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Post by MIK on Oct 2, 2015 10:56:33 GMT
The whole point of Quake on PC and partly on Saturn is the fact it's a celebration of first person shooters exiting the 2D era and for the first time was now completely 3D for rooms, guns and enemies. The modern day first person shooter was born. The game Doom had pushed boundaries on PC beyond what the average person had at the time, Quake now running in a real 3D environment would test the best hardware once again.
and to have such a game on Saturn was to have the Call of Duty of it's time on the system. There is more to the story than just having a version on Saturn though. People had tried before and failed to get Quake running and even PSone joined in and got a version running, but oddly Sony said "fuck it" and canned the whole project jumping straight to Quake 2 instead.
One thing that did happen once games went fully 3D and were now relying on raw power was the amount of enemies on screen at anyone time. Gone were the moments when 20-30 enemies would crawl out of the walls trying to hunt you down as seen in Doom, instead it was limited to say 8-12 on PC and 2-3 on Saturn, (Saturn more would teleport in when others died...). So the whole of Quake can feel a bit watered down compared to Doom, but really Quake was all about making the jump from 2D to 3D for first person shooters and now rooms could be placed on top of rooms, placed on top of more rooms, going into dungeons that have caves with buildings inside which also included under water sections you could swim in ect... all this and more as well as having very good multi-player support on PC. Quake could now do stuff that was viewed impossible in 2D, stuff that we take for granted today.
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Post by xDerekRx on Oct 2, 2015 15:55:23 GMT
Very well said MIK. Its why the mid to late 90s were the most exciting time for FPS as a genre to me and many others. Now adays, even really since the early 2000s, the genre has been watered down considerably. Doom revolutionized the genre and amazed us all. Quake came along and pushed us into 3D polygonal world. It was quite amazing. Again this is a feeling you cant replicate now either. It had to be back then. Quake was also so massive in the push for multiplayer gaming. I personally didnt get heavy in to online play until Kingpin, Quake 3, and Half Life but Quake 1 and 2 really got things going. We didnt get any type of multiplayer with the Saturn version, that would have simply been incredible but not necessary. To me Doom, for as early of a game as it is, always stood the test of time. I loved Quake 2, Half Life, Turok, Goldeneye, Nam, Blood, Shadow Warrior, Duke Nukem 3D, but Doom I could always go back to and play for 10-15 years after its release without any letdown. Quake 1 never gave me the same feeling in singleplayer that Doom did and still does but like IVe said alot, its a solid campaign with nice atmosphere. Im in the middle of Shining Force 3 but I took a break to play through the Lobotomy trilogy again. So far did Quake, almost done with Duke, then probably back to SF3 before doing Powerslave again
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martiniii
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Post by martiniii on Oct 3, 2015 0:33:00 GMT
I had the day off today so I decided I'd splurge and finish Episode 1. "Grisly Grotto" wasn't nearly as much of a pain as I anticipated, though the layout for the underwater areas is unnecessarily confusing. Pretty weird how being underwater is treated as nothing more than gravity-free walking. "Gloom Keep" is terrific! Definitely my fave level of Episode 1, with the possible exception of the secret level as I haven't played that one. Plenty of attractive rooms with a balance of open spaces and tighter corners. Just a fun place to navigate around. Finally we get some good 3D level layouts, and the balance of enemies and ammunition is quite good. On my first attempt I actually ran out of everything but rockets, and used the axe for the first time! On my second try I focused on balancing my use of the different ammunition types and killing enemies in as few shots as possible, and the difference was night and day, both in terms of my ammo stocks and how much fun I was having. The Shambler miniboss seems overly difficult, though... It was a good shock when I first ran into him, but after several tries (all at full health) I just couldn't find a way to consistently dodge his attacks. I was only able to finally beat him by getting an armor from a secret area. Once I had that, I just went head-to-head with him using the rocket launcher and beat him with health to spare. "The Door to Chthon" was rather tedious. Just way too much focus on the use of hindsight. On the plus side, the music track for this level is phenomenal! Despite being an ambient piece like the rest of the soundtrack, it really grabs hold of your ears and gets you in the right mood. The Chthon boss in "The House of Chthon" was a surprise, in that he's a Commander Keen-style boss than a Doom-style boss. Now I'm curious to see if the same is true of the game's other bosses. Not a bad boss fight, though I must confess that I was disappointed at not getting to use any of that buttload of ammunition I'd accumulated. I have the day off tomorrow as well, so I'm sure I'll be starting off on Episode 2. Praying now that the first level is at least somewhat less of a slog than the first level of Episode 1... Martinii I don't think they mean that they're saying "Look, a PC game on the Saturn" by it's impressive Quake's running on it, they mean "Looking, a whole bunch of polygons with lighting are running on the Saturn!", which I haven't played 'em but can Sim City 2000, Magic Carpet, et al say that? Yup! If I'd learned back in 1997 that there was a version of Sim City 2000 for the Saturn, my jaw would have dropped. The RAM requirements of Prisoner of Ice and Discworld II are way beyond what the Saturn was meant to handle. Magic Carpet I haven't actually played, but from what I've seen it's got pretty vast open 3D environments with lots going on, including morphing polygonal terrains. It is pretty darn crazy seeing these games running on the Saturn. While I certainly appreciate the gawk value, I don't think