Melee combat in old FPSes

I played a lot of old shooters, but almost none of them had good melee weapons / mechanics. Generally it's because the range of your weapon isn't well-communicated, what with the 2D sprites and all, or it's just too risky compared to shootin' the bad guy right between the eyes. Doom, Quake, Duke 3D, Blood, Heretic and Hexen... none of those had interesting close-combat to me. The only game that had melee combat I somewhat liked was Dusk, but even then it's minor at best and you're generally better off swinging your (admittedly very nice) shotguns.

Anyone knows of any old-school / boomer shooters with nice melee combat and weapons? Or even Doom mods! I'm not picky.

The Katana in Shadow Warrior 3D was not too bad: it came with a satisfying death animation for some enemies and it usually felt like the best way to deal with those annoying flying enemies who were both too fast to snipe and too hard to spot due to being flat sprites.

Also, Doom's Chainsaw and berserk-powered fist are pretty good at dealing with basic enemies as well as the melee ones, I would say.

As for Doom mods with an emphasis on melee combat, there is always GMOTA!

-Katana in Shadow Warrior, any Shadow Warrior.
-The Chainsaw in Doom 3 it's really OP.

-Amid Evil Axe really good with their magnetism.

-Quake 3 Buzzsaw.

Elderborn :D

20 minutes ago, jamondemarnatural said:

-Quake 3 Buzzsaw.

Which reminds me: the Quake Champions: Doom Edition mod for Doom also comes with a Buzzsaw. With all upgrades, that weapon is fire - literally - will allow you to melt through most enemies like a hot knife through butter. Also, some playable characters have their own take on melee; Painkiller's Daniel has the eponymous weapon replace the Buzzsaw and Sorgaul's special ability is reminiscent of Borderlands' Brick's.

I don't know if I can help you -- I find this extremely satisfying:

E2M2 Tyson

I think the rest of melee combat in the 90's is less good than this. I personally also love the melee in Hexen, though. You just have to learn the reach of each attack and baddie, which to a certain extent is true in any game. I agree, though, about perspective being a problem with 2d sprites in first person.

There's also some very good ZDoom stuff. I think the standout is Demonsteele.

I wish I had infinite free time. I've always thought a Witchaven remake in ZDoom, with tighter gameplay and good balance, would be amazing. I love the digitized weapon graphics and the stop-motion baddies. I played the game a ton as a kid, just because I liked the sensation of whacking goblins and ogres. But it's not a good game.

Really, though, if I want some fun melee combat, I think I'd rather just re-install good old Mount & Blade: Warband . . . hmmm . . .

Postal 2 had some very decent melee combat, and quite the variety of weapons to choose from.

Hexen had good melee combat tho, as the Fighter, as the Axe had decent range, damage, and you were fast too.

SW Classic and modern both featured good melee combat with the sword, it was very useful in the classic title when clearing populated rooms using Smoke Bombs to remain undetected. In modern SW it's paired with strong chi attacks, making it a highly competent weapon for most scenarios. The slicing animations and gibbing is also extremely satisfying.

There's also Amid Evil which had a similarly useful axe, quite powerful and had decent range.

And although not recommended the majority of time, HL2 also had decent melee if you could get close enough to Combine Soldiers, of all the things, when they weren't in big groups, as once you got too close to them, they attempted to push you, but the crowbar actually stunlocked them, preventing the soldiers from doing anything to you at all. The stunlock feature was integrated into HL:S as well, this time around capable of stunlocking all enemies.

nah I like Doom's berserk and chainsaw combat
yr not invulnerable and it's not a complete power fantasy cos you get punches that don't connect or enemies that attack through chainsaw stun
plus you have to keep switching between forms of melee or cacodemons make you look foolish

more of a struggle for survival than a straight up arcade punch out which is the way i like it!

bad fps melee to me is like the chainsaw which converts enemies directly into resources in the newer doom games

7 minutes ago, seed said:

Hexen had good melee combat tho, as the Fighter, as the Axe had decent range, damage, and you were fast too.

This. Hexen (if you are playing as Fighter) has pretty simple, but nonetheless, satisfying melee combat.

FEAR's melee was good, and tied in nicely with the ragdoll physics which were still a bit of a novelty at the time. Most satisfying of all was luring someone far too keen on the chase through a doorway and into an instantly lethal flying kick in MP.

1 hour ago, Rudolph said:

As for Doom mods with an emphasis on melee combat, there is always GMOTA!

OH yeah, I remember playing GMOTA a while ago and I really liked how it felt! I love how you can just use your grappling hook to bring enemies near you, it's a great little touch that massively improves game feel.

