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Retro FPS Renaissance

Your favourite throwback shooter so far?

  • Ion Fury

    Votes: 88 38.1%

  • Amid Evil

    Votes: 17 7.4%

  • Dusk

    Votes: 59 25.5%

  • Wrath: Aeon of Ruin

    Votes: 11 4.8%

  • Prodeus

    Votes: 56 24.2%
  • Total voters
    231
Elektro Demon

Elektro Demon

Banned
Sugarmonkey said:
Not seeing this for sale on Xbox.
Click to expand...
Which one?


Ion Fury is on xbox.

Prodeus isn't released yet but there will be an xbox verion.

DxoKuOb.jpg



EfT2TuG.jpg

Wrath also isn't out yet, it's in early access and you can play that version on Steam. It's also supposed to come out for xbox as well.

EDIT: After some investigation it seems Ion Fury hasn't been released for xbox yet. My bad.
 
Last edited:
Belmonte

Belmonte

Member
DunDunDunpachi said:
Yes! Taking this a step further, I miss FPSs where you are spawned at the beginning of a single contiguous stage and if you die, you're sent back to the beginning. DOOM was like that. Quake was like that (I think?).

Back to your point, I like the idea of checkpoints being intelligently placed in the level to challenge the player, or even spaced further apart on higher difficulty rankings. Quicksaves allow the player to goof around with the immersive physics (Crysis) or RPG systems (Elder Scrolls games), but they also trivialize the difficulty. I was playing through Halo with my son a few weeks ago and I liked how dying sent you both back to a checkpoint. It meant you had to master each little engagement without getting torn up. I think Serious Sam used checkpoints, which fit in nicely with its waves upon waves of enemies.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I'm glad someone agrees! Quick saves lessen the impact of resource management and level knowledge to make only individual encounters matter. Didn't get a health kit? Don't worry, you got a save.

I liked the checkpoint system of Serious Sam also. SS3, which was the one I finished. It felt fair, even with some difficult parts here and there.

Elektro_Demon said:
It's an unpopular opinion alright. But I respect it.
I like it and I couldn't imagine a retro shooter without it. The main problem with it is save scumming. But having a little self control goes a long way.
Click to expand...

The thing is, even when we, as a player is aware of the degeneracy of save scumming and have self control, when facing hard challenges, we have a tendency to think the problem is the game, not us. There is something in our head saying "artificial difficulty!" (I hate this term with a passion),"so unfair!What are they thinking?" so instead of embrace the challenge, most of us do a quick save.

Usually this voice in our head is wrong. It is the player which didn't understood the enemy patterns, didn't notice a better and smarter way to win the encounter so instead, he does by brute force. So many Dark Souls/Classicvania/Ninja Gaiden moments would be spoiled if the player wasn't forced to trust the devs by the lack of quick save.

The ones who don't use quick save start questioning "did the designer made this encounter so hard because he expect me to save scumming? Should I use quick save?" Perhaps I'm wrong but there are many encounters in Blood which seems the designers made thinking we would quick save each step.

But then, there are one smart solution made by the Wrath devs: make quick save a limited resource. There is an item which you can use to save everywhere but you spent it when you use. This way it impedes the trivializing the level design and, at the same time, makes the action of quick save a tactical choice.
 
Elektro Demon

Elektro Demon

Banned
Kupfer said:
I don't own any of these although I'd like to play them.
If retro, why there are no shareware versions around?
Click to expand...
It's neo retro. These games are trying to capture what was good about the 90's shooters.
Shareware just doesn't work anymore in todays time. But some of these games have demos, if you wanna try it out.
And most of them are not full priced. That also defeats the purpose of a shareware version.
 
Elektro Demon

Elektro Demon

Banned
I found another one. This one looks amazing. There's even a demo available. This is the second wave of throwback shooters in my opinion.
Ultrakill is made by just one guy in unity. But damn it looks amazing.



Steam page

Demo available here
hakita.itch.io

ULTRAKILL Prelude by Hakita

A fast-paced ultraviolent old school FPS with Character Action influences.
hakita.itch.io hakita.itch.io
 
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Tesseract

Tesseract

Banned
Elektro_Demon said:
I found another one. This one looks amazing. There's even a demo available. This is the second wave of throwback shooters in my opinion.
Ultrakill is made by just one guy in unity. But damn it looks amazing.



