I also tend to get my ass kicked in RoTT (I've only played the shareware ver). You seem to be much more frail in terms of health than other FPSes, even early ones like Wolfenstein or Catacomb Abyss. Granted, in DOOM or, to a lesser extent,Quake, you can get pretty tanky with high armor and health pickups everywhere. Quake balances out by having armor degrade fairly quick, and having stuff like Shamblers and Vores that can chew through you in a hurry even with plenty health/armour.
On the opposite end of the scale is Quake 2, which is frankly the easiest FPS I can think of once you get the Power Armour. Turn it on, make sure you have cells, and it reduces the damage you take so drastically for the remainder of the game (with little cell usage) that you are nigh unkillable by anything except getting instadeathed (crushed in the mines, falling in lava, touching a laser beam) or eating a few direct hit BFG blasts from the final boss. It's so much easier that it's like a different game once you get the Power Armour.
Favorite Old-Old-School FPS
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BareKnuckleRoo
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Re: Favorite Old-Old-School FPS
Last edited by BareKnuckleRoo on Sun Jul 14, 2013 6:06 am, edited 1 time in total.
Re: Favorite Old-Old-School FPS
Not sure. Trying for the full list of bonuses on map one is really annoying because you've got to run past the first group of enemies, have strict ammo limits, and basically can't make any mistakes - and then the difficulty level tapers off as you find the MP-40. If I didn't actually know they admitted they didn't test the bonuses on gameplay, I'd still know they didn't test the effect of going for bonuses on gameplay. Now, just blasting through the levels - I don't know. Just try to get through with rockets when you can. You might find yourself having to resort to the MP-40 if you run outta ammo, just try to shoot straight and use powerups well (one thing that RotT does well, perhaps better than Quake, is allowing you to make good use of fun powerups to rush through crowds - Quake would do this better if only the Quad damage locations were more obvious; in Quake I tend to get to / remember their locations only after I've cleared a level). But if the game is throwing you into lots of situations where you can't use the non-bullet weapons to good effect, then I don't know what you really can do. That's on the game designers' heads and there's not much we can do about it.
If memory serves, you might be able to look down to get the firewall spread starting wider.
Obviously there are good situations for some rockets, and some bad; just as obviously, the one-rocket-weapon-at-a-time limitation makes tactics clunky and tends to try to force you into using weapons in areas they don't work well in, and that pushes you back to pewpew.
Bottom line, I think they had lots of neat ideas but the design ultimately punishes you for wanting to run through levels quickly and for wanting to use weapons to maximum effect. It would be far better if only you could carry two missile (or magic...) weapons at a time. For chrissakes, you can't even carry a baseball bat at the same time as a rocket. But they waste two keys on single and akimbo pistols - which you aren't supposed to use - I know I'm repeating myself, but it should be abundantly clear that the game has issues and you shouldn't beat yourself up over it.
Quake's power armor...I don't think I ever used that. Can't remember really. Just an uninspired and uninspiring game. I remember lots of...things, but not much of note. Hey, one of the expansions had laser fences near the start! Pew pew!
If memory serves, you might be able to look down to get the firewall spread starting wider.
Obviously there are good situations for some rockets, and some bad; just as obviously, the one-rocket-weapon-at-a-time limitation makes tactics clunky and tends to try to force you into using weapons in areas they don't work well in, and that pushes you back to pewpew.
Bottom line, I think they had lots of neat ideas but the design ultimately punishes you for wanting to run through levels quickly and for wanting to use weapons to maximum effect. It would be far better if only you could carry two missile (or magic...) weapons at a time. For chrissakes, you can't even carry a baseball bat at the same time as a rocket. But they waste two keys on single and akimbo pistols - which you aren't supposed to use - I know I'm repeating myself, but it should be abundantly clear that the game has issues and you shouldn't beat yourself up over it.
Quake's power armor...I don't think I ever used that. Can't remember really. Just an uninspired and uninspiring game. I remember lots of...things, but not much of note. Hey, one of the expansions had laser fences near the start! Pew pew!
Re: Favorite Old-Old-School FPS
Hm maybe the tactic I'm missing then is just 'quicksave'Ed Oscuro wrote:ou for wanting to run through levels quickly and for wanting to use weapons to maximum effect. It would be far better if only you could carry two missile (or magic...) weapons at a time. For chrissakes, you can't even carry a baseball bat at the same time as a rocket. But they waste two keys on single and akimbo pistols - which you aren't supposed to use - I know I'm repeating myself, but it should be abundantly clear that the game has issues and you shouldn't beat yourself up over it.
I should make a build of ROTT that makes the bullet weapons twice as powerful. I think that'd make it a lot more fun. It's interesting-- I think a lot of shmup design issues are shared with other genres. Popcorn enemies, for instance. I think it's important in a game like this to keep the flow moving. Doom had the grunts, Wolf and Blake had the basic guards, yet ROTT doesn't have any enemy that goes down in just one or two hits.BTW just beat E2M8 of Blake. I'm really feeling like that game's unfairly overlooked!
