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FPS NIGHTMARES

Started by Lemming, November 17, 2019, 12:23:16 PM

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purlieu

That explains why I can only get online with a 14.4k modem.


What a fucking time for a new page.

madhair60

Quote from: Lemming on December 15, 2019, 05:05:08 PM
I'll give it a shot! I'm generally okay at running DOS games and DOSBox at least allows key rebinding to circumvent crazy control schemes, so something like driving a car should be mappable to WASD or arrow keys, unless the devs have done something truly insane.

What's fucking me over is trying to get early 16-bit Windows games working, of which we've got several coming up. I was attempting to install Killing Time in advance a few days ago and getting that to run (without using the pre-made Steam or GOG versions, which I probably should have done) was like a game in itself.

There's a Terminator Collection on Collection Chamber which should include it.

Lemming

Thanks - if Marathon 2 is anything like the length and style of the first Marathon game, I'll probably need a break halfway through, so I might look at the old Terminator game at that point since it's all READY TO GO in that Collection Chamber release.

Finally, it's time for

The Terminator: Future Shock (1995)



   

STORY: In the far future of 2015, nuclear war has devastated a load of shit. Robots came out of nowhere and subjugated humanity. One prisoner escapes a robot death camp and soon signs up for the resistance, led by John Connor, to strike back against the robots.

MUSIC: Didn't really care for it, though it was fine. Was it from the film? Maybe.

THE VERDICT: It's full 3D! It's full 3D! I can't even believe this! Not 2.5 D like Witchaven and Dark Forces, actual full 3D! Holy shit! I think the only other full 3D game we've had so far is Jumping Flash!.

I spent the first three levels giddy at finally having full 3D movement without use of a source port. A modern control scheme, too! WASD and mouselook! Yay!

Graphics are instantly impressive. This is the Daggerfall engine so you know it's got some serious capabilities (I'll write a shitton about that when we get to Daggerfall), and this game demonstrates it through big open cityscapes with skyscrapers, mutli-level highways, alleys and all that.

Enemies are full 3D! Polygonal models instead of sprites at last, wow. This leads to some nice gameplay effects - you can blow parts of enemies away, like shooting the turret off a tank or the arms off a weird spider robot for example.

There's a little early 3D jankiness. Jumping is awkward bullshit (more on this later, because fucking hell), and annoyingly, if you shoot down at your feet - or even just sort of downwards generally - you shoot yourself. I don't fucking get it. It happens even with hitscan weapons, so it's not like projectiles are spawning in a weird place inside your hitbox. This becomes incredibly annoying because some levels are designed specifically with you shooting straight downwards in mind, even though you literally don't have the capability to do that.

So, the good points: full 3D engine, obviously. Graphics are impressive at first but start to get pretty tedious due to lack of variety.

There are vehicle segments, which see you driving a car and flying a gunship thing. These are really great. They work with minimal jankiness, they're fun, and they offer a genuine change of pace with notably different gameplay to a regular level.

The story is pretty good. I barely remember anything about The Terminator but the plot doesn't really require any knowledge. It's related entirely through pre-mission briefings and occasionally mid-mission messages.

What makes the plot work particularly well though is that, like in Dark Forces, the missions themselves are designed to fit it. The resistance fighters always explain what's happening on the next mission and why, and your objectives represent this. Connor tells you to stop a convoy before it crosses a bridge, the next mission actually is set on a bridge which you'll have to destroy by placing satchel charges as your resistance pals instructed, while a convoy does indeed move towards it in real time. That sounds like such a minor thing, but we haven't really had big plots like this in many games before, and certainly not ones that really affect level design in this way, with big plot setpieces resulting in some very memorable action sequences. In fact, I think Dark Forces is the only other game so far that's really used this approach. Future Shock and Dark Forces are both great in this regard and hint at games to come in the coming years.

There's a wide range of weapons. Not all are hugely satisfying to use, because enemies are either laughably weak (giant dropship that goes down in two shotgun blasts) or bullet sponges (T-1000s or whatever they are. Makes sense, since they're literally fucking terminators) so your weapons alternately feel absurdly strong and stupidly weak. Explosives are always reliably effective, at least.

THE BAD: Graphics, although very technically impressive, start to get boring. Post-nuclear Los Angeles is made of very samey buildings, roads and mountains. You'll see the same buildings copied over and over again, the same ruined cars, the same collapsed skyscrapers. It's not only boring to look at after a while, it's actively annoying. Every map is vaguely nonlinear and pointlessly big, and with instructions not always clear, you can end up wandering aimlessly aroung the same shit-coloured wasteland for ages. Later levels sort of trend towards being indoors, which is a little better visually.

And sometimes instructions really aren't clear. You'll occasionally be stuck walking around a large map with almost no indication of where to go. You can't even use the standard "well if theres enemies over there, that must be where I'm meant to go" logic, because enemies spawn all over the place regardless of whether you're meant to be there or not.

