the first person shooter game thread (eew fps)

[Ed Oscuro]

Sounds like Capcom was running an actual beta, while the newest CoD was running an early demo.

[Ed Oscuro]

I'm also wondering if I'm getting more cynical, or whether I'm starting to understand what the "shitty engine licensees" comment in Reelism was really about, referring to Raven Software. I still like a fair amount of their stuff just fine, but the '00s weren't really their golden age outside of maybe Hexen / Heretic games (and I've pointed out Heretic II has a weak ending), and maybe some other stuff like the Star *license* games (Trek / Wars), possibly, which aren't exceptional in truth but do have their moments.

But, back on track: I finished up Soldier of Fortune and didn't feel pushed by it, except where it comes to ammo use and therefore being limited to the sniper rifle for the first half of the game, and the heavy machine gun for the second. It's a classic design failing of many old FPSes that incentivize ammo hoarding so much that you end up being more frugal with ammunition than the designers intended - in this case, though, I found it was justified as I was running out of assault rifle ammunition in the snow stage until I played through a second time and stuck to the sniper rifle - suddenly I had ammunition topped off with every fresh drop. There is other good stuff here: The final stages of the game have many good moments, and some real secrets even show up in the German levels - unfortunately accompanied by a generally annoying stage design and a ridiculous end boss fight which I still haven't mastered - it didn't help I took along the wrong weapons into the final fight, but given the huge piles of autoshotgun ammo and microwave batteries I wasn't able to use effectively, I wonder what the hell they were thinking as these things don't seem to be any help. Also, is that some MGS2 instant death water in the sub pen? Alas, the game showed itself up again in the final stretch, failing to show the final boss cut-in-half sequence the first time through. Guess I can't feel too bad about the rabid water and the invincible cannons then.

SoF II is pretty much just as I remembered it, and I realize I had already read these salty but justified comments on the game after playing through again, using a custom difficulty level to keep the hardest difficulty and (perhaps stupidly) weapon inaccuracy while getting rid of limited weapons. I've noticed most of these things for myself, like grenades magically exploding *just* as they reach you. Strangely, most of these problems seemed to hit just after the nice opening to the Colombian levels, and then fade away later, which is where my enthusiasm for the game flags considerably - it's at this point that Raven crammed all the game's problems into one excruciating section, from which the game never really recovers a player's esteem.

First problem: level of detail fuckery with the foliage. Enemies can't notice you beyond a certain long distance - at which you can snipe with impunity so long as you can see them - but they will only be a few pixels tall even at 1600x1200 then, and it is annoying to AK snipe at that distance, and simply unreasonable to try with a real sniper rifle due to the foliage pop-in.
Second problem: Enemies spawning in plain sight.
Third problem: Grenades magically exploding just as they reach you.
Fourth problem: Damage sponge enemies.
Fifth problem: Obnoxious on-rails shooting segment - the early truck shooting stage is a good challenge, but in Colombia, on the very initial approach I noticed my helicopter's health bar falling away like water from a leaky pail, rapidly, so that in roughly 5-10 seconds I was dead. Bonus SoF II sign of excellence: Mullins fell out of the chopper, head over heels, and got stuck in a loop of screaming for a while, about as long as the chopper survived in fact.
Sixth problem: Sneaky Raven put a moral quandary into the mansion level - I'm not sure you're actually supposed to avoid detection by the maid. To shoot or not shoot? Not exactly the stuff of heroism, as presented here, but I think it was intentional all the same.

Still, the game redeems itself occasionally - the combat-free plague village level is really well done and one of the more well-executed "psychological" things in a FPS before the Call of Duty era.

The SDA comments rightly note the wpn_inaccuracy variable sucks, though I'm not actually sure how much this plays a role compared to enemy tankiness and possibly armor. By the Hong Kong levels, I don't have a problem with a female enemy fighting on after taking a hit to her right lung, but it is strange that suddenly we're using a relatively weak weapon and shredding heads with ease, whereas in the Colombian levels taking people down with the AK-74 was a problem.

For a slow playthrough, some areas work fine - I still like the opening greatly, but now I'm just basically rushing through with God mode on now, looking for curious things like bystanders picking up micro-Uzis. The ship, which was a horrible maze for me the first few times through, was much easier this time, though I can't say it was much of a favorite (compare the long-winded mission here to the effective but brief treatment of basically the same concept in Call of Duty 4: MW). Now that the level-of-detail abusing foliage and annoying visible enemy spawns / game controlled grenade timers of the Colombian levels are gone, things should be more playable again, but the game soured me on it a bit and I'm less willing to put up with the crap now. I have the sneaky feeling that they were close to getting the difficulty progression right, but that'd be for a game with shorter missions like a SWAT title - not the typical epic level romps of the average big box FPS that this aspires to be.

