the first person shooter game thread (eew fps)

[Air Master Burst]

On the subject of gibs, it's time once again to bring up my two favorite boomer shooters:

My best friend and I spent a good portion of the summer of either 94 or 95 playing Strife, and we'd take turns punch daggering civilians to see who could get the holding-the-guts-in dying animation to loop the most times before they'd drop. It could take a while if RNG was on your side!

Quarantine gives you an ejector seat button to use on any fares who hassle you (or just for funsies!), and the impact leaves a mangled body you can then run over repeatedly. Bonus points for also introducing the side window view SMG drive-by half a decade before GTA3 made it trendy.

[Lander]

On the topic of console shooters, I've been catching up on the Turok games by way of Nightdive's remasters.

1 and 2 specifically - two of the bigger white whales that never made the jump from tantalizing teasers on the back of my N64 box to concrete occupants of my shelf.
I played plenty of Rage Wars in couch multiplayer, so got a taste of Iguana's expert weapon design acumen, but never had chance to dig into their SP stuff.

Turok: Dinosaur Hunter was a fun blast, but roughshod and with a prototypical feel. You can tell that the studio was still feeling out their paticular brand of Mario 64 With Killin', since it's heavy on the platforming and big-map collectible hunting, but gates the levels in sets of two to maintain a semblance of combat balance.
Rather comically, it has only one instance of their signature "come back with X tool" in the entire game; an optional minigun pickup behind some rocks in level 2 that needs to be blown up with the grenade launcher first accessible in level 4.
Overall good stuff, with some quality bosses and weapons to be had, but a tad overlong, and it no doubt would have been more fun had I experienced it in my formative years.

I'm only one level into Turok 2: Seeds of Evil, having cleared out Port of Adia, but so far it seems like something special. A massive improvement across the board in terms of design and polish.
The combat and enemies are particularly impressive - animations are numerous and buttah smooth, and it has The Dance that Halo would go on to be lauded for; a slower-moving neutral game with complex, reactive foes who feel like Elites before Elites.
And hell yes, these are the guns I remember. Still early days, but the auto-max-charge Tek Bow scope and dude-launching explosive shotgun rounds are incredibly satisfying, as is popping heads with a well placed handgun shot.

The way you can pincushion a dude with arrows, then leap past him and yank them back out for another salvo while he's still alive... Mwah. That's the Turok gameplay I'm looking for.

A young fresh-faced rocker just getting used to the accoutrements of being More Popular Than Jesus:
...
A podgy-before-his-time despot, wise old friends scorned for a fawning court of fools, on the eve of a personal Rubicon to make Caesar weep in pity:

Optimized Control Ball, perfect for fiddling while Rome burns
I appreciate how JR's post-fall evolution has culminated at Dude, Abiding; the industry's cool videogame uncle with ever-more-floofy rockstar hair.

What on earth was the N-Gage project? I remember Wolf / Doom RPG being the tits back in the days of J2ME and Burakuberi, but that would have been id.

BLOOD

Pestis Cruento. The Planescape: Torment of BUILD shooters, hallowed be its name and finely-wrought sadism.

There's a certain craft to Blood, a commitment to the horrorsploitation bit that saturates the whole design beyond the aesthetic and Stephan Weyte's god-tier maniacal VO.
Monolith's most polished work, by my measure - one of those games that tangibly wants to murder you while cackling gleefully, but hits that fair knife-edge balance where a canny gunslinger can turn the tables.
Even more impressive is that it does so with an esoteric weapon / enemy set that takes a hard left-turn from the classic id design tropes!

And then there's the Death Wish TC, which is some of the best work ever done in the engine, and arguably even more Blood then Blood. Well worth a trip via the NBlood source port.

[Air Master Burst]

Monolith's most polished work, by my measure

The first F.E.A.R. takes this crown for me, but Blood is a worthy choice for sure; and the fact that they have at least 4 games that could make a credible claim to that title is testament to how great Monolith used to be. (The other ones are NOLF2 and AVP2, but I'm pretty sure licensing issues guarantee we won't see a port or remaster of either any time soon)

[Lander]

FEAR could definitely take it from the view of core mechanics, but the classic complaint of samey environments knocks it down a bit for me.
I've only had brief brushes with NOLF and AVP - ought to remedy that, now I think about it - though the latter seemed to nail the atmosphere from what little I saw of the marine campaign.

