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  Doom WAD Club: Like a book club, but with Doom map sets. Discord Channel: Casual, laid back discussion that might actually occur at some point.   Long, long ago, when dinosaurs like MS-DOS walked the earth, computers weren't really powerful enough to handle "true" 3D graphics. The response from programmers was "2.5D" engines that weren't quite three dimensional. They looked it, but rooms couldn't exist on top of other rooms, and sprites were order of the day. What sets them apart from the earliest 'full 3D' shooters is that, unlike their polygon-pushing cousins, they have aged very well - they may be dinosaurs, but they're still stomping around and biting things. Indeed, most of the bigger ones like Doom and Duke 3D still have active, creative communities. Why, some of the best Doom 2 mods have only come out in recent years! And this thread is here to help us find the cream of the crop, and enjoy these classics.  You know this, you love this, this doesn't necessarily need a introduction. WHERE TO GET IT Steam: Doom + Doom 2 GOG.com: Doom and Doom 2 iOS App Store: Doom and Doom 2 Android: Doom and Doom 2 Nintendo Switch: Doom and Doom 2 Xbox One and Series: Doom and Doom 2 PlayStation 4 and 5: Doom and Doom 2 SOURCE PORTS Chocolate Doom - A direct port of the original MS-DOS game code to every OS under the sun. Crispy Doom - A tweaked version of Chocolate Doom with a few extra creature comforts without getting too "modern" on you. DSDA-Doom - The latest iteration of PRBoom, the original "extended version" of the Doom mapping standard. Commonly used for speedrunning and other demo recording. While Chocolate Doom and PRBoom are great for authenticity, most mods use the ZDoom family of mods, which add more engine features and modding functions than you've had dinners. They also support Strife and the Raven games. GZDoom - A powerful source port with lots of modding potential, as well as optional 3D Acceleration. Yay, colored lighting! Zandronum - A modified version of an older version of GZDoom with full online play support. Keep in mind though, that some mods are stupid and require the very latest, cutting-edge code instead of just working with the stable releases. These are increasingly rare nowadays, though, so you should only really use these if you're doing weird stuff. DRDTeam Devbuilds - Builds of the very latest versions of GZDoom, among other things. If you have one of those dumb Android phone things, check out Delta Touch, which packs together Chocolate Doom, PrBoom, Doom Retro, Zandronum and three different builds of GZDoom for your bus stop pleasure. OTHER NEAT STUFF ZDL - A useful launcher program. Quickly Launchering GZDoom - A good launcher program by our very own SavageMessiah! Unity Doom Ripper - Extract the IWAD file from the 2019/2020 Re-Releases to use in source ports.  Variants on Doom developed by id's good friends at Raven. This series focused on the sinister Serpent Riders, the worlds they conquered, and the heroes that rose against them. Heretic used much the same formula as Doom, but with a fantasy/magic bend. Hexen took a different path, adding distinct character classes, interconnected "hub" worlds, more complex puzzles, and less linearity. WHERE TO GET IT Steam GOG.com SOURCE PORTS Chocolate Heretic and Hexen - Aims to directly imitate the MS-DOS code, and all it's quirks, under every OS ever. GZDoom and Friends - See the Doom section.  Widely considered the spiritual predecessor to Deus Ex. Strife took the Doom engine and used it to create a relatively nonlinear sci-fi action RPG. Explore the world, talk to a large cast of characters (voiced, for the most part), boost your stats to help you survive, and kill all who oppose you to save mankind from an evil totalitarian regime. WHERE TO GET IT The current "Veteran Edition" re-release is remastered by fans! Steam GOG.com Nintendo Switch SOURCE PORTS Chocolate Doom - Used as the base for Veteran Edition. GZDoom and Friends - See the Doom section.  Another very popular game, and the origin of the much-loved BUILD engine. As Duke (a loving tribute/shameless ripoff of 80's action movie heroes), your task is to save Earth's most valuable natural resource (hot chicks, of course) from marauding alien forces, spouting one-liners the whole way. WHERE TO GET IT The original release: Zoom Platform The much-maligned "20th Anniversary World Tour" edition: Steam Xbox One & Series Playstation 4 and 5 Nintendo Switch SOURCE PORTS Raze - A fast and smooth port by the creators of GZDoom. Great for vanilla play and classic mods. EDuke32 - Enhances Duke3D with scores of modding enhancements and graphical updates. Used by all modern mods. OTHER NEAT STUFF The High Resolution Pack - Attempts to update the graphics to near-modern standards. Your results may vary.  The Mac's answer to Doom, Marathon is the precursor to the Halo series, with room-over-room, looking up and down, and vast amounts of plot (relayed via computer terminals) seperating it from it's DOS-based cousin. WHERE TO GET IT Marathon Open Source - The original game data files, released for free download by Bungie. Xbox 360, One and Series - An official, Bungie-endorsed, goon-made port of Marathon 2 to XBLA, complete with redone graphics! SOURCE PORTS Aleph One - Your one and only chance to run these games on Windows. Included with the above data release. OTHER NEAT STUFF The Marathon Story Page - Discussing and picking apart the intricate plotline of the series. Extremely comprehensive!  