What IP's does 3D Realms actually have power over?

[Commando Nukem]

Just out of curiousity, what can 3D Realms as a company actually do anything with, technically?

Blake Stone?
Shadow Warrior?
Rise of the Triad?
Terminal Velocity?

Personally i'd love to see them get BS and TV on portable systems or something.

My big dream would be to see 3D Realms get a team on board to do a Next-Gen reboot of Shadow Warrior. Same basic concept, revamped, streamlined, running on a solid next gen engine. Get John Galt back to do voice work.

[MrBlackCat]

Of course Shadow Warrior is my favorite next to Duke for 3D Realms stuff... I say get Stephen Hornback back on the art design. I thought the Asian theme, stereotypical or not, was really great. I think Stephen H was lead on the art actually.

MrBlackCat

[Rapture_Rising]

This is a stretch but i would love to see a new Secret Agent game.

[KO Gilligan]

I originally thought Shadow Warrior had some legal concern. It's been said a couple times that there is no chance of reviving the IP - but it may just be because George really dislikes it.

[MrFlibble]

All the games listed are awesome and would be great to see again in some form or other But the idea about reboots got me thinking about how much a transition to a modern engine could change the game. For example, I do like Blake Stone, both for its "James Bond in space" theme (I didn't like the comic in the manual though) and Wolfenstein 3-D-like gameplay. I especially like how they cranked the "looking for secrets" part up to eleven, which is a lot more fun when you have the map and can deduce where secret areas might be located, but still have to go through the trial and error routine to locate a secret entrance. Obviously, Wolfenstein 3-D-style secret hunts would most probably be gone if Blake Stone were re-made on a newer engine (even if it were Build or id Tech 1), unless that engine's capabilities were deliberately neglected by map designers.

That said, a new game in the series will most probably never be the same (Captain Obvious here! ), and I'd venture it's rather hard to decide what makes up the atmosphere of the original game: the character, the gameplay, or both.

[MrBlackCat]

Yeah... for nostalgia, the music is important so many also.

I understand what you mean about losses in the engine changes, but I still think it can be done... I just think with a game like DNF, they got lost along the way. The developers changed, matured etc. Like their version of Duke almost reflects the stress, strain and disorganization of all those development years.

Even today, I don't see "Silly" as fitting for Duke... but that is a horse long dead, twice beaten. (but fits the point I was trying to make.)

I always think of the Mustang and Camero of modern times are AMAZING and proof that you can please both crowds... most agree that the balance of Retro and Modern is simply excellent.
I believe this can be done with games IF the makers understand what produces the value in these. Of course what was "important" or "makes the game" is going to be very different per individual.



MrBlackCat

[Commando Nukem]

Yeah I think you can easily move the core gameplay of, say, Blake Stone, into the modern gaming world. In all honesty it would probably seem "new" to gamers today to have so many secrets to explore and things of that nature.

Combine stealth/shooter aspects, secrets, etc. Obviously with the latest graphical bells and whistles you could do a lot of really cool things. (I'm thinking like smoking dancing through laser barriers that you have to get around, very cool holographic effects, really in depth computer display interaction.) etc...

[MrBlackCat]

While I agree it would seem new, I can't find any modern "kid" that I have been in a position to question about it, that wants it that way. It happened yesterday with DooM and a 12 year old... they just "quit" the game because they "had no idea where to go." The map was messed up as monsters didn't show up and neither did way-points. "You just walk around lost with nothing to do but get killed over and over... "is this one of those games that has no aim button too?" They told me they could not believe anyone ever bothered to game if they were all this bad. This is typical in my opinion, and consistent with my exposure to kids today.

