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Somewhat related to the thread: https://twitter.com/americanmcgee/status/1469470505577361408
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Dec 11, 2021 16:12
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| # ? May 15, 2024 01:56 |
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I don't know who keeps giving ol American money, but, you grab those stacks
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Dec 11, 2021 16:25
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As somebody who (I'm sure like a lot of people in this thread) was raised on "the classic" FPS games and still plays them on a regular basis, Painkiller's comparison to other landmark FPS games has always been confusing to me--kind of like saying "a lot of cars are virtually identical" by virtue of the fact that they tend to have four tires and a steering wheel. I recently played Painkiller again and was kind of surprised to discover that I didn't really like it. The weapons, as always, were great. It still looked decent. But every level felt like an endless series of arenas where most enemies randomly teleported in--and this is important: randomly, not hand-placed or scripted to appear in specific places or arrangements. Most enemies (with a few exceptions) had effectively the same health, regardless of what they looked like: ~65-130 HP. Most enemies employed roughly the same AI, which involved chasing down and melee'ing the player, even if they had other unique abilities. Most enemies moved roughly the same speed. Did you know that the Devil Monk could poison the player, slowing you down? Or that the banshee could blind you, or that it had a run animation that it doesn't actually use? The Hell Angel "Punks" are supposed to throw molotov cocktails from afar to support other enemies, but they almost always spawn in so that they want to chase after you with their clubs like 95% of everything else the game will throw at you. The earliest Serious Sam's are arguably the most comparable games to Painkiller, but even those games spent a lot of time hand-placing enemies, giving them specific functions and positions that may complement other enemies used in a particular fight. When you replay a Serious Sam level, you'll notice that specific enemies spawn in specific places every single time, because a human put them there. With Painkiller, it's just a random inchoate mess of very similar enemies randomly spawning in who--despite being given abilities to make them unique--are content to simply get kited into a mindless melee gaggle almost immediately. Anyway, I'd argue that whether or not you like Dusk, Painkiller is nothing like Dusk unless your threshold for similarity is "Grim FPS where you shoot monsters to a butt metal soundtrack". Dusk's enemies are almost always distinct, and Painkiller's rarely are; Dusk's enemies are hand placed because the level designer had a specific idea for each fight, whereas Painkiller's feel more like "okay spawn in 50-60 [enemy A,B,C] around the arena". Cream-of-Plenty fucked around with this message at 16:32 on Dec 11, 2021 |
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Dec 11, 2021 16:29
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Painkiller spends a lot of time handcrafting unique looking enemies who are completely interchangeable with the rest of the roster. I go back to if it didn't have such a terrible unlock system it'd be a lot more soothing to plow through the gauntlet of arenas, but it aint
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Dec 11, 2021 16:33
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Barudak posted:Painkiller spends a lot of time handcrafting unique looking enemies who are completely interchangeable with the rest of the roster. Thank you. You said something a lot more succinctly than I did.
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Dec 11, 2021 16:35
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Cream-of-Plenty posted:Thank you. You said something a lot more succinctly than I did. Nah, you helped formulate why the roster is so uninteresting despite being so visually varied. There is a really, really cool game that could have been made on Painkillers bones, but uh, the expansion packs and sequel sure weren't it.
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Dec 11, 2021 16:45
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Painkiller's execution was dogshit, frankly. All that hype at around the same time as Doom 3, and ultimately it was one of the most boring FPS games I'd ever experienced. No intricate level designs (they were detailed but all in a meaningless eye-candy sense), just go from room to room via some corridors, blasting whatever loving idiot monster was lumbering toward the business end of your weapon, then behold as a bunch of his buddies turn up out of nowhere. Bang bang bang. Next. There were no moments (at least that I recall) where you'd encounter stuff looking in a direction where you're just out of sight to get you thinking "ah ha! I can use [weapon] here and do something cool/efficient", such as in Doom/Quake/whatever. It was just a case of monsters spawning in and knowing exactly where you were every time, all with the same idea of getting as close as possible to hit you with a stick. The pathfinding was also utterly crap. Bottomless pit with a narrow bridge over it? Watch as Skeleton Man does the unthinkable and trots onto said bridge at a bad angle, makes no effort to correct his course, and ends up erased without any input from the player at all. Christ, on occasion some mooks would just drop dead on the spot as you appraoched them for no reason whatsoever. I bought this loving game at full price on release 
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Dec 11, 2021 16:52
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yeah upon revisiting painkiller i'm realizing that a lot of what i liked about it originally is that the huge destructible environments and massive crowds of enemies were very impressive on my 2005 computer when i had never seen anything like it before. in 2021 it just doesn't have much to offer
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Dec 11, 2021 16:55
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The Venice (?) level is the only one I recall where there was some attempt at level layout impacting encounter design and the spooky house and the mountain base stages at least being like, a narrative to the levels. Thats one of the really painful things about Painkiller, levels just kind of are rooms of the same idea without a build or flow to them.
