Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman wrote on 2023-09-03, 17:18:Even Rebel Assault sold pretty well despite its mediocre gameplay. In any case, my best Star Wars experience during that time was TIE Fighter. It was the game that made me root for the Empire.
Yes Tie fighter was the best. I play it from time to time.
Rebel assault was like Dragon's Lair but 20 years later. Cool to look at but not much fun to play.
Malik wrote on 2023-09-02, 06:59:Never a fan of any "remaster" or "HD remake". It might look better but it could never replace the feeling of first excitement of playing any original game. Just my opinion.
I feel you on that, but what you want is a time machine. There is no feeling of wonder and discovery like being a kid. You can chase that high forever.
MrFlibble wrote on 2023-09-03, 12:56:As for Rise of the Triad Ludicrous Edition, at this point I'm pretty much confused about what the KEX engine does and how it relates to the games that use it in Night Dive releases. It does not seem reasonable to think that this version did not use the original source code of ROTT, because there was no reason not to.
In case anyone is wondering too, I asked in the Doomworld forums and a Night Dive member gave the following reply:
Kex is our own internal modular engine, it does whatever we want it to do. For ROTT, it runs basic cross platform IO and handles the final render output (ROTT is still using its software renderer, albeit upgraded), and runs the networking.
So Ludicrous Edition is still based on the original code, as I expected.
Now I'm wondering who gets to Outlaws first; Nightdive or Lucius.
ZellSF wrote on 2023-09-03, 18:10:Now I'm wondering who gets to Outlaws first; Nightdive or Lucius.
Strangely enough I hope Lucius comes first 😀 Cause it would be splendid to see mods for Outlaws 😀
Who are Lucius? I'm a fan of Nightdive studios. Are the Lucius people also remastering or remaking old games?
ZellSF wrote on 2023-09-03, 18:10:Now I'm wondering who gets to Outlaws first; Nightdive or Lucius.
Ensign Nemo wrote on 2023-09-03, 22:20:Who are Lucius? I'm a fan of Nightdive studios. Are the Lucius people also remastering or remaking old games?
He's the developer of DarkXL (old, deprecated) and The Force Engine, engine recreations for Dark Forces. The Force Engine is currently the best way to play Dark Forces. He is also planning on implementing Outlaws support in The Force Engine.
leileilol wrote on 2023-09-03, 22:59:ZellSF wrote on 2023-09-03, 18:10:Now I'm wondering who gets to Outlaws first; Nightdive or Lucius.
I saw that and am interested in trying it out since I'm curious how the Windows emulation is handled, but it is just that: the Windows version with its flaws and lack of modern features. I want high resolution hardware rendering (without glitchy waterfalls and missing UI) and hor+ widescreen.
Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman wrote on 2023-09-02, 08:34:Malik wrote on 2023-09-02, 06:59:Never a fan of any "remaster" or "HD remake". It might look better but it could never replace the feeling of first excitement of playing any original game. Just my opinion.
Have been enjoying The Force Engine myself lately, mostly with my four years old daughter on my lap, I say I enjoy the remake so much. The polygon is hi-res, but the textures are low-res and unfiltered. Sprites remain sprites, while cut scenes, while extrapolated to higher resolution, still look very crude. But TFE remake's biggest attractions to me are mouselook and the ability to save your games.
I have to agree with you on that. Mouselook would be worth for a FPS remake. Hard to go back, indeed, without it. Games like DOOM 1 and 2 still play nice, but Build engine games - Duke3D, Blood, Red Neck Rampage, etc, all really need proper mouselook to enjoy nowadays. Dark Forces had some amount of Mouse customization available, but I can't remember. Some other games like SSI's CyClones will also benefit from Mouselook.
Malik wrote on 2023-09-11, 10:27:Build engine games - Duke3D, Blood, Red Neck Rampage, etc, all really need proper mouselook to enjoy nowadays. Dark Forces had some amount of Mouse customization available, but I can't remember.
Don't know about Red Neck Rampage, but Duke and Blood have a toggle for permanent mouse look. Dark Forces doesn't seem to have one; you have to use keyboard buttons to look up and down.
I guess this is the most recent thread so the best place to post about this news, but The Force Engine now supports true color rendering with (sharp) bilinear texture filtering and mipmapping. It looks so nice.
Now the only thing* Nightdive can do to look better than The Force Engine is perfect interpolation of everything to higher frame rates. Though The Force Engine is already pretty decent at high refresh rates and improvements seem to be planned (https://the-force-engine.freeforums.net/threa … /109/smoothness).
*Outside of altering the game outside of its original look of course. Though obviously you can argue higher resolution, true color, high refresh rate etc. already does that.
Probably everyone knows this, but there are excellent fan-made Windows games engines for the most popular build engine games, with better mouse control, widescreen and high resolution support, and other modern enhancements.
https://lerppu.net/wannabethesis/ has 32 and 64 bit engines for Blood, Duke Nukem 3D, Duke Nukem 64 (yes, you can play the N64 version of Duke Nukem 3D, which has some interesting changes from the PC game), the Redneck Rampage games, and the DOS version of Exhumed/Powerslave.
BuildEngineGDX, from https://m210.duke4.net/index.php supports the following games:
- Duke Nukem 3D + World Tour Edition + official addons
- Blood + Cryptic Passage
- Shadow Warrior + addons
- Redneck Rampage + Route 66 + Rides Again
- Powerslave / Exhumed
- Witchaven 1 + 2
- TekWar
- Legend of the Seven Paladins
and Raze, from https://github.com/ZDoom/Raze/releases supports the following games:
- Duke Nukem: JFDuke, EDuke 2.0, World Tour extensions from DukeGDX and some minor fixes from EDuke32.
- Redneck Rampage: Nuke.YKT's reconstructed source available in the Rednukem Git repo.
- Blood: NBlood.
- Shadow Warrior: SWP and VoidSW.
- Exhumed/Powerslave: PCExhumed, with some enhancements inspired by PowerslaveGDX.
Today is a great time to be fan of Build engine games!
Edit: Doh! I forgot to mention the oldest and best known Duke Nukem 3D fan-made game engine, eDuke32, from https://dukeworld.duke4.net/eduke32/synthesis/
There might be even more fan-made game engines for these games now.
So the remaster is now out:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcRD20KYDaU
At 8:45, he mentions "a playable version of an old Dark Forces demo" included as bonus content, which I'm assuming (from the footage shown) is the "lost" level aboard a Star Destroyer? It is described in this FAQ:
8.5 What happened to the Imperial-class Star Destroyer Mission? =============================================================== […]
8.5 What happened to the Imperial-class Star Destroyer Mission?
===============================================================
The DF box shows a Mission aboard an Imperial-class STD that doesn't appear
in the game. Daron Stinnett has this to say:
Originally, that was our first level. It was a really well designed
level, but we decided that it was too big for the first level of the
game. We were concerned that the puzzles were too difficult and that the
level was too non-linear for beginners. So instead we created the secret
imperial base. Much of the geometry for the Imperial-class Star Destroyer
was carried over to the Executor. But the mission was different, so not
all of the geometry could be reused.
MrFlibble wrote on 2024-02-29, 09:15:So the remaster is now out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcRD20KYDaU […]
So the remaster is now out:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcRD20KYDaUAt 8:45, he mentions "a playable version of an old Dark Forces demo" included as bonus content, which I'm assuming (from the footage shown) is the "lost" level aboard a Star Destroyer? It is described in this FAQ:
8.5 What happened to the Imperial-class Star Destroyer Mission? =============================================================== […]
8.5 What happened to the Imperial-class Star Destroyer Mission?
===============================================================
The DF box shows a Mission aboard an Imperial-class STD that doesn't appear
in the game. Daron Stinnett has this to say:
Originally, that was our first level. It was a really well designed
level, but we decided that it was too big for the first level of the
game. We were concerned that the puzzles were too difficult and that the
level was too non-linear for beginners. So instead we created the secret
imperial base. Much of the geometry for the Imperial-class Star Destroyer
was carried over to the Executor. But the mission was different, so not
all of the geometry could be reused.
Yes, there's an extras.gob in the install folder that is the lost star destroyer level, it doesn't load with the original version of Dark Forces though...
