Nope, because Space swims up in Unreal and C swims down in Unreal.

I use the mouse to fire my weapons.

DracoNihil wrote:

Nope, because Space swims up in Unreal and C swims down in Unreal.

Actually, that makes a lot of sense.

DracoNihil wrote:

Since someone mentioned WASD in Descent, clueless1's scheme is just like mine except for one major difference: […]
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Since someone mentioned WASD in Descent, clueless1's scheme is just like mine except for one major difference:

Slide Up: Space
Slide Down: C

I'll have you guys guess why I bound it like that.

I would probably use Space and Ctrl instead but..

I think keyboard moyuse works so much better; WASD for thrust/strafe, mouselook, Space for up and Ctrl for crouch..

I believe I mapped the number pad for pitch, yah, and roll with WASDQE for all translation maneuvers.

Imho the first Thief game was one of the most scaring game ever. If I think to the skeleton/ghost in that house and those sound effects...

But talking about Doom and Quake, maybe I prefer Doom even if I didn't play those games at its release time. I still had the 386.

gdjacobs wrote:

swaaye wrote:

I think Jedi Knight was the first shooter that really blew me away. The expansive maps were part of that. Lots of atmosphere. Storytelling. Then after that Unreal did it again with its mystical/otherworldly and again expansive thing.

The 2.5D games were neat but the gameplay is raw and basic, and they don't really do stories. My favorites are probably Dark Forces and Cybermage.

I've always wondered what became of Jedi Knight 1.5: Imperial Safety Report. Seriously, did nobody think of putting in railings?

There was a skit about Star Wars, I can't remember if it was a cartoon (say Family Guy), or a real person one, and in it The Emperor meets Darth Vader, and comments on how much the Death Star has cost to make, and Darth Vader says something like "Yeah, we nearly ran over-budget, but fortunately we managed to get everything we needed, except for the hand rails. Oh, and there's one exhaust port that's open all the way up to the main nuclear reactor, as we couldn't afford a sheet of metal to cover it, I was going to pay for it out of my own pocket, but then I thought 'nah, what's the worst that can happen'?" 😀

What about all the Health and Safety Reports Vader has to fill out when he strangles one of the underlings?

clueless1 wrote:

But IMO Unreal blows them all away. There was nothing like it from that "mystical/otherworldly" perspective (as swaaye put it), and I really dug that..

Y'know, I remember this feeling back when I originally played Unreal. I tried playing it one more time, but I find for whatever reason it doesn't hold the same feeling...

Like when I first stepped out on to the planet's surface; back in the day I remember that being epic, especially seeing the huge waterfall. But these days, it looks so simple, and primitive with its incredibly low-poly environments. I think advances in 3D graphics have spoiled me too much. 😒

shamino wrote:

I don't understand what the world in Quake is supposed to be. I don't know if the developers did either.

Yeah, Quake always struck me as basically a giant tech demo with completely random levels and zero plot. Granted there wasn't much to Doom either, but at least the premise of being a space marine fighting off the hordes of hell on Mars gave the player something to latch onto. And consequently, they were able to build a sense of progression not just through the Doom episodes, but also the continuation in Doom 2.

Shponglefan wrote:

shamino wrote:

I don't understand what the world in Quake is supposed to be. I don't know if the developers did either.

Yeah, Quake always struck me as basically a giant tech demo with completely random levels and zero plot. Granted there wasn't much to Doom either, but at least the premise of being a space marine fighting off the hordes of hell on Mars gave the player something to latch onto. And consequently, they were able to build a sense of progression not just through the Doom episodes, but also the continuation in Doom 2.

If you read through 'Masters of Doom', this is explained, sorta. They had a lot of creative disagreements during the development, and the original direction was a medieval environment game with melee / magical weapons (probably somewhat like Hexen), but it wasn't really working out, and to "play it safe", they decided to go back to the DOOM-style military tech design. The result is a mixture of both, and you can see it in the levels, as well as in the player's arsenal.

There was even originally a dragon in Quake I believe?

Shponglefan wrote:

Yeah, Quake always struck me as basically a giant tech demo with completely random levels and zero plot.

There is a plot for Quake, and it's basically the same as in Doom: humankind experiments with portal technology, and bad things came out of it.

