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

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

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DoombatINC: Apr 20, 2003; Here's the thing, I'm a feminist.

The later levels of ZPC are better than the earlier ones, packing a larger variety of enemies and much better level design, but it's almost not worth suffering through the earlier levels to get there.

# ¿ Jul 9, 2011 20:00

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 00:54

DoombatINC: Apr 20, 2003; Here's the thing, I'm a feminist.

an_mutt posted:

5D?

What?

Can somebody elaborate on this, please?

There were multiplayer levels packed with each game of the Marathon trilogy with "5-D" in the name. These levels consisted of a series of maze-like hallways that all interlocked with each other and coexisted inside the same X, Y and Z space values. You and an opponent could be a long walk from one another but you'd show up as next to each other on your motion sensors.

:psypop:

# ¿ Feb 13, 2012 19:35

DoombatINC: Apr 20, 2003; Here's the thing, I'm a feminist.

I just found a copy of Descent 3 + Mercenary for $1.99 at a 7-11 :pwn:

Edit:

DoombatINC fucked around with this message at 03:46 on Apr 3, 2012

# ¿ Apr 3, 2012 03:25

DoombatINC: Apr 20, 2003; Here's the thing, I'm a feminist.

Free Chicken posted:

You found that at a 7-11? What the hell?

It was in the $10 or less DVD rack. I flipped past a couple cardboard sleeves of public domain movies to find Descent 3 bundled with the expansion. When I took it to the front and the guy scanned it, it didn't give a valid item entry so he shrugged and said "Is two dollars okay?"

I bought it on the spot and walked out, totally forgetting about the soda I was there to purchase.

# ¿ Apr 4, 2012 07:01

DoombatINC: Apr 20, 2003; Here's the thing, I'm a feminist.

Xenaero posted:

I'm doing dumb things in TF2 and already have my Kritzkrieg named IDKFA and Medigun named IDDQD, what's the next logical step for the Quick-Fix? I don't think Doom has any 'health to 100%' cheat codes so I'm coming up blank. Any ideas?

How about IDBEHOLDS, the berserk pack cheat?

# ¿ May 16, 2012 18:42

DoombatINC: Apr 20, 2003; Here's the thing, I'm a feminist.

Ijuuin Enzan posted:

Hitscan is not a thing that belongs in Marathon.

drat straight. 1024 velocity invisible projectiles 'til I die.

I still occasionally catch myself using the Marathon "Δ damage" system to describe weapons in modern games. Like, instead of "This gun does between eighty and one hundred thirty damage" it's "This gun does eighty-delta-fifty damage"

# ¿ Jun 7, 2012 00:05

DoombatINC: Apr 20, 2003; Here's the thing, I'm a feminist.

Zedsdeadbaby posted:

Which FPSes would you say had the best combinations of level exploration, variety and sheer gameplay? I almost want to say the original Halo & Goldeneye but I have a hunch I would be crucified for picking those two. Obviously the early Dooms and Quakes nailed it as well but for some reason I find it really hard to think of more. The original Unreal is a solid candidate.

Marathon 2, baby. Despite having the weakest story of the three, it has by far the best gameplay. I'm almost positive that's the reason it's the only Marathon ported to XBLA (that I know of); the others are classics but can feel too claustrophobic (M1) or too goat-hosed crazy (Minf) if you're just playing them as a straight-up FPSes.

# ¿ Jul 11, 2012 23:11

DoombatINC: Apr 20, 2003; Here's the thing, I'm a feminist.

I actually loved all the generic bullet guns in Red Faction. Unlike most other FPSes, they all felt distinct from one another with actual strengths and weaknesses. Then again, these opinions come from playing the game mostly in multiplayer since I always thought the singleplayer was dull and poorly executed.

# ¿ Jul 22, 2012 00:08

DoombatINC: Apr 20, 2003; Here's the thing, I'm a feminist.

RyokoTK posted:

But it can also be abused, such as in the hideously bad Rubicon level Beg, Borrow and Steal from Rubicon:

Is this the level with the beam turrets in a bunch of the walls and is also harder than chinese algebra? Because if so I think that's the level that made me ragequit Rubicon and never finish it.