Another very popular BUILD engine game, Blood puts you in the moldy shoes of Caleb, a psychopathic undead pyromaniacal cowboy on the trail of the dark god that betrayed him... so just another Tuesday at the office, then. Fun features include guns akimbo, numerous loving horror references, kicking around zombie heads, and mumbling showtunes as you do it. WHERE TO GET IT GOG and Steam - The modern "Fresh Supply" remaster! SOURCE PORTS None! Because Atari or Warner Bros or whoever are bastards. Not this has stopped some people... NBlood - Built atop the EDuke32 codebase. Adds new capabilities for level designers to mess with. Raze - Incorporates the NBlood code into its usual smooth self. BuildGDX - The first proper Blood sourceport, IIRC. Still pretty great, if you can get that bad Java taste out of your mouth. OTHER NEAT STUFF BMouse - A tool that fixes mouselook in the DOS versions of BUILD games. Goon made!  3D Realms' "other" BUILD engine game, ditching Hollywood action movie cliches for cheapo Asian kung-fu movies, and a healthy dose of offensive Asian stereotypes. New features over Duke include drivable vehicles, usable gun turrets, smarter enemy AI (well, in a relative sense) and an actual nuke as a collectable weapon. WHERE TO GET IT Steam - The full game, for free! Holy poo poo! Includes a bunch of prototype builds stretching back years before release. GOG.com - The full game, for free! Holy poo poo! Again! Includes the soundtrack and two expansion packs. SOURCE PORTS Raze - The best option so far. Incorporates the WIP "VoidSW" port by the eDuke32 devs. OTHER NEAT STUFF Last Warrior - A mod a goon helped out on way back in the day. The Kins fucked around with this message at 13:55 on Jan 16, 2023 |
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Jun 23, 2011 07:14
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 As technology progressed, computers became more powerful, and developers' code-fu became stronger, games were able to progress beyond mere sprites into true-3D worlds, using real polygon objects. However, let's just say these graphics took quite a while to become as detailed as traditional sprites, and these 3D FPS games had a, shall we say, ugly, UGLY adolescence.  (Pictured: Ugly, UGLY adolescence.) However, alongside this development in graphics came a development in technology - 3D cards started emerging from the undergrowth at this time, resulting in important graphical enhancements that are used in games today. In addition, the internet started reaching more and more homes in easier ways, and as a result proper online gaming bloomed and blossomed. Some of the experiences found in these early 3D FPSes have yet to be topped even today, writing the book on online multiplayer. And of course, the internet is never gonna let these games die, thanks to their extensive moddability (This was basically the golden age of modding, after all!). So, this thread is about finding the cream of the crop, and enjoying these classics together. Now, I'm not quite as experienced with these games as I am with Doom and such, so if you know of a fantastic classic game or mod that I've inexplicably missed, please let me know!  The game that really introduced proper 3D gaming to a widespread audience, changed online gaming forever with the advent of QuakeWorld, and tore the classic Doom team apart. Quake had a... troubled development period. Originally beginning as a top-down 2D EGA RPG in the vein of Ultima, John Carmack (with the aid of legendary assembly master Mike Abrash) developed an amazingly fast 3D engine... but didn't have a game to use it with.  GIVE UNCLE CTHON A HUUUUUG The end result, a quick-n-dirty Doom clone, hit all the right notes for gamers everywhere, but the internal turmoil would cause Id co-pilot John Romero and his colossal ego to venture off to form Ion Storm, and, well, we all know how that ended up. WHERE TO GET IT: The 2021 remaster includes the original Windows release, along with an enhanced version with all expansion packs, plus two new episodes and a host of visual niceties! Steam Xbox One + Series PlayStation 4 + 5 Nintendo Switch GOG.com SOURCE PORTS: Oh god, so many loving source ports! Quake Engines & Source Ports: A Beginners Guide is a good guide to figure out the best way to get what you want out of your single-player Quake experience. OTHER NEAT STUFF: nQuake - ezQuake packaged with a heap of custom art, maps, location files and other stuff to make things easier for newbies. Good for if you wanna play online but have no idea what to download. qTracker - A nice, relatively unbloated server browser. Quake Injector - A handy Java utility to easily pick-n-choose from an online archive of 900+ singleplayer maps.  With nothing in common with the original except the name and gameplay concepts, Quake 2 introduced a new generation of Id as well as the recurring evil alien race known as the Strogg. The single player gameplay tried to be a step up from Quake 1, with mission objectives, monsters firing at you with their last gasps and the like, but let's face it - everyone basically just skipped the single player to play lots of Deathmatch. Did I mention that this game was really orange? Because it totally was.  Strogg have a surprising amount in common with chicken and cockroaches. Oh, and it had unarguably the best FPS soundtrack since Doom, and possibly ever. WHERE TO GET IT: Steam - Contains both expansion packs. GOG - Contains both expansion packs, and an Id-collated mod collection from back in the day. SOURCE PORTS: Yamagi Quake 2 - Adds support for Ogg Vorbis music (as opposed to CD audio) and fixes a variety of nasty bugs in the original game. A must-get! Unofficial 3.24 Patch - An more-restrained alternative to Yamagi, useful if it doesn't work properly on your machine. KMQuake2 - The eye-candy port, but doesn't support old Q2 mods. OTHER NEAT STUFF: qTracker - A nice, relatively unbloated server browser. Quake 2 Steam Fan-Patch - For boring technical reasons, the Steam version of Quake 2 contains no music. So some friendly young lad set up a rip of the soundtrack for use with the source ports listed above. What a guy!  Id finally drop the pretense of the single player campaign and just make a drat online-only game. Featuring many former Id heroes among it's gallery of freaks, the game was basically a best-of-online-DM. And what a best-of! The team were at their A-game, and Q3A is pretty rightly regarded as the pinnacle of the series. Also, CURVED SURFACES   Pictured: Curved Surfaces. WHERE TO GET IT: Steam - Includes Quake 3 and the Team Arena expansion pack. GOG.com - Includes Quake 3 and the Team Arena expansion pack. Quake Live - A slightly casualized and modernized version of Quake 3 that used to be a free-to-play browser game. This is where most online play has migrated. SOURCE PORTS: Quake3e - No Punkbuster, but lots of code cleanup, bugfixes and other such features. Based on ioQuake3. OTHER NEAT STUFF: qTracker - A nice, relatively unbloated server browser. PlayMoreProMode - Scratch your CPMA itch here.  