Humans, think about what you have done
Re: Favorite Old-Old-School FPS
If you're gonna make a RotT build, give yourself another rocket / magic weapon slot!
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Battlesmurf
- Posts: 1435
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Re: Favorite Old-Old-School FPS
BIL wrote:louisg wrote: DOOM Tangent: Brutal DOOM actually reinstated Wolf3D-style bullet passthrough for each variant of zombie gunner, something I actually find an improvement (differing types will still hit each other and infight as usual). Combined with the hyper-aggressive BDOOM AI, it means a pack of riflemen can now make Alex J. Murphy / Sonny Corleone out of you, instead of disintegrating into an infighting mess.
For the record, if you like first person shooters, there is zero reason to not have tried Brutal Doom (to anybody that has not yet). It's a ton of fun and modernizes Doom a little bit while keeping the feel. Great with co-op! (Also- *tons* of details. No more hitscan badguys (technically)).
))))
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89iszJNcKQw
Re: Favorite Old-Old-School FPS
TUROK!!!!!!
Re: Favorite Old-Old-School FPS
TOO NEWXoPachi wrote:TUROK!!!!!!
Humans, think about what you have done
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BareKnuckleRoo
- Posts: 6192
- Joined: Mon Oct 03, 2011 4:01 am
- Location: Southern Ontario
Re: Favorite Old-Old-School FPS
Decided to unearth this thread (which can probably be moved to Gaming now) to take a serious stab at Nitemare 3D instead of letting it just languish as a nostalgic gaming memory I never really seriously tried to play. It turns out it still scares me just as much as it did when I was a kid, but for entirely different reasons now. It's a really, really hard game, and for all the wrong reasons.
First, weapons suck. 3 out of the 4 weapons fire projectiles that travel slowly, roughly the speed of an imp's fireball in Doom (which is not hard to dodge by any means). The only hitscan weapon you eventually get is the Pistol, which ends up being the best weapon not just because of the damage but because it's the only one you can aim worth a damn. The rapid fire plasma gun is decent, but because the projectiles are so slow and thin, it's still quite hard to reliably hit with it at a distance. And even if you're aim is accurate, the projectiles are slow enough that enemies can simply dodge them or shoot you as you fire on them! You also don't have any means of attacking if ammo runs out.
Second, enemies are insanely hard. Every single projectile attacker in the game is hitscan, and when the game throws enemies that can hit you for half your health in one shot on Normal difficulty (35% or so on Easy) from level 2 onward, you know it's gonna be rough. Those undead ladies in white and the witches in black do NOT mess around up close, and of course you're often forced into fighting them up close near corners, where if you don't fire before they do you'll lose tons of health. They have basically no windup time to interrupt their attacks, and all enemy hitboxes are rather small, so hitting them as they round a corner or at a distance is extremely hard. Also, you don't have any kind of bouncy or AOE weapon to help deal with enemies before you can see them, and with health and ammo sometimes being quite limited, it feels like it's more about resource management than it is about skillful shooting!
No rapidfire hitscan weapons, no shotgun-like spread attacks, enemies that can fire as soon as they see you... yeah, everything feels stacked against the player. It certainly adds to the horror, I guess, but not in a way that works well and certainly not in a way that feels fun in an FPS.
It's arguably the worst Wolfenstein 3D style FPS I've ever played. As much as I love the cheesy horror aesthetic, the sound design, and the exceptionally good music (seriously, you gotta check out this remixed version of the soundtrack by Creepain, E1M6 is a banger), the game itself is a mess of poorly executed ideas and the difficulty comes from elements that feel stacked against the player, where you're constantly having to take unavoidable damage and then hunt down healing items.
That being said, it does have some interesting ideas, even if the package as a whole is a mess. The onscreen automap feature you get by grabbing eyeballs is handy as is the enemy detector. And the eyeball icon turning white when you find a secret door saves you having to run around holding the open door button constantly like in Wolf3D or Blake Stone.
By comparison:
• Wolfenstein 3D has more fair mechanics in terms of how damage from enemies is handled, and enemies have a far more considerable wind-up animation before they shoot. Plus, your good weapons are both rapidfire hitscan, all of which feels more fairly stacked. There are plenty of difficulty levels and enemies that hit hard, but you're also geared up properly to fight them, especially when they show up in groups.
• Blake Stone gives you a steathy infinite use pistol so running out of ammo is never a death sentence. In addition to multiple rapid fire hitscan weapons, you also have a grenade launcher with AOE splash damage, and enemies have nice big generous hitboxes. Also, some enemies use actually visible projectiles. Still plenty of nasty enemies like those respawning electrical dudes, oof. And the turrets that inexplicably can only be hit by your two machinegun style weapons.