# ¿ Aug 2, 2012 05:38

DoombatINC: Apr 20, 2003; Here's the thing, I'm a feminist.

RyokoTK posted:

No, that would be Core Wars. I do like this level, but the beam turrets are so loving annoying to deal with.

Despite the ROR, the level is only hard to navigate because most of it is dark as poo poo. It doesn't overlap all that much.

Ah, thanks. On my first playthrough of Rubicon I got to that level and my only save had, like, a quarter red bar of health and I couldn't get past that part. After a dozen tries I was all "Well, I guess I'm never beating Rubicon!"

# ¿ Aug 2, 2012 05:52

DoombatINC: Apr 20, 2003; Here's the thing, I'm a feminist.

I'm just not that familiar with Rubicon. I wish I was, but I've only run about three games of it and my first run where I got stuck on Core Wars is the furthest in I've gotten. It's level designs are amazing, I love the new weapons and the terminal texts are (to me, at least) very stylistically reminiscent of Marathon 2's mix of info dumps, world fluff and crazy stream-of-consciousness poo poo. I should give it another whack.

Speaking of Total Conversions (oh god it's been over a decade since I've typed those words together) that I've never beaten, how far have you guys gotten into Red? I think I've made it about ten levels before getting all keyboard smashy.

# ¿ Aug 2, 2012 06:17

DoombatINC: Apr 20, 2003; Here's the thing, I'm a feminist.

Yodzilla posted:

Bring them back, bring back all the old first person shooters

Quick, someone remake Pathways into Darkness as a Roguelike/FPS hybrid!

# ¿ Aug 4, 2012 21:40

DoombatINC: Apr 20, 2003; Here's the thing, I'm a feminist.

Paul Pot posted:

I read somewhere that most UT customers never played online.

I owned UT99 for about a year before I even had internet access. What can I say, I'm a sucker for a good botmatch.

Q3TA was a lot of fun, even if it was a hot mess. The weapons were cool and I liked a lot of the levels in it, and it would have probably been more successful if it weren't for those ridiculous powerups.

# ¿ Sep 7, 2012 08:01

DoombatINC: Apr 20, 2003; Here's the thing, I'm a feminist.

The Kins posted:

I'm probably going to be slipping a Marathon thing into the next Reelism, which should be fun. That'll be fun to try and emulate some of Marathon's eccentricities in a really different engine without any easy reference...

The simplest one to do would be a Thank God It's You! (edit: alternatively, Frog Blast The Vent Core!) reel that spawns Assimilated BoBs. Mixing some weapons into the themed weapon packs would be neat, too, if you feel there's any gaps that need filling.

DoombatINC fucked around with this message at 16:19 on Sep 15, 2012

# ¿ Sep 15, 2012 16:16

DoombatINC: Apr 20, 2003; Here's the thing, I'm a feminist.

The Kins posted:

Samsara has updated with a new player class, the Marathon guy.

Yesssssssss. The Wave Motion Cannon they gave him is mashed up sprites cannibalized from the Marathon 2 pre-beta development demo that only existed at software expos (which I have on original CD :xd:

)

# ¿ Oct 7, 2012 01:18

DoombatINC: Apr 20, 2003; Here's the thing, I'm a feminist.

The Kins posted:

You could probably ask Carmack (@id_aa_carmack) or Todd Hollishead (@Thollenshead) on Twitter.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFbV0dGK1hI

Many BoBs died in their fight against the Nazi horde, and yet Stan Uzimann only stands and watches :911:

That also sounds like an M1 MIDI in the background, and if it is,

# ¿ Nov 1, 2012 06:40

DoombatINC: Apr 20, 2003; Here's the thing, I'm a feminist.

x!te bike posted:

Ah the experience of Doom's mean and spiteful later maps.

That's one of the great things about Doom, it doesn't particularly want you to win.

# ¿ Nov 10, 2012 20:05

DoombatINC: Apr 20, 2003; Here's the thing, I'm a feminist.

Rupert Buttermilk posted:

Endurance runs? Points? Going in 'blind'?

