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Kingpin Reloaded  "Remaster by 3DRealms"

User is offline   Mark 

#31

I'm not a fan of the light bloom seen in the second pic. Bumping up the saturation of textures,meh. I'll wait for more reviews before I buy it. I jumped thru the hoops and have the original already running on my comp although I haven't been able to get the 3D glasses to operate with it like i used to in XP.
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User is offline   brullov 

  • Senior Artist at TGK

#32

Never played this game (unfortunately). On those screenshots I still prefer classic atmosphere with cold atmposhere and black character silhouette on the second screenshot. Creates great depth of the picture.
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User is offline   Tea Monster 

  • Polymancer

#33

There is nothing stopping them from running a good AI upscale filter on the textures. You could remake the models in MD3 format to get away from the jello meshes - the downside of that would entail re-animating them all, which is a lot of work.

I'm not sure that blowing out the gamma and colour saturation on a game about the seedy underworld is such a good idea.
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User is offline   necroslut 

#34

View PostNightFright, on 18 January 2020 - 04:14 AM, said:

Well, I can only speak for Germany. Over here the game was kept under wraps due to its heavy emphasis on violence. It was pretty hard to get.

Ah, yeah, I can imagine it passing under the radar in Germany for those reasons. And it wasn't even an amazing game like some other "banned" titles, so I doubt few would find it worth the effort to track down or import.

Still, I think it being forgotten has more to do with Xatrix going under, and there never being any sequels, remakes, remasters, no vital multiplayer or modding scene, whatever. With Xatrix gone there haven't even been any cameo appearances of characters or anything at all.

View PostTea Monster, on 18 January 2020 - 05:28 AM, said:

There is nothing stopping them from running a good AI upscale filter on the textures.

Generally looks pretty bad with pixel-painty textures like this. They often weren't designed to have more detail.

Quote

You could remake the models in MD3 format to get away from the jello meshes - the downside of that would entail re-animating them all, which is a lot of work.

Yeah, I doubt they're going to go through that effort. And issues like "jello meshes" only becomes more apparent the more you raise resolution, texture quality etc – not less.

This post has been edited by necroslut: 18 January 2020 - 07:32 AM

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User is offline   Zaxx 

  • Banned

#35

View Postnecroslut, on 18 January 2020 - 03:33 AM, said:

It didn't? I remember it as being both well-reviewed and fairly big and popular. Sure, it's been largely forgotten since, but I don't remember it being overlooked at release.

That's entirely false: the game flopped so hard that it sent Xatrix out of business on the day it came out (that's why they had to reform under the name Grey Matter Interactive). The thing is that KP was highly controversial because of its subject matter (it was an openly super violent FPS right after Columbine) so there were protests against it and ultimately that lead to a limited release (bigger stores just refused to market it). In Europe we kinda knew about it, played and liked it though because the controversy had no effect here... but PC piracy was terrible at the time so not many PC games sold well.
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User is offline   HulkNukem 

#36

View PostTea Monster, on 18 January 2020 - 05:28 AM, said:

There is nothing stopping them from running a good AI upscale filter on the textures. You could remake the models in MD3 format to get away from the jello meshes - the downside of that would entail re-animating them all, which is a lot of work.


I saw someone from 3DR said on their Discord that they tried it with high res textures and it just didn't look good with the blocky architecture/models.

One of the bigger things I hope is changed is the soundtrack. I played too much Kingpin in my life so I really hope I don't have to hear the same 6 short tracks on repeat ever again.

As for the wobbly models, it'd be great if they were able to fix all of it, but I'd be fine if it was just the first person weapons.

They also said this game was completely rebuilt in a new engine using all the same assets. Custom maps and models will be able to be used.

This post has been edited by HulkNukem: 18 January 2020 - 09:38 AM

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User is offline   NightFright 

  • The Truth is in here

#37

The game was and still is problematic because of its explicit violence. I remember reading the Xatrix sound designer was frying eggs in a pan and recorded the sound to be used when you burn bad guys with the flamethrower, and he was proud about the idea. This insider story also found its way into German test magazines and didn't exactly trigger enthusiasm among media-controlling authorities. One way is sure: It's also a game with an insane inflation of the f-word. You were able to apply audio censorship btw, but then the game was full of beeping sounds. Was actually even more annoying than the cussing itself.

