25 replies to this topic

[MadDog]

I guess I should of known better after playing the demo a while back.  But, I figured $20 isnt too bad....Right ?

From a technical point of view, the game is fine.  I am running a MacPro 1,1, 4xZeon 3.0, ATI 4870.   I had no problems, bugs or crashes.  No glitches.  The framerate never dropped and everything ran smoothly.  So, kudos to the guys who ported it.

On the other hand, my fears about the level design and play were valid.   If I had to describe it in a sentence or two: "running along a narrow set of tracks while enduring a never ending series of cliche ambushes (oh dear, I wonder if the door will lock behind me and a bunch of Strogg will fall out of the ceiling....) in perpetual darkness and all the time wondering why the Strogg are so kind as to leave piles of ammo and equipment for me in places where no human has been before."  Seriously, even the BBEG has an evil laugh: "Bwahahahahahaha".  Seriously, why ?

The gameplay is old old old school, and frankly we have moved on.   I feel like a got a better deal out of DNF.

Mad Dog

[AussieMacGamer]

It was released in 2005 you know

[the Battle Cat]

All games are ludicrous and require a vast amount of suspension of belief.  I think the best most-awful-evil-laugh is the final boss at the end of Prey.  I actually look forward to campy moments like this.

[Wumpus]

You shall never be forgiven and will burn in the fires of gamer hell forever.

[Frost]

To be fair, this complaint is valid for almost all current shooters as well. Look at what COD has turned into the last few games. Basically the same thing, run down tracks while going through a bunch of obvious ambushes while grape jelly gets spattered on your face and things randomly blow up everywhere and a British guy yells random HSLD-sounding chatter in your ear in a Michael Bay-produced mall ninja fantasy.

[Smoke_Tetsu]

Well at least in those games they are corridors rather than literal tracks. It's just that some games have more narrow corridors and are more linear than others. There are games that are literally like that though like The Grudge for Wii you are literally on a track and you just press forward to advance through it.. you can't move sideways and you never backtrack. Or house of the dead where you don't have any movement at all and it's literally a rail shooter. You never take cover or strafe to dodge anything and you never have any opportunity for exploration which even in the most linear shooter you get to some degree. Time Crisis had a dodge mechanic where you duck behind a box by stepping on a lever or pressing a button but it's still not as much freedom as any FPS gives you.

On the other hand many newer FPS don't feature as much exploration as older ones and are a lot more linear. But I take exception that older FPS are totally non-linear. The only thing that made them non-linear is how you could pick any episode in any order due to the shareware model. The levels where more open but you couldn't choose which order you got the keycards in for the most part.... or like in Quake 2 you did a lot more backtracking. But yeah I agree with the rest that was said here.

But yeah I'd rather have people describe these as corridor shooters rather than on-rails\on-tracks but I guess people are trying to disparage these games when describing them that way.

[Frost]

At least speaking for myself, when I call a free movement FPS "on rails" it's because for all intents and purposes, it might as well be. I'll give Q4 credit for being WAY more open with the level design than most current stuff is. I just have a lot of bad memories of recent shooters where I try to flank somebody and constantly get defied by the Impassable Foot High Fence or the Impassable Patch of Weeds or the older but still well-used Invisible Wall. Probably why I haven't bought a straight up shooter in a while now, and I'm only taking a chance on the upcoming Ghost Recon because those games are always good about not funneling you down a 15-foot wide swath of countryside blocked off by a hundred nonsense barriers.

Obviously there have to be boundaries SOMEWHERE unless you're making a Fallout-style game where you can pick any direction and walk for 20 minutes. But they're soooo narrow it's maddening.

To put it more simply:

[Smoke_Tetsu]

I hate that image because it oversimplifies later games and makes older games look more complex than they where and I play both of those all the time. I still play Duke Nukem 3D, Doom 1 & 2, etc. at times.. sure the level may look sort of like on the left but part of that is because they had to use more sector lines to define shaded areas and things like that since they didn't have stuff like real time lighting. When  one plays them rather than stare at the map one find a game that has much simpler rudimentary gameplay and not as much going on in the levels.... although I still have fun playing those from time to time. Levels nowadays in many modern games actually have more complexity they, instead of being densely packed they are loosely packed with more corridors to traverse. It's sort of like because they want people to travel more and pack in those hours they demand and make the world seem bigger than it is. But it's hard to make a blanket statement about it because not all modern games are the same.... and not all FPS have cut scenes every 5 minutes.