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Dec 11, 2021 16:59
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The Kins posted:Croteam is teasing something for Serious Sam 4. i could go for more ss4, i just hope they don't make it so you slip around on ice or something because Sam games you definitely want to be able to maneuver at all times
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Dec 11, 2021 17:27
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site posted:i could go for more ss4, i just hope they don't make it so you slip around on ice or something because Sam games you definitely want to be able to maneuver at all times The only time I’m alright with ice in levels is when it allows you to bunnyhop and “skate” around like twice the speed of regular ground
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Dec 11, 2021 18:07
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Cream-of-Plenty posted:The only time I’m alright with ice in levels is when it allows you to bunnyhop and “skate” around like twice the speed of regular ground It's a shame Cryostasis isn't for sale any more as that genuinely had some of the best ice and water effects I've ever seen. More games should play around with the idea of heat melting frozen environments while providing light, I think Noita is the closest to actually making a decent game out of it but that's 2D.
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Dec 11, 2021 23:56
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Coquito Ergo Sum posted:DRG is one of those games where you can tell the developers know what they're doing. Updates come regularly, they don't reach further than their grasp, and they know what to prioritize. I genuinely cannot think of a criticism for the game, and that's rare for me. DRG shocked me how out of left field such a good game just appeared in my life. I tried it on a whim cos it was cheap on Steam and scored overwhelmingly positive. Next thing you know, me and my two irl buddies are playing it together, which hasn't happened since we left school like fifteen years ago.
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Dec 12, 2021 00:41
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Painkiller mainly seemed to get by on low expectations, backlash to Doom 3, and the memeability of that gun that shoots shurikens and lightning. I never played the whole thing, but I bounced off the demo hard.
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Dec 12, 2021 01:21
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I forget exactly what its contemporaries were, but Painkiller's popularity is due to it being a throwback arena style fps when there were very few of them being made. The weapons, music, and enemy design are all cool, but even at the time it was clear that it was very unpolished.
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Dec 12, 2021 01:47
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I liked that Painkiller H&D game, that one held my interest to the end. The original was one of those games that has cool things but I only played for a bit. Like say Shogo. Always room for a game to dabble in.
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Dec 12, 2021 01:52
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Heavy Metal posted:I liked that Painkiller H&D game, that one held my interest to the end. The original was one of those games that has cool things but I only played for a bit. Like say Shogo. Always room for a game to dabble in. It's literally an HD remake though isn't it? Hence the... H&D 
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Dec 12, 2021 01:54
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Convex posted:It's literally an HD remake though isn't it? Hence the... H&D Good pun for sure! I believe it's an abbreviated remix of the original game, so technically a bit different to play through.
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Dec 12, 2021 01:55
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Zedsdeadbaby posted:DRG shocked me how out of left field such a good game just appeared in my life. I tried it on a whim cos it was cheap on Steam and scored overwhelmingly positive. Next thing you know, me and my two irl buddies are playing it together, which hasn't happened since we left school like fifteen years ago. Same here, tried it over a free weekend and it was just such utterly ridiculous fun that my usual gang had all grabbed it only a few hours later; dig holes looking for whatever and (potentially) dig yourselves into a really bad situation, then fight your way out of it. DRG knows exactly what it is and what it's doing; sure it has its flaws but they're so utterly trivial in the grand scheme of things, and anything that is a big deal at any point generally gets fixed within a few weeks so that whenever someone brings up "GRUGHHH GAME BAD" complaints, they just look like a fool not even a month down the line. Great stuff.
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Dec 12, 2021 05:23
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Supremely dope looking Doom TC that's a remake of Iron Assault https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmevfcF7YXw
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Dec 12, 2021 16:24
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Al Cu Ad Solte posted:Supremely dope looking Doom TC that's a remake of Iron Assault That makes me curious if a GZDoom MechWarrior could work.
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Dec 12, 2021 16:55
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Well I mean, that's basically it I think for a real MechWarrior TC you'd have to figure out some funky stuff to make it feel like you're controlling a mech and not just some stompy soldier.
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Dec 12, 2021 17:52
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Everybody who wasn't sold on Painkiller needs to take a look at the Painslayer mod for Doom. All the great weapons and mechanics with whatever WADs you want to play! I'm playing Survive in Hell with it and it's a great combo.
