Sombrero wrote on 2022-12-12, 05:28:

[System Shock] but by the time I found the game it was already too clunky for me to enjoy.

Have you tried System Shock: Enhanced Edition? It's the original System Shock but brought up to modern standards, with fully redefinable mouse and keyboard support (it controls like any modern first person shooter now), and high resolutions including wide-screen. It's still the orginal 1990s DOS game, but in a higher resolution, and still only has sprites for enemies, not 3D models, but it works fine on modern versions of Windows, and controls very well.

I am still looking forward to SSR, but if it never came out, then I would be happy with SSEE instead.

Sombrero wrote on 2022-12-12, 05:28:

My "wish I could get a refund" kickstarter is System Shock Remake.

I haven't given up hope with SSR, as Night Dive Studios have delivered some great remasters (Turok 1 and 2, Doom 64, Exhumed/Powerslave, the 2021 Quake remaster, etc), so they aren't just interested in taking the money and running. But if they hadn't released these other games, then I would have concluded that SSR was and always would be vapourware, yes.

But give NDS their due, they are developing System Shock 2 Enhanced Edition, which will be free to buyers of SSR. It's not a full remake, so it doesn't take nearly so much work to make as SSR, it's SS2 but with the rough edges smoothed out, and (this is brilliant) includes the (very extensive) community made patch that balances out or fixes countless flaws in the original game. Plus it will be compatible with many of the fan made mods for SS2, too.

Oh, and NDS released the source code for System Shock 1, for free, which was very generous of them. It was the Mac source code, not the DOS source code, but it's still great, and someone has ported it to Windows as Shockolate (https://github.com/Interrupt/systemshock), so other than the long delays to SSR, and their lack of public updates on the project, I think NDS are a pretty good company.

I think that System Shock has aged quite well. It looks fine to me, and plays pretty much like a standard FPS (though its uses the SZXC cluster instead of WASD), with some extra options such as leaning around corners. It doesn't have mouselook, but being able to control the cursor within the viewport means you don't have to actually look up and down very often during combat. I found learning its control scheme to be pretty satisfying, actually.

Having said that, I agree with Kerr Avon on System Shock:EE... it's an excellent port and it plays like a dream (and even has a toggle for mouselook). You can even tell it to use your external MIDI synth if you want.

'Cyborg Enforcer' SSR supporter here. Looking forward to the 'Big Box Collector's Edition' myself. After the long wait, it better not get damaged in shipping. Yeah, it's been a long wait, but with multiple demos released and the incredible world they're (re)building I can wait a bit longer for the final spit & polish. Nightdive has delivered better updates than most KS projects I've backed, which I can count on one hand. Hopefully, we'll all be talking about our great experiences with it shortly. As far as the original System Shock, I have fond memories of that game. I picked up a floppy copy (CD version was released a few months later) @ my local Babbage's when it first came out and it was the very first game to take use of my brand new, glowing AWE32. I just sat there in my pool of wavetable amazement. It was a beautiful experience.

Kerr Avon wrote on 2022-12-12, 15:40:

Sombrero wrote on 2022-12-12, 05:28:

[System Shock] but by the time I found the game it was already too clunky for me to enjoy.

Have you tried System Shock: Enhanced Edition?

I'm afraid my biggest issue with System Shock is the level design and that's one thing that is common with every version, I just can't enjoy the station with its maze of weird corridors and the remake doesn't seem to change that. That's why I personally wanted a reimagined version with new level designs but otherwise SS1 just brought to modern day.

Had I played the game back in 94 I could just power through that high on nostalgia, but alas no such luck.

Kerr Avon wrote on 2022-12-12, 14:45:

It's not so much that FEAR's A. I. is great, it's that it's great when compared to the A. I. in most other shooters. A. I. in fi […]
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Ensign Nemo wrote on 2022-12-12, 03:13:

I remember that a lot of reviewers praised the FEAR ai a lot back when it came out. Personally, I didn't really notice it being that different. It's been quite a while since I played it, but I just remember the enemies hopping over short walls and communicating a bit. Maybe I just didn't notice the details that other people did.

