Project: First Person Shooter History

[Ian_Eb]

Ahh... Am going to have to dig all these out again. Wonder if I can get the running in Win10 or do i have to dredge up and ancient machine from somewhere. I seem to recall paying >£250 for my first CD ROM and then £300+ for a vga card and so on. Bet i can do it for peanuts these days.

 

[almoststew1990]

"Game" 8 Complete!

Quake Shareware



This is another game that does not need any introduction... Unless you're me and you haven't played it before other than 10 minutes in DOSbox! (Possibly?) the first AAA game to use 3D graphics everywhere - no sprites for enemies or 2.5D here!

It also doesn't have a title screen, so up there is a thrilling picture of the main menu.

Getting it running
I had no problems getting it running. I went with the standard software version, as you need the registered version to run GLQuake. A cursory google showed that the full version is not easily obtainable and is sold still through a number of digital stores so I left it at that.

Gameplay
This defaulted to mouse and keyboard but still doesn't feel quite like a modern game with moving the mouse up and down moving you forwards and backwards not mouse look. There is also still copious auto aim to help out with the verticality of the game.

This game is very dark and moody in tone and has contrasted nicely with Duke 3D; no pop culture, one liners or pixellated boobage here. The colour palette in particular is just brown and brown. Perhaps it would have looked better on a CRT (or a modern monitor with good black/white/contrast), but on my reasonable LCD screen it looked a bit washed out.

I really liked the 3D projectiles in Quake; the nail gun in particular with its alternate fire, recoil and projectiles looking very cool and being satisfying to use (I might make a gif of it firing if I can be arsed as that means digging out my tripod again). Unfortunately the arsenal is limited. There are only three types of guns, with each gun getting an upgraded version - Shotguns, nail guns and RPG/Rockets. This is a bit disappointing after Duke 3D and I don't know if there are more guns in the full version. Given the setting isn't limiting it to real guns I would like to see a longer distance single shot gun and a "futurey gun" to complete the set. Ammo is slightly scarse (all these games seem to have got ammo availability quite early on which is a pleasant suprise) making it tense but auto switch is much cleverer than Duke 3D (or maybe the lack of variety helps more); Duke 3D would often auto switch from shotgun to "most powerful weapon", likely an RPG you're conserving ammo for, instead of the "next gun". With only three guns, I never found myself in close quaters switching from Shotgun to Rockets and blowing myself up.

The levels themselves are a lot more linear than Duke 3D, but whilst still managing to feel like logical, interconnected rooms rather than a maze. As a result, I didn't get lost once and I was also drawn into this hellish world but the graphics and sound effects. None of the early/mid 90s frustrations were present. Well, yes OK, key searching is still bloody here (just die out already) but the challenge is more killing the dudes in between you and it rather than tracking it down. The small levels themselves make it quite easy to find them.

There are a variety of enemies in Quake (well, the shareware Quake) from zombie dudes, knight dudes in armour, Big Dudes with grenade launchers and chainsaws and finally BigFoot Dude who shooters lightning at you out its mouth. Each has a different attack strategy and each can be dangerous in their own way if stuck in a corner.

Overall, the gameplay is fun. It is easy to play with no niggles stopping your enjoyment and allowing the good to shine through, just like Duke 3D. Unfortunately I think I prefer Duke 3D to this (pls no ban!) just because of the tone. This take itself very seriously, and whilst it would have blown my socks off so hard in 1996 that I'd still be crawling around on the floor looking for them now, in 2019 it is slightly quaint and dated quite poorly, whereas Duke 3D sort of is what it is and hasn't been replaced. Yup, I now consider myself a Duke fan

The shareware only took about an hour to complete, with about 10 deaths and quickloads on medium difficulty. I'm not sure it really counts as enough to do a "full" review like this, but oh well.

Graphics and Performance
This is a bit step up from Duke 3D, technically, and this would have been especially noticable in 1996 as they came out less than a year apart (and I think Duke references Quake by saying "Im not scared of any quake" during an earthquake scene), and actually looks "late 90s Windows PC gaming" instead of "Early and Mid 90s DOS gaming", if you know what I mean. Having said that, I think I prefer Duke 3D to look at, as it is just more colourful and the places it makes are just... nicer I guess?

This is the first game that really taxed my PC, in 640 * 480 at 728MHz on a P3. It must have killed OG Pentiums in 1996! as I was getting between 75fps in small corridors and about 20fps in larger rooms with lots of angry dudes shooting at me. I'm hoping this should improve when 3D acceleration comes into play.