Speaking of bicycle kicking dudes in the face while detonating mid-flight grenades with bullet time, it's time for the bi-annual Is Trepang2 Out Yet? check...
What do you know, it's allegedly just 3 weeks away!

[Air Master Burst]

Don't sleep on the Condemned games, either.

Trepang2 has me hopeful! Bright Memory is great and all but it's basically a first-person character action game and doesn't scratch the same itch as F.E.A.R.

[Blinge]

Anyone got hands on the System Shock remake?

wasn't sure if this was the right thread to post it in.
journos say it's good.
but.. yknow.. who trust them

[drauch]

I got it day of but haven't had much time. Very faithful to the original in layout so far--at least on the first deck, which is all I've had a chance to fook with. As with the demo, I kinda hate how dumb they made the zombie-things. They were deadly aggressive in the original and this they kind of just shamble towards you. Minor complaint. Music is more brooding and atmospheric, which is a welcome addition to the more up-tempo electronic sound of before. I'm pretty confident if you like the first (or just 'immersive sims' [god I hate that term]) you'll like it. I know they took so damn long because they were getting off track of their remake vision with too many new changes, then made a pr announcement that they were essentially restarting to remain faithful to the original. Glad they did it so people will finally fuckin' play it and stop bitching about the controls or 'dated' graphics or whatever tomfoolery.

[Lander]

I assume they got rid of the system where the MIDI would modulate itself based on various imperceptible simulation parameters, like how pissed SHODAN is at you?

Either way, I hope the reactor deck theme is still brutally down-tuned.

[Lethe]

Went back to Blood to play Death Wish after Lander's mentioning above. It really is a remarkable channeling of the essence of Blood, the tone and pacing, while driving the scope and creativity to absurd levels. I won't talk too much in specifics as it's the kind of thing that should be experienced unspoiled. Many parts of E1, the start and end of E2, and E3M5 are outstanding (the latter being one of the most entertaining maps to play as well).

However... that's not to say that it consistently plays fun. Most of these maps are huge and as soon as the size:gimmick ratio plummeted in mid-episode 2 it started to feel tedious. DW isn't notably harder than the original game thanks to the amount of ordnance it hands out, but blind Blood play on Well Done (Christ forbid Extra Crispy) is always going to be a cautious survival experience, even when nothing special is going on and I'm crawling through a relatively mundane crypt or cave for 30 minutes. Simultaneously with three episodes - fourth on the way apparently - and how big the maps are I'm never going to bother learning all of it so I can play faster. Many attempts are made to throw in sudden moments of panic or catharsis via arena fights, with mixed success. The nature of Blood's enemy lineup means there's an extremely fine line between "just enough space" and "far too much space". As long as Fanatics aren't present, it doesn't matter how many enemies you put in a big room, Caleb's going to have a trivial time running rings around them and they're likely to end up decimating each other anyway.

It's the kind of mod that's probably best played on a lower difficulty because most of the entertainment comes from the spectacle/exploration/scenario side and not any particularly clever gameplay. But a lot of that spectacle is great!

[guigui]

I never could really get into a FPS game yet, except maybe Bioshock and Fallout New Vegas if you call it FPS, but then got a bit bored by the end. Tried and dropped Doom 3 (too slow), Metro (too linear, did not really care about story).

Guess maybe I need more frantic action so I may be tempted by modern DOOM.

Knowing that I'm playing on the Switch only and will probably play only one of them, which one do you recommend : 2016 or Eternal ?
Or maybe another FPS game here that could get its gripe on me ?

[Lemnear]

Titanfall 2 (2016)(Campaign) -> FPS Genre.
EVERY other things is mediocre-FPS compared to this one.

[Lander]

For Doom, I'd pick 2016 over Eternal if you're still approaching the genre. Eternal is awesome, but it's the Ninja Gaiden II of FPS; no mercy, especially for the uninitiated. Better appreciated once you've got a handle on the various genre conventions it goes out of its way to break.