So I fired up Atari Pong for a bit... made DooM seem much better. Then Atari Pac-Man too. Yeah... I explained that "in the old days" we were taught and conditioned to have imagination, which resulted in a mild binding effect of our "real" emotions with the games... we even "jumped" sometimes when surprised. I have watched the kids today play and the only emotional reaction I have seen is in multi-player, and the reaction is that they just "beat" someone else. If competition is all you enjoy about gaming, I consider that pretty sad. I then explained, that back then, the machines didn't do and think for us as it wasn't as much about "beating someone" or about Kill-Streaks and "winning"... that to us, winning was "having fun", even if we "died". I showed him how I played DooM with plenty of saves for instance... and re-load if I took any damage etc. The reaction I could have guessed, but could never have said it this shallow... "But those monsters are just made by the computer, you aren't showing anyone you are better than them, and no one else can even see your scores unless you messaged it to them." <insert confused look> The kind of honesty that helps use realize why games have devolved as they have and more broadly, why humans will soon be a species of the past.

MrBlackCat

[Commando Nukem]

Originally Posted by MrBlackCat

While I agree it would seem new, I can't find any modern "kid" that I have been in a position to question about it, that wants it that way. It happened yesterday with DooM and a 12 year old... they just "quit" the game because they "had no idea where to go." The map was messed up as monsters didn't show up and neither did way-points. "You just walk around lost with nothing to do but get killed over and over... "is this one of those games that has no aim button too?" They told me they could not believe anyone ever bothered to game if they were all this bad. This is typical in my opinion, and consistent with my exposure to kids today.

So I fired up Atari Pong for a bit... made DooM seem much better. Then Atari Pac-Man too. Yeah... I explained that "in the old days" we were taught and conditioned to have imagination, which resulted in a mild binding effect of our "real" emotions with the games... we even "jumped" sometimes when surprised. I have watched the kids today play and the only emotional reaction I have seen is in multi-player, and the reaction is that they just "beat" someone else. If competition is all you enjoy about gaming, I consider that pretty sad. I then explained, that back then, the machines didn't do and think for us as it wasn't as much about "beating someone" or about Kill-Streaks and "winning"... that to us, winning was "having fun", even if we "died". I showed him how I played DooM with plenty of saves for instance... and re-load if I took any damage etc. The reaction I could have guessed, but could never have said it this shallow... "But those monsters are just made by the computer, you aren't showing anyone you are better than them, and no one else can even see your scores unless you messaged it to them." <insert confused look> The kind of honesty that helps use realize why games have devolved as they have and more broadly, why humans will soon be a species of the past.

MrBlackCat

Gotta stop catering to those people and ya gotta stop living the world according to those people. It's the only way to make that mentality become the minority once again.

In the world of gaming, the way to do that is to make more games that make you think, and put the enjoyment into playing, exploring, using your head.

[MrBlackCat]

Hmm... I guess I don't agree based on the drastic decline of people like "us". I see the game quality as just a response to the shallowness of the modern gamer. My perception is that 90% of the people playing games today could not enjoy a DooM or Duke Nukem style game in any way. I see most people as kind of "lazy" in the sense of how much effort they would put into a game... not time, but effort.
I just don't think there are enough people interested in using their head anymore... or aiming, or exploring etc.

I wish gaming companies would make some games like this... and I know there are still games that contain these elements, but they aren't based around them for the most part. I see it as a problem with the available market, not that the market could effect the mentality of the modern gamer.

MrBlackCat

[MrFlibble]

Originally Posted by MrBlackCat

While I agree it would seem new, I can't find any modern "kid" that I have been in a position to question about it, that wants it that way. It happened yesterday with DooM and a 12 year old... they just "quit" the game because they "had no idea where to go." The map was messed up as monsters didn't show up and neither did way-points. "You just walk around lost with nothing to do but get killed over and over... "is this one of those games that has no aim button too?" They told me they could not believe anyone ever bothered to game if they were all this bad. This is typical in my opinion, and consistent with my exposure to kids today.
<...>
I have watched the kids today play and the only emotional reaction I have seen is in multi-player, and the reaction is that they just "beat" someone else. If competition is all you enjoy about gaming, I consider that pretty sad. I then explained, that back then, the machines didn't do and think for us as it wasn't as much about "beating someone" or about Kill-Streaks and "winning"... that to us, winning was "having fun", even if we "died". I showed him how I played DooM with plenty of saves for instance... and re-load if I took any damage etc. The reaction I could have guessed, but could never have said it this shallow... "But those monsters are just made by the computer, you aren't showing anyone you are better than them, and no one else can even see your scores unless you messaged it to them." <insert confused look> The kind of honesty that helps use realize why games have devolved as they have and more broadly, why humans will soon be a species of the past.

