Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2024-03-26, 16:34:

The destructible environment thing looks amazing, especially considering when Red Faction originally came out.

It's fun, though it ends up being mostly just a gimmick if I recall correctly, been a while. They probably couldn't yet go too far with it back then, but even so it still feels novel to me.

Something to note if you give it a go some day, the 1.20 patch refuses to install if the path to the game has spaces. FreeSpace 2 has the same problem too, I wonder how many of their games are like that. Pretty annoying oversight.

Sombrero wrote on 2024-03-26, 17:20:

Something to note if you give it a go some day, the 1.20 patch refuses to install if the path to the game has spaces. FreeSpace 2 has the same problem too, I wonder how many of their games are like that. Pretty annoying oversight.

Thanks for the heads up. Weird that this kind of bug persisted so far into the Win9x era.

I think I have Red Faction either on GOG or on my PS4, not sure which. It's sitting somewhere in my ever growing backlog. 😁

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2024-03-26, 16:34:

Sombrero wrote on 2024-03-26, 16:09:

Felt like continuing with scifi shooters after Unreal II so hopped on Red Faction.

Haven't played that one yet, but I did watch Digital Foundry's video on it.

The destructible environment thing looks amazing, especially considering when Red Faction originally came out.

If you haven't played Red Faction Guerilla, you should check it out. It has the best destructible environments out of any game I've ever played and nothing has even come close. It's been awhile since I played it, but it was one of my favorites at the time. I've been meaning to install the remastered version to see how it compares to the original.

Destructible environments are one area that I wish developers would focus on more. Red Faction shows how much it improves the immersion, especially if it factors into your game strategy. It seems like developers and gamers just expect better graphics as technology improves, but there are so many other areas that should be a priority imo.

Ensign Nemo wrote on 2024-03-26, 18:10:

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2024-03-26, 16:34:

Sombrero wrote on 2024-03-26, 16:09:

Felt like continuing with scifi shooters after Unreal II so hopped on Red Faction.

Haven't played that one yet, but I did watch Digital Foundry's video on it.

The destructible environment thing looks amazing, especially considering when Red Faction originally came out.

If you haven't played Red Faction Guerilla, you should check it out. It has the best destructible environments out of any game I've ever played and nothing has even come close. It's been awhile since I played it, but it was one of my favorites at the time. I've been meaning to install the remastered version to see how it compares to the original.

Destructible environments are one area that I wish developers would focus on more. Red Faction shows how much it improves the immersion, especially if it factors into your game strategy. It seems like developers and gamers just expect better graphics as technology improves, but there are so many other areas that should be a priority imo.

This is a bold claim. Have you ever played Battlefield Bad Company 2? Because that game's destruction engine is GOAT..

there's no collateral physics in bc2. it's more like a set piece gets deleted in a puff of heavily postprocessed smoke there

I've been off stream trying to see how viable it would be to attempt my "contiguous" WadSmoosh run with Hideous Destructor, took me three something attempts at E1M1 before finally being able to actually get the run off the ground. I'm already at E1M4 after completing E1M9 with a shield core, several Heavy Engagement Rotary Platform robots and so far only had my ZM66 jam on me once. If and when I decide on trying to do this as a stream idea, it will be completely without saves, not even auto saves and if I die I start back at E1M1 even if I was already into the Doom 2 or Final Doom clusters.

I did stream a bunch of "My House" (the WAD not the PK3) with Hideous Destructor because I noticed the map is surprisingly good for practicing the mod in.

Mondays I stream together with Bork1014 co-op Hideous Destructor with just the standard Doom II: Hell on Earth levels. (though no co-op April 1st because he's out of town)

Maybe someday I'll stream co-op HDest with my girlfriend (MarisaTheMagician), if she felt in the mood for it.

appiah4 wrote on 2024-03-27, 07:11:

Ensign Nemo wrote on 2024-03-26, 18:10:

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2024-03-26, 16:34:

Haven't played that one yet, but I did watch Digital Foundry's video on it.

The destructible environment thing looks amazing, especially considering when Red Faction originally came out.

If you haven't played Red Faction Guerilla, you should check it out. It has the best destructible environments out of any game I've ever played and nothing has even come close. It's been awhile since I played it, but it was one of my favorites at the time. I've been meaning to install the remastered version to see how it compares to the original.

Destructible environments are one area that I wish developers would focus on more. Red Faction shows how much it improves the immersion, especially if it factors into your game strategy. It seems like developers and gamers just expect better graphics as technology improves, but there are so many other areas that should be a priority imo.

This is a bold claim. Have you ever played Battlefield Bad Company 2? Because that game's destruction engine is GOAT..

