Good work.....but who plays Sin?!?!

J/K

🤣

I beat the whole game. Moderately mind numbing. It's sort of a Duke3D + Half Life experience. I'm haunted by all of the mediocre late '90s shooters that I didn't play at the time. Next up is Blood 2...

Part of it is that I'm also digging up A3D games. But I have to say that I'm finding A3D 2 to be a bit flaky. And looking up the problems on Google Groups basically reinforces this. People had a lot of lock up issues with Vortex 2 cards. There's even some DLL Hell because sometimes games would ship with obsolete a3dapi.dll versions.

swaaye wrote:

I beat the whole game. Moderately mind numbing. It's sort of a Duke3D + Half Life experience. I'm haunted by all of the mediocre late '90s shooters that I didn't play at the time. Next up is Blood 2...

I just recently played through Blood 2. I don't know if it's just the game, or something on my system, but the game crashed about 50% of the time when loading a saved game. It didn't matter if it was through the menus or if I used the quickload key. Speaking of the quickload key, they hard-coded the quicksave and quickload keys right next to each other. Changing them in the config file does absolutely nothing. You also have to manually add the mousewheel to the config file if you want to use it to switch weapons, since the in-game config doesn't recognize it. Add the following line to the game's autoexec.cfg file;

rangebind "##mouse" "Wheel" -120.000000 -10.000000 "NextWeapon" 10.000000 120.000000 "PrevWeapon"

Additionally, I believe you also have to add the third mouse button (or any others) manually to autoexec.cfg. Add the following line to have the middle button trigger the alt fire;

rangebind "##mouse" "Button 2" 0.000000 0.000000 "AltFire"

Also, the weapons feel severely underpowered. Except for the plain human cultists and the small nuisance enemies, you can't kill anything in the game in one shot, even when using the heaviest weapons. Even soldiers take 2-3 direct hits from the Howitzer or Napalm Launcher before they die. This is a problem because virtually every enemy in the game has perfect aim and instantaneous reaction times. Not to mention the enemies that shoot exploding fireballs at you.

Finally, you can't carry every weapon in the game. There are about 15 weapons and you only have room enough to carry 10. The Orb makes a great sniping weapon if you're patience and it has unlimited ammo. The black hole gun (I forget the real name) is an interesting novelty weapon, but it uses up too much ammo and won't have much effect on the larger enemies.

I've noticed the freezing issues too. Besides saved games it also doesn't seem to like all resolution settings and might lock when loading regardless of whether it's a save or a new game. Yet more "good old days" PC gaming hardware/software bug joy.

The gameplay is definitely nothing special. I'm sure it's actually a step down from the original game. But I don't really mind. It has some interesting locations and I like seeing the early Lithtech engine. It can be frustrating, due to AI insta-aim, but many old shooters have this problem...

Apparently Blood 2 was a sort of side project for Monolith, developed in parallel with Shogo. Shogo is clearly the more refined, more advanced game of the two. It's a shame because I'm far more into the dark Blood universe than Shogo's anime.

Blood 2 is buggy as hell. It crashes and burns even with the latest patch.

Dont forget Blood2 has 2 maybe 3 endings (or was that shogo)
another lithtech game Kiss Psycho Circus

anoher overlooked fps nerf arena blast

swaaye wrote:

I've noticed the freezing issues too. Besides saved games it also doesn't seem to like all resolution settings and might lock when loading regardless of whether it's a save or a new game. Yet more "good old days" PC gaming hardware/software bug joy.

I never had it crash when loading the game or when loading a save for the first time after loading the game. It was only when I tried to load saves after having played the game for a while. It seemed like loading in some areas was more prone to crashing than others. For example, The first Drudge Lord that you meet is in the sewers in a room at the top of a staircase. Every time I tried to load a saved game in that area the game crashed, but if I moved back a couple rooms, it seemed to work fine. Of course this was kind of a pain in the neck and you could never tell what areas were dangerous to load in.

swaaye wrote:

The gameplay is definitely nothing special. I'm sure it's actually a step down from the original game. But I don't really mind. It has some interesting locations and I like seeing the early Lithtech engine. It can be frustrating, due to AI insta-aim, but many old shooters have this problem...