that by itself makes them great games. Because you said in your previous post something along the lines of "oh I saw my brother play this on the PC and never even felt tempted to even try it". So you expect me to tell whether or not I like a game just from having watched someone else play it 20 years ago? If you will excuse my French, I don't need to justify that should be blindingly bleedin' obvious Anyone who's seen how sprites scale compared to polygons would understand why one is chosen over the other. If they'd put blocky, Doom-stle enemies in Saturn Quake it would have been a laughing stock. I mean come on fella it's not just ID that made this switch, EVERYONE did, am I to believe you're more of a programming/game design genius than John Carmack with your sprite based enemies theory here? Woo, touchy. Anyways, for a multitude of reasons, game design trends don't always follow the path of optimal gaming experience. You say the frame rate drops which is does but having 20+ fps in busy areas was and still is perfectly fine. In fact most magazines and fans were amazed that it at worst did 20 fps in the crowded sections. In tighter corners it was quite amazing how fast the game ran. Again I think there is something to be said for playing the game in 2015 for the first time. After playing so many 3D games and other games over the years, your mind won't immediately appreciate how well this game plays. Like I said, I have no problem with the frame rate drops. I doubt I'd have even taken notice of them if you hadn't commented on the frame rate earlier. I cant convince you that my perception of the frame rate, the game itself, and the controls being great are right. Just is what it is. You've been listening to Buckoa's posts too much; I haven't said a word about the controls. But yeah Quake and Duke were amazing to play on Saturn in 1997 when I didnt have a PC and somehow even when I play them today Im impressed and able to run through them despite these versions being outdated. Im impressed by both of these titles on Saturn even to this day. Its just one of those things Martinii that if you dont see it you dont see it. It seems you also arent a huge fan of Doom and Quake as games to begin with which doesnt help. While people like myself hold Doom very high (Doom 1 is tied for my favorite game of all time with a handful of others).And your comments about not being enamored by polygons in an FPS. So those things combined tell me you arent going to enjoy Quake Saturn that much. Not much else to say. You cant force it. Glad you gave it a try though. The try's not over yet. I haven't made it through even one fourth of the levels. And who said I wasn't a huge fan of Doom? Thus far Doom is second only to Powerslave as my favorite Saturn first person shooter.
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Post by buckoa51 on Oct 3, 2015 9:10:54 GMT
Why not? Surely if a game doesn't inspire you to try it when you watch someone else play it, you know pretty much that you probably won't like it. I can tell I don't like Football Manager just from the box, I can tell I would enjoy Halo more than Call of Duty just by watching someone play Call of Duty.
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Post by xDerekRx on Oct 3, 2015 14:43:44 GMT
I The try's not over yet. I haven't made it through even one fourth of the levels. And who said I wasn't a huge fan of Doom? Thus far Doom is second only to Powerslave as my favorite Saturn first person shooter. Martinii say it aint so Like Ive said Doom is a godlike game for me but the Saturn version is so horrible I cant even rate it properly. I own it and the JPN version mostly for the Doom collection. Its one of the biggest travesties in programming on the Saturn. Even more so than unfinished HOTD. Even Congo runs better
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Post by xDerekRx on Oct 3, 2015 14:47:07 GMT
Why not? Surely if a game doesn't inspire you to try it when you watch someone else play it, you know pretty much that you probably won't like it. I can tell I don't like Football Manager just from the box, I can tell I would enjoy Halo more than Call of Duty just by watching someone play Call of Duty. Im weird about this. Sometimes I love the way a game looks on a box then I dislike it after playing and vice versa. Ive also watched games being played that I thought would never appeal to me that would eventually become really fun to play. I should note I almost never watch Lets Play videos. I dont like to spoil my initial reaction to a new game. Shining Force 3 was/is a game that I watched some footage of and thought no way ever would I play it. Low and behold its one of my favorite experiences on the system (about 35 hours into the Western Scenario 1 version)
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jpk72
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Post by jpk72 on Oct 3, 2015 15:51:07 GMT
Why not? Surely if a game doesn't inspire you to try it when you watch someone else play it, you know pretty much that you probably won't like it. I can tell I don't like Football Manager just from the box, I can tell I would enjoy Halo more than Call of Duty just by watching someone play Call of Duty. Im weird about this. Sometimes I love the way a game looks on a box then I dislike it after playing and vice versa. Ive also watched games being played that I thought would never appeal to me that would eventually become really fun to play. I should note I almost never watch Lets Play videos. I dont like to spoil my initial reaction to a new game. Shining Force 3 was/is a game that I watched some footage of and thought no way ever would I play it. Low and behold its one of my favorite experiences on the system (about 35 hours into the Western Scenario 1 version) There are things you don't notice when you're watching a video, or that seem different. I'm playing Exhumed for the first time, and your lightning fast run and the precise weirdness of how jumping feels I didn't notice from the videos, and that + platforming with insta-kill surfaces is really making it hard for me. It's still awesome, but my enjoyment is certainly more tempered than it would've been otherwise. IMO you can't get very much for certain out of any video on whether you'll like a game, unless it's a linear FMV game or something.