This, while predictable, is really, really sad. I haven't had much contact with modern kids really, and since I don't play online at all, I've been pretty much detached from trends in modern gaming and gaming communities. Can't say what you told is shocking, but it really shows some important tendencies in players' mentality. Makes one wonder if this is what game developers have imposed upon the players, or vice versa (or this was a two-sided process).

I remember reading a comment about C-evo on a file downloads website (I call them "shovelware" websites although I'm not sure if this is a regular use of the word). If you haven't played C-evo, it's a great re-implementation of the original Sid Meier's Civilization's ideas, with the primary goal of making the game more deterministic, and the AI more challenging. As the result, this is a game that really makes you use your brain (and did I mention it's completely free and will seamlessly run on most systems)? Anyhoo, here's what a guy writes (I Googled a bit and found the source):

Not too nice, Apr 21, 2011

by Marco

I think this isn’t so good, it is pretty hard to start and the tutorial isn’t clear.
It doesn’t have good graphics nor 3D.
Not easy to recognize which building you are selecting and doing task is… erm… really tough, though the sound is the only good thing about this game.

(emphasis added)

Just to get the depth of this comment, here are the design principles of C-evo as defined by its author:

Design Principles

Principle 1: Low Risk. The basic idea is correction, not revolution. The playing experience with Civ II is used to overcome its design problems. New and overturning ideas will hardly be implemented, because this would only lead to another unbalanced game.

Principle 2: Fun by Challenge. Computer games get to bore after a while - that's a fact. The reason is that they remain the same - that's a common assumption, resulting in a stream of new games and massively extended sequels, each trying to temporarily suppress the boredom again. Call it fun by novelty. This project is based on a completely different assumption, induced by a few old games outside the computer world, which never change but are usually played for a lifetime. The problem of computer games might not be that they don't change but that they are bad - bad design, poor AI, false priorities set, constructs of perfect style and overwhelming size but not of intelligence. The challenge declines rapidly after a winning strategy is recognized. One wins every game with much to work and little to think. Doing this better should be possible.

Principle 3: AI Liberation. Empire building games are typically asymmetric. They are built around the human player as their center, with some pseudo-AI mainly having the job to keep him amused and to make the whole thing a realistic simulation. C-evo, in contrast, is a competition of equals. AI has no jobs, because that would reduce its strength. AI just has a goal, which is the same as the player's goal: to win. All are playing by the same symmetric rules, no matter if human or AI. Frequently made suggestions show that many players do not fully realize the consequences of this principle (which is forgivable because the games they're used to are far away from it.) Particularly, there is no way to direct the behavior of the AI - the AI is as free as the player is. Rules and AI are strictly separated. Some examples for ideas that are not compatible with this principle:

• A wonder that improves other nations' attitude towards the owning nation. As hardly as a human player would ever change his opinion about another player because a rule tells him to do, as hardly would true AI.
• Democratic and fundamentalistic states being more aggressive against each other than two states usually are. Same thing - AI is not under the game's command!
• Use of certain methods or weapons (like nuclears) resulting in international contempt. Same thing again.
• A diplomatic option for the human player to ask AI allies for support in his war campaign, expecting true effort. AI to subordinate to the player's plans is as ridiculous as the player to give up his strategy and instead help one AI fight the other.

