Cuttoon wrote on 2022-04-24, 14:18:

I guess it would have been fine on my p133 but I never played it beyond the first level. My friends and I agreed, the graphics were weird.
AFAIK, they deliberately reduced the colors to "black, brown, rust and shit" due to hardware constraints.

In addition, Quake was again abstract level design, whilst Duke Nukem 3D had just shown that you could play in more real life locations. Like a cinema, a hotel, shops..

BEEN_Nath_58 wrote on 2022-04-24, 14:10:

Tetrium wrote on 2022-04-24, 11:48:

I've basically heard only good things about BF1 🙂 […]
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FioGermi wrote on 2022-04-24, 04:29:

BF1 was honestly the best WW1 era game i have played, and its not even really all that accurate to the actual war. People running around like its WW2. But the theme and aesthetic was point on. They tried to make it fit thematically. I know there is this other more accurate WW1 game called Verdun that people nerd out over but i could never get into it.

I've basically heard only good things about BF1 🙂

It's just too bad it doesn't support bots nor does it support mods, so alas it's kinda destined to die a premature death.

The only other widely popular game that somewhat handles WW1 are the Wargaming ones, but these have issues of their own (and I wouldn't recommend them, they turnedout to be a huge disappointment).
But at least their models look nice.

BEEN_Nath_58 wrote on 2022-04-24, 06:01:

Just a personal opinion, I think WW1 era games could be based on the human civilization than the war itself, at least it shouldn't be as blank as the war games would be.

EA has been clever since BF1, they wouldn't focus on or sell their offline campaign as the main thing of the game but instead focus on online gameplay. That allowed them to use WW1 story.

What do you mean with as blank as the war games would be? You mean more like a RTS 4x game or something?

EA focused on single player partially because it is easier to monetize and because developing bots and bot support for maps is apparently not profitable enough for them.
A real shame that BF2 and BF2142 are the last great BF games that still have an active modding community and an insane amount of 3rd party mods.
They even put a F-14 Tomcat in it! <3
Yeah, highway to the dangerzone! 😎

There isn't that much to add in WW1 games and such the no of them is less. EA turned that into a single player mode while going ahead with their online gaming monopoly. Of course BF2142 was the last single player BF game, and that's all EA is now.

BF2142 and BF2 were always more of a coop, with the singleplayer being basically just coop with just 1 human player.
Also initial support was limited to 16 player maps, with the 32 and 64 player maps receiving bot support due to the modding community (they added the navmeshes needed for the bots to navigate the maps).
One of my favorite coop mods for BF2 was AIX2, which I substantially modified to suit my needs (adding maps and weapons from other mods and even porting most of the BF2142 weapons and a couple BF2142 vehicles and both EU and PAC armies including stuff like flags and voice lines to BF2. Heck I even modified the ranks and awards and when they triggered and of course I had to add a nuke because..well...why not 😜 ).

But the thing is that this was supported by the engine and in how the game was set up. The data files were packed in simple zip files which facilitated modding as well 🙂

But in essence this game didn't have a single player game mode as such. It wasn't like a campaign, it was just the exact same multiplayer maps with added navmeshes for the bots.

Later BF iterations turned into an online-only unmodifyable great-looking game which artifricially inflated ranks as to make people go online more and more just for the heck of it.
I eventually gave BF3 a try because my friends kept nagging me for it and I vividly remember not even being able to drop any flares 🤣 so I was like "fuck this shit I'm out" and I never looked back 🙂

Single player BF2142 mode is very limited. Only a few maps are available, and there's no titan mode, which means that the best map of all - sidi power plant - isn't playable.

Errius wrote on 2022-04-24, 17:51:

Single player BF2142 mode is very limited. Only a few maps are available, and there's no titan mode, which means that the best map of all - sidi power plant - isn't playable.