The most annoying thing about the game is jumping puzzles. The engine simply can't handle it. You get stuck on level geometry incessantly, you can barely control jumps, you slide around, it's shit. And some levels are STUPIDLY designed with complex jumping puzzles as a key part. The absolute nadir is mission 7, in which you have to perform a jumping puzzle in a warehouse to access the roof. The fucking entrance is HIGHER THAN YOU CAN JUMP, to the point where any reasonable person would assume you're simply not meant to go that way. In actual fact, you're meant to glitch your way up onto the platform. I looked at walkthroughs, that's what you're meant to do! In fact here, look, watch this. Even this person who is recording a walkthrough and knows exactly where to go and what to do can't do it without great difficulty. Then inside, you have to jump on destructable boxes (if you destroy them, which you have no reason not to because they might have supplies, you're permanently trapped) to jump onto a razor-thin 3D metal bar which THROWS YOU OFF ITSELF in order to then glitchily bounce onto the roof. That's the worst example, but jumping puzzles are not uncommon.

FINAL RATING: Fun game powered by very impressive technology. It's let down by some levels that are too sprawling with not enough direction for the player, and no reward for going off to explore anyway. Overall it's great, and definitely worth playing for any fan of the genre, since it's one of the earliest games that feels like it shares a lot of design sensibilities with more modern, accessible games. I dunno, 3.5 Recognisable Names Ominously Looming There In The Credits, Heralding Terrible Things To Come out of 5, maybe?


Next game: Marathon 2 (1995) or Terminator (1990). OR BOTH

Jim Bob

Quote from: Lemming on December 16, 2019, 01:23:44 AM


The colouring of the title makes it look as though it's a Christmas themed game.  There's even a white shine on top of the terminator's bonce that, at a glance, looks a little bit like a layer of snow.

Quote from: Lemming on December 16, 2019, 01:23:44 AM
The absolute nadir is mission 7, in which you have to perform a jumping puzzle in a warehouse to access the roof. The fucking entrance is HIGHER THAN YOU CAN JUMP, to the point where any reasonable person would assume you're simply not meant to go that way. In actual fact, you're meant to glitch your way up onto the platform. I looked at walkthroughs, that's what you're meant to do! In fact here, look, watch this. Even this person who is recording a walkthrough and knows exactly where to go and what to do can't do it without great difficulty. Then inside, you have to jump on destructable boxes (if you destroy them, which you have no reason not to because they might have supplies, you're permanently trapped) to jump onto a razor-thin 3D metal bar which THROWS YOU OFF ITSELF in order to then glitchily bounce onto the roof. That's the worst example, but jumping puzzles are not uncommon.

I'm wondering if there were communication problems between the programmers and the level designers during development.  For example, perhaps the game originally allowed the player to jump higher and the level designer created the warehouse around those settings, but then the developers realised that the current jump height was allowing players to get to access areas that they shouldn't be able to, or to skip large segments of levels and so they lowered the height which players could jump in order to counter this issue.  However, the shipping date was looming and they didn't have time to fully test the game with these new settings.  I suspect a scenario like that is the reason for that that warehouse blunder.

Lemming

As expected, I'm taking a break from Marathon 2 to play

The Terminator (1990)



   

STORY: Arnie has come back from the future to kill Sarah Connor! However, Kyle Reese has also come from the future to save Sarah Connor! Now the three of them must walk slowly around a huge rainbow-coloured city in a deadly game of cat and mouse.

MUSIC: I don't think there was any. There's menu music but no in-game music.

THE VERDICT: This is pretty cool.

First up, let's talk graphics. I hate when people make fun of graphics in old games, but at the same time... here's an anecdote. When I first started crossdressing and I was still learning makeup, I once jabbed myself hard in the eye with a mascara wand, which is essentially a medieval torture device. Black gooey bullshit stuck to my lower eye, my eye stung like crazy, and my eyelids felt glued together. When I managed to open my eye, I had very limited vision at first, just a sort of blurred hazy mess. In fact, if I had to show you exactly what I saw, I might refer you to this image:


Try it! Stab yourself in the eye with a thickly-coated mascara wand, that's is precisely what you'll see. DISCLAIMER: Don't.

So the graphics haven't aged brilliantly, but the engine does a lot of impressive work and is capable of some cool visual tricks. Though this isn't true 3D, buildings are rendered in a way that really gives a sense of scale, including skyscrapers that tower over your head and rows of houses stretching off into the distance (not too far, though, the draw distance is pretty short).

It also renders a massive area. According to Wikipedia, the in-game area is a recreation (obviously a very loose, abstract recreation) of a real section of Los Angeles, with streets and certain landmarks included.

What's up with the UI, though? That huge red box on the bottom left turns into a killcam when you shoot someone, but that huge blue square in the middle? Never did anything as far as I could see.

I'll use screenshots to explain how this game works. This is Sarah Connor:


As Reese it's up to you to bodyguard her against the Terminator and the ludicruous American police force who will attempt to kill you at a moment's notice, Sarah often getting caught in crossfire. Check out the first screenshot up there, those guys firing at me as I return fire with my completely-wrong-looking AK-47 are cops.

As the Terminator, you'll have to scour the city to find Kyle and Sarah and then take them both out. I can't seem to do this.

Whoever you play as, you start with fuck-all and have to immediately fly into a mad panic as you desperately search for weapons before your opponent finds you. You can buy these from stores or just steal whatever you want. Stealing is the way to go every time. The risk is that the cops will show up and start shooting the hell out of you. Not a huge deal if you're Arnie, sort of a problem if you're Reese.

That's pretty much the game. There are a lot of non-weapon items, but I wasn't sure why I'd want to steal aspirin or tampons or socks.

You can enter and drive cars. I'm not 100% sure why you'd want to do this - there's a fast travel feature which I didn't figure out a reason to use.

