Ben X

The Big FPS Playthrough MISSION COMPLETE

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I played another big chunk of this and it's mainly a chore. I've got some better weapons now but they all have a long warm-up or reload time. The mission briefing cutscenes are perfunctory to the point of satire: "Go to the warehouse. Locate the weapons. Destroy the weapons."

 

I was interested to see a few more Half-Lifey things like moving laser beams and big weird alien factories. The best new detail is the other space marines you find in prison cells and stuff, driven mad and crawling around babbling. Hilariously, they all have Arnie accents.

 

I think I might move on pretty soon though, because this isn't really satisfying or fun.

 

EDIT: oh god, it seems I've only completed 3 of 10 missions. I think I'll have one more blast then give up.

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"Next level: Upper Mines". NO.

 

That's Quake 2 done with, so it's on to Unreal.

 

I'm generally not enjoying Unreal too much - lots of bland Quake 2-y spaceship corridors, and the shooting/movement is pretty floaty and unsatisfying.

 

It does have some really nice moments, though, like when you exit your crashed prison ship and emerge onto this expansive alien planet, with turquoise waterfalls and little critters running about the place, then you look up and flying reptiles circling lazily above you and planets hanging in the sky, while the wondrous synth-y score comes in. It feels like it's drawing on similar influences as No Man's Sky. It's definitely the first natural outdoor environment I've seen that is easy on the eyes.

 

The NPCs are cool as well. They're kind of primitive slaves; if you shoot them they start worshipping you and running away from you, but if you just walk up to them, they beckon you to follow and lead you to hidden weapon closets which they then open for you. It's quite affecting when one of them heads off to help you then gets caught by their Skarj master and is eviscerated.

 

I'm in a temple section at the moment, which has some light puzzles - shoot the chains to free the raft, push the lever to fill the pool etc - and is quite relaxing, but I've just got stuck! So I'll check out a playthrough and then come back to this one in a few days, I think.

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Yeah, Unreal was very much a game which sold on the amazing world a little more than the amazing gameplay. (That said: it has much better enemy AI than the average game of the time - the quality of the deathmatch AI was what led to the Unreal Tournament spin-offs even happening.) I do think that the weapon design deserves a little credit for not being the already standard "guns from 80s action movies" approach of Quake II etc.

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Well, I haven't got too far yet, but so far it's "alien pistol that shoots green bullets" or "alien chaingun that shoots blue bullets". Also, the Skarj AI is quite good at navigating, but all the flipping and rolling and stuff just mean that I stand there waiting for it to finish the gymnastics and run straight at me so I can pelt it with bullets. Plus they generally show up in corridors so I don't have much chance for tactical manoeuvring. It's all showy surface details, which seems to be a microcosm of the game itself. I prefer it to Quake II already, though, and hopefully I'll find more to like as it goes on.

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I don't blame you for giving up on Quake II. It's a slog, with confusing levels and unimaginative space marine theme. The strangeness of Quake I is vastly more interesting and the levels are so much tighter. Quake II feels more modern in a way, because it tries to look like a real place at times, but I really love the unorthodox "this is one of the first 3D games ever" feel of Quake I. It is so unlike modern level design, but manages to be good at the same time.

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Also, yeah, I should say that I really do prefer Quake to Quake II as well -it's not just the slog it involves (the innovation of backtracking through previously done levels is not one I think anyone needed), but also the lack of imagination - it's really the first game that showed that when id tried to consciously invent a coherent world, they really weren't actually that good at it! Plus, there's a bit more "frat" enemy design, which Quake avoided mostly by everything being Lovecraft-lite horrors. (I was so disappointed when Quake IV ended up being a sequel to the latter, rather than the former, even if it does a fairly good job of modernising it.)

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I was so disappointed when Quake IV ended up being a sequel to the latter, rather than the former

 

Oh man, me too.

 

So, I played a little further in Unreal. The Tomb Raider-lite temple section got a bit wearing with all the underwater mazey bits, and I just got stuck again at a bit where the solution (I found out later) is to push one of a dozen wall decorations that usually aren't buttons. Ugh. It seems there's a village section coming up so I'll push on to that and see how it goes, but I feel like I might be giving up on this relatively early as well.

