New official Quake 1 episode released!

[skacky]

Haven't played it just yet but the gesture is great. Didn't expect that.

 

[Astral Rag]

Massive incline of Machine Games

Spoiler

 

[skacky]

I played three maps so far. Love it. It's pretty damn great. Oldschool but with a modern flair to it (and not in a Decline way).
Now if we could only petition Machinegames to make Quake maps all day every day.

 

[Astral Rag]

Maybe this turns out to be the shareware episode of an upcoming full-fledged commercial expansion pack.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Out of curiosity...what does "DOPA" stand for?

Only curious because Quake expansion packs have somewhat extravagant titles.

 

[Ash]

I'm not a fan of Machine game's heavy handed scripted storytelling in the likes of Wolfenstien, but this is pretty cool and their usual approach obviously doesn't apply here. Remember to thank Bethesda too, as they would have had a hand in this

 

[Riskbreaker]

Out of curiosity...what does "DOPA" stand for?

Only curious because Quake expansion packs have somewhat extravagant titles.

Dimensions Of PAst

Anyway, just finished the second of their base maps. Skacky is right, this is ye olde Quake with upgraded visuals, meaning more "modern" detailing and polish.
Loved the clever interconnectedness of that second map, shows that these guys -get- proper level design. Which makes one wonder how is it that this approach isn't seen in their own games.

 

[skacky]

Apparently these maps were all made by J. F. Gustafsson.
And finished it! Very cool overall! The end map is pretty weak compared to the rest but it's an nice nod to Shub Niggurath's Pit. e5m5 is my favorite of the bunch. Now to find which map has the access to e5m8.

 

[Morgoth]

There's more "id Software" in Machine Games than in id Software. They should make a new Quake.

 

[Melan]

I am playing this episode (currently at e5m5), and the maps are pretty good - good use of water (there is actually lots of it!), decent verticality, visuals which are faithful to the Quake look but with more detail, and varied environments with fun traps and secrets. Some of the secrets are a little trivial, but most of them are nice and well telegraphed. Slightly more corridorish and linear than Quake maps (although Quake maps were already pretty linear). There are some modern arena-y segments which weren't in Quake, but they are not overdone or anything, and the reason Quake didn't do them was due to hardware limits.

All in all, all the way; wish modern game studios still made FPS maps like these.

[edit]Found the secret level!

 

[Israfael]

Starbreeze was always an incline-oriented developer, it's just not everyone feels that shooters should follow the same Doomake scheme - some people like arena games (like SSam and the following), others prefer other things, including story. The actual shooting part of TNO and Old Blood was actually quite good, weapons felt right and the engine was decently optimized (sans Rage-inherited texture popping, which was actually a light issue compared to Batman AK or Quantum Break), there were keys, secrets traps and other proper shooter stuff in most levels after the intro.

 

[dunno lah]

Alright! Now it's Romero's turn to do a mappack for Quake.

 

[tormund]

This is probably the case of guy who made it being well familiar with Quake and making some maps in the past, rather than Machine on the whole knowing their shit. I wouldn't be surprised if he was making an episode in him free time, maybe to release it for his favorite game's anniversary, and then he showed it to some of his colleagues and...

I have no love for Machine as a FPS developer after slogging trough their godawful Wolfenstein reboot that only made me respect Raven's Wolfenstein 09...

 

[Astral Rag]

It's not as good as the id maps or the good official expansion and it's certainly not on par with the best Quaddicted has to offer in [current year]. The Episode feels like a decent late 90s release, which is not a negative in my book.

+good variety between levels
+(mostly) good oldschool level design
+good flow, no shitty mazes or annoying drawn-out underwater sections
+decent amount of secrets
+good encounter design
+some cool traps

-I ran into ammo problems on Skill 2
-many secrets didn't feel like secrets
-there were a few nice arenas but they were over too quickly
-I liked the idea behind the final level but the execution was lacking, I didn't have enough ammo to beat it without running past monsters

 

[Melan]

Anyone else find this?

Spoiler

Also, I agree with Astral Rag - the last few levels are seriously low on ammo on Hard. Sometimes it is pretty cool an forces you to be crafty and opportunistic, or use that axe to good effect, but there are spots where you run into a pack of shamblers, particularly near the end.

My favourite levels were the various flooded areas. Best architecture and mood, and plenty of zombies to gib with the grenade launcher (still the most fun FPS weapon ever devised).

 

[Riskbreaker]

Penultimate map had three shamblers (on hard) right next to exit, placed in such a way that running past 'em really wasn't an option. Due to that, I started the final map with a severe lack of supplies which made its beginning quite... problematic. And I agree about final map being somewhat disappointing.

Still, I enjoyed this very much. Would really love to see more episodes made in this sorta nu-classic style.

 

[Excidium II]

sexbad? said it was weak but better than anything they have ever done.

 

[sexbad?]

They switched out their typical bunch of shitty arenas for a bunch of shitty corridors. The layouts themselves were complex, but they were mostly made out of boring hallways with bullet spongey enemies. It was alright, I guess, but nowhere near as good as the original game. It also got much worse year the end from Shambler abuse without enough ammo to deal with them. I ended up fighting two Shamblers at the end with the shotgun and then exploiting the last one to death with the axe in a sort of corner where it couldn't hurt me.

 

[iqzulk]

sexbad? said it was weak but better than anything they have ever done.

sexbad?, out of curiosity, did you ever play through the entirety of Enclave on Hard as that archer (assassin for the dark campaign) girl? The game actually becomes a surprisingly decent good TPS, when played that way, I think.

 

[sexbad?]

I've never played Enclave at all, I think.

 

[iqzulk]

It's a recommendation then. Just... don't touch the other classes.

Also, on an unrelated note, another surprisingly decent TPS game is Evolva (2000), when played, again, on hard and solo (leaving all the other party members somewhere and proceeding alone). First 4 levels or so are very boring, but from there on out, it actually becomes VERY entertaining mechanics-wise. I'd even say, that this kind of gameplay would be impossible to pull off from the first-person perspective, because of just HOW MUCH you must, while in combat, be aware about your immediate surroundings at any given moment.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Pretty cool. Last year i embarked on a crazy project of playing every quake map ever made, including the shitty ones. According to Quaddicted i've completed 413 maps and i have 803 to go. And now this.

 

[Infinitron]

WTF were you listening to at the beginning sexbad?

 

[sexbad?]

Just an excited group of people celebrating the Brexit.

 

[A horse of course]

Sounded like a sci-fi horror and/or a porno setup at various points. More interesting than the mod itself tbh.