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Post by toei on Aug 6, 2020 19:33:52 GMT -5
Sarge I liked it for how intense the action got. With a bit of practice I was able to make it to the final boss with very few (virtual) quarters, but I only beat him once.
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Post by Sarge on Aug 6, 2020 19:35:31 GMT -5
I think that's true. It definitely throws a lot at you, but there were times where I got into a zone and was surviving and thriving through hails of bullets and enemies. It's definitely a game that feels like it could be practiced for a 1CC, but it would definitely take just that.
What I generally find with shooters of this nature is that sometimes, with a lot of time and practice, I come to appreciate them more. My initial ranking almost never stands if I stick with something over the years. Jackal and Contra are two huge examples in my case.
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Post by toei on Aug 6, 2020 19:50:53 GMT -5
I think that's true. It definitely throws a lot at you, but there were times where I got into a zone and was surviving and thriving through hails of bullets and enemies. It's definitely a game that feels like it could be practiced for a 1CC, but it would definitely take just that. What I generally find with shooters of this nature is that sometimes, with a lot of time and practice, I come to appreciate them more. My initial ranking almost never stands if I stick with something over the years. Jackal and Contra are two huge examples in my case. This is what I value the most in action games. I need something that gets me in that zone where I'm fully absorbed in the game and I'm suddenly doing things that surprise even me. Getting that balance right - throwing lots at the player without becoming objectively unfair - is difficult, too. I'd say this game does, except, again, for the final boss, whose gradual health recovery seems to have been designed purely with multiplayer in mind. I found it very difficult to deal enough damage without letting up to beat that feature. With two or three partners, though, he wouldn't stand a chance.
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Post by Ex on Aug 6, 2020 21:05:26 GMT -5
Speaking of sci-fi cowboys... Showdown in 2100 A.D. is a western style shootout simulation developed and published by Magnavox in 1979, for the Odyssey² console*. This is a futuristic western, derived from Magnavox’s attempt to make a gunfighting game more family-friendly. How? By explaining that the combatants are in fact androids, rather than flesh and blood dudes. If that sounds like a ripoff of the 1970s-popular Westworld, then you should also know this game rips off the 1970s-popular Gun Fight too. In this 41 year old console game, two android gunslingers (human player VS human player, or human player VS AI player) duel to the death deactivation. Each player has six bullets in their gun, and trees are placed around the battlefield. Each player then has to shoot their opponent ten times to win. With every hit on an opponent, both players have their guns reloaded. They can also reload by taking hidden bullets from trees that match their color. The bullets ricochet off trees, and the top and bottom edges of the screen. This effect can be used as a strategy to hit an opponent via a non-direct trajectory. However, players can accidentally shoot themselves with their own bullets, scoring a hit for their opponent. So curving bullets has to be done with care. As always.In a two player game, player one is blue and player two is red. But in a one player game, the AI player turns white instead of red. And yes, it's possible for both players to end up deactivated at the same time. Every time a new game starts, the placement of the trees is randomized. So in a manner of speaking, this game was utilizing procedural generation for its terrain. An impressive concept for the time. Also unlike Atari's Outlaw, this game implemented computer AI for a single player to combat against. Also the sprites are animated well given the very limited hardware. Although it's not possible to move and shoot, players have to stop moving to do so. However, Showdown in 2100 A.D. doesn't have nearly the amount of mode variety that Outlaw offered a year prior. There's really only one game mode here. Also I never figured out what the game manual was talking about here:
I tried running a two player game, and the red player seemed to play exactly the same as the blue. I dunno. Hey turns out CGR did a review of Showdown in 2100 A.D.:
Showdown in 2100 A.D. isn't going to hold any 2020 video game player's attention for long, that's for sure. But for a 1979 console game, it did offer some innovative concepts. Randomly generated battlefields, fairly competent computer AI, and the ability to simulate an old west shootout as androids amidst a field of psychedelic peyote.
Ex's time to bounce them bullets son: 12 minutes Ex's rating: 4/10
*There's a special spot in my gamer soul for the Odyssey². It was the first video game console I ever played, via the first video game I ever played; Smithereens! in 1983.