I agree that the plot and a lot of the locations were nothing special, but I definitely preferred the Lithtech engine over the original Build engine. After playing through Blood, it was such a pleasure to be able to freely look up and down, and to be able to snipe enemies that are sticking out from behind objects without the shots hitting an invisible wall. I loved the atmosphere of the original game, but the limitations of the engine often had me pulling out my hair in frustration.

One thing I did like more in Blood, was the weapons. One shot from the Napalm Launcher would usually clear out a whole room full of lesser enemies and one direct hit was enough to kill anything with the exception of the boss type enemies (giant spiders, stone gargoyles, etc). It was really annoying in Blood 2 to see even human enemies take a direct hit with the Napalm Launcher and barely even flinch!

swaaye wrote:

Apparently Blood 2 was a sort of side project for Monolith, developed in parallel with Shogo. Shogo is clearly the more refined, more advanced game of the two. It's a shame because I'm far more into the dark Blood universe than Shogo's anime.

I really liked Shogo, however I wish they had left out the human levels and just concentrated on the giant robot combat. My only other complaint with the game was that the city levels felt really constrained. I realize that's probably a limitation of the engine, but it broke the illusion to realize that each part of the city was basically just a large room with miniature buildings in it.

I did like the anime feel of the game though. It was great fun to zip out and unleash a barrage of rockets at the enemy.

Davros wrote:

Dont forget Blood2 has 2 maybe 3 endings

Different endings? I hadn't heard that before. What determines the outcome, using a different character?

To get back to the original topic...

I liked SiN. I initially played the demo back around the time it first came out, but I was using a 233Mhz system and the demo took forever and a day to load. I wasn't used to FPS games and didn't know to invert the mouse, so I couldn't hit the broad side of a barn. I never went back to it because of the loading times. I tried the demo a few years ago, on a much faster system and really enjoyed it, so I bought a used copy of the game from a local store. I enjoyed it quite a bit, although I did experience a few bugs;

I found three locations where you can't save the game or it will screw up. One is in the warehouse after meeting the foreman and then jumping down into the furnace room. Saving near the large door (either side) triggers the bug. Saving near the valley with the falling rocks in Jungle Pass 2 also triggers it. Finally, I think it's at the end of Jungle Pass 2 where you have to follow a narrow rock ledge as pieces break loose. Saving there is a bad idea. What happens is that when you re-load a save made in these locations, the screen never leaves the main menu. You can hear the game playing, but you're stuck looking at a frozen copy of the menu screen. You have to have the proper sequence of key presses memorized to even quit the game.

I encountered the Darwin Chamber bug where the door to the third chamber didn't open and I had to use the NoClip cheat to get past it. In one of the jungle levels you come to a large security door and on the other side is supposed to be a security checkpoint building, but on my first time through the game, it looked like it had been blown up. I could also hear a gun being fired, but couldn't find it. When I first entered the sewers I came to a gate that had a wall of water behind it, which wasn't supposed to be there. Re-loading the game and restarting that level seemed to fix it.

I've also played through the add-on, Wages of SiN, which was good, but I preferred the original game.

I can recall an Outlaws A3D ad once

I've been going through games which supposedly had A3D support:
http://www.quantexzone.com/index.php/vortex-o … t-all-a3d-games

Some of these lost A3D support during development. For example, Dark Reign 2 has no A3D support from what I can tell...

I want to dig into some of the newer Miles Sound System games. These games can pretty easily have a level of A3D support because it was one of the drop in modules that came with MSS for years. Painkiller has A3D, for example. Some of these games have a "redist" directory with the MSS DLLs but the game itself doesn't let you choose them specifically so I'm not sure how to tweak that...

leileilol wrote:

I can recall an Outlaws A3D ad once

That's true. It's added along with the first 3dfx patch.

It was Shogo with the multiple endings
ps: the other games I mentioned support a3d 2.0

ps: that list contains games in development
eg: Team Fortress 2: Brotherhood in Arms, Descent 4

pps: wild metal country was released as freeware
http://www.rockstargames.com/classics/

ppps: I have a hell of a lot of those games

(lots of p's)s: requiem avenging angel is on that list, I loved that game.

I tried Requiem a few months ago. Good stuff. I like first person games that try to create the feel of a living world.

I think it passed completely under my radar back in the day.