It's not so much that FEAR's A. I. is great, it's that it's great when compared to the A. I. in most other shooters. A. I. in first person shooters has never been objectively brilliant, and whilst for many years that was most probably because of programming limitations, a growing concern was that gamers don't actually want good A. I. in a game. I read an article written by someone who worked on a game (I think it was actually the first FEAR game), and they said that when the game passed to testers, then the A. I. had to be noticeably reduced, as not only was it too good for the testers to beat, but it was also too good for the same testers to enjoy. The A. I. allowed the NPCs to intelligently plan, flank, and sneak around to the back of the player, the A. I. allowed the NPCs to hide behind cover for much longer than was enjoyable (if an enemy NPC is behind cover and doesn't stick it's head out for more than ten or fifteen seconds then the human player gets bored waiting), and I can't remember the rest, sorry, but the gist is that players claim to want good A. I. in video games, but actually they want *enjoyable* A. I. . Make the A. I. seem good, yes, as then when the player beats them, then the player will get a great feeling of accomplishment, but the A. I. must be convincingly fallable.

I remember when Half-Life came out. Players, reviewers, everyone was praising the enemy A. I. in the game. And the truth was that the A. I. wasn't great at all. The enemies couldn't use ladders, couldn't call or use a lift (elevator) if it wasn't scripted, the enemies would blindly walk into the blue trigger laser of wall mines (even when the soldiers themselves had presumably planted them), the soldiers would kill themselves by throwing a grenade that hit a wall and bounced back at them, if two soldiers were standing together and you shot and killed one of them, then provided the other soldier didn't have a line of sight to your eyes (i.e. if you could on;y see his legs, or the back of his head) then he'd stand there, and not run for cover, injured enemies never went and used medi-kits, and so on.

And if you waited next to a door way, and the soldiers were outside and knew you were in there, then they would come in one by one, even though they could see their colleagues getting shot and killed as they entered the doorway. Occasionally, someone would toss in a grenade, but that was clearly a random decision made by the A. I., and after the one grenade (which was probably thrown in with too much force, and so landed far enough away that it's explosion wouldn't touch you at all), the the soldiers resumed their 'lets go slowly through the door, one by one, and get head-shotted to oblivion with the player's shotgun' routine.

But even so, the A. I. was noticeably better than in most first person shooters. Especially when so many FPS games' A. I. was little more then "When you see the player, run towards him and randomly stop, fire at him, then resume running".

Thanks for the detailed response. I've also heard that players don't want good AI, but I don't buy that. I think that players want an AI that doesn't cheat. I've been getting into combat flight sims lately and most people want difficult ai, but also want the ai to play by the same rules. In some games the ai controlled planes can do stuff that isn't possible by a player flying the same planes. This is an artificial way of increasing difficulty. Another complaint is that the ai pilots have superhuman vision and the gunners have perfect aim.

I think the same would apply to shooters, at least for me personally. I'd love to play some really hard shooters, where the difficulty comes from the ai being really smart, especially if it requires me to use different tactics to do better. I would prefer this to shooters that are harder due to the number of enemies, their toughness, their weapons, etc.

newtmonkey wrote on 2022-12-12, 16:01:

I think that System Shock has aged quite well. It looks fine to me, and plays pretty much like a standard FPS (though its uses the SZXC cluster instead of WASD), with some extra options such as leaning around corners. It doesn't have mouselook, but being able to control the cursor within the viewport means you don't have to actually look up and down very often during combat. I found learning its control scheme to be pretty satisfying, actually.

I completed SS in '94 and again in 2016 (on a real DOS PC). I'll be completing it a 3rd time when the remaster comes out! I agree with you on all fronts. It was satisfying to re-learn the control scheme in 2016 and I got quite good at it by the middle of the game.

To this day it is one of my favorite games of all time. I was such an Origin fanboy back then, but with good reason. My first PC games were Wing Commander and Ultima 7 (I transitioned to PC from Apple II around 1992). Followed shortly by WC2, Ultima Underworld 1/2, Strike Commander, Pacific Strike, Wings of Glory, WC3 and System Shock. They were knocking it out of the park pretty consistently from 1990-1995. To this day that 5 year period is my all-time favorite from a gaming perspective.

clueless1 wrote on 2022-12-12, 23:17:

I was such an Origin fanboy back then, but with good reason. My first PC games were Wing Commander and Ultima 7 (I transitioned to PC from Apple II around 1992). Followed shortly by WC2, Ultima Underworld 1/2, Strike Commander, Pacific Strike, Wings of Glory, WC3 and System Shock. They were knocking it out of the park pretty consistently from 1990-1995. To this day that 5 year period is my all-time favorite from a gaming perspective.