I haven't played it, so my point about Red Faction Guerilla having the best destructible environments out of any game I've played still stands.

Finished Tomb Raider II (unfinished business). It was ok with some fun parts. It is pretty uneven. Here is my retro review.

True to my memory, it was very action oriented in comparison to the first one. Some sections were pretty tough but game was kind of a breeze tbh. Not too many hard parts. Got lost a few times but I found my way eventually.

It features a lot of different game environments, like cities and snow areas and also a pretty cool underwater area. You get to drive various vehicles and the driving mechanisms are actually very good.

I have the feeling the game was made up as they went, introducing new mechanics later in the game. Like the sliding rope thing, its only used like 5 times in the game and introduced very late.

Enemies are plenty, stupid and uninteresting. Never ending action gets old pretty quickly. I pretty recently played the 1st installment which had much more interesting puzzles. I remember the 3rd one being a bit of a mix. I have it in big box and I will probably play it this year.

I played the game on a pentium 3 450mhz with dual voodoo 2 12 mb in sli and a sound blaster live. It ran well on 1024x768.

Graphics are ok. I like the underwater effect, it is very realistic for its time. Enemies could use more polygons and better textures but it is from 1997 after all.

I had some problems with some of the full motion videos, just got black screen and no sound. Dont know what's up with that, maybe a patch would fix it.

Joakim wrote on 2024-03-28, 20:31:

Like the sliding rope thing, its only used like 5 times in the game and introduced very late.

The first level has one 😁

Joakim wrote on 2024-03-28, 20:31:

Enemies are plenty, stupid and uninteresting. Never ending action gets old pretty quickly. I pretty recently played the 1st installment which had much more interesting puzzles.

That's my main gripe with TR2 as well. Too much boring, repetitive combat.

The first game was mostly focused on exploration and puzzle solving. I enjoyed it a lot more.

DosFreak wrote on 2024-03-15, 16:58:

Yeah I played and beat mean streets back in the day but never had a decent machine to run the sequels when they came out.

You mean your 256kB video card was not able to display 320x200 in 256 colors? (Martian Memorandum)
MCGA has only 256kB video ram and is able to do that.
I don't think you had a 256kB ega 😉
I don't think you had ega till 95 😉

also 486DX4/100 you had in 95 was enough for killing moon (released in end of 94, paper magazine review in 95) and pandora 😉
I don't think the 2MB Cirrus was an isa card 😉

also K63-400 you had in 99 was enough for overseer, but 486DX4/100 should be fine too 😉

And generally you trying to say "my pc wasn't good enough to play adventure games, hence i concentrated on action games" 😉

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2024-03-28, 21:05:

Joakim wrote on 2024-03-28, 20:31:

Enemies are plenty, stupid and uninteresting. Never ending action gets old pretty quickly. I pretty recently played the 1st installment which had much more interesting puzzles.

That's my main gripe with TR2 as well. Too much boring, repetitive combat.

The first game was mostly focused on exploration and puzzle solving. I enjoyed it a lot more.

You can shoot from a boat in the remaster 😀

henryVK wrote on 2024-02-27, 08:31:

That's what makes the Legend and Magnetic Scrolls look so unique imo

The Magnetic Scrolls Collection games can be run in 800x600 in dosbox 😀

Joakim wrote on 2024-03-28, 20:31:

Enemies could use more polygons and better textures but it is from 1997 after all.

You got it in the remaster (but wait till they patch it properly) 😀

Still playing StarCraft's Protoss campaign, having just reached the level called "Homeland". This seems to be really difficult one, as you're up against the same faction (Protoss vs. Protoss), you start out heavily outnumbered, and your tech tree is inferior to theirs. Meaning, they have Carriers and Arbiters while you don't.

I tried to beat it normally, but I always ended up overwhelmed by the enemy defenses. After spending an hour or so on this, I gave up and read a walkthrough. Turns out you get the victory condition after destroying the Nexus of the orange Protoss base. This is challenging in itself, as that base is heavily defended.

What I ended up doing was building a dozen Scouts (fully upgraded), a bunch of High Templars and a Shuttle. I loaded up four Dark Templars that you start with into the Shuttle, then had the High Templars cast Hallucination on my fleet of Scouts, thus tripling their number.

Then, I sent the hallucinatory Scouts up front to draw enemy fire, while the real ones and the Shuttle followed close behind. I ignored the enemy defenses and went straight for the Nexus. After getting there, I ordered all the real Scouts to fire upon it , then unloaded the Dark Templars from the Shuttle and had them attack it as well. This did the trick, and the building quickly went down, thereby triggering the victory condition.

