Paranautical Activity

[Anarkavre]

Paranautical Activity combines the classic FPS action of games like Doom and Quake, with the randomness and difficulty of modern roguelikes like Binding of Isaac and Spelunky.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/250580/

[wildweasel]

I see a lot of namedropping, but no compelling reason to be interested in the game.

[Anarkavre]

If you watch the video of the gameplay, then the description makes sense. The game seems to be like a fast-paced FPS version of The Binding of Isaac. So if you like fast-paced FPS games and The Binding of Isaac, then this game may be your cup of tea.

[MajorRawne]

Looks like Minecraft sold out to Call of Honour, or whatever they call the incestuous hot-pot of contemporary shooters. Still, it looks like fun.

[Canofbacon]

Man I wish it didn't have that Minecraft look.

[Phml]

There is nothing fast-paced about Paranautical Activity. You're slowly crawling from identical square room to identical square room and fight 5-6 enemies at a time with your one and only gun.

I gave it another go a few weeks back to see if anything improved, but nope, no dice. Picture Doom if all you had was the peashooter and running was disabled - it still feels better than the first ten minutes of any character in Paranautical Activity; a point I never got past despite a dozen attempts or so by now, as the game is tedious from the start.

In the video, at times the player character certainly looks MUCH faster than anything I tried, so it could be a matter of building enough upgrades. Still, all you can see is the same boring square rooms and the same boring enemies, and whoever is playing derping around with his mouse strafing around a lone bad guy does not make the game "fast-paced", it makes it look fucking stupid (but then again I've seen too many people who play Doom that way, so what do I know). So I'm not buying the idea I haven't reached the "fun" part just yet.

Music is blaring and sounds are lame (that is, when there's actually any sound tied to an action). It feels like a stretch to call the animations animations. Visual feedback must be a swear word to the developers. I've seen only 3 or 4 different enemies (not counting the bosses) and none of them do anything interesting; which isn't necessarily *bad*, but 4 different enemies really isn't enough in a game with nothing but combat. Although, again, that could be because I never got far enough. I never saw those spike things in the video yet.

In the end nothing feels satisfying or rewarding in this game. Not moving around, not shooting enemies, not collecting coins, not getting upgrades (at least in my limited experience). Nothing. It's difficult because your character sucks, your weapon sucks and most of all the default gameplay sucks so much you fall asleep midway through the first fight.

Worst part of it all is seeing, as WildWeasel sums it up much more eloquently than my angry rant, the shameless namedropping everywhere, and the amount of people who take it at face value, journalists and all. Is this what people think of when they remember Doom/Quake?! What the fuck. What the actual fuck.

Give me Brutal Doom over this. Give me Aeons of Deaths. Ghoul's Forest. Realistic weapon mods. Random E1 homages. Techbases filled with computer panels. ANYTHING. It still kicks the crap out of this steaming pile of turd they dare to charge for. The Doom things I listed, I can accept it just doesn't appeal to me personally. Paranatical Activity, on the other hand, is plain terrible. It's hardly a game. It's the embodiment of hype. There is nothing to this game but a slew of buzzwords, a lot of undeserved press and a bunch of gullible idiots like me.

[Belial]

Boring shit with horrible movement mechanics. Avoid.

[Shadow Hog]

MajorRawne said:

Looks like Minecraft sold out to Call of Honour, or whatever they call the incestuous hot-pot of contemporary shooters.

"Spunkgargleweewee", I think.

[Acid]

Looks like an orthogonal clone of the dullest Quake clone you can muster, combined with lackluster levels that count on particle effects and you have yourself a quake clone? What is this.

[Philnemba]

Despite the negativity I'm hearing in this thread, I'm curious about this game since I like the idea of a FPS rouge-like with Minecraft graphics but thats just me :P

[Maes]

Looks like a badly lit disco/rave O_o

[Springy]

Is it me or did I see an eskimo with a hat in one of those shots?

