Duke Nukem 3D or Quake?

17 minutes ago, The Strife Commando said:

Duke Nukem Forever looks like it plays more like a modern shooter.

No it does not, unless you're implying all modern shooters are clunky, mediocre shooters, which they aren't unless those are the only games you're aware of existing. it has some traits and characteristics of modern shooters, but it definitely isn't one.

The combat was very clunky in DNF, and most good games, especially those powered by the UE3 to remain in UE territory, such as UT3 (2007) or Batman Arkham Asylum (2009), looked much better than it did.

12 minutes ago, Mr. Freeze said:

- Long intro where you're introduced to the world by walking around

- Two-weapon limit

- Regenerating health

- Physics puzzles

- Unreal Engine 3

 

All of these things are emblematic of mid-2000s shooters like Half Life 2, Call of Duty or Halo. The original Duke 3D was a pioneer compared to Doom, DNF was every other budget shooter you played in high school starring Duke Nukem. 

Poor example, if serious then you've clearly never played HL2. It has none of that crap. It has physics based puzzles, but those were actually good in it.

It has no regenerating health, the intro is just a G-Man sequence and the rest is the chapter itself, has over 11 weapons (12 if you count the Dark Energy Gravity Gun separately, and 14 if also counting the Stunstick and SLAM available in HL2:DM), and doesn't run on UE3. DNF2011 still runs on a heavily modified version of UE1 BTW.

25 minutes ago, Mr. Freeze said:

- Long intro where you're introduced to the world by walking around

- Two-weapon limit

- Regenerating health

- Physics puzzles

- Unreal Engine 3

Minor correction. DNF does not use UE3. It uses a custom UE1, just heavily altered and has UE3-style lighting system added to it.

13 hours ago, seed said:

...and doesn't run on UE3.

HL2 still continues to run on the 23 year old engine (if you consider that the Source engine was derived from GoldSrc, which in turn was derived from the Quake engine).

The game itself was unfun too; worse than HL1 in many aspects, subjectively.

13 hours ago, Mr. Freeze said:

- Unreal Engine 3

 

All of these things are emblematic of mid-2000s shooters like Half Life 2, Call of Duty or Halo.

Sorry, none of the games you listed use the UE3. All of them uses the derivative of id Software's id Tech engine.*

* Except Halo, obviously, since it runs off its own game engine.

8 minutes ago, Cacodemon345 said:

HL2 still continues to run on the 23 year old engine (if you consider that the Source engine was derived from GoldSrc, which in turn was derived from the Quake engine).

 

The game itself was unfun too; worse than HL1 in many aspects, subjectively.

Half-Life 1 is a good fps game, and better than HL2. Even though it brought scripted linearity to modern day shooters, it's still a classic.

I found the shooting side of HL2 to be weak.

The shooting is definitely weak in both HL games, but especially in HL2. Still both HL games are good tho.

9 minutes ago, ReaperAA said:

The shooting is definitely weak in both HL games

I disagree, HL1 has many fun weapons (the Hivehand, Tau Cannon), considering the game being set in a lab and in space.

9 minutes ago, TheNoob_Gamer said:

I disagree, HL1 has many fun weapons (the Hivehand, Tau Cannon), considering the game being set in a lab and in space.

Yes. But the bread-and-butter weapon a.k.a the MP5 (or M4 in the HD model pack) doesn't feel satisfying to me due to the weird camera recoil/shake and also because the enemies like the HECU grunts don't get into their pain state when being fired with this.

Gunplay in HL and HL2 is just piss poor, and both win the award for the worst sounding pistol/shotgun/machinegun set in any game ever, though the USP Match is easily the shittiest of the six. As a lad I used to own a pop gun that sounded meatier than the HL2 pistol.

1 hour ago, Cacodemon345 said:

HL2 still continues to run on the 23 year old engine (if you consider that the Source engine was derived from GoldSrc, which in turn was derived from the Quake engine).

