*sip* yup, Quake was a good game. (Retro FPS/Boomer thread)

[cave hermit]

Grab your Monster Ultra and rev up that lawnmower because it's time to talk about retro FPS games.

Doom, Quake, Blood, Shadow Warrior, the like. Newer games like Dusk and Amid Evil are welcome too.

Also give this guy's videos a few views. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC21uZk ... Y-gPgMiCwA

Yeah there's a brutal doom thread, and that's fun and cathartic and all, but there's more to retro FPS than just brutal doom. Like smooth doom for example!

I just downloaded smooth doom, which smooths out the original jerky weapon and monster animations with extra frames for an almost metal slug kind of animation smoothness without changing the gameplay much from the original game.

I also started playing the Doom level pack Eviternity which came out in February I think, had it downloaded awhile ago but never got around to playing it. It's a full 32 new levels with lots of new texture work and some pretty good map design, only finished one episode so far, but it seems pretty stellar.

Also I finally got around to turning off the texture filtering in gzdoom, and Jesus does it look so much better with a crisp pixel look compared to that blurry smeared default textured look.

So anyone else circle strafing it up?

[WelshMegalodon]

I thought Heretic was a better game than Hexen.

Am I the only one that found Dark Forces to be a little on the dull side? At least after the first few missions.

Also, you left out Ultima Underworld.

Proto-FPS Geograph Seal is also pretty sweet.

[Mischief Maker]

Fucking kids and their "energy drinks"

The only proper beverage to drink while discussing 90s FPS is SURGE!

(Yeah, dudes screaming the names of consumer items then running face first into a sponteneous mosh pit in a dilapidated city center was kind of a thing back in the 90s.)

Don't you dare talk about Dusk or Amid Evil without Overload being included in the conversation!

[CStarFlare]

FPSs were better before they made you aim vertically.

[it290]

I actually really love Quake 1 single player. I'm sure I'm not the only person who feels this way, but damn if DOOM doesn't get a lot more hype. Part of it is probably due to the fact that when DOOM came out, even though I played the shit out of it at friends' houses, I was an Amiga kid at the time and Quake was the first FPS that I played on a PC I owned myself when I got one circa '97/'98. You can really get into a groove with the crazy bunnyhopping, rocketjumping maneuvers that offer a gymnastic intensity quite distinct from DOOM's frenetic circle-strafing.

[Queen Charlene]

i have nothing to add except "i agree". i still have a pipe dream to one day figure out how to run a UT2004 server on PC and making people play with me.

[Xyga]

Also give this guy's videos a few views. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC21uZk ... Y-gPgMiCwA

Oh yes saw that not long ago. Agree with his Plutonia review, teh extreme memories with that game.

[SuperDeadite]

Doom will always be my favorite as it was years of my childhood. Dark Forces has issues, but that game was so damn cool. First game I ever saw with an alternate fire button. Was it the first ever?

Loved Duke as well of course. Back then it was all about the boobies, but it is a solid game in the genre.

In those days I hated Quake 1 and loved Q2. Now though I find Q1 to be a mostly great game. While Q2 doesnt have much besides the music.

I do whish Q1 had more bosses though. E2-4 endings are lame.

To be honest, the recent surge of love for Blood confuses me though. E1 was great, but the rest is rather meh. After the fun of the violence lets off, it just gets boring. The pure trial and error gameplay due to the huge amount of hit scaners doesnt help either.

[ZellSF]

Brutal Doom is for children.

I thought Heretic was a better game than Hexen.

I think everyone did?

Also I finally got around to turning off the texture filtering in gzdoom, and Jesus does it look so much better with a crisp pixel look compared to that blurry smeared default textured look.

IMO the pixel crawl of turning texture filtering off really bad, I recommend leaving it at trilinear, setting HQ resize mode to Normal4X, precaching GL textures and setting gl_texture_hqresize_maxinputsize to 1024. It's not as sharp as no texture filtering, but it's still pretty sharp (I play at 4K though) and no pixel crawling.

