Anime The mistake a lot of modern boomer shooters make

[HeatEXTEND]

Doom guy was pissed they killed his pet rabbit

As a kid (no english) I assumed he killed that rabbit because he went mad lol.

 

[Lemming42]

I wouldn't really call Soldier of Fortune and Elite Force "cinematic" games.
Nearly all the cinematics occur ingame, not through cutscenes. They are mainly a form of storytelling.

Both had some pretty lengthy cutscenes both between and during levels, but I was thinking also of things like level design which goes hand-in-hand with plot progression, scripted events (Elite Force in particular loves making you wait for Tuvok to finish talking), non-combat segments (the Voyager bits in EF and the bookstore in SoF).

They both definitely took some lessons from Half-Life and the other wave of games around the same time that tried to go for more movie-like storytelling.

 

[Semiurge]

Doom guy was pissed they killed his pet rabbit

As a kid (no english) I assumed he killed that rabbit because he went mad lol.

 

[HeatEXTEND]

It does actually look like he killed it

 

[Hell Swarm]

It does actually look like he killed it

Isn't it originally shown on a pike at the end of Episode 1?

 

[Lemming42]

It shows up decapitated and impaled at the end of Episode 3 (or possibly he's holding it up with his arm, but it's weirdly thin). I never got what was meant to be going on as a kid either, the whole cutscene is so odd, it'd be almost impossible to tell wtf was going on without the retroactive explanation at the end of Thy Flesh Consumed.

Really great ending slide though, even if it's confusing as fuck. I always really loved the Hexen end slide too with the weird demonic hand reaching out to move the cosmic chess pieces around.

 

[Edija]

Any Boomersims that are more like Cultic, I enjoyed the more "tactical" approach, where sniping, and actually paying attention to how you approach an encounter are rewarded?

 

[HeatEXTEND]

Cultic

Played the demo, not enough ammo. Tactical use of weapons with ammo being a factor? Sure. Straight up ammo scrounging? Nah.

 

[NecroLord]

It shows up decapitated and impaled at the end of Episode 3 (or possibly he's holding it up with his arm, but it's weirdly thin). I never got what was meant to be going on as a kid either, the whole cutscene is so odd, it'd be almost impossible to tell wtf was going on without the retroactive explanation at the end of Thy Flesh Consumed.

Really great ending slide though, even if it's confusing as fuck. I always really loved the Hexen end slide too with the weird demonic hand reaching out to move the cosmic chess pieces around.

Those ending slides and the texts were awesome.
Modern games should learn and bring those back.

 

[Morenatsu.]

Doomguy never had a pet rabbit. It's fake news joke ending. You can't tell any of that through the original ending because it's not real. I mean, like, duh.

 

[Harthwain]

Because you didn't say Doom, you appeared to refer to 90s FPS games as a whole. Which is off-base when we can point to games like the ones I mentioned.

Indeed. Mea culpa. I meant Doom 1 and then made a comparison to Doom 3 (where John Carmack was still obsessed with the technology).

Which is perhaps what I was getting at with the OP - some, perhaps even most, 1990s FPS games were at least somewhat interested in creating thematically vivid worlds with clear plots/stories/whatever, so why do throwback shooters so often choose not to do that?

The lack of clear plots/stories/whatever is rather obvious. As much as you might claim Amid Evil does not do the same thing as older shooters do, I'd argue it follows a similar pattern (at least in terms of its "story"). And if you need another example - one that I played - then I'd point out Arthurian Legends.

Arthurian Legends is pretty good thematically-wise, although it's a bit of a mess (a mix of medievalistic and fantasy/demonic enemies, with magic thrown in). Some things are clearly Monty Python-inspired (Holy Hand Grenade, for example) and the developer himself admitted to being partially inspired by Duke Nukem. So don't expect much from the plot (which is pretty much down to short text blurbs in-between missions/chapters). That said, it is still an amazing game from gameplay/mechanical point of view though and I can recommend it for that alone. Visually it reminds me a lot of Hexen (which is superior in most things to any Heretic game, by the way) and I liked that about it, too.

But again, isn't this down to presentation?

Not really? It is not just the problem of presentation, but the lack of actual story-related content you could work with. Again, compare Doom 1/Heretic 1 to Strife, which was also done on Doom engine. You can also compare it with Hexen: there is more story in the intro alone than in the whole game that happens after.