I'll second Lemnear's Titanfall 2 reccomendation - one of the all-time great FPS campaigns. Modern and linear in style, but super tight on all fronts. Absolute crime that the studio got punted down the Battle Royale mines instead of doubling down for a threequel.

On smaller productions, you can't go wrong with DUSK if you're looking for something frantic and a less linear; very much an oldschool throwback in the vein of Quake and Blood. Fast movement, no hitscan enemies, a bit of key hunting but not too mazy, and great level design / episode progression.

[Austin]

Definitely 2016 over Eternal. If you end up enjoying it, then play Eternal when you're done. Both are great games, but the later requires a crazy amount of systems memorization and micro management, and as such it takes a while to get the hang of. 2016 has a little bit of that with its chainsaw and glory kills, but overall it's much more straightforward and to the point. Oh, and if you're stuck on the Switch, 2016 probably performs better than Eternal.

To complement Dusk, I recommend Amid Evil (I personally prefer it). It can get slower/more puzzle-like in the late game, but the earlier levels are fast and frantic. It's good stuff. Apparently the new Warhammer Boltgun is stupid-fun in a '90s kind of way as well and has been getting good reviews.

[Sima Tuna]

I never could really get into a FPS game yet, except maybe Bioshock and Fallout New Vegas if you call it FPS, but then got a bit bored by the end. Tried and dropped Doom 3 (too slow), Metro (too linear, did not really care about story).

Guess maybe I need more frantic action so I may be tempted by modern DOOM.

Knowing that I'm playing on the Switch only and will probably play only one of them, which one do you recommend : 2016 or Eternal ?
Or maybe another FPS game here that could get its gripe on me ?

OG DOOM
OG DOOM II
OG QUAKE
DUKE 3D
F.E.A.R.

Then maybe check out some of the nightdive ported stuff, like Turok or Powerslave. Can't be certain you'd enjoy them, but you could check them out. Crysis is a modern game but it's pretty fun. I forgot about DUSK. It's on my to-play list. Seems heavily Quake and Painkiller inspired.

Everything you're saying pushes you away from FPS (too slow, too linear, pointless story) are concepts from newer FPS. You could go for the newer dooms of course, but those are more arena shooters in design than old-school linear levels. A lot of people say doom 2016 and doom eternal are old school and they kinda are, but they're borrowing more from Serious Sam than from DOOM or QUAKE.

If you want constant action mixed with some light puzzle solving (barely puzzle solving, more like find the keycard,) then I recommend the original games that started the whole genre. Unfortunately, BLOOD, Shadow Warrior, Rise of the Triad and Unreal are not available on Switch. But the switch does have some nice boomer shooters. The version of Duke 3d on there is a cursed Randy edition, but at least it still contains the OG episodes, which are the best content imo. Losing the beach DLC sucks though.

The version of Quake on Switch fucking fantastic. You have a bunch of extra episodes and I believe it has mod support if you register an account. I never bothered because I hate hate hate registering gamer accounts. You don't need an account to play Quake or to play the episodes. Dimension of the Machine is an extremely impressive modern episode that demonstrates how much can be done within the Quake engine, even now.

If you want something closer to Fallout New Vegas or Bioshock (which are immersive sims more than FPS,) then you could check out Prey 2017 or Dishonored.

If you want a modern "shooty shoot" looter RPG then Borderlands 2 is probably still the best of the lot, despite it's hilarious poor drop rates. Or, if you're like me and give no fucks about interface, you could go for the OG Borderlands 1, with its far superior loot system.

For balls-out action, I think the original (((boomer shooters))) (aka doomlikes) can't be beaten. Modern throwback attempts can be ok but they also frequently showcase instances of marketers falsely advertising one game as another to make sales. Wolfenstein New Order and Wolfenstein 2 New Colossus are not old-school boomer shooters. They can be fun games though and you might enjoy them.

[guigui]

Thanks for all the answers you people, definitely love this community.

I'll go for DOOM 2016 over Eternal for sure ; though now the other answers made me wonder what I'm actually seeking in an FPS game ?

