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Reply 120 of 146, by BEEN_Nath_58

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There isn't any talk of Quake 4 anywhere. People talk about the classic 1, 2 or two Quake 3 games when talking about Live or Champions, but everyone ignores Quake 4.

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Reply 121 of 146, by Dolenc

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Well q2 was pushing visuals, did a couple of things first, strogg shooting you when they were already downed, smooth gameplay. One of those first "ok I have to use the mouse too games". Think for me also the first game I played with filtering. Good music and so on.
At the time it felt way more modern than q1.
While now I appriciate q1 more, for its atmosphere and gameplay that feels more than a race than a shooter, back then it was just no comparison.

Q4 came soon after doom3, looked about the same, a bit less horror, more cod, while it wasnt a bad game, it was just another fps, plenty of them at that point.

Reply 122 of 146, by Namrok

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Dolenc wrote on 2022-04-27, 10:38:
Well q2 was pushing visuals, did a couple of things first, strogg shooting you when they were already downed, smooth gameplay. O […]
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Well q2 was pushing visuals, did a couple of things first, strogg shooting you when they were already downed, smooth gameplay. One of those first "ok I have to use the mouse too games". Think for me also the first game I played with filtering. Good music and so on.
At the time it felt way more modern than q1.
While now I appriciate q1 more, for its atmosphere and gameplay that feels more than a race than a shooter, back then it was just no comparison.

Q4 came soon after doom3, looked about the same, a bit less horror, more cod, while it wasnt a bad game, it was just another fps, plenty of them at that point.

It's funny, I've played Quake 2, or tried to, repeatedly over the years. And I always beat the first "unit" or whatever they called those clusters of levels. Then got to the warehouse unit, got bored and wondered off to a different game. For the longest time I just assumed Quake 2 didn't age well, and was utterly mystified that I liked it so much as a kid.

More recently I white knuckled it through the intense boredom of the warehouse unit, and had an absolute blast with the rest of the game. In fact, I think the Strogg Palace at the end ranks among the best final areas of any FPS ever. The AI, while simple, is adequate for a single player campaign. The unit diversity was actually really good, and most of the enemies weren't just hitscan grunts. Their only variance being how much damage they deal, and how many hits they take. Instead they had actual attack patterns you could learn and work with. The difficulty seemed relatively balanced without units being too spongy, or feeling like one wrong move would leave you crippled.

Which only makes the shortcomings of Blood 2 and Shogo, which I played in close proximity, all the more apparent.

I would generally consider Quake 2 the pinnacle of the school of FPS design that largely died when Half-Life came out and cleared the board.

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Reply 123 of 146, by RandomStranger

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Dolenc wrote on 2022-04-27, 10:38:

Q4 came soon after doom3, looked about the same, a bit less horror, more cod, while it wasnt a bad game, it was just another fps, plenty of them at that point.

Well... Q4 looked better, had higher resolution textures, bigger and more open maps, you've actually seen the graphics because it wasn't so dark, the color palette was also brighter, the enemies had some actual AI (though F.E.A.R. blew everything out of the water that year). D3 was basically Half-Life's story with a more boring gameplay.

BEEN_Nath_58 wrote on 2022-04-27, 10:24:

There isn't any talk of Quake 4 anywhere. People talk about the classic 1, 2 or two Quake 3 games when talking about Live or Champions, but everyone ignores Quake 4.

A lot of good older games gets ignored/forgotten.

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Reply 124 of 146, by leileilol

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Quake4 was polarizing upon release much like Serious Sam 2 was. The multiplayer even more so.

Back then (05-07), I did enjoy the Quake4 multiplayer. Those that didn't were frustrated they weren't allowed to turn off the shadows to "improve performance" (read: visual cheats, the fps was hard capped against physics exploits) while it was already running great on R300/NV40 , so they all crawled to their special Q4Max niche hole at the time (where there's glowing players and lack of graphics - kinda the selling point). 1.4.1 did some nasty balance changes to accommoodate them (read: cheats) in the base q4mp game and the scene declined from there. Also it added a napalm gun that's way too effective to chronic bunnyhoppers 😀 Quake ZeroLive was just around the corner...

