DOOM4/nuDoom/Brutal Halo/Call of Doomy/Brutal Quake 4 Thread

[Ed Oscuro]

I sort-of enjoy classic Serious Sam games but too much of that world is built around stupid in-joke hunts. There was recently a Steam sale for the complete franchise which included a few games I didn't have, but I passed on it.

Painkiller, by comparison, has some truly awe-inspiring secrets. That's before getting to literally everything else - Painkiller is on a totally different level, even including some of the less inspired BoH levels. Hell, I never did much with bhop, but still had a great time of it.

I'm the guy always saying that I like more color and less grimdark in games, but Painkiller actually manages to evoke a bit of emotion (through environments, not so much the silly storyline) while Serious Sam's aesthetic (at least before 3 BFE) is just...well, look at the smurfs in Serious Sam 2, and the Saturday morning cartoons between level segments. That's the logical conclusion of Serious Sam - it's embarrassing. Occasionally Sam does crack funny, but even Lo Wang was doing that just as well years before, and in a much better game at that. Maybe what Sam fans really should look at is the Serious DLC for The Talos Principle. As far as I can tell, SS 3 BFE is mainly an attempt to take the Serious world and "next-gen" it up with realistic models, and I never could see that doing anything but admitting there wasn't all that much about classic Sam they wished to save.

Dark Engine bhop - suddenly I'm dying to try out this thing I found last week. Does that work in SS2, for that matter? I've seen some crazy speedrunning times but didn't really connect the dots with movement exploits.

[Durandal]

Painkiller, by comparison, has some truly awe-inspiring secrets. That's before getting to literally everything else - Painkiller is on a totally different level, even including some of the less inspired BoH levels.

What kind of secrets? Do you mean secret easter eggs or secret ammo caches under the staircase or something?

I'm the guy always saying that I like more color and less grimdark in games, but Painkiller actually manages to evoke a bit of emotion (through environments, not so much the silly storyline) while Serious Sam's aesthetic (at least before 3 BFE) is just...well, look at the smurfs in Serious Sam 2, and the Saturday morning cartoons between level segments. That's the logical conclusion of Serious Sam - it's embarrassing.

To be fair, Serious Sam 2 artstyle was a whole lot more cartoony as a result of publisher interference, compared to the semi-realistic comic book style of TFE and TSE. Perhaps the artstyle of the Serious Sam series becomes more cartoony as it progresses chronologically with BFE looking more realistic than TFE/TSE, and the one that takes place after Serious Sam 2 will have an anime artstyle.

Dark Engine bhop - suddenly I'm dying to try out this thing I found last week. Does that work in SS2, for that matter? I've seen some crazy speedrunning times but didn't really connect the dots with movement exploits.

I'm pretty sure it still works with the NewDark patch. Level up agility, gobble up speed boosters, insert agility implants, and bunnyhop to the point where you will die as a result of smacking the wall so hard.

[Ed Oscuro]

I don't want to ruin any Painkiller stuff but there's a lot of variety. Sometimes you go up, out, wherever - truly one of the exemplars in 3D game secret design, at least sometimes!
By comparison...well, just look at any guide and groan at all the jokey one-offs for secrets. They must've put as much effort into designing a lot of that junk as they did in the surrounding level designs. But yes, SS has lots of "in the hidden cave" or "little thing in an obscure corner of a gigantic field" style puzzles. It has been a while since I played the original though, so that may have been somewhat better. In truth, though, even junk like Will Rock gets pretty close to Sam's level.

To be sure I suppose the original Sam and its immediate sequels may have been a bit better than 2, but I'm not sure how much of it really is down to publisher interference. Crate bus people? They already seemed headed down that path. Of course I suppose the original enemies are considered classic designs now, but I'm not sure I'd call them impressive visual designs or original gameplay concepts (with a few exceptions, perhaps; the kamikaze bombers are one of the most memorable enemies, and the Kleer, Sirian bull, and chest-mouth people often did pretty well, and of course there's also the robot chickens).

[Austin]

Painkiller has some deviously hidden secrets. I never did find most of them and have been meaning to go through the game with a guide one day and see all of them. One or two I did find with a guide back in the day was jaw-dropping, in a "who in their right mind would try this?" kind of way. It's awesome.

I'm capable of bunnyhopping just fine, but it seems rather impossible to strafe mid-air. Can you really go Dark Engine levels of speed through bunnyhopping? To me it feels as if there is a limit to how fast you can move through bunnyhopping in Painkiller.

I primarily only use the bunny hopping to get around maps quicker and for the more wide-open combat scenarios (boss fights and the military base level, for instance). I am pretty sure you can bunny hop if you start the jump as a strafe to the left or right. You can basically circle strafe while bunny hopping when performed that way. I'll have to fire it up again and try it just to verify, but I'm pretty sure it works.

[SuperDeadite]

Gave the demo a spin, and it's certainly the best new FPS in years. However some parts of it were certainly disappointing or just flat out weird.

Everything really does seem to lack impact. I feel like I'm in a shooting gallery more then an actual fight, and I think its because of the lame sound effects. They are just too weak compared to what we are seeing. Crushing an imp's head with my boots is almost silent unless I jack up my volume to extreme levels. Nothing sounds like how my mind imagines it would.

And when that upgrade robot just flies in from out of nowhere with a ''hey pick one'', was a real WTF moment.

I'll wait for when it's $10 on steam.

[Udderdude]

Finally bought it with the DLC for $40 CDN .. it's fun, but I have a feeling I would not be too thrilled if I paid twice as much on launch day.

I also got further into the game and definitely noticed that the later levels are much more GPU intensive than the previous ones were. I was able to get a solid 60 FPS up until the 3rd level, at which point I started seeing framerate drops even with all the settings turned down and the resolution scaling at 90%. My GTX 680 could barely keep up .. it was still playable, sure, but definitely not perfect.

[ZellSF]

Wow this is everything I thought it would be. Everything I thought were terrible ideas ended up being terrible ideas. I think it justified the purchase mostly as a benchmarking/troubleshooting tool, because I stopped wanting to play after I resolved some BSOD issues I was having.

it's not that it's entirely un-fun, it's just so overwhelmingly mediocre I could be playing so many better games, including AAA shooters before you go all "you hate everything new" on me.

[ZellSF]

Ah, good, it corrupted its own save. Good thing we have eliminated the despicable practice that is multiple save slots from modern gaming.

[Obiwanshinobi]

At first I disliked the idea from the game for the early halo like multiplayer.
But after looking at the single player is a nice reboot, isn't doom 1 or 2, but is more doom than scary jumps 3.
For Metroid Prime fans the platforming feels so similar, so I could say Doom 4 is the child from doom and metroid prime, which on my book is a good direction.

You liked FPP platforming in Metroid Prime? I found some of it lamentable to say the least (a classic example of 3D plaftorming ill-fitting 3D FPP). There are exceptions that prove the rule (at least one Inago Rage level/arena, Thief series) but in my book Prime is a poster child for doing it the wrong way.