Sound
I did not have any music as you need the registered (CD) version to get CD audio. This would make it the first game on my list to not have any synthesised music I believe? However, my AWE32 works just fine (even in games like Mafia) so it clearly doesn't mind doing fully wave "modern sound card duties".

Was it fun?
Yes in a 7/10 C+ kind of way.

Should you play it?
Yes - its place in game in PC history is rightfully earned, just be prepared for it to belong in gaming history.

Screenshots
I made use of the screenshot capture tool again. Enjoy your PCX converted to BMP in Windows 98 Paint converted to PNG by Imgur






Check out that 3D Rocket

 

[almoststew1990]

Ahh... Am going to have to dig all these out again. Wonder if I can get the running in Win10 or do i have to dredge up and ancient machine from somewhere. I seem to recall paying >£250 for my first CD ROM and then £300+ for a vga card and so on. Bet i can do it for peanuts these days.

haha think again

Voodoo 2
Voodoo 5500
Socket 7 Motherboard (No AGP etc)
Decent Slot 1 Motherboard (440BX)
Soundblaster 16
Soundblaster AWE64 (hahaha serious this is getting insane)

Pentium 2 and 3 motherboards are pretty much the same price as the above if you want AGP and ISA, especially for anything high end at the time. CPUs are reasonably cheap for normal spec stuff (under 800MHz) Early AGP cards are blisfully cheap for now (TNT2, Rage(s) Matrox), PCI cards can get expensive.

I'm not sure if they're actually selling at these prices, but they're certainly not coming down.

A good enough workaround is to get cheaper low end more "modern" hardware. E.g. you can do it dirt cheap on an early Pentium 4 system with a TNT2/Rage/Anything really with a PCI soundcard that can do DOS soundblaster sound quite well (there are a few if you read around, Soundblaster Lives are a good starting point) plus any old DDR ram you can find. Put windows 98 on it and you're good to go for about £30 all in (assuming you have IDE CD drive, IDE HDD or get an 4/8GB CF Card and CF to IDE adapter from chine for £4 or so). Works with modern powersupplies, has modern ish coolers (so you can put a modern fan on them for instance) alllowing for a cool and quiet PC.

 

[almoststew1990]

Sneak peak of the next game - I feel this is going to be a little bit different...

 

[Ian_Eb]

haha think again

Voodoo 2
Voodoo 5500
Socket 7 Motherboard (No AGP etc)
Decent Slot 1 Motherboard (440BX)
Soundblaster 16
Soundblaster AWE64 (hahaha serious this is getting insane)

Pentium 2 and 3 motherboards are pretty much the same price as the above if you want AGP and ISA, especially for anything high end at the time. CPUs are reasonably cheap for normal spec stuff (under 800MHz) Early AGP cards are blisfully cheap for now (TNT2, Rage(s) Matrox), PCI cards can get expensive.

I'm not sure if they're actually selling at these prices, but they're certainly not coming down.

A good enough workaround is to get cheaper low end more "modern" hardware. E.g. you can do it dirt cheap on an early Pentium 4 system with a TNT2/Rage/Anything really with a PCI soundcard that can do DOS soundblaster sound quite well (there are a few if you read around, Soundblaster Lives are a good starting point) plus any old DDR ram you can find. Put windows 98 on it and you're good to go for about £30 all in (assuming you have IDE CD drive, IDE HDD or get an 4/8GB CF Card and CF to IDE adapter from chine for £4 or so). Works with modern powersupplies, has modern ish coolers (so you can put a modern fan on them for instance) alllowing for a cool and quiet PC.

hmm. maybe i should have kept the 3 voodoo 2 cards, the p3's and cdroms that i got rid of a year or so back. i do have a couple of firegl cards but they are probably a bit too new

 

[Flibster]

haha think again

Voodoo 2
Voodoo 5500
Socket 7 Motherboard (No AGP etc)
Decent Slot 1 Motherboard (440BX)
Soundblaster 16
Soundblaster AWE64 (hahaha serious this is getting insane)

Pentium 2 and 3 motherboards are pretty much the same price as the above if you want AGP and ISA, especially for anything high end at the time. CPUs are reasonably cheap for normal spec stuff (under 800MHz) Early AGP cards are blisfully cheap for now (TNT2, Rage(s) Matrox), PCI cards can get expensive.