The original Duke Nukem Forever, Unreal was in development for years and years before suddenly springing out of nowhere and amazing the gaming community with it's expansive environments (see: the initial reveal after leaving the Vortex Riker), memorable level design (see: the corridor barring itself off, lights shutting off and a Skarrj emerging from the shadows) and generally being loving awesome (see: being loving awesome). The multiplayer-focused followup, Unreal Tournament, was even more so, and it's extremely modding-focused engine would go on to basically take over Id's engine-licensing empire. WHERE TO GET IT: GOG.com: Unreal and UT, DRM free! The Unreal series has been completely removed from legal availability by Epic in late 2022, for reasons that mostly boil down to spite. It's probably not too difficult to find copies of GOG's standalone installer EXEs, though, but we can't really help you with that here. SOURCE PORTS: Epic hasn't publicly released the source code to Unreal Engine 1 for unexplained reasons, but they have entrusted it to specific fans: OldUnreal Unreal 1 v227 Patch - A big patch for Unreal 1, updated for modern platforms. Essential. OldUnreal Unreal Tournament v469 Patch - Ditto, but for UT99, and with a funny number. However, and curiously, the renderer system in this version of the engine IS open, and people have coded modern renderers for the engine. The OldUnreal patches include an updated OpenGL renderer, plus an OpenAL audio renderer. OpenGL and DirectX9 Renderer DirectX10 Renderer OTHER NEAT STUFF: Official Bonus Pack 4 - Packs 1-3 are included in the GOTY edition. Two new player models, ten new maps, two remixed maps. Missing Content - Other freely-released official content that for some unknown reason was left out of modern re-releases (Unreal Anthology, Steam, GOG...)  So a couple of Microsoft millionaires and some wide-eyed Quake modders walk into a studio... nope, it's not the start of a joke, nor is it the heart breaking story of a development sweatshop about to go horribly wrong. It's the origin of Valve, the studio you curse daily for not making a sequel to an ever-so-slightly overrated FPS series and also thrust money at hand over fist every time there's a Steam sale.  Tesssst chamberrrrrrrr But as much as it maybe hasn't aged as well as some of the other games in this post, Half-Life really expanded what people thought possible in FPS games, with it's complete lack of traditional cutscenes and some impressive AI on the soldier enemies. Also, it kind of spawned Counter-Strike. Which, you know, deserves a little bit of kudos, yeah. WHERE TO GET IT: Steam - Duh. SOURCE PORTS: None, but the game still works on modern platforms. OTHER NEAT STUFF: Sven Co-Op - A free, co-op version of the game with some heavy engine modifications under the hood. Uplink - Some unique content originally released as the demo version of the game, ported back to the modern Steam version.  Wait, what? A FPS game where the "S" doesn't stand for "shooter"? That's right, kids. The "S" in this case stands for sneaker, and the aim is to avoid the superiorly-armed guards and furious monsters in order to steal loot out from right under their noses! There really isn't anything quite like this series on the market, even today.  It's also terrifyingly ugly. WHERE TO GET IT: Steam: Thief 1 Gold and Thief 2 GOG.com: Thief 1 Gold and Thief 2 SOURCE PORTS: TFix - A collection of patches and fixes to get Thief Gold running on modern systems. This is built off of NewDark (See below) T2Fix - A collection of patches and fixes for Thief 2. This is built off of... NewDark - An unofficial patch/source port that adds a semi-modern renderer with windowed support, as well as vastly pushing back the limits inflicted upon mapmakers. There's also a version for System Shock 2! OTHER NEAT STUFF: Drugs, Drugs And Violence and The MeNtal Age - Hilarious anti-walkthroughs for the first two games that basically try and win the game while breaking the game as much as possible.  Tribes bought the world team-play on a much larger scale than ever seen before, with 32-vs-32 battles on gigantic terrain-style maps by way of vehicles, exploding discs, and occasionally weaponizing skiiing. What, you thought rocket jumping was the only physics glitch retro FPSes popularized? WHERE TO GET IT: Tribes Universe - Free legal ISO downloads for the entire series, courtesy of the current rights holder! Except most of the links have fallen into disrepair, so you'll probably want to use one of the versions below. SOURCE PORTS: None, really. OTHER NEAT STUFF: Play Tribes 1 - Nice pre-configured versions of Tribes 1 and a community to play it with. Tribes Next - A vital fan-patch for Tribes 2 that restores online functionality. Tribes Revengeance - A patched version of Tribes Vengeance for modern systems. The Kins fucked around with this message at 12:35 on Apr 16, 2023 |
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Jun 23, 2011 07:15