Most Doom levels could be completed in 3 minutes or less. In fact one could complete the entire Doom shareware episode in half an hour or less especially if they are trying to beat par time. Many Quake 1 levels especially E1M1 where highly linear so much that people today might accuse it of being "on rails". Many people played those games with cheat codes enabled reducing them to their most mindless form. Many of my friends even played with no-clip on reducing playtime from minutes to seconds. If they made games with 1993 level design people would complain that they didn't get much hours out of their game and that the games are dated and haven't moved on.

But I do agree that if they are going to put boundaries that they should make sense and not just be an invisible barrier or un-passable patch of weeds.

By the way I don't play any Call of Duty games or Battlefield or Ghost Recon or any kind of game like that.   So that pic may be accurate to those games. But I don't care... I don't play them.

I just think that pic is more satire than literal truth.


Anyway, when someone describes a shooter that's not The Grudge, House of The Dead or Time Crisis as "on rails" such as an FPS like Quake series I'm like.. "them's fighting words". And some people throw that around loosely for any game that is highly linear that it rubs them the wrong way.

BTW, better deal out of DNF? A game many consider to be crap and has much of the same sort of stuff that's said to be bad in Quake 4 and worse? Funny. I actually enjoyed it especially the doctor who cloned me DLC which WAS an improvement over the original campaign but even I find that quite silly to say.

[Frost]

Smoke_Tetsu, on 03 May 2012 - 06:11 PM, said:

In other words that pic is satire.

No popsnizzle.

It evokes the difference in feeling of "I'm exploring a place and there are different paths I can take" that a lot of older games had, versus the modern experience of "I'm being very tightly funneled toward an objective, after which I will be tightly funneled toward another objective."

And I wouldn't put Ghost Recon in with COD and Battlefield. May involve shooting, but it's a totally different type of game. At least, the previous entries were.

[Smoke_Tetsu]

Well it's no worse than painting all modern FPS with the same brush and calling them all the same.. and calling all old FPS totally non-linear and all better than modern FPS or games in general. I call that rose tinted glasses. Many if not all old FPS games where just simple keycard hunts and heading to the exit in 3 minutes or less.... and again  you couldn't choose which key to get first unless you cheated. The way people talk it's like old games where better in every way but that's not the case.... and there where things to complain about those games too. People accused doom of being a mindless shooter for example.

That's kind of a new one though... "in funnels" anyone?  

But thanks for oversimplifying my post and skipping over my good points as usual.

[Frost]

Smoke_Tetsu, on 03 May 2012 - 07:28 PM, said:

Well it's no worse than painting all modern FPS with the same brush and calling them all the same.. and calling all old FPS totally non-linear and all better than modern FPS or games in general. I call that rose tinted glasses. Many if not all old FPS games where just simple keycard hunts and heading to the exit in 3 minutes or less.... and again  you couldn't choose which key to get first unless you cheated. The way people talk it's like old games where better in every way but that's not the case.... and there where things to complain about those games too. People accused doom of being a mindless shooter for example.

Well, that wasn't the point I was trying to make really, but I do think it's a valid one. There was WAY more you could do and more different paths you could take in straight-up shooters that are older. The Marathons come to mind, Quake 2, Duke Nukem 3D to name some popular ones. It's not like I haven't played those games since they were new and I'm looking back at them with nostalgia; I've gone through all three of those within the last 18 months, and was a bit annoyed in all three of them how markedly less restricted within the environment I felt compared to the modern console shooters I've played. Sure there are outliers, but I think it's a valid criticism of modern shooters.

Smoke_Tetsu, on 03 May 2012 - 07:28 PM, said:

But thanks for oversimplifying my post and skipping over my good points as usual.

Uhh. If I'm coming across as attacking you, sorry, I was just having a normal discussion from my POV.

And I don't understand this "as usual."

[Smoke_Tetsu]

Yeah the thing is I play those same games from time to time.. and I have always found Quake 2 to be rather boring and a let down I actually enjoyed Quake 4 a lot more than it. Duke Nukem 3D is a good one and I still play it as well as Doom and sometimes even Marathon 2. But even when I play those games I realize I'm doing the same things each time I play them. Get card A, head to door A, get card B get to door B, or press switch\computer A, B, C, ultimately getting to the exit... and once again you can't choose which order you get those keys. But I'm repeating myself ast this point so nevermind.

And yeah sorry about that last bit but it happens so much around here that it's my pet peeve. I type up these explanations and people just go around clipping what appears as a weak point, taking it out of context and attacking it.

Actually, the way people talk about linearity it's like it's the worst thing ever in games. But there's nothing wrong with highly linear entertainment so long as it delivers the goods. Some of my favorite games are highly linear.... it's only in gaming that being too linear is a negative.. even though some genres are highly linear by nature such as 2D side-scrolling platformers. Also even open world games are linear when you come down to it because even though you can choose which mission to do in what order you want typically the main plot is a linear one that happens in a certain order.. like you can't do the ending first and then the beginning last or some such thing like that. Some missions are only unlocked after you complete prerequisite missions first. Also you can't do everything at once so eventually you create a linear progression with your actions.