I'm not sure if they're actually selling at these prices, but they're certainly not coming down.

A good enough workaround is to get cheaper low end more "modern" hardware. E.g. you can do it dirt cheap on an early Pentium 4 system with a TNT2/Rage/Anything really with a PCI soundcard that can do DOS soundblaster sound quite well (there are a few if you read around, Soundblaster Lives are a good starting point) plus any old DDR ram you can find. Put windows 98 on it and you're good to go for about £30 all in (assuming you have IDE CD drive, IDE HDD or get an 4/8GB CF Card and CF to IDE adapter from chine for £4 or so). Works with modern powersupplies, has modern ish coolers (so you can put a modern fan on them for instance) alllowing for a cool and quiet PC.

Ooof... didn't realise that Voodoo 5500's were that much now, AWE64 golds too.

I'm going to have to go through my parts cupboard and storage unit. I may have a few grands worth of bits laying around.

 

[LewisRaz]

haha think again

Voodoo 2
Voodoo 5500
Socket 7 Motherboard (No AGP etc)
Decent Slot 1 Motherboard (440BX)
Soundblaster 16
Soundblaster AWE64 (hahaha serious this is getting insane)

Pentium 2 and 3 motherboards are pretty much the same price as the above if you want AGP and ISA, especially for anything high end at the time. CPUs are reasonably cheap for normal spec stuff (under 800MHz) Early AGP cards are blisfully cheap for now (TNT2, Rage(s) Matrox), PCI cards can get expensive.

I'm not sure if they're actually selling at these prices, but they're certainly not coming down.

A good enough workaround is to get cheaper low end more "modern" hardware. E.g. you can do it dirt cheap on an early Pentium 4 system with a TNT2/Rage/Anything really with a PCI soundcard that can do DOS soundblaster sound quite well (there are a few if you read around, Soundblaster Lives are a good starting point) plus any old DDR ram you can find. Put windows 98 on it and you're good to go for about £30 all in (assuming you have IDE CD drive, IDE HDD or get an 4/8GB CF Card and CF to IDE adapter from chine for £4 or so). Works with modern powersupplies, has modern ish coolers (so you can put a modern fan on them for instance) alllowing for a cool and quiet PC.

Wow those are ridiculous prices

I should take a look at how much to recreate my first ever PC (in my sig).
Might not be as bad as some of those.

 

[almoststew1990]

Game 9 Complete!

Outlaws



This game was recommended to me on another forum (I think). From Lucas Arts of all companies! I did a bit of googling and it decided it would make a nice contrast from the grungy Dooms and Quakes I'd be playing up to this point, as it is set in the wild west.

I got a copy from eBay for less than £5, and it ended up being a new, sealed copy which was interesting!

Getting it running
What's all this, I have to run Windows before I can install or launch my game!? What is this madness!?

That's right, it's my first Windows game in this project. It installed without any issues and had a few video and sound options (direct draw and a "Multimedia" version for both... and Glide). It actually comes on two disks and you swap half way through the game. I assume to accommodate the cutscenes.

Gameplay
Outlaws is a medium paced shooter - it's not runny jumpy Rise of the Triads, but it's not Hitman either. Set in the Wild West, you shoot dudes rather than monsters for a change, with conventional, period weapons ranging from a pistol, rifle and shotgun. Sounds quite boring, but it's made a nice change as I thought.

This was the first game that defaulted to mouse look vertically and horizontally, which was refreshing. At first I could hear my mouse rolling not very smoothly, sometimes sliding rather than rolling over the desk, sometimes rolling lumpily and I died a few times when I tried to turn around and nothing happened. This pushed me from "can't be arsed" to "ehhh fine" and I finally cleaned my ball and tracky nib things inside the mouse which had solidified, compacted dust and whatnot in there. Nice, but at least it rolls very smoothly now!

Unfortunately looking up and down doesn't work very well in-game as it (looks like) it uses the build engine so your perspective goes very stretched and weird when looking away from horizontal. This effects the gameplay quite a lot as the targeting is way off when shooting up and down, you can see puffs of smoke no where near your crosshairs! It isn't helped by enemy sprites not being where the game thinks they are when the perspective stretches; numerous times I could see puffs of smoke from my bullets hitting the wall directly behind a dude as if the bullet went through them.

