the first person shooter game thread (eew fps)

[drunkninja24]

So I watched a gameplay video for the new Rise of the Triad. Game looks quite fun, especially multiplayer. Seems to be going for a fast paced UT feel, which I am all for after the glut of gritty slow shooters as of late.

[charlie chong]

i've been playing lots of arma 3 beta lately..

am currently hosting armory for sandbox pvp purposes(spawn point has a forcefield so no spawnkilling) in the evenings and on weekends..

just search in the multiplayer filter for armory and look for the player BLING LADEN and hop in if you want.generally get 8-16 players and it's fun blowing shit up and testing the new weapons and vehicles..
i will probbly blast you with an aa rocket launcher tho

[Ruldra]

Last night, I watched some game play footage of Aliens: Colonial Marines. The sounds of the motion tracker and pulse rifle are perfect! Is this FPS really as bad as the gaming press says it is? It looks awfully enticing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8J8SzBhjqaQ

From what I read in other forums, some people liked it but the general impression is that the game is complete crap.

[BIL]

Been playing the Wolfenstein 3D Total Conversion for ZDOOM the last couple of days. Strong recommend! It's incredibly faithful to the original, warts and all, while adding sorely-missed features like sidestep keys. Should make even the most obsessive Wolf3D fan happy.

Used this opportunity to finally play Spear of Destiny, had a blast. It's the equivalent of The Ultimate DOOM's fourth episode - noticeably harder and more complex stage designs that feel geared towards fans of the vanilla game. Needless to say, playing on Death Incarnate is essential. Although the original game's more spaced-out levels can be a bit tiring these days, SOD deals heavily in tight confines where a split-second's inattention or one uncleared corner can mean death. With this lack of flab the reflex-intensive shooting has aged quite well, I think. Aiming and enemy movement are utterly simplistic, but slowness to fire gets punished massively, giving an almost lightgun-game feeling. Great fun sweeping the chaingun over a roomful of enemies, mowing all down before any can get a devastating shot off. And since enemies are silent once alerted, narrow corridors become quite nervy.

Also tried out Formgen's two SOD expansions THE LOST EPISODES, and hoo boy. "These new assets look like shit!" "What dumbass thought mandatory wallhumping for secrets was a good idea?!" Then I looked up a scan of the box - "Episodes not developed by id software." Ohhh. CIAO THEN. Imma replay SOD and get more kill%.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8J8SzBhjqaQ

Hadn't heard of the game, was NOT expecting that in the video. I literally burst out laughing. dat playtesting <3

[Limbrooke]

Been playing the Wolfenstein 3D Total Conversion for ZDOOM the last couple of days. Strong recommend! It's incredibly faithful to the original, warts and all, while adding sorely-missed features like sidestep keys. Should make even the most obsessive Wolf3D fan happy.

I'd be happy if it didn't have bugs like this: http://forum.zdoom.org/viewtopic.php?p=632395#p632395
It's good, I'll give it that, but bloody annoying that the issue still persists. I'll give it another go this week with the latest build(s) but I suspect it's a hardware issue as it's the only thing it could be.

[BIL]

Just finished a full runthrough of E3, coincidentally. Didn't have that happen (using the newest build plus the latest ZDOOM, 2.7.1, in Windows XP). But I've not noticed much in the way of bugs to start with. Only noticeable ones I've seen are:

-enemies can "slide" a bit when going from walking to alerted animation, where they'll always remain stationary in real Wolf3D.
-doors will act a bit screwy if you hammer the "open" key rapidly.

But neither's a big deal.

[7711]

Quake player here, didn't know there was such topic.
Currently setting up a new PC so I'm planning to check out all the "recent" fps I missed.
These include Arma II, BF 3, and both the STALKER series and CoD4 multiplayer that I never got to experience with solid PC, also looking for recent underrated games.
Then I guess I'll get back to oldschool fps.

[Edmond Dantes]

iD did include at least one "rocket-jump" mandatory secret in DOOM (E3M6), though it's more of a kind of speed boost.