Shponglefan wrote:

clueless1 wrote:

But IMO Unreal blows them all away. There was nothing like it from that "mystical/otherworldly" perspective (as swaaye put it), and I really dug that..

Y'know, I remember this feeling back when I originally played Unreal. I tried playing it one more time, but I find for whatever reason it doesn't hold the same feeling...

Like when I first stepped out on to the planet's surface; back in the day I remember that being epic, especially seeing the huge waterfall. But these days, it looks so simple, and primitive with its incredibly low-poly environments. I think advances in 3D graphics have spoiled me too much. 😒

I'm a sucker for good in-game music (hence why I can fall in love with Might and Magic: World of Xeen but not with Eye of the Beholder), and the music in Unreal contributed at least as much to the mood as the graphics.

So...all that needs to happen is I hear the music, and I'll be transported back to 1998. 😊

Speaking of 2.5 shooters, has anyone ever played Radix: Beyond The Void?

It's basically Descent with sprites for everything, sector based geometry and no perspective correction!

Quake multiplayer was best. The single player game was OK but not comparable to the first Doom.

DracoNihil wrote:

Speaking of 2.5 shooters, has anyone ever played Radix: Into The Void?

It's basically Descent with sprites for everything, sector based geometry and no perspective correction!

Radix: Beyond The Void 😀

Interestingly, I have not heard of it until you mentioned it, then I looked it up. It's an interesting game. Since it is 2.5D, technically it's Doom with free floating and some limited freelook, without perspective correction, as you mentioned (akin what was available in Heretic/Hexen and Build games). But when playing, it does feel like a slightly more-limited Descent, and the engine's limitations make for some simpler gameplay and a less steep learning curve.

I corrected my post, thanks.

Also worth mentioning the game uses ProTracker .MOD files for music. But it's a pretty goofy sounding soundtrack regardless of the format used.

appiah4 wrote:

There was even originally a dragon in Quake I believe?

It was scrapped pretty late (a model with skins had survived). The Quake mission packs revisit scrapped old Quake concepts like these (MP1's mjolnir, MP2's dragon)

Thinking more about it, I think I can still get some enjoyment from early FPSes. I don't think 2.5D vs 3D is really the issue for me (although it did greatly affect the ease of level editing).
I think the thing that made newer FPSes a nonstarter for me is their focus on multiplayer, and to a lesser extent, maybe their highly efficient control schemes. This turns them into games where you spastically bounce around a limited environment and have a point and click mouse contest. When those games are played competitively at a high level, they're mind numbing IMO. And I suck at them, so that doesn't help either.

When I did enjoy FPSes, it was almost always for the single player experience which I find more interesting. The levels can be designed so you're actually doing something and going somewhere, and there's more opportunity to create atmosphere. Since you're not competing with other people, you can calm down and play more methodically.
In DOOM and Quake, It's even possible that not being able to look and aim super fast with a mouse helped balance the difficulty, and create some fear of what's around me. I know those games can be played with a mouse, but I didn't play them that way. The idea of using a mouse in those games didn't seem proper or even "fair" to me at the time, silly as that sounds. I was stuck in a joystick mindset.

In the 90s I did lose interest in FPSes after Quake, but I went back and tried Unreal 1 or 2 years ago and had some fun with it's single player for a while. I even used a mouse. I hated the botmatch in that game though.
The only FPS multiplayer that I've had fun with is botmatches of CTF and Onslaught in Unreal Tournament 2004, but only if it's configured to be fairly easy, and not against real people. When those games get hard, I rapidly get frustrated and don't want to play them. I can take a hard game in other genres, but with FPS multiplayer I don't have any patience for losing. That's probably a good sign that it's not the genre for me.

I know some modern FPS games have a single player mode, but for some reason they usually don't appeal to me. The only concrete distinction I can give is realism - I don't really find realism in an FPS appealing, especially if it's a "modern warfare" type setting. If I'm going to play an FPS (which is rare), I'd rather try some oldies.
I loved Fallout 3, but that's a lot different from a traditional FPS.

Azarien wrote:

Shponglefan wrote:

Yeah, Quake always struck me as basically a giant tech demo with completely random levels and zero plot.

There is a plot for Quake, and it's basically the same as in Doom: humankind experiments with portal technology, and bad things came out of it.

I remember there being a plot for Quake 2. Don't remember one for Quake though. 😒