Duke4.net Forums: Modern "retro" FPS corner - Duke4.net Forums

Jump to content

  • 16 Pages +
  • « First
  • 10
  • 11
  • 12
  • 13
  • 14
  • Last »
  • You cannot start a new topic
  • You cannot reply to this topic

Modern "retro" FPS corner  "For some more general discussion, news etc. in one place"

User is online   Ninety-Six 

#331

I admit I still think about games in those terms, including FPS. That might have something to do with my "unique" approach though.
1

User is offline   Aristotle Gumball 

  • banned!

#332

View PostMrFlibble, on 23 August 2021 - 06:28 AM, said:

All this discussion of retro FPS games made me suddenly realise something. Back in the 90s, when I talked about games (regardless of genre) with my friends, and the way games were represented in magazines, playing was often discussed in terms of "getting to" or "getting through" certain parts -- not only referring to difficult places or boss battles, but generally reflecting the idea of progression towards a certain goal, which is often about beating the big bad and/or saving something or someone.

I suddenly realised that nowadays I rarely think about playing in these terms -- it's more about exploration and enjoyment, or simply spending some free time.


That's how all my friends were too, but I greatly enjoyed simply walking around and taking in the sights and sounds, etc. I guess that's why all those people ended up having normal lives and don't play video games today or if they do, it tends to be competitive online games.
1

User is offline   MusicallyInspired 

  • The Sarien Encounter

#333

Huh never really thought of it that way but I think you're right. When we were kids, playing and beating games = bragging rights. We were subconsciously predisposed to think about end goals. Now that we don't brag about beating games anymore (usually) the approach is different.

But I wasn't like this with all games. Adventure games for instance (parser/point & click specifically). I started exploring games for the beauty around when I really got into Myst and Riven. And Mike Oldfield's "Music VR". It was starting at around Half-Life too, especially with that one shot on the cliff face where the Valve logo theme starts playing. But I did it the most in realMyst. Every age you visit has a day and night cycle (in the original realMyst anyway from 2000) and I used to go to Stoneship Age on the top of the rocky island where the telescope is and just watch the storm all through the night until morning.
1

User is offline   MrFlibble 

#334

View PostMusicallyInspired, on 23 August 2021 - 11:54 AM, said:

When we were kids, playing and beating games = bragging rights.

I don't think it was primarily about bragging with us. Chat about games with classmates was one of the few sources of information about the subject back them. Some of us could afford to buy more different mags per month, some had more powerful machines at home, or more games. Licensed versions of games without cut cinematics (if that was an issue) were quite often not exactly easy or cheap to get.

One of the games that I played a lot as a kid was the 1989 Price of Persia. To this day I hold it to be one of the best PC games, ever. And that game gives you a clear feeling of an overarching goal -- defeat Jaffar and save the Princess -- which is reinforced by giving you only one hour of real time to complete the game. Progress is marked by changing scenery (dungeons to palace to dugneons to Jaffar's tower), introducing more traps and enemies, and of course bosses, or you could think of them as unique encounters. Exploration is possible but you either have detours to pick extra health, or just various dead ends. It still gave the a feeling of an immense world of which I could only glimpse a limited portion.

Recently when playing Powerslave I realised that I could think of it a in a similar manner as of PoP, especially because you can only save between levels; and the levels are all distinctly different just like in Pop, without resorting to different decorations to achieve variety. But somehow my perception has changed, I mean I don't put as much emphasis on getting through a level, even though some are pretty hard. And yeah, there's an end goal all right but I don't think of it at all. Playing the levels feels more like solving puzzles. I believe it's not a bad thing, maybe just I don't have such a vivid imagination as I used to in childhood. Or maybe PoP isn't as similar to FPS games like Powerslave to warrant drawing too many gameplay analogies.