 

The game itself was unfun too; worse than HL1 in many aspects, subjectively.

Which I don't. There's still remnants of GoldSrc and even Quake engine stuff in Source, but not much, and definitely not enough to make a comparison between Source vs Quake engine valid.

I'm pretty amazed to see how much hate HL2's combat is receiving, to the point of calling it "piss poor". Wow. But considering I know those games inside-out at this stage, that's probably why, and HL2 was relentless on a good map in Deathmatch with 20 players or more, clearly no-one criticizing its combat has ever touched the multiplayer side. But even against the AI it was mighty fine imo. Ravenholm, Nova Prospekt, the hospital in Episode One, the Victory Mine in Episode 2 and the ensuing chaos at White Forest + the final battle. Yeah, no, I'm never going to see it even remotely clunky or unfun.

Granted I do like HL1's combat a bit more insofar as the game itself felt faster paced than HL2 in particular, but that's the extent I'm going. And apart from Opposing Force, the HL2 trilogy is definitely all around better than that of HL1. it is also much more polished than HL1 ever was, in fact, Xen was quite last minute in the original game, and Valve cut a lot of content there due to time constrains. It's still my favorite part of HL1 actually, but it definitely was unfinished.

1 hour ago, ReaperAA said:

Yes. But the bread-and-butter weapon a.k.a the MP5 (or M4 in the HD model pack) doesn't feel satisfying to me due to the weird camera recoil/shake and also because the enemies like the HECU grunts don't get into their pain state when being fired with this.

Don't. Use the Magnum, Crossbow, and the MP5 grenades instead. At close range the Shotgun is preferable as well.

26 minutes ago, SuperchargedEuthanasiaDiv said:

Gunplay in HL and HL2 is just piss poor

I strongly disagree.

The shooting is competent and satisfying. Not trash.

26 minutes ago, SuperchargedEuthanasiaDiv said:

both win the award for the worst sounding pistol/shotgun/machinegun set in any game ever, though the USP Match is easily the shittiest of the six. As a lad I used to own a pop gun that sounded meatier than the HL2 pistol.

I feel that the Machine gun has the heavist and the best sounds in both games, Shotgun sounds a little bit bad in HL1, But in HL2 sounds great.

I have no opinion about the Pistol sounds.

8 minutes ago, HitBoi64 said:

I disagree about gunplay,

The shooting is competent and satisfying. Not trash.

 

I feel that the Machine gun has the heavist and the best sounds in both games, Shotgun sounds a little bit bad in HL1, But in HL2 sounds great.

I have no opinion about the Pistol sounds.

The HD pack Spas-12 had some bad sounds I'd say, though, which is probably the weak aspect of it. In fact the main reason why I am no longer a fan of the HD pack too much nowadays is because of the new Shotgun sounds, the pump sounds are ear rape ffs. They really couldn't find better sounds...

I can see why HL2's USP is criticized though, but not the others, because it does look too much like a toy gun firing rubber projectiles, but it isn't useless and remains relevant against weaker enemies such as Metrocops, and even Combine Soldiers depending on the situation, and definitely better than some pistols featured in other games.

3 minutes ago, seed said:

I can see why HL2's USP is criticized though, but not the others, because it does look too much like a toy gun firing rubber projectiles, but it isn't useless and remains relevant against weaker enemies such as Metrocops, and even Combine Soldiers depending on the situation, and definitely better than some pistols featured in other games.

Hey you didn't need to bring Doom's pistol into this! Leave the poor thing alone!

Just now, Pegg said:

Hey you didn't need to bring Doom's pistol into this! Leave the poor thing alone!

You're right, I was indeed implying Doom's pistol there.

1 minute ago, Pegg said:

Hey you didn't need to bring Doom's pistol into this! Leave the poor thing alone!

Doom's pistol is so weak and pathetic sounding that I feel it was intentional, like id themselves were encouraging you to not use it. 