IMO, this is a poorly designed map, and it wasn't fun to play through. Not sure what the developers expected me to do, but I managed to beat it, even thought the victory felt a bit hollow.

Finished Red Faction.

Alright, I'll try to look at it from objective 2001's perspective and as such it's pretty alright. It has a good sense of pacing that keeps the momentum going forward never getting bogged down in the mud, you never spend long in one place and periodically there's a fun but short vehicle section where you get to drive/pilot something for a while. Submarine and the flying fighter felt pretty nice to pilot but the land vehicles did not, you steer them with mouse! Especially the jeep felt really janky.

Gunplay while nothing special does its job. Weapons are a bit mixed bag, the shotgun for example is painfully slow and since it fires two rounds at once you get only four shots before having to reload and the damage doesn't really make up for it. Bad shotguns are punishable crimes in my book. Assault Rifle is okayish, primary fire is a short three round burst that is accurate but slow, secondary is full auto but not very accurate. Meanwhile Submachine Gun and Precision Rifle felt pretty good, though Precision Rifles slow bullet travel in longer ranges constantly caused silly situations with the later enemies who do like to move around rather sporadically.

No point to mention the story elements, it's an FPS from 2001, it's exactly what you'd expect.

There is some jank showing it's the first traditional FPS Volition made. Sometimes I was left a bit confused what exactly was I expected to do, for example there was this big security bot that the game very obviously wants you to push into an incinerator but the damn thing plain refused to follow me to the incinerator. But if you damage it enough THEN it suddenly happily follows you there. Also the game got pretty sloppy with enemy spawns during the latter third, couple times an enemy appeared from thin air right next to me.

And yeah, while GeoMod is neat it's unfortunately just a gimmick in the end. Couple times you need to go through something with explosives and there's a couple short alterate routes you can take that don't benefit you much. Probably missed some hidden equipment stashes too but that's about it. Impressive technically considering the game is from 2001, but it isn't much more than a curiosity in the game.

The absolutely worst thing about the game reared its head during the last third when mercs arrived to the scene. One of weapons in the game is Rail Driver and this funny little thing kills everyone with one shot, including you, and plenty of said mercs carry it. And not only that, it also shoots through walls! I don't know how many times I got one shotted during the game, maybe 20ish times? I hope you like to constantly quick save/load! Those mercs aren't cannon fodder even without that gun, they are accurate, have quick reflexes and do plenty of damage with other weapons too.

As such I soon noticed I was playing the game like I was playing Counter Strike, constantly twitching and moving around. Not something I personally enjoy, in fact I kinda hated the last third or so. Luckily it's not a long game, I think my save had about 4h 30min at the end. It doesn't count the reloads though, plenty of those. Somehow I finished the game on PS2 back in the day, that's something I wouldn't pull off anymore.

So yeah, as an FPS from 2001 it has its ups and downs and there is something about it that makes me more forgiving towards it than normally, but I think it's time for me to put this one down for good.

Sombrero wrote on 2024-03-28, 21:01:

Joakim wrote on 2024-03-28, 20:31:

Like the sliding rope thing, its only used like 5 times in the game and introduced very late.

The first level has one 😁

Ah then I forgot! 😀

Its almost however that the game was made by different people and put together later. Some mechanics are over used in some levels. Its a little strange. Sometimes say too much action, then way too much traps, an othe level has too much of backwards jumping in weird angles. Things like that.

It's a bit strange. The game is in a way epic with all the different environments though.

Joakim wrote on 2024-03-29, 18:15:

The game is in a way epic with all the different environments though.

same with tr3, 5, aod, legend, anniversary, underworld 😀

Sombrero wrote on 2024-03-29, 12:30:

Finished Red Faction.

Alright, I'll try to look at it from objective 2001's perspective and as such it's pretty alright.

i think your assessment is about right. I enjoyed it on the whole (even that weird end boss battle if i remember it right...)

i agree that the geomod thing is not really central to the game, there were times where i forgot to try it out and everything seemed to go about the same. I liked progressing and finding new things though.

i preferred it to red faction 2, which is fun and all but a bit too generic

.
meanwhile for me - i finished Wolfenstein 2009 and have no change of opinion - looks good, is fun, a bit too silly and not as good as RTCW 2001

gerry wrote on 2024-03-29, 19:58:

i think your assessment is about right. I enjoyed it on the whole (even that weird end boss battle if i remember it right...)

That magic nanoshield that made people fly was rather silly, I don't think the engine was really equipped to handle that considering how they just ran around up in the air with the same running animation as on ground which looked pretty hilarious.

But once the shield was down she died to just one Rail Driver shot just like everyone else which felt pretty good, I kinda love it when games give you the tools to just utterly crush bosses under your heel.