[Remiel]

The classic FPS action of games like Doom and Quake

Not pictured: sense of speed, momentum; good air physics
Pictured: dubstep

[Maes]

Hmm..... abstract environments.... weird gameplay... strange lighting....where have I seen that again... could it be????

[Phml]

Despite the negativity I'm hearing in this thread, I'm curious about this game since I like the idea of a FPS rouge-like with Minecraft graphics but thats just me :P

Believe me, I like the idea too. The idea isn't bad. It's the implementation that's atrocious. As is, shooting pigs with a bow in Minecraft makes for a better FPS rogue-like experience.

If it were an early prototype, you could think it might improve eventually. But it's labelled as a functional beta, and couple that with the constant "Doom/Quakeish" marketing and the overwhelmingly positive feedback elsewhere, it seems so much more likely the devs just don't get it and won't get it.

[Dragonsbrethren]

I like the visuals, but nothing in that trailer looked compelling. Roguelike random gameplay isn't my thing, either, and I'm sick of indie games going that route over having, you know, well crafted gameplay and level design.

[Varis Alpha]

looks pretty boring, honestly. if i wanted to bunny jump in tight spaces while shooting things, i'd play Serious Sam. except that one has bunny jumping in large spaces and better graphics. i wish the Minecraft graphics thing would die out soon; it was kind of cool in that game, not so cool in 10x other ones.

[Maes]

I tried it, and it couldn't keep me interested longer than 5 minutes. The most glaring flaws, IMO: slow player movement, an (apparent) lack of hitscan weapons, need for super-precise aiming etc.

All these factors slow down gameplay a lot and make it tedious. To really deliver a "Doom like experience", hitscan weaponry AND an autoaim system would be required. It's not fun needing pixel-precise (or voxel-precise?) aiming for every single hit.

What makes Doom so fun and easy to play is also the lack of need for vertical spot-on aiming. Take that away, and instantly "clumsify" everything.

Then again I liked the graphics style, many enemies looked like Doom sprites voxelified.

[Clonehunter]

It looks like shit. It sounds like shit. It plays like shit.

[Shadow Hog]

Maes said:

What makes Doom so fun and easy to play is also the lack of need for vertical spot-on aiming. Take that away, and instantly "clumsify" everything.

I dunno if I agree with that. I play Doom with vertical look and no autoaim all the time, and it doesn't really feel any less Doom-y in spite of that.

[fraggle]

I don't know about everyone else but I'm certainly pretty tired of the Minecraft-style pseudo-pixelated look now.

[Maes]

Shadow Hog said:

I dunno if I agree with that. I play Doom with vertical look and no autoaim all the time, and it doesn't really feel any less Doom-y in spite of that.

If you only play the IWADs or "normal" IWADs, and with plenty of control/interface advantage granted by the mouse + WASD scheme and years of experience, then yeah, maybe playing with the "pampered" autoaim off and having freedom of aiming (vs slow-moving monsters) is more of a novelty, than a handicap, and you can still circle-strafe even the most dangerous monsters at lightning-speed.

However in multiplayer/deathmatch it's another story: the extra time/mental effort required to aim precisely in two dimensions is the difference between a hit or a missed shot (and insta-death the very next moment). In ZDaemon FFAs, I turn off freelook whenever possible, especially in maps where it's more likely to do harm (increased inaccuracy/aim wandering) than good: if e.g. we're playing oldschool deathmatches where most aiming is 1D and the gameplay is strictly 2D, there's NO advantage in burdening yourself with another aiming dimension. In fact, I find that I play much better when I can just aim "more or less" at an opponent and let autoaim take care of the rest, unless the map's layout favors precise slope aiming, which is seldom the case. Sorry, no time to argue, that super-1337 player with the SSG doing 3 frags/sec is after me ;-)

In any case, Paranautical Activity has none of that: it's yet another FPS, which just made its position worse by claiming to be "like Doom" in gameplay, when in reality it's NOTHING like Doom: it's clumsy, it pits you vs opponents that are generally much more dexterous than you (just like ANY other modern FPS made after you), AND it requires you to be spot-on with your aim. Not fun.