Same here! Origin is the reason I got a PC in the first place (Ultima VI/VII and Wing Commander). Just amazing game after amazing game. There isn't any other developer/publisher like that for me. Up until 1995 or so, if I saw their name on the box, I wanted the game. Of course, whether my PC could actually run the game was a whole other issue...

System Shock's controls are completely unbearable for me in 2022.. Same for Ultima Underworld and Ultima 7 for example. Some games were the products of their time, and really need mechanical upgrades to be enjoyable to future me.

I'm being put off playing system shock by these comments! clunky controls and maze-like map, doesn't sound promising despite the classic status. I might have to watch a bit of walkthrough before trying

gerry wrote on 2022-12-13, 09:20:

I'm being put off playing system shock by these comments! clunky controls and maze-like map, doesn't sound promising despite the classic status. I might have to watch a bit of walkthrough before trying

Clunky controls were fixed on Enhanced Edition (the original does have serious control issues though) and the level design might not even trouble you, it's the usual early 90s deal. But taking a look of some gameplay beforehand is never a bad idea, to me SS1 is one of the most dated classics out there that pretty much requires a hefty nostalgia boost to enjoy.

gerry wrote on 2022-12-13, 09:20:

I'm being put off playing system shock by these comments! clunky controls and maze-like map, doesn't sound promising despite the classic status. I might have to watch a bit of walkthrough before trying

You could try the Enhanced edition. I'd describe it as being in the middle between the really clunky 90s controls and a modern FPS game controls. That won't help the map part, but there are lots of guides online for that.

While it does look like Nightdive is staying faithful to the original (after going on a bit of an I'll advises tangent), I still think it's worth playing the originals apart from a few quality of life changes. You can always refund it if you don't like it.

I'm confused, what's so clunky about System Shock's control scheme?

You literally have access to every single movement function on a single keyboard quadrant. The key to reset the lean and reset the look are in the middle of their respective directional keys even.

If anything I'm annoyed that for whatever reason Shockolate doesn't have the command to reset look, literally doesn't exist in the source code itself and I don't know enough programming to even fix that.

Also the mouse cursor to aim weapons is a godsend, if you can even SEE the sprite of something, your ranged weapon will hit it. (through projectiles will obviously collide into the corners of walls)

DracoNihil wrote on 2022-12-13, 13:52:

I'm confused, what's so clunky about System Shock's control scheme? […]
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I'm confused, what's so clunky about System Shock's control scheme?

You literally have access to every single movement function on a single keyboard quadrant. The key to reset the lean and reset the look are in the middle of their respective directional keys even.

If anything I'm annoyed that for whatever reason Shockolate doesn't have the command to reset look, literally doesn't exist in the source code itself and I don't know enough programming to even fix that.

Also the mouse cursor to aim weapons is a godsend, if you can even SEE the sprite of something, your ranged weapon will hit it. (through projectiles will obviously collide into the corners of walls)

Seconded. Since System Shock is more complex and has slower pace than typical FPS, its control scheme actually serves it better than typical mouselook/WASD. Same goes with Ultima Underworld.

The problem with the new system shock is that it's all hanging on a "Remember this?" design paradigm with poor decisions throughout . Not optimistic on anything Nightdive does with that "famous abandonware" franchise now. The demos never impressed me.

I'm playing Hexen. Switch hunting and respawning ettins feel refreshing after Heretic Shadows E4/5. No ports, keyboard only, taur-fartgenerating cleric.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
I've put a few more hours into this. My opinion hasn't changed much, and I always go through the same cycle whenever I try playing this:

I start getting into the swing of things, exploring towns, seeing what's up, getting quests. The world is so massive! Leveling up is addictive, can't wait to see what those high level perks do! The main quests are so interesting... you mean I have to infiltrate a party held by some of the most powerful people in Skyrim? At this point, I'm thinking, "why haven't I finished this game yet? This is amazing!"

However, a couple hours later, I'm still doing the same thing. The massive world that looked so cool at first, now just looks totally barren with the same encounters over and over (spiders and wolves). Those caves and forts that were so exciting before are now all over the place, and they are all pretty much the same thing. Leveling up doesn't actually seem to do much; 20% more damage doesn't mean much when the game is scaling enemies up and giving them 20% better armor.