The guns themselves are quite satisfying. The starting pistol has a rapid fire mode, and the single-barrel shotgun is satisfying to use. Reloading is manual (although this is also the first game with reloading in, now I think about it!) and you have to hold/repeatedly tap the reload key to put more rounds into your six shooter (or any gun). The double barrel shotgun is very disappointing. It's effective range is very short and had a very wide spread of fire. It's useless.

There is actually a stealth element to this game too, with throwing knives and a comically overpowered punch. You can approach enemies from behind to dispatch them without them shooting first. I played on easy (I got rinsed on medium difficulty so dropped it to easy because I've got **** to do) and never needed to stealth around. It plays well as run and gun shooter, on easy mode.

The presentation is another aspect which really sets Outlaws apart from the other shooters "to date". It actually has cutscenes which are cartoony. Someone who knows about films would probably say they're of a certain filmic style, but I don't know much about films, so I'll just say they're very effective and interesting to watch with unusual camera angles such as wide shots that hold for a long time as you and your horse slowly walk across, shots of half a face, shots from the ground that actually mimic the odd perspective in game... Makes for interesting watching.

Whilst the levels are clearly wild west places, in a cubic 2.5D kind of way, the levels retain a disappointing amount of maziness and I'm still looking for bloody keys.

The story itself is not that interesting. Dude comes home to find his wife killed by bandits (which we see) and his daughter kidnapped. Dude is an ex Marshall, and goes after the gang killing Under Bosses one by one to reach the Boss Boss. You get flashbacks as you progress which get more and more detailed as the story progresses, showing Dude's Dad getting capped and Dude (being a child at the time) picking up a gun but being unable to bring himself to shoot. Lo and behold when you get to the Boss Boss, it's the same guy, but it ends up being your daughter that braps him this time. Yes, I did just spoil that for the no-one that is going to play it!

It's only 9 levels long, which is about the length of one episode in the previous games! However the levels are about 30 minutes long. It took me about 5 hours to complete, including restarting and distractions

Graphics and Performance
I have a feeling this is a build engine game, however, running in windows I had to stick with 640 *480 to get acceptable performance. This is the first game to make use of 3D acceleration; the manual references two Voodoo 1 cards, and has two glide acceleration versions (2.1 and 2.3 I think?). I ran it is in software after watching a video of the accelerated version and decided it didn't look much better than the software version, and couldn't be bothered to install my Voodoo 3, which might not even work anyway. I didn't have any framerate issues at 480p software on my 728MHz P3.

Sound
This uses either wav of CD audio. The quality is nice, but the music is forgettable western stuff. Sound effects were slightly sub-par. Overall, nothing to see here, sadly.

Was it fun?
Yes on easy mode running and gunning!

Should you play it?
Yes - it's an interesting less well known shooter.

Screenshots
No in game screenshot tool and I couldn't use FRAPS so it's back to camera pictures!

 

[Ninco!]

This is really helpful since my classic game backlog is as bad as my Steam catalogue! This thread is helping me gauge which games to focus on. Descent back in the day never really appealed as the 360 controls put me off. Same now, I might try Descent but to be honest, as you mention there are some better games. Surprisingly Catacombs has caught my eye.

Outlaws, I have only dabbled of late and I completely missed at the time of release. I'm glad I am not the only one who struggled with Medium setting, I got owned. One of the few games where you have to calculate how many bullets you have before launching into a fight! The amount of times I would get into a gunfight and run away/die because I forgot to reload! I actually like the music, but then I do like my Western films. Also the art style, is great, software mode looks good and not that much different from the accelerated version.

A great thread and thank you for taking the time to share your experiences!

 

[almoststew1990]

Game 10 Complete!

Blood



Everyone knows this game got known for being very gory, as well as actually being a good game too! Based on my list, it almost seems like the last of the "DOS, software, sprite/2.5D episodic mouse-optional shooters" although that's quite a long winded category. Is it a swansong for this kind of shooter or had it already been left behind by Quake?

Getting it running
I had no problems getting it running, including AWE32 sound (not that it seems to make much difference). It came with an installer but installed just fine.

Gameplay
This game lets you enable vertical mouse look from within the options (well, a keypress, but no console commands are required). However, the first thing I noticed is that the game doesn't like looking up and down at all, it is very stiff, there is a lot of delay, and it seems to move in lumps - not helpful when a fat dude is vomiting at you from above.