I haven't been doing much with the rocket jumps but that's mainly because I'm so scared of nasty, icky damage

How the heck do you rocket jump in DOOM, of all things?

[Ed Oscuro]

LOL, made a second attempt at tackling e2m10 (the old version of The Dismal Oubliette") with just the starting loadout (plain jane shotgun with 20 shells, no armor)...this time on Nightmare! I died (again), but not before escaping some hairy situations. I ought to record that and upload.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8J8SzBhjqaQ

Hadn't heard of the game, was NOT expecting that in the video. I literally burst out laughing. dat playtesting <3

dat stealing money from the budget for Borderlands 2 :/

Not buying any more Gearbox games for a while (my last was Borderlands and the DLC reinstallation rights issues did not impress), at least not at retail prices. I was a fan from their HL days but they need to win my affection back.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

How the heck do you rocket jump in DOOM, of all things?

See: http://doom.wikia.com/wiki/E3M6:_Mt._Erebus

Because you obviously can't jump or aim up or down, in this case the rocket 'jump' is more of a speed boost where you shoot a rocket against a wall and run backwards at the same time, getting a large speed boost from the rocket blast hitting you that lets you run across a gap you'd normally fall through at standard running speed. That gap can technically be straferunned across (seriously, it's hard to find video of someone accessing it using the rocket method).

[Obiwanshinobi]

Suddenly I'm interested in split-screen first person shooters for the Wii. Call of Duty 3, in theory, should be the definitive version, but it doesn't seem to have split-screen. What about Black Ops, then?
I have MP Trilogy with Echoes multiplayer, but the controls are a wee bit on the laggy side. Bearable in singleplayer, but there are more responsive Wii shooters out there (Other M feels tighter too). The lag is a major hindrance to Battalion Wars 2 and Red Steel 2 as well. Is the original Red Steel any good on split-screen?

Last but not least, has anybody even played (The) Conduit (2) on split-screen?

P.S. I see Modern Warfare Wii sports single screen co-op à la S&P2. Interesting to say the least. There appears to be more CoD games on Wii than I thought. Do all of them control well? I'd take a plain looking game with responsive aiming over a prettier one with more input lag.

[TransatlanticFoe]

Goldeneye and Conduit 2 both have split screen multiplayer but I've never played that mode. Technically Red Steel does too but the controls are balls - you have to move the pointer right to the edge of the screen to turn, so it's painful to play.

None of the Wii CoD games have split screen, but the controls from Modern Warfare onwards (i.e. excluding 3 and World at War) can be heavily customised to be as responsive as you like. Takes a while to configure, but you should be able to find the right sweet spot. Goldeneye and Conduit 1&2 have similar customisation options.

[Obiwanshinobi]

Technically Red Steel does too but the controls are balls - you have to move the pointer right to the edge of the screen to turn, so it's painful to play.

Sounds like Red Steel 2 and the default controls in Metroid Prime Wii. Neither gave me trouble in this respect.

[BIL]

Thy Flesh Consumed is the best set of levels in the original trilogy, imo. Tight, complex and difficult stage design throughout (except for one minor mis-step, the relatively boring E4M4 "Unruly Evil," which feels like it should've traded places with the fiendish puzzle box of E4M1 "Hell Beneath" if anything). E4M2 "Perfect Hatred" and E4M6 "Against Thee Wickedly" in particular are absolutely stellar maps. Complicated, lengthy and fast-paced in a way that shames DOOM II's bloat.

OPINION REVISION: I love E4M4/BDOOM+Black Metal now! After four (if you include E4M9) large, complex, involved maps it's a nice minute-tops blast of carnage, once you know to just grab that Invulnerability after the opening dungeon imp+pinkyfest, beeline for the red key and then let rip at the final chamber's shotgunner+Cacofest.

E4+BDOOMv018+Black Metal =



Very arcadey single sitting experience, with the merciless difficulty, nonstop carnage and lots of strategy to weigh up in getting from one oasis of Heavy Armour to another in maximum style.



