the first person shooter game thread (eew fps)

[Lance Boyle]

Did he just ignore half of what I wrote, or am I failing to read between the lines?

[drauch]

Did he just ignore half of what I wrote, or am I failing to read between the lines?

He is 2 mad.

[Lance Boyle]

but it's pretty hilarious your response was "you forgot the Super Shotgun!" Oh boy, another shotgun!

You're ignoring the Super Shotgun, the chainsaw, the fist, (which can be upgraded to do as much damage as...) the rocket launcher, the plasma gun, and the BFG.

...

(Also, the Super Shotgun is a completely different weapon designed for a completely different purpose. They are not interchangeable. It is not just "another shotgun".)

[Limbrooke]

In fact the Gravity Gun and the Portal Gun are pretty much on the brink of staleness as well.

I have to agree with this. New really isn't new after all. These weapons do what they're meant to do but I cannot I strive to use either (whether in HL2DM, Portal or GM) and the experience was certainly more interesting in outside analysis than in direct use. Both are good enough however and seeing how recently I only have access to the Gravity Gun, I suppose if faced with no alternative, yeah, I might use it.

[Obiwanshinobi]

Don't know about console ports, but on the PC Gravity Gun was pretty awesome. Of course it was only as awesome as the stuff lying around would make it, but H-L2 wasn't short of fun stuff to mess around with in this regard. Certainly a Fun Weapon™ in my book.

[Lance Boyle]

the experience was certainly more interesting in outside analysis than in direct use

Same could be said of almost anything, which is why we're here talking about shmups instead of playing them :O)

[Limbrooke]

the experience was certainly more interesting in outside analysis than in direct use

Same could be said of almost anything, which is why we're here talking about shmups instead of playing them :O)

Discussion is good/interesting, but actions speak louder than words. No need for low-blows, friend; I would say despite observing use of either gun was interesting and yet wasn't as compelling when I used them myself, at least not for long. I don't have lengthy exposure to either (less for the Gravity Gun) which then could be said I am not justified in giving a good posit/analysis of it. I contrast the comment made by Ed with reference to those two weapons in marking a point that despite changes such weapons present to modern fps games, that really isn't enough to satisfy. At least, enough to satisfy over tried and true more common weapons and weapon types. It is hard to fix something that isn't broken and in many ways (pardon the Gluon) introducing such weapons over the Goldsrc weaponry was a tall order. I don't have much compassion for Half-Life now but it had pretty good weapons (no auto-aiming) and that's half the battle.

Your statement is a blanket I might fall under but I don't like the rules it institutes for others it most certainly doesn't apply to. Are you saying then anyone who posts a message on here talks shmups more than playing shmups? Get real man.

[Lance Boyle]

Your statement is a blanket I might fall under but I don't like the rules it institutes for others it most certainly doesn't apply to.

VERSIMILITUDINOUS, QUITE!

Are you saying then anyone who posts a message on here talks shmups more than playing shmups?

Nope.

[drauch]

Now we are just being silly. The gravity gun and portal gun were new things on their own. I don't see how they go "stale". Do you like any FPS games that aren't popular/revolutionary?

[ST Dragon]

So what ever happened to the Black Mesa Source mod Half Life 1 remake?
http://www.blackmesasource.com/

It was supposed to be released Xmas 2009.
I have no doubt that these guys have come to an agreement with Valve to release it commercially through Steam.
It looks too good give it out to the people for free. "Free" died a long time ago...

And what about Half Life 2 Episode 3 which was supposed to be released around 2007-2008? It turned out the "surprises" that Valve was going to announce to the masses was nothing more than a Portal2 for the PS-3. Which is strange as I remember Valve saying how much the disliked the PS-3 and that it was in fact awkward & a waste of time of developing for it.

http://www.platformnation.com/2010/06/1 ... urprising/

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/ar ... ?id=249777

Or Half Life 3?...

[drauch]

Episode 3 is due to come out this next year.

[Schrodinger's cat]

Have you guys seen the WR portal speedrun yet? It's absolutely insane. He beats the entire game in under 9.5 minutes....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1U5RUVENNE

[Ed Oscuro]

Speaking of too high standards, I am currently just barely resisting charging 990 Nexon Cash to PayPal to open up a Black HiSec case in Combat Arms.