Similarly with Outlaws, the game has issues when you're shooting up and down; I'd be shooting the irritating hand-dudes crawing around on the floor and missing despite my cross hairs being squarely on those creepy ********.

As above, this game is well known for its gore. Why just have a dude crumple into a heap on the floor on death when he can explode into dozens of bloody bits? Why just have a dead guy in the corner of the room when you walk in, when you can have his decapitated head on a circular saw perpetually spraying blood onto the ceiling? It almost seems a little quaint now, what with games like heavy rain having you saw off your own finger and modern fps having limbs blow off "realistically". However, at the time I can see why it caused the controversy.

Fortunately, the minute-to-minute gunplay backs up the gore well. The range of guns is good, with a shotgun again being your go-to weapon against normal-level dudes. The flare gun makes enemies satisfyingly catch fire with one hit, but with a few seconds of delay, making it a tactical choice to use it. Jumping and gunning against a range of enemies remains as fun as ever, especially with different enemies having a range of tactics. I like how the basic zombidudes get knocked down before coming back for more; I'd knock a bunch down, deal with bigger threats in the room and then come back to finish them off with my stabby pitchfork. Then you have small creatures on the floor, from rats to spiders to the aforementioned creepy hands that jump up and strangle you. And then there are fish, giant spiders, gargoyles...

The tone of the game sites in between the extremes of Quake and Duke 3D, perhaps leaning towards Duke3D. It's definitely got a gorey, satanic world, but it doesn't take itself too seriously, with signs warning you to not drop the soap in the shower and the protagonist humming "somewhere over the rainbow" if you leave him idling for a while.

The environments are well crafted, and look quite nice (in a 'blood seeping from wall-sphincters' kind of way) but the world the levels paint is a rather generic "hell and monsters" with the bloody mess perk turned on. The levels are still mazey, with three or four keys to collect on each level (take your pick from moon, sun, fire, spider, dagger, skull keys...) However there are a few neat ideas and puzzles here to create a welcome break from just dungeons, caves and haunted mansions. In one level, you have a network of flowing waterways to navigate that effectively form several loops (you can't turn around). There are gates you can shoot to direct the water (and yourself) down alternative paths.

I am so done with mazes and keys.

I played on the easy mode after getting my butt kicked on middle and between easy and middle. Pathetic I know, but it has four episodes and I've got lots of games to play! I still didn't exactly sail through it, dying and quick loading regularly. It took me about 12 hours to do all four episodes.

Overall, I feel that yes, this does make a fitting end to DOS, software etc shooters before accelerated shooters became popular. It is as good as (but not better than) Duke 3D, however Blood has a similar tone to all the other miserable shooters before it, where Duke3D is just sort of out there on its own being very silly (which is great!).

Graphics and Performance
So this one definitely is a build engine game. I had it running at 640*480 with perfect performance (as you would hope), except when a notable proportion of the screen is water, then the framerate tanks. I believe there were patches for glide acceleration, for Voodoo 1's, which I don't have. Nothing to complain about here in general.

Sound
I used AWE32 sound with no problems. The sound effects are good, with good use of ambient sound, e.g. ghosts screaming, the indoctrinated NPCs moaning, gargoyles roaring. Some of the levels have distant chanting sounds in some rooms setting the atmosphere nicely.

The music however was completely forgettable. One song in particular has a high pitched whine through about half of its approx 3 minute length, so I'd get 90 seconds whining 90 seconds whine free.

Was it fun?
Yes.

Should you play it?
Yes, not only is it fun in its own right, I feel it really does mark the end of an era for DOS, software FPS games.

Screenshots
Here are some in-game screenshots. I tried to get a mix of nice environments with HUD and gun removed, and some in game bloody action.

 

[Ninco!]

I really like Blood, it's reassuring that it was not just me who was being mauled on Medium. BloodGDX is a great mod and makes the control easier (it does require Java though).

You have opened a can of worms with these reviews, expectations are very high. Are you planning on genre reviews for...

• Driving sims
• Golf (deserves its own category, when you think back to PC gaming from the nineties, golf sims were massive)
• Flight Sims (as per golf sims, PC gaming back in the nineties was all about flight sims...)
• Adventure
• RPG's

Don't worry about work, partners, family & social life all will understand!

Do it.

