DraQ
Arcane
So, recently I got reminded of this old little game, and even replayed it as I happen to possess the original CD I bought after having fun with demo as an impressionable youth (then, after reinstalling it I promptly misplaced the CD and had to roll with MIDI).
And... it's pretty good.
TNP is a top down PA 3D shooter from 1997 that can't decide if it wants to be ambitious or completely lowbrow.
On the upside, the unusual perspective works in game's favour.
3D graphics with polygonal environments and sprite objects doesn't suffer from the usual fluidity and level of detail problems in this perspective, meaning the game can display detailed, rich and fluid, convincingly animated and unambiguously 3D looking visuals despite high amount of enemies and other objects on the screen. Hardware acceleration adds some coloured lighting and texture filtering to the mix, but the game doesn't look much worse without.
Environments are diverse, often with significant use of z-axis, cluttered with destructible and otherwise interactive objects, sprites are nicely animated, with taller objects (like people) being given illusion of three dimensionality by shadows on the ground below.
Animations really benefit a lot from the unusual perspective - not only can top down sprites be rotated fluently without additional frames, but the resources freed this way allow for pretty impressive range of animations and fluidity of movement - the protagonist, in addition to usual running, swimming, jumping, shooting and throwing shit (sometimes literally*) can crawl - with roll as fluid transition from running to crawling - aim at different levels, swing his plasma based light saber rip-off or get bored resulting in a variety of different idle anims - from looking around and changing stance to spitting and smoking cigarettes - that will remain in his mouth once lit even after you resume activity and remain smoking even a while after discarded. Enemies, effects and environmental objects are likewise well animated with, for example, a pile of paper garbage blowing up into individual tattered sheets slowly settling to the ground as they float around.
Shootouts inevitably result in an immense amount of picturesque environmental damage and even more picturesque splatter. To help player in sowing havoc, the protagonist can use rather impressive arsenal of 12 weapons, many usable items, some of which, like grenades are either weapons in their own right or posses other combat utility and even vehicles and turrets. I already mentioned high environmental interactivity - pretty much any small enough object that isn't bolted down can be thrown with use key and potentially inflict damage. Somewhat larger and heavier objects - including most enemies - can be pushed instead.
To further enrich the combat game features several distinct damage types with different utility against different types of enemies, and different armours or protective gadgets to absorb them.
Items without direct offensive or protective application can offer other advantages like aiding with traversing the environments - for example by allowing to glide from high places without suffering fall damage or hover above environmental hazards.
The enemies are also a diverse bunch including a broad assortment of humans, mutants and even cybernetic or robotic foes, each having their distinct behaviour, weaponry and vulnerabilities, with intelligent enemies generally having the same abilities player has, including picking up and using weapons and items, or even manning vehicles and turrets.
An interesting feature is relative freedom of navigating the game world, only restricted by having to unlock certain routes, missing security codes or not being able to handle some hazards.
The game also features some puzzles and a good amount of text logs that need to be read to obtain vital information regarding your goals and means to achieve them (and the game doesn't exactly hold your hand there) - you'll do so using your PDA (which also has its own animation) that also serves as map database and encyclopedia of gear and enemies (with rotating prerenders).
In the end you also get to decide which of two ending to choose - illustrated, like few other points in game, by rather pixelized prerendered cutscenes.
On the downside, in terms of writing and a lot of world design elements it can more or less be summarized as Fallout as seen by easily excited 5y.o, which maybe wouldn't be that bad - after all 90s were magical time where you could be expected to just roll along with being a space marine gunning down demons with shotgun on Phobos or an undead cowboy cultist antihero out for revenge and, well, blood - but TNP lacks the particular air of wackiness surrounding some of the crazier games of the period and one could reasonably hold game where you read tons of logs just to figure what to do and how to a higher standard than your typical 90s shooter.
Another issue would be some questionably assigned enemy capabilities and resistances - why would a mutated rat be nigh bulletproof is beyond me (I'm also not a big fan of mutants having green blood). The enemy audio barks can also be very repetitive in some cases.
Finally, the difficulty settings are somewhat puzzling with the last one being actually easier in most aspects than the second highest, but featuring very numerous enemies and massive HP pools (which is great for ammo conservation aspect, not so much for actual shooting not getting tedious and dull instead of fun and rewarding) - was it meant for coop?
All in all it's a very nice shooter if you just want to splatter a lot of stuff in mechanically rewarding manner in top-down perspective, yet it would probably still stump around 99% of modern gamers for good at some point.
In any case it's more worth remembering than Quake fucking 2.
Runs ok in Windows 7 x64 if you install the codecs provided with the game and kill the explorer while running it. Might fail to work in accelerated mode, though.
Has anyone else played it?
<- some dude playing the demo - illustrates the gameplay pretty well, although the difficulty levels seem to work a bit differently.