By way of explanation, Combat Arms is a "free to play" online shooter that looks like it was made on the Unreal Tournament 2004 engine, with maps and art somewhere beyond the style and competence of Counter-Strike: Condition Zero (so about two steps beyond the original Counter-Strike in most places, but keeping much of the chunky feeling). Not the greatest looking thing ever, in other words. It uses the Lithtech Engine - though it's not as good looking as No One Lives Forever 2, of course. The game dates from about 2008 and has been getting content updates on a fairly regular basis - though I think, from having spent a few hours with it, that they should focus a bit also on updating some of the early maps which have apparent issues (ugly, and reported gameplay problems on some).

You've got your various servers, each of which can be joined at any time and which is further split up into "channels" which does limit the number of people you can interact with. Each channel finally is split up into servers, just like Counter-Strike or any other multiplayer FPS. Into these you go, ready yourself to play, and play a round. It seems like a workable system, though lag is rampant. By each of the server and channel names there is a little icon - going from green to red - which suggests latency, but which is marked from low (activity) to busy, color-coded also (i.e. red is full). I haven't tried any servers with more than two bars, but this seems to be just a designation of the load on a server, not your latency - and there was some lag, though it wasn't so bad that I couldn't stand it.

Game types: Capture the Flag, Elimination (team deathmatch), One Man Army (free for all), Quarantine (hard to explain), and Fireteam (Cooperative missions, some of which are based around the quarantine storyline). I haven't played all modes yet (not sure I ever will).

About Quarantine and Fireteam - sometime in 2009 (I think) Nexon updated the game with a new storyline, which is basically "let's also buy into this zombie craze." Fireteam existed before and from what I can tell it was basically "good guys versus terrorists" in the Black Hawk Down setting (Mogadishu's Army is ironically Arabic in appearance and called the "Sang Hog," no, I'm not making this up - ask the Koreans, they made it). There is some other stuff about a global UN-like army and a international PMC that can be safely ignored (and, truth be told, I never found any evidence of it in-game - besides little blurbs on the loading screen which passes in a few seconds - there's an upside to the old-fashioned visuals).

Back to zombies - Quarantine is a riff on an old Counter-Strike (again) server side mod, where everybody runs around as humans, and then the game selects one person to be a zombie whose job is then to infect everybody else. Seen the exact same thing in CS Source - with the one small difference that there are some zombie-themed levels (ugly labs with some blood splatters is the only Quarantine level I've seen) and that humans have a very small amount of ammunition, so they must hold back on firing just to escape and run away to an elevator (I guess) to win the match (very rare). It was exceedingly easy to infect humans but almost impossible to kill a zombie (happened to me once) or survive (never managed it).

Fireteam vs. terrorists is basically running through a level and killing enemies, as mentioned before, a bit like playing a 1998 shooter with lots of friends. (But Soldier of Fortune was much better.)
Fireteam vs. zombies is basically holding ground and killing waves of zombies. My advice to you is...aim for the head! So far the best weapons to bring along are a scoped assault rifle and a machine gun. I only have 40/80 bullets for the rifle and 175/75 for the machine gun (have magazine extensions for each, probably those are 30/90 normally and 150/100 normally). Two zombies levels of note: Black Lung, which puts you in a mine and looks pretty shitty (everybody is sandwiched into one intersection at the game start, and I found it nearly impossible to play well), and Cabin Fever, which sticks you in a cabin with three doors and lots of windows. That's not too bad actually, and the map feels pretty nicely done.

Unfortunately, gameplay is essentially a shooting gallery - sit just outside one of the doorways and shoot the targets in the head as they pop up. If things get tough, you can run outside (through noxious fumes, losing a tiny bit of health) to another doorway. It's no Left 4 Dead.

Being free-to-play, the game has to try to find some way of scre-uh, taking your money.

There is a dual currency system in-game: GP, which is gotten at a low rate by playing games and can be burned through quickly, and NX, which can only be bought.

You have to buy equipment, and furthermore your access to equipment is restricted by your level. You don't have to pay to increase your level - just play a lot. However, of course there's a way to buy an item to increase your level more quickly (by increasing experience accumulation by some percentage). There are even some servers that let you increase experience accumulation (though I have avoided anything but the "recruit-friendly" servers so far, and even those weren't all the time).

As soon as I hit the main website, I was greeted by a note that said that certain weapons were being retired permanently, oh no! Of course, there was (for a limited time) an opportunity to permanently buy one at a discount rate for my inventory. Only 14,940 for an AK-74M, or about $15 for a rifle that works just about as good or bad as any other rifle.