 

[almoststew1990]

Ha I have wondered about if this will be a slippery slope and I'll do other genres. But FPS games are usually quite short, compared to RPGs (some of which might not have a definitive end), and racing Sims require a certain level of skill to complete which I probably don't have. If anything I'd probably do a RTS version. I love C&C games but RTS games haven't really evolved much. The forumla was pretty much spot on by about 2002!

However I do need an excuse to play Morrowind properly.

 

[Ninco!]

How could I forget RTS - Dune 2 and Command and Conquer

Early racing sims and flight sims are nothing like today. If I fired up DCS now, I would be lost, it looks stunning but I would be clueless.

I was a Microprose & Rowans fan. I have just installed Rowans Flying Corps & Battle of Britain as we speak.

Tornado and Falcon 3.0* raised the bar back in the day (both massive favourites) although compared to DCS or similar, sim heads would laugh. Grand Prix Legends raised the bar for driving sims back in '98. Not complicated just bloody terrifying and hard.

You have mapped out your future for the next 5 years

*In Falcon 3.0 you could shoot down ejected pilots

 

[almoststew1990]

I'm still playing quake 2 but I'm thinking about what PC to build for the XP games. I seem to have three routes:

P4 2.4GHz 6600LE
This is what I already have. I don't really like it and I've had it for ages. It's slightly unstable but I can't quite put my finger on why... It isn't the CPU or Ram or HDD or GPU.

Socket 462 athlon AGP (the same 6600LE)
I could get a socket 462 for quite a retro PC. I'd have to be careful with my power supply as no CPU power connector. This pc would be stretched by COD2 which is partly why it is appealing. I have a reasonable cooler for this PC. This pc would cost £20.

Socket 754/939 with PCI-E, SATA but still DDR1
This would allow me to use super cheap and more interesting GPUs. I've got my eye on a 7950GT or 7900GS. CPUs are reasonable powerful and I can use SATA.

 

[almoststew1990]

Game 11 Complete!

Quake 2



The sequel to one of the first fully 3D shooter, this had quite a lot to live up to. Yes, Jedi Knight 2 was on this list ahead of Quake 2 but I foolishly thought I'd be able to copy over the files from steam onto my W98 PC and play it that way, and I don't really want to play it on my proper PC, so I'm shelving Jedi Knight 2 for now (forever).

Getting it running
We're back in Windows (probably for good now) after playing Blood last. It worked just fine with my increasingly messy install of Windows 98, and I didn't patch the game.

Gameplay
I can't remember if this defaulted to mouse look or not but I played it with mouse look regardless. Mouse control also felt completely natural, compared to Blood and Outlaws where aiming up and down is jerky, and made it a breeze to circle strafe, run and gun and sink bullets into dudes with way too much health.

The tone continues from Quake 1, very moody (but not dark/ Gory like Blood), but perhaps taking itself a bit too seriously. I get the impression Quake Guy is a very serious hero on a very serious mission to very serious kill serious demons in hell, seriously. Where games like Duke 3D and even blood are enjoyable today through a lightness of tone, Quake, taking itself very serious feels quaint to such an extent I can't take it seriously. Zero plops were given about the plot as I played, partly because the story was given through bright green briefing screens (I think), and partly because I skipped the briefing screens as the text scrolling noise was obnoxiously loud. That's not to say the presentation and world presented in Quake 2 is bad (it's the most vividly painted so far by a long shot), I just wasn't able to willingly suspend my disbelief as I was constantly thinking beyond the story and gameplay.

Fortunately, the gameplay more than holds up, with a variety of weapons all delivering satisfying damage, except the starting pistol which I hope was deliberately made weaker than a fart in the enemy dudes' general direction. The double barrel shotgun deals "wickedbad" damage at close range, whilst the combat shotgun has reduced spread for slightly further afield enemies. The grenade launcher can get very creative kills through bouncing shots, and the high pitched "tap tap tap" of unseen bouncing shells filling me with dread is now permanently burned into my fight or flight reflexes! The chain gun rattles through its ammo incredibly quickly but deals impressive damage to a room full of dudes at close to medium range. Finally "Gun 8" (possibly the railgun?) is probably my favourite, firing slightly slower moving, 3D rounds that as you strafe you can see trailing through the air as you strafe; you need to anticipate where the enemy dude will be 1/4 of a second after you fire. It's worth noting that enemies give a specific noise once they're dead; very useful when their death animations generally last a long time.