Principle 4: Focus on Strategy. It's the nature of a Civ-style game to be a simulation and a strategy game at the same time. This double-ambition causes serious conflicts in game design and the need for compromise. While Civ I and Civ II chose a middle course, newer Civ sequels are clearly directed towards simulation. C-evo gives priority to strategy, which means:

• The game is played by the players, not by itself. Everything happening is happening because one of the players does it or caused it, not because the game decides it's time for a surprise.
• You can't win the game by hitting Enter a hundred times and accepting everything that some advisors are advising. C-evo is a game, not a movie.
• Elements that are irrelevant for the game's end are out of place.
• Rules of the game that represent a mathematical effect are specified as a formula, not using nebulous phrases ("more", "less", "better").
• Main goals are maximum challenge and minimum boring busywork. Realism is welcome but does not take precedence over these two aspects.
• Poor players will not be helped in order to keep the balance of power. (Yes, this means most games are decided before they end formally, but that's natural and common to almost all good games.)
• The fun you'll have playing the game without reading the manual is comparable to the fun it is to move pieces on a chessboard without knowing the rules of chess.

Principle 5: Compact Rule Set. A bigger game is not necessarily a better game. Additional elements can damage a game just as much as they can contribute to it. C-evo tries to keep its rule set small. Rules that would make the game more ornate but not bring new aspects of strategy will not be implemented, even if they'd add to realism.

Principle 6: Balance of Strategy and Micro Management. The game should remain small enough so that micro management can still be an important part of it. C-evo does not try to split into several levels where the lower ones are so boring that it takes automatics to keep the game bearable. The goal is to make the micro management interesting - or to remove it. To hide it away from the player with the help of macro management is the worst solution (though sometimes necessary).

BTW, the other comment on the download site's page, although favourable, is also telling:

Good but hard, Aug 04, 2011

by Thuta Aye

This c-evo game is a good strategy game but there should be a tutorial.There is a help menu but it is hard to understand.

This is something addressed in the C-evo FAQ:

• You should know the rules (see previous and next question). In case there's an important detail you don't understand, phrase a specific question and post it to the discussion forum. (If your nation evolves too slow, you're probably inefficient in city management and terrain improvement. Deal with these concepts, above all.)
• Think! This is a strategy game! For example, the order in which you research advances, build city improvements and improve terrain absolutely matters. The manual won't tell you what to do, it only documents the rules.
• If there's a sample game installed together with the game, have a look at it. This game has been won on hard level. You may open it at different points in time and compare the city management and the terrain improvement with yours.

Reading the manual and actually learning to play the game ain't popular these days, eh?

[Commando Nukem]

I guess so these days.

It's all about twitch shooters, and really straight forward "adventure" games that don't really have a lot of depth to them anymore. Can't expect players to think.

I do think the situation is reversible. I think it was something that both sides of the fence created, and if the developers started in with more brainy stuff in their games, we'd see a paradigm shift where these snot nosed brats would learn to use their heads.

[MrFlibble]

I think that not only the age is an issue, it's also that for serious in-depth gaming you need some free time, and people who aren't dedicated players either can't or are not willing to spend so much time on games, preferring other things instead. Conversely, the audience for coffee break quickies is presumably quite considerable, so no wonder there's a market catering to this type of players.

I also suppose that kids today have been affected by all the new technologies - the Internet, mobile phones, you name it - in a multitude of ways, and they really grow up in an entirely different environment so to speak compared to the people whose childhood was before the Internet age. There's still no telling how these new experiences may shape these kids' personality, behaviour and long-term interests, but all these factors certainly contribute to the widening of the good old generation gap

[MrBlackCat]

I grew up in the coin-op era, so I am used to quick short games. I still enjoy this type of play often. (I even have my Shinobi Stand up machine rebuilt and is played often.)
As games evolved into massive action treasure hunts like GTAIII, I went right along with it. Many gamers today love GTA, but would find no interest in seriously playing a short coin-eater type game.
Many thoughts. Have to go for now though.