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 Of course, none of these games would be NEARLY as popular without modding support. A list of good mods seemed like a good idea at first, until I realized that Gamespy had killed off all their mod hosting some time ago, leaving me staring at a wall of broken links and with an evening of hunting down 10+ year old files. FUN! Anyway, here's a bunch of good ones that I managed to hunt down and corner long enough to shove into the FILES BOX. DOOM So many mods come out for this game every year, that any list would probably be out of date the moment I post it! So here's a list actively maintained by other people: The Top WADs and Mods of Every Year Since 1994 DUKE 3D Duke Plus - An Eduke32 mod that adds all sorts of fun stuff, like grabbing ledges, bot allies, weather effects, new weapons, gravity guns... War of Attrition - A mod that adds RPG-style levelling up and tons of other random features. By the maker of Duke Plus! Duke Nukem: Alien Armageddon - Another elaborate mod by the maker of Duke Plus, adding new episodes, a new playable character, and lots of new monsters to fight with new sprites in the same style as the originals. Naferia's Reign: Invasion of the Dark Mistress - I'll be honest, I haven't a goddamn clue what this is, except that Bubsy the Bobcat's one of 15 playable characters, which is always a good sign. Seems to have a lot of effort put into it, so, uh, in it goes! Starship Troopers TC - One of the most innovative and cleverly-coded mods made in the pre-eDuke era. Blood Weapons For Duke 3D - Two great tastes that taste great together. WGRealms 2: Siege Breaker (STANDALONE GAME) - An AMAZING total conversion described by some as what Duke Nukem Forever should have been. Awesome Trailer Here! The AMC TC - An extremely elaborate goon-made TC that has multiple playable characters, an XCOM-style research system, and fully voice-acted (if not especially well) cutscenes! Duke Nukem Forever 2013 - No wait, this is what people think DNF should have been. Like, literally. It's based on the 2001 trailers! Duke Forces - A blend of Duke 3D and Star Wars. The phrase "Darth Nukem" is used only semi-ironically. and for more mods... EDuke32 Addon Compilation - A big collection of pre-existing add-ons, setup to be easily used with EDuke32![/url] DukeWorld - An archive of ancient mods. MSDN - Map reviews by an experienced mapper. MARATHON (These were suggested by a friend, I apologise if they aren't great!) Marathon: Rubicon X - A continuation of the original campaign so good that in the early days, someone mistakenly identified it as a fourth Marathon game. Devil In A Blue Dress - One of the first full campaign mods for the original Marathon, continually updated for the newer versions. Nice and big too. It's both a level pack and a "what if" reimagining of the story. Excalibur: Morgana's Revenge - Get this immediately. It's an entirely new game with its own custom-coded scripting language, MP3 music, weapons, etc. Marathon EVIL - A great new scenario with awesome weapons and freaky enemies. Also makes for some great multiplayer if you can convince some friends to tag along. Marathon RED - Another major overhaul mod. The design is lacking in a few places (granted, it was just 1 guy doing all the work), but it does have a lot of neat parts - particularly with the cyborg/bio-engineered creature plotline that goes on. Phoenix - "RyokoTK made it, everyone should play it, it's real good. Also install the HUD plugin that tracks its secrets so you can obsess over finding all of them." BLOOD One Unit Whole Blood Launcher - Here be basically every mod ever released in one big bloody pile. Thanks Tecman! (WARNING: This is a pain in the rear end to install and will cause your antivirus program to have a heart attack due to its poor programming. It is harmless, but keep this in mind.) Death Wish - The best Blood map pack ever made. Ever. Goon-made, too! QUAKE Gamers.org idgames2/ - THE archive for Quake files. PainKeep - One of the first inventive and amazing deathmatch mods. Team Fortress - Two forts. A bridge. Nine classes. This is where it all came together for the first time. And it's still great. Beyond Belief - A fantastic example of single player level design. The creator went on to work on games like Lair and Dead Space 2! Zerstörer - A new six map episode that has stood the test of time. Prodigy - A cool set of levels by Dario Casali, who did Final Doom. Nowadays he makes Payload maps for TF2! Killer Quake Pack - An old compilation pack from 1996-1997. Lots of fun effects like Portal Guns and Airstrikes! Nehahra - 17 maps by all-star mappers, cutscenes, new monsters, and a custom engine... oh my! QUAKE 2 Action Quake 2 - John Woo-style deathmatch! The precursor to Counterstrike. AirQuake2 - An arcadey flight sim! ChaosDM - It's deathmatch! But with huge swords, huger turrets, and the best Proximity Mines in any game ever. Rocket Arena - A true test of weapon skill! Gloom (Goon Maintained!) - Space Marines Versus The Spiders From Mars. The inspiration for Tremulous, if you've played that. SOG - A take on the Generations mod concept. I vaguely recall this being fun? ... I just checked, and it's actually really bad to the point of comedy. QUAKE 3 ARENA Pro Installer - Includes CPMA, Defrag and the CNQ3 and DFEngine source ports Excessive Plus - Excessive Overkill... never has a name been more apt. Everything is pushed up to 11! Seems to have somehow become the modern standard for freeze-tag. Urban Terror - A action-movie style tactical FPS with Q3A's whacky movement physics. Rocket Arena 3 - The true test of weapon skill returns to Q3A! Mostly superceded by CPMA, but a more casual community still hangs around. Defrag - The speedrunning mod! Use skill and movement tricks to race to the finish! Threewave Map Packs - If you want to play CTF, you'll want these. ..::LvL - Thousands of Quake 3 maps, and growing... UNREAL TOURNAMENT Unreal Orphanage - a good place to find mods that would otherwise be hard to find elsewhere. ChaosUT - The sequel to ChaosDM for Quake 2. Black holes! Giant swords! Giggling proximity mines! Chaos indeed. Unreal 4 Ever - Approximately seventeen fuckrillion new weapons, ranging from nuclear bomb dolls to pitchforks. Oldskool Amp'd - Play with the Unreal 1 weapons and stuff in the UT maps! Or if you have Unreal 1, play it from within UT with the new weapons and such! Required to play... Operation NaPali - A large single-player campaign with squad control, flying segments and (bad) voice acting. Nali Chronicles - Another single player campaign, this time from the perspective of one of those Nali jerks. Xidia and 7 Bullets - Apparently these are both really good single player mods. I've never played them, so YMMV! Marathon Resurrection - ...it's Marathon. In the Unreal Engine. Thievery - A multiplayer game themed on the Thief series. Monster Hunt - A co-op mod, basically. Venture through the levels as a team to kill the boss! Infiltration - A tactical shooter that