All of that said, I'm noticing that almost every new "retro" game gives you this general premise with the end goal in the presentation, be it something simple as in Doom, or more complicated stuff that also has a more or less elaborate background story and/or (some attempts at) character building. The question is, how does it translate into the playing experience, if at all? It seems that traditionally, if we look back at the 90s, the "plot" in FPS games was usually there to set up the scene and theme, with the rest more or less left for the player to figure out. There's nothing wrong with this approach, because ultimately it gave us, among other things, the narrative or "theme-park" style maps which are the hallmark of the Build engine titles.

But one big part of the FPS games' appeal back in the 90s was the novelty, both conceptual and technological. Every major game designer wished to outdo the competition at least in something (more features, better tech, simply a theme or a story setting that no one else user before), or at least to make a product that is no worse than the rest (like Eradicator, which IMO is very solid as a Build-style game without using the engine). Today we seem to have a shift in focus as some games are deliberately made "more retro" by mimicking tech that would seem dated in mid-90s already, and some use newer gameplay concepts and elements.

There are also conscious references to the past generations of games, like that fantasy game (Wizard-something? I forgot the title and cannot find it right now) shown at Realms Deep which obviously makes more than just a couple of nods to Heretic in addition to Wolf3D, but does it play well? The trailer showed familiar elements but I have not found what combat is shown particularly engaging.
2

User is offline   Aristotle Gumball 

  • banned!

#335

Most of these retro shooters have been somewhat lackluster. Even Dusk, which I mostly liked. I never come back to them like I do to Duke, Blood and Quake. IF wasn't perfect by any means, but it's still the only game of this type that feels like it has the same level of detail put into it as the originals it was inspired by. That's the other thing: there is a deliberate retro aesthetic, but an overall lazy "everything else". Too much emphasis is placed on the presentation and perhaps a fun gameplay loop, but you don't get the attention to detail that you got with the OG's. And I understand that part of that is due to the games being made by very small teams.

By the time this trend is over, we might only have 3-4 actually good retro shooters and a whole bunch of half-assed garbage.
2

User is offline   MusicallyInspired 

  • The Sarien Encounter

#336

I'm still kind of freaking out that everyone is actually excited about what are essentially "Doom clones". Back in the day that was a derogatory thing.
0

User is offline   Aristotle Gumball 

  • banned!

#337

View PostMusicallyInspired, on 24 August 2021 - 04:55 PM, said:

I'm still kind of freaking out that everyone is actually excited about what are essentially "Doom clones". Back in the day that was a derogatory thing.


Yeah, and I'm getting kinda tired of the nu-Doom influence. So many games now have a double jump and some kind of hook that shoots out of your pee-hole (presumably) and attaches to objects/enemies. Yawn.
0

User is offline   ck3D 

#338

View PostMusicallyInspired, on 24 August 2021 - 04:55 PM, said:

I'm still kind of freaking out that everyone is actually excited about what are essentially "Doom clones". Back in the day that was a derogatory thing.


Or maybe that's just saying something about how exciting the rest of modern mainstream gaming really is, if so many will gravitate around relatively uninspired Doom clones over swallowing the pill of most newest original big name productions? There's also how most players who grew up in the early 90's now have busy lives and couldn't make time for gaming if it weren't for facultative plots and fast-paced action, and so despite the occasional lack of originality in the design those games are probably the closest they can get to reliving their childhood.

Fun fact, in my country the general designation for first-person shooters was 'Doom-like' for over a decade, from the original release of Doom on to well into the mid naughts. Funnily enough it was used as a neutral term, but of course it always carried the inherent stigma. After the release of Quake I remember some magazines tried turning the saying into 'Quake-like' but that never really picked up and soon enough everybody reverted back to 'Doom-like'.

Also I don't think only finding a handful of keepable gems in a mine of trash is anything particularly new. 3-4 great shooters and then a bunch of more or less interesting oddities could be used to sum up the early 90's in a nutshell as well. What's funny is 20 years from now, once the retro trend has died then come back again, we'll have generations nerding out on all, and worshipping some, of these lower quality games coming out right now that players are currently talking shit about. Just look at us being collectively haunted by Tekwar when most of us probably never even directly played that game.

This post has been edited by ck3D: 24 August 2021 - 11:46 PM

2

User is offline   Aristotle Gumball 

  • banned!

