

# ? Jul 17, 2015 10:33

Heavy Metal: Sep 1, 2014; America's $1 Funnyman

david_a posted:

Doesn't Blood have some bug where the difficulty level gets maxed out whenever you save/load or was that another game?

It's a weird bug, I remember running into it a couple years ago. Here's what a gog player figured it out as, after you load a save:

quote:

I did some testing and here are the numbers.

The zombie will hit you for (the number in brackets is after the load game):
11 hp (36 hp) - Still Kicking
15 hp (27 hp) - Pink On The Inside
18 hp (18 hp) - Lightly Broiled
22 hp (22 hp) - Well Done
26 hp (12 hp) - Extra Crispy

As you can see, this bug doesn't affect third and fourth difficulty setting. You get the least damage on Extra Crispy and most on Still Kicking. Extra Crispy and Well Done have additional enemies so the hardest difficulties are Still Kicking and Well Done.

So pretty much, there are no lower difficulty settings in Blood if you save/load ever. Since the one with the lowest damage has the most crazy amount of enemies.

Duke 3D is way way better than Blood in my book, but I do dig Blood. Blood II The Chosen, now there's a bad game.

Heavy Metal fucked around with this message at 11:25 on Jul 17, 2015

# ? Jul 17, 2015 11:23

Tiny Timbs: Sep 6, 2008

Amethyst posted:

gently caress yeah! Blood is mothercunting, facemeltingly fuckawesome!

Posts like this are why the Doom modding community HATES Brutal Blood something something

Actually somebody please make a thing called "Brutal Blood" real

# ? Jul 17, 2015 14:01

Shadow Hog: Feb 23, 2014; Avatar by Jon Davies

Can you really make Blood more brutal than it already is

# ? Jul 17, 2015 17:56

Douk Douk: Mar 17, 2009; Take your pervert war elsewhere.

PINING 4 PORKINS posted:

Posts like this are why the Doom modding community HATES Brutal Blood something something

Actually somebody please make a thing called "Brutal Blood" real

At that point just dump a jar full of strawberry jam on your eyes

# ? Jul 17, 2015 17:58

Heavy_D: Feb 16, 2002; "rararararara" contains the meaning of everything, kept in simple rectangular structures

Quake screenshot hype of the day...

Courtesy of MFX.

# ? Jul 17, 2015 18:21

RyokoTK: Feb 12, 2012; I am cool.

That was probably my least favorite UT99 level.

# ? Jul 17, 2015 18:23

Shadow Hog: Feb 23, 2014; Avatar by Jon Davies

Heavy_D posted:

Quake screenshot hype of the day...

Courtesy of MFX.

I really love those floating island Quake maps for some reason. It's a very interesting aesthetic, one that doesn't get used nearly as much as it should.

# ? Jul 17, 2015 18:36

Curdy Lemonstan: Jan 25, 2012; by zen death robot

Heavy_D posted:

Quake screenshot hype of the day...

Courtesy of MFX.

drat!

# ? Jul 17, 2015 18:59

Woolie Wool: Jun 2, 2006

Amethyst posted:

Blood is ok but whoever made the decision to make the most common enemies high damage hitscanners had a brain disease.

I'm going to guess you hate Wolfenstein even more since every enemy except the dog can hit you for up to 64 damage with a hitscan.

In other news, gently caress THIS loving MAP. It's one of the few Doom levels that literally made my head hurt.

Alien Vendetta map26, if you don't recognize the title

# ? Jul 17, 2015 20:44

Shadow Hog: Feb 23, 2014; Avatar by Jon Davies

I recognized the INTERPIC, at least.

Looking up a video, I actually kinda recall this map, yet I don't think I actually legitimately reached it in my (kinda-stalled) Alien Vendetta playthrough. Going through tatsurdcacocaco's run-through, it appears I stopped at the start of MAP22.

# ? Jul 17, 2015 21:02

An Actual Princess: Dec 23, 2006

Woolie Wool posted:

I'm going to guess you hate Wolfenstein even more since every enemy except the dog can hit you for up to 64 damage with a hitscan.

