/vr/ - Retro Games

[Anonymous No.1414735]

Does Unreal have the best level design and overall art direction of any FPS ever? I would say so.

I love the game to bits, so I'm posting some screens.

[Anonymous No.1414737]

The level names were also titillating. This one's 'Chizra, Nali Water God'.

[Anonymous No.1414743]

[Anonymous No.1414746]

[Anonymous No.1414748]

>>1414735
>>1414737
>using a Source Port

Also the game itself is boring as fuck.

[Anonymous No.1414752]

[Anonymous No.1414759]

It's boring as fuck.

>temples
meh

[Anonymous No.1414761]

I just wish the combat was better. Get some solid Quake 2 "thud thud thud" machine guns and splattering chunks (not that weak shit in Unreal), and combine it with Unreal's setting and music, and you'd have the best shooter.

[Anonymous No.1414769]

I never realized how much thought went into Unreal's setting until I found this:
http://liandri.beyondunreal.com/Unreal
In particular, it has a pretty good analysis of the Nali and Skaarj.

[Anonymous No.1414771]

>>1414748
>Also the game itself is boring as fuck.

Are you expecting a modern-day action/FPS hybrid from a 1998 game? The point of the game is in its' blending of medieval, adventure and sci-fi themes anyway. It is like a sightseeing trip more than a challenge to the player. I regret that no game nowadays attempts to create sacred and alien landscapes in a gothic style anymore.

[Anonymous No.1414773]

>>1414761
It would be better if the humanoid enemies didn't all act like multiplayer bots.

[Anonymous No.1414780]

>>1414759
>temples
>meh

People today have no imagination anymore. You all go for mundane-ass settings like Crysis and don't appreciate visionary design efforts. Just look at this bit of late 90s futurist fantasia. You can practically hear the period techno soundtrack.

>>1414761
The flak cannon was a gamechanger though, and later became a symbol of the UT franchise.

[Anonymous No.1414783]

>>1414771
> It is like a sightseeing trip more than a challenge to the player.

So it is a modern-day 'action/FPS' hybrid. (as if you needed to write action and hybrid to shooter.

So your excuse is that it wasn't made to play but that the goal of the game was to simply blend motifs.

[Anonymous No.1414785]

Unreal has some good levels like Bluff Eversmoking but also has a good chunk of dull ones. I always thought the scenery in Unreal was better than the combat, although I do like fighting the Skaarj.

[Anonymous No.1414784]

>>1414780
Or maybe they do appreciate visionary design efforts and do have imagination, thus temples, meh. Because temples aren't all that impressive or imaginative.

[Anonymous No.1414786]

>>1414780
This isn't retro, but Crysis is a beautiful shooter with a relatively uncommon setting (deep jungle), and variable gameplay. Just because its associated with its ahead of its time graphics, doesn't mean it should be just dismissed.

And god did I hate that level. Terranox, I think? Or something like that. For some reason I had trouble with finding the passage in the highest level.

[Anonymous No.1414790]

>>1414784
The temples make up maybe five maps out of a 30+ hour game.

[Anonymous No.1414793]

>>1414773
The Skaarj were praised at the time for their complex behavior, and imo possess better AI than Half-life's equally championed marines.

[Anonymous No.1414808]

>>1414793
I'm not denying that they have good AI. That's the problem actually; their ability to dodge and strafe like a player makes them a huge pain in the ass to fight.

[Anonymous No.1414814]

>>1414780
>Justifying temples as an imaginative way of level-designing
>Thinks it's visionary

Well, that's likem your opinio-

>Completely different comparison to Crysis

wat

[Anonymous No.1414817]

>>1414783
>So it is a modern-day 'action/FPS' hybrid.

I don't understand: Unreal's level design makes it a cover-based, press-X-to-bash-grappling-enemy shooter?

>So your excuse is that it wasn't made to play but that the goal of the game was to simply blend motifs.

It is your definition of gameplay that positions Unreal as a boring game because it supposedly has too little clicking and risks of losing health compared to other games in the genre. As far as I'm concerned, the ambient along with the puzzles is a good enough reason to consider Unreal a playable and even replayable games.