Don't give me that look ಠ_ಠ

[TransatlanticFoe]

Technically Red Steel does too but the controls are balls - you have to move the pointer right to the edge of the screen to turn, so it's painful to play.

Sounds like Red Steel 2 and the default controls in Metroid Prime Wii. Neither gave me trouble in this respect.

No, it's worse than that. Red Steel 2 and the Prime default ("standard") have a large dead zone in the centre of the screen but turning is still responsive enough to use. This is the same as the "basic" aiming sensitivity on Prime - you need to go right to the very edge of the screen to turn, making moving and aiming a royal pain. Red Steel ends up feeling like Virtua Cop but where you control moving between fixed scenes - because it's the easiest way to play it.

[Obiwanshinobi]

Red Steel ends up feeling like Virtua Cop but where you control moving between fixed scenes - because it's the easiest way to play it.

Sounds like Resident Evil 4 (where I didn't mind the system; the real problem was enough space to run away at about every point that ruined all tension there).

[Obiwanshinobi]

Star Wars: Republic Commando (PC version) - what a late bloomer in my garden. So much going for it: no hostile Ewoks of Halo in sight, has got the Star Wars licence (you're not fooling anyone, old chaps) and... how should I put it? Kind of makes you fill the nobody's shoes. Remember The HORARS of War short story by Gene Wolfe? There's an euphemism "living force" in Warsaw Pact military nomenclature - hits the nail on the head right here.
Such a shame the sequel got cancelled, but seeing how ruthlessly exploited most successful FPS franchises can be in this day and age, maybe it's turned out for the better.
In case you're wondering - there's actually a game in there. Can't tell how much replay value it holds, but it seems a touch too easy on default settings (many a time I would clear an area, only to realise I hadn't even manned a turret).

[Wyrmnus]

FEAR and it's two expansion packs will forever be my favorite FPS games. Even more than the HALO franchise.

[Edmond Dantes]

Been playing the Wolfenstein 3D Total Conversion for ZDOOM the last couple of days. Strong recommend! It's incredibly faithful to the original, warts and all, while adding sorely-missed features like sidestep keys. Should make even the most obsessive Wolf3D fan happy.

I think I played that one a long time ago. I remember enjoying it, but not liking that it wasn't totally like Wolfenstein--guards don't patrol, and damage isn't based on how close or far you are (in Wolfenstein, one or two shots at point-blank range means you're dead).

I'm wondering if there's a source port of Wolfenstein or Blake Stone that adds sidestep keys while keeping the original game mechanics. The GBA version of Wolf3D is surprisingly awesome (I wish there had been a GBA version of Spear...)

[drauch]

Sounds intriguing. Such a bummer you can't remap the strafe keys in Wolf3D without modding.

[BIL]

I think I played that one a long time ago. I remember enjoying it, but not liking that it wasn't totally like Wolfenstein--guards don't patrol, and damage isn't based on how close or far you are (in Wolfenstein, one or two shots at point-blank range means you're dead).

You must've played a very obsolete version! Patrolling guards and proximity-dependent damage are most definitely in the newer version I played. Get it here.

[lilmanjs]

I've not posted in a thread about FPS games? Well shucks. I must post on behalf of the awesome community that has taken the granddaddy of FPSes to new heights. Wolf3d has over the years grown smaller and smaller, but there is still progress in making the engine do more and more things it never was thought possible. The 2 mods/TCs I've enjoyed a lot lately are, Operation Eisenfaust : Origins, and The False Spear SDL version. Both of these run on the SDL version of the code which brings the engine into the modern by requiring no Dosbox to run mods made with SDL.
Operation Eisenfaust : Orgins is a pretty advanced mod where you play as a spy turned into a mutant. In this you loose points for shooting mutants, since they are not the ones to shoot. link: http://wolf3d.darkbb.com/t2560-operatio ... st-origins
and The False Spear SDL version is done really nicely and even features a scoped rifle that you can zoom in and out of to blast Nazis from far away.
http://www.veracottis.co.uk/TFS_2.0.7z
http://wolf3d.darkbb.com/t2767-the-false-spear-sdl
So if you say Wolf3d is dead, don't count it out. There's a lot that has been done with the engine over the years.