More recently there's been an attempt at a revival of Quake4's MP, but it seems q4max centered and is an echo of self-promotion, possibly by those who missed the boat the first time.

As for FEAR there was also huge criticism about the game's installed size and how hard it hit PCs of course.

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Reply 125 of 146, by Gmlb256

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Jasin Natael wrote on 2022-04-20, 19:09:
Sorry if this has a thread already but I didn't see anything with a quick search. […]
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Sorry if this has a thread already but I didn't see anything with a quick search.

My example: Quake 3.
My reason: Everything (literally) was worse than not only Unreal Tournament, but also worse that the preceding game.

In other words if I wanted a single player experience I had Quake 2 and it was pretty great. No real single player in Quake 3. Also could play Unreal if I was looking for that, it was better as well.
If I wanted multiplayer then damn was Unreal Tournament the better choice by far in my opinion.

I am sure there are plenty who feel the opposite. I just remember trying the game when new and being extremely let down.

  • Grand Theft Auto series particulary the 3D entries: They were gradually shifting into realism (not necessarily a bad thing but I'm finding it quite saturated these days).
  • Later Call of Duty entries: Eventually losing interest on them and increasingly shoddy PC ports starting with MW2.
  • Sandbox games such as Minecraft: They never caught my attention.
  • MOBA styled games: I prefer actual RTS games where there is macro-managing. I know that there are some scenarios where the focus is just micro-managing but I don't mind them as long as there is variety.
RandomStranger wrote on 2022-04-27, 15:00:

A lot of good older games gets ignored/forgotten.

Indeed. I have seen that with several good DOS games which aren't obscure but rarely gets mentioned and even early Windows games tends to be neglected.

Last edited by Gmlb256 on 2022-04-27, 21:01. Edited 2 times in total.

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Reply 126 of 146, by RetroGamer4Ever

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Q4 was definitely kicked to the curb too soon, but it was overshadowed by other games/franchises upon release. Doom 3 was riding high, Half-Life 2 was soaring, and Counter-Strike was going as hard as it ever did, not to mention that Q3:Arena was still holding the Quake mantle nice and tight while Unreal Tournament lurked in the background. As far as everyone was concerned, Q4 was just an odd-ball Halo knock-off and many who did see it weren't overly familiar with Q2, which is why Q2 was included with Q4, to set the stage.

Reply 127 of 146, by Shponglefan

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RetroGamer4Ever wrote on 2022-04-27, 16:22:

Q4 was definitely kicked to the curb too soon, but it was overshadowed by other games/franchises upon release. Doom 3 was riding high, Half-Life 2 was soaring, and Counter-Strike was going as hard as it ever did, not to mention that Q3:Arena was still holding the Quake mantle nice and tight while Unreal Tournament lurked in the background. As far as everyone was concerned, Q4 was just an odd-ball Halo knock-off and many who did see it weren't overly familiar with Q2, which is why Q2 was included with Q4, to set the stage.

That's my recollection as well. Especially given the proximity to HL2's release, which had basically overshadowed everything.

Quake 4 was okay, but it didn't break any new ground; it was just a retread of Quake 2 but with prettier graphics.

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Reply 128 of 146, by leileilol

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UT definitely didn't lurk in the background though, if anything UT2004 was the peak Epic had before Fortnite and everyone was into onslaught and vehicle trialsassault (prior to fake bot playercount deceptions years later). Quake3's only numbers then were about Urban Terror, vanilla was in the low hundreds by that point. Quake4 had far more casual playing multiplayer (and that is good). Counter-Strike already was suffering fragmentation (WON2 1.5 vs Steam 1.6, Condition Zero, Source). War shooters were in, BF1942, BF2 and Enemy Territory were relatively huge and UT2004 easily overlapped into that. CoD at this point just replaced Medal of Honor and the fourth game hadn't invented the first person shooter on the red ring thing for the televisions yet.

Last edited by leileilol on 2022-04-27, 17:03. Edited 3 times in total.