#339

View Postck3D, on 24 August 2021 - 11:45 PM, said:

3-4 great shooters and then a bunch of more or less interesting oddities could be used to sum up the early 90's in a nutshell as well. What's funny is 20 years from now, once the retro trend has died then come back again, we'll have generations nerding out on all, and worshipping some, of these lower quality games coming out right now that players are currently talking shit about.


Absolutely true, lol. Time is a flat circle.
0

User is offline   Outtagum 

#340


1

User is offline   MusicallyInspired 

  • The Sarien Encounter

#341

View Postck3D, on 24 August 2021 - 11:45 PM, said:

Or maybe that's just saying something about how exciting the rest of modern mainstream gaming really is, if so many will gravitate around relatively uninspired Doom clones over swallowing the pill of most newest original big name productions? There's also how most players who grew up in the early 90's now have busy lives and couldn't make time for gaming if it weren't for facultative plots and fast-paced action, and so despite the occasional lack of originality in the design those games are probably the closest they can get to reliving their childhood.


Well sure. Whatever the reason, my point is just that it's a sight to behold to see such a 180.
1

User is offline   jkas789 

#342


2

User is offline   jkas789 

#343

Hedon 2 has released. I like it a lot. (* ^ ω ^)


2

User is offline   OpenMaw 

  • Judge Mental

#344

Hedon always looked boring to me honestly. I give props to anyone who makes their own thing from the ground up, but it's just kinda.... Eh..?


It's a question of theme. I don't really care for the theme.
0

User is offline   Aristotle Gumball 

  • banned!

#345

I'm getting kind of sick of this cutesy aesthetic that everyone is doing tbh. Only mild variations of the primary colors and just this goofy, girly vibe. No one even tries to have a sense of seriousness. And I don't mean serious like a serious story, I mean everything feels like a meme for trans kids with ADHD. Saw a lot of that in Realms Deep. Really bothersome and misses the point of a lot of those games I think.
1

User is offline   OpenMaw 

  • Judge Mental

#346

View PostJesus Christ, on 02 September 2021 - 01:12 AM, said:

I'm getting kind of sick of this cutesy aesthetic that everyone is doing tbh. Only mild variations of the primary colors and just this goofy, girly vibe. No one even tries to have a sense of seriousness. And I don't mean serious like a serious story, I mean everything feels like a meme for trans kids with ADHD. Saw a lot of that in Realms Deep. Really bothersome and misses the point of a lot of those games I think.


Earnest. Genuine. Novel. Those are the words that really describe the direction of the classics.

Doom, Duke, Shadow Warrior, Blood, Quake. They weren't really "winking" at the audience. They were made by people who literally started a lot of their ideas with "wouldn't it be cool if...?" and then they built them up. They weren't aiming to really joke to the player. Well, Duke/SW/Blood do it a little but, on the whole they were trying to be genuine homages to their respective genres of inspiration.



1

User is offline   Aristotle Gumball 

  • banned!

#347

View PostOpenMaw, on 02 September 2021 - 07:07 AM, said:

Well, Duke/SW/Blood do it a little but, on the whole they were trying to be genuine homages to their respective genres of inspiration.


I think largely the problem is that pop culture has completely disintegrated and dissolved into this neon colored mass. Music, movies and TV shows are all garbage these days, yet people are still influenced by them and also internet culture, which is just "memes". And I realize all this is subjective. But I kinda don't get why more devs aren't influenced by just, older shit in general? Because it wouldn't sell as well? I don't know. It's like they wanna sell boomer shooters to kids pretty much. Which I also get, but ahhh... everything sucks.
4

User is offline   MusicallyInspired 

  • The Sarien Encounter

#348

I was done with cutesy way back after Super Meat Boy and The Binding of Isaac came out. But the trend hasn't stopped yet. I think creators have a harder time coming up with something new....or perhaps that creators have a harder time pulling themselves away from their inspirations enough to have their own new identity?
0

User is offline   OpenMaw 

  • Judge Mental

#349

View PostMusicallyInspired, on 03 September 2021 - 07:01 AM, said:

I was done with cutesy way back after Super Meat Boy and The Binding of Isaac came out. But the trend hasn't stopped yet. I think creators have a harder time coming up with something new....or perhaps that creators have a harder time pulling themselves away from their inspirations enough to have their own new identity?