values realism above all other things. Tactical Ops - Basically UT Does Counterstrike. Strangelove - Ride your Redeemer rockets like a horse! A nuclear horse. That explodes. Tally Ho! - Go hunting for Unreal 1 monsters, while competing against your friends. HALF-LIFE RunThinkShootLive - A great site for the latest singleplayer mods and campaigns for the Half-Life series. C.A.G.E.D. - An impressive modern map pack by a former Valve dev, featuring a kickass synthwave soundtrack. Afraid of Monsters and Cry of Fear - Ambitiously terrible jumpscare horror games that I guess are notable for some reason. Hazardous Course 2 - Half-Life meets I Wanna Be The Guy, with emotionally-crippling results. Poke646 Anniversary Edition - Two of the most popular single player mods, together and updated for the Steam version of the game. They Hunger - A survival-horror staple. USS Darkstar - Haaaaalf-Life iiiiiin Spaaaaaaace. Half-Quake: Amen - Nothing to do with Quake, everything to do with hurting your brain. Azure Sheep - Like Blue Shift, but less of a sausage party. Half-Life: Zombie Edition - No, Gordon, you are the zombies. Reissues - A collaborative pack of unrelated mini-mods. OTHER Spear: Resurrection and End of Destiny - Stand-alone fan-sequels to Wolfenstein 3D. Lots of engine improvements and changes, new enemies and weapons, and general insanity. The Orb of Dilaaria - An enormous, medieval themed Wolfenstein game.  And all the stuff that isn't quite big enough to justify giving it's own section (yet)... Wolfenstein 3D: The game that laid the foundations for Doom, and everything that came afterwards. Get it on Steam, GOG or XBox Live Arcade. Run natively in Windows with ECWolf. Find mods at Wolf3D Dome, Wolf3D Vault or WolfSource. Super 3D Noah's Ark: A strange Christian game based on the Wolfenstein 3D engine, lovingly restored for modern systems by the developer of ECWolf. Buy it now from Itch.io or Steam and support awesome source ports! Rise of the Triad: A wacked out evolution of Wolfenstein. Jump-pads, collectable coins, Literal God Mode, Dog Mode and all sorts of wacky fun. Grab it at GOG or Steam. There aren't any especially good source ports out there, sadly, but Night Dive and New Blood are tag-teaming the task for ROTT Ludicrous Edition on Steam and GOG Blake Stone Series: Wolfenstein in the future, basically. Both at GOG (Aliens of Gold and Planet Strike) and Steam (Aliens of Gold and Planet Strike). Play on modern systems (and Vita!) with bStone. Star Wars Dark Forces: Lucasarts takes on Doom. An advanced engine, mission objectives etc. provide further immersion in the world. Snatch it up on GOG or Steam. Grab Dark Forces Dehacker to hack in mouselook, crosshairs and better keybinding! Star Wars Dark Forces 2: Jedi Knight: A fun Lucasarts FPS with an interesting lightside/darkside system. It's on GOG and Steam too. I wrote a potentially-outdated guide on how to wrangle it into working on modern systems. Hexen 2: More of Raven's What-Id-Did-But-Medieval-Fantasy-Themed schtick. Grab it from Steam. Source Port here. Descent Series: Fantastic 360 degree flying action! You will get motion sick the first couple plays, though. Grab 'em from Steam or GOG! A good source port for the first two is DXX-Rebirth. Keep an eye on InjectD3 for the third. SiN: A Duke3D clone using the Quake 2 engine. Lots of environment interactivity, snarky one liners and tits. Updated version for modern PCs can be grabbed from Steam or GOG.com. Kingpin: A loving Quake 2 engine game with loving realistic environments and a lot of loving enhancements to the loving engine. Also a lot of loving swearing. Get it from loving GoG or loving Steam! Requiem: Avenging Angel: Take control of an angel with all kinds of delightfully hosed up powers, like possession and turning enemies into pillars of salt. Now on GOG and Steam. SHOGO: Mobile Armored Division: Monolith tries to wrangle it's terrible Lithtech engine into something resembling your giant robot animes. Pug-ugly and with psychic AI, but still kinda fun. GoG has the score. Blood 2: The Chosen: Another Lithtech game. If you've played Blood 1... you'll be very sorely disappointed. GoG has the scoop. Alien Versus Predator: Three different FPSes in one, based on everyone's favorite crossover. Steam has an updated version. Clive Barker's Undying: Just read this. Then grab it from GOG. Turok: Dinosaur Hunter: - The N64 launch title, remastered and freed of that terrible control scheme! Available on Steam, GOG, Xbox One/Series, PlayStation 4/5 and Switch. Turok 2: Seeds of Evil: - Turok's weird Metroidvania-y sequel, remastered to be better than ever and with online multiplayer! Steam, GOG, Xbox One/Series, PlayStation 4/5 and Switch have the score. Forsaken: A funky Descent-alike with a frankly inexplicable marketing campaign. Remastered version is on Steam, GOG, and Xbox One. And here's some awesome description posts other people have written: Ultima Underworld Pathways into Darkness System Shock Terra Nova: Strike Force Centauri Clive Barker's Undying  Some regular questions that have come up... I want to play Hexen Co-Op. What's a good way that won't gently caress up? Blazing Ownager wrote a good guide to this here. Why the hell isn't Generic Game X here, you loving luddite? Either it's a bit late (post-2000) or I just plain forgot! Please feel free to yell at my face! The slime monsters in Duke 3D make me wee myself and cry! Can I remove them? You sure can if you're using EDuke32. Here's a script that ought to do it. Thanks to JBlade for basically writing it! I bought an old FPS, but I don't know how to get it running right on my modern PC! I maintain a handy list of instructions that might come in useful. I'll try and keep this OP updated, so lemme know if there's something cool I should add! The Kins fucked around with this message at 12:46 on Apr 16, 2023 |
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Jun 23, 2011 07:15
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I'm....home. This is the nicest OP I've seen in a while, good job at kicking rear end. Also, GOG can thank you for your service as I'm going to go buy descent off them.
