Ben X

The Big FPS Playthrough MISSION COMPLETE

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Some other good things about NOLF (still all presentation): the cartoonish body animation was great - it reminded me of those flappy-limbed Garry's Mod machinima videos you used to get. I'm not sure if it was mo-capped or not. The enemies flinging themselves down stairs or off balconies like over-enthusiastic stuntmen, and cars blowing up with a single bullet, were always good fun. And the first-person tumble you take when you die, as Cate puts her arms out and you roll to the floor, gave a Mirror's Edge-like immediacy to it, especially if you happened to be the one rolling down some stairs.

 

In other news, I found a copy of AvP gold edition in a charity shop this morning! Hopefully that fan patch will work on it; if so, I'll turn back time after Undying and give it a whirl.

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I am not enjoying Undying that much. The atmosphere is pretty creepy (albeit in a cliched way - old mansion, creaky noises, things moving mysteriously, eerie laughter etc) but the UI is really clunky and the combat is incredibly irritating - weapons and powers that are under-powered and take ages to reload, enemies that are in your face the entire time and spawn far too often. Also, walking round and round a mansion, getting lost and banging your head against locked or fake doors is not particularly satisfying. A few cool moments, though, so I'll push through for a while and see how it goes.

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I really enjoyed it at the time, but I remember reviewers criticising the game for very frequent load zones (not so much a problem now it loads quickly), and those interminable locked doors, though they do become less frequent as you progress.

 

If you want to have more fun towards the end of the game and keep things moving along briskly, I'd recommend using the scythe in conjunction with a powered-up Speed spell. Hold up, it slices and dices? I'll take ten.

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On 10/17/2016 at 8:38 AM, Trip Hazard said:

If you want to have more fun towards the end of the game and keep things moving along briskly, I'd recommend using the scythe in conjunction with a powered-up Speed spell.

 

I wanted to have fun at the beginning of the game. Unfortunately, that didn't happen due to clunkiness, frustrating combat and, to be charitable, inconsistent tone. Clive Barker's Uninstalled.

 

Now, back in time to AvP, hopefully!

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Alright, got it working very quickly and got to the second level. I'm playing it on baby mode because it's notoriously difficult iirc. It doesn't have any saves! If you get 95% through a level then die, that's it, back to the start you go. It certainly creates a high level of tension. Thankfully the combat is well-balanced so it's not too frustrating. Unfortunately, I got lost towards the end of the level and then got killed by a lift ¬¬

 

The atmosphere is spot-on, you really do feel like one of Cameron's space marines, checking your motion tracker, flipping to night vision and back. "Short, sharp bursts." I just hope it's not always going to be unclear where I should be going - the grim identikit colony setting doesn't lend itself to notable landmarks and routes.

 

(Mainly for my own interest, I've given a thumb rating to all the games played so far, in my original post. It's mainly about my final enjoyment level rather than a broad review of the game as a piece of art.)

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AvP was hard as nails. Good memories of playing the multiplayer with friends on LAN - as I recall, you could play aliens vs predators vs marines in a kind of asymmetric multiplayer, or co-op against waves of aliens. Totally different to the campaign, but great fun!

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As I recall, the gold edition of AvP did have (limited) number of saves, the original release didn't. It's also on Steam :P

 

The Marine campaign in that game is fantastic. Despite the almost Doom like movement speed it does a great job capturing the feel of the second movie. The Aliens are so damn fast, deadly and come out of nowhere. The gunplay is satisfying too, which is helped by using the original sound effects from the movie (the 2010 game screwed this up). One of my favourite FPSs from that era.

 

The Alien / Predator campaigns aren't as strong, but they have their moments and the way they implemented some of the cheats are pretty cool.

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On 10/22/2016 at 7:54 PM, eot said:

As I recall, the gold edition of AvP did have (limited) number of saves, the original release didn't.

 

Ahhh, you have to do it from the menu (unless you use the console to bind an autosave key, apparently). Thanks! As they added this only a few months after release, I won't feel too bad for using it. I'll try not to, though! I think it's an interesting tension-building choice not to have saves, though it may prove too frustrating. The limited number of saves is a nice compromise (though 8/9 is too many, even on easy mode - I think one would do).