To reiterate my wider point because I think it might have gotten lost - I can tell you what happens in Doom (or Heretic) just by playing it. Whether you consider it an "actual story" or whatever aside, there's a clear chain of events that occurs, we know where we are and what we're doing at any given time, and the graphics work to convey that. Enemies are generally placed logically according to the environment. The brief text screens explain how the player moves between each of the game's stages, and relay wider events. The game represents a clear journey with memorable locations and visuals each step of the way. Yes, it's presented in a heavily abstract way, but we still know what these abstract environments are intended to represent.

OK. I don't have problem with setting being coherent.

 

[Lemming42]

The lack of clear plots/stories/whatever is rather obvious.

Again I'd point to things like System Shock, Marathon, Dark Forces, and so on. It's probably fair to say that most throwback devs ignore these games and instead tend to focus on Doom and Quake, but I wonder why that is - especially when they often go on to directly reference some of these other games (and even later ones like Half-Life and Unreal). And I'd suggest that a lot of them don't even try to replicate a Doom 1 level of coherency, which is what motivated me to start the thread, because... why would they choose to forsake that aspect of the era they're mimicking?

Not really? It is not just the problem of presentation, but the lack of actual story-related content you could work with. Again, compare Doom 1/Heretic 1 to Strife, which was also done on Doom engine. You can also compare it with Hexen: there is more story in the intro alone than in the whole game that happens after.

I think the outlines of the stories of the two games (Doom and HL) are not totally dissimilar, to the point where you could very broadly describe the overall plots using the same key points - aliens invade a high-tech base due to an unethical teleportation experiment backfiring, a survivor trapped in the heart of the facility tries to escape, the alien presence turns the dead staff into hostile zombies, the hero witnesses aliens teleporting in from nowhere, the hero retrieves experimental energy weapons from the research labs to aid him in his escape, the hero moves into an older, lower-tech area (Deimos in Doom, rail system in Half-Life), the aliens start to win the battle and the facility is gradually destroyed and consumed, the hero reaches the aliens' strange-looking homeworld and confronts a giant mutant baby thing, they win the battle but their hopes of returning home are ultimately thwarted (Earth besieged in Doom, Gordon kidnapped by G-Man in HL).

Half-Life's story obviously does have substantially more going on - the HECU and the VOX system announcing what they're doing, the rocket launch, the G-Man, the Lambda survivors - and is told in a much, much more interesting way. Valve were clearly vastly more interested in their game's story than id were in Doom's, but I suppose my point is that you can at least track a full plot arc like that in Doom (and even moreso in Heretic), while I'm not sure you could in some of the throwback games I've named - plus others not yet mentioned like WRATH, Prodeus, etc.

I'd also even say that some of HL's storytelling techniques have very, very primitive equivalents in Doom - Deimos base having rustier textures than Phobos to show that it's older (akin to the Cold War era rail system in HL), enemies having memorable intros at logical points in the story (which Half-Life would do magnificently with things like the Blast Pit tentacle, and Doom 3 would try and fail to recapture). The story might not have been a concern in Doom, at least for Carmack, but it's tangibly there and it unfolds during gameplay in a way that many throwback shooters don't seem interested in replicating. My standards aren't even high or anything - Ion Fury had more than enough "story" for me and that game's plot can be summed up as "a woman shoots her way through a few streets and office buildings, then an underground lab".

 

[Harthwain]

And I'd suggest that a lot of them don't even try to replicate a Doom 1 level of coherency, which is what motivated me to start the thread, because... why would they choose to forsake that aspect of the era they're mimicking?

If I were to guess? Probably because the single developers aren't that worried about coherency between enemies and levels and are aiming much more roughly at what they found interesting in the games that inspired them. Boltgun is pretty good, but I doubt that Auroch Digital is a single-developer studio. Even Doom was worked on by 5 people.

By the way, Tom Hall was the designer for Doom 1 and he was kicked out a bit before the game was released. So it should be no surprise that Doom 2's levels are shit by comparison when the guy who specifically dedicated himself to design them was no longer there for that (and the same goes for the would-be story Doom 1 could've had).

I think the outlines of the stories of the two games (Doom and HL) are not totally dissimilar, to the point where you could very broadly describe the overall plots using the same key points

That would be false equivalency though, because even if we agree that very broadly the overall plots share the same key points, it does not take into account the actual detail in which each game is shown. In Half-Life alien invasion isn't even the starting point. In Doom you're dumped right into the middle of it. This shows the difference in pacing, and it doesn't stop there (in Doom there are only enemies you shoot, in Half-Life you have allies, etc.).

 

[Morenatsu.]

By the way, Tom Hall was the designer for Doom 1 and he was kicked out a bit before the game was released. So it should be no surprise that Doom 2's levels are shit by comparison when the guy who specifically dedicated himself to design them was no longer there for that (and the same goes for the would-be story Doom 1 could've had).