MrBlackCat

[MrFlibble]

Originally Posted by MrBlackCat

I grew up in the coin-op era, so I am used to quick short games. I still enjoy this type of play often. (I even have my Shinobi Stand up machine rebuilt and is played often.)

I'm fairly certain that there's still a huge difference between people who started playing games in the arcades, and office people who play small games during breaks or when they're bored. My point here wasn't to criticise quickies for any alleged lack of depth, but to suggest that probably office guys are the majority nowadays.

The tricky part here, even if we're talking about today's market of mainstream games, is that the playing audience is far from being homogeneous. Besides different age groups, there are console-only and PC-only people, people who play both, and fans of different genres. It's natural for a development company or a publisher to wish that its game be sold to as large an audience as possible, and I guess many try to please 'em all, or at least most of them. This doesn't always end up in satisfying anyone's expectations.

At any rate, there are lots of possibilities to play games and create games these days, so I think there's no reason for pessimism. Both mainstream and indie game development may go one way or another, but at any rate, all of us can contribute to preserving the classic legacy that we all treasure

[MrBlackCat]

I see what you mean... even though I play Angry Birds sometimes when I only have 3 minutes to play, I am still likely to play Pac-Man and other arcade classics also.

I honestly miss the days of games like Myst... I have a small notebook I made while playing it basically every night obsessively for two months or so until I completed it. Certainly an oddity. Very intelligent game in my opinion. Finding the time for a game like again, is something I can not imagine today.

I agree the market has changed a good bit due to a much less cut and dried demographic... and I too believe that this is not the best thing for the market as a whole.
What constitutes fun to each individual varies so dramatically. For instance, I don't care for DeathMatch. Almost all of my DooM, Duke 3D, Heretic, HeXen, Quake, and more than a dozen others, were co-op. Notice Co-Op mostly died out... team DeathMatch is about the closest thing these days.
When I used to play LAN games in the 90's with many, it was more like a guided tour... I knew most of the levels. Sometimes we just turned off the monsters and all wandered around the levels together... like this.


The seven of us probably finished the game from the looks of these 50 shots, but notice there are no monsters. That was how we enjoyed it sometimes. Especially with noobs, or females without much aggression or younger kids without skill etc. In this instance, we just explore the environment and solve the puzzles. It is my perception that to most modern gamers, if not most from the 90's, this would be considered quite "lame". I would do it again tomorrow however.

I have similar sets of images with multi-player Quake... hundreds of them.
MrBlackCat

[MrFlibble]

Originally Posted by MrBlackCat

What constitutes fun to each individual varies so dramatically. For instance, I don't care for DeathMatch. Almost all of my DooM, Duke 3D, Heretic, HeXen, Quake, and more than a dozen others, were co-op. Notice Co-Op mostly died out... team DeathMatch is about the closest thing these days.
When I used to play LAN games in the 90's with many, it was more like a guided tour... I knew most of the levels. Sometimes we just turned off the monsters and all wandered around the levels together... like this.
<...>
The seven of us probably finished the game from the looks of these 50 shots, but notice there are no monsters. That was how we enjoyed it sometimes. Especially with noobs, or females without much aggression or younger kids without skill etc. In this instance, we just explore the environment and solve the puzzles.

Haha, this is very cool An idea of such a game had never occurred to me, but, come to think of it, the level design in Hexen pretty much lends itself to such exploratory excursions. It's almost like those games where you have combat as an option that can be turned off to enjoy other aspects (e.g. an economy-oriented strategy game). Interesting how I never thought of the exploratory and puzzle-solving aspects of FPS games as separable from the actual combat BTW, are there any first-person perspective games that indeed are focused on exploration and don't necessarily involve battles with monsters? Can't remember much ATM. [Edit] I think ROTT's Collector Mode qualifies to an extent

Sadly, my experience with LAN play is limited to a few occasions when we'd play with my classmates during breaks the IT classes at school. That was more than twelve years ago already

[MrBlackCat]

Actually I have played basically every game this way (non-combative Multiplayer) that could be... Quake is excellent for it.
As far as games that simply work that way, I don't know of any multi-player. For single player, Myst was the ultimate of such games for me.
We used to play Corridor 7 that way as well because you could pick not only characters, but office plants and furniture! At rest you looked like the object picked. If you moved, you looked like one of the critters from the game. That was one of the most inventive multi-player things I had seen to that point. It was the first as far as I know.

