Compound Fracture - PS1-style dino survival FPS

[Morenatsu.]

um ackshully, the pc version of powerslave is teh originul, you nerd!!

Also those N64 games are still shittier than any PC game.

 

[Ash]

That was my memory, but the fact it received a recent remake (Powerslave Ex) based on the console version fucked with me I suppose. I don't know I don't pay much attention to it because it isn't that good, it's just better than a lot of the shit these days.

Also those N64 games are still shittier than any PC game.

OK kid. You clearly have a logical and rational brain. Barbie's Riding Club the ultimate PC classic or some piece of shit flash game is better, gotcha. Let alone the hordes of trash or just plain average FPS on PC.

 

[Ol' Willy]

Speaking of PSOne FPS games, there's James Bond WINE which I liked as a kid; Doom port that is more faithful and simply better than overrated Doom64; some Medal of Honour titles which are boring, but fine; good Quake and Rainbow Six ports. True, most of these are ports, but speaking of FPS, PC was always a king.

 

[fork]

Powerslave/Exhumed is better than pretty much every AAA title and most AAs/indies of the last two decades or so. There are some exceptions of course.
I also loved Disruptor as a kid, but that one didn't hold up very well when I replayed it a couple of years ago. No idea about Alien Trilogy, I have to replay that some time.

 

[Ash]

TWINE was cool-ish but I could not recommend it to anyone but the most ardent of FPS fans, simply because it controls terribly even by PSX shooter or keyboard aiming standards. Same with Medal of Honor. Even with emulation the problem cannot be fixed. Doom port is good but not more notable than Doom 64, sorry. To play Doom these days, you probably should be doing so with the PC version (or the mod that changes the lighting and sound to be like the PS version if you'd like). Doom 64 offers something different and yet arguably just as good, and therefore holds much more significance. I grew up with PC and PSX doom, having played 64 more recently, so I get where you're coming from, but give the N64 version some credit. Quake 2 port was a little excessively stripped down so I don't know about "good" but it also wasn't bad for whatever that is worth. If going through the ports you missed an important one: Nukem 3D. Straight port, just with a much better soundtrack (or if disagreeing because music is highly subjective, it is better on a objective technical level because CD quality music). I still like the old DOS soundtrack though, well, some of the tracks. Nonetheless playing with PSX soundtrack mod is my go-to.

I also loved Disruptor as a kid, but that one didn't hold up very well when I replayed it a couple of years ago.

I completed it in 2018. It doesn't hold up to the best or even the "just" good PC classics but like Powerslave, way more competent than the modern shit.

No idea about Alien Trilogy, I have to replay that some time.

Also last completed in 2018. Probably the best on the system imo (unless you count PC ports e.g Doom). Gameplay is rough but certainly competent. Atmosphere, art, music and sound are very notable for 1996, even among PC shooters. No mouselook though, you gotta play by ancient standards (keyboard or d-pad aiming), and that will be a problem for many.

 

[Cross]

There is a difference between 'game is a series of levels presented in a linear order' and 'game consists entirely of linear corridors'. From the brief video, this looks like the latter, unfortunately. There doesn't seem to be any verticality to the level design either.

 

[Ol' Willy]

If going through the ports you missed an important one: Nukem 3D. S

Haven't played that one so can't tell. I listed games purely from my memory.

Though, recently I replayed PSX Doom (still have the CD, lol) with an emulator and cheap controller. Controls actually are not that bad.

 

[Ash]

They're not bad at all by the standards of that year. Most people played doom originally with keyboard only. Even the original non-analog PSX controller is better than that, aside from the lack of weapon hotkeys. It is the mouse that is the game changer.

 

[LudensCogitet]

So to have good gameplay we have to have shit graphics?