[Ed Oscuro]

Maraphon 2 / Infinity and Blood: GETTING OUT OF THE WATER IS A CHALLENGE (but not a very fulfilling one). I like these games though. Well, Blood is odd and I'm not 100% with it; definitely not getting the "best game of all time" vibes from it; even with the engine enhancements I vastly prefer Duke, Shadow Warrior, and a fair bit of the Redneck Rampage stuff too (and most of the addon packs too). Still, it's not a bad game at all, and I like how its immediately-accurate enemies and weapons favor playing the game very differently from Duke 3D and DOOM. Also, I like that dynamite is a viable replacement for the jump shoes - too bad I spent a lot of time spinning my gears in the Holy Ground mission because I forgot that you can turn off jump boots, but at least I gained an appreciation for the game's physics.

Some of the secrets in this thing are really obscure and hard to make work even if you can see them, so I just wanted to say to Ed Dantes that it's totally okay to load up the-postmortem.com and get through. That said, I'm finding most of them by my lonesome. I bet the one that's escaping you on the first level is one that will make you gnash your teeth when you find it, because there's some clues around it (not really good ones, IMO). Blood is kind of strange in that often there aren't secrets in the places you'd expect to find them. Overall, there are so many games to play that I don't really care about "spoiling" stuff in the game - it's definitely not good to be in the '90s where we only had a limited number of things to play and so had to stretch them out (because almost nobody, at least in the FPS scene, had even imagined that replayability outside multiplayer was really possible back then). I've been playing this on the second-hardest difficulty level with a fair amount of quicksave abuse. Speaking of that, quicksaves seem to screw up enemy behavior, freezing them in place even if they are looking right at you, and extinguishing flares.

Marathon 2 and Infinity are a mix of easy (combat) and difficult (insane maps) - some odd moments, but at least these games don't get quite so crazy with the crazy carnival atmosphere as the original Marathon does (at a particular place some levels in), so it's easier to just lose yourself in finding your way around the maps, and not "holy fuck this is ugly" moments like the original Marathon. I actually found myself warming up to the panel-mounted story sessions; they're really quite well done. I wish there were more maps like Curiouser and Curiouser, and Bob's Big Date (of course, there's no Bobs in that level).

Ex Cathedra is an interesting map because not only is it partly modeled after real-world architecture, but it was the only map done by somebody other than the two "regular" mappers. I forgot about swimming when I first played it, so I got carefully to the end, and then found myself unable to get out of the water. Ironically, the guy who mapped this made some whines about how the swimming ruins the pace of his map - so then why the fuck did you put that unescapable-without-swimming pit for the main objective? Don't worry, I played this one the 100% original developer intent approved way. It was fun that way, aside from the time I wasted because I forgot about swimming. Poor F'licta and their 10-foot-wide sinkhole of eternity.

Marathon Infinity has a few hellish maps where I just was like "fuck it" and turned on teh cheats, because and you need to deal with the insane automap detail and also being in two vacuum levels, with basically no oxygen rechargers, one after the other! So thankfully this game isn't like BLOOD and tries to chide you after the level ending for using teh cheats (but Blood's requirements are such that it's definitely more rewarding not to use cheats).

[Edmond Dantes]

You must've played a very obsolete version! Patrolling guards and proximity-dependent damage are most definitely in the newer version I played. Get it here.

Now that I look, I think I actually played "WolfenDOOM" and not Wolfenstein 3D TC, so... yeah. Oops on my part.