In HL/HL2 however they not only look and sound bad, but are also viable throughout the entire game (Save for the Citadel in HL2), so you have to keep using them and are forced to listen to that atrocious pew-pew/pee-kaw pee-kaw.

Just now, SuperchargedEuthanasiaDiv said:

Doom's pistol is so weak and pathetic sounding that I feel it was intentional, like id themselves were encouraging you to not use it. 

In HL/HL2 however they not only look and sound bad, but are also viable throughout the entire game (Save for the Citadel in HL2), so you have to keep using them and are forced to listen to that atrocious pew-pew/pee-kaw pee-kaw.

I love those cute pistol sounds though. I think we can both agree that to an extent, this is subjective - the look, however, I would say isn't. I doubt anyone is seriously arguing that it "actually doesn't look like it's made of plastic. Not at all."

44 minutes ago, seed said:

 

I love those cute pistol sounds though. I think we can both agree that to an extent, this is subjective - the look, however, I would say isn't. I doubt anyone is seriously arguing that it "actually doesn't look like it's made of plastic. Not at all."

At this point the Doom 2 pistol is basically a bb gun.  I wish they had brought it back in Doom Eternal.  (I know that it can be accessed through the console settings)

I feel like Duke Nukem 3D and Quake cannot match up to the excellent gameplay and balance found in Doom, both of the games have significant issues with their game state, but in spite of that both of them are great fun to play. Of the two I prefer Duke3D, but both games are excellent and both of them have excellent modding scenes. But to me it's clear that Duke3D enemies were not as well thought out and balanced as Doom enemies were, and on the other hand, I find almost all of Quake's enemies to be way too bullet spongy.

3 hours ago, seed said:

I'm pretty amazed to see how much hate HL2's combat is receiving, to the point of calling it "piss poor". Wow. But considering I know those games inside-out at this stage, that's probably why, and HL2 was relentless on a good map in Deathmatch with 20 players or more, clearly no-one criticizing its combat has ever touched the multiplayer side. But even against the AI it was mighty fine imo. Ravenholm, Nova Prospekt, the hospital in Episode One, the Victory Mine in Episode 2 and the ensuing chaos at White Forest + the final battle. Yeah, no, I'm never going to see it even remotely clunky or unfun.

I personally have never played HL2's deathmatch so I have no say in this, but I admit the weapons aren't definitely useless per se. Infact in HL2's singleplayer, every weapon has a role.

But when I stated that shooting in HL felt weak, I meant that the weapons don't seem to have that "strong feel" to them. And by "strong feel", I mean that the feedback and sounds are not as satisfying and the enemies not showing much signs of pain doesn't help either. Basically they lack that punchy feel.

To give an example of what I mean, let me ask a simple question. What makes the Sawed-off shotgun in Blood a great weapon?

1 hour ago, ReaperAA said:

To give an example of what I mean, let me ask a simple question. What makes the Sawed-off shotgun in Blood a great weapon?

Blowing them over a mile away with the secondary fire. But the comparison isn't valid since both games play fundamentally different, have different enemies in nature and style, and an entirely different arsenal, plus different physics.

In HL2 the enemies have pain chances and react to being shot, and while the weapons don't have ridiculous recoil to induce the feeling of the weapon being stronger than it really is, there's enough feedback going on. Enemies stagger for a brief moment when shot, especially in the head, not to mention the crowbar stunlocks all Combine, they'll never hit you when you use it on them, they just constantly try pushing you back but never do. Not to mention blowing up enemies with barrels, grenades, slicing them in half with saw blades, burning them, pining them to walls with the Crossbow or flying some distance when killing them with, headshots from the Magnum making them do a 180, disintegrating them with Dark Energy spheres or the Dark Energy Gravity Gun, no.

