What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

[vol.2]

It might be latent salt from experiencing Hectic, but Doom 64's overall design seemed kind of dickish to me in a way that the originals never were. Unrecoverable hidden death pits before a level exit, and other stuff like that.

The aesthetic, secret demon laser, and cool setpieces enabled by the scripting system are awesome though. That room which abuses chained sector doors to make it look like the walls are closing in on you after pressing a certain switch - chef's kiss.

I can see how some of those choices can be off-putting. I guess I noticed that, but the challenge and atmosphere outweighed any nits I had about it. I realized I actually made a mistake last year when I linked Brutal Doom as a recommended way to play Doom 64. There is a Brutal Doom 64, but actually Doom 64 Retribution is the way I'd say it optimal on a modern PC. It is essentially the OG game, but it fixes some annoying bugs and obvious texture errors, etc. https://www.moddb.com/mods/doom-64-retribution

It's playable using gzdoom, is a fan made mod, and is totally free

Not sure why I did that, my brain isn't operating the same anymore I guess.

[Air Master Burst]

Doom 64 is fucking dope. My favorite Doom after the original, I'll take it over Doom II any day.

But then I actually looked at some of the witches in that title and holy shit - the nearest equivalent would probably be a Hanna Barbera crossover extravaganza that saw the Flinstones and Tom & Jerry and every one of their IPs get smooshed together. Which nowadays doesn't sound like anything special, but seeing that kind of thing on the PSX BITD would have been a trip fr.

I think this was a lot more common in Japan back then. Super Robot Wars, Famicom Jump, Tatsunoko Fight... even the biggest American license crossover games were probably the Japanese-made Marvel stuff.

[Marc]

Started Powerslave/Exhumed on PS4 tonight. It's the absolute dogs bollocks so far, some reslly cool stage design going on. I believe the PS1 and Saturn games were quite different, is this a mash-up?

[AyeYoYoYO]

SATURN BOMBERMAN BATTLE MODE

[Lander]

Started Powerslave/Exhumed on PS4 tonight. It's the absolute dogs bollocks so far, some reslly cool stage design going on. I believe the PS1 and Saturn games were quite different, is this a mash-up?

Yeah, the Nightdive redux is a best-of based on the console releases, both of which were made on the Slave Driver engine, but got some architectural and mechanical tweaks in the PS1 transition to better leverage the hardware.

The DOS version is notable for being totally different - it's built on BUILD, so is more like a Duke 3D or Doom. It also added quippy one liners, which I surmise is a contractual obligation for any licensor of that engine

Bloody good title screen too! Whahahahaaa!

[Daytime Waitress]

Started Powerslave/Exhumed on PS4 tonight. It's the absolute dogs bollocks so far, some reslly cool stage design going on. I believe the PS1 and Saturn games were quite different, is this a mash-up?

Yeah, the Nightdive redux is a best-of based on the console releases

Little touches like adding the death animations of certain enemies from both SS and PSX versions, solely so there's more visual variety to proceedings, is the kind of thing that makes me just plain glad that Nightdive exist. Warms the heart that FPSbros get the same tender loving care from preservationists that arcade fans in general get from Hamster and shmup players get from M2.

[Marc]

Started Powerslave/Exhumed on PS4 tonight. It's the absolute dogs bollocks so far, some reslly cool stage design going on. I believe the PS1 and Saturn games were quite different, is this a mash-up?

Yeah, the Nightdive redux is a best-of based on the console releases, both of which were made on the Slave Driver engine, but got some architectural and mechanical tweaks in the PS1 transition to better leverage the hardware.

The DOS version is notable for being totally different - it's built on BUILD, so is more like a Duke 3D or Doom. It also added quippy one liners, which I surmise is a contractual obligation for any licensor of that engine

Bloody good title screen too! Whahahahaaa!

Ooh nice, I'm partial to a BUILD game so might have to give that a go too.

[Sima Tuna]

Nightdive are the M2 Shottriggers of old-school FPS. They've breathed life into so many old games that were previously difficult or impossible to run outside of a hardcore retro collector's home.