• Wrath of Earth has enemies with nice big hitboxes, letting you hit enemies as they round corners more easily, and all projectile attackers use visible projectiles you can dodge. Doors close too rapidly after you open and step away from them making indoor fights tricky, but your shields recover in well lit areas, so it never feels wildly unfair to deal with (though patience is sometimes helpful to avoid spending your plasma and missiles, which you can only carry in small quantities). It's annoying that you can't dumbfire your homing missiles like you can with the plasma cannon, given half the enemies in the game jam your lock-ons!
• Ken's Labyrinth has infinite ammo (!!), bouncy and homing projectiles available, very potent powerups (including invulnerability and the ability to SHOOT THROUGH WALLS), and is generally quite friendly to the player. It's arguably the easiest game that uses a Wolf3D style engine.
I can thoroughly say my nostalgia for Nitemare 3D must've existed purely on the basis that the music is really, really good. Alas.
First, weapons suck. 3 out of the 4 weapons fire projectiles that travel slowly, roughly the speed of an imp's fireball in Doom (which is not hard to dodge by any means). The only hitscan weapon you eventually get is the Pistol, which ends up being the best weapon not just because of the damage but because it's the only one you can aim worth a damn. The rapid fire plasma gun is decent, but because the projectiles are so slow and thin, it's still quite hard to reliably hit with it at a distance. And even if you're aim is accurate, the projectiles are slow enough that enemies can simply dodge them or shoot you as you fire on them! You also don't have any means of attacking if ammo runs out.
Second, enemies are insanely hard. Every single projectile attacker in the game is hitscan, and when the game throws enemies that can hit you for half your health in one shot on Normal difficulty (35% or so on Easy) from level 2 onward, you know it's gonna be rough. Those undead ladies in white and the witches in black do NOT mess around up close, and of course you're often forced into fighting them up close near corners, where if you don't fire before they do you'll lose tons of health. They have basically no windup time to interrupt their attacks, and all enemy hitboxes are rather small, so hitting them as they round a corner or at a distance is extremely hard. Also, you don't have any kind of bouncy or AOE weapon to help deal with enemies before you can see them, and with health and ammo sometimes being quite limited, it feels like it's more about resource management than it is about skillful shooting!
No rapidfire hitscan weapons, no shotgun-like spread attacks, enemies that can fire as soon as they see you... yeah, everything feels stacked against the player. It certainly adds to the horror, I guess, but not in a way that works well and certainly not in a way that feels fun in an FPS.
It's arguably the worst Wolfenstein 3D style FPS I've ever played. As much as I love the cheesy horror aesthetic, the sound design, and the exceptionally good music (seriously, you gotta check out this remixed version of the soundtrack by Creepain, E1M6 is a banger), the game itself is a mess of poorly executed ideas and the difficulty comes from elements that feel stacked against the player, where you're constantly having to take unavoidable damage and then hunt down healing items.
That being said, it does have some interesting ideas, even if the package as a whole is a mess. The onscreen automap feature you get by grabbing eyeballs is handy as is the enemy detector. And the eyeball icon turning white when you find a secret door saves you having to run around holding the open door button constantly like in Wolf3D or Blake Stone.
By comparison:
• Wolfenstein 3D has more fair mechanics in terms of how damage from enemies is handled, and enemies have a far more considerable wind-up animation before they shoot. Plus, your good weapons are both rapidfire hitscan, all of which feels more fairly stacked. There are plenty of difficulty levels and enemies that hit hard, but you're also geared up properly to fight them, especially when they show up in groups.
• Blake Stone gives you a steathy infinite use pistol so running out of ammo is never a death sentence. In addition to multiple rapid fire hitscan weapons, you also have a grenade launcher with AOE splash damage, and enemies have nice big generous hitboxes. Also, some enemies use actually visible projectiles. Still plenty of nasty enemies like those respawning electrical dudes, oof. And the turrets that inexplicably can only be hit by your two machinegun style weapons.
• Wrath of Earth has enemies with nice big hitboxes, letting you hit enemies as they round corners more easily, and all projectile attackers use visible projectiles you can dodge. Doors close too rapidly after you open and step away from them making indoor fights tricky, but your shields recover in well lit areas, so it never feels wildly unfair to deal with (though patience is sometimes helpful to avoid spending your plasma and missiles, which you can only carry in small quantities). It's annoying that you can't dumbfire your homing missiles like you can with the plasma cannon, given half the enemies in the game jam your lock-ons!
• Ken's Labyrinth has infinite ammo (!!), bouncy and homing projectiles available, very potent powerups (including invulnerability and the ability to SHOOT THROUGH WALLS), and is generally quite friendly to the player. It's arguably the easiest game that uses a Wolf3D style engine.
I can thoroughly say my nostalgia for Nitemare 3D must've existed purely on the basis that the music is really, really good. Alas.