And the aforementioned Black Hi-Sec case - in a One Man Army match (where some annoying asshole by the name of doggyx or something bitched at me the entire match after he entered for being a camping, armor-wearing noob while I taunted him back by killing him repeatedly with his own gun and calling him out for relying on planted mine kills...oh, the joyful lack of self-reflection found in the teen ages), I managed to snatch one from somebody else. Unfortunately, you have to pay 990 NX (about a buck I think) to open the thing (or less per key, if you buy 15 keys at once!), and you can get a random gun, which may be a permanent weapon, or it may be a camouflage pattern, or it may be a gun for 30 days. I have until December 18th to make my decision. Spend a dollar for uncertain rewards...or will I still have the game installed at that time? Anybody willing to take bets, now is the time!

I don't think there's a lot else to say. What the game does, it does competently enough, but when you add lag to a game that is not really up to speed with other options, the wide variety of cosmetic changes (i.e. different weapons) doesn't really count for much. I'm not sure that buying crap will really help make the game better, because they seem to want to squander it on making new useless guns that you, again, will have to pay for later, instead of going back and making old maps prettier / more competent.

The one bright spot is ironically on the darkest maps, the zombie levels - despite the gameplay being poor, the people there are generally more cooperative in spirit. I even got two folks adding me after a match, which was nice.

Overall, the game isn't up to the standard of traditional store-bought games, but it also isn't up to the standard of America's Army 3 - certainly not in visuals, which will help people with older computers of course - but also not in terms of lag or gameplay. America's Army 3 has yet to reintroduce the cooperative matches that I (rather perversely, because they were just as bad as Combat Arms') enjoyed, which may or may not be a good thing. With cooperative gameplay becoming the norm with games like Gears of War, Left 4 Dead, and even Unreal Tournament 3 leading the way, Combat Arms is probably dead in the water, but it is an interesting option for free gamers. (So is piracy, and of course it costs nothing to sit on your hands, too.)

[Obiwanshinobi]

(So is piracy, and of course it costs nothing to sit on your hands, too.)

Speaking of which, the lads have been playing Ketsui (and DOJ if you care) in MAME since the day before yesterday. Might help you to resist the urge if you don't really wanna part with that dollar.

[TrevHead (TVR)]

Next year is shaping up to be a great year for mainstream game, Eldar Scrolls 5, Diablo 3, HL 2.3 or 3, Portal 2, ME 3, BShock 3, Crysis 2, Serious Sam 3 all sheer bliss.

[Ed Oscuro]

Next year is shaping up to be a great year for mainstream game, Eldar Scrolls 5, Diablo 3, HL 2.3 or 3, Portal 2, ME 3, BShock 3, Crysis 2, Serious Sam 3 all sheer bliss.

I think only half of those games are going to get a "good or better" rating from me.

The latest Serious Sam may be a wild card...they did okay with the HD versions of the classic titles, and Serious Sam 2 was certainly...shiny.

[drauch]

I'm pumped for all of those. Will be a good year, indeed.

[ST Dragon]

Hell even AMIGA, DOS & early Win95, 98, XP PC FPS offered more fun & creativity than the modern, easy, short & linear movie-like FPS, which are basically aimed for graphics freaks & noobs.
Even ID announcements about the upcoming Rage tells it all about modern PC gaming…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DlKiDMGR_kU

@ 2:54 "We hate over complex inventory systems... make it simple... We hate dying in games...we hate being frustrated..."

Just graphics!

Now where is the challenge & fun in that?!
I might as well watch a movie on the TV then.

[drauch]

Yeah, FPS' are too easy and too short nowadays, for the most part. If it's not an FPS/RPG hybird I usually prefer older DOS titles and the like, but it all depends. Rage is looking pretty cool in my book, though.

[ST Dragon]

Yeah Rage sure looks cool, but I'm rather skeptical concerning the buggy battle-racing parts. HL2 was the only FPS were vehicles fitted so well into it (albeit paying a minor role into the story), but in the case of Rage, these buggies seem to be very important in the story, introducing racing/battle elements which could feel awkward in a FPS. Also I haven’t seen anything shocking or surprising so far in the trailers / screen-shots of Rage that I haven’t seen countless times before in other FPS.

The only FPS I'm looking forward to are Doom 4 (Yeah I loved Doom 3 too ), Half Life 2 Episode 3 (Or HL3, which ever comes 1st) and Black Mesa source (If it ever gets released)

[KBZ]

if you're cool, you play CS and only CS

and take breaks for Urban Terror

I just bought UT99 and UT2004 from GOG.com for a few dollars. Nice to see that UT99 still gets some solid online play. Been enjoying these gems for the first time in a long time.