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Jun 23, 2011 07:22
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Your Wolf2SDL link is broken. I recommend this mod. It's a ZDoom port of Wolf3D and Spear of Destiny. I played through both games using it and it was perfect. It also does co-op!
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Jun 23, 2011 07:23
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Awesome thread, OP. Two great single player Half-Life mods no one ever talks about : Poke 646 and its sequel, Poke 646 Vendetta, are probably the best-looking things the GoldSrc engine has ever been used for. Both are available here.
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Jun 23, 2011 07:23
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To kick things off... Quake's turned 15 today! The Quake Expo is up to celebrate with a ton of new and interesting mods.
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Jun 23, 2011 07:24
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Great OP! One of my biggest gaming regrets is that I can't play any of these 2.5D games without getting intense motion sickness. I still don't know what it is exactly about them, but they're full on vomit-inducing for me. My best guess is that it's caused by the perspective warping on the periphery. Interestingly, I've never had a problem in the post-3D era. The day I first played Quake was amazing.
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Jun 23, 2011 07:26
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Awesome. Happy to see the early 3D guys have a home here now, too.
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Jun 23, 2011 07:31
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I'd like to suggest that the HeXeN section gets some more information put into it. Mostly because a few friends and I decided to replay Hexen recently, and found out that every single port has it's own problems if you plan on playing it co-op. jDoom was the first choice as it's what we used years ago, only to find it's developed a new bug: The clients always use multiple items hitting the use key once, regardless of key repeat settings. This makes HeXeN, unfortunately, unplayable. Skull Tag worked great.. until we realized we couldn't save or load. zDoom was having it's own set of connection issues every level load attempt. ... so ultimately, here's what we found works best: To run HeXeN in co-op: 1) Get GZDoom and setup a command line for hosting or clients. I'd recommend you add -extratic to help stability. Some examples: gzdoom.exe -host X (number of players) -netmode 1 -port xxxx -extratic -skill 5 +playerclass Cleric gzdoom.exe -join xx.xxx.xxx.xxx:xxxx +playerclass Cleric -extratic Also every single client and the host will need to add -loadgame saveX.zds to their path if you plan on loading a game, and make sure to load the same save game. 2) Make sure all players connect in the same order. If players connect in a different order when picking up a load game, the classes will get scrambled and you'll end up with an odd mess of people who look like Mages, but have mixed weapon sets. Also whoever is hosting will have to host for the rest of the campaign, since they will always be player 0, unless you want to shuffle classes - even then, I am not 100% sure you'll be problem free. It's better to designate a host. 3) When one player saves, no matter what they name the save file, it will save on everyone's system in the exact same slot. When you want to load a save game, everyone will need to add -loadgame save#.zds and make sure that they are all loading the same save to their command line, client and host. Otherwise it will not function. 4) Dying fixes positional desyncs generally. This most importantly includes every single time you go through to another hub. Fortunately you can enter the gameplay options and disable losing anything when you die - so set this (and team damage) and kill your partners to resync them with the host if you get this. 5) I'd recommend each player pick a save slot and save frequently, insuring you have a backup if something goes wrong. This can be a really long game and restarting via map warps annoyingly wipes out your inventory, which is key to Hexen. ... anyway, that's the guide we found to play the game. We're about halfway through and finally have the kinks ironed out. I'll note that we found all this through very, very long and painful trial & error which is why I wanted to share it here, because Hexen is an awesome game to play in c-op but man these issues were annoying. In particular, the connection order one, since we saved after we broke it, and had to restart the game. It's pretty easy to get going if you know those tricks though, so you don't find yourself trying 50 things to simply enter new hubs, or try tons of combinations to figuring out why your mage suddenly looks like a cleric that is packing the Mage's first weapon and Cleric's second. I highly endorse checking HeXeN out, it's a ton of fun (and if you never played co-op before, it adds co-op specific team support scrolls to help your allies, which is pretty neat!) and can actually be pretty drat difficult in nightmare.. if you play with all three classes you'll notice each class gets specific counter-enemies, so a lot of strategy is involved you just don't see in most Doom FPS or 2.5D games in general. I hope this helps somebody try it out.
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Jun 23, 2011 07:33
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Oh man, hopefully this thread fills up with more awesome stuff like the last one! I'm going to quote myself from the last thread so that the Duke mod I mentioned doesn't get lost in the archives.Wamdoodle posted:
Also no mention of Siege Breaker, Kins?