The enemy design is also very good. I was immediately able to tell how dead I was going to be by their size, stance, movement speed and sound. The variety keeps you on your toes too, with quick (and zig-zagging) melee guys being just as much of a pain as half-talk dudes who fire slow but deadly blue twirly things. I'm not so sure about the scantily clad women who make orgasm noises when they fire a rocket though. If it was 1998 and I was 14 I probably would have thought it was great though.

Whilst key hunting takes a backseat in Quake 2, it gets replaced by backtracking and coloured forcefields. Several levels make up a "unit", which you can travel back and forth through freely, with multiple pathways between levels (can you tell I needed to use the strategy guide!) This gets particularly annoying on the last unit where I did the various steps very inefficiently and ended up backtracking back and forth several times. However, the backtracking is provided in a mission structure of goals within a level such as "find the Data disk" "re-programme data disk" rather than just "get to the end killing all the dudes".

This took a good 20h to complete, partly due to being a bit rubbish at it and partly due to the obtuse goals and trapsing back and forth around the palace and factory.

Graphics and Performance
3D acceleration baby! 1024 * 768 gaming! My MX440 finally has something to do! I got a steady 75fps, as you would hope for a game this old running on newer hardware. It did freeze when I took a screenshot, however, I soon filled up the built in screenshot folder (I was using FRAPS most of the time) so this problem stopped when FRAPS took over.

Everything is 3D, except for the odd landscape outside of a window. It feels like the first "modern" game I've played so far, especially with the high resolution. Weirdly I needed to set the resolution every time I loaded up the game, but all the other settings were remembered. It's almost as if it is permanently in safe mode.

The lighting effects are incredible for the time. I loved seeing my fire lighting up passageways, eerie red glows emit from gaps in walls and shadows... actually there aren't any shadows now I think about it. It's quite odd as even Doom had shadows I think!

Sound
The sound effects were reasonable (I particularly like the pew pew pew railgun) but, like the - Computer Updated! Computer Updated! Computer Updated! Computer Updated! - previous games are relatively low quality sounding now. The Grenade Laun - Computer Updated! Computer Updated! Computer Updated! Computer Updated! - cher is the exception with its wonderful tapping grenades. Especially when its the enemy firing them in groups of 5, hearing them "dink" off a wall in quick succession. Unfortunately I did not hear much of the - Computer Updated! Computer Updated! Computer Updated! Computer Updated! - music, partly because whenever you achieve a small task you get a, you guessed it, computer updated! sound effect that plays over and over again until you read your mission computer (F1), and partly because it played one song over and over again, and sometimes cut out altogether.

In fact this is the first game I've played with bugs. A couple of times when I quick load I'd find myself stuck half in the floor. Sometimes the background demo in the main menu wouldn't load (can still select all the options etc) or sometimes the music wouldn't play at all.

Was it fun?
Yes, definitely. However I have a feeling Quake 3 and UT99 will eclipse this in terms of gameplay.

Compared to blood, this game is simply a generational leap ahead. The 3D environments, enemy and audio design, control/feel of the game, everything (except the backtracking). If most people experienced this leap with, and because of, a Voodoo card, I am beginning to appreciate why everyone likes them so much (even if I think they're silly money for what they are today). I was going to go back to play Doom 2 at some point but I am not sure I can anymore...

Should you play it?
Yes

Screenshots
I took 650mb of 1024 * 768 screenshots (albeit BMP format) - that should show how nice it looks! Thanks to FRAPS I don't have to spend ages converting some obscure 90s format into a format digestible by modern PCs.


Uh-Oh


Semi-frequent texture bug for lava






I love the rockets and their trails...


...not so much when they've got my name on it.

 

[Rroff]

I get a lot of nostalgia for those base levels - screenshots 10 and 11. Didn't like the later game so much but Quake 2 remains one of if not my favourite game to this day.

 

[almoststew1990]

Yes, the first levels are the best in my opinion. A bit simpler with limited back tracking!

 

[montymint]

Not really a shooter but I loved Thief

 

[Vexr]

Just came across this thread so not fully read up on what's going on here, but Turok is another one I can think of not on the list in the OP.

 

[almoststew1990]

Game 12 Complete!

Unreal



I've been quite excited to play this one, which has been described as very atmospheric shooter!

Getting it running
Slight problem, this game came on DVD and I had built this PC around a CD drive! My original plan was to not upgrade the PC in any way but then this isn't really a performance upgrade more a "let me install the game at all" kind of upgrade. Luckily I have a very generic (and new) DVD drive from that Tiny PC which I plopped in there. It detected the disk and installed just fine!