You can deposit and withdraw money at banks too. I never figured out how to get money though! No need for it when you can just swipe everything and then massacre the cops who come to stop you.

There are two big problems with the game. One is that the map is enormous. Again, it's a recreation of a real section of Los Angeles, with real street layouts and certain landmarks. That's amazing as a technical achievement, but at the same time, it's not a huge amount of fun to wander around while looking for Sarah or Arnie.

The other problem is that sometimes the game just ends. Your rival will find you and kill you (or Sarah) and it's all over. That's extremely cool on one hand and really ramps the tension up, but on the other hand it happens almost at random, sometimes before you've even managed to find a weapons store to arm yourself, which is lame. You do get a notification sometimes, "The Terminator has no pity as he sights his target", which I suppose is meant to let you know you've been spotted, but then you either get killed one second later while slowly rotating to try and find your attacker, or you look all around and find nothing.

I beat the game as Reese. Arnie, when you finally meet him, is INSANE. Good thing I stole about 10 clips of AK-47 ammo because he's a real bullet sponge. Eventually, though, when you finally kill him you get a nice cutscene telling you about how the future's all different now. I've been trying to beat the game as Arnie but I cannot find Sarah and Reese anywhere. The easiest way to win as either character is to get geared up with a gun and then just stand around and wait for your enemy to approach you, then fire at them and hope you win, but even this incredible strategy didn't let me win as Arnie. Only met Reese one time, where he shot me from somewhere I couldn't see.

FINAL RATING: Insane ambition, very impressive graphics for the time, and a really cool concept. Despite a lot of great extraneous features like the banks and the recreation of Los Angeles, the game is pretty barebones when it comes to what you're actually supposed to be doing. It's basically random chance (unless I'm missing something, which is entirely probable) whether or not you'll chance upon your enemy, and then it's basically a desperate exchange of fire to see if you win the game or get the game over screen. Again, I'm having difficulty rating a game. Taken in the context of a first person game from 1990, this is one of the only games of its kind, boasts features we won't see become commonplace for another 5 - 10 years, and shows an incredible amount of passion from the developers. Julian LeFay really loves doing ridiculously ambitious shit - his name popped up on the credits here and he's one of the driving forces behind Arena and Daggerfall too.

Let's have a Highly Illegal Tampon Theft instead of a rating.


Next game: Marathon 2 (1995)

H-O-W-L

Quote from: Lemming on December 17, 2019, 05:34:47 PM
Try it! Stab yourself in the eye with a thickly-coated mascara wand, that's is precisely what you'll see. DISCLAIMER: Don't.

can vouch for this

Lemming

Marathon 2 (1995)



   

(This is the Aleph One source port)

STORY: The security officer who saved the Marathon colony ship has been abducted by rogue AI Durandal!!! Now Durandal searches the ancient ruins of the S'pht's home planet for its own ends, and the security officer is caught in the middle of another war against the Pfhor.

MUSIC: There was a menu theme, but didn't seem to be any in-game music. Thus, the soundtrack to my journey across the harrowing ruins of the S'pht civilisation was decided by Spotify Daily Mix, which was pretty hellbent on playing Diana Ross and Diana-Ross-affiliated stuff. Whether this helped or hindered the game's atmosphere remains unclear.

THE VERDICT: I ended up really liking 1994's Marathon. The game had an interesting plot, levels that were gimmicky but mostly fun, tense and brutal combat, and very effectively conveyed an oppressive, industrial atmosphere.

Marathon 2 continues the same plot but changes the setting from a lonely doomed colony ship to an entire alien planet. I don't think this was a great idea, at least not the way it comes off in the game.

The S'pht's home planet is really boring to put it basically. The premise is great - this is the lost homeworld of the S'pht (the aliens you free from slavery during Marathon), which lies in ruins after the war that saw them conquered and enslaved thousands of years ago. But like with a few maps in Doom 2, the switch from an enclosed industrial setting to a wide open city just doesn't really come off. The S'pht homeworld isn't very interesting, and the graphics aren't at all attractive. There's a few cool touches to try and give the setting some uniqueness, like strange organic machines who have been roaming the planet for centuries, but it doesn't really feel like you're on a strange, otherworldly, alienesque world (I think we'll have to wait until Unreal to see that done in a really outstanding way). It feels like you're in a bunch of blocky, crap-looking maps from a 24 year old game. It's a step down from the original game's colony ship which was full of threatening dark corridors, impossibly huge mechanical pistons and crushers, lonely rooms full of unawakened cryogenic chambers, you get the idea. That was also a blocky mess, sure, but it was a blocky mess that somehow gave a really strong sense of setting.

The action shifts to a technicolour-vomit coloured Pfhor ship and a few other locations, but nothing as strong as the original colony ship, or the original scary Pfhor ship.

The developers seem to have thought that Doom-esque enemy spam was a good way to make the game fun. Obviously, the problem arises in the fact that this isn't running on the Doom engine and you don't have any weapons comparable to Doom's trash-mob-obliterating arsenal, and when every other room in the game has ten or more identical enemies tediously coming after you, the game can start to get really grating to play.

The save system, which was already annoying in Marathon, feels worse here with the larger levels. The game likes to place ambushes and being killed can easily reverse ten or twenty minutes of playtime - and worse, it can mean having to fight through the enemy spam mobs again. It's still not a dealbreaker or anything and remembering where save points are and tactically retreating to them every so often negates most of the negative effects, but I'd still really prefer a normal save system.