I have so much to learn

Have you played Reelism yet? Because if not, you're about to poo poo your pants.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFN_nP3DHJo

# ¿ Dec 8, 2012 06:26

DoombatINC: Apr 20, 2003; Here's the thing, I'm a feminist.

ToxicFrog posted:

M1's level design hasn't aged that well, but I think M2 works a lot better when you already have some investment in the storyline (and fear of Durandal from M1.

Also, co-op forgives many sins of level design, and M1A1 fixes Colony Ship For Sale, Cheap.

M1 works so well on story and atmosphere but, yeah, some of the levels are pretty poor. It's still worth playing (worth playing first, I'd argue) but M2 and Minf totally eclipse it on the gameplay front.

As for trying to play it with the mouse, I've gotten the mouse control to feel approximately "right" a few times and it always involves one of the axis (vertical, I think) being set way higher than the other. My best advice here is to tweak the horizontal controls to feel as good as possible first, then get the vertical controls on a tolerable level seperately. Most of the game was designed with horizontal aiming in mind so you'll be golden as long as your horizontal works for you.

# ¿ Dec 11, 2012 21:28

DoombatINC: Apr 20, 2003; Here's the thing, I'm a feminist.

I had the best (worst) Marathon control scheme back in the day. I walked and turned with the arrow keys and then used my pinky on the numpad for looking up/center/down (8/5/2) and for strafing (1/3).

# ¿ Dec 11, 2012 23:18

DoombatINC: Apr 20, 2003; Here's the thing, I'm a feminist.

My copy of the Doom 2 manual had the graphics for the Plasma Rifle and Chaingun switched. That always drove me nuts.

Also, thanks to the manual, I sometimes catch myself using the turn of phrase "swap some lead upside their head" when playing videogames.

# ¿ Dec 15, 2012 21:50

DoombatINC: Apr 20, 2003; Here's the thing, I'm a feminist.

deadpan posted:

Epic's influence, with their odd plot justifications for gameplay elements in the Unreal and Gears of War games (Unreal 3 was particularly bad about this from what I remember)

I loved how (edit: in UT3) they tied both the small amount of players per team and the respawn system together into the plot element of "We could send armies to fight and die on the battlefields, but gently caress it, let's just keep sending the same dozen hand-picked psychos over and over"

# ¿ Jan 20, 2013 03:19

DoombatINC: Apr 20, 2003; Here's the thing, I'm a feminist.

The biggest things I remember about UT3 are the campaign explaining how important Onslaught mode's power generators were to the repsawn-based invasion forces, and all of the main characters being killed off-screen during the final deathmatch.

Oh, and the terrible, terrible levels. The Gears of War level was, if memory serves, the deathmatch level with the tripod walker in the Blade Runner-ish setting. Plus the Nuremberg-worthy sandstorm level. And the CTF bridge level that was literally a straight line between two flags (and that was one of the better ones).

# ¿ Jan 22, 2013 09:01

DoombatINC: Apr 20, 2003; Here's the thing, I'm a feminist.

ToxicFrog posted:

I know Marathon, System Shock, and Descent didn't, and Half-Life did. I don't think Quake 2 did but it's been a long time since I played it.

Did Unreal have checkpoints?

Marathon kind of had a checkpoint system, in that it used saved games but you could only save at certain points as you progress through the map.

I think Unreal saved between levels, but since the levels were fairly short and the transitions between them were otherwise seamless I guess you could call it a checkpoint system.

# ¿ Jan 22, 2013 22:53

DoombatINC: Apr 20, 2003; Here's the thing, I'm a feminist.

Convex posted:

Marathon had a godawful save system which practically cancelled out all the good things going for it. The first one in particular had some terrible checkpointing, including one hidden in an interminable maze of suicide bombers.

Later games on the Marathon engine (Prime Target, Damage Incorporated, ZPC) allowed saves at any time. ZPC went the extra mile to piss off the player and tied its saved games to a rare (and often hidden) item that was consumed with each save, making its save system actually more infuriating than Marathon's.

# ¿ Jan 22, 2013 23:18

DoombatINC: Apr 20, 2003; Here's the thing, I'm a feminist.