Gameplay
Another runny jumpy shooter; I am beginning to get my eye in with these finally and decided to play it on medium difficulty like a big boy. I slightly regretted that decision.

Whilst the action is very high octane with a variety of fast paced enemies, this is the first game that has put any thought to pacing. Starting off with no gun and trying to figure out what is going on; ominous sirens and warnings over the PA, finding our first gun after hearing (and only hearing) the previous owner be killed, before having a "big reveal" on the planet we're on. Unfortunately this pacing is lost later on in the game where it becomes one endless dude-in-corridor murder fest.

An absolute highlight for me was in an early level, making my way down a corridor and suddenly the lights go out one by one in a very ominous way; I can't see anything at all. I can hear something close by that I haven't heard before. I frantically press QQQQ to rotate out my kit a flare and light it, only to see a new, large and angry monster dude (unhelpfully bathed in a scary red glow from my flare) only a couple of meters away! This moment was as effective as any fancy-pants graphics scripted set piece, and compared to the universally slated "press F to pay respects", this actually makes you feel something (in this case, the warm feeling of poo in your pants) rather than just telling you to feel something.

However after the first few levels, which are brilliant, the world building and atmosphere falls away into a fairly generic spacey alieny shooter. At some point I'm pretty sure we changed planets and near the end I think we went onto a space ship but I couldn't really tell, it just all looked the same. This is a bit disappointing as the graphics are excellent from a technical perspective but the world it creates wasn't very... interesting. There are certainly areas of atmosphere such as a couple of boat rides and one of the last levels (The Darkness or something) but overall I just couldn't get absorbed into the world.

Enemies are varied and generally good at conveying their strength. My least favourite dude is the "dual light blob from the hands" who dodges my bullets a bit too often. Enemies dodging is one of the worst parts of the game, they will dodge out the way literally on your mouse click for fire (and only when you click fire) and as such you can't anticipate where they're going to be or time it so they're mid roll and then click fire etc. This is bid deal with the above dual light blob from hands dudes who will dodge about 75%% of the time, this resulted in a lot of wasted rockets.

The weapons are a nice mix with a starting pistol that gets upgraded as you go to become less useless (and also recharges), the flak cannon which immediately became my favourite weapon, a blue laser thing which was my go for those dodgy ******** as it an "instant hit" weapon. A blue nail gun equivalent (i.e. slow 3d projectiles) is also quite satisfying to use especially with its slight delay on shooting the first round with an slightly different sound "pong... pingpingpingpingping..."

The levels are generally linear and thankfully involve no backtracking between levels like in Quake 2. However, a fair bit of "obscure button pressing to open doors on the otherside of the map" was going on, which made me resort to a walkthrough for the second half. However, there was no key hunting; hoo-bloody-ray!

Unreal is a long-ass game taking me about 25 hours to complete. I died quite a lot, but found the bosses quite easy. Quick save and quick load saved the day more times than I can remember.

Graphics and Performance
Unreal looks fantastic. lighting, smoke effects, reflective floors, little details like "idle weapon animations" like the blue laser occasionally venting steam helps to create a very graphically impressive world, even if it is not that interesting. The flares in particular looks great. Certainly good enough to draw me in during those first few levels.

I played in Direct X mode and in general I got a constant 75fps except when screenshotting or quick saving. There were the odd stutters here and there.

The graphics were very dark. I had to play it on maximum brightness, however, screenshots in both fraps and the in-game capture both use the default brightness so they're all very dark.

Sound
The music was forgettable, except for the ambient music during the second level where you walk around the planet outside your ship for the first time, which matched the mood perfectly. The music would seamlessly change from action music to ambient music when enemies were around which I liked.

The sound effects were "good" in the sense that I did not notice them being poor. There are a few exceptions for great sound effects, and I would like to make special note that this is the first game that has a different sound as you near the end of a magazine! I swear I first heard that in something like CODMW2 but Unreal did it 10 years earlier!

Was it fun?
Yeeeeeeannno I'm not sure. The first few levels definitely but it falls away to outstay its welcome a bit too long in the second half.

Should you play it?
Again, the first few levels yes, but you might get bored after a couple of hours.

Screenshots
500mb of BMP screenshots this time, and most are too dark to see anything!