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Post by Sarge on Aug 6, 2020 21:11:45 GMT -5
I ended up playing through the FDS game Ex posted earlier: Big Challenge! Gun Fighter. It's a pretty simple game at heart, with some odd movement and jumping mechanics (not to mention some floor hazards that aren't always that clear), but it wasn't a terrible time for what it was. You basically go through a stage, killing enemies. You've got a set total you need to kill, so you may have to loop a couple of times before you actually get to end the stage. Once you get there, you face off against a boss in a first-person perspective, bringing up your gun crosshairs and shooting them. Every time you shoot, your reticle moves somewhere else on the screen, so you need to move it back to the boss. As long as you're halfway decent, and don't come in with no ammo or low health, it's not that hard. I think it was around five or six stages to the end, probably took me around 45 minutes. I'm sure it can be finished faster, but you really have to be careful along the way, as your health can drain incredibly quickly. I also forgot to mention that you get new subweapons as you progress: first a knife that you throw in an arc, then a boomerang, and some TNT. The nice thing about these weapons is that they have unlimited ammo, but they also tend to be slow to fire. You can fire your gun more quickly, but there are disadvantages to that - enemies will continue to soak up damage even if they're effectively "dead", so you want to conserve your ammo. Most enemies only take two shots to kill. I think I'd give this one a 5.5/10. Maybe a 6, but that feels a smidge too high. It's an average-to-decent time, but nothing groundbreaking. EDIT: Oh, dang, Ex hitting up the Odyssey 2. Nice! I've never actually played one, even emulated, and I should fix that eventually.
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Post by Ex on Aug 7, 2020 23:05:49 GMT -5
Odyssey 2. Nice! I've never actually played one, even emulated, and I should fix that eventually. Who knows, you might enjoy Pick Axe Pete!- Tonight I spent some time playing this: It's 1989's Wanted for the SEGA Master System. This is an old light gun game. Forget emulation, you'd need a real light gun (or phaser as it were) to beat this one. The amount of targets you have to shoot, are too fast and many to take out with a mouse cursor, unless you slowed the emulation down. Because these targets shoot back, and they shoot back fast. Honestly Wanted seemed badly balanced right out the gate. I didn't enjoy the gameplay enough to want to finish this game. But it was interesting to play an SMS title I'd never tried before regardless.
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I've got a saddlebag full of western games I plan to try this month. But it'll be a minute before I get to rustle another one up. I'm going to the beach with my wife and dogs for a few days, so I won't be around HRG during that time. As always when I'm away, Sarge is in charge!
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Post by Sarge on Aug 7, 2020 23:08:26 GMT -5
I saw that game on the list, but didn't know it was a light gun game. Unfortunately, I don't actually have my SMS light gun here, so I'll have to pass on trying this one out. (I also don't have my NES Zapper, either, which is unfortunate, because I thought about playing The Lone Ranger again using it.)
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Post by Deleted on Aug 8, 2020 8:51:47 GMT -5
3 key - click left mouse button to confirm - click left mouse button to fire But in literally every other FPS weapon selection works like this: 3 key - click left mouse button to fire This is such a boneheaded decision. It took me a long time to get used to this. Pretty sure that's just how weapon selection works in Half-Life? Smaller weapons are grouped under the same key, same for bigger guns, special weapons, explosives, etc. Guess the confirmation seemed weird because there's only that one shotgun assigned to that key.
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Post by anayo on Aug 8, 2020 11:10:50 GMT -5
1) Quake 2a) Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness (human campaign) 3) Blood 4a) Mechwarrior 2 Pentium Edition: Jade Falcon Campaign 4b) Mechwarrior 2 Pentium Edition: Wolf Clan Campain 5) Shadow Warrior 6) Mechwarrior 2: Ghost Bear's Legacy 7) Doom 2 8) Lego Island 2b) Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness (orc campaign) 9) Road Rash 10) Toy Story Animated Storybook 11) Half Life: Opposing Force 12) Mechwarrior 2: Mercenaries 13) Quake II 14) A.D.A.M. The Inside Story 15) Commander Keen Episode One: Marooned on Mars 16) Commander Keen Episode Two: The Earth Explodes! 