classic FPS appreciation

[okey]

Anyone else really like old school FPS games? Stuff like Doom, Quake, System Shock, Duke Nukem, etc?

I miss that style of gameplay a lot. Fast run speeds, tons of monster variety, really intricate map design...good stuff. I know people try to make modernized versions of those games (Painkiller/Serious Sam/Hard Reset)...but I dunno. They always fall short for some reason or other.

Do you have a favorite of the bunch? Any mods or custom levels you like a lot? Let's talk about em.

[Zynux]

Not too familiar with old school fps too be honest, but I remember 4-player original Doom (or was it Doom 2?) on the XBOX (Doom 3) was a blast. I liked how the enemies difficulty progressed the more players you had.

[Emperor Ing]

Doom 64 is supposed to be a really great classic Doom adventure. Surprising, because it's on the N64!

As far as little experience goes, it's never too late to get DOSBOX up and running and play some good old games! Or, conversely, you can go to GOG.com.

I am quite literally amazed every time I boot up System Shock. It's possibly one of the most satisfyingly complex First-Person Shooters I've played. There is so much shit to do, things to see, monsters to fight, puzzles of solve... it easily laps any shooter made in the last ten years. Every time I delve deeper into the labyrinthine corridors of the Citadel space station, and get further lost, not knowing where the hell I'm going or what the hell I'm doing, it just gets more and more exciting. Cyberspace is surreal and cool, and a really fresh take on hacking (nothing you'd see today). Monsters are all creepy and varied, from harsh metallic cyborgs to disgusting mutated human abominations. It's the amount of detail that really lets you get lost in a game world.

You guys really owe it to yourself to pick up the abandonware "System Shock Portable." It's free, and playable right out of the box, which makes it an even more insane value.

All this shit people drool over these days, with Crysis or Valve games or Black Ops or whatever just makes me fucking laugh.

Gamers back in the 90s had it good. I like to talk about an exciting atmosphere. I was too young to really experience it, nor did we have a computer that could really 'game.' But just imagine growing up or being of age when games like Quake, System Shock, Strife, Elder Scrolls 2, etc. were coming out, close to each other... it must have been bliss. It's something that's a hell of a lot different from our usual milieu of flop, disappointment, dlc, pre-order bonus, flop, flop, vaporware, dlc, etc. etc. ad nauseam.

[okey]

I liked how the enemies difficulty progressed the more players you had.

Monsters have the same stats regardless of the number of players or difficulty level (unless it's on nightmare). You sure you didn't just bump up the difficulty for co-op?

That's something I really like about Doom, btw. Hard mode increases the amount of monsters, makes tougher monsters show up earlier and in some cases even changes the location of items and keys.

It's a lot more interesting than the usual 'player has less health, monsters have more health' deal you usually see.

Doom 64 is supposed to be a really great classic Doom adventure. Surprising, because it's on the N64!

What's cool about Doom 64 is that it's a totally new game. New levels, new graphics, new sounds and music. There's even a new weapon. It's got a really oppressive atmosphere, and in a lot of ways it's what Doom 3 should have been.

Unfortunately, due to cartridge limitations, they had to remove the chaingunner, spider-mastermind, arch-vile and revenant.

You can play Doom 64 on the PC (just get Doom 64EX). It's a lot less janky than playing it on an N64 emulator.

There's a remake floating around out there (Doom 64: Absolution) but it makes a lot of (bad) changes. Unless you think *Do anything ---> Doors lock and 5 Barons of Hell teleport behind you* sounds like good gameplay.

[Emperor Ing]

I usually see anyone saying they're going to mod something to make it 'more hardcore' as a red flag that's code for 'will make it less fun to play.'

[okey]

I usually see anyone saying they're going to mod something to make it 'more hardcore' as a red flag that's code for 'will make it less fun to play.'

I couldn't agree more. See: Brutal Doom.

[Zynux]

I liked how the enemies difficulty progressed the more players you had.

Monsters have the same stats regardless of the number of players or difficulty level (unless it's on nightmare). You sure you didn't just bump up the difficulty for co-op?

That's something I really like about Doom, btw. Hard mode increases the amount of monsters, makes tougher monsters show up earlier and in some cases even changes the location of items and keys.

It's a lot more interesting than the usual 'player has less health, monsters have more health' deal you usually see.

Hmm, maybe. I thought I remembered enemies getting harder by adding more players into the mix, but maybe my friends changed the difficulty when I wasn't noticing lol.

[EmpReb]

Points to Half-life 2. If you mean games like that.... yeah I would like a lot more of them for mulitplayer and single players stories.....

[Emperor Ing]

Uh dude, Half Life 2 is nothing like older FPSes. It was released in 2007, which might be when a few of you were young'uns (and thus "classic").

It can be argued that Half Life was the transition between older, run-n-gun FPSes, and more linear cinematic experiences.

Watch a video of Hexen and watch a video of HL2 and try to tell me they're similar outside of perspective.

[Chris]

Oldest FPS I played on PC when initially released was Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory which is 10 years old and MP only, best PC game I've ever played, I missed out on RTCW MP though which is meant to be more 'pure'. I've got a bunch of older SP games on Steam but to be quite frank I find a lot of them boring and never get around to finishing them, the early Star Wars ones were great that led up to the Jedi Knight Series and Quake 2 was nice too.

[okey]

Points to Half-life 2. If you mean games like that.... yeah I would like a lot more of them for mulitplayer and single players stories.....

I probably should have called this thread '2.5d FPS appreciation' (but then we wouldn't be able to talk about Quake, and that's arguably the best classic FPS)

[Emperor Ing]

Quake's a game I really need to pick up one of these days, considering how legendary the whole thing is. Id was unstoppable back in the day.

I hear the steam version doesn't have the original music, so I'd probably avoid that since Quake's atmopsheric score is so iconic.

DOSBOX and GOG.com are such a great resource these days. Years ago, you had to have junky old computers to play old games, and early struggles with compatibility were titanic.

[okey]

The steam version is fine. It doesn't matter where you're getting Quake from. If you aren't running it through a source port you're doing it wrong.

If you want to play Quake 1 start here. That site will show you how to set up a source port (I recommend Quakespasm), how to set up the music (helpful download link), and also how to set up Quake Injector.

Quake Injector lets you play nearly every Quake level ever made with the click of a button. It's totally, totally worth it.

EDIT: It's really important to get a source port for Doom and Quake because many custom maps don't work with the vanilla game. Both of these games have some really amazing custom levels that you wouldn't want to miss out on. I'll probably list some recommendations later.

Id was unstoppable back in the day.

They really were. Doom, Doom 2, Quake, Quake 3. That's one hell of a track record.

But they also made Quake 2...guess you can't win 'em all.

[okey]

Hey. Read this. It's cool.

http://vectorpoem.com/news/?p=74

I was gonna make a big effort post on why Doom is such a good game, but this guy says it better than I ever could.

Same goes for this guy:



Have a funny video while I'm at it:

it's funny cause those are actually viable tactics

[okey]

Goddamnit iD.

According to one source, Id originally imagined Doom 4 as a “rework” of Doom 2. This would establish a pattern started by 2004's Doom 3, which Id saw as a re-imagination of the original Doom. In Doom 4, you’d play as an average human being who was gradually cajoled into joining the Resistance—a ragtag group of civilians and military—to help fight legions of demons that were invading Earth. It was... cinematic.

“People referenced Call of Duty,” said the source. “There were jokes like, ‘Oh, it’s Call of Doom.’ They referenced it because of the amount it was scripted—there were a lot of scripted set pieces. There was kind of the recognition that in order to be a big shooter these days, you have to have some amount of the big, bombastic movie experience that people get pulled through.“

Another source criticized this approach, telling me that it all felt rather mediocre: “The coolest part... were the horror and shock elements, unfortunately bookended by somewhat pointless and contrived shooting galleries of hoards of uninteresting enemies.”

One sequence was described to me as “the obligatory vehicle scene” in which players would take the gunner’s seat of a car and shoot demons as the computer drove. If you think that sounds rather generic, you’re not alone. But a source assured me that there were some imaginative ideas in there too.

“The big thing [Id] tried to do was not seem like, ‘Here’s a bunch of demons,’” the source said. “There was lots of concept art and prototype missions set up showing different parts of the earth being taken over, being warped and twisted into a hellish reimagining... It’s not just the demons: everything around you is changing. Humans are starting to struggle to go through an environment that is partially familiar, partially unknown now.”

RAGE isn't a good game, but the weapons, hit feedback and animation were all phenomenal. It could have been a great FPS if they actually...made an FPS.

I was hoping Doom 4 would have been RAGE, but with actual level/encounter design instead of all the bad open-world stuff. So much for that