The big new mechanic is water, and you can swim underwater now. Was that in Marathon 1? I don't remember, but I think it's new. Either way, it's not bad, it forces you to use different weapons as many won't work underwater (like in the vacuum from Marathon 1) and there are some really creative uses of the new mechanics. In particular there's a great level in the Citadel basement (which, to continue the Unreal comparisons, I thought was a really awesome setting similar to Unreal's Sunspire) where water constantly rises up and down and you have to ride it into various passageways.

You also get allied humans teleported to you by Durandal. This is a nice feature to have but they're only marginally more useful than the idiot humans from Marathon 1. They also frequently block stairways or doors, forcing you to kill them to proceed.

The plot is ok and Durandal relates a lot of backstory for the planet, describing the ancient invasion and the history of places like the aforementioned Citadel in which the remaining S'pht made their last stand against the invaders. There's some nice twists and such later on, including a cool concept level where you've been captured and have no weapons, and the recurrence of Tycho, the AI from Marathon who basically went missing during the initial attack.

There's a few new weapons and enemies. The new weapons are all fine. The new shotgun is your best friend given that it can hitscan in a fairly wide radius, one of the few weapons at your disposal which will give you half a chance against the often stupidly large amount of enemies. There are some cool new enemies but NOT the weird flesh-monster-on-wheels things. Who thought these were a good idea? Their entire purpose is to grenade spam you, they sometimes arrive in groups of five or more, and if they back you into a corner there's virtually nothing you can do, other than watch in terror as the creepy sprite bumps into the camera over and over again.

Reading this review back and it comes across as being perhaps more down on the game than I necessarily am. It was still a decent FPS but it felt like a big step down from the first game and occasionally managed to be more annoying than fun. If anyone's crazy enough to be playing along with the thread, don't skip this game just because I'm shitting on it. If you liked Marathon's combat, this has got more of it. LOTS more of it.

FINAL RATING: Ultimately, I didn't like this as much as Marathon. But I wonder if playing it so soon after the original affected my enjoyment of it negatively, given that it's basically more of the same but with less tight level design and, subjectively, worse visuals. Might have to go for a middling 2.5 Enemy Spam Nightmare Hordes out of 5 on this one.




Next game: Supposed to be playing In Pursuit Of Greed (1995), but the sound won't work. Unless I can fix it, I might skip ahead to the batshit crazy looking Mortal Coil: Adrenalin Intelligence (1995).

Al Tha Funkee Homosapien

Just posting to reiterate how good this thread is. Bravo.

Mister Six

Aw, I was looking forward to In Pursuit of Greed. It's one of those games I was obsessed with despite only having the demo. I think it's sufficiently different to a lot of these games to be worth persevering with.

Lemming

GOOD NEWS - In Pursuit of Greed and Mortal Coil: Adrenalin Intelligence both eventually worked, after a lengthy technical saga.

In Pursuit of Greed (1995)



   

STORY: In the future, a crack team of mercenaries assemble in order to... actually, I don't know what's happening. There's a lizardman though!

MUSIC: It's good. When the intro music kicked in, I briefly thought I'd gone insane, because I knew it. Turns out, the composer for this game is Andrew "Necros" Sega, who worked on the likes of Crusader: No Remorse and Unreal. The intro song is literally an early version of Isotoxin from Unreal! Anyway, the soundtrack is good. Go check it out.

THE VERDICT: First, some good news: we have another playable female character, still a rare sight at this stage in FPS NIGHTMARES. Don't get too optimistic, though - take a look at the character design and bio:




Well, the other options are a really lame Cyborg, a really cool "Mooman" who is a minotaur, a lizardman, and a mutant thing. I wanted to be Mooman but I ended up being the Cyborg because I accidentally pressed enter too early on the character select screen and I reached the second level before I realised I was, in fact, not Mooman. All the characters start with different weapons.

After you pick your character, you're sent into the first level. Interesting engine - it's sort of a halfway point between Wolf3D and Doom, apparently also used in a game named Shadowcaster. That means it's more advanced  than some of the dodgy Wolf3D clones we've encountered so far, but has far less features  than some of the full 3D and 2.5D games from 1995.

Combat is alright - you get a melee weapon which seems to be very powerful for every class. In fact, it's so powerful that you might as well not use projectile weapons. The AI is awkward and often doesn't actually shoot at you, instead preferring to walk around, walk in place while facing sideways, or walk THROUGH you. Either way, closing the distance to smack people with a melee kill is easy enough, at least against the starting enemies. Projectile weapons are effective. There's a chaingun, a rocket launcher (which uses bullets for ammo, oddly enough), and a plasma launcher.

As a Future Treasure Hunter Mercenary Bounty Hunter or whatever you are, you have the legal right to kill the shit out of anyone you see. Levels are strewn with non-hostile NPCs who mainly just get in the way. Killing them yields 40 points and has no repercussions, so you might as well do it. Speaking of points...

What's absolutely batshit absurd about this game, even more than the enemy and weapon design, is the fact that every level is an item hunt. I don't actually understand how this works, despite being on level seven at the time of this review. Hidden across most levels are 6 "Secondary Goal Items". When you get one of those I think another one appears somewhere else? When you get them all, you can reach the Primary Goal Item, after which point the exit appears.