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Reply 129 of 146, by appiah4

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I am to this day an advocate that Doom 3 was the better game between it and Half Life 2. I played some Quake 4 but it did not click with me. That said, I never really liked Quake 2 either, (SP or MP). I'm a Quake 1 guy, and Quake 3 clicks with me a lot better.

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Reply 130 of 146, by TheMobRules

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I'm also a fan of Doom 3, but then again survival horror is one of my favorite genres, so that game leaning towards that style despite being an FPS is a good thing in my book.

I played Quake 1 and 2 to completion back then (but not much more than that) and liked both games despite the jarring differences between them (can Q2 really be called a "sequel"?). Q3 I'm sure is fun but I really never cared about multiplayer-focused games. And Q4 I've never even played, for some reason it went totally under the radar for me and I only learned it was released years after it was out!! Was that game under-marketed or was it just me?

Reply 131 of 146, by RandomStranger

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RetroGamer4Ever wrote on 2022-04-27, 16:22:

As far as everyone was concerned, Q4 was just an odd-ball Halo knock-off

Now that you mention it, I don't much care about Halo. I've beaten Reach once and enjoyed it, I have the Collector's Edition for X360, but that's about it. I didn't feel I need to replay it or play any other entries in the franchise.

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Reply 132 of 146, by Kerr Avon

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Jasin Natael wrote on 2022-04-26, 14:20:
I really enjoyed Doom1 &2 but I hated Doom3. I admire what it was trying to do, and it was marvel at it's technical superiority […]
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I really enjoyed Doom1 &2 but I hated Doom3.
I admire what it was trying to do, and it was marvel at it's technical superiority when it launched.
But the whole being forced to carry that damn flashlight and never being able to see what you were doing completely ruined it for me.
I know there are mods and all that to get past that, but it shouldn't require them.
It's just a game breaking mechanic that exists for no dang reason other than to "add atmosphere"

/rant.

I didn't care for Doom 3 much, either. For a start, it didn't feel like Doom. Doom, to me, is about fast movement, lots of enemies, and a great shotgun. And (hopefully) getting the enemies to kill each other. Whereas with Doom 3 we were given slow movement, the need to read/listen to logs to find the combinations to open locked ammunition cabinets (which especially irritated me as my hearing isn't great, and since Doom 3 didn't have subtitles for the spoken logs, then I occasionally was unable to learn the combiantions for some lockers), no monster in-fighting (or if there was, I can't remember any) and way too much darkness. Doom 1 and 2 had some dark areas too, but they were rare enough to make them seem interesting, whereas with Doom 3 they *really* overdid the darkness.

And the shotgun just didn't feel 'Doom'-ish.

I probably had other complaints, but I can't recall them now. It certainly wasn't a bad game, but it wasn't a Doom game (to me, at least), and even overlooking the Doom connection, I just didn't like it much.

Reply 133 of 146, by RandomStranger

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Kerr Avon wrote on 2022-04-27, 20:01:

no monster in-fighting (or if there was, I can't remember any)

Doom 3 had some sort of infighting, but it's more difficult to set up because there is no room to maneuver around the already low number of enemies. I remember I could start infighting between an archvile and an imp also hellknight vs imp. I think the game recognizes two classes, fodder and heavy (or something like that in Doom Eternal terms) and if a fodder hits a heavy, it will kill the fodder which doesn't fight back.

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Reply 135 of 146, by Kerr Avon

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Jasin Natael wrote on 2022-04-26, 14:23:
Very much so. Why are they always included? As filler is my guess. They are trash and shouldn't be allowed to exist. No one en […]
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Errius wrote on 2022-04-24, 01:12:

Never played Goldeneye but did laugh my head off at that 'real life Goldeneye' video on YT. Escort missions are horrible in every game.

Very much so.
Why are they always included? As filler is my guess.
They are trash and shouldn't be allowed to exist. No one enjoys them, ever.

Not entirely. There are some good escort missions in some games, and that includes Goldeneye. A bad escort mission is where the person you're escorting does stupid things like running blindly into open areas, or standing out in the open, or (the worst of all) running in front of your aim so you accidentally shoot them.