 

On 10/22/2016 at 7:54 PM, eot said:

It's also on Steam :P

 

Well, it was only £1 at the charity shop which was cheap enough to add back onto my list. I'm trying to reduce my backlog here, not spend a ton more money!

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Oh, I forgot to post this Let's Play Deus Ex with Warren Spector, Sheldon Pacotti and Chris Norden video back when I gave up on it. I'm 15mins in and it's not hugely insightful, but a few points of interest:

 

 

 

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Gah, I'm really enjoying AvP except for getting lost constantly. The Marine campaign continues to be fun, nervously legging it through cooling systems and getting freaked out by flickering lights and screeching doors. But I came to a full stop after trudging round a level looking for the way forward for about 20 minutes before finally succumbing to the waves of aliens.

I've had a quick go at playing as the Alien and the Predator. Being an Alien is really cool, racing up walls and across ceilings in this weird Alien-worship temple, cutting power and killing marines, watching these weird spacecraft floating around outside your windows. However, the objectives are pretty vague and I didn't get far into the first level before I reached some human lab setting and couldn't find the way forward. Predator seems less fun - I seem to just be a tank rolling through corridors, and I got lost within about a minute of the start. I'm going to RTFM, see if that gives me any clues. If not, I might check some walkthroughs to help me out, as I don't want to quit just yet.

 

The annoying thing is, a map or similar would make sense for all of these campaigns - the Marine should have a blueprint of Hadley's Hope, as per the film; it would fit with the aliens' weird super-senses and hive-mind to be able to sense where it needs to go next; the Predator is all high-tech and surely could at least have little pointers on his helmet display.

 

EDIT: okay, the solutions were: Marine - there's a door in a wall across a stairwell from you, shoot at the ceiling to make a platform fall down providing access to it ¬¬ ... Alien - just destroy more shit (fair enough) ... Predator - blow some unrelated crate things up then press a switch that looks like a light ¬¬

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Predator is a little more fun now - I'm staying invisible and shoulder-cannoning soldiers from afar, it's like a very basic Crysis. Marine - I've just entered a new level where I can't tell where the fuck I'm supposed to go. It is doing some cool crossover with the Predator storyline, though. Alien, I've gained access to the labs and killed everyone but I can't figure out what I'm supposed to do next. I don't really want to stop every five minutes to scrub through playthrough vids to work out which hidden button I'm supposed to press. This is the main issue I've had with any of the FPSes so far, I think - not knowing what I'm supposed to be doing.

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Seeing as you played Clive Barker's games recently, you might find this video interesting

 

 

 

Sorry for not having more input besides linking videos of this guy as he uploads them but he goes through them in a similar meander as you are.

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Thanks Jut. That video has potential to bring up some interesting points but I cannot stand the presenting style - I'm choking on the arch ironic distance. However, I had heard of the game Jericho from my reading around Dying, and it sounds like it blends Barker and FPS more effectively by chucking a load of space marines into a body-sex-horror dimension.

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Okay, I gave up on AvP. I might come back to it at some time, but I've got to the point where I'm stuck on all three campaigns, and I can't be bothered to keep checking playthrough vids. Great atmosphere but too much looking for keys and hidden switches and hidden doors etc. I ended up enjoying the Predator section a fair amount - interesting energy-level/weapons/cloaking/view-mode mechanics, balancing all of them together. It was also pretty cool to go to Fury 161. One thing that I've had in other FPSes and was particularly bad here - not knowing which side a lift is going to let you out from. It's always very embarrassing, and in this game quite irritating too because you only get a couple of seconds before the lift goes down again.

 

I'd love to see a modern sequel to this where Crytek make the Predator section, id Software make the Marine one and, hmmm, EA Dice make the Alien one for that parkour/quick takedown feel maybe? Although perhaps I should nominate Creative Assembly for the Human campaign, because I've actually always thought it would be cool to play a colonist in a fully established colony and have to survive the initial alien attack, which starts with a single facehugger, using cattle-prods, flame-throwers and running away. As more show up and they cut the power, all the swanky shopping malls and luxury apartments turn to hell. Then the marines come in and you get to learn how to use their weapons, Ripley-style. (Or you're a Company man, initially trying to capture an alien but swiftly getting your arse kicked when it escapes on Earth, and you turn and decide to destroy the nest it sets up. Or something.) I guess in an AvP game, you would survive all that, only to get hunted by a Predator, and have to abandon your weapons to go primal again.