This means that unless you're insanely lucky and chance upon all the secondary goal items in order on your first lap of the map, you'll spend most of the game running around an empty level (enemies and items respawn very slowly - you'll clear the map of all hostiles in the first 5 minutes or so, and then there'll be maybe 1 weak enemy teleported in every 30 seconds) with the map overlay on, trying to guess at random where the items you need to leave might be. Oh, also, each level has a points countdown, which is tied to the secondary goal items. Example: on this one level, there were switches blocked by forcefields that seemed to only lower when certain point goals were met. When you're not massacring civilians to get that sweet 40 point bounty, you're looking for switches, with lots of small switches around the place that open parts of the wall elsewhere on the map to lead you to your next Secondary Goal Item.

There was also a level, level three maybe, which had no items but was entirely about getting 50,000 points to proceed. After clearing the map of enemies, I was only on like 10,000. After clearing the map of all non-hostile civilians, I'd barely shifted. The level then turned into walking around with the map open as usual, trying to pick up Bonus Items for about 3k - 4k points each, which spawn a couple times per minute. I'm so confused! I was playing it exactly as the devs intended, as far as I can tell, and the level was essentially a 10 - 15 minute stretch of walking around empty space. What the fuck! Really strange design.

There's a weird appeal to the game. I don't like the point/item system, I have literally NO clue what the idea behind it is and I don't think I've seen anything like it, but otherwise: the visuals aren't bad despite being a little outdated for late 1995, the game has a strong art direction and sense of ridiculousness (Mooman! also, you can shoot yourself out of an airlock for a unique game over FMV), there's some cool weapons (the aforementioned plasma launcher is ludicrously strong) and the game changes locales and level styles every other level.

Finally, there are items, as we've already seen in games like Heretic and so on. They're all weird and pretty funny - my favourite is Instawall, which erects a huge purple wall of light in front of you. I have legitimately no idea why you'd want to do this. I tried to place one on a moving elevator to see if my computer would explode, instead my character just became physically embedded in the wall itself until it wore off.

FINAL RATING: Weird game where you spend most of the time walking around empty maps listening to cool music, occasionally being ambushed by enemies that either look like those Star Wars bounty hunter people, or else look like designs that the Witchaven devs rejected as being too crazy. Feels like they were experimenting with something here, trying to figure out if there was a way to make an FPS that wasn't about keycard hunting... but they basically made a game where you have to find seven keys per level which are locked by point barriers! It's annoying because outside from the experimental point/item system the game is pretty good. Let's go for 2.5 Witchaven-esque Enemy Designs out of 5.



Next game: Mortal Coil: Adrenalin Intelligence (1995)

madhair60

Mate, I mean this with absolute sincerity - put these in a book, put the book on Kindle and I'll buy it

Mister Six

I'll second that. I could see this being a really lovely coffee table type book with some good design and a bit of editing, honestly.

madhair60

Quote from: Mister Six on December 24, 2019, 01:06:19 AM
I'll second that. I could see this being a really lovely coffee table type book with some good design and a bit of editing, honestly.

No. Fuck off that sounds fucking expensive. You complete dick. I almost had it on Kindle for three quid and now you waltz in with this coffee table fucking shit. Jesus

Kryton

Yep this would make a great book. Fantastic thread.

Also I miss the big chunky game boxes. Always felt like I was buying something special. Booklets, art, loads of discs etc.

Lemming

A book would be fun, especially if the full extent of the effort involved is basically just making a nice-looking PDF.

I wonder if there'd be any copyright-related fuckups though. Imagine getting a takedown notice from whoever drew that awful In Pursuit of Greed cover art for unauthorised reproduction.

Quote from: Kryton on December 24, 2019, 12:55:59 PM
Also I miss the big chunky game boxes. Always felt like I was buying something special. Booklets, art, loads of discs etc.

Same here. We had a ton of them but my dad stupidly used to throw them away after purchase because they were deemed to take up too much space or something insane like that, so what could have been a glorious collection is sadly reduced to a few sad plastic cases.

purlieu

Quote from: Lemming on December 25, 2019, 06:42:49 AM
I wonder if there'd be any copyright-related fuckups though. Imagine getting a takedown notice from whoever drew that awful In Pursuit of Greed cover art for unauthorised reproduction.
It would definitely fall under 'fair use'.

Jim Bob

#196
Quote from: Lemming on December 25, 2019, 06:42:49 AMI wonder if there'd be any copyright-related fuckups though. Imagine getting a takedown notice from whoever drew that awful In Pursuit of Greed cover art for unauthorised reproduction.

Unlikely, considering that it would involve actually admitting ownership of the accursed thing.

Quote from: Lemming on December 25, 2019, 06:42:49 AM
Same here. We had a ton of them but my dad stupidly used to throw them away after purchase because they were deemed to take up too much space or something insane like that, so what could have been a glorious collection is sadly reduced to a few sad plastic cases.

The same thing happened with me.  Around 4 years ago, my Dad told me that I had to bin my collection of around 40 big game boxes which I had been storing in my parent's loft.  I saved around 20 of my absolute favourites and took them to my flat, even though there was really no space for them.  The rest went to the landfill.  One of the great tragic crimes of the last 100 years, I'm sure you'll agree.  The worst part is that a year later I moved to my new flat, where there was plenty of room.