[Ed Oscuro]

Speaking of Blood, Blood II is...quite a trip. Lame character substitution mode included! What is with average to bad FPSes after Half-Life trying to talk smack about it? SiN did it, and so does this game. It just calls attention to the vast disparity in quality between these games. Blood II isn't just a bad sequel to Blood, but it's been a bad game, period, so far. I finally got to the Cathedral, and some interesting (?) new enemies showed up. It's been a parade of horrific bugs and glitches all the way to this point, though - from lousy rendering bugs (standing up in low ceilings when the ceiling slopes downward, rooms through doors not rendering for that last bit of door travel) to physics (here's a basketball - guess what, this isn't Thief or Deus Ex, either!) to enemies taking rides on your head. Not much to write home about with the enemies before the cathedral, where some strange area attack effects start showing up. Before then it's stunlock melee and peekaboo gunplay all day long.

The game had me backtrack to the same area from the very beginning of the game not twice, but three times! Yes, after riding in an airship for an hour, I parachuted out to find that there's no place like home.

And all this is after getting the damn thing to work - there's problems every step of the way. Copy three directories from the game CD, find patches on old sites that don't support searches (avoiding Russian virus repositories), set three files (Client, server, Blood II.exe) to WinXP SP2 compatibility mode + disable themes + run as admin, create a batch file to set affinity to 1 (run on only one CPU), and run at the right resolution always, because higher resolutions will crash. It's still slightly laggy and not ideal, even after setting the mouse acceleration all the way to "responsive" (lol, the good old days when a default sane setting for mouse movement was "smooth," supposedly). Getting the expansion data in will probably require a test installation in XP (possibly can do it in XP mode).

Still liking the quotes though. Too bad about the obvious character voice replacement though...well, not really, but he sounds a bit mellowed out here compared to the original.

[BIL]

I used to miss Blood for its memorably screen-jarring explosions and generally hard-hitting violence... but then BDOOM came along and redefined the very notion of hyperkinetic destructive impact in oldschool FPSs. However the latter's ongoing lack of windows to shatter does still disappoint!

Super interesting fact: that is indeed Monolith's "flaming victim" sprite in later versions of BDOOM! (they're credited on the splash screen)

[drauch]

Gave me such a smile seeing the flaming dude model running around in BDOOM.

Yeah, Blood II is a goddamn mess. I can't stand it. Long gone is the dark, subtle humor of the first game, instead replaced with farting civilians and OMG blatant offensiveness. Clearly a rushed project. Could easily be a different game altogether. I own the jewel case, but it sits permanently tucked away on the shelf. Kinda like how the first Postal is a very, very evil game with a lot of dark humor, with the second game pumping up the irreverence and childlike shock gags just to get a gander. Troma film: the game, complete with piss and fart jokes!

[Edmond Dantes]

I just won an auction for what I think is One Unit: Whole Blood (which is Blood with both expansions included). It's odd tho, the seller listed it as just being the Plasma Pak, but the CD he showed looked like the One Unit Whole Blood CD, so I took a chance (because there is no circumstance which I can't handle). Anyway, I'll know for sure when it arrives in the mail.

In the meantime, I found Blake Stone: Aliens of Gold at a local thrift store, along with Dungeon Master II: Legend of Skullkeep (not an FPS so not relevant), Gunman Chronicles (haven't played yet) and a bizarre Christian FPS called The War in Heaven, which I played a little bit of and... it's bad. It's got big, open levels (kinda like Unreal) with barely anything in them (kinda like Unreal) and feels slow and tedious (kinda like Unreal). Okay, all joking (and Unreal-bashing) aside, it's not a well-designed game. The graphics would've looked spectacular in 1993, but it was released in 1999, and they apparently can't do lighting right, among several other bugs...

But oddly, Blake Stone made me want to play Wolfenstein 3D. I dunno what it is, I mean Blake Stone is a good game, but somehow it doesn't feel as well put-together as Wolfenstein 3D. Like especially I noticed Blake feels like its trying to be what D&D players used to call a "Monty Haul" campaign--in the first map (meaning E1M1) alone, the entire upper half of the map is one big connected series of secrets full of treasure and you can get almost all the guns there if you explore carefully. It feels like its trying to wow me with free treats to keep me playing.