In closing, SDA notes that SoF II was "inspired by tactical shooters such as Counter-Strike and Rainbow Six." In my mind, Raven wasn't able to really rethink what they were doing - perhaps a victim of a shortened dev cycle, but just as likely a failure of imagination. In that, I have to admit that Raven belongs solidly in the second tier of PC developers, even during the time thought of as their glory days.

Also, Cheat Central makes me never want to visit again with my visits supporting their asinine clickbait articles like "the Xbox One is going to beat the PS4 now because of backwards compatibility." They did, at least, note that you have to do shift+tilde for the console, and type "setrandom" before "sv_cheats 1" to get the cheats going, which stupid IGN never caught on to. I have no idea why Raven decided to go to this extra step of fuckery, but it wasn't welcome, and every time I revisit the game I have to rediscover it.

[Obiwanshinobi]

SoFII was one of few games to enrich hardware 3D-accelerated stereo sound with software enhancements (the other two I can think of were PoP:TSoT and RSix3), which I thought worked brilliantly with headphones.
The worst thing about SoFII, to me, was the limited number of saves per mission INSTEAD of careful check-pointing. I don't like doing their job for game designers when I play. Sure, Gold allowed me to play with unlimited saves, but that solution was lazy nonetheless.

So it seems Republic Commando-like aspects of Halo 5 are not broken. Tim Longo involved.
I still wish more of it made its way to the PC.

[Obiwanshinobi]

Bumping 'cause I just read CoD: Black Ops III will have a difficulty mode where single hit kills the playable character, which some users on here might be interested in.

[Shepardus]

I'm imagining something like this.

[Obiwanshinobi]

I thought of Operation Flashpoint first... and of Rainbow Six 3 second (one hit your lucky when handicapped, two hits at best - you are no more). The way I thought The Regiment was, but I never got around to playing that.

[Ed Oscuro]

Actually, R6III's difficulty in lone wolf isn't so bad. Equip some decent armor and a hard-hitting suppressed rifle, check your corners, slice some pies, and you're good to go.

Knowing the CoD series, I hope this difficulty setting (which I haven no interest in playing) will mean that some of the auto-assisted damage from standing in the wrong place will be toned down. Given that game series (up through MWIII) is very poor about letting you know you're being shot at (nothing but perhaps a smudge on the screen of an enemy aiming at you through fog) I don't think a hardcore/iron madman mode would work without much better awareness. For example, close shots should ricochet of walls and issue a sharp supersonic crack - the original MW series doesn't bother with this.

But, knowing CoD, they won't do this and you'll just be expected to memorize where you can and can't stand. What trash.

[Obiwanshinobi]

Did anyone here play Shattered Horizon? I didn't, but it was pretty much stillborn anyway (DX10 exclusivity A.D. 2009 meant few had any chance to play it at all, which - multiplayer being the one and only way to experience it - curtailed its appeal even more), but it seems so daring in hindsight!
- Shooting in outer space had already been far out of cool.
- The mechanics were something new I guess (unless it was anything like Descent; I wouldn't have much idea).
- Even if it was about white males gunning down exotic-looking people (I have no idea), it could as well be the other way around with meagre impact on presentation. Someone ought to adapt Red Nails into an MMO. Perhaps the most suggestive Great War innuendo produced by - otherwise deceptively oblivious - post-War culture (I have an idea that all of the "out there" 1918-1939 writing happened so they could not talk about the war).

[Opus131]

One interesting thing about DOOM III is that they reportedly had a gravity gun working even before Half-Life 2 did. They later realized their mistake and one got put in (along with the double-barreled) for the rather half-baked "Resurrection of Evil" expansion, but we know which was the ascendant franchise there.

But Half Life 2 was a dead end too.

[Ruldra]

I don't really care much about FPSes these days, but damn, Overwatch trailers look amazing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UEYp1RTvllM

[Strider77]

Did anyone here play the Shadow Warrior remake?

[Opus131]

Can't really say i care for that art style. Plus, Team Fortress 2 style shooters are not as skill based as Quake or Unreal used to be. So basically, an overtly cartoony casual shooter with a F2P model hidden behind an actual pay wall.

[Opus131]

Did anyone here play the Shadow Warrior remake?

I did. The original is much better. Good for a play through but misses so much from the older game, while trying too hard to replicate the old formula and humor without really hitting the mark.

[soprano1]

Did anyone here play the Shadow Warrior remake?

I did. The original is much better. Good for a play through but misses so much from the older game, while trying too hard to replicate the old formula and humor without really hitting the mark.

This. It tries to do that mid 90's humour and fails at it. Intro sequence with the Transformers Movie song was kinda out of place.

[Squire Grooktook]

Can't really say i care for that art style. Plus, Team Fortress 2 style shooters are not as skill based as Quake or Unreal used to be. So basically, an overtly cartoony casual shooter with a F2P model hidden behind an actual pay wall.