I've beaten ZPC and of the three commercial Marathon engine FPSes it's both the least playable and the one I want the most to see remade. The Brute Propaganda art was great, the story had some teeth and in the right hands I could see it being made into a very stylish nightmare of an FPS. As it stands, I'd love a ZPC poster for my wall but can't see myself going so far as to install the game again.

# ¿ Jan 22, 2013 23:51

DoombatINC: Apr 20, 2003; Here's the thing, I'm a feminist.

You mean the corridor where the S'pht drop down from the ceiling? That bit surprised me on so many replays. If I remember, this is a good place for simultaneous bullet and grenade spam from the rifle since the hall is small enough to get full use of both triggers but has enough buffer space that you shouldn't frag yourself.

# ¿ Mar 1, 2013 06:29

DoombatINC: Apr 20, 2003; Here's the thing, I'm a feminist.

A FUCKIN CANARY!! posted:

Come to think of it, are there any other games that have an over/under shotgun? I can't even think of any other mods that have one, yet alone a commercial game.

The STALKER series features over/under shotguns prominently throughout all three games.

Play STALKER, by the way.

# ¿ Mar 2, 2013 05:33

DoombatINC: Apr 20, 2003; Here's the thing, I'm a feminist.

Stuntman posted:

Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Shadow of Chernobyl lack an over/under?

You know, it's been a while since I've played the first one, but I think you might be right. I know the over/under was heavily used in the promo material for SoC, was in several of the betas and I think was even in the game files at launch, but isn't actually in the final game.

e:f,b

# ¿ Mar 2, 2013 05:43

DoombatINC: Apr 20, 2003; Here's the thing, I'm a feminist.

RyokoTK posted:

What are you talking about? Marathon maps are perfectly legible.

Marathon maps don't even need to be complicated to be incomprehensible

I'm positive Bungie made 5-D Space just so it could be mentioned in every "What the gently caress, Marathon" conversation ever

# ¿ Mar 2, 2013 08:05

DoombatINC: Apr 20, 2003; Here's the thing, I'm a feminist.

Fergus Mac Roich posted:

You guys ever play Marathon? You could dual wield shotguns. The reload animation on dual wielding shotguns was bananas and depressingly vague about how the gently caress you do that.

I love that the actual canon explanation of the WSTE-M reload is gently caress you

Durandal posted:

I won�t waste my time trying to explain the loading mechanism to you -- your primitive mind could never grasp its complex nature.

# ¿ Mar 26, 2013 02:03

DoombatINC: Apr 20, 2003; Here's the thing, I'm a feminist.

FirstPersonShitter posted:

All this Marathon talk's got me interested. For the longest time I assumed it was on consoles or something, now that I know there's a source port I'll have to check it out.

You'll have a good time with it. If you're going in totally fresh, it's worth noting: Marathon 1 is quirky but has the best writing, Marathon 2 is a run-and-gun blast but has the weakest story, Marathon Infinity is backwards-talking-midget crazy but is the most consistently challenging.

# ¿ Mar 26, 2013 02:30

DoombatINC: Apr 20, 2003; Here's the thing, I'm a feminist.

Fergus Mac Roich posted:

Holy moly, the name of that was the WSTE-M? They don't make em like they used to.

Yeah, the weapons include the WSTE-M shotgun, the SPNKR rocket launcher and the TOZT flamethrower.

Now you've got me lookin' at youtubes of akimbo shotgun action I HOPE YOU'RE HAPPY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cXitbENwro

# ¿ Mar 26, 2013 02:50

DoombatINC: Apr 20, 2003; Here's the thing, I'm a feminist.

RyokoTK posted:

Anyway, the point of Infinity is that the player somehow gains the ability to travel through time,

I thought it was Thoth himself who was sending you through space and time to prevent you from waking him, but I could be wrong because what the gently caress Infinity. What I never worked out was who was actually talking to you via the terminals that only exist in your dreams -- was it Thoth, another AI, the Lovecraftian monster inside the sun, or your own tortured subconscious reliving fragments of your life from when you were human? I'd continue but it's getting hard to see through the blood pouring from my eye sockets.