It was on the cover of a couple of computer magazines here in Australia at the time and was rated quite highly in reviews yet I personally have never played it. Another to add to the 'to play' list 😀

ps: from wiki
"It is barely noted but Requiem: Avenging Angel was the first game utilizing bullet time"

It will probably turn out not to be true but it beat max payne by 2 years

Wow, Max Payne started development around 1996 and was planned to have bullet time. They were just beat to market.

Requiem is on my bucket list though 😉

Davros wrote:

It was Shogo with the multiple endings

OK, I knew about that one. 😀

I should also mention that the RangeBind commands I posted earlier also work in Shogo for adding mousewheel and extra button support. Actually, it was for Shogo that I originally sought out that information. I believe Shogo lets you remap the quicksave/quickload keys via the config file as well.

swaaye wrote:

I tried Requiem a few months ago. Good stuff. I like first person games that try to create the feel of a living world.

It was a good attempt, but too many of the NPCs all say the same thing. Kind of spoils the illusion. 😀

DonutKing wrote:

It was on the cover of a couple of computer magazines here in Australia at the time and was rated quite highly in reviews yet I personally have never played it. Another to add to the 'to play' list 😀

Requiem had some novel effects. You could turn enemies to salt (great for one-shot kills), shoot lighting, temporarily turn enemies to your side or even resurrect dead enemies to fight for you. There are some areas of the game that have infinitely spawning enemies, so it's easy to build up a virtual army. Of course the downside to having a bunch of zombies following you around is that they tend to get in the way, especially when you're trying to get through a door. They will also attack your allies. Finally, they all tend to instantly disappear when you cross a load zone.

The re-spawning enemies are one of the things I didn't like about the game. You'd come to a new area, check all the rooms, start moving down the corridor and then suddenly you're getting shot in the back by an enemy who just appeared in the previous empty room behind you. It's one thing if they're coming from the other end of the corridor, but it really breaks the illusion when they spawn behind you in empty rooms with only a single door.

Davros wrote:

ps: from wiki
"It is barely noted but Requiem: Avenging Angel was the first game utilizing bullet time"

It will probably turn out not to be true but it beat max payne by 2 years

It should be noted that it's not only possible, but also rather easy to go through the entire game without gaining the bullet time power. It's actually granted to you by a character on an optional side quest in one level. The problem is that it's easy to miss that character and the game lets you finish the level regardless. If you didn't find him, you don't even realize that you missed an objective until the level is over and after the boss fight, you might not even remember it.

The first time I played through, it wasn't until I finished the game that I realized I had never used that power. I went back to a previous save to try it out, but discovered that I didn't have it.

swaaye wrote:

It can be frustrating, due to AI insta-aim, but many old shooters have this problem...

This...
I hate this thing. You're just ducking behind a wall and you try your best to ambush your enemies and then all of a sudden you're being shot at before you can even fire your weapon.
WHAT TRICKERY IS THIS 90's AI?
Half Life had that too, with the marines and all. Absolutely hate it.

My experience with Aureal 3D was a painful one. I got a Vortex 2 card about a year ago and never managed to make it work properly. Is it possible to record it off one and upload it on youtube? I'm looking at you swayee 😜
I still keep that Vortex 2 alongside my SB Live (which is probably the most compatible sound card other than the SB16 perhaps) for MIDI music (got a DB60XG hooked up on it!).

F2bnp wrote:

My experience with Aureal 3D was a painful one. I got a Vortex 2 card about a year ago and never managed to make it work properly. Is it possible to record it off one and upload it on youtube? I'm looking at you swayee 😜

The videos that I did for the 3D cards were done with the Vortex 2 card. So the recordings of games sometimes have A3D audio going. Unreal has A3D 2.0 support.

here's one
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPocZ-FX8SU

Personally I find A3D somewhat overrated, and the cards/drivers a bit unstable most of the time. Like with Sin, the A3D API actually killed the Win9x kernel over and over! Yikes! SBLive doesn't have some of the ear candy, but DS3D+EAX works very nicely in some games just like A3D does in others.

So it's actually supposed to sound muffled at certain points? Yeah... No thanks, I'll pass!
And I thought there was something wrong with my sound card! Jedi Knight sounded particularly bad, some sounds were so muffled that you could barely hear them, although I blame the shitty default a3d.api that probably came with the game and I never changed 😜