>>1414786
Compare Crysis' tacticool terrorist killer premise to Unreal's aliens in medieval castles one. Which is the more elaborated in gaming?

[Anonymous No.1414823]

>>1414817
>Compare Crysis' tacticool terrorist killer premise to Unreal's aliens in medieval castles one. Which is the more elaborated in gaming?

It's subjective. I personally couldn't care less about any of them.

[Anonymous No.1414831]

>>1414817
Tons of old shooters had castles n'shit. Right off the bat, Wolfenstein and Quake did. And aliens are a perennial favorite.

[Anonymous No.1414837]

>>1414814
>Completely different comparison to Crysis

Crysis is the culmination of the third generation of FPS that started with Halo. Imo it goes like this:

>First generation FPS
>1992 - 1997
>Wolf 3D, Doom, Quake
>waves of enemies, emphasis on weapon effects, straighforward levels

>second gen FPS
>1998 - 2002
>Half-life, Unreal, Clive Barker's Undying
>story and ambient reliant, varied levels with many secrets, enemies placed according to environment

>third gen FPS
>2002 to present
>Halo series, Crysis, Half-life 2
>again waves of enemies, emphasis on weapon effects, levels influenced by action-adventure games (use of vehicles, hazard course challenges, usages of the PC's body in the third-perspective), streamlined gameplay

Agreed? I wish FPS gaming had stayed where it was in 1999, but that's just me.

[Anonymous No.1414846]

>>1414831
But there aren't many games that combine the two. Quake has sci-fi elements and medieval/fantasy elements, but it avoids mixing them.

[Anonymous No.1414848]

>>1414790

They take the first part of the game.

I'll keep playing it anyways, see if it gets better. I'm in that huge-ass arena fighting a giant alien.

Please tell me it gets better after this

[Anonymous No.1414852]

>>1414823
Exactly, most players don't care about the aspects of gaming outside of those that can be measured: UI, AI, physics, multiplayer connectivity, that's basically it. Which is why shooters could not be upheld to HL and Unreal's high standard for very long and inevitably regressed back into fragfests. If no shooters matching these splendid games get made, I think that at least this wayward peak of the genre should be remembered.

[Anonymous No.1414863]

>>1414848
Well, what do you expect of the game? Being propelled into the air as you shoot your rocket launcher into the beast is one of the highpoints imo. Though blowing up waves of Skaarj on the ISV-Kran also makes for a good time.

[Anonymous No.1414884]

>>1414817
>I don't understand:
You're the one who said it was a sight seeing game. You have a problem with that take it up with yourself.

>It is your definition of gameplay that positions Unreal as a boring game
Actually, it's yours given that your definition defines it as a fucking glorified interactive picture show.

[Anonymous No.1414908]

What's going on here?
Unreal is fucking awesome. I didn't like the expansion that much but the main game is up there with Half-Life in my opinion.

>AMAZING soundtrack
>cool medieval sci-fi setting and atmosphere
>diverse and big maps
>good level design and, for a simple shooter, great exploration/maze navigating and puzzle solving gameplay

[Anonymous No.1414943]

>>1414808
Not the guy you're talking to, but that AI was what kept me playing
Even in Hard+/Nightmare the enemies in Quake 2 weren't that much of a challenge. It really felt like a success splattering a Skaarj's face once you get the hang of it and you work through the dodging, strafing and such.

[Anonymous No.1414961]

>>1414780
>Just look at this bit of late 90s futurist fantasia. You can practically hear the period techno soundtrack.
you sound like the Kenneth Clarke of video games.

[Anonymous No.1414972]

>>1414735
>nostalgia

[Anonymous No.1414975]

>>1414972
Where the fuck do you think you are

[Anonymous No.1414980]

>>1414961
I sound like a British conservative politician...of video games? Is that a bad thing or a good thing?

[Anonymous No.1414985]

>>1414972

WELCOME TO /vr/

[Anonymous No.1414993]

I know it isn't retro, but
>mfw just finished Half-Life 2 for first time

and would be interested to know of any retro titles with something like Valve's amazing level design.