[vol.2]

Nightdive are the M2 Shottriggers of old-school FPS. They've breathed life into so many old games that were previously difficult or impossible to run outside of a hardcore retro collector's home.

They have a non-amazing reputation. With System Shock, they basically just took the mod (which was made with the help and blessing of the OG dev team) and repackaged it as their own work. A takedown notice was sent to the dev on the Lookingglass Studios forum. I was a forum member all the way back from the 90s and I remember all the drama which has now been forgotten.

More recently they did a mediocre upscaling of the first Dark Forces game. There is a far superior fan remake called The Force Engine. Just in case anyone wants to play that one, https://github.com/luciusDXL/TheForceEngine

And that's more or less why I don't like them. They either steal other people's work outright, or just do poor upscaled versions of old games which are, in pretty much all cases, obtainable in better versions for free as a mod to the original game.

Behold:

[Sumez]

Nightdive are the M2 Shottriggers of old-school FPS. They've breathed life into so many old games that were previously difficult or impossible to run outside of a hardcore retro collector's home.

I wish M2 could be as thorough and productive as Nightdive.
M2 to me is the standard everyone should be measured against. But Nightdive go above and beyond.

[vol.2]

I wish M2 could be as thorough and productive as Nightdive.
M2 to me is the standard everyone should be measured against. But Nightdive go above and beyond.

I don't know how you can say that. I just can't give money to people who are ripping off the open source community. I seriously wouldn't be surprised if most of their releases had their origins in projects freely available on ModDB. I just only know about those two, but there are mulitple Shadow Man reskins and mods from the past 15 years.

[BloodHawk]

Nightdive are the M2 Shottriggers of old-school FPS. They've breathed life into so many old games that were previously difficult or impossible to run outside of a hardcore retro collector's home.

They have a non-amazing reputation. With System Shock, they basically just took the mod (which was made with the help and blessing of the OG dev team) and repackaged it as their own work. A takedown notice was sent to the dev on the Lookingglass Studios forum. I was a forum member all the way back from the 90s and I remember all the drama which has now been forgotten.

More recently they did a mediocre upscaling of the first Dark Forces game. There is a far superior fan remake called The Force Engine. Just in case anyone wants to play that one, https://github.com/luciusDXL/TheForceEngine

And that's more or less why I don't like them. They either steal other people's work outright, or just do poor upscaled versions of old games which are, in pretty much all cases, obtainable in better versions for free as a mod to the original game.

Behold:

I found that off and looked into it and the links that reviewer put in. What he is conveniently leaving out of his review is that the email from Nightdive was just asking him to stop distributing the full games with mods. They even suggested he would be okay offering a separate patch with those mods. From the email: "We need to ask that you remove any links to the full games of either System Shock I or System Shock II, if you haven't already done so. I do understand that the version that is available for download from https://www.systemshock.org/ includes a number of mods. If you were to offer just a patch that installed those mods, I am sure that we could figure out a way to point back to you once System Shock is released.".

The reviewer is making it sound like he and the modders are losing money and the legal system is being misused, all because Nightdive bought an IP and asked then to stop giving out packs that contained the full game.

I don't know how much of the final product contains mods outside of Nightdive's creation, but seeing that they even offered to "point back" said mods to this person and I haven't heard others screaming that they "stole" mods without giving credit for their other projects makes me think that the reviewer is just throwing a tantrum. What also doesn't help is that specific review is rated the 2nd most "unhelpful" out of 21 pages of reviews, showing a lot of other people not buying into his "presentation" of the events either.

I don't care a lot about Nightdive so I didn't spend a lot of time on this, but if they have indeed stole a ton across their projects and not credited anyone then I agree they should get flak, but this one particular case seems off.

[vol.2]

I found that off and looked into it and the links that reviewer put in. What he is conveniently leaving out of his review is that the email from Nightdive was just asking him to stop distributing the full games with mods. They even suggested he would be okay offering a separate patch with those mods. From the email: "We need to ask that you remove any links to the full games of either System Shock I or System Shock II, if you haven't already done so. I do understand that the version that is available for download from https://www.systemshock.org/ includes a number of mods. If you were to offer just a patch that installed those mods, I am sure that we could figure out a way to point back to you once System Shock is released.".