Old Thrashbarg

Just posting to stop the last post edit bug.

And also to say what a great thread this is. The level of patience that must be involved in playing through so many mediocre clones of the same two or three games is beyond anything I can imagine putting myself through. Though the joy when happening on something unexpectedly brilliant/quirky probably makes up for that a bit.

Lemming

Progress has slowed because I decided to play like five games simultaneously (without finishing any of them before starting the next) in a fit of pique after battling through glitches, tech issues and cheap artificial difficulty in each of the games. This was basically a bad idea but on the plus side, there'll probably be a grand slew of reviews as I finish the next few games pretty close to each other.

This also took me into early 1996. Mortal Coil is the last game of 1995 as far as I can tell - it feels like I'm missing something, but the list says it's the last one. Fans of really obscure games may be interested to know that I had two extra games for 1995, but abandoned both: Thor's Hammer and Wrath of Earth. Thor's Hammer had un-resolvable speed issues in DOSBox (and was kind of shit anyway) while Wrath of Earth was pretty interesting but basically didn't run properly. Check each of them out if you're a TRUE FPS FAN. I'll put both these games down (along with the myriad console games we've failed to play so far) onto another list to return to at some point.

Quote from: Old Thrashbarg on December 26, 2019, 07:25:03 PM
And also to say what a great thread this is. The level of patience that must be involved in playing through so many mediocre clones of the same two or three games is beyond anything I can imagine putting myself through. Though the joy when happening on something unexpectedly brilliant/quirky probably makes up for that a bit.

The great news is that soon we'll be out of the nightmarish wilderness of mediocre Wolf/Doom clones and into the glorious wasteland of mediocre Quake clones.

Lemming

Mortal Coil: Adrenalin Intelligence (1995)



   

STORY: Aliens are coming. You know what, no need for me to tell you what the story is - why not watch the ENDLESS 14 MINUTE FMV INTRO? It's replete with cringeworthy dialogue, agonisingly awkward FMV nudity, Australian accents, nonsensical plot, "badass" 90s action hero lines, and everything else you could ever want.

MUSIC: None in game, as far as I could hear.

THE VERDICT: My first impressions of this (putting aside the intro) were positive, because it's a tactical shooter! Maybe the first one ever? You have an actual squad who follow you and shoot at enemies, and you can even give them commands - formation, fan out and regroup, search and destroy, it's all here. You can switch between squad members too - not only does this essentially give you extra lives, it also means that you can theoretically specialise each squad member with their own weapon and then switch to them when the situation calls for it. Cool, right?

WRONG.

It's a trainwreck to put it bluntly. The devs reach far extends their grasp. If you ever turn a corner, you can guarantee one or more of your pals will get stuck on the corner and stand there saying stupid shit in an Australian accent until you actually take control of them to unstick them. Squad members rarely actually engage enemies, and when they do they seem to invariably do it with a grenade launcher which inevitably hurts you far more than it does the enemy.

The combat is shit by the way. Other than the grenade launcher, I didn't come across any viable weapons. All bullet weapons are pathetic because enemies just eat 50+ shots without even staggering. Found a flamethrower which consumes ammo far more than it actually deals damage.

Being, apparently, the only person ever to have played this, it was up to me to figure out the controls alone. It took me long enough to figure out how the fuck to switch to first person mode (you do it by pressing 6 twice, in case anyone ever actually plays this), and the squad commands are still basically a mystery to me. Some function keys cycle between different formations and T is regroup (this seems to do virtually nothing), but other than that? Fuck knows.

You know what else fucking sucks. There's no menu and if you so much as dare to press escape, even once, the mission instantly ends without even giving you a "DO YOU REALLY WANT TO FUCK YOURSELF OVER?" confirmation screen. Doesn't matter if you've just started the mission or are SECONDS AWAY from finishing it, if you hit escape (because muscle memory from playing EVERY other game ever made makes you expect to get an escape menu) you'll suddenly be greeted with a game over screen. Before your brain even has time to realise what you've just done, this shit comes up:



SCORE 4%



Oh, and the characters speak a lot. Sometimes to banter with each other, mostly to announce what you've just picked up. BULLETS! BULLETS! BULLETS! MED PACK! MED PACK! BULLETS! DESERT EAGLE MAGNUM! Every single frigging time you switch weapons or pick anything up. I wanted to record this to show you, but luckily, someone else already has some footage:
Credit to this YouTube person for this footage of BULLETS. BULLETS. UZI NINE MILLIMETER. BULLETS. DETONATOR. BOOT KNIFE.

If team members die, they get encased in a giant cock and balls. Don't know what that's all about.

The horror escelates the instant you get to level 2 and find out it's the jankiest vehicle segment this side of Tomb Raider 3's kayak levels. Random parts of the ground that kill you, a primary fire that seems to just explode the car, the works.

I didn't get further than level 2, which sounds pathetic, but YOU TRY PLAYING IT. I have no idea how I actually got out of level 1 - I walked into a cabin and it just ended - and level 2 keeps killing me with the weird car mechanics and there doesn't seem to be a way to save the game. The line must be drawn somewhere, and for me, it is on level 2.

Oh, by the way, we can add the ruthless mercenary Candy to our list of female protagonists. And look! There's another female character on the box art! She must join your squad later, which is too bad because I can't get past level 2. Actually, she might have been in the first level - there was a friendly unit saying UGLY BUGGERS AREN'T YOU?? UGLY BUGGERS AREN'T YOU?? UGLY BUGGERS AREN'T YOU?? on loop to the enemies, but she didn't seem to be controllable or a squad member. It's a mystery.