[Anonymous No.1414995]

Hey OP, check these screenies from a WIP Doom map I'm (not currently) working on. Heavily inspired by the Rrajigar mines from unreal.

[Anonymous No.1414998]

>>1414972
>implying most genres of gaming don't get worse every year as they increasingly pick up console elements
>implying games with a million pointers, reminders and Windows challenges(R) are even playable

[Anonymous No.1415003]

/vr/ isn't just nostalgia.
it's also retards like me who honestly hate/don't care about modern gaming and rather discover old games they haven't played yet. or you know play them for the hipster cred.

[Anonymous No.1415006]

>>1414943
>It really felt like a success splattering a Skaarj's face once you get the hang of it and you work through the dodging, strafing and such.
This entails loading 6 rockets in the eightball launcher and firing them so far up his predator-ripoff ass the last thing he'll do is feel the taste of shit and rocket propellant.

And then pee on his corpse. Fuck skaarj.

[Anonymous No.1415008]

>>1414993
words fail me

[Anonymous No.1415012]

>>1414993
>HL2 is now retro

WHAT IS THIS WORLD COMING TO

>>1414995
You are master of lighting, Anon.

[Anonymous No.1415015]

>>1414993
Sin, Kingpin: Life of Crime, and Duke Nukem are the only few off the top of my head I can remember with similar urban design, though not as open.

[Anonymous No.1415018]

>>1415003

i gave my gaming rig to a friend (he's helped me out so much and never updates his comps, so after a couple years i give him a hand-me-down that's more than enough for him to play new games) and started dicking around with an old dell with a celeron and 1.5GB ram, 64mb VRAM

played caesar 3 and zeus for the first time, amazing

finally got around to deus ex (i know, i know)

finally got around to the stronghold games

played all the mechwarriors (had only played 4: vengeance)

and so much more... pc games from the 90's are so fucking good

[Anonymous No.1415017]

>>1415012
>You are master of lighting, Anon.
It looks all fucked up in screenshots. The game's built-in screenshot function doesn't capture at end of the rendering process.

[Anonymous No.1415019]

>>1415006
I preferred that crystal-powered chaingun. It really felt like Predator, trailing the vaulting fuckers with your line of fire as the ammo casing drops off onto the side.

[Anonymous No.1415025]

>>1415015
Don't forget Postal 2

[Anonymous No.1415031]

>>1415008
>232 bytes
What a waste

[Anonymous No.1415038]

>>1415018

[Anonymous No.1415040]

>>1414993
>>1415015
Deus Ex has quite good level design where it isn't rushed. There's lot's to see, do, and find, and the "decayed cityscape" feel is similar.

>>1415019
I'd rather use the ASPERGERS rifle then. Hitscan motherfucker, can you dodge it?

[Anonymous No.1415045]

>>1415040
Forgot about that one. Truthfully I never made it past the second level due to the level design. It's really, really poor at the beginning of the game. I'm told it gets better and I'll be thankful if I slush through the first few missions to reach the good part of the game, but I just haven't been able to do it yet.

[Anonymous No.1415047]

>>1415031
I was posting that in hopes that somebody would reply with the <30 byte version

[Anonymous No.1415049]

>>1414980
It's a good thing anon, he's British, but not a politician.
He's an art historian. Just sounded like a phrase he might use to describe Florentine architecture or summit.

[Anonymous No.1415053]

best art direciton sure?

the level design is terrible.
They have like 5 different entrances leading to the same room. 75% of the game is just empty space with nothing to interact with

The levels felt like there just large for the sake of being large and there wasn't much to them actually.


The game is beautiful to behold though

[Anonymous No.1415065]

>>1415049
>>1414980
Sorry, spelled it wrong, it's Clark without an E.
I have no idea what Kenneth Clarke's phrases are like...

[Anonymous No.1415062]

I like Serious Sam design because it varies a lot between open spaces, restricted hallways, and everything in between. Not to mention I always thought Egyptian temples are pretty cool looking.

As for my favorite looking FPS? Probably Shadow Warrior. Despite mostly taking place at night or in dark areas it had some brighter looking locations and it didn't seem all dark and brown or grey.