</nostalgia_mode>
And... it's pretty good.
TNP is a top down PA 3D shooter from 1997 that can't decide if it wants to be ambitious or completely lowbrow.
On the upside, the unusual perspective works in game's favour.
3D graphics with polygonal environments and sprite objects doesn't suffer from the usual fluidity and level of detail problems in this perspective, meaning the game can display detailed, rich and fluid, convincingly animated and unambiguously 3D looking visuals despite high amount of enemies and other objects on the screen. Hardware acceleration adds some coloured lighting and texture filtering to the mix, but the game doesn't look much worse without.
Environments are diverse, often with significant use of z-axis, cluttered with destructible and otherwise interactive objects, sprites are nicely animated, with taller objects (like people) being given illusion of three dimensionality by shadows on the ground below.
Animations really benefit a lot from the unusual perspective - not only can top down sprites be rotated fluently without additional frames, but the resources freed this way allow for pretty impressive range of animations and fluidity of movement - the protagonist, in addition to usual running, swimming, jumping, shooting and throwing shit (sometimes literally*) can crawl - with roll as fluid transition from running to crawling - aim at different levels, swing his plasma based light saber rip-off or get bored resulting in a variety of different idle anims - from looking around and changing stance to spitting and smoking cigarettes - that will remain in his mouth once lit even after you resume activity and remain smoking even a while after discarded. Enemies, effects and environmental objects are likewise well animated with, for example, a pile of paper garbage blowing up into individual tattered sheets slowly settling to the ground as they float around.
Shootouts inevitably result in an immense amount of picturesque environmental damage and even more picturesque splatter. To help player in sowing havoc, the protagonist can use rather impressive arsenal of 12 weapons, many usable items, some of which, like grenades are either weapons in their own right or posses other combat utility and even vehicles and turrets. I already mentioned high environmental interactivity - pretty much any small enough object that isn't bolted down can be thrown with use key and potentially inflict damage. Somewhat larger and heavier objects - including most enemies - can be pushed instead.
To further enrich the combat game features several distinct damage types with different utility against different types of enemies, and different armours or protective gadgets to absorb them.
Items without direct offensive or protective application can offer other advantages like aiding with traversing the environments - for example by allowing to glide from high places without suffering fall damage or hover above environmental hazards.
The enemies are also a diverse bunch including a broad assortment of humans, mutants and even cybernetic or robotic foes, each having their distinct behaviour, weaponry and vulnerabilities, with intelligent enemies generally having the same abilities player has, including picking up and using weapons and items, or even manning vehicles and turrets.
An interesting feature is relative freedom of navigating the game world, only restricted by having to unlock certain routes, missing security codes or not being able to handle some hazards.
The game also features some puzzles and a good amount of text logs that need to be read to obtain vital information regarding your goals and means to achieve them (and the game doesn't exactly hold your hand there) - you'll do so using your PDA (which also has its own animation) that also serves as map database and encyclopedia of gear and enemies (with rotating prerenders).
In the end you also get to decide which of two ending to choose - illustrated, like few other points in game, by rather pixelized prerendered cutscenes.
On the downside, in terms of writing and a lot of world design elements it can more or less be summarized as Fallout as seen by easily excited 5y.o, which maybe wouldn't be that bad - after all 90s were magical time where you could be expected to just roll along with being a space marine gunning down demons with shotgun on Phobos or an undead cowboy cultist antihero out for revenge and, well, blood - but TNP lacks the particular air of wackiness surrounding some of the crazier games of the period and one could reasonably hold game where you read tons of logs just to figure what to do and how to a higher standard than your typical 90s shooter.
Another issue would be some questionably assigned enemy capabilities and resistances - why would a mutated rat be nigh bulletproof is beyond me (I'm also not a big fan of mutants having green blood). The enemy audio barks can also be very repetitive in some cases.
Finally, the difficulty settings are somewhat puzzling with the last one being actually easier in most aspects than the second highest, but featuring very numerous enemies and massive HP pools (which is great for ammo conservation aspect, not so much for actual shooting not getting tedious and dull instead of fun and rewarding) - was it meant for coop?
All in all it's a very nice shooter if you just want to splatter a lot of stuff in mechanically rewarding manner in top-down perspective, yet it would probably still stump around 99% of modern gamers for good at some point.
In any case it's more worth remembering than Quake fucking 2.
Runs ok in Windows 7 x64 if you install the codecs provided with the game and kill the explorer while running it. Might fail to work in accelerated mode, though.
Has anyone else played it?
Speaking of low-brow, there are one or two places with a piece of poop on the floor which you also can throw and splatter *should* you desire so.
<- some dude playing the demo - illustrates the gameplay pretty well, although the difficulty levels seem to work a bit differently.
</nostalgia_mode>
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