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Jun 23, 2011 07:37
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Oops, I'll add that now. Thanks. Wrote the lion's share of the OPs a couple days ago  EDIT: Fixed the Wolf4SDL link too. The Kins fucked around with this message at 07:44 on Jun 23, 2011 |
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Jun 23, 2011 07:38
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The Kins posted:Oh, and it had unarguably the best FPS soundtrack since Doom, and possibly ever. Second best, maybe. Doesn't quite have the pedigree of an academy award-winning composer.
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Jun 23, 2011 07:41
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This just reminded me of how much fun I had with the demo for Descent back in the day. It's such a shame that no major studios would ever attempt to make a game like it today. Suppose I'll just have to give my hard-earned to GOG then so I can get some sweet vomit-inducing action!
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Jun 23, 2011 07:44
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Fantastic OP! Only thing I could really ask for though are the links for the Doom/Doom 2 music mods. Thanks for making a new thread!
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Jun 23, 2011 08:40
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OP is good but a bit wrong, Thief is available on Gamersgate for 10 bucks actually. http://www.gamersgate.com/DD-THIEF/thief-the-dark-project
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Jun 23, 2011 09:02
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Thanks to this thread, I recalled one of my favorite game songs of all time: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJUPgOqHC70 Ok, that's the badass version, but the original holds up quiet well, too: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0gh1cumBTk
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Jun 23, 2011 09:08
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One of the best OPs I have seen in a while - good job!  The early FPS era was the best era as far as I am concerned...
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Jun 23, 2011 09:08
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The Skeep posted:OP is good but a bit wrong, Thief is available on Gamersgate for 10 bucks actually. http://www.gamersgate.com/DD-THIEF/thief-the-dark-project
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Jun 23, 2011 09:10
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Just want to mention that WGRealms 2 (as mentioned above) is amazing, and also a FULL STANDALONE GAME. It's also basically a 'greatest hits of 2.5d shooters' megamix of sorts, with content and features from Doom, Duke, Hexen and others. On top of that, here's a much better/newer trailer. It's ace and you should all download it. Just be warned - the polymer renderer is only for people with beefy manly-man computers. With it, you get fancy per-pixel coloured lighting effects. Without it, just classic old-school style. The combat is really surprisingly tactical. You're given a whole ton of weapon and tools, and need to really apply them all. you can't just switch to the minigun, hold fire and waltz through the level. Enemies are FAR faster and more aggressive than their Doom equivalents too. Dominic White fucked around with this message at 09:42 on Jun 23, 2011 |
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Jun 23, 2011 09:40
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kimbo305 posted:Thanks to this thread, I recalled one of my favorite game songs of all time: The Doom soundtracks are such a brilliant mashup of classic metal riffs: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8HFEVyetVwA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3JSbOt7CLo And countless others.
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Jun 23, 2011 10:26
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The Kins posted:I'm always happy to be wrong... Fixing now! This is, unfortunately, the non-Gold version of the game, since it specifically mentions having 12 missions. Thief Gold adds three more (one sucks, one rules and one is OK) and expands/fixes some of the existing ones (Little Big World!).
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Jun 23, 2011 10:27
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The links to the music patches for quake 1 and 2 don't go anywhere, the steam forums tell me the threads don't exist.
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Jun 23, 2011 10:36
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Nostalgamus posted:The links to the music patches for quake 1 and 2 don't go anywhere, the steam forums tell me the threads don't exist. KozmoNaut posted:The Doom soundtracks are such a brilliant mashup of classic metal riffs:
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Jun 23, 2011 10:52
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For the OP there is a relatively newer Thief thread
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Jun 23, 2011 12:32
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Hank Morgan posted:For the OP there is a relatively newer Thief thread
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Jun 23, 2011 12:41
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The early 2.5D shooters tended to bore me before long when they weren't making me nauseous. To this day, the notion of multi-colored key cards makes me shudder. The console offerings of the day didn't pique my interest either and playing FPS with a controller felt frustrating. Then Unreal Tournament came out and I never looked back. With that game, I finally "got" the genre. It was also my introduction to the world of modding. The fun I had mixing mods, mutators, and total conversions... I guess the only downside was that I got overly used to its default control scheme, which consisted of using the arrow keys for movement. It took me a long while to get comfortable with WASD.
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Jun 23, 2011 13:12
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Awesome OP you got there. I'd like to mention Magic Carpet, a rather overlooked FPS that suffered heavily from being ahead of it's time as well as Doom's killer popularity. Aside from heaving pretty awesome graphics,the first thing you will probably notice is the fully 3D,fully deformable terrain.In 1994. I'm not talking some halfassed bumps/discoloration,you get to summon castles from nothing,cause huge craters with meteors or even summon volcanoes. There's also some rather interesting stuff with environments(for example,you can torch a forest to kill monsters hiding within),towns which actually traded between each other and expanded,and rudimentary physics(mostly gravity,really). Unfortunately when it came out you needed a top-of-the-line computer to actually play it and a network card to try the multiplayer,unlike Doom,which ran on any old thing even back then.
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Jun 23, 2011 13:33
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What about Redneck Rampage? It's on GOG.
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Jun 23, 2011 13:36
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One of my favorite mods for UT99 was called Zombie Mod or something like that. Basically it gave each player a certain amount of lives and then an ever increasing amount of low polygon zombies would start spawning in. The person who was the last to run out of lives was the winner. What was so fun is that as the match went on, there would be literally hundreds of these weird looking zombies in every room, which made blowing them up with the flak cannon ever so satisfying. But then the makers updated the mod and added in custom models for the zombies, along with zombie brutes and other creatures. I never liked the changes and lost interest in it quickly. Sadly, I could never find the original version for downloaded after that.