What made me keep playing New Vegas until the end what the sense of freedom and exploration, well written story and characters, and the fact that I loved the original Fallout 1 and 2 from which this one came close in those terms. But actually not the FPS battle viewpoint.

What made me drop Metro and DOOM 3 is the same that made me drop The Last of Us : too linear, dont care about story, bored.

So now I realise I almost never played an FPS game for what it is supposed to be done : destroy foes and survive ?
I think the few times I tried this, for instance with Quake and Duke 3D on the Switch, I ended up dying very early, with no real improvment on my gameplay that I could see. After a few more tries and deaths at the same points, I just dropped it. There must be something I'm missing in the whole genre here ...

[Lander]

Dusk's conceit is all in the studio name: New Blood. Though how well it succeeds in that specific sense is up for debate; I didn't find it particularly Blood-like outside of certain aesthetics and the genre link, but it's great fun in its own right.
The movement's fairly Painkiller-y, though the rest is mostly Quake I guess - straightforward arsenal, distinct workhorse baddies. The level design is kind of hard to quantify; it's got more variety and unique geometry than most of the id Tech / Build stuff, and goes some crazy places in the later episodes.

I enjoyed Amid Evil too, though lean more toward Dusk. AE is awesome to look at, has great designs and a nifty arsenal, but felt a little less cohesive on the whole - higher highs and lower lows. (And the best weapon sprites in the biz, phwoarr )
I think it was mainly in the rushmob-heavy enemy comp and open map layout. More potential to get lost and wander into a secret when you were expecting the critical path, which has always been a personal bugbear.

Though both feature Big John, so you can't really go wrong.
I'm here, kill me! Ngaugh, girly man!

What made me keep playing New Vegas until the end what the sense of freedom and exploration, well written story and characters, and the fact that I loved the original Fallout 1 and 2 from which this one came close in those terms. But actually not the FPS battle viewpoint.

What made me drop Metro and DOOM 3 is the same that made me drop The Last of Us : too linear, dont care about story, bored.

So now I realise I almost never played an FPS game for what it is supposed to be done : destroy foes and survive ?
I think the few times I tried this, for instance with Quake and Duke 3D on the Switch, I ended up dying very early, with no real improvment on my gameplay that I could see. After a few more tries and deaths at the same points, I just dropped it. There must be something I'm missing in the whole genre here ...

Bethesda Fallout is definitely more about the RPG than it is the shooting. FO4 made a point of trying to improve the gunplay, but still ended up with an experience best served with generous lashings of V.A.T.S.

Quake and Duke 3D are both great choices for pure action FPS. If you've already got them, I'd say take another swing. Quake is probably better played first; it's about as fundamental as you can get for the genre, and has aged like wine.
Duke's great too, but is a more eccentric and mazelike affair with some rougher edges.

On the genre as a whole:
Try to stay on the move most of the time. Circle strafing will beat most projectile enemies, backpedaling will beat melee rushers, and popping in and out of cover will deal with hitscanners (i.e. enemies with instant-hit weapons, like the grunts in Quake, zombies in Doom, and everything from the PS360 generation ) - learning how and when to apply those strategies will deal with a large portion of encounters in most games. Some get subversive and have enemies lead their shots or otherwise interfere with the tried-and-true methods, but that gets into more advanced case-specific play.

And I wouldn't recommend trying to 1-life clear stages until you have map knowledge and mechanical familiarity under your belt. Encounter design is harsh, particularly in truly old-school boomer shooters, and will happily punish mistakes with a whopping damage penalty that may end up unrecoverable if you don't know where the secret Mega Health is. Even worse in a game that strips your weapons on death.
That is to say, don't be hesitant to quicksave your own checkpoints between fights and load them back for another go if the butcher's bill is too high. The degree of brutality varies by game (Blood and Ion Fury in particular take great pleasure in it), but the baseline is high enough that F5-F7 tends to be integral for a fun first play.