The reviewer is making it sound like he and the modders are losing money and the legal system is being misused, all because Nightdive bought an IP and asked then to stop giving out packs that contained the full game.

I don't know how much of the final product contains mods outside of Nightdive's creation, but seeing that they even offered to "point back" said mods to this person and I haven't heard others screaming that they "stole" mods without giving credit for their other projects makes me think that the reviewer is just throwing a tantrum. What also doesn't help is that specific review is rated the 2nd most "unhelpful" out of 21 pages of reviews, showing a lot of other people not buying into his "presentation" of the events either.

I don't care a lot about Nightdive so I didn't spend a lot of time on this, but if they have indeed stole a ton across their projects and not credited anyone then I agree they should get flak, but this one particular case seems off.

From what I remember back then, they just took the assets from SSP portable and turned around and sold it. This was a very long time ago, and I don't feel like going through the trouble to dig it all up, but I do remember that there was an obvious lift from the SSP coding that made it obvious it was just copied.

I guess I can't expect you to just take my word for it, but I am not one of the devs, and I don't have any vested interest in destroying Nightdive or damaging their reputation. There was more to the story that is not represented by the email, or what is now left over in the forums.

As far as the comment "rating" goes, I would expect the GOG staff to be heavily on that and downrating it, along with any ND people. They have complete control over the game comments and "control" negative comments in whatever way they want to.

[Air Master Burst]

Nightdive did a good job with Strife, but it already had a solid source port, so kinda wasted effort.

I wish they'd make themselves useful and do Quarantine already.

[Lander]

Perhaps a case for Hanlon's razor; Nightdive's work is broadly good, but they fumble on occasion before eventually fixing it - publishers permitting. Going down the money grubbing shysters! route is probably a bit much, given that there's obvious effort being put into custom tooling and lengthy post-release support.

For my part, the most frustrating experience was seeing the Shadow Man store page boast about missing additions for months before they actually got added in. But that's more of a principle thing, since the release version was already very complete, and the extras ended up being more minor than the new enemy types and boss! bullet implied.

[Sima Tuna]

I've actually never played Shadow Man. I'm currently messing about with another old PC game-given-facelift, Blade of Darkness. Highly recommended if you like fromsoft games, Gothic combat or brutal hack and slash in general. Bit of a shame there weren't more imitators of this title. Fromsoft's games are fine and all but they definitely lack the visceral impact Blade of Darkness has. Bloodborne does better but still not quite there. The frantic swinging in Blade of Darkness, combined with impromptu decapitations, really sells the action as authentically dangerous.

Spoiler

I've not actually seen this in any other game, but characters in Blade of Darkness swing their weapons like they are actually sharp and there is a non-zero chance they could hurt themselves if not careful. Many of their swing animations show them holding their bodies back while they swing out with their weapon arm, keeping the pointed part well away.

[vol.2]

Gah. Maybe I just need to get over it, but everything I remember about that event was bad. I also felt weird about the Dark Forces release because Nightdive "consulted" Luscious over at The Force Engine for "guidance" in the coding. The extent to which they borrowed work or got free work from him isn't public (Luscious is super private, though he did mention a few specifics), but Luscious inferred that it was done in the spirit of keeping things civil between the projects and that it was in the community's best interest to just cooperate and be cool about it.

Whatever, I guess it's not problem really, but I can tell you for absolute certain that SSP is a far superior experience to what ND released, and there's absolutely no reason whatsoever to play Dark Forces in any other way that the OG or with The Force Engine. If you can't be bothered to spend 10 minutes downloading a mod and dialing the settings in, then yeah, maybe ND's Dark Forces release is for you, but I can't fathom spending money on something less featured to save so little time.

Blade of Darkness looks cool, totally missed that one. I'm assuming that's the game called "Severance: Blade of Darkness."

It basically looks like a Conan themed action adventure. Will check it out.

[Sima Tuna]

Blade of Darkness looks cool, totally missed that one. I'm assuming that's the game called "Severance: Blade of Darkness."