Except Hall's original concepts got ignored and the prototype levels he did had no gameplay. Doom is a Sandy game more than anything else.

 

[SlamDunk]

The mistake a lot of modern boomer shooters make is getting released.

 

[NecroLord]

The lack of clear plots/stories/whatever is rather obvious.

Again I'd point to things like System Shock, Marathon, Dark Forces, and so on. It's probably fair to say that most throwback devs ignore these games and instead tend to focus on Doom and Quake, but I wonder why that is - especially when they often go on to directly reference some of these other games (and even later ones like Half-Life and Unreal). And I'd suggest that a lot of them don't even try to replicate a Doom 1 level of coherency, which is what motivated me to start the thread, because... why would they choose to forsake that aspect of the era they're mimicking?

Not really? It is not just the problem of presentation, but the lack of actual story-related content you could work with. Again, compare Doom 1/Heretic 1 to Strife, which was also done on Doom engine. You can also compare it with Hexen: there is more story in the intro alone than in the whole game that happens after.

I think the outlines of the stories of the two games (Doom and HL) are not totally dissimilar, to the point where you could very broadly describe the overall plots using the same key points - aliens invade a high-tech base due to an unethical teleportation experiment backfiring, a survivor trapped in the heart of the facility tries to escape, the alien presence turns the dead staff into hostile zombies, the hero witnesses aliens teleporting in from nowhere, the hero retrieves experimental energy weapons from the research labs to aid him in his escape, the hero moves into an older, lower-tech area (Deimos in Doom, rail system in Half-Life), the aliens start to win the battle and the facility is gradually destroyed and consumed, the hero reaches the aliens' strange-looking homeworld and confronts a giant mutant baby thing, they win the battle but their hopes of returning home are ultimately thwarted (Earth besieged in Doom, Gordon kidnapped by G-Man in HL).

Half-Life's story obviously does have substantially more going on - the HECU and the VOX system announcing what they're doing, the rocket launch, the G-Man, the Lambda survivors - and is told in a much, much more interesting way. Valve were clearly vastly more interested in their game's story than id were in Doom's, but I suppose my point is that you can at least track a full plot arc like that in Doom (and even moreso in Heretic), while I'm not sure you could in some of the throwback games I've named - plus others not yet mentioned like WRATH, Prodeus, etc.

I'd also even say that some of HL's storytelling techniques have very, very primitive equivalents in Doom - Deimos base having rustier textures than Phobos to show that it's older (akin to the Cold War era rail system in HL), enemies having memorable intros at logical points in the story (which Half-Life would do magnificently with things like the Blast Pit tentacle, and Doom 3 would try and fail to recapture). The story might not have been a concern in Doom, at least for Carmack, but it's tangibly there and it unfolds during gameplay in a way that many throwback shooters don't seem interested in replicating. My standards aren't even high or anything - Ion Fury had more than enough "story" for me and that game's plot can be summed up as "a woman shoots her way through a few streets and office buildings, then an underground lab".

Dark Forces doesn't get enough press...
And its monumental sequel - Dark Forces 2: Jedi Knight.

 

[Lemming42]

That would be false equivalency though, because even if we agree that very broadly the overall plots share the same key points, it does not take into account the actual detail in which each game is shown.

That's the point I'm making, the plots are presented wildly differently with Half-Life clearly far far more interested in conveying a story, but we can still describe Doom's overall plot arc in a not entirely dissimilar way becaus the game does convey it, even if in infinitely less detail than Half-Life. I don't think you can do this with many throwback shooters, which don't even have Doom-level plots.

I wouldn't even mind the set-up to the story being in the manual - if you count Doom's manual as part of the story, then it doesn't start mid-invasion and instead starts with Doomguy's dishonourable discharge and reassignment, and then Deimos suddenly vanishing from space. I'd have no problem with throwback shooters doing something similar*, as long as the level design, overall art direction, and perhaps occasional bit of exposition went on to then tell the rest of the story in the way Doom does.

*Zortch does this which is cool, but then the levels are unfortunately almost entirely abstract and barely relate to the backstory

And what I mean by "tell the rest of the story" is really basic stuff - like, in E2 of Doom you can see that a) Deimos base is older than Phobos base because there's a different tileset with more rusted walls and industrial-looking areas, b) that the staff have been killed or turned to demons because there are corpses and zombiemen everywhere, and c) you can see that the demons are tearing it apart and merging it with Hell because there are strange gargoyle-covered stone walls, pillars of skulls, and lakes of lava in the middle of what would otherwise be a research facility (plus the hellish Tower of Babel is now embