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elmuerte

Return of the Rise of the Triads

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Specs from RPS:

– Step into the shoes of the H.U.N.T. (High-Risk United Nations Taskforce) with five unique characters, each with different play styles.

- Blast through over 20 of levels of explosive single-player action.

- Unique multiplayer maps bring back all the fun and excitement of classic ROTT.

- The full arsenal of over-the top weapons is back, including the Flamewall, Firebomb, Split Missile, Drunk Missile and, of course, the Excalibat!

- The maniacal modes return, too, with God mode, Elasto mode, Mercury mode, Shrooms mode and everyone’s favorite, Dog mode!

- Build your own levels, mods and share them with Valve’s Steamworks.

- Offline single-player and multiplayer allows for instant action.

- Find tons of secrets, collectables, special events and hidden areas to explore.

- Get more than 100 achievements to add to your score, which is tracked on our worldwide leaderboard and stat-tracking system.

- ROTT is bloodier and more ludicrous than ever, with full character and enemy dismemberment.

- The iconic original soundtrack has been completely re-forged in the fires of heavy metal!

- Nostalgia abounds with the option to play with all the original sounds and music.

- Built on fully-licensed Unreal Engine 3 technology, ROTT will run on low-end PCs and push high-end PCs to their limits!

Looking forward to this.

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I really don't understand this.

Apogee Software? What's the fuzz with that?

Rise of the Triads? Was that actually any good or was it just fun because I thought it was rad when I was 10?

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I've never played the original but what strikes me about this trailer is how downright ugly the game looks, horrible colors and really bad character models remind of a fan made remake of something or that Wolfenstein game from 2009 that no one cared about.

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The existence of this thing just feels like somebody is grasping at straws.

Do people care about this?

I don't recall Rise of the Triad ever being a particularly big deal.

...or that Wolfenstein game from 2009 that no one cared about.

That game definitely passed by with barely a blip, but i think that is a really underappreciated game. Raven Software never seems to get the credit they deserve.

Wolfenstein-2009 did a lot of the things people later quite appreciated about Singularity, and did it in an open-ended world too. (Not to say that Singularity was exactly a big hit either.)

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The only thing this trailer communicates is that murder is lighthearted fun, exhilirating and an appropriate subject for video games. There is nothing beyond that in terms of story or motivation or any artisticity. It's objectionable.

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The most memorable thing about ROTT was that the level design was utterly balls-nutty. They made no attempt to make it feel like you were ever in a place that could serve any kind of purpose. It was surreal.

It had a few tricks that were interesting at the time and would become commonplace later. You could look up and down like in Dark Forces, there were jump pads (which would later be a central element of Quake 3), you could do some sick dual wielding of pistols…

At the time it was worth checking out the shareware episode at least, but I wouldn't endorse it beyond that. The trailer for the remake looks like it could be fun? The design is obviously more conservative than the original, but it still looks fairly wacky. It looks a bit like what I had hoped Duke Nukem Forever would be like.

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I think the 90s were the only decade that could stand these kinds of OTT cartoony shooters. I tried to play the latest Serious Sam and got three levels in before giving up. Because what's the point? Those games excelled back then in a vacuum, when games weren't supposed to be anything more than a distraction to my bored 12 year old self. Now a game has to provide more than just distraction otherwise I feel like I'm wasting my time. And that means innovative interesting gameplay, innovative interesting storytelling platforms, and at best a mix of both. It's just not enough to take an old design, wrap it in a new engine and ship it.

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- Nostalgia abounds with the option to play with all the original sounds and music.

That answers my main problem with what that video showed me. Those original effects and voice clips sound fucking awful, and would have been a huge sticking point for me.

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I think the 90s were the only decade that could stand these kinds of OTT cartoony shooters. I tried to play the latest Serious Sam and got three levels in before giving up. Because what's the point? Those games excelled back then in a vacuum, when games weren't supposed to be anything more than a distraction to my bored 12 year old self. Now a game has to provide more than just distraction otherwise I feel like I'm wasting my time. And that means innovate interesting gameplay, innovative interesting storytelling platforms, and at best a mix of both. It's just not enough to take an old design, wrap it in a new engine and ship it.