I mean, again, Blake is still good, but Wolf3D just feels slightly better somehow.

...

Anyway, I just went through Ep1 of Wolf 3D (including the Secret map) and beat it. So now, what should I do?

A) Move on to Episode 2?
B) Beat Ep1 on a higher difficulty?
C) Try to speedrun Ep1 and beat the Par times on each map?

(a 100% run doesn't seem that interesting to me)

[Ed Oscuro]

Blood 2 has a Metascore of 72/100. Monolith says it has "more blood than Blood!" Also, some shit about Blade Runner and The Crow. (It looks more like Kingpin: Life of Crime with random spinners and airships on occasion, set sometime in the '90s mostly.)

I didn't see any farting civilians in Blood II, but every other penis / poo joke possible (and some that shouldn't be) is in there, including some that I think are sneaky stuff that I don't want to discuss.

Caleb got Flanderized to hell. It's interesting to go from the Lumber Mill (episode 2) level of Blood, where Caleb makes an offhand remark about discovering a nice scent, to where Blood 2 takes every opportunity possible to remark that Caleb likes disgusting things.

The backtracking is worse than should be possible, also. You better like the subway train opening, because you're going to go back to essentially the exact same scene at least three times. See a sign in the city advertising something? Don't worry about untapped potential - you'll travel there at least once. What's progress? Story progress is you show up to some place, Gideon appears and his scientist freak says something like "THIS time I'm right," a wormhole opens up, somebody friendly to Caleb appears and says random things, the bad guys are confused and leave, and Caleb tells his friend to fuck off and leave him alone. Great character development here. Gideon, Caleb, Gabriel...Gabriella...hard to keep this shit straight.

The weapons are infuriating as well. The awesome Napalm Cannon from the original game is next to worthless here, and the Howitzer won't gib the random gargoyle-likes or axe zombies in less than three hits (and this is just normal difficulty). There's also modes for these weapons that consume more ammo, and more time to spin up, but they don't seem to really do any more damage. The three weapons you pick up early on - flare guns, shotguns, and bullet weapons - work at least well (if not best) for most everything. The Tesla Cannon is weak like the Howitzer, but it fires faster in normal mode, and at least it is able to one-shot the teleporting guys. All the same, the best weapon against the common teleporting enemies remains the lowly flare gun, which is a guaranteed kill in one hit, as the flare teleports with them. Oh, and Monolith also fucked up alt-fire when you pick up dual guns, so kiss goodbye to the flare gun's famous altfire. You also can't carry around everything at once, so weapons with rare ammo don't seem likely to ever get a chance to shine. On top of all that, weapons which share a common ammo pool - pistols, SMGs, assault rifle, and I assume the vulcan - won't pick up and add to your ammo count unless you have that item in your inventory, so the game will quickly eat up a lot of time if you choose to play the inventory management game by using the weapon drop key.

Fuck it all, I'll just slap on cheats. It's not that the game doesn't give you adequate ammo (most of the time) or plays too easily (it gets difficult in a hurry - the first boss can take you from 100 hit points to zero in a couple unescapable long-range area attacks that I'm not sure how you're supposed to deal with legitimately, even using triple damage), but I just don't care enough to play it properly.

Maps are as bad as ever. Note to budding mappers: If you aren't going to test whether the player / enemies can catapult / be thrown over a wall, then don't build in areas / geometry the player / enemies can stand on / get over.

Oh, and for fuck's sake, don't put tiny enemies that ALL latch onto you, facehugger style, that cannot be removed and which WILL slowly kill you in tiny crate / crawlspace mazes, thanks. It's too bad real explosives are so rare in this game.

So, what's good? Just a couple things: The museum was educational. It is interesting to see how some later Monolith games are foreshadowed here - the blindfolded, axe-wielding enemies prefigures Condemned, and empty apartment crawls are like a practice run for FEAR. I also liked the few hidden areas - like the Predator hideout in the Steam Cleanin' level. Probably anybody can quit the game right there.

Carnivores: Cityscape is a better game.