This post has been edited by NightFright: 18 January 2020 - 09:45 AM

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User is offline   Tea Monster 

  • Polymancer

#38

View PostHulkNukem, on 18 January 2020 - 09:33 AM, said:


They also said this game was completely rebuilt in a new engine using all the same assets. Custom maps and models will be able to be used.


WHAT?! They rebuilt an old QII game in a new engine, and spent ages programming back in all the old game behaviour, including blurry textures and vertex wobble? Why recreate an old game in a new engine, if it's supposed to look and feel just like the old game? That is the most crazy-ass shit I've ever heard of!

EDIT: The only reason I can think of for that level of insanity would be - you guessed it, the root of nearly all PC gaming insanity - getting it onto consoles.

This post has been edited by Tea Monster: 18 January 2020 - 12:41 PM

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User is offline   HulkNukem 

#39

I imagine getting it onto consoles is one of the reasons, yeah.

I would also guess it would help future proofing a bit with things like resolution or making multiplayer more stable, but thats speculation on my part. They are also reworking some missions by the sounds of it and adding an inventory screen, stuff that might've been more complicated doing in the old engine?

This post has been edited by HulkNukem: 18 January 2020 - 01:13 PM

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User is offline   Zaxx 

  • Banned

#40

They are using Unity as the framework it seems so chances are it's something like the new Doom ports Bethesda made last year: based on the source code but running in Unity. Guess it's easier this way, especially multiplatform support.

This post has been edited by Zaxx: 18 January 2020 - 01:36 PM

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User is offline   Tea Monster 

  • Polymancer

#41

There have been Q2 source ports that allow high res textures for over 10 years
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#42

View PostTea Monster, on 18 January 2020 - 01:36 PM, said:

There have been Q2 source ports that allow high res textures for over 10 years


Maybe Interplay insisted on avoiding the GPL? So they wouldn't have to release the Kingpin source code? It probably wouldn't be 3D Realms since they have have Wrath as a GPL release already: https://github.com/K...rath-darkplaces and https://github.com/K...lGames/wrath-qc

I just can't think of any technical reason for using Unity. It seems liek a lot of work.
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User is offline   necroslut 

#43

View PostZaxx, on 18 January 2020 - 08:01 AM, said:

That's entirely false: the game flopped so hard that it sent Xatrix out of business on the day it came out (that's why they had to reform under the name Grey Matter Interactive). The thing is that KP was highly controversial because of its subject matter (it was an openly super violent FPS right after Columbine) so there were protests against it and ultimately that lead to a limited release (bigger stores just refused to market it). In Europe we kinda knew about it, played and liked it though because the controversy had no effect here... but PC piracy was terrible at the time so not many PC games sold well.

Never heard of that before, but I'm also in Europe so that would explain it. I only remember it reviewing fairly well and seeming to be decently popular, but I never saw any sales statistics so I don't really know.

View PostNightFright, on 18 January 2020 - 09:42 AM, said:

The game was and still is problematic because of its explicit violence. I remember reading the Xatrix sound designer was frying eggs in a pan and recorded the sound to be used when you burn bad guys with the flamethrower, and he was proud about the idea. This insider story also found its way into German test magazines and didn't exactly trigger enthusiasm among media-controlling authorities. One way is sure: It's also a game with an insane inflation of the f-word. You were able to apply audio censorship btw, but then the game was full of beeping sounds. Was actually even more annoying than the cussing itself.