Steam page

Demo available here
hakita.itch.io

ULTRAKILL Prelude by Hakita

A fast-paced ultraviolent old school FPS with Character Action influences.
hakita.itch.io hakita.itch.io
Click to expand...


thanks for this, looks great
 
Elektro Demon

Elektro Demon

Banned
Another one I forgot.
GET TO THE ORANGE DOOR, or gtod for short.
Looks awesome but it's not out yet. Currently in early access. Hoping for a 2020 full release.
There is a demo available on steam. Check it out.



 
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Elektro Demon

Elektro Demon

Banned
Anki

Anki

Banned
I wrote in another thread but i have to say it again, i am having so much fun with ion fury. I never grew up with 90's shooters on pc and i was pleasantly surprised how good this game is.
After i finish it i will start with some other game from this thread :)
 
Elektro Demon

Elektro Demon

Banned
Anki said:
I wrote in another thread but i have to say it again, i am having so much fun with ion fury. I never grew up with 90's shooters on pc and i was pleasantly surprised how good this game is.
After i finish it i will start with some other game from this thread :)
Click to expand...
I'm glad you're enjoying Ion Fury. It's an awesome game.
Hopefully, you'll enjoy other games from this thread. As soon as I find another throwback shooter, I'll post it in this thread, so keep an eye out.
 
Elektro Demon

Elektro Demon

Banned
Romulus said:
Have you heard about any of these retro shooters coming to VR? I know VR has its own batch of them, but those look great too.
Click to expand...
I haven't heard anything about VR for these games. I personally am not into VR, but if I see something related to that, I'll send you a pm.
 
Anki

Anki

Banned
Finished Dusk yesterday, man what a ride.
These retro shooters are making me think to get a new pc monitor so i can experience 144fps, i think they would look amazing in higher refresh rates.
 
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mcz117chief

mcz117chief

Member
The only one I enjoyed out of all of these is Strafe, all the other ones are just archaic and boring. Old FPS games don't hold up outside of the absolute classics like DOOM, Shadow Warrior and Duke 3d, all the others were pretty much junk back then and are still junk today. Ion Fury is just terrible, I can't say a single good thing about it outside of that it runs well. Strafe is good though. I played through it many times and I always enjoy my time with it.
 
drotahorror

drotahorror

Member
Scotty W said:
These games are everywhere:
Click to expand...

Not really. You posted 2 that have been around for quite a while. In fact one of them you posted was in the first post of this thread and the other was in the 15th post (and the 3rd post featuring videos).

Honestly it's been a slow year (2020) for this genre, with no notable releases that I can think of so far (unless you count Doom Eternal which definitely has the gameplay but not the aesthetics). With WRATH being pushed to 2021, the only games that might fully release this year that I can think of that are / could be good imo, are Nightmare Reaper and Proteus.

I love Doom Eternal though, and that helped fill the shooter void this year easily.
 
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Elektro Demon

Elektro Demon

Banned
Serious Sam 4 is around the corner and it definitely belongs in this thread.
It's made by Croteam and it's scheduled to release next month, august.
So far only pc and stadia. I think consoles will get it later.



 
lock2k

lock2k

Banned
Elektro Demon said:
Do you know that we're currently living in a retro shooter renaissance? I don't know if you are familiar with the term "throwback shooter". It's basically a shooter that mimmicks the old school gameplay and design formula. Often times, it's made in a prehistoric engine like Ion Fury for instance. That game uses the Build engine, that's a 20 year old engine. Throwback shooter has become it's own subgenre nowadays.
Examples of games I'm thinking about.

One of my favourite examples of throwback shooters is this, Amid Evil. It uses the UE4 engine but the weapon models and pickups are 2d sprites. I just finished this recently, it's close in style to Hexen or Heretic. Really awesome. Soundtrack by Andrew Hulschult.



Another example, Dusk. It's fucking brilliant. Made by just one guy, in Unity, David Syzmanski.



I have to mention these 2 games that are not out yet, well at least not in their full state. Both have 2020 release dates, and I just think they look amazing. I would call these 2 next games, a second wave of throwback shooters.
First one is a game called Prodeus. It's supposed to come out in 2020. It looks amazing. Just look at it. Soundtrack composed by Andrew Hulschult.



I'm most excited for this one. It's called Wrath: Aeon of ruin and it's supposed be released in 2020 as well. This one is published by 3dRealms and it's actually made in the quake 1 engine. It looks like the quake sequel we never got. Soundtrack by Andrew Hulschult


Hell Hunt, looks great, but it's still very early in it's development.


Hellbound, made by Saibot Studios, small indie team from Argentina. Demo available on Steam. Planned release: 2020.
Click to expand...


Haven't played any of them but I think I'll start with Ion Fury because I used to make levels for build (for fun) and it's so cool to see it back.

Great thread.
 
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