I was trying to think of the most memorable exploration Multi-player games... it has been years though. HeXen, Heretic, and Quake were the ones we played the most that way.
Just looking at my menu system from the 90's I can see we played:
Blood
Corridor 7
Descent
DooM
DooM II
Duke 3D
Heretic
HeXen
Magic Carpet
Nam/Napalm
PaintBrawl
Quake
Zone Raiders
Rise of the Triad
Strife
Shadow Warrior
Terminal Velocity
TekWar
Witchaven 1
Witchaven 2

In addition, I see that the menus included 81 branches that could load various versions of what you see above... like TONS of DooM TC's and levels from D!Zone series, of which I have most all of. (I remember having 11,000+ DooM levels stored for access on a server.) Then I see menu options for Duke!Zone II's 3 Episodes, D.C. Caribbean, and then about 8 to 10 other TC's and some custom levels sets I put together. DeathKings of the DarkCitidale is in there with HeXen and couple of customs for Heretic. Of course some ROTT additional levels and quite a few Quake custom batches as well.
You get the idea. Everything in my house was menu driven user friendly DOS stuff back then. 8 Pentiums had all of these available, so a user without any knowledge of them could sit down and play directly from menus... The batch files I wrote would load appropriate LAN card, CD, Protocol Bindings and or Network Drivers. (Like IPX/SPX and Network Shells for Novell etc) then would boot if necessary swapping out Autoexec and Config.sys appropriately, modifying memory setups and TSR's like mouse drivers etc.

Ok... I will get off memory lane and back on the Information Superhighway now.

End of ramble.

MrBlackCat

[MrFlibble]

Originally Posted by MrBlackCat

We used to play Corridor 7 that way as well because you could pick not only characters, but office plants and furniture! At rest you looked like the object picked. If you moved, you looked like one of the critters from the game. That was one of the most inventive multi-player things I had seen to that point. It was the first as far as I know.

Wow, I never knew this was possible I guess you miss quite a few features when you only play in single-player mode.

BTW, I was thinking, is Duke Nukem 3D the only FPS game from the era to have single-player botmatch mode? Shadow Warrior v1.0 (and maybe v1.1 too) has something mentioned in the command line help, but running the game with the indicated parameters doesn't give you any bot opponents - that, or I really missed something. For some reason I was unable run Shadow Warrior shareware v1.0 or v1.1 under DOSBox. It does run under WinXP, but hi-res mode didn't work. I also wonder why they removed the self-playing demos from v1.2, which I've always found sort of weird.

Oh, I also remember discovering the timed mode in ROTT, which can only be activated from command line. Didn't play very far into the game with it, since downed enemies and picked life items seem to only add one second to the timer, while you obviously spend much more time obtaining them. I wonder if this game mode had any popularity, because at the core, the concept seems very good to me. BTW, this is another thing I love about ROTT: plenty game modes and ways of playing the game (Wanna destroy everything that is destructible? You can do that, and get a bonus. Wanna use only some weapons and forego others? Can do that too, and also get a bonus, etc.). I also like it that ROTT, unlike many other games of the genre and era, encourages exploration by not setting any overt time limits, "par time" stuff etc. Not that competitive speedruns are bad or something, but I've always preferred to thoroughly explore the environment, whereas any kind of time limit is by definition the opposite of exploratory playing style, and also has the potential of being taken to absurd extremes.

(Not long ago I've seen a YouTube video of a Prince of Persia speedrun. The guy used some kind of a trick to jump past guards instead of fighting them. Not to mention it looks like cheating, where's the fun in that?)