FINAL RATING: It's not really functional. But we're at a time in gaming where even crap titles sometimes have unique mechanics and gameplay modes that push the limits of what we expect from the genre. It feels bizarre that this is basically the birth of Rainbow Six style tactical squad shooters. Still, it's gonna be harder to give anything other than a very low rating to this one, despite some true innovation on display. It'll have to be 1 Cock And Balls Death Shield Thing out of 5. Maybe it gets really good after level 2? Who knows.

One last thing. That's not a typo. The game's title actually says "adrenalin". Never seen it spelled that way before, but the dictionary says it's a legit alternate spelling, so there you go.



Next game: Cyberdillo (1996) or Deus (1996), depending on FACTORS. 1995 review also incoming!

Jim Bob

Quote from: Lemming on December 29, 2019, 11:37:15 PM
STORY: Aliens are coming. You know what, no need for me to tell you what the story is - why not watch the ENDLESS 14 MINUTE FMV INTRO? It's replete with cringeworthy dialogue, agonisingly awkward FMV nudity, Australian accents, nonsensical plot, "badass" 90s action hero lines, and everything else you could ever want.

That FMV introduction was quite something indeed.  However, if the Australian accent to which you refer is the one spouted by the black guy storing food for the Winter months in his cheeks, I'm pretty sure that's a South African accent.

Lemming

Oh, I'm terrible with accents - I can't even really identify regional British accents half the time. Australian was my best guess but South African definitely sounds right for Hamster-Cheek-Man.

As an additional mystery, I'm looking up the company that created this game and there seems to be literally no information on them, other than that they made Mortal Coil: Adrenalin Intelligence.
https://www.mobygames.com/company/crush-ltd

Like a miracle, they materialised out of the ether, produced a 14 minute FMV masterpiece, then vanished as suddenly as they'd appeared.


Ferris

Quote from: Lemming on December 30, 2019, 01:01:37 AM
As an additional mystery, I'm looking up the company that created this game and there seems to be literally no information on them, other than that they made Mortal Coil: Adrenalin Intelligence.
https://www.mobygames.com/company/crush-ltd

Like a miracle, they materialised out of the ether, produced a 14 minute FMV masterpiece, then vanished as suddenly as they'd appeared.

This would make a terrific story arc for a season of Doctor Who.

Phil_A

Quote from: Lemming on December 30, 2019, 01:01:37 AM
Oh, I'm terrible with accents - I can't even really identify regional British accents half the time. Australian was my best guess but South African definitely sounds right for Hamster-Cheek-Man.

As an additional mystery, I'm looking up the company that created this game and there seems to be literally no information on them, other than that they made Mortal Coil: Adrenalin Intelligence.
https://www.mobygames.com/company/crush-ltd

Like a miracle, they materialised out of the ether, produced a 14 minute FMV masterpiece, then vanished as suddenly as they'd appeared.

I managed to dig up this 1995 article with quite a bit of info...

https://www.cbronline.com/news/uk_games_company_re_emerges_as_crush/

tl:dr - It seems like they were a short-lived European subsidiary of Creative Technology (makers of the Soundblaster), and then the UK operation was bought out by it's MD to become an independent publisher. Given how obscure their one game is, I'm guessing they went all in financially and it didn't pay off.

Just reading further down, there were supposed to be Playstation and Saturn ports as well!

Lemming

Wow, that's fascinating! It's bizarre that they seemed to have such confidence in the game given how unfinished the final product feels. A Saturn port would have been a true nightmare.

I suppose they thought the uniqueness of the "new genre" they'd created, playing multiple characters in squad-based combat, would be enough to carry the game on its own since in that interview the guy heavily leans on features like being able to play as different characters resulting in "different challenges" (which isn't even true, as far as I played).

Also love that the lengthy FMV cutscenes are advertised as a great feature, when today they come across as totally quaint and overly long. It's always fun to see what types of things 90s game devs considered to be worthy of receiving the FMV budget.

Lemming




BUT FIRST, NEWS: Somehow I managed to get some of 1996 out of chronological order. This isn't a huge deal, but it has led to the hilarious fuckup of me starting with Deus - which was released December 31st 1996. Literally the single most incorrect game to start the year with. I even stupidly have "AMAZING GRAPHICS FOR EARLY 1996!!" written in my notes. Therefore, the next game will not be Deus, but will instead be Duke Nukem 3D, which is from January 1996.

So, 1995:

I don't think this year was quite as good as 1994 overall. There wasn't anything that felt as all-around amazing as System Shock, and I didn't find anything as purely fun as Heretic. There were, however, some great innovations and good games. Full 3D graphics with modern-ish controls are here, there's a few games like Jumping Flash! and Descent trying out entirely new gameplay mechanics, there are games like Dark Forces and Future Shock successfully starting to use games as a way of telling movie-like stories.

TOP THREE GAMES
Star Wars: Dark Forces
Descent
Hexen

I think I pettily underrated Descent because I was mad at it. In my defence, I did note that in the review! I went back and beat it and it's a game that's composed of 70% fun and 30% total unfair horseshit, but after beating it, my overall impression was strong. Probably not replaying it again any time soon, but it leaves you feeling properly accomplished and like you had fun, which is all that matters, I guess.