Yeah, I remember it sometimes being referred to as "Quake with swearing". I can imagine that also causing more problems in the US.
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User is offline   Tea Monster 

  • Polymancer

#44

Weirdly enough, guess who has done this before?

https://forums.duke4...553#entry332553
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User is offline   Malgon 

#45

I never would have imagined that this of all games would be getting a remastered version. I do remember enjoying this as a teenager with all the swearing and gratuitous violence. I also remember playing with plenty of cheats, and it wasn't until years later when I realised how difficult it really was. It'll be interesting to see how they go with handling that, especially in the early sections of the game.
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User is offline   NightFright 

  • The Truth is in here

#46

It was SUPER difficult and I wonder if they are going to change anything about that. Today's player frustration threshold is a lot lower than it used to be, and if they don't want tons of refund claims, adjustments might be advised. The last quarter of the game was/is insane and the boss fight made me fire my mouse into the corner more than only once.
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#47

View PostNightFright, on 20 January 2020 - 02:54 AM, said:

It was SUPER difficult and I wonder if they are going to change anything about that. Today's player frustration threshold is a lot lower than it used to be, and if they don't want tons of refund claims, adjustments might be advised. The last quarter of the game was/is insane and the boss fight made me fire my mouse into the corner more than only once.


I think that's what they're rebalancing for. However, I think that the later levels are easier compared to the earlier levels since you're all geared up by the end while early on you had to pray for their AI to fuck up since they can kill you faster than you can kill them.

Also, that's the intrinsic problem with having hitscan bosses; you have to exploit their AI to beat them because you'll get showered in hitscan if you go head-on but doing that doesn't feel fair or fun. You could say that sliding in and out of cover is the fun part that also takes skill, but imo it's nowhere as fun as just dodging projectiles.

A bit off-topic here but most players nowadays, young and old, have busier lives than they do in the past. It's hard to enjoy retrying a hard section of a game again and again knowing that you only have so little time to spare and have more important things to do later.
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User is offline   Mark 

#48

Or having so many other games waiting in your GOG or Steam library you don't stay long enough to finish the tough game.
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User is offline   cybdmn 

#49

View PostKristian Joensen, on 18 January 2020 - 01:55 PM, said:

Maybe Interplay insisted on avoiding the GPL? So they wouldn't have to release the Kingpin source code? It probably wouldn't be 3D Realms since they have have Wrath as a GPL release already: https://github.com/K...rath-darkplaces and https://github.com/K...lGames/wrath-qc

I just can't think of any technical reason for using Unity. It seems liek a lot of work.


They haven't to release the source code anyway. First, the Quake II source code was released, the Kingpin source wasn't. And second, even if they would have released the source code, the copyright holder is free to dual license the code. So they can make a closed source re-release, if they fork the re-release directly from the original source. Things like this going to happen often, Bethesda rereleased Doom many times, without releasing the newly used source code, Gearbox even did that with the 20th anniversary Duke 3D thing.

It would make perfect sense to use Unity for them, just like Bethesda using Unity for the Doom Re-release. Unity is just used for all the input-output stuff, the game itself is running inside of the original code. This way they could release the game on so many platforms without porting everything over to the various platforms, Unity handles the interaction of the game with the platform.
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#50

"They haven't to release the source code anyway"

If they based it on one of the Quake 2 source ports, which is the suggestion I was responding to, they would have to.

Edit:

I read the post by Tea Monster that I was responding to as suggesting they could combine the Kingpin gameplay code(and if relevant, any engine changes they might have made) with one of the modern Quake 2 source ports.
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User is offline   Tea Monster 

  • Polymancer

#51

View PostKristian Joensen, on 20 January 2020 - 12:24 PM, said:

"They haven't to release the source code anyway"

If they based it on one of the Quake 2 source ports, which is the suggestion I was responding to, they would have to.

Edit:

I read the post by Tea Monster that I was responding to as suggesting they could combine the Kingpin gameplay code(and if relevant, any engine changes they might have made) with one of the modern Quake 2 source ports.


If it were just for PC, then using a source port and hiring a coder to update the stock Q2 engine to support anything custom in Kingpin would be a no-brainer. As it's going to be released on consoles, I imagine that porting the Quake II code to XBoxOne, PS4 and Switch will be a much worse nightmare in the long run. It might just make more sense with time and finances (coders need to be paid) to port it to Unity and then let Unity do all the cross-platform shenanigans.

This post has been edited by Tea Monster: 20 January 2020 - 03:13 PM

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#52

Any news on Kingpin Reloaded? It's supposed to be released in the second quarter in 2020 in which is where we are now. Did COVID-19 slowed down the development time or what?
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