Probably. Making a game with "good graphics" takes a fuck-ton of money, time, and man power.
The industry has become increasingly focused on what are essentially bells and whistles because it's something you can pay for.
Higher polygon counts, more voiced lines of dialogue, cutscenes, blah blah blah are the kind of thing that fits into a "money goes in, product comes out" paradigm that suits can understand.

The more time and money spent on those things, the less time there is for innovation in gameplay, and the less willingness there is to even attempt it, because so much has already been invested.
Talent, genius, a good idea and the skill to execute are not quantifiable in the same way.

Personally, I hope indie devs will start to drop the whole "retro" thing and just say fuck it, our engine only supports X polygons on the screen at once because it allows us to produce a coherent art style with the time and team we have,
and we have gameplay to implement and we don't want this to take 5 years.

 

[karoliner]

Fucking Capcom still doesn't make fucking Dino Crisis remake.

 

[JDR13]

So to have good gameplay we have to have shit graphics?

Probably. Making a game with "good graphics" takes a fuck-ton of money, time, and man power.

Except it doesn't. There are plenty of lower-budget games that don't look like shit.

 

[LudensCogitet]

So to have good gameplay we have to have shit graphics?

Probably. Making a game with "good graphics" takes a fuck-ton of money, time, and man power.

Except it doesn't. There are plenty of lower-budget games that don't look like shit.

Well I can see this is going to devolve into vague, contextless pronouncements unless we define "shit" graphics. I will go first.
A computer game has bad graphics if:

• The visuals work against gameplay
• The style is inconsistent

Personally, the thing I find strange about the graphics in this is the way they seem to be paying homage to affine texture mapping?
That seems merely nostalgic. The low resolution, on the other hand, seems stylistic. I suspect simply smoothing everything out would make the geometry look very stiff and bland.

EDIT: I take that last bit back. I just rewatched the video. The constant "wiggle" is grating. The stylistic justification for it may be consistency between the look of the geometry and the resolution of the textures though.

 

[Bad Sector]

Why PSX + FPS, though. Indie devs are anachronists!

Yeah, it should have been DOS + FPS. Or at least if you want more than 256 colors, 3dfx + FPS.

But i guess more people are familiar with PSX than 90s PC games. According to itch.io the [3D game i made for an MS-DOS jam](https://bad-sector.itch.io/post-apocalyptic-petra) (which runs on real DOS) has been added in a couple of "PS1-styled games" lists :-P.

 

[Tehdagah]

Dino Crisis 2 was better than 1

 

[Ash]

Both are considerably overrated games, though not terrible. On rom sites the Dino Crisis games are often among the top downloaded PSX games and that is simply madness. There are numerous vastly superior horror and action games on that platform, though also many worse. Some people just love dinosaurs.

 

[Derringer]

Most dinosaur games suck, the only thing that was ever really available was Dino Crisis and Monster Hunter for anyone not playing Ark at this point, beyond the EVO remake for the SNES and mediocre to shit licensed Jurassic Park garbage.

 

[Ash]

Bro...Turok.

Bro...Jurrassic Park: Tresspasser

Spoiler

Kidding on that last one.

Spoiler

And of course Turok is only mildly dinosaur-oriented, mixed with sci-fi and fantasy and various alien races

 

[JDR13]

Well I can see this is going to devolve into vague, contextless pronouncements unless we define "shit" graphics. I will go first.
A computer game has bad graphics if:

The visuals work against gameplay
The style is inconsistent

Hence what I said... There are plenty of lower-budget games that don't have those issues.

Personally, the thing I find strange about the graphics in this is the way they seem to be paying homage to affine texture mapping?
That seems merely nostalgic. The low resolution, on the other hand, seems stylistic. I suspect simply smoothing everything out would make the geometry look very stiff and bland.

EDIT: I take that last bit back. I just rewatched the video. The constant "wiggle" is grating. The stylistic justification for it may be consistency between the look of the geometry and the resolution of the textures though.

Yeah, I'm not really sure what they're going for here. Maybe it is supposed to play on nostalgia.