Agreed, it would be like trying to make a Burger Time remake... it just can't be done anymore.

I will say though, for serious sam, that side scroller game that came out was actually pretty cool and think that's where a surreal shooter could still exist. The fact it looked like that bad pop art from the 70s (similiar to Aqua Teen Hunger Force) really reinforced the wacky concept.

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Woah, hold on guys, i'm going to have to disagree with the idea that crazy true-school 90's-style first-person shooters can't work anymore. I would argue that it's simply a style of FPS that just hasn't been done proper justice in a long time. (And that very few games are even trying. That aformentioned Wolfenstein game certainly wasn't trying to be that. DNF wasn't even trying to be that. I mean, aside from just being atrocious and offensive, it just wasn't even that kind of shooter anymore.)

Anyways, Serious Sam 3, how about we not use that as the measuring stick for that genre of shooter.

I played through the remakes of the original two Serious Sam games not long ago and felt those games held up extremely well, so much better than i thought they would, they were still hilarious and thrilling and dumb. (In spite of the remakes actually breaking some of the more memorable encounters.)

Now, i haven't personally played Serious Sam 3, but i've heard a lot of very conflicted opinions on that game from persons i'm generally inclined to trust. (I understand it makes a few misguided attempts at modernization, and has an incredibly slow start.)

So what i'm really saying is...

Guys...

Just stay with me here...

We need Shogo II.

Aside: Holy shit, do i ever love Dark Forces, and JK:DF2 is pretty much one of my favorite games.

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I wouldn't be against a Shogo II. That's an idea that didn't get nearly enough traction when it was first introduced. Being able to use a mech but also run around on foot is like my dream game should they ever properly remake it. (It's also why I am so looking forward to Dishonored as first person sword fighting and parkouring has been tried before with Dark Messiah but never got the hi-end polish that it deserved).

What's also bothers me about this trailer is what Rodi pointed out: It makes murder lighthearted fun. An example being dudes cowering in fear with their hands in front of their faces as you hold a pistol up, assassination style. This is the kind of thing that games could get away with in the 90s because they were low res facsimiles of reality. Now with an updated engine it sort of makes that kind of thing extra weird. Not to say that games can't present violence in a funny lighthearted style that takes away from the reality of it, but that's exceedingly difficult to do.

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I like ROTT at lot, I spend a lot of time playing it. The game is quite brutal, not just in its violence, but also difficulty. It's all about the rediculous powerful weapons, which have limited ammo, and the huge rooms/hallways you have to traverse. That and the area being filled with traps and whatnot made it a fun game for me.

There's a fair change I'll pick up this "sequel". But I doubt it will be a commercial success. A lot of youngsters will probably not like the ROTT gameplay. Then again, the trailer doesn't really show a lot of the gameplay I used to know from the original game. The firewall weapon simply isn't fun if it doesn't clean a huge room of bad guys.

Speaking of Serious Sam 3, I still haven't finished that game. I assumed I would have reached the non-realism part by now, but I'm still there.

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What's also bothers me about this trailer is what Rodi pointed out: It makes murder lighthearted fun. An example being dudes cowering in fear with their hands in front of their faces as you hold a pistol up, assassination style. This is the kind of thing that games could get away with in the 90s because they were low res facsimiles of reality. Now with an updated engine it sort of makes that kind of thing extra weird. Not to say that games can't present violence in a funny lighthearted style that takes away from the reality of it, but that's exceedingly difficult to do.

Definitely agreed.

Compare Duke Nukem Forever, which was also disastrously updating a lot of stupid enemies that kind of worked in an earlier, lower-fidelity game.

Hey, but Serious Sam again. Serious Sam is how you do it. Those stupid, goofy enemies that look like what you remember Doom monsters looking like.

Man, can i gush more about how great those first two Serious Sam games are? Just the wild, creative energy shown by those levels and their contained set piece battles? The weirdly meta subtext about how you're being manipulated by item drops throughout the two games?

Those games felt like the product of a decade's worth of pent up observations about Doom clones.

Fucking so great.

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We need Shogo II.

Whoa. WHOA. I find your ideas interesting and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.

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The most memorable thing about ROTT was that the level design was utterly balls-nutty. They made no attempt to make it feel like you were ever in a place that could serve any kind of purpose. It was surreal.

I believe that was because of Tom Hall's contribution to RotT.

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I think the 90s were the only decade that could stand these kinds of OTT cartoony shooters. I tried to play the latest Serious Sam and got three levels in before giving up. Because what's the point? Those games excelled back then in a vacuum, when games weren't supposed to be anything more than a distraction to my bored 12 year old self. Now a game has to provide more than just distraction otherwise I feel like I'm wasting my time. And that means innovative interesting gameplay, innovative interesting storytelling platforms, and at best a mix of both. It's just not enough to take an old design, wrap it in a new engine and ship it.

Well that and the beginning of Serious Sam 3 was actually pretty awful. The game picks up later on. Sounds like you're just not a fan of that kind of gameplay though.

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Agreed, it would be like trying to make a Burger Time remake... it just can't be done anymore.

I'm not sure if that was supposed to be ironic, but I actually thought the XBLA Burger Time remake that came out a little while ago was pretty fun.

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Actually I had no idea it was remade and after thinking about it the example isn't a very good one. When I wrote it I imagine someone making a third person action game with a realistic art style for a Burger Time remake which is why I used to for an example.

I'm sure there's a better one out there, but that's how RoT felt.

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Well that and the beginning of Serious Sam 3 was actually pretty awful. The game picks up later on. Sounds like you're just not a fan of that kind of gameplay though.

Ah I hadn't heard that. That makes me consider picking it up again. If I'm still unhappy I'll chalk it up to my distate for genre, as you - not unreasonably - suggest.

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I actually am not interested in this remake pretty much at all, but what this has caused is that my purchase of Rise of the Triad in GOG is getting closer and closer.

I am very much hyped with nostalgia right now to play the original. It has been at least 10 years since I have last played the original game.

It blows my mind that RotT was made with heavily modified Wolfenstein 3D engine. That is amazing!

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If they succeed in simply recreating the fun of the original ROTT in a more modern engine, that could be a good thing. Consider how much fun you can get out of "Retro" platformers these days. Couldn't the same thing happen to FPS?

The only thing this trailer communicates is that murder is lighthearted fun, exhilirating and an appropriate subject for video games. There is nothing beyond that in terms of story or motivation or any artisticity. It's objectionable.

I don't see how this is different to most FPS games in existence? I agree that this is the wrong message to send to anyone, but it's so over the top it's hard to see the blood as anything other than strawberry jam, which makes it seem less violent than modern "serious" FPS games.

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It feels different because it strips away all the rest, so that only the killing remains. Plus, the trailer shows a tangible delight in killing, proffering it as the main feature. Other FPSes, that have the pretense of an actual story world, work around that by offering the flimsiest excuse for murder. I guess that's all that I need.

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If they succeed in simply recreating the fun of the original ROTT in a more modern engine, that could be a good thing. Consider how much fun you can get out of "Retro" platformers these days. Couldn't the same thing happen to FPS?

I would enjoy an indie-styled raycastin' pixel bonanza (think a first-person Hotline Miami). So, like, modern effects, but old style art.

Of course, there are a lot of old FPS games that are still super fun and can look pretty good with the magic of source ports. Just last night, I played through most of the first episode of Doom (using Skulltag) and holy shit, it holds up well. It scared me a couple of times.

Wolfenstein 3D, Duke 3D, Heretic, Blood, Dark Forces, Outlaws and many more I'm sure are still serious fun. Even those that don't have good ports can be run reasonably well in DosBox.

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