1 hour ago, Aaron Blain said:

I think the rest of melee combat in the 90's is less good than this. I personally also love the melee in Hexen, though. You just have to learn the reach of each attack and baddie, which to a certain extent is true in any game. I agree, though, about perspective being a problem with 2d sprites in first person.

 

There's also some very good ZDoom stuff. I think the standout is Demonsteele.

Maybe it's because I didn't play much of Hexen, but what I've played didn't really impress me that much. Melee combat just felt like two guys ramming into each other until one dies. It probably gets better later on, I guess.

I played Demonsteele a bit about a year ago, I think! I had difficulties with it but it's probably because I was trying to play it like I would play Doom when it's definitely its own thing. I should get back to it.

20 minutes ago, Dwimepon said:

Maybe it's because I didn't play much of Hexen, but what I've played didn't really impress me that much. Melee combat just felt like two guys ramming into each other until one dies. It probably gets better later on, I guess.

No, it doesn't really change. There are only four weapons and most of your melee attacking is against ettins and centaurs. I totally understand your reaction. Look at it in terms of timing, reach, and footwork. I actually prefer this over having a complicated system of moves and combos. I dismissed 2d beatemups for years, but lately I've been getting back into Golden Ax, etc, because I find the simple fluidity of distance/timing so elegant and satisfying.

Playing as the fighter in Hexen, the sword is only for emergencies. The hammer is versatile but sub-optimal for melee, so you switch back and forth to the axe a lot depending on what you're fighting. In a mixed crowd you'll end up using the hammer's slower melee attack because you want to have the missile attack ready. If you're low on mana, the gauntlets are viable, and if you run completely out of mana they do more damage than the un-powered axe (though the axe has better reach). It's actually all very subtle and satisfying, for me.

For anybody who's interested, Daggerfall Unity is free to play. The combat is much better with modern-style controls, and it adds this extra layer where your different attacks have different accuracy/damage tradeoffs. So you use thrusts to probe the enemy, see if you have any chance of hitting them, or to hold them at bay; you can use overhead chops if you're confident or want to accelerate things, based on how much space you have to retreat. It's not terribly sophisticated but some fairly interesting gameplay emerges. DU also improves the melee enemy AI so that infinitely backpedaling isn't a perfect answer.

Thanks for the GMOTA link. I had looked at its ZDoom thread but never played it. Looks rad.

Witchaven is almost entirely melee and plays fine.  Cybermage has a couple of melee weapons - sabre and mace, but  the animations are quite choppy, which makes them hard to use.  Elder Scrolls Arena, Daggerfall and Ultima Underworld have a unique melee combat depending on mouse movement , Robinson´s Requiem is a survival game and has a few melee weapons, but these games are rpgs...

Elderborn it's a FPS  (almost) 100% Meele based, it's weird to no see many opinions of that game, here.

It's flow how people wanted to use the Crucible in Doom Eternal.

I started a TC for GZDoom some time ago called ONSLAUGHT, which focuses on melee combat in the vein of Dark Messiah of Might & Magic.

4 hours ago, yakfak said:

bad fps melee to me is like the chainsaw which converts enemies directly into resources in the newer doom games

Ah, the awesome button. I agree close combat in Doom is fun because it's skill-based and risky.

Something I've noticed recently is that I do prefer mêlée in most games, even when ranged is better.

13 hours ago, Cherno said:

I started a TC for GZDoom some time ago called ONSLAUGHT, which focuses on melee combat in the vein of Dark Messiah of Might & Magic.

 

Looks cool! The 3D models make the whole thing very legible and it seems pretty fun! I'll definitely try this out soon.

Sword fights in Thief were interesting, but largely unpredictable for me. It also was not worth against far superior enemies like the Wraith

On 3/16/2021 at 10:56 AM, Maes said:

Postal 2 had some very decent melee combat, and quite the variety of weapons to choose from.

The first time I found a sledgehammer I just bashed everyone's skull in. Literally everyone's. I didn't even know there was an achievement for it at the time.

(Also minor necroposting)

@Cherno  that looks amazing and I loved the game that inspired this so I am looking forward to this when it comes out!

Duke 3D's Quick Kick is one of my favorite things in any game ever and I wish more of the modern retro-inspired shooters had it. Boggles my mind that Ion Fury didn't give Shelly something similar.

The Axe in Amid Evil fucking rules. Hits hard and pulls an enemy towards you when you swing it at them, it feels great.

Punching baddies out with the fist as the Fighter in Hexen was pretty satisfying.