Descent would actually probably have received the highly revered TOP PICK OF THE YEAR award if the difficulty wasn't so batshit in parts, but instead the TOP PICK award goes to Dark Forces, which was the best game of the year in most regards. In fact, I think Future Shock, which is a good game, suffered by feeling like a weaker version of Dark Forces and coming so soon after it.

On that note, I might skip Descent 2, which is scheduled for 1996. I'm not sure I've ever played it - is it notably different from Descent in a way that would make for a good review, or is it basically more of the same? I checked out some videos and it looks basically identical. Not sure I can PREPARE FOR DESCENT again so soon.

WORST GAME: According to the ratings, it's Mortal Coil. It feels harsh to call it the worst game when it's trying something genuinely new, but at the same time, it was legitimately crap so it's probably justified.

BEST PROTAGONIST: Robbit, the robotic rabbit!

WORST PROTAGONIST: That asshole from Descent. No idea what the hell his problem is. He signs up specifically for this job, then spends the entire briefing pissing and moaning. LOSER

BEST VILLAIN: We're still not quite onto the level of storytelling that offers us a huge amount of notable villains to pick from. I can't remember any I thought were really great.

LAMEST VILLAIN: Illwhyren from Witchaven. In the story, she's an unstoppable mage who demolishes an entire island. When you actually meet her in game, she's weaker than half the regular enemies and gets ripped to shreds in seconds. Honorary mention to the "TekLords" from TekWar, who are just total shit.

BEST WEAPON: The fully upgraded quad laser thing from Descent, which is great until you LOSE IT FIVE SECONDS LATER

WORST WEAPON: There is, literally, no reason to ever use the lead pipe from The Terminator: Future Shock. You start with a gun. I'm not sure why they even give you the lead pipe.

BEST ENEMY: Those flying mage cultists from Hexen. They're pretty much the same as the Heretic ones, and therefore still cool.

WORST ENEMY: What's the point of those shitty goblins from Witchaven. They're so pathetic.

BEST STORY AND/OR SETTING: Hexen. Again, I really like the whole Serpent Riders setting.

NICE SURPRISES: Again, Dark Forces and Future Shock felt a lot more modern in style than I was expecting from 1995. Dark Forces in particular follows a design philosophy that I'm a huge fan of.

CRUSHING DISAPPOINTMENTS: "Crushing" disappointment is obviously a jokey exaggeration, but Marathon 2 felt like a significant step down from the first game to me. CyberMage is also annoyingly close to being good, but ends up being not a huge amount of fun. Mortal Coil felt like it squandered a good concept.

And now, some stats:
TOTAL GAMES REVIEWED SO FAR: 25 (I think?)
TOTAL FIVE OUT OF FIVE RATINGS GIVEN: 2 (System Shock, Heretic)
TOTAL ONE OUT OF FIVE RATINGS GIVEN: 3 (Terminator: Rampage, Super 3D Noah's Ark, Mortal Coil: Adrenalin Intelligence)
TOTAL GAMES WITH PLAYABLE FEMALE CHARACTERS: 4  (TES Arena, Rise of the Triad, In Pursuit of Greed, Mortal Coil: Adrenalin Intelligence)
TOTAL GAMES WITH PLAYABLE FEMALE CHARACTERS WHO CAN'T BE SWAPPED FOR A MALE CHARACTER: 0
TOTAL GAMES THAT ESSENTIALLY JUST SHARE THE PLOT OF DIE HARD*: 3 (Doom, System Shock, Marathon)

*criteria: protagonist is more or less a civilian with no extraordinary powers, protagonist did not expect to be in dangerous situation, protagonist is trapped and cannot easily leave, protagonist is insanely outnumbered

Okay, there it is. Prepare for 1996!

madhair60

Best enemy is the fucking Heresiarch, mate.

Alberon

Quote from: Lemming on December 16, 2019, 01:23:44 AM

The Terminator: Future Shock (1995)



Jumping back a bit as I've just discovered this thread (how did I miss it up till now?).

I've played a few of these reviewed here back in the day. The one thing that sticks in my mind about this Terminator game is that if you shoot the moon enough it falls out of the sky.

Jim Bob

#208
I'm very happy to see that Dark Forces got named as game of the year by your good self, Lemming.  As I previously mentioned, it's easily one of my favourite FPS games of all time.  I was amused to see and remember that it didn't make it to your 5 star list though, despite being your favourite game of the year.  Even though you're not a fan of the movies, now that you acknowledge that it was the best of 1995, would you be willing to increase the rating to 5 stars in hindsight?  Come on, it totally deserves 5 stars!  3.5 is an outrage, quite frankly.  A lack of love for the movies its based upon and some annoying turrets be damned!

Quote from: Alberon on December 31, 2019, 12:00:58 PM
Jumping back a bit as I've just discovered this thread (how did I miss it up till now?).

I'm certain that had more people visited this thread, then it would have won the 'Best Thread of 2019' award by a landslide, instead of coming in at 3rd.  By all rights, it should have got 1st place.  Don't get me wrong, the 'Simon Cowell's New Face' thread was fun and all.  Heck, I made several well received contributions to that thread myself, but no way is it worthy of 1st place above this thread.  This thread has been robbed.  Robbed, I tells ya!

madhair60

it's just a list of the names of some computer games.