[Anonymous No.1415082]

>>1415047
best I can do

[Anonymous No.1415091]

I have been meaning to play the Unreal games multiplayer, have been getting the itch lately.

How would one do this without owning a copy? I'm sure there's tons of pirated copies but I want the most painless way.

[Anonymous No.1415102]

>>1415091
I'm guessing I could just go with the GOG version, but would that give me unresticted access to the multiplayer?

[Anonymous No.1415105]

>>1415091
Also, same shit for Quake games.

[Anonymous No.1415121]

>>1415091
I've just installed my copy of Unreal and patched it with the latest official patch, but apparently that's not what most of the servers are using.
I'm guessing people are using the unofficial 227i patch?

[Anonymous No.1415126]

So Unreal 1 was good? I never got a chance to play it because I played UT99 religiously and then moved on to 2K4 when it came out. I did play Unreal 2 on Xbox, however, and it was kinda shitty, but spraying napalm and setting shit ablaze was fun.

[Anonymous No.1415132]

>>1415126
Yes it's really good. Not like the Tournament games though, there's quite a bit of "downtime" in Unreal due to the exploration of the large maps and puzzles, descriptive lore textboxes etc.

[Anonymous No.1415142]

>>1415126
Unreal 2 was a huge letdown for everyone.

Unreal was probably the best FPS of the 90's outside of Doom.

[Anonymous No.1415152]

>>1415126
UT99 is just Unreal multiplayer, with loads of new game modes added. And a few minor changes, such as what some of the guns look like.

So if you wanted a single player campaign based on UT, that's pretty much what it is. But keep in mind its a switch hunting game, so its not non-stop action. Unless you play Unreal multiplayer, that is. Which is awesome, but kind of outdone by UT, which is just the same, but better.

[Anonymous No.1415158]

>>1415152
I liked Unreals aesthetic a bit more. A little less techy.

But yeah. Everything you said is about right. Though Unreal never felt switch hunty to me. More like exploration. A switch hunt imo implies a lot more back tracking and tedium. Never got that out of Unreal.

[Anonymous No.1415169]

>>1414972
>implying the majority of people here aren't in their late teens or early 20s
The only classic FPS game community that I came across with people in their late 20s and older was quakeworld. Wish it was more like that (looking at the doom community especially zandronum, total fucking kid fest)

[Anonymous No.1415176]

>>1415142
>what is quake, blood, or duke nukem

[Anonymous No.1415180]

>>1415176
Worse games? None of them are bad, but you know. Opinions.

[Anonymous No.1415191]

>>1415180
Blood and Duke Nukem were both better than Doom.

[Anonymous No.1415194]

>>1415176
>what is half-life, descent, or jedi knight
ftfy

[Anonymous No.1415204]

>>1415194
>descent

pulling at straws there, buddy

[Anonymous No.1415207]

>>1415126
It's a good game if you enjoy just fucking around and exploring more than constant combat. At times it feels more like a first person action-adventure than a straight up shooter.

[Anonymous No.1415217]

Unreal has some of the best coop imo too. Gotta play on hard though.

>>1415191
>opinions
I disagree!

[Anonymous No.1415224]

>>1415204
>Descent
>not a great game

[Anonymous No.1415226]

playing it on hard right now.
I'm so fucking unused to oldschool FPSes.
Saving after every enemy I get past without losing half of my health.

[Anonymous No.1415229]

>>1415217
>opinions
>I disagree!
I'm a greater fan of Doom (and especially it's mapping/modding community) than of DN3D and Blood, but I honestly can't say the base game is better. There's some atrocious level design in some places. Still, the latter two games obviously owe a lot to it.

[Anonymous No.1415239]

>>1415229
>(and especially it's mapping/modding community)

[Anonymous No.1415256]

>>1415239
I'm not sure what the problem is.

[Anonymous No.1415257]

>>1415239
You realize that Doom has one of the most active modding communities on the internet, right?