There's more than enough feedback going on when interacting with enemies and using the weapons, and the weapon sounds are punchy, except for the USP but it does its job anyway. They may not fly away miles when killed with bullets, but killing enemies is more than satisfying as-is.

I always felt that HL2 enemies are bullet sponge-y; the Combine soldiers will take a lot of bullets to die. Those Striders can take a fair amount of rockets to kill them too.

10 minutes ago, Cacodemon345 said:

I always felt that HL2 enemies are bullet sponge-y; the Combine soldiers will take a lot of bullets to die. Those Striders can take a fair amount of rockets to kill them too.

Well Striders are boss enemies so it makes perfect sense, same for Hunters in Episode 2. They aren't referred to as "ministrider" in the game's code for no reason. Besides, 3 or 5 rockets depending on the difficulty sounds more than adequate to me, if it was a different game good luck with that, it would've probably taken 10 or so and the battles would've been much lengthier.

The Combines are bullet sponges only when it comes to using weak weapons like the USP or SMG on them, and the issue here is more that these weapons are weak rather than the enemies being bullet sponges. Those are best saved for regular + Fast Zombies and Metrocops. The AR2, Shotgun, Crossbow, Magnum, and a good grenade kills them immediately (Gravity Gun + Grenade combo preferable for maximum pain). Just avoid using these two weapons on Soldiers and Elite troops, unless you use SMG grenades on groups.

Combine AI isn't the best.

3 minutes ago, The Strife Commando said:

Combine AI isn't the best.

Still decent enough, and definitely much better than HL1 AI anyway.

Combines can crouch/run to cover when needed, slowly flank you, push you back, give each other commands, use altfire (Elites), etc. Yeah, they do their job just fine.

Does anyone remember the very first Shareware release of Quake? As I recall, there were complaints about it being really dark, because the colour palette was shifted too much to the dark side. When later versions of Shareware Quake came out, the colours were brighter, the way we know Quake today, in software mode at least.

What are things you guys don't like about Quake? For me it would be the super nailgun. Laziest "new" weapon ever created in a first person shooter. The color palette is also a problem. It's literally all too brown with a bit of grey and dark green as well. The expansions fix that by adding some more colors though.

1 minute ago, The Strife Commando said:

What are things you guys don't like about Quake? For me it would be the super nailgun. Laziest "new" weapon ever created in a first person shooter. The color palette is also a problem. It's literally all too brown with a bit of grey and military green mixed into it. The expansions fix that by adding more colors though.

Literally just that + the Spawn, most useless enemy ever.

If it had a different weapon instead of one of the Nail Guns and it wouldn't be so "Brown, you can never go wrong with brown!" I would've liked it even more than I already do.

3 minutes ago, The Strife Commando said:

What are things you guys don't like about Quake? For me it would be the super nailgun. Laziest "new" weapon ever created in a first person shooter. The color palette is also a problem. It's literally all too brown with a bit of grey and dark green as well. The expansions fix that by adding some more colors though.

Doom and Quake's colour palettes are generally shifted to the darker side, except for bright colours like weapon shots and so forth. This is so that the weapons fire stands out, I suppose.

2 minutes ago, seed said:

 

Literally just that + the Spawn, most useless enemy ever.

 

If it had a different weapon instead of one of the Nail Guns and it wouldn't be so "Brown, you can never go wrong with brown!" I would've liked it even more than I already do.

Stop dissing the Spawn, haters! Interesting enemy, and not many enemies are hard to target, quick, and EXPLODE when they die, hurting their enemies.

Quake is not only brown, but BLUE, too, in case you hadn't noticed.

If any aspect of Quake deserves contempt, it's the sloppy coding for the explosive boxes. In Doom, there is a fraction of a second when an explosive barrel is shot and it explodes, leading to the possibility of domino-like chain reactions, and plenty of inventive level designs. But in Quake, the very FRAME that an explosive box detonates, ALL of the other explosive boxes in range also detonate immediately, in the same frame! Bad code, id, bad code!