But in good escort missions, you can tell the person when to stay and when to follow you, or they know enough to intelligently hide when an enemy is around, or if the person is armed and can competently shoot and kill the enemy and can intelligently use cover to avoid getting show themselves. Or for the latter point, if the armed person who you are escorting has a high enough health pool (or takes a low enough amount of damage when shot by enemies) so they stand a good chance of not dying before they reach the objective location. This might be seen as cheating, but it can still result in a fun game, so I don't think it's a bad thing.

For example, in Goldeneye (N64), in the Jungle level, you have to safely escort Natalya through the level, but she is armed, and pretty proficient with it, and (probably due to a large health pool, rather than super brilliant artificial intelligence) is doesn't tend to get killed, at least if you stay with her and help kill the enemies. So it's a fun mission.

Whereas on the earlier mission, Bunker 2 (Severnaya), Natalya is not armed, and can't/won't pick up a weapon, and stands a good chance of dying unless you are good at protecting her (especially on the higher skill levels), which wouldn't be at all enjoyable. Fortunately, the game gives you a way around this. To complete this level, you have to open Natalya's cell where she is imprisoned, and lead her to the exit. But the smart thing to do is to not let her out of the cell when the level starts, instead go through the level killing the enemies, then go back and open her cell door, *then* lead her through the empty level to the exit, without problems.

But yes, with most escort missions, you're stuck with an unarmed, brain-dead NP with no sense of self-preservation and the inability to take instructions from you, and the great probability that you are going to repeatedly fail the level though no fault of your own, simply because bad luck and in-game circumstances put the NPC into death's way.

Reply 136 of 146, by Kerr Avon

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RandomStranger wrote on 2022-04-27, 20:23:
Kerr Avon wrote on 2022-04-27, 20:01:

no monster in-fighting (or if there was, I can't remember any)

Doom 3 had some sort of infighting, but it's more difficult to set up because there is no room to maneuver around the already low number of enemies. I remember I could start infighting between an archvile and an imp also hellknight vs imp. I think the game recognizes two classes, fodder and heavy (or something like that in Doom Eternal terms) and if a fodder hits a heavy, it will kill the fodder which doesn't fight back.

You're right! According to https://doom.fandom.com/wiki/Monster_infighting

"In Doom 3, the monsters observe a two-level hierarchy: An "upper" class (Hell Knights, Revenants) and a "lower" class (Imps, Z-Secs). Monsters in the upper class will attack monsters in the lower class in retaliation if for example the lower-class monster accidentally hits an upper-class monster. But, the lower-class monster cannot deliberately strike an upper-class one, so the upper-class monster continues to hit the lower-class one until the latter dies, without the latter trying to fight back. Thus, Doom 3 does not contain true infighting (at least without mods), but rather only a sort of on-the-spot "execution".

Upper class: Hell Knights, Revenants, Arch-viles, Cacodemons, Mancubi.

Lower class: Imps, Z-Secs, Commandos, Demons, Zombies, Maggots, Wraiths, Ticks, Trites, Cherubs.

Note: It seems strange that Commandos, who are considered quite powerful opponents, would be relegated to the Lower class. This could be due to them being formerly human.
"

That doesn't seem like good game design to me. Why didn't they just keep the same infighting rules as they programmed into Doom 1 and 2? One of the highlights of playing Doom 1 and 2 was when you tricked enemies into killing each other, and it's a feature that 'feels' like it belongs in a Doom game.

Reply 138 of 146, by Jasin Natael

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leileilol wrote on 2022-04-27, 15:08:
Quake4 was polarizing upon release much like Serious Sam 2 was. The multiplayer even more so. […]
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Quake4 was polarizing upon release much like Serious Sam 2 was. The multiplayer even more so.