In other news, gently caress THIS loving MAP. It's one of the few Doom levels that literally made my head hurt.

Alien Vendetta map26, if you don't recognize the title

Dark Dome is one of the best levels ever made, though?

# ? Jul 17, 2015 21:03

Klaus88: Jan 23, 2011; Violence has its own economy, therefore be thoughtful and precise in your investment

Woolie Wool posted:

I'm going to guess you hate Wolfenstein even more since every enemy except the dog can hit you for up to 64 damage with a hitscan.

In other news, gently caress THIS loving MAP. It's one of the few Doom levels that literally made my head hurt.

Alien Vendetta map26, if you don't recognize the title

You gonna do a piece on proper enemy mixes for doom now that you've got the level design out of your system? Mainly for god's shake don't throw dozens of reverents and archvilles at the players since that generally doesn't lead to a fun experience?

# ? Jul 17, 2015 21:11

Cat Mattress: Jul 14, 2012; by Cyrano4747

Klaus88 posted:

You gonna do a piece on proper enemy mixes for doom now that you've got the level design out of your system? Mainly for god's shake don't throw dozens of reverents and archvilles at the players since that generally doesn't lead to a fun experience?

True, you need to have chainrunners as well. And a few cyberlemons.

# ? Jul 17, 2015 21:19

Shadow Hog: Feb 23, 2014; Avatar by Jon Davies

Needs a few more Mancubes and Arachnidrons, in my opinion

# ? Jul 17, 2015 21:41

Woolie Wool: Jun 2, 2006

Jia posted:

Dark Dome is one of the best levels ever made, though?

For someone way better than me, perhaps! :shepicide:

# ? Jul 17, 2015 21:41

koren: Sep 7, 2003

Klaus88 posted:

You gonna do a piece on proper enemy mixes for doom now that you've got the level design out of your system? Mainly for god's shake don't throw dozens of reverents and archvilles at the players since that generally doesn't lead to a fun experience?

Except when it does...

# ? Jul 17, 2015 21:43

arcsig: May 29, 2015

Something about Cocoademons.

# ? Jul 17, 2015 21:46

Woolie Wool: Jun 2, 2006

Shadow Hog posted:

Needs a few more Mancubes and Arachnidrons, in my opinion

But what about the Hell Nights and Barrels?

# ? Jul 17, 2015 22:05

Douk Douk: Mar 17, 2009; Take your pervert war elsewhere.

What we certainly don't need are more Lost Sauls and Pain Elanemones

# ? Jul 17, 2015 22:26

Zaphod42: Sep 13, 2012; If there's anything more important than my ego around, I want it caught and shot now.

Somebody photoshop up a "better call lost saul"

# ? Jul 17, 2015 22:30

Instruction Manuel: May 15, 2007; Yes, it is what it looks like!

Just picked up a refurbished Nvidia Shield Portable and D-Touch (lol) from the Amazon App store and now I've got a portable Doom machine

All I ever asked for. Now that I've picked one up, expect an announcement of a new model with better specs any day now :sigh:

# ? Jul 17, 2015 23:47

Rupert Buttermilk: Apr 15, 2007; 🚣RowboatMan: ❄️Freezing time🕰️ is an old P.I. 🥧trick...

Zaphod42 posted:

Somebody photoshop up a "better call lost saul"

Hahahaha, oh god, this would be glorious. I hate reading poo poo like this when I'm in situations where I have to be quiet; trying so hard not to laugh.

Also, with regards to my earlier post, Daggerfall would have been an entirely different game if you only had to deal with laughterfish.

# ? Jul 17, 2015 23:50

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!

I tried.

# ? Jul 18, 2015 01:23

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# ? May 15, 2024 12:47

Touchfuzzy: Dec 5, 2010

RiffRaff1138 posted:

I tried.

gently caress yes.

# ? Jul 18, 2015 01:38

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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