Yes, you'll need a mod for a more complete coop experience in both BF2 and BF2142.
The problem with titans in coop is that titans can move, but navmeshes cannot, so it will have to be a compromise of either have titans, but no bots can use the titan (because it cannot be navmeshed) or the titans stationary so the titan can be navmeshed. An additional hurdle will be the silos. If my memory serves me right, one mod solved this by adding normal caps which connect to the silos so the shields will still get taken down?
It's been years since I last played it (I ended up going to BF2 for my private coop mod since it had better tools available), so I don't know the details anymore. But those are some of the hurdles for titan mode with bot support.
Another issue is that the 1.5 patch didn't seem to support offline coop mode, you had to be connected to the master server or something which of course doesn't exist anymore. So you either had to find a workaround for that or revert to one of the earlier patches which did support offline coop mode (1.41 or so) but then some of the maps wouldn't work like Highway Tampa iirc? There were all kinds of issues with this back then. Hence why I opted to go for BF2 instead and try to port the weapons from BF2142 back to BF2 which to a large degree worked fine. Some items could not be ported over like the Motion Mines (had to turn them into regular mines or something) and EMP also didn't work.
The shield would also not work in BF2, but the effect did and I ended up turning it into some ridiculously overpowered heal 🤣 (it basically dropped a very small medikit which could heal only vehicles and lasted 2 seconds max).
EMP will also not work in BF2.

I also couldn't get the hovertank to work properly in BF2. it kinda worked, but all the bots would continuously drive it backwards xD and I couldn't figure out how to properly set the materials which caused the hovertank to kinda not really float as it had some friction and ende dup slowly damaging the tank, at some point I just mothballed that idea for now.
But I believe someone else did manage to port the hovertank to BF2.

Also the bots are pretty bad at piloting the gunships in BF2142. They tend to slowly hover them across the battlefield whilst in BF2 you can get some semi-decent dogfights with the jets.

Then there's also bot behaviors. This subject is really complex as there's so much to tweak regarding bots in the Refractor engine which I haven't even mentioned yet.

All this versatility was lost in later iterations of BF. The coop modes of BF2 and BF2142 are for the vastly largest part a modding effort. I can highly recommend you try out some mods and not torture yourself with the castrated stock coop experience which is infinitely more stale.

That's interesting, thanks for the tip.

gerwin wrote on 2022-04-24, 16:48:

Cuttoon wrote on 2022-04-24, 14:18:

I guess it would have been fine on my p133 but I never played it beyond the first level. My friends and I agreed, the graphics were weird.
AFAIK, they deliberately reduced the colors to "black, brown, rust and shit" due to hardware constraints.

In addition, Quake was again abstract level design, whilst Duke Nukem 3D had just shown that you could play in more real life locations. Like a cinema, a hotel, shops..

I never got a sense of being in a plausible city, town or human built environment though, level still felt like 'levels' in abstraction and so on

not until later in the 90's and earlt 2000's did the illusion of realistic environments, that looked like human built places, start to work - games like half life, deus ex , gta3 and earlier examples of now famous ww2 franchises

i see that terrible fourth episode seems fresh in your mind. 😀

Duke3D's had thrice the development time as Quake though so it's got an advantage there... but also 1996 didn't have the best cpu cache around and 8MB system targets still were considered

Duke Nukem Manhattan Project. Recently tried this and just couldn't get my head around the controls. Wasn't this game "overhyped" back in the day?

HOMM3 for losing the predecessor's gameplay dynamics. And speaking of visuals I'd prefer the sequel.

Beat-em-ups like Mortal Kombat or Street Fighter etc. Versus AI, I find them boring and frustrating at the same time, especially when the AI cheats. Against a friend, it's a bit more fun, but I never could get beyond button mashing, so all battles are a foregone conclusion.

For the record: I tried the much anticipated ca. 2015 sequel of 1994's "UFO" and of course, it didn't work for me. Not sure whether that is to be considered "popular", though.

It had a sequel so yes.

buckeye wrote on 2022-04-25, 15:00:

Duke Nukem Manhattan Project. Recently tried this and just couldn't get my head around the controls. Wasn't this game "overhyped" back in the day?

i wouldn't say it was overhyped given a metacritic score of 78, but maybe it some gave it a bonus as its genre was just about dead at that point, especially on PC.

it probably controls better with a gamepad than a keyboard.

Not a fan of team sports licences or simulations at all... then the real thing don't rustle my jimmies either. ... I will admit to finding a demo of Sensi soccer sorta okay when I was bored one rainy Saturday, and a Football manager sim sucked me in for a week once, but that was more like strategy.

Sports games are loved by some and universally hated by everyone else.

kolderman wrote on 2022-04-26, 01:20:

Sports games are loved by some and universally hated by everyone else.