Back then (05-07), I did enjoy the Quake4 multiplayer. Those that didn't were frustrated they weren't allowed to turn off the shadows to "improve performance" (read: visual cheats, the fps was hard capped against physics exploits) while it was already running great on R300/NV40 , so they all crawled to their special Q4Max niche hole at the time (where there's glowing players and lack of graphics - kinda the selling point). 1.4.1 did some nasty balance changes to accommoodate them (read: cheats) in the base q4mp game and the scene declined from there. Also it added a napalm gun that's way too effective to chronic bunnyhoppers 😀 Quake ZeroLive was just around the corner...

More recently there's been an attempt at a revival of Quake4's MP, but it seems q4max centered and is an echo of self-promotion, possibly by those who missed the boat the first time.

As for FEAR there was also huge criticism about the game's installed size and how hard it hit PCs of course.

Serious Sam 2......you know it wasn't a BAD game. It was actually pretty enjoyable, and in some ways it did feel like a Serious Sam game. TONS of enemies to mow through.
But it was so cartoonish and whimsical (not that the OG game wasn't in it's own right) that it didn't really hit the mark for me. Should have just used a different character for the game.
Still better than Serious Sam 3.

The HD remake was pretty good though.
Quake 4 is the very definition of "meh" It did nothing new or original that hadn't already been done better by some other franchise.

Reply 139 of 146, by Jasin Natael

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Kerr Avon wrote on 2022-04-27, 21:10:
Not entirely. There are some good escort missions in some games, and that includes Goldeneye. A bad escort mission is where the […]
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Jasin Natael wrote on 2022-04-26, 14:23:
Very much so. Why are they always included? As filler is my guess. They are trash and shouldn't be allowed to exist. No one en […]
Show full quote
Errius wrote on 2022-04-24, 01:12:

Never played Goldeneye but did laugh my head off at that 'real life Goldeneye' video on YT. Escort missions are horrible in every game.

Very much so.
Why are they always included? As filler is my guess.
They are trash and shouldn't be allowed to exist. No one enjoys them, ever.

Not entirely. There are some good escort missions in some games, and that includes Goldeneye. A bad escort mission is where the person you're escorting does stupid things like running blindly into open areas, or standing out in the open, or (the worst of all) running in front of your aim so you accidentally shoot them.

But in good escort missions, you can tell the person when to stay and when to follow you, or they know enough to intelligently hide when an enemy is around, or if the person is armed and can competently shoot and kill the enemy and can intelligently use cover to avoid getting show themselves. Or for the latter point, if the armed person who you are escorting has a high enough health pool (or takes a low enough amount of damage when shot by enemies) so they stand a good chance of not dying before they reach the objective location. This might be seen as cheating, but it can still result in a fun game, so I don't think it's a bad thing.

For example, in Goldeneye (N64), in the Jungle level, you have to safely escort Natalya through the level, but she is armed, and pretty proficient with it, and (probably due to a large health pool, rather than super brilliant artificial intelligence) is doesn't tend to get killed, at least if you stay with her and help kill the enemies. So it's a fun mission.

Whereas on the earlier mission, Bunker 2 (Severnaya), Natalya is not armed, and can't/won't pick up a weapon, and stands a good chance of dying unless you are good at protecting her (especially on the higher skill levels), which wouldn't be at all enjoyable. Fortunately, the game gives you a way around this. To complete this level, you have to open Natalya's cell where she is imprisoned, and lead her to the exit. But the smart thing to do is to not let her out of the cell when the level starts, instead go through the level killing the enemies, then go back and open her cell door, *then* lead her through the empty level to the exit, without problems.

But yes, with most escort missions, you're stuck with an unarmed, brain-dead NP with no sense of self-preservation and the inability to take instructions from you, and the great probability that you are going to repeatedly fail the level though no fault of your own, simply because bad luck and in-game circumstances put the NPC into death's way.

Fair enough that you enjoy some of them.
I've never played one that wasn't frustrating to some degree.
The best I can think of off the top of my head, one that didn't make me what to quit the game outright.....was that mission in Max Payne 2 where you have to go around that courtyard in the building that is under construction with the female character (sorry name escapes me) protecting Max with the Kalashnikov. That was "ok" and kinda fun. Not really an escort mission though.