For me personally, I don't miss that look at all, and I have no desire to go back to it.

 

[Morpheus Kitami]

I feel like this has some potential, but when its just some guy running around grabbing items, its hard to say if its going to be any good or not.

PSX has a small selection of FPS that are arguably even to date worthwhile on the system, and were also not PC ports. These are Disruptor, Alien Trilogy (NOT Resurrection) and Powerslave.

Alien: Trilogy is also on DOS unless there's some massive between the two versions that I'm not aware of.

Well I can see this is going to devolve into vague, contextless pronouncements unless we define "shit" graphics. I will go first.
A computer game has bad graphics if:

Endless masses of the same texture over and over again with no easily noticeable difference between areas. Which judging by the way the game looks so far, might be what it ends up being.

Both are considerably overrated games, though not terrible. On rom sites the Dino Crisis games are often among the top downloaded PSX games and that is simply madness. There are numerous vastly superior horror and action games on that platform, though also many worse. Some people just love dinosaurs.

What are those numerous horror games? I haven't played Dino Crisis, but I have played a few lesser known other titles and I can't see them being that much better than DC. Excluding Japanese-only titles, there doesn't seem to be all that many titles on the PSX in horror.

 

[Wunderbar]

Both are considerably overrated games, though not terrible. On rom sites the Dino Crisis games are often among the top downloaded PSX games and that is simply madness. There are numerous vastly superior horror and action games on that platform

What are those numerous horror games? I haven't played Dino Crisis, but I have played a few lesser known other titles and I can't see them being that much better than DC. Excluding Japanese-only titles, there doesn't seem to be all that many titles on the PSX in horror.

RE, SH?

 

[Ash]

Resident Evil, Resident Evil 2, Resident Evil 3, Parasite Eve 2, Silent Hill and to a lesser extent Martian Gothic. If talking strictly survival horror, fixed cameras, tank controls.

I haven't played Dino Crisis, but I have played a few lesser known other titles and I can't see them being that much better than DC.

Why would you say this if you've not played DC? It's pretty bland. Not terrible, but not remarkable either. Dino Crisis 2 is indeed (slightly) better...but it's an action game, of which there are many superior on the system.

Alien: Trilogy is also on DOS unless there's some massive between the two versions that I'm not aware of.

Yup I mentioned it is on DOS, but it is a PSX game first. One should probably play the DOS version if looking to play it. Same with anything in this situation, PC version is usually go-to (but not always).

 

[Morenatsu.]

Yup I mentioned it is on DOS, but it is a PSX game first. One should probably play the DOS version if looking to play it. Same with anything in this situation, PC version is usually go-to (but not always).

Disagree. I don't know about Alien Trilogy, but old PC ports are too often inferior to emulation. Minor details are always broken and various console-specific features get discarded. Don't even bother.

 

[Ash]

Emulation is also the "PC version"

But no, in all seriousness in some situations you're right and the original release is best played instead. Just depends on the game.

 

[Morenatsu.]

Trespasser is one of the most incredible games of all time.

 

[Bad Sector]

Yup I mentioned it is on DOS, but it is a PSX game first. One should probably play the DOS version if looking to play it. Same with anything in this situation, PC version is usually go-to (but not always).

Disagree. I don't know about Alien Trilogy, but old PC ports are too often inferior to emulation. Minor details are always broken and various console-specific features get discarded. Don't even bother.

AFAIK there isn't much of a difference between the versions, but the DOS version can be configured to be played with modern WASD+mouse aim. I'd also recommend using this custom DOSBox build i made some time ago and configure it to run at maximum speed - the game's speed is tied to its framerate so it'll run very fast if you run it in normal DOSBox. However this build tries to limit the refresh rate to something that is close to what the game was originally meant to run at. Note that you need a fast PC for this. Also i recommend using the novert TSR to disable vertical motion since it uses the Doom-like move forward/backward when you move the mouse vertically.