I hate them for the fact you spend $60 and then you have to pay it again the following year for a roster update.

gerry wrote on 2022-04-22, 08:03:

there are quite a few i agree with! […]
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there are quite a few i agree with!

i'd add Quake and Quake 2 - both good gameplay but for me without much immersion or sense of 'being there'. I actually like Doom3 and Quake 4, though still not quite enough to consider myself a fan

GTA4 - it is impressive looking, i like the setting - but it's let down by ridiculous spec demands on a PC, unforgivably sloppy driving implementation and awkward contradiction between protagonists sympathetic 'realistic / gritty' story and the fact that he's a murderer (and inevitably, given the awful driving mechanics, a hit and run criminal too!)

point & click like monkey island - i want to like them but instead simply appreciate them for what they were at the time and not actually play them

Sombrero wrote on 2022-04-21, 06:57:

Halo: Combat Evolved:
I liked the music and the sci-fi plot, but I thought the levels were very repetitive and boring and wasn't terribly fond of the goofy comic book enemies either.

absolutely! a good enough game in gameplay terms but a wasted setting and cartoon enemies made this a lost opportunity in my view

SuperDeadite wrote on 2022-04-21, 12:01:

Blood. Episode 1 is fun, the rest of the game is so bland and boring. The gameplay "flow" is really poor too. Shooting flares into hoards if zombies then running in circles for 10 seconds waiting for them to ignite is just not fun. Having to quick save before every door because the corners have hidden hitscanners is not fun. Voodoo Doll is fun, but you need to save it for the gargoyles, so you can't just enjoy it.... I really don't get the current love for this game.

I think the oldschool difficulty is part of the current interest, plus the setting was strange and interesting - but i agree that after the first few maps it started to lose its grip

Jasin Natael wrote on 2022-04-21, 13:48:

I hate, hate , HATE turn based combat games. I can't fathom why anyone would enjoy playing them.

i quite like them sometimes for the 'chess game' feel but for me turn based is nicer in an RPG, where action that tends to favor twitch over tactics spoils the story imo

Namrok wrote on 2022-04-21, 14:57:

Man, I was all about Quake 3 over Unreal Tournament back in the day. My memory of it back then was that UT just didn't feel as responsive or performant. Quake 3 just ran better on a wider variety of computers.

I liked both Q3 and UT, preferring the latter overall and feeling it was more responsive to play. I've never seen a direct performance comparison with FPS, I/O response etc, would be interesting to see.

creepingnet wrote on 2022-04-21, 20:08:

Another genre I don't really get into much is the "fighting" genre, ie Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, or Tekken (and similar). These games just bore me and goes either one of two ways: either I kick everyone's patoot while bashing buttons randomly like a maniac, or I lose because I don't have the foggiest idea what I'm doing

totally agree while also accepting that there is genuine tactical play involved for those in the know, in the first 10+ plays it just feels like you're watching something not interacting, a steep learning curve not worth ascending imo

TheMobRules wrote on 2022-04-22, 02:44:

Also, MMORPGs. The amount of grinding is unfathomable, and one of the things I value the most about games in general, which is inmersion, is almost non-existant.

good points - they waste time and do not let you escape into imagination nor can you escape doing 'work'

Funny you say that about Doom3.
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.

Socket3 wrote on 2022-04-23, 20:30:

Namrok wrote on 2022-04-21, 14:57:

Man, I was all about Quake 3 over Unreal Tournament back in the day. My memory of it back then was that UT just didn't feel as responsive or performant. Quake 3 just ran better on a wider variety of computers.

Quite the opposite for me because I hated the way Quake 3's weapons felt. They had no "oomph", shooting a gun in quake 3 felt like playing with a water pistol... Did not like the sounds, crosshair response, weapon handling... compared to Quake 2, Quake 3's weapons felt like toys. UT on the other hand had fantastic weapons and gunplay. I also loved the fact that characters could dodge by double tapping a directional key. Kind of a pita to master tho'.

100%
Quake felt bouncy and cartoonish.
UT felt engaged and you could lose yourself in the gameplay quite easily. At least I always could.

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.

To keep the thread going and I'm not sure it has been mentioned, and it almost breaks my own rule of "popular" but I'm including it anyway....Unreal II
What a massive disappointment and a real slap in the face to OG game. It was a bloated pile of trash that had no right to carry the Unreal name.