People throw around the word "on-rails" as if it's a bad thing but there's nothing wrong with games like House of The Dead or Time Crisis if that's what float your boat or again highly linear games in general.

Hell, reality and life is a highly linear experience.  

What's ironic is certain people who are critical of games (like Roger Ebert) list not being linear enough as a drawback to games compared to watching movies. Like movies are a polished and focused vision that can only be experienced one way and that makes them more valid than games that give you a smorgasbord of choices and having such choices cheapens them all.

[Eric5h5]

Smoke_Tetsu, on 03 May 2012 - 11:33 PM, said:

And yeah sorry about that last bit but it happens so much around here that it's my pet peeve. I type up these explanations and people just go around clipping what appears as a weak point, taking it out of context and attacking it.

No they don't, they just respond to the gist of things like normal people.  Nor was there any "attacking" going on.  Nobody's going to sit there and quote every last line and respond to each one.  Get over it already, please.

Quote

Hell, reality and life is a highly linear experience.  

No it's not, you can go wherever you want and do whatever you want, within certain limitations (such as probably not leaving the planet).  Unless you're 100% brainwashed, nobody has pre-scripted anything for you.

--Eric

[Smoke_Tetsu]

Often times the gist is lost because the person chose to take something out of context and pick on it and I'm sorry but I will never like that. My only recourse is to not participate in discussions here or participate as little as possible.

Yes there are limitations and you can't go back in time and redo stuff in a non-linear fashion or go forward and see stuff before it happens. We live in linear time. But that's besides the point because most game even the least linear open world games ones have scripts and a plot even if you can choose to ignore it and wander aimlessly.. and because reality is linear by nature we always experience games in a linear fashion. Choice has little to do with it.... once you've made a choice you can't redo that choice.... in a game you can replay sections and make different choices but you can't go back to yesterday and replay a game afresh nor can a person go back in time and re-do their high school or primary school years. A linear existence does not mean a pre-scripted one unless you believe in destiny and I said linear.. not predestined. There's a difference.

[the Battle Cat]

Smoke_Tetsu, on 04 May 2012 - 04:05 AM, said:

out of context

Wrong.  The Bill of Rights is totally within the context of the Constitution.

[Frost]

the Battle Cat, on 04 May 2012 - 07:55 AM, said:

Wrong.  The Bill of Rights is totally within the context of the Constitution.

That's only on Thursdays. On Fridays, parts of it technically aren't there.

[Sneaky Snake]

Smoke_Tetsu, on 04 May 2012 - 04:05 AM, said:

Yes there are limitations and you can't go back in time and redo stuff in a non-linear fashion or go forward and see stuff before it happens. We live in linear time. But that's besides the point because most game even the least linear open world games ones have scripts and a plot even if you can choose to ignore it and wander aimlessly.. and because reality is linear by nature we always experience games in a linear fashion. Choice has little to do with it.... once you've made a choice you can't redo that choice.... in a game you can replay sections and make different choices but you can't go back to yesterday and replay a game afresh nor can a person go back in time and re-do their high school or primary school years. A linear existence does not mean a pre-scripted one unless you believe in destiny and I said linear.. not predestined. There's a difference.

Time is linear as your pointing out. Choices and life are not. At any point I can almost always choose any decision across the whole spectrum of choices. When my parents ask for help with something I can 1. Go make a peanut butter sandwich, 2. Help them, 3. Drive 3 hours to the beach, 4. Purchase a new macintosh, 5. Enlist into the army, ..... the amount of choices I can make are infinite. As such the potential for my future has infinite possibilities and combinations. Time marches on, but opportunity, choice, and free thought, will always be the things sculpting your life, not time.

The nature of choice, and everyone elses choices around you make the graph of life look like a infinite number of 3d parabola's, all pointing the same direction. The all have a different vertex, representing birth, but after that the 3d parabola's start to interact, intertwine and effect eachother. This creates a total cluster shizzle amount of possibility (infinite), rather then life simply being a linear thing like the following:

[Frost]

My life looks like that graph. It's a straight line from where I was born, to Olympus Mons on Mars where I'll replace Edmund Hillary in the history books for summiting the highest mountain in Sol.

[the Battle Cat]

My life graph looks like 9 of those spinning hypnotic spirals with Mandelbrot Set fractals propagating from them.

[Sargiel]

I played Quake 4 all the way through and enjoyed it - you're forgiven