[louisg]

I played 4-player Halo with some friends over break .. it's no Dukematch, that's for sure. But then again, what is?

... I really wish that thing had an invulnerability period, a little "X" when you're being targeted with snipers (like in that old Quake mod), and maybe a little warning when someone tosses a grenade your way. At least an invulnerability period.

[Limbrooke]

if you're cool, you play CS and only CS

and take breaks for Urban Terror

I recently got CSS after the US Thanksgiving sale and it's the first time I've played that. This comes on the heels of registering my GOTY Half-Life on Steam and getting CS, DoD, OF, BS, etc.. as bonuses. I was pretty satisfied at getting original CS for free as it originally was. Coming from those changes, lately I had become more annoyed with Turban Error and to my surprise CS has provided a good alternative. Naturally, having never played Counter Strike before the year 2010 I'm quite bad but it's fun, and runs quite well when using Source Dedicated Server for bots. The bottom line is despite having no inclination to own or to run Counter Strike before 2010 it doesn't seem as though I have missed out on much, pardon being far behind anyone else who had been there from early on.

All this Steam madness thanks to my random purchase of Red Orchestra for a few bucks and not reading the fine print... eh. Another noteworthy aspect - no Steam access prior to Oct 2010 - it's a neewwww recordd. There is more to this than meets the eye. Prior to Steam/RO I heard and became more interested in a mod and that may well be the contributing factor behind my final acceptance of Steam. That mod is GoldenEye Source.

GES represents everything I disliked about the original game being rectified. It offered the prospect of finally enjoying one of the most respected and influential console FPS of all time. In brief: I never had a N64 and around the height of GE64s popularity I did not play much if any games beyond Genesis (hooooo yeah) therefore whenever I hung out with anyone else who had an N64 the chances were good GoldenEye would be played, in multi-player, and I would be consequently lost and frustrated or would simply sit out the game. For many years pretty much until again 2010 I had a passionate dislike for GE64 as bad memories and strong position against the game/mechanics kept it that way until I actually began to look beyond what I felt and rather what it did for everyone else who did enjoy it. I still don't like the idea and use with a controller of original GoldenEye but after learning, reading, and analyzing what that game does/did I have a lot more respect for it. I'm probably one of the few people to not extensively play or let alone enjoy GE64 to run GES and it's likely I'm missing a key factor. I will this say this much; with the game finally going full version and having an active community made it pretty enjoyable and I hope it stays that way for a while to come. Essentially, CSS enabled me to get the Source engine (albeit after I learned how to get HL2DM, HL2LC, and Portal FS for free) and Source allowed me to get GES. Sounds like a good deal to me and I encourage anyone else interested to get GES - it's free man: http://www.moddb.com/mods/goldeneye-source

New years resolutions: beat SPs of Quake 4, Half-Life 2 and Serious Sam Gold.

[KBZ]

I'm always amazed when I hear people have only recently played CS. I suppose because back in 2001, anyone who played online pc games played CS. Or maybe that's just the way things were for kids hanging out in Korean internet cafe lan matches back then.

I just bought battlefield bad company 2... and I want my $15.00 back. It certainly is pretty looking, and I can tell that a bunch of work has gone into it. But it just feels like I'm sniping from a slow moving canoe most of the time. Coming from a long history of twitch fps games like cs, dod, and tfc, I feel like I could play this with a $2 mouse and not notice a difference. I would probably enjoy it more on a console, but feels strange as a pc game.

In another long session of DoDSource, the usual whining over how much better DoD 1.3 was with its amazing maps like Caen, Jagd, German Paratrooper classes, and Commonwealth forces. It's true, Valve has all but abandoned this great skill based fps. However, some die hards have picked up where they left off with some very impressive projects.

Ham and Jam is a very promising project that focuses on the early years of WWII before the joining of American forces. Being able to grab an Enfield rifle and fight for King and Country is an easy sell for me. Game isn't out yet, but it's showing good progress.

Resistance and Liberation takes more of a realistic approach to the genre, but is more forgiving than Red Orchestra or Darkest Hour. It also has some neat features like being able to aim your rifle without changing the direction you're looking at which I think we'll see more of in future realistic pc games. There are a few servers with frequent matches but they are locked clan servers mostly. It's currently in Open Beta

Last game I looked at was WW1 Source. Yup, trench warfare at its finest! The game seems dead, but a good amount of work is going into an upcoming 2.0 release that might as well be a whole new game with all the new textures.