Even if you use "None (trilinear)" as a texture filtering mode I recommend Normal3X scaling to prevent pixel shimmering on distant objects. If you actually use "None" texture filtering, I guess you just like pixel shimmering.

There's two other obligatory GZDoom settings to change. First is "Sector Light Mode", this is the lightning mode and the default "Dark" is very wrong for wads made with the software render in mind, change it to "Software" unless you're sure the wad you're playing is designed for OpenGL.

Second is "Adjust sprite clipping" should IMO be set to "Always". This adjusts sprites so they don't clip into the floor. It looks awful when sprites clip into the floor.

[Marc]

I've probably played through Duke 3D on every machine I've owned that it's been available for. Level design is fantastic, still one of the best to this day. Looks like it's coming for Switch, so I'll be playing it through again.

I've been eyeballing the two Star Wars games that have popped up on Switch/PS4 - never played those back in the day, do they hold up?

[Obiwanshinobi]

Republic Commando plays best if you DON'T quick-save, quick-load. Most reasonably placed checkpoints in that one. Neither too short, nor too easy when played in such a manner.

[CyberAngel]

I'll just give a special shoutout to Shadow Warrior. I do find it a bit weak in the sound and visual feedback department, but it still manages to keep my interest with its stellar weapon, item and enemy balance. I wouldn't recommend the "official expansions" though precisely because said balance is nowhere to be seen in either one.

To be honest, the recent surge of love for Blood confuses me though. E1 was great, but the rest is rather meh. After the fun of the violence lets off, it just gets boring. The pure trial and error gameplay due to the huge amount of hit scaners doesnt help either.

This is another game with a stellar weapon selection. Each one has its uses and is best against specific enemies. Best seen if you try pitchfork starting every level. And preferrably not on the easiest mode.

I think everyone did?

I, for one, enjoy the huge hordes Hexen throws at you sometimes. Though to be fair both of them have their issues.

[drauch]

I basically stay away from memes and the general internet, sans a few things, so I need some explanation to the boomer shooter dude. Because I think it's me

Natch Ion Fury will come up as well, which rules, but Hedon also deserves some love (and now on GOG) if y'all haven't played it.

[cave hermit]

In essence, the 30 year old boomer loves ACDC, quaffing Monster Zero Ultra, mowing his lawn while reminiscing about how great Quake and Doom was, and views fortnite loving zoomers as "cute".

Reference photo.

Spoiler

Also I agree that Blood is a bit trial and error sometimes with the relentless hitscanners, but regardless the weapons and visceral gibbing are so satisfying, and honestly I don't think it's as difficult as people make it out to be, I mean I find Doom on Hurt me Plenty to be a substantial challenge, and I still managed to get through the main 4 episodes of Blood on the medium setting of lightly broiled. Still working on Post Mortem though.

[drauch]

Okay, not as bad as I thought. I love Monster Zero but don't do those other things!

Blood's my favorite. I get the grievances as well, but the whole evil package just does wonders for what I crave, which is basically just violence and horror

[BIL]

What the fuck? Someone just took a photo of me mowing the lawn and ran off!

Reference photo.

Spoiler

BAN PLS

[Xyga]

In essence, the 30 year old boomer loves ACDC

*sigh* I don't follow the 4chan-esque meme filth, I see it but don't bite, still this is increasingly absurd.
Have they shifted sociology generations jargon defninitions several decades just like that? a 30 years old is no longer a millenial but a boomer? like the actual baby boomers? seriously-really?
(I laugh but cry inside thinking that now for me a 30yo is still a young person)

[BIL]

I laugh but cry inside

The opposite of this then edit: what a jam

[cave hermit]

Well it's more like saying that older millennials have notably different tastes compared to younger millennials and could be viewed as out of touch, like a stereotypical baby boomer. At least that's what I got out of it, but I feel like (and I'm using it this way) that it could be used in an affectionate sort of way.