Edit: You know, the first game had the Gheritt White terminal show up apropos of nothing, I should be hardened to this poo poo by now.

DoombatINC fucked around with this message at 05:35 on Mar 26, 2013

# ¿ Mar 26, 2013 05:27

DoombatINC: Apr 20, 2003; Here's the thing, I'm a feminist.

hippieman posted:

And yes, I put that god damned puzzle back in. Sue me.

And here I thought you were fixing mistakes, not reintroducing them :mad:

# ¿ Mar 26, 2013 20:28

DoombatINC: Apr 20, 2003; Here's the thing, I'm a feminist.

Could it possibly have been the authentic DOS computer software and triumph of gaming that was Assassinators?

If it's not it probably should have been. This FPS was published by Memorex of all goddamn people and was available at fine drug stores everywhere. The different characters changed your starting weapons but I'm not sure if they changed their late-game weapons because I could never make it far enough in to find out before I'd die laughing at this ridiculous thing. I think my copy is still on a CD spindle around here, I'll have to dig it out some time -- it was, after all, the first FPS I ever played ironically.

Fact: while looking for this game's box art, the GIS also contained box images for Brink and Bet on Soldier and it reminded me that boy howdy I've bought a lot of questionable FPSes.

DoombatINC fucked around with this message at 02:36 on Apr 4, 2013

# ¿ Apr 4, 2013 02:33

DoombatINC: Apr 20, 2003; Here's the thing, I'm a feminist.

Shadowmorn posted:

Holy crap what. This game looks utterly off its rocker.

This game was pioneering poo poo. I mean, who else in 1998 could claim such amazing features as "sloped surfaces," "four times the pixels," or of course "become a killer tree," a feature now so common it's almost cliche.

kirbysuperstar posted:

Oh sweet, it has an A.S.S. camera. Also Memorex? As in the CD-R manufacturers?

Yeah, that Memorex.

# ¿ Apr 4, 2013 02:45

DoombatINC: Apr 20, 2003; Here's the thing, I'm a feminist.

Chinese Tony Danza posted:

Aww, you got my hopes up. I thought this was an FPS I'd never heard of. Sadly, looking closely at the screenshots on the box it looks like this was just a repackaged release of "In Pursuit of Greed."

I'm sorry to disappoint

If you want to talk FPSes you've probably never heard of, how about Lunicus?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lhWGjkfGwo

Ten year old me loved this game. I got it for five bucks in a Costco software bin and spent a whole summer walking eight feet at a time and turning in 90 degree angles. It's got mouse aim, vehicle sections, dialogue trees - why would a game with this much going for it in 1993 be totally forgotten? One, it cost about a hundred bucks at release. Two, well, did you watch the trailer?

Or what about one I've had the hardest time tracking down, Sensory Overload?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVKaQcJgeS0

I had the demo for this growing up and played it endlessly. This video shows off the gameplay pretty well, but there isn't any sound, which is a shame because the sound design was maybe the best part of the game. This video has awful footage but shows off the great audio -- the music was rocking, the gunshots were fierce, the enemy deaths were gruesome, and the player sounded alternatingly like Otto from The Simpsons and a helium fart.

Edit: oh my god I totally forgot Sensory Overload had offhand melee and grenades, between that and Marathon apparently it was illegal in the 90's for Mac FPSes to NOT predict future gaming conventions.

DoombatINC fucked around with this message at 06:37 on Apr 4, 2013

# ¿ Apr 4, 2013 06:17

DoombatINC: Apr 20, 2003; Here's the thing, I'm a feminist.

Chinese Tony Danza posted:

Wow, I had never heard of either of these. Lunicus looks like it's pretty completely terrible, but Sensory Overload looks and sounds pretty interesting. The clickable buttons in the elevator is a feature that I don't recall seeing in another FPS until Doom 3 or so. What other Mac exclusive FPSes do you know of? I know next to nothing about early Mac stuff, so all I knew about were Pathways Into Darkness and the Marathon series.