It basically looks like a Conan themed action adventure. Will check it out.

It is, and it is. There are four characters. Knight, Dwarf, Barbarian and Amazon. The character you pick determines what kinds of weapons you will be proficient with. All weapons can be used but only proficient weapons can do combos and they generally are faster too. The game is not easy, so be warned. This is the kind of game where you keep your finger on the quicksave/quickload. The game has no hesitation about instant kill traps in level 1.

[Lander]

Oh, I think a friend of mine had that tucked away on their big brothers' shelf of cool games for grown-ups BITD. I always get it mixed up with the Gothic games for some reason.

Can you rip off an enemy's arm and beat them to death with it? That's the hard sell I was given, though in retrospect might have been a pun in disguise.

[hazys]

Dug out my Wii and am currently playing Tatsunoko vs Capcom: Ultimate All-Stars, a high-school favorite of mine. It doesn't seem like a fun game to play on a competitive level, but that's not a concern for me. I love the roster and presentation, and the wacky ideas (like the giant characters). The game is mostly held back by being a Wii exclusive, honestly.

[Sumez]

I don't know how you can say that. I just can't give money to people who are ripping off the open source community. I seriously wouldn't be surprised if most of their releases had their origins in projects freely available on ModDB. I just only know about those two, but there are mulitple Shadow Man reskins and mods from the past 15 years.

I have no knowledge of this, an I'm not gonna base my takes on internet slander. Sure it sucks if that's true, but I'm purely talking about their actual products.

[Sima Tuna]

Oh, I think a friend of mine had that tucked away on their big brothers' shelf of cool games for grown-ups BITD. I always get it mixed up with the Gothic games for some reason.

Can you rip off an enemy's arm and beat them to death with it? That's the hard sell I was given, though in retrospect might have been a pun in disguise.

You can, but be warned that an arm is not a proficient weapon, so you won't have any cool special moves with it.

Regarding Nightdive, don't they run a lot of games through their proprietary KEX engine? So how are those games stealing stuff? I guess you mean they take little bits and pieces from mod work and combine it with KEX engine and their own work?

[XoPachi]

Dug out my Wii and am currently playing Tatsunoko vs Capcom: Ultimate All-Stars, a high-school favorite of mine. It doesn't seem like a fun game to play on a competitive level, but that's not a concern for me. I love the roster and presentation, and the wacky ideas (like the giant characters). The game is mostly held back by being a Wii exclusive, honestly.

That was a big thing for my friend group in high school too. It was busted but we had a lot of fun. I agree on the presentation too. More than other fighters for me, that one really reminded me of being in the arcade for some reason. I used Ryu, Jun, and Tekkaman Blade.

[vol.2]

I'm purely talking about their actual products.

And even so, I truly believe that they do a mediocre job of things. If you compared their finished product to free fan-made mods that have been around forever, they categorically lose.

[Lander]

Hold on, what mod / product comparisons are we going on here? If it's the original System Shock, I have a hard time believing mods to a DOS title could approach the level of refit that game got in its remaster - full hardware 3D, overhauled controls / interface, and so on.
Rise of the Triad got a similar treatment too, which it badly needed after years of not-quite-right source ports. Shadow Man and Turok / 2 are effectively definitive over their original PC releases as well.

Their involvement with SS2 I know a lot less about, though can see how it would be less of a jump since the Dark Engine has been maintained pretty well over the years by fans and ex-Looking Glass staffers.

Though their release of Blood wasn't great, the blame for which rests largely with Atari (or the puppeted corpse thereof) doing their greedy asshole publisher thing.
It shipped rough, got patched into an okay-i-guess state, but not to the point of beating the best-in-class community source port.

You can, but be warned that an arm is not a proficient weapon, so you won't have any cool special moves with it.

Incredible I'm glad it turned out to be true all this time later!

Will have to earmark it for next time PC nostalgia strikes. I could swear I saw it featured in some video essay or other - Sseth, Mando, or the other usual suspects - but no such luck.