Most disappointingly, the quests can have cool setups but often poor execution. Case in point: during the mandatory quest where you infiltrate the party, there's no way to talk your way through, so unless you have built a sneaky rogue character, you just end up infiltrating the party and then slaughtering everyone on the way out. Why even go through the trouble of sneaking me in there!?

I think I need to put the main quest off for a bit, and just soak in the atmosphere while traveling from town to town to see what's going on. This is really where Skyrim is at its best imo, because the towns are all unique with interesting designs, and with plenty of little stories/quests to investigate.

I really liked Morrowind. The available character skills and customization was great. It was a big open world, but still had enough direction to nudge you along the main story. Oblivion turned me off TES series. The character skills were over simplified and the non-stop timer of the Oblivion gates really halted any exploration as it felt your were in constant crisis mode. I've never bothered with Skyrim, despite it seeming like I'm the only human on the planet that hasn't played it.

I've recently finished up replaying Metroid Fusion and Zero Mission on my GBA. I still think Super Metroid is the best in the series, though the GBA titles are pretty dang good. I like some of the aspects of Metroid: Dread and the DS Samus Returns remake. The smoother movements and melee counter move is nice, but I really don't like how they keep making it more and more into a fast-twitch action title instead of an exploration adventure game.

Right now I'm going through Black & White on my newly upgraded XP machine. I never finished it back in the day, usually quitting out of frustration when my creature was captured and frozen. I'll see if I can power through it this time.

newtmonkey wrote on 2022-12-15, 03:17:

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim I've put a few more hours into this. My opinion hasn't changed much, and I always go through the sa […]
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The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
I've put a few more hours into this. My opinion hasn't changed much, and I always go through the same cycle whenever I try playing this:

I start getting into the swing of things, exploring towns, seeing what's up, getting quests. The world is so massive! Leveling up is addictive, can't wait to see what those high level perks do! The main quests are so interesting... you mean I have to infiltrate a party held by some of the most powerful people in Skyrim? At this point, I'm thinking, "why haven't I finished this game yet? This is amazing!"

However, a couple hours later, I'm still doing the same thing. The massive world that looked so cool at first, now just looks totally barren with the same encounters over and over (spiders and wolves). Those caves and forts that were so exciting before are now all over the place, and they are all pretty much the same thing. Leveling up doesn't actually seem to do much; 20% more damage doesn't mean much when the game is scaling enemies up and giving them 20% better armor.

Most disappointly, the quests can have cool setups but often poor execution. Case in point: during the mandatory quest where you infiltrate the party, there's no way to talk your way through, so unless you have built a sneaky rogue character, you just end up infiltrating the party and then slaughtering everyone on the way out. Why even sneak me in?

I think I need to put the main quest off for a bit, and just soak in the atmosphere while traveling from town to town to see what's going on. This is really where Skyrim is at its best imo, because the towns are all unique with interesting designs, and with plenty of little stories/quests to investigate.

This pretty much sums up my experience. I think I've started Skyrim 3 times and never finished it. It's one of those games where I'll take a break, but never return to it. I preferred Oblivion and was more immersed in the world. It felt a lot more magical to me.

Jaron wrote on 2022-12-15, 03:38:

I really liked Morrowind. The available character skills and customization was great. It was a big open world, but still had enough direction to nudge you along the main story. Oblivion turned me off TES series. The character skills were over simplified and the non-stop timer of the Oblivion gates really halted any exploration as it felt your were in constant crisis mode. I've never bothered with Skyrim, despite it seeming like I'm the only human on the planet that hasn't played it.

You are me.

I haven't played Morrowind yet, but I'm curious about the exploration aspect. Is it pretty varied or would it be more copy and paste?

I haven't completed Morrowind, but I did play it a lot back in the day. I found it to have some of the best exploration in the genre. Everything is hand-placed, the dungeons are quite large, and there's no enemy/loot scaling. If you can survive getting through a tough area, you can walk away with some awesome equipment. The world is smaller than Oblivion or Skyrim (I think), but it feels more varied and interesting.

There's very little hand-holding. No quest compass or map markers; instead, you have to read what people tell you, because they will actually give you realistic directions to where you need to go ("exit the town out the north gate, follow the river until you you reach some hills, and the mine should be right there on the east bank").

The only thing that is very offputting about the game is that movement speed is VERY SLOW at first. Leveling up acrobatics makes you walk faster, but there's also a transportation network (giant insects) you can use to get from one place to the next quickly.