End of the day, it's a meme ya dip https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=IJk-e0n16TU

[Xyga]

So I've looked it up; a 'boomer' playing Doom is neither an actual boomer, nor a doomer.

[Mischief Maker]

I recently got Dusk and I have to be honest, I'm underwhelmed. Folks said Redneck Rampage was one of the influences on this game and it felt to me like that one was the strongest. It's easy, the guns feel underpowered, and the vaunted movement system lacks a clear sense of momentum. All this game made me want to do was play Painkiller again.

I don't get the hype. Maybe it gets better in the latter stages? (I quit after the Intoxigator because it bugged out and the exit switch didn't work so I couldn't finish the level).

[SuperDeadite]

I quite enjoyed Dusk, weapons are great when used properly. Super shotty is devestating, but has zero range. Crossbow shoots through walls and you xan even kill bosses this way if you feel like cheesing it.

Going back to blood, it just doesnt flow like id's games or even duke 3d. These days I just play doom and doom 2 on uv with no saves and have a blast. D1E4 is the real hard part. Sigil on uv is a ton of fun. But Blood is just mash the quick save until fully memorized.

[BIL]

It's remarkable what a jump up from the original three eps Thy Flesh Consumed is (edit: in difficulty). There's no comparison between it and E1-3.

Still suffers from a bit of silliness (Cyberdemons consistently amounting to nothing), but these days I just use DOOMbuilder to shuffle things around a bit. Delete those Invulnerability spheres, mainly. Thy Flesh Consumed via Brutal DOOM's Black Metal difficulty feels pretty close in intensity to a good 1CC... specifically stuff like Ikari, NAM and Metal Slug, with the gradual learning of where to expend your arsenal in almighty bloody uproars.

Edited for lawnmower fatigue

[drauch]

What difficulty are you on? The difficulty felt best to me on Ciesto Lindo or whatever last one from hardest.

RR influence really only on some of the earlier, bumpkin levels. Otherwise it's not there, which is probably for the best.

Don't really get the guns bit; they all feel quite powerful in the right situations and nothing ever felt spongey to me.

I dunno, we're probably the opposite though because I don't care for Painkiller, or really any sort of 'arena', waves of enemies stuff, which there's one towards the end of Dusk. Dusk scratched the right itches for me: loved the level design, frantic nature, and killer tunes. I'm not too hard to please when I've got a solid level/episode-based shooter that's fast and nasty.

[cave hermit]

Polished off eviternity's second episode, but at the end of the last level when all the monsters show up for some slaughter map action, I noticed a bug with smooth doom: infinite BFG ammo. The fight was trivial. Looks like I'm dropping smooth doom then

[Ajora]

Doom, Quake, and Half-Life are by far three of the very best games ever made. Duke Nukem 3D is a big personal favorite for me as well, though admittedly a lot of my fondness for that game boils down to nostalgia.

[orange808]

Also, you left out Ultima Underworld.

This.

That game changed everything.

[CyberAngel]

I don't get the hype. Maybe it gets better in the latter stages? (I quit after the Intoxigator because it bugged out and the exit switch didn't work so I couldn't finish the level).

Oh come on. It's like you've played Doom, reached E1M3 and complained that the game has too many zombie hitscanners and no hellish vibes. Though truth be told, the start almost made me drop it instantly myself. Just give other episodes a spin for a minute to get a taste of what kind of vibes to expect. (Also, don't touch Cero Miedo. It gives you a big "DON'T PLAY IT ON YOUR FIRST TIME" warning for a reason. Unless you LIKE dying dozens of times per level, of course.)

[SuperDeadite]

I did my first Dusk play on Cero Miedo and found it just about perfect. Anyone thats plays Doom on UV should start here. When in doubt use the soap.

[null1024]

FPSs were better before they made you aim vertically.

As much as I like later FPS games, this is one of the things I adore about Doom.
It's got fairly vertical stage design here and there, but you don't need to do any kind of precision upwards aiming, since you auto-aim in that direction. You get to take advantage of that with your movements, not really needing to care about nudging a shot high or low.