I've mentioned all of these individually before and some day plan on doing a proper effortpost on the subject, but my favorite ones to bust out are what you might call the other Marathon trilogy. There were three games that licensed the Marathon 2 engine in the mid-90's and, while not strictly Mac-exclusive (two of them had PC ports), they were developed for the Mac first and foremost. What I love about them is that they took the same hokey, buggy FPS engine and made three distinctly different games.

The most famous one would probably be ZPC, or long title, Zero Population Count: No Flesh Shall Be Spared

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CsxiqKPBVA

ZPC used the M2 engine to make a dystopian sci-fi shooter where you played as a the messiah slaughtering your way through a KMFDM music video. I've beaten this game and lemmie tell ya, there is just not an appealing level in this entire thing. The art direction is amazing and the gameplay isn't bad, but nearly every level is so crude that it feels like they blew the entire budget on Brute Propaganda and had to outsource the levels to a sixth grader that just learned how to use Forge. See the oval stone tablet at 5:52? -- those items are kept in inventory and consumed whenever you save your game, because apparently Zombie thought M2's level checkpoint system was letting people off too easy.

ZPC was one of the two ported to PC, the other being Damage Incorporated

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HlA2ULmn2UM

Damage Incorporated used the M2 engine to make a gritty, realistic tactical shooter where you and a squad of soldiers wipe out domestic right-wing threats while quoting metal songs. Seriously, in most of the levels you're fighting the KKK, gun-hoarding fascists and a proto-Tea Party group called The Minutemen while your squadmates scream Sabbath lyrics. It's a fun game to boot, with surprisingly effective squad control, multiple ammo types for many weapons, realistic levels and endlessly quotable squadmates (which you don't hear in that video because he doesn't have the voice pack, the fool)

The audio in the Damage Inc video is off because the more obscure the game, naturally, the shittier the YouTube. With that, I bring you the most obscure of the three, Prime Target

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=soTrYpmm8uQ

Prime Target used the M2 engine to make a non-linear near future shooter based on every low budget 80's action movie ever. You play the role of Dirk "Motherfucker" America ⁽¹⁾ whose girlfriend is being held hostage in the capitol building. You, your Beretta and your exploding shirt (your armor status is no bullshit displayed by how much of your shirt has exploded off) launch a one man assault against gangs of convicts, ninjas, crazy motherfuckers with ice guns and, the most sinister enemy of all, white guys in suits. Of the three this is the only one I've never beaten, and that's only because the Mac I was playing it on poo poo the bed when I was halfway through. What I did play I remember being campy, colorful and incredibly entertaining.

(1): I assume that's his name, I mean, look at the title screen:

# ¿ Apr 5, 2013 05:51

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 00:54

DoombatINC: Apr 20, 2003; Here's the thing, I'm a feminist.

NovaPolice posted:

(fire and ice mercenaries! colorful ninjas! giant men who take more bullets because of muscles! skinheads in chains and tattered tees!)

Haha, how could I forget about the giant guys? I loved that they were, like, eight feet tall, easily weighed three hundred pounds, slung a full-sized Uzi like a pistol and wore bright neon pinstripe suits that would've made a 90's Batman movie blush at the campiness. They're easy to overlook when there's fuckin' Godfrey Ho ninjas and flamethrower Bruce Willises popping out from every corner. The ninjas show up in the first level and the skinhead convicts show up in the second, so you can tell they didn't have a gently caress to give right from the start.

And the acid shotgun shells in Damage Inc didn't confuse me as much as the acid 9mm Beretta rounds, or how in the entire gently caress the player was pumping those shotguns one-handed -- I've actually tried it (because of that game, no less) and it doesn't work for poo poo

Edit: I still have the top Damage Inc box floating around here somewhere. The muzzle flare is the only thing embossed, which told junior high me at Circuit City "Oh, so this game is just shooting." Quickest ten bucks I ever spent. Plus the Prime Target box tells you everything you need to know: if you put this CD in your computer, things will never stop being awesome.

Edit2: the Damage Inc site has not changed since I last checked it over a decade ago gently caress yeah

DoombatINC fucked around with this message at 06:48 on Apr 5, 2013

# ¿ Apr 5, 2013 06:43

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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