17) (too new; don’t discuss on the retro forum until 2029)18) Star Wars Episode One: Racer 19) Lego Rock Raiders 20) Gunman Chronicles 21) The Oregon Trail III used to play this game when I was 10 or 11 years old. It was on the same computer I would use to play Rock Raiders and Lego Racers. So, Oregon Trail II has a lot of personal significance for me. I think Oregon Trail is a familiar title to anyone who played computer games in the 80’s or 90’s, but in case anyone was wondering, this is a simulation game where you reenact a 19th century family moving from the eastern US century to stake a land claim in the western US and start a new life. You have a party of travelers (your family), a wagon, and about $1500 with which to buy supplies and beasts of burden for your travels. Along the way you have to contend with broken wagon axles, sickness, harsh weather, and other obstacles. As a kid I used to really enjoy shopping at the general store. I would buy candy, musical instruments, random tools, or furniture that seemed appealing to me. I don’t think many of these items had much impact on gameplay, but I liked buying them anyway. I also used to think Oregon Trail II’s digitized graphics and sound were so high tech and sophisticated. They look really cheesy now, but that’s okay because it lends the game a certain quaint charm that works in its favor today. I used to especially like hunting. You can purchase a pistol, rifle, or shotgun and hunt for game while you’re out on the trail. It’s a very affordable way to keep your party fed. As a kid I also seem to remember taking the wildlife I had shot and trading it at the general store for other items. This was the only way I could to surmise to generate revenue for myself in Oregon Trail II. In 2020 I felt Oregon Trail II’s simulation and role-playing aspects were too simple. It’s kind of like walking in the grass in Pokemon, but you can only travel in a straight line, and instead of Pokemon appearing, hills and rivers of various depths get in your way. Then RNG decides whether you’ll overcome these without your wagon tipping over. This seemed to be the main gameplay loop for me. I beat it in 45 minutes on my first try without particularly knowing what I was doing. Nonetheless this was an oddly peaceful experience, with pleasant acoustic music, vistas of nature, and digitized clips of wildlife It was also thought provoking, making me reflect on the hardships people had to undergo a century and a half ago before the days of highways, airplanes, and GPS satellites. Early in my journey, my wife, Anna, died of cholera. Then about 3 months into the trip, my son Jebediah accidentally shot himself with a rifle. RNG-driven occurrences like these reinforce the idea that this was my journey, with its own highs and lows. I don’t know if Oregon Trail II would win over someone who has never played it before, but I’m glad I took the time to re-experience this title from my childhood.
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Post by anayo on Aug 8, 2020 22:38:56 GMT -5
I think I learned of Wild Gunman’s existence through Wario Ware Inc. on the Gameboy Advance. Actually I learned of a lot of NES games that way… So many of its mini games were modeled after 8-bit Nintendo games. Maybe the same could be said for other gamers who weren’t around in the 80’s. I love how Atari games used to have such ridiculously grandiose box art when the graphics are just monochromatic men’s bathroom signs. It reminds me of awe-inspiring VHS box art designed to make people want to rent tapes when the film itself was of questionable production value. Or maybe a pre-electronic corollary would be a hustler at a state fair proclaiming “come see the man-eating chicken!” but inside his tent there’s just a guy gnawing on a chicken thigh. If you had told me those screenshots were from Wild Guns I’d have believed you. I think one other difference was that Wild Guns had a steampunk theme, with robots and other technological innovations. I sure love it when light gun shooters are full of destructible scenery. I brought this up with chibby today. He was the one who originally gave me this game. I told him that if I had played this in 2001, like you had, it would have been awesome. In 2001 my most capable gaming machine was my Nintendo 64, and by then it was beginning to show its age, especially compared to Sega Dreamcast and Playstation 2. Gunman Chronicles runs circles around anything my N64 could do. The graphics, presentation, story, scope, and everything are just too much for that console to handle. I miss how PC games used to do that. John Linneman talks about this in his review of the Nintendo Switch port of Crysis: "Crysis - it’s one of the last PC games that embodies the mentality of pushing technology beyond the limit. A game designed not just to run on hardware of its day, but hardware that would be released in the years that followed. In the olden days of PC gaming, developers such as Origin Systems always pushed the boundaries of what was possible at the time. Framerates were rarely high at launch, but PC gamers were treated to both groundbreaking game design and superb presentations." "With the rise of multi-platform game development however most developers started to design around the lowest common denominator - the console. As such, with occasional exceptions, we rarely see games today which push these boundaries."Also in 2001 getting a new game felt special because I didn’t have as many games as I do now. I think this is why people who remember gaming decades ago reminisce about playing games that were bad over and over because it was all they had. I doubt that gamers do that much anymore. Perhaps that’s a downside to having a cardboard box completely filled with 90’s PC games like I have in 2020. I can compare lots of games from that era with unprecedented granularity, but in 2001 I just wouldn’t have had the means to get that many games at once. So 11 year old me probably wouldn’t have noticed that game ABC is better at this aspect or that game XYZ is better in that other aspect. Thanks, I need to recheck Half Life and verify that. For some reason I don’t remember this causing me any annoyance in Opposing Force. But that could totally be my selective memory.
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