 

Aaanyway, I've moved onto Serious Sam now, and it's hella fun. It's just a really sweet arcade shooter in 3D, with the waves and combinations of enemies. I love the enemy designs and animations, and it's really nice to have great big arenas where you can see things running at you from a mile off and adjust your tactics accordingly. There's a lot of vertical space, it's cool to see trees getting blown apart and chunks of stone go flying when you shoot a wall, and I think this is the first time I've seen (yes, illogical) lens flare. Also, the bomb dudes are as hilarious as their reputation. It's got a light sprinkling of switches and keys but nothing too egregious. I get the impression that the whole thing is in this Egyptian setting, though, which I might tire of as soon as the new enemy types run out, especially as Sam himself is a watered-down Duke Nukem and there's not really anything else going on. Also, it may prove too tough for me! But I'm having a blast so far. 

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Without ever having replied in this topic (I think), but reading it now and then, can I say that you are really into this genre, Ben? You're playing so many of these games, and every week it's a new one. That's in incredible drive you have. This is, for real, the 'big' fps playthough. You weren't kidding. Bravo.

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I enjoy the first Serious Sam, especially the level with a lot of Kleer (I love the dumb names too). You'll know which one. It's also a good co-op game.

 

Anyway, I'll be curious to hear what you think of the Second Encounter, if you decide to play it and get far enough in both of them to compare and contrast. The consensus seems to be that it's just more of the first game, but I haaated it. I thought the encounter / enemy design was dramatically worse, and the difficulty very poorly balanced.

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Oh, I forgot to mention that I'm playing the original version from a second-hand copy I got in CEX ages ago for 50p, so none of that HD rubbish. It initially didn't work, saying that the disc wasn't in the drive, but to my relief simply getting the v1.05 patch sorted it out.

 

I'm currently stuck on a bit where loads of those big charging things spawn, so you have to strafe constantly otherwise they ram you from behind and it's pretty much instadeath. Going to give it another go now!

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Starting playing Thief for the first time. I'm walking down an alley and see a guard approaching. I think "Ah ha! I'll hide in this dark corner of the alley and just let him walk right past me." I wait an excruciatingly tense 10 seconds and when he finally passes me he stops his whistling just long enough to say "Hey, how's it going." and keeps walking.

 

Oh right. They're guarding the manor. I'm allowed to just be in the actual town. What an amazing and humiliating way to learn the systems.

 

Then the first guard I blackjacked, I hid his body in a shallow pool of water and he drowned and died. GOTY 2016

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Ha ha, excellent!

 

I got past the big chargey thing section and am now stuck on the 'moving home with very little warning and living out of boxes' section. (This is also probably going to scupper my chances of participating in WJ4.)

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Okay, I played up to the Oasis level and am getting a bit bored of being stuck in a big room and consta-strafing until all the enemies are gone. So I'm going to put this aside. Seems I got about halfway through it. A fun game, though, and I prefer Sam to Duke as a character - he's definitely more of a Jack Burton type who gets undercut regularly.

 

Now to see if I can get Operation Flashpoint working and if I can handle the Ultra Realism.

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I got it working! I couldn't handle the Ultra Realism.

 

I have died about a million times already, and I'm not really giving the game a chance, I guess, but I can't be bothered to crawl over a huge green polygon for ten minutes over and over again just to get popped in the head. The cut scenes are buggy and awful, like a 6 year old retelling a Tom Clancy novel with their teddy bears, and the objective marker system is FUBAR. 

 

So! Onto Return To Castle Wolfenstein!

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Okay, this is quite fun so far, they nicely capture the feel of old war movies and it all looks nice. However, there doesn't seem to be much skill to the combat, and I'm already getting a little bored of running round the same corridors trying to unlock doors - at least it's true to its predecessor!

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