[Sima Tuna]

Old-school FPS are very much like shmups. The goal is to avoid damage and kill everything while managing your resources effectively. If you're dying a lot, maybe think about what killed you and why. Games like QUAKE will tell you what it was that killed you. Died to a grenade? Okay, well that's a slow-moving, but unpredictable, bouncy projectile. Maybe move faster (you can check your sprint button or set autosprint in options) while strafing in wide arcs the grenade can't follow. Got shredded by a machinegun? Sometimes machine gun enemies are hitscan (well, usually they are.) So that means the enemy was able to LOOK at you for too long without you doing anything. Next time, break line of sight. Create cover. Kill it fast.

You'll learn to prioritize enemies over time. You'll figure out which enemies are dangerous and which can be safely juked for long periods of times. For example, if I ask Lander which order to kill these enemies in:

Imp
Pinky Demon
Chaingunner
Revenant

In DOOM II, he'll probably come up with an answer that's very, VERY similar to what I would post.

Some people don't enjoy learning a game where death is part of the learning process. But if you're on shmups forum then you're already over that hurdle. What's fun about old-school FPS?

-You move fast
-You kill shit and it explodes into chunks
-You're always on the edge of death, no matter how many resources you've stockpiled
-Weapons have very little downtime but long uptime, so you're almost always actively managing threats (rather than reloading)

Save states are there to be used, so don't try to one-life the game, as Lander said. There are Archvile traps and shit which are clearly intended to kill you the first time you see them.

[Lander]

Hmm. For a general ordering:

Chaingunner - Can melt you from far away with hitscan dakka. Max threat, kill immediately.
Revenant - Homing rockets stack up and aggressively interfere with movement, kill second.
Imp - Lowest common denominator projectile baddie comes next.
Pinky - Slow tank with easy to evade melee, save for last unless you're in particularly tight quarters.

Though it changes based on things like terrain or enemy comp - if there's more projectile danger than total enemy health on the field, it may be better to thin the ranks with a power weapon before going after the big threats. But hitscanners almost always have to die first!

[Sima Tuna]

Hmm. For a general ordering:

Chaingunner - Can melt you from far away with hitscan dakka. Max threat, kill immediately.
Revenant - Homing rockets stack up and aggressively interfere with movement, kill second.
Imp - Lowest common denominator projectile baddie comes next.
Pinky - Slow tank with easy to evade melee, save for last unless you're in particularly tight quarters.

Though it changes based on things like terrain or enemy comp - if there's more projectile danger than total enemy health on the field, it may be better to thin the ranks with a power weapon before going after the big threats. But hitscanners almost always have to die first!

Exactly how I would have ordered it, and even with the same caveat I'd have given about types of rooms. Pinkies do become more obnoxious in tiny, narrow spaces, as do Revs.

Proof there is universally applicable strategy to these games. Fie on those who think this genre is mindless!

[BIL]

Haha, spot-on. I'd nail the Chaingunner (weenie HP + br00tal area-denying hitscan = easy pick), while strafing away from Boney-kun's rawkets, which also takes care of the scrub brigade's attacks. Then get to work on the three of them in that order. Maybe even steer a heatseeker into Pinky n' Impy if ammo's scarce, since it'll be shadowing me aggressively.

Of course a sufficiently fiendish stage design might upend this, hence DOOM being the GOAT via user WADs. Sometimes even official WADs. Chaingunner-sempai's infamous lack of regard for fellow demons - even HE OWN KIN - makes him quite the handy turret, although he'll get the shit slapped out of him pretty quick if left to fend for himself! Dodging is blasphemy to his code of war



OL' PAINLESS SENKI: CHAPTER OF HOLY BROTHER WAR (｀ω´メ) (he STAND UP 4 HE FRIEN )

[drauch]

Yeah, I wouldn't consider Dusk like Blood at all. I love it, but it's a different beast and more akin to Quake if anything, just kinda thematically similar to Blood. Cultic, however, is the child Blood always needed. It's so goddamn good and plays like a dream. Weapons all have that OOMPH weight to them and that crunchity-crack that melts cultist scum and blows them apart. Level design is tight and well-thought out. Only one episode out atm and eagerly awaiting the next. It's a real labor-of-love.