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Dec 12, 2021 18:31
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I'm enjoying Halo Infinite quite a bit, and I think 4 is the worst game in the series (haven't played 5, no Xbox) Related: https://twitter.com/Animetiddyy/status/1469785548701286401
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Dec 13, 2021 13:36
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Al Cu Ad Solte posted:I'm enjoying Halo Infinite quite a bit, and I think 4 is the worst game in the series (haven't played 5, no Xbox) it's insane how much grunts and barks they recorded for the enemies, i've played it for a week now and you barely hear any repetition
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Dec 13, 2021 13:40
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Apparently all of the grunt towers dialog was added during the year delay, so uh, good call
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Dec 13, 2021 14:19
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Barudak posted:Apparently all of the grunt towers dialog was added during the year delay, so uh, good call Time well spent because these little guys say some genuinely funny rear end poo poo and have tons of personality.
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Dec 13, 2021 15:04
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Al Cu Ad Solte posted:I'm enjoying Halo Infinite quite a bit, and I think 4 is the worst game in the series (haven't played 5, no Xbox) Halo 5 is on PC as well, but not really worth playing.
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Dec 13, 2021 15:08
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Fame Douglas posted:Halo 5 is on PC as well Nope. PC players have been left to wait without hope for Halo: The Jameson Locke Collection
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Dec 13, 2021 15:12
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The thing all these videos of the funniest barks don't show is there are truckloads of different regular combat barks. Who is flanking, if they're getting closer to you while your shield recharges, grenades, the status if their armor, remaining enemy composition all of it gets vocal barks. There seriously has not been as good enemy dialog since FEAR and the talking really helps paper over the number of enemies that can actually be doing things in a fight at any given time (curse you legacy Xbox support)
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Dec 13, 2021 15:34
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skasion posted:Nope. PC players have been left to wait without hope for Halo: The Jameson Locke Collection You're right, I remembered wrong. But you can play it through Cloud Gaming, although I find the image quality quite bad and the input lag, while playable, still noticeable.
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Dec 13, 2021 15:52
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Al Cu Ad Solte posted:I'm enjoying Halo Infinite quite a bit, and I think 4 is the worst game in the series (haven't played 5, no Xbox) Interesting, I was thinking on playing 4 at some point...
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Dec 13, 2021 17:00
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Turin Turambar posted:Interesting, I was thinking on playing 4 at some point... It's just an all around really flat, boring, badly paced game. The art style is whack. The plot overwrought. The new enemy type, the Prometheans, are unfun to fight and all their guns just look like vague sci-fi greebled bullshit with no personality. I will, however, go to bat for the soundtrack, which I thought was great. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzyr_ZooBqo Again, I've never played 5 but I will also say the soundtrack to that one is absolute flames: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oALnZ76A7og I once saw somebody complain that the soundtrack had too many string instruments. Yeah fool, strings own and stir my emotions like a witch at a cauldron going bubble bubble toil and trouble, what's your point Al Cu Ad Solte fucked around with this message at 17:08 on Dec 13, 2021 |
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Dec 13, 2021 17:05
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Al Cu Ad Solte posted:vague sci-fi greebled bullshit with no personality. I mean, that’s just Halo in a nutshell
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Dec 13, 2021 18:27
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the gameplay in the new on is brill, really really fun
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Dec 13, 2021 18:28
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4 is weird. It very much feels like a game of its time with a linear level style, which while I'm not one of those "ugh, linear games" people, 4's levels just do not feel like a Halo game. The story is over-wrought with one really obnoxious pseudo-antagonist, and Cortana's new design is skeevy looking. The plot doesn't make full sense unless you read some of the books. The new enemy types are "glossy metal bits held together with glowing energy" types and their weapons aren't very interesting. On the positive side, the actual shooting and guns feel good and there are a few great, memorable setpieces. The campaign is super short, so it's not very painful to finish and there's a bit of fun to be had. It was mostly scary at the time because people were afraid that more Halo games were going to be like it.
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Dec 13, 2021 19:14
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Halo 4 is complete poo poo. 5 is barely better. Seems like Infinite is the first 343 Halo that isn't crap.
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Dec 13, 2021 19:38
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https://twitter.com/rottenfemur/status/1470098623719485444?s=21
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Dec 13, 2021 20:59
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I'd always heard Halo 3 was the best one but I played like 5 minutes of the intro and immediately dropped it because I was pretty burnt out having just played Halo 2. What's so great about it? Does it have rad set pieces like the walking fortress and highway vehicle fight from 2?
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Dec 13, 2021 23:37
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It does have rad setpieces, including making the walking fortress a real fully functional vehicle so you can fight it in wide open areas where it has freedom to move and you have freedom to blow it up yourself in live gameplay rather than a cutscene. Generally it's a more solid and well-put-together campaign than Halo 2, and that was also the first title that let you play it co-op over the internet. I don't know if I'd call it an all-time classic but it should be a significant step up. It also has an ending that's just about the polar opposite of Halo 2 (as in, it grants lengthy and fulfilling closure)
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Dec 13, 2021 23:41
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