The vast array of unique player characters and abilities and tools they have make this a far more interesting premise then TF2.

Also, not sure that calling it TF2 Styled is valid so early...unless you've already played an early version of it?

[Strider77]

I did. The original is much better. Good for a play through but misses so much from the older game, while trying too hard to replicate the old formula and humor without really hitting the mark.

I enjoyed it..... it has some really nice twitchy combat. Plus I like my inventory old school, where it makes no sense but I get to keep all my guns and stuff all at once. I thought the environments were really nice looking also, lots of color.

I really bought that on a whim and I'm still not sure what motivated me because I was dreading the purchase before I got back in the car. But I was pleasantly surprised. I had some really good showdowns in that game. The humor... it got my to chuckle.

[BIL]

Been messing about with PS1 DOOM the last couple days. More fun than I'd expected - vanilla monsters/weapons bore me on PC but they suit slow, chunky gamepad play just fine, and the lurid audiovisual reworkings are great fun. Love the strafe buttons and extensive control reconfig, too.

What a damn shame they just copy/pasted in the lobotomised Jaguar maps for eps 1-3, though! :[ I'd assumed it was for technical reasons but halfway through II, the only architecture changes I've seen are chopped sector heights on more towering maps (and tbh I prefer the flatter PS1 versions of The Crusher and The Pit... II's flirtation with extreme vertical scale hasn't aged well, among other things). Meanwhile Perfect Hatred (E4M2) shows up nearly unaltered and promptly murders the framerate under a ton of linedefs. Probably a good thing they didn't even attempt They Will Repent or Against Thee Wickedly.

Wish they'd put in a solid effort with eps1-3 and shaved down 4 where needed. I guess they were focusing on the novelty of console DOOM II? So it's an okay-ish port of a game I love and a surprisingly good port of one I'm lukewarm on. Still, a fun bit of series archaeology. I always dig iconic Western properties in NTSJC format too. ALL HELL'S BREAKING LOOSE you say?! Bonus points for inter-game narration that damn near made me spit out my drink. Youtube it or something it's hilarious! AL-VIIIIIIN

[Obiwanshinobi]

I keep waiting for someone's report on Halo 5's friendly AI's relevance. Just how necessary ordering your squadmates about is to complete the game?
I read its resolution fluctuates for the sake of steady performance, the way WipEout HD does. Makes me wonder how many more games do something along those lines.

[TransatlanticFoe]

Re: Halo 5
I'm halfway through and I've only had to issue orders for two things, firstly boss fights - a dude with a weak point on his back. You need to order your squad to attack so he gets distracted and you can nip in behind him. There's usually a heavy weapon nearby so it works well and doesn't take ages

You can also order them to take vehicles. Sometimes they'll do it on their own and sometimes your orders end with two guys fighting over a mongoose. Never had an issue with them doing it on their own in a firefight though.

Rest of the time the AI is solid, though they don't do much. While they don't attack fiercely it means they don't get targeted much and die all the time. Which is nice because you don't end up babysitting the AI or losing because they get torn up. Does seem like the whole thing would be a cakewalk with 4 competent human players though, but single player ends up nicely balanced.

Not noticed any single player graphical issues beyond the odd slightly grainy texture. It looks pretty fantastic the whole time. Multiplayer graphically is disappointing though, doesn't look much difference from Halo 4 and is a noticeable drop from the campaign.

[Obiwanshinobi]

Oh, I thought the dynamic resolution of WipEout HD was a neat trick (if there must be any scaling, it might as well adjust dynamically).
Sounds like there isn't that much of Republic Comando spirit alive in Halo 5 after all. No wonder really, as the similarities between RC and Halo were superficial to boot.

[lilmanjs]

Diving back into the world of Wolf3d Mods has been a fun trip. Spear Reloaded is getting quite hard now and I've only faced 2 bosses and a secret boss on the super secret level. Great level design, and the mine carts are fun. Anyone else here try out some Wolf3d mods?

[Opus131]

This past year or so i've been drawn into the world of Doom and Quake mapping. Must have played dozens already, and there's dozen upon dozen more and many of them are very high quality. Make me wonder why i should bother with modern shooters when the old classics still offer so many goodies.

Next on my schedule: custom maps for Thief, one of my all time favored first person games ever made. If the maps there are as high quality as i hope i'll never leave the house again.

[Edmond Dantes]

I totally agree with your feeling about R6's tactical stuff - the team-based stuff just gets unwieldy and for whatever reason the micromanagement of iterating a waypoint design doesn't appeal to me, when I can take the lessons of the game directly instead. I also wanted to get the entire feeling - running through everything myself, instead of letting the AI have half the fun.

Ironically, in the original Rainbow Six at least, playing this way is the easiest way to beat it.