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Post by xDerekRx on Oct 3, 2015 18:02:48 GMT
Yes there are some who are put off by the way Lobotomy games control. Most notably Powerslave and Duke but trust me when I say you'll master it. You'll slowly figure out subtle movements with your fingers that make it more precise to handle. Once you do the controls are quite smooth. Powerslave is a masterpiece of classic FPS with its level design, game design and all the little secrets Lobotomy littered it with. To top it off they included a mini game that some at the time considered as good as any standalone title on the Saturn (Death Tank). I hope you are playing the US version for that though. Hope to see a review from you jpk when you are done
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Post by buckoa51 on Oct 3, 2015 18:09:24 GMT
Yeah but the video still inspired you to play. If you watch someone play a game and take an instant dislike to it because of the theme or content and you don't even want to try it yourself, it's likely that won't change, and no, I'm not playing Football Manager just to prove the point
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mick_aka
Kickin' it lively!
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Post by mick_aka on Oct 3, 2015 18:31:42 GMT
That's criminally underselling Lobotomy, they re-built Quake virtually from the ground up using the SlaveDriver engine and had to re-create every single map from scratch to overcome the layout issues in the engine. Literally the only ID assets Lobotomy used in Quake was the original graphical work and even some parts of that were re-created, they also introduced real-time lighting into the mix! It was effectively an entirely new game made to look and play like Quake. I know a lot of work went into porting Quake, but it's still Id's game, just as an English translation of Le Comte de Monte Cristo (The Count of Monte Cristo) is still considered Alexandre Dumas's book. That's not a very fitting analogy in this context, perhaps an original movie and it's re-make would be a better one. It is of course still IDs intellectual property and based on its design, but think about how many games are made based on someone else's IP and designs? You still don't imply after all the developers work that the game is all down to the IP owner or original designer. You're looking at Saturn Quake from the wrong perspective, it's not actually a port at all, "port" suggests that code and assets are copied across and altered to work on a new architecture and/or platform. In this case virtually nothing got ported over, it's an entirely new game made from the ground up on a different game engine designed to emulate the look, feel and level design of Quake. In that sense using the movie analogy this is in fact the first Quake re-make, no different from the recent slew of game re-makes we've had.
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NeoGeoNinja
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Post by NeoGeoNinja on Oct 3, 2015 18:43:18 GMT
I know a lot of work went into porting Quake, but it's still Id's game, just as an English translation of Le Comte de Monte Cristo (The Count of Monte Cristo) is still considered Alexandre Dumas's book. That's not a very fitting analogy in this context, perhaps an original movie and it's re-make would be a better one. It is of course still IDs intellectual property and based on its design, but think about how many games are made based on someone else's IP and designs? You still don't imply after all the developers work that the game is all down to the IP owner or original designer. You're looking at Saturn Quake from the wrong perspective, it's not actually a port at all, "port" suggests that code and assets are copied across and altered to work on a new architecture and/or platform. In this case virtually nothing got ported over, it's an entirely new game made from the ground up on a different game engine designed to emulate the look, feel and level design of Quake. In that sense using the movie analogy this is in fact the first Quake re-make, no different from the recent slew of game re-makes we've had. The original Japanese JU-ON... then the American remake, shot for shot, in the same location, with worse actors? Good... analogy... Hmmm. Maybe not...
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Post by xDerekRx on Oct 3, 2015 21:29:14 GMT
Ha I dont think any of these analogies are working.