[Anonymous No.1415262]

>>1415152
The guns looked SO much better in Unreal Tournament. It didn't ruin the game or anything (obviously) but I was really disappointed when I got stuff like the rocket launcher in Unreal 1 and they looked so bad. Frankly U1 has pretty shitty weapon models. UT99 took those rough ideas and perfected them.

[Anonymous No.1415295]

>>1415256
>>1415257
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VU59BEMy5GE

[Anonymous No.1418247]

God damn it, vg.

Does anyone remember what one had to do to disable completly the mouse lag in Unreal?

It was MarkC windows acceleration fix + something else, and I cannot remember what.

[Anonymous No.1418251]

>>1414793
because it did have better AI. Unreal was easily the best shooter of 1998.

[Anonymous No.1418260]

>>1418247
It probably involves either enabling DirectInput or switching to OpenGL mode.

[Anonymous No.1418289]

>>1418260

I'm looking at it right now, once I remember this I'mm do some fixed copypasta image and dump it somewhere on /vr/.

Also I remember that not using the full method had hilarious effect: The tighter corridor you were running through, the faster you run.

[Anonymous No.1418298]

>>1418289
I remember encountering that bug a few months ago and being utterly baffled as to what could have caused it.

[Anonymous No.1418303]

>>1414735
yes. It's like Tomb Raider 1 in fps.

[Anonymous No.1418307]

>>1418298

From what I recall, it had to do something about forcing off or on Vertical synchronization through graphic card directly.

Unreal is similar to Q3 in that visual rendering part of the engine is so fixed to mechanics that even fps, vsynch or buffering can produce weird shit in game.

[Anonymous No.1418364]

>>1414735
The Unreal Engine has always been the engine to use for great lightning effects. Also, Unreal had great textures, especially the sky.

[Anonymous No.1418475]

..so long as you had enemies to contend with, no Unreal was not at all "boring", quite the opposite is true. But as soon as you cleared them all out and it wasn't clear where you had to go to carry on and move to the next level....
then yeah I recall the game starting to feel like a real drag.


It's a good game OP...but it's not as ground breaking as the first Half Life: I'll forever echo PCXL's sentiment when they gave it an 11/10.

[Anonymous No.1418480]

>>1418475
it's funny because the complete opposite was true for me. combat boring and repetitive (that fucking arena spam castle map, the boss fights), exploration awesome and fun.

[Anonymous No.1418535]

>>1414837
>Wolf 3D, Doom, Quake
>straighforward levels
Have you even played ANY of the FPS' from the 90s?

[Anonymous No.1418545]

>>1418535
Appearently not, he thinks that the following generation is known for great amounts of secrets in level design. I remember having to find secrets to even have a chance in Blood or Doom.

[Anonymous No.1419309]

>>1414837
>>1418535

Maybe with straighforward levels he meant the old-school approach to level progression like reaching the end-level button. Not sure though.

>>1414837
needs refining but it's a good way to categorize them chronologically I think

[Anonymous No.1419316]

>>1414837
This is just objectively wrong. Unreal and Turok might have complex levels, but that's because they are designed like games like Doom and Hexen. Halflife and its kind are just a collection of linear hallways.

[Anonymous No.1419326]

>>1418247
I remember trying the cheesefix or something but no dice

[Anonymous No.1419339]

>>1419316
HL1 maps felt linear indeed after replaying them but I'm pretty sure if it had more action a la doom I wouldn't have noticed.

[Anonymous No.1419348]

>>1414780

i can't get over that shitty texture blurring

is this a game for PC or N64?

[Anonymous No.1419384]

>>1419348
That's the dumbest thing I've read yet.

[Anonymous No.1419725]

>>1418247
Windows mouse options, uncheck the "precision thingy"

[Anonymous No.1419750]

unreal has cool weapons but crushingly boring level design of any popular fps of that era that i can remember, except maybe quake 2

best level design is either doom 2 or quake 1

[Anonymous No.1419752]

>>1414761
Gameplay-wise UT2004 just had better balance. But sometimes UT is fun to go back to. And that soundtrack was God-Tier.

[Anonymous No.1422814]

test

http://www.youtube.com/watch&v=RDdk47stWGo#t=1739