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Jun 23, 2011 13:57
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You forgot Witchaven and Witchaven 2 I played those a bunch when I was young http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witchaven http://www.mobygames.com/game/witchaven Wow, didn't know this about it wikipedia posted:Witchaven was one of the first games using an early version of Build engine titles to be completed. Characters in the game are actually clay-made models (except Illwhyrin, played by an human actor) who were photographed at every angle and then turned into computer sprites; in-game weapon models were also created by using scanned photographs edit: OP posted:Killer Quake Pack - An old compilation pack from 1996-1997. Lots of fun effects like Portal Guns and Airstrikes! Me and my friends played this a bunch, it was great. You can chop peoples limbs off and drag them around with the harpoon gun. Me and one of my friends would team up against another to do just that, although harpooning someone and trying to drag them usually lead to crashes.. So many weapons - my favorite mod Danith fucked around with this message at 14:09 on Jun 23, 2011 |
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Jun 23, 2011 14:04
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I ain't afraid of no Quake.  e: whoa i've never heard of Eradicator
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Jun 23, 2011 14:23
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Vakal posted:One of my favorite mods for UT99 was called Zombie Mod or something like that. Sounds like Corpse Mania to me, one of my fave mods for it too! Me and my buds would find big industrial maps, go flak arena or use the agentX mod for 'realistic' weapons and then just act like we were some swat team sent in to clean up some zombie explosion or something.
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Jun 23, 2011 14:41
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The Unreal entry could do with a mention of the semi-official Unreal 227 patch: http://www.oldunreal.com/oldunrealpatches.html At this point it's developed enough that it makes Unreal 1 easily the best SP modding/playing platform between Unreal and UT (outside of a few UT only SP mods), and it comes with the new renderers etc that make getting Unreal working on new systems pretty painless. As a side-note does anyone know much about old PC Gamer UK (I think, it may have been PC Zone...) coverdisks? One issue had a disk with a ton of HL1 SP levels on it. Most were pretty bad (although I recall there were a few classics), and I could easily download better ones today, but they were pretty much among the first mods I ever played. I used to own the disk but can't find it, and I'd like it check it out again (or at least get a list of what was on it) for some major nostalgia. Mman fucked around with this message at 17:16 on Jun 23, 2011 |
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Jun 23, 2011 14:42
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No mention of Ultima motherfucking Underworld, the game that started it all? Or Pathways into Darkness? Or System Shock, or Terra Nova? If I write info blocks for these, will they end up in the OP?
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Jun 23, 2011 14:56
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ToxicFrog posted:No mention of Ultima motherfucking Underworld, the game that started it all? Or Pathways into Darkness? Or System Shock, or Terra Nova?
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Jun 23, 2011 15:05
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Is there any sort of graphic/mouse support mods for Redneck Rampage? It's one of the few shooters of that era I didn't play because at the time every review I read pretty much said it's crap. Eh, anyways, I'm in the mood for an old school shooter and picked it up on GoG and can't even figure out how to rebind keys to a proper wasd setup.
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Jun 23, 2011 15:06
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Wizard Whateley posted:Is there any sort of graphic/mouse support mods for Redneck Rampage? It's one of the few shooters of that era I didn't play because at the time every review I read pretty much said it's crap. Then you can just whack the mouselook toggle key (U by default) in-game.
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Jun 23, 2011 15:09
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loving Quake dominated my childhood, I had dialup back than and was never really allowed to play online too much (nor did I understand it too much). So my main death match was playing reaper bots for hours on end. Apparently they were super smart but mostly ran pre-programmed routes, I still got a joy out of camping and just killing them non-stop. So many good Quake maps. I worshiped the game and beat it on every single difficulty. I should get my copy fired up, the game still looks beautiful to me. I wish I never chopped up the old box to use the sides as bookmarks but the CDcase is still around. 90's FPS' essentially ruled everything -- that was my poo poo, UT, Quake, etc etc. Countless nights with my buddy taking turns playing Unreal Tournament -- we encountered a strange person one night and it's easy to laugh at whenever it's brought up. In Unreal Tournament you could pick a loving cow or something, someone made their character named Bovine Moo and being immature, we thought this was the funniest thing ever. It was 4 in the morning though, so our tired brains were probably weak when I think back. Also Rumpleforeskin sent us into hysteria. I miss those days.  Also, anyone remember Quake C pack? It had poo poo like Xena's disc, grappling hooks, and tons of other little touches modded into the game. EDIT: This is also one of my most favorite tracks from a video game ever, I haven't heard in a good 10 years or so. This track is so loving heavy, so doom-y, I imagine it was a inspiration for a lot of hate, a lot of black metal. Bring it! ... Wow, Map 30 memories coming back, I used to love this level cause it was non-stop enemies, put on god mode, grab a chain saw and loving bask in the murder of a million demons. \m/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pbh3ZYuTBDY HAIL SATAN...! .... These games did weird things to me -- maybe that is why I love metal so much now. 
Vintersorg fucked around with this message at 15:15 on Jun 23, 2011 |
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Jun 23, 2011 15:10
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The Kins posted:Use SETUP.EXE to rebind controls. I'm not sure if the GOG version has a convenient link to DOSbox the Setup, or even if it needs DOSbox. Ok, thanks man. I'll see if I can't run setup.exe through dosbox. Not sure why it even uses it. Duke 3D seems to run fine without it.
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Jun 23, 2011 15:21
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