Speaking as someone who beat both R6 and the Eagle Watch expansion on Elite Mode, I can say that the #1 biggest myth (which I'm not sure whether its still a "myth" in the second and third games, which I never played) is that the planning phase is important at all. The only thing important is that it allows you to get each team to a good starting position so you don't have to walk from the entry point when you take over. Also you should make every other step a waypoint because that way every split-second they're checking for a threat and will shoot it. And never use a named unit... just use reserves all the time.

My knowledge of SWAT4 comes entirely from the Spoony One's Lets Play of it, which might not be online anymore now that Blip shut down, but which was actually what got me interested in Rainbow Six in the first place (because I don't have a machine capable of running SWAT4 but I DID have one capable of running R6). I need to watch that LP again because it was genuinely pretty good. Not great, but fun to watch.

[Khan]

So yea this just happened......

http://www.gamespot.com/articles/system ... n=homepage

Not sure whether to be happy or sad, the ending from what i can remember did leave the possibility of a sequel but like all things nowadays some things are best left alone and the legacy not tainted.

[BIL]

Oh lmao. I take back my compliments of PS1 DOOM. "TEXTURE BUFFER OVERFLOW" with too much going on? Ye fuck that shit, GIT OURRA MA FACE. ITS A FUCKIN COASTER 2 ME NAO. Oh wellz.

Spoiler

BDOOMv20b updated recently, apparently he wants destructible corpses back. I never found the feature that essential but eh. I do like the prospect of toggling off captive DOOMcompatriots, though. They make things TOOO EASEH.

[Ed Oscuro]

So yea this just happened......

http://www.gamespot.com/articles/system ... n=homepage

Not sure whether to be happy or sad, the ending from what i can remember did leave the possibility of a sequel but like all things nowadays some things are best left alone and the legacy not tainted.

I think it's worth a shot.

Also, Night Dive Studios...sounds like a real "fly by night" operation huh?

Lately I got back into Half-Life 2: A "dead end" sure (hard to know where to go once you've got portal guns and gravity guns - you've already got tools that play with the fundamental laws of the universe there; kind of like it's hard to know where the Elder Scrolls franchise can go now that shouting dragons out of the sky to ride them is a boring thing) but I'm enjoying this one more again. Playing on Hard gives a rather uneven experience: The first half of the game or so is mostly quite easy, aside from manhacks, and that one loading dock room full of metrocops you need to pass through while under fire from a hunter-chopper - I found that to be a real difficulty spike in the game unless I sprinted up the stairs and took cover behind a thin wooden board. As usual, gunplay is excrement, but I'm noticing more that the game gives ample opportunities to defuse situations with carefully placed grenade bins or launcher ammo. Still quite easy to lose to soldiers with shotguns and the pulse rifle, but thankfully these encounters are over soon enough.

I also finally picked up Serious Sam 2, which is enjoyable enough except for the damn cutscenes (and the secrets, actually) destroying game flow. I had to laugh at Sam's jungle party tho.

[Square_Air]

So yea this just happened......

http://www.gamespot.com/articles/system ... n=homepage

Not sure whether to be happy or sad, the ending from what i can remember did leave the possibility of a sequel but like all things nowadays some things are best left alone and the legacy not tainted.

While I adore System Shock 2, I still feel like it left a good amount of room for improvement. I just hope they don't make "Sci-Fi Bioshock in space". System Shock fans desire a much more technical system and generally enjoy a much more unforgiving difficulty.

[Obiwanshinobi]

Anyone played Counter-Strike Neo? The more I think about it, the more bizarre idea seems. How could Counter Strike work without large population active online all the time? Even if the A.I. was derived from Condition Zero, well, the latter hardly set the market ablaze either.
Would a person already playing Counter Strike at home, workplace, school... feel like playing a reskin against bots when out? Or somebody who doesn't use mouse & keyboard for gaming suddenly would when finding those hooked up a cab?

[Ed Oscuro]

Condition Zero's bots are atrocious (especially the ones on your team) and the missions only make it worse. That said, I've never tried Neo. Hopefully someday we'll get to try it out, maybe via MAME.

I wonder if any of Neo was carried over into the Nexon releases. I'd guess not, but I haven't combed through every Neo screenshot out there.

[Obiwanshinobi]

Even if ShootMania Storm works on my old girl of a PC (knowing Nadeo, it wouldn't surprise me much), I seem to have a trouble forcing myself into multiplayer-only games. When TrackMania hit consoles for the first time, some would take it for a joke there with its online usability that lesser... but I'm having good enough time soloing the Wii one.
Well, ShootMania vs bots would be up against the original UT in my case, which is quite the benchmark.
That being said, I'm pleased with Nadeo's knack for making 3D garphics look cheap and good at the same time (finding ShootMania Storm screenshots very easy on the eye) and who knows, the community may turn out fairly easygoing by the internet people standards.