All this of course to keep me interested until Heroes of Stalingrad comes out sometime this year.

[gameoverDude]

I'm hoping Doom 4 plays more like Doom 1 & 2 than part 3. Part 3 is good in its own right, but I want the next one to be Doom.

Developed by Raven, Singularity isn't bad at all- I got the 360 version recently for a little over $20. I generally stick with the console versions of FPS titles due to PC ones often using SecuROM DRM.

Taking place around Russia, this one borrows a little from the Half-Life series (scientific experiment totally fucked up, and you deal with the aftermath of it) and adds in a BioShock style upgrade system along with some time travel (you are in 2010 but sometimes go back to the early Cold War era- namely 1955). It does not have the hub system found in BS. E99 Tech is essentially your Adam, and E99 vials take the place of Eve. Your weapon loadout is limited similarly to CoD, but you can take any previously used weapons from the Weapon Lockers.

The TMD/Time Manipulation Device has several uses- besides being a gravity gun, it can also age an enemy to dust (good for a 1HKO when you need it, but this takes a lot of E99 power) and perform Impulse attacks. The latter replaces your melee attack when you get it and does a shitload of damage, often dismembering an enemy if the blast is lethal. If abused, it too will prodigiously eat up E99. You even have the Deadlock power which can suspend an enemy in time, effectively freezing them.

Sometimes certain timeworn items will need to be "renewed", and the TMD can help you there. You may even have to "age" certain objects to fit them into certain areas. This adds another dimension to the gravity gun puzzles that HL2 started. One nice original weapon is the Dethex Launcher. What makes this one special is its alt-fire: The grenade isn't launched but is instead laid on the ground. You hold LT and roll it to where you need it. Just let go of LT and BOOM. You'll find plenty of fun ways to use this one.

Speaking of Raven, I wouldn't mind seeing a Hexen III. Hexen II tried mixing RPG elements in, and did it fairly well.

[Kaiser]

There was supposed to be Hecatomb which would be a successor to Hexen however since we heard it for first time officially, it has never appeared again, scrapped in hell somewhere.

[gameoverDude]

There was supposed to be Hecatomb which would be a successor to Hexen however since we heard it for first time officially, it has never appeared again, scrapped in hell somewhere.

At the moment there is Hexen: Edge of Chaos which is being done as an expansion for Doom 3. Right now it's just a demo release (11/11/2010) but looks promising so far.
http://www.moddb.com/mods/hexen-edge-of-chaos

[KBZ]

just started really getting into STALKER SOC. Totally didn't understand the game until a few hours in. Haven't seriously played a single player fps since Half Life 2, and I'm not usually a fan of the bleak spooky genre. But as I go on, I'm totally hooked on the game. The various tasks are really fun. Plenty of depth, and....scary shit.

Been using the Complete Mod with it. Maybe I'm a pussy, but I can't progress very quickly through the game unless it's on novice, and I'm still dying all the time.

http://www.moddb.com/mods/stalker-complete-2009

[kemical]

I'm hoping Doom 4 plays more like Doom 1 & 2 than part 3. Part 3 is good in its own right, but I want the next one to be Doom.

I do too, guess we will see. A lead designer I know from on FEAR 2 is handling game design / lead level design stuff on Doom 4. FEAR 2 tried to focus too much on the story IMO and not enough on hardcore combat, I hope that Doom 4 will be more about action and less about a linear cinematic experience. I'm sure it will be good, but I do miss classic FPS action. I'm guessing more indie games could fill that gap than actual mainstream industry stuff as more and more indies get into 3D, maybe that is a hope too.

just started really getting into STALKER SOC. Totally didn't understand the game until a few hours in. Haven't seriously played a single player fps since Half Life 2, and I'm not usually a fan of the bleak spooky genre. But as I go on, I'm totally hooked on the game. The various tasks are really fun. Plenty of depth, and....scary shit.

Stalker is a great FPS... glad you're getting hooked on it. I always get urges to go back and play it more.. there is just something very satisfying and addicting about the sense of "I wonder how long I can survive and what stuff I will encounter this time..". It isn't a perfect game, it can feel clumsy and held together by duct tape at times... but it is still extremely good for what it attempts.

[drauch]

Yeah, STALKER rules. I beat the first one a couple months back. Really need to get Pripyat still.