I do think JC hits on a valid point. I think it's a question of what the source of inspiration is.

There was a big debate years ago on the Trekbbs forums about why the original Star Trek, and The Twilight Zone, were often so good. It's a question of frame of reference. How much have the young people of today experienced? You think about the writers on Twilight Zone or Star Trek, a lot of them were older men who had gone through World War 2. Soldiers, pilots, police officers. They were also very experienced in their trade already.

Putting my developer hat on for a second. It is hard to come up with something new. Especially in some of these genres which have been mined a lot. I had a day where I was trying to spitball one of those Chocolate, Peanut Butter, moments. "What if we take Dead Space and combine it with Twist Metal?" Ya know? Just random. Just to see if something stuck. It's incredible just how many "That's just like this game" moments there are when you do that.

So a lot of people fall back to aesthetics. We'll make it look like X Y or Z.... and then we'll load it up with memes."wE'rE SoOoOoOo fUnNy."
4

User is offline   Fox 

  • Fraka kaka kaka kaka-kow!

#350

View PostWolfmanFP, on 14 August 2021 - 02:49 AM, said:

After playing this game, I looked up the author's website, and found this:



Seriously, fuck this guy.

If he's trolling, then his site is hilarious

But these days you never know
1

User is offline   Aristotle Gumball 

  • banned!

#351

View PostFox, on 03 September 2021 - 08:16 AM, said:

If he's trolling, then his site is hilarious

But these days you never know


"I am extremely shy and lonely and miss human contact, I am looking for a female cuddle friend (non-sexual, but I wouldn't mind sex if you insisted)."

Unfortunately (for him) it's real I think. There's a 30 page manifesto. I think this guy might be schizoid or severely autistic. People like that often come across as socially daft.
1

User is offline   jkas789 

#352

Hedon is not really cutesy though?

Though I do agree that moe aesthetics are overdone in indie games. I'm a sucker for the cutesy pixel art style (really, pixel art in general) so I'm part of the problem. Kind of like with Blizzard. i keep buying Diablo games from Blizzard, knowing Activison-Blizzard is shit.

We live in a society

BOTTOM TEXT.
0

User is offline   MusicallyInspired 

  • The Sarien Encounter

#353

Well yeah, it's not Edmund McMillen style but it's still cartoon. In a worse way than Wolf3D/Doom.
0

User is offline   Fox 

  • Fraka kaka kaka kaka-kow!

#354

I moved away the shitposting
2

User is online   NightFright 

  • The Truth is in here

#355

Thanks. It was clearly PM material, anyway.
0

User is offline   Aristotle Gumball 

  • banned!

#356

View PostNightFright, on 07 September 2021 - 09:26 AM, said:

It was clearly PM material, anyway.


That's a good idea. Thanks.
-1

User is offline   jkas789 

#357

Civvie made a review on Hedon Bloodrite, and he seemed to like it quite a lot!


0

User is offline   Aristotle Gumball 

  • banned!

#358

RIP Civvie
-1

User is online   Ninety-Six 

#359

Meh. It still doesn't look that appealing. Even without the fetish thing this just looks like low-cut Strife, with fancier graphics but none of the same flair.
1

User is offline   MusicallyInspired 

  • The Sarien Encounter

#360

I really don't like the sprite-work. It looks way too MS Paint. And I still hold using licensed Alexander Brandon music against this project. Not interested.
1

Share this topic:


  • 16 Pages +
  • « First
  • 10
  • 11
  • 12
  • 13
  • 14
  • Last »
  • You cannot start a new topic
  • You cannot reply to this topic


All copyrights and trademarks not owned by Voidpoint, LLC are the sole property of their respective owners. Play Ion Fury! ;) © Voidpoint, LLC

Enter your sign in name and password


Sign in options