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There are too many bad/confusing early levels for me to ever recommend Unreal unequivocally, but it is still firmly lodged somewhere in my heart. Unreal had the dubious benefit of providing some long-range geographic goals to its level progression (e.g., reach the Sunspire, which you can see in the skybox for several levels preceding it). In practice this meant that the best levels couldn't be shoved to the front of the game, as in the Doom/Q1 era, and the game suffers for it.

 

There is a lot of trial-and-error-y play where you are, and in the next ~10 levels, too, so I suggest skipping to Gateway to Na Pali (aka SkyCaves, level 20/38). Navigation is fairly straightforward, it's prettier than several of the intervening maps, and it starts off what is (unofficially) a ~5-map arc that culminates in Bluff Eversmoking (my favorite Unreal map and my pick for 'if you only play one more level from this game...').

 

In the console:

 

open skycaves
summon translator
summon flashlight
summon armor
summon automag
summon stinger
summon asmd
summon eightball
summon flakcannon
summon razorjack
summon gesbiorifle
summon rifle
summon minigun

Walk forward and pick up your item bundle. Level is beatable without extra ammo, but use console command AllAmmo if you're having a hard time on this or later maps.

Don't forget to save from time to time (there is a river to nowhere as I recall), and use the Translator when prompted (should be F2 to toggle by default). For the best experience, do not harm the NPCs (Nali), even via splash damage, as that will stop them showing you secret areas and doing their scripted routines (praying, patrolling, etc.).  Enjoy!

 

 

I like parentheses.

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Hmm, this is something I might do. I vaguely remember Unreal as being cool for level design and Skaarj and Nali behaviors. I think at the time it came out I didn't have a proper graphics card as I had decided to get a PowerVR instead of 3dfx Voodoo or something. I also remember there being factions of gamers who preferred quake or unreal. I also remember Bluff Eversmoking, but not beating the game. Would be a nice nostalgia trip to go back and play it now. Are there any fan-made graphical improvements?

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Unfortunately, your advice to skip the next few levels came a bit too late, Inc! I just played through that whole spaceship bit where you're trekking around pushing buttons for hours; it's like Dark Forces except with insanely tough enemies constantly being thrown at you. I cannot bear any more of this game, I'm afraid, it's a huge slog.

 

It makes me appreciate Half-Life all the more seeing earlier or contemporary games do similar stuff but just not as entertaining or satisfying.

 

Now onto Shogo: Mobile Armor Division! This had better be good, eot!

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Hmm, this is something I might do.

Actually I just looked at some youtube videos and that satisfied my appetite for playing it.

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I took a look too, and it didn't look much different to what I've been playing already. I'd be interested to hear what you particularly like about that level, Inc.

 

Watching the play-through did remind me that I probably should read the manuals for these older games to make sure I'm not missing secondary fire modes and stuff - I'm used to them popping up as text on-screen when I first get the weapon!

 

Now I'm off to try and make sure the music works for Shogo, as apparently it takes some hex editing and stuff - that seems to be one of the recurrent issues with playing these older games. Everything else about it is running pretty smoothly, though - probably thanks to gog.

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Got the music working. This is really fun so far! I love the anime presentation, especially the cheesy Japanese synth pop title song and the bad-translation banter. It's also really cool running around as a mech squishing people and blowing cars up - reminds me of the old Amiga game Walker. I occasionally feel on the verge of being lost but I haven't come a cropper yet. All I need now are some kaiju and some laser-sword fights.

 

I've got to a bit where I'm supposed to fall down a fan shaft and land on a platform, but the fans are still pushing me up so I'm stuck mid-air! I'll check a playthrough and then come back to it another day.

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You're going to hate Shogo.

Don't say that :(

 

I know it's not a great game but I think it has some very satisfying weapons. Anytime something's exploding in Shogo things are great. While I don't watch any anime, I also like its style, the music and some of the dialogue. And yeah that intro is great :D I wish more games had 90's style intros.

 

If the fans are pushing you up I think you're in the wrong shaft. You can drop down by moving over the walkways which blocks the airflow.

edit: unless you mean you don't have enough momentum to go down, I think you need to drop all the way down the first time, otherwise you can get stuck flowing up and down.

 

Intro for anyone who hasn't seen it:

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edit: unless you mean you don't have enough momentum to go down, I think you need to drop all the way down the first time, otherwise you can get stuck flowing up and down.