[MrBlackCat]

I never played a botmatch game actually. I used to be basically against Deathmatch.
In Quake I ran bots because I had a 24-7 server and people could just join a team and play with or play against all the different bot teams.
Timed mode in ROTT I never played either... I explore to the extreme. In games like DooM, Duke Nukem, etc my time per level is 30 to 90 minutes. That is why I mapped in Wolf...
This is not completely about secrets either... some of it is just looking and enjoying the level architecture. Heretic II and HeXen II gave some fair exploration opportunity, but excellent structures to "look at"... in my opinion. I know... I don't play these games like anyone else I know. Is just me.

Funny you mention par times... the ones in DooM use to seem so odd to me. I didn't understand how people could find dashing through the level fun or interesting. I still don't, but I am aware that they do.

MrBlackCat

[Commando Nukem]

Originally Posted by MrBlackCat

Funny you mention par times... the ones in DooM use to seem so odd to me. I didn't understand how people could find dashing through the level fun or interesting. I still don't, but I am aware that they do.

MrBlackCat

Yeah those times were all John Romero I think. Dude was a mouse ninja.

Originally Posted by MrFlibble

Oh, I also remember discovering the timed mode in ROTT, which can only be activated from command line. Didn't play very far into the game with it, since downed enemies and picked life items seem to only add one second to the timer, while you obviously spend much more time obtaining them. I wonder if this game mode had any popularity, because at the core, the concept seems very good to me. BTW, this is another thing I love about ROTT: plenty game modes and ways of playing the game (Wanna destroy everything that is destructible? You can do that, and get a bonus. Wanna use only some weapons and forego others? Can do that too, and also get a bonus, etc.). I also like it that ROTT, unlike many other games of the genre and era, encourages exploration by not setting any overt time limits, "par time" stuff etc. Not that competitive speedruns are bad or something, but I've always preferred to thoroughly explore the environment, whereas any kind of time limit is by definition the opposite of exploratory playing style, and also has the potential of being taken to absurd extremes.

As one reviewer put it; ROTT was basically how you take already established technology and just get absolutely balls-to-the-wall creative with it. Which is why we loved 3D Realms/Apogee so much. They excelled not nessacarily in having the latest technology (though some of their games arguably did when they were simply publishing.), it was all about what they did with the technology.

Originally Posted by MrFlibble

(Not long ago I've seen a YouTube video of a Prince of Persia speedrun. The guy used some kind of a trick to jump past guards instead of fighting them. Not to mention it looks like cheating, where's the fun in that?)

Yeah that sounds like what they call a Tool Assisted Speedrun.

I'm a fan of, I think it's called Tyson mode, for Doom. Where you are only allowed to use your fists when you play through the game. It's not really a "mode" so much as a self imposed rule to see how good you can do.

[MrFlibble]

Originally Posted by Commando Nukem

Which is why we loved 3D Realms/Apogee so much. They excelled not nessacarily in having the latest technology (though some of their games arguably did when they were simply publishing.), it was all about what they did with the technology.

Absolutely. Another thing to loev about ROTT BTW is how it is decidedly counter-mainstream: while tons of other games just tried to mimic Doom or at least Wolfenstein 3-D with varying success, the Developers of Incredible Power went their own way to produce an awesome experience that shows what the whole FPS genre could have been, while inventing quite a few new things in ahead-of-the-time fashion along the way

Originally Posted by Commando Nukem

I'm a fan of, I think it's called Tyson mode, for Doom. Where you are only allowed to use your fists when you play through the game. It's not really a "mode" so much as a self imposed rule to see how good you can do.

Yep, I've read about that some time ago. Self-imposed rules are also a neat way to expand gaming experience. I remember at some point I tried to play through Command & Conquer: Renegade with only the pistol on maximum difficulty. In fact, it worked pretty well in some missions. In others, not so much

[Commando Nukem]

Well it seems Earth No More is making a come back, and we might actually see 3D Realms name on something bigger than a portable game or another retro port! (Yay!)