[BIL]

My lords, I am finding these Nightdive console reissues with full KBM support most likable (｀w´メ) KBM is fundamental

Quake II Outta Nowhere

Not the least because I never got around to either of its official expansions BITD! Also includes a brand-new expansion, just like DOOM and Quake's previous releases. While it was always a slower and more cinematically-minded affair than the Bunnyhop Body Explosion of the original, sometime that is just what is needed!

Man I hope they do Hexen II, now that one I really do dig with its secret-imperative stage design. When I bust a hole in stained glass only to find a dire staircase winding downward, and a mahfuckin torrent of spiders comes screeching out, I get the REAL MEDIEVAL FANTASY PEST CONTROL FEEL

[Udderdude]

Heretic II! Let's see that one. Would require MS to actually buy Activision, though.

I like what they did with the spikey arm enemy in Quake II. They actually are a serious threat now.

[Lander]

Quake II Outta Nowhere

Not the least because I never got around to either of its official expansions BITD! Also includes a brand-new expansion, just like DOOM and Quake's previous releases. While it was always a slower and more cinematically-minded affair than the Bunnyhop Body Explosion of the original, sometime that is just what is needed!

Neat. Surprising how much of a grasp Q2 has on my nostalgia; all my conscious series love is directed at the odd-numbered titles, but dusty N64-era neural pathways are lighting up at the cacophony of hyperblaster fire, TRESPASSAH, and best-in-class rocket launcher grindclang. They never topped that original incarnation of Railgun either. Q3's is a pure functional instagib machine, but can't beat the blue-white spiral and PEYOW (implied ka-chik) refire cycle of its pappy.

I remember upgrading from infrequently-borrowed N64 cart to bought-and-owned Mega Value Pak PC Edish (feat. Bad Boxart), and being struck by the totally different campaign, all-time-great metal soundtrack, and that one weird as hell developer room you can stumble into during the final escape sequence. Holds up as one of the more cutting inside-baseball easter eggs, I think - heebie-jeebie inducing for the uninitiated, and a twisted kind of tragic for those in the know. Game development ain't all fun and games, kid

[Nugs]

And it's all a free update if you already own the game on steam!

Not sure if I played through the campaign back in the day, so will have to do that.
I think I was too busy playing online. Action Quake 2 was my jam.

[Marc]

I believevat also includes the N64 version, which is a neat curio.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

The singleplayer campaign of N64 Quake II was pretty interesting; unlike the browns and oranges of the original, it focuses heavily on blues, and the map design feels quite a bit different. Not quite as impressive as the design in Doom 64's maps, but still pretty fun. The only downside is the end portion of it. There's literally no Makron fight, the final boss is one of those big flyer guys that you originally fought halfway through the game at the Big Gun. Ah well.

[Marc]

I'm playing Doom 64 at the moment. It's..... odd. Possibly the best aesthetics of the classic series, but it's quite a bit more puzzle based. Interesting, for sure.

[BIL]

Oh hell yeah, N64 Quake II is indeed here; so much content I forgot to mention. (at the same time, quite expected, with DOOM 64 and Quake 64's excellent treatments)

I loved Q264 back in the day; much punchier, OG DOOMier stage design, compared to the PC ver's more spaciously atmospheric environments. I never did bother with the Expansion Pak's high resolution mode... actually, I can't recall a single game that supported it without cratering its framerate. So this is definitely a nice upgrade.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

I'm playing Doom 64 at the moment. It's..... odd. Possibly the best aesthetics of the classic series, but it's quite a bit more puzzle based. Interesting, for sure.

Oh, the aesthetics are definitely top-notch. The level design is really good too, but I suspect it's more puzzle focused and less action packed due at least in part to the N64's hardware limitations. Probably couldn't quite manage large enemy hordes to the same extent as the classic games. Quake II's N64 port felt the same way I think too.

I never did bother with the Expansion Pak's high resolution mode... actually, I can't recall a single game that supported it without cratering its framerate.

There were zero games worth playing in High Resolution mode. Plenty supported it like Vigilate 8: 2nd Offense, but it invariably hurt the framerate with negligible improvement in graphics. The only real reason to get an Expansion Pak was to play Perfect Dark, IMO (which required it, otherwise you could only play a stripped down version of multiplayer with untextured bots, iirc).