 

Yeah, I think it's this. Thankfully I saved just before jumping down! (It had better remember quicksaves...)

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I love the first Unreal to death, with all of its enormous open-ended levels, tough and intelligent enemies, and that willingness to slow things down and let you explore relatively non-hostile spaces as interludes between the heightened action. Add to it that relatively complicated set of inventory objects to play around with, persistent weapon upgrades, and its persistent and subdued narrative that it relays through various found logs and translated etchings. Also, online co-op.

 

You know, and everybody loves UT's arsenal, but Unreal was the game that had to invent them. Never mind that Unreal itself also has some great MP maps and very capable bot AI. I still think it's one of Epic's best games.

 

It has a problem though, it runs very long, sometimes feeling like quite an epic journey, but one that has to traverse some levels that just suck out loud. There's really no denying that, Unreal has some levels that are just absolute shit.

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Ok, yeah, the lightsaber doesn't remain that fun for long - it's pretty much useless when you have multiple enemies. I managed to get a bit of force speed and jump, which are fun occasionally but don't really help in combat.

 

Anyway, I've now quit this game. I wasn't having much fun because it's so fiddly and unsatisfying. Unsatisfying weapons, fiddly combat, annoying level structure and shitty platforming and switch puzzles. I was trying to push through, using a walkthrough to get past the more irritating puzzles (generally to do with switches and bridges) until I got to one level which demands incredibly difficult platforming (sloped surfaces from which you'll easily fall to your death) while trying to find a well-hidden vent, all while a TIE fighter bombs you. I decided to try a few cheats to skip ahead, but just kept on coming up against shitty hidden switches and routes.

 

I'll just have to hope that when I get to 2002, the next two Dark Forces games won't have the same irritations as the first two...

 

Anyway, onto Quake 2!

 

I died a little inside reading this, i sincerely love the first JK. Perhaps it's worth pointing out that, at the time, the scale of its levels was extremely impressive relative to what many other FPS's were doing. (The game ran well even on modest PC's.) Those levels were big and complicated and diverse.

 

I personally feel the level design took a dive once it was handed off to Raven, but their games put together a pretty memorable melee system for saber combat, and that's largely why those games are so fondly remembered. (There's actually even quite a few non-evident special moves, it might be worth looking over a movelist faq when you get around to those.)

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I've played Unreal in its entirety only a few years back and while there certainly were some boring parts there, I actually remember being amazed by level design in the game.

 

I see Unreal and the first Quake as games where you can see level designers were super excited about being able to create fully 3D FPS levels for the first time and were playing with geometry and things like reusing spaces in multiple ways a lot. I feel like some of that magic disappeared after people got used to 3D and generally moved on to more "serious" level design.

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I think the levels people didn't like in Unreal vary a lot. For example, the Sunspire. I dislike that level, but I know people who like it a lot due it being a serious maze. I'd rather have some more ISV-Kran.

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Sunspire is definitely a level i've never really enjoyed.

 

I've played Unreal in its entirety only a few years back and while there certainly were some boring parts there, I actually remember being amazed by level design in the game.

 

I love that it was a game that was willing to have all of these low-key interludes creating space and a sense of journey and exploration between the "real" levels, it feels a lot like Half-Life 2 in some regards.

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A good video aboit DooMTM's enemy mechanics, with a quote from JP LeBreton:

 

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Okay, I just played another few hours of SHOGO and am now giving up. It's full of charm and fun - the anime pastiche, the explosive mech levels - but it's also very rough. Although I enjoyed the long-range combat and the 'gain health back from making a critical shot' mechanic (though I never figured out what actually constitutes a critical shot), there are barely any tactics involved and enemies are extremely easy to kill unless they're placed in an unfair ambush position and get a one-hit kill, which happens a lot. Plus more time is spent on the unskippable and brain-meltingly dull cutscenes than actual gameplay! I don't have enough of a sense that there's much more new stuff for me to see in this game to continue playing.

 

I'm glad I played it, but I wouldn't recommend it wholeheartedly without a patch that allows you to skip cutscenes and then blasting through on easy. Thanks again to eot for donating a copy to this playthrough!

 

Now onto SiN, assuming I can get it working from disc (which I really hope I can as I've been looking forward to this one).

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