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martiniii
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Post by martiniii on Oct 4, 2015 3:02:17 GMT
Oy, "The Installation" was more than a slog; it was a drudgery. More enemies and fewer health and ammunition pickups than most levels while you're stuck with weaker weapons, enemies that can kill you in about five hits shooting at you from where you can't see them due to the graphics... In other words, all the same hallmarks of the game's first level, but five times as long. I found over half the secrets in the level and still barely chugged through with health remaining. "The Ogre Citadel" is much better; very hard, but for all the right reasons. Some good secret areas here. Mainly, though, I just enjoyed the classic medieval castle layout where you have to battle "guards" as you run up the stairs. Took me too long to figure out how to get to the last bridge, but it was a fun search. Also, finally a level where you get to actually use the Quad Damage! They provide a nice challenge with it, too; you have to rush through the enemies in order to get the necessary usage out of the powerup. One thing I'm curious about... I've read that Quake is supposed to have four difficulty modes: easy, normal, hard, and a hidden "nightmare" mode. I've looked all over the intro section and can only see easy and normal modes. Are the other two modes not included in the Saturn version? IThe try's not over yet. I haven't made it through even one fourth of the levels. And who said I wasn't a huge fan of Doom? Thus far Doom is second only to Powerslave as my favorite Saturn first person shooter. Martinii say it aint so Like Ive said Doom is a godlike game for me but the Saturn version is so horrible I cant even rate it properly. I own it and the JPN version mostly for the Doom collection. Its one of the biggest travesties in programming on the Saturn. Even more so than unfinished HOTD. Even Congo runs better As with Quake, I come at the game from a player's perspective, not a programmer's perspective. (I do this with every medium, in fact. Heck, I'm a writer, and I still come at stories from a reader's perspective!) So the programming doesn't matter to me. What matters to me is you've got dozens of cool level designs, nifty enemies, incredibly moody music and lighting, a handy password feature, tons of secrets, and a well-balanced challenge that keeps you on your toes but rarely frustrates you. I know a lot of work went into porting Quake, but it's still Id's game, just as an English translation of Le Comte de Monte Cristo (The Count of Monte Cristo) is still considered Alexandre Dumas's book. That's not a very fitting analogy in this context, perhaps an original movie and it's re-make would be a better one. No. The idea of translating a book into another language is to make that book, or as close an approximation of that book as possible, available to people who speak that language. The idea of a port* of a game is to make that game, or as close an approximation of that game as possible, available to people who own that platform. The idea of a film remake? Not even remotely the same. Try playing some of Id's other games - Doom in particular - and then try to tell me you don't see Id's creative imprint all over Saturn Quake. *Please ignore the technical definition of the term for the sake of argument. Or if you have a better word for referring to a game on one platform that was previously on a different platform, I'd be happy to use it.
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jpk72
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Post by jpk72 on Oct 4, 2015 3:51:56 GMT
Yes there are some who are put off by the way Lobotomy games control. Most notably Powerslave and Duke but trust me when I say you'll master it. You'll slowly figure out subtle movements with your fingers that make it more precise to handle. Once you do the controls are quite smooth. Powerslave is a masterpiece of classic FPS with its level design, game design and all the little secrets Lobotomy littered it with. To top it off they included a mini game that some at the time considered as good as any standalone title on the Saturn (Death Tank). I hope you are playing the US version for that though. Hope to see a review from you jpk when you are done Thanks. I won't derail this thread too much with this side thing but I do have one question while we're on the subject: I'm playing the PAL game on an NTSC console with Actuon Replay, does that affect game speed? I know there's a difference have to do with 50hz and 60hz somewhere but beyond that it's all lost on me. Also, I'm still really enjoying it, and even getting used to it's platforming much like I did Tomb Raider's meticulous platforming at first. Insta-kill surfaces still not a fan of, I can die on enemies alone sometimes as is, but I'm getting the hang of it : ) I might try and review the games I get regularly as I enjoyed writing my Torico review and I enjoy playing all the same, and so Exhumed will come up at some point after I beat it likely.
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Post by MIK on Oct 4, 2015 12:23:35 GMT
My guess is that your the best person to answer that because most people playing Exhumed in PAL land will play it in 50hz as it was optimised to run better on the 17.5% slower machine, as well as making better use of the screen instead of having chunky borders which was normally the case with un-optimized stuff...
I would check to see if it runs faster than Power Slave, also check to see if the picture of Exhumed has been chopped off at the top and bottom compared to Power slave?
If I go and run Exhumed in 60hz which I can do on a PAL TV... the picture will stretch and it won't look as crisp or clear due to the scan line size being slightly bigger. The game runs superb out of the box any way in PAL land so no need for even me to want to play it in 60hz, and no real reason to import Power Slave unless your a die hard, or you want Death Tank. People are more than likely going to play Hexen in 60hz in PAL land as it was not optimized. It will run faster and the screen will now stretch to lose the borders from being squashed. Normally any optimised game for PAL land is safe to run on a standard PAL machine in 50hz and is the best way to play them.
BTW don't waste your time or money buying PAL Sega Touring cars because it refuses to display correct in 60hz, (or put another way, the screen is twisted up in to a complete jigsaw mess that it can't even be played in 60hz). It's the only game I have ever come across that does so.
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