[vol.2]

Hold on, what mod / product comparisons are we going on here? If it's the original System Shock, I have a hard time believing mods to a DOS title could approach the level of refit that game got in its remaster - full hardware 3D, overhauled controls / interface, and so on.
Rise of the Triad got a similar treatment too, which it badly needed after years of not-quite-right source ports. Shadow Man and Turok / 2 are effectively definitive over their original PC releases as well.

Their involvement with SS2 I know a lot less about, though can see how it would be less of a jump since the Dark Engine has been maintained pretty well over the years by fans and ex-Looking Glass staffers.

Though their release of Blood wasn't great, the blame for which rests largely with Atari (or the puppeted corpse thereof) doing their greedy asshole publisher thing.
It shipped rough, got patched into an okay-i-guess state, but not to the point of beating the best-in-class community source port.

System Shock Portable was all that and a bag of chips long before ND got their hands on it. It runs buttery smooth, has all the modern control options and a seamless install process. The ND version doesn't add anything at all. The graphics are just scaled up OG assets, and that was an option in SSP if you actually wanted that.

The other game I was referring to is Dark Forces, which is done far better by The Force Engine. https://theforceengine.github.io/ and you can look forward to a lot more features being added over time and compatibility with mods.

But seriously, I'm shocked that you're shocked. Dos era games have been a major focus for the past 20 years. Check out Darkplaces if you want to play Quake or GzDoom if you wanna play Doom, etc. Or Eduke32 if you wanna play Build Engine games.

AFA Blood goes, you don't even need a sourceport for that. Build Engine does Vesa resolutions, so you can easily play it in XGA. All you need is a couple UI hacks if you want to change the controls and you're set. It's really the janky mouse stuff that anyone ever cared about fixing in Blood, and that's totally doable and easy.

[hamzuh]

Playing the Kunitsu-Gami demo and Dead Rising, on a bit of a Capcom kick currently, their output is really insane when you think about it from the arcade to modern day.

[BulletMagnet]

Finished the postgame of Nayuta, only to discover that to see everything you also need to do a New Game + after that - got a short ways into that before discovering there's no way to skip or fast-forward the story sequences the second time through, and decided to call it a day. Would have been nice to try out the last couple of stages but the time investment would just be too much.

Switched things up with a platforming-focused metroidvania called Super Mombo Quest; probably not hardcore enough for a lot of folks here but I had a good time with it, even left a Steam review.

[hazys]

That was a big thing for my friend group in high school too. It was busted but we had a lot of fun. I agree on the presentation too. More than other fighters for me, that one really reminded me of being in the arcade for some reason. I used Ryu, Jun, and Tekkaman Blade.

I still enjoy it a lot, it's good simple fun. A lot of people now see it as a dry run for MvC3, but I prefer it personally.

I remember they went through a copyright nightmare to release the game internationally... it's kind of a miracle that it even happened. Nowdays it would probably be much easier, but I doubt Capcom is interested in a re-release since TvC has such a tiny fanbase. Still, a remaster with Hakushon Daimaou + some of the cut characters would be amazing. I know they planned on including a bunch of people that ended up on UMvC3, but also some Power Stone and Breath of Fire reps...

[Lemnear]

While yesterday i was at the seaside, alone because... oh well..
I was looking for the new release date of the Irem Collection Vol.2 and i came across a blog called Seafoam Gaming

And randomly among the various reviews i also found these:

Spoiler

Which i instantly grabbed, since all 3 were just over 13 eurodollars (the first 2 were on sale), plus they were well reviewed.
I love the fact that there are scans of the manuals, the covers (front and back) of the CD or HuCARD and even an image gallery

There are some small errors here and there, i don't know if it's due to the Ratalaika porting or it's actually from the original game, and i would have liked some background to put on the sides instead of the black bands. The games are extremely difficult, why if it's Cute, is it also incredibly hardcore?
I felt that vague need for more "PC-Engine" in my life. In fact i even looked up what exactly the Hudson Soft Caravan Shooter Carnival was. I really need to connect the seasons to what i play.
Too bad there are very few PCE ports...and that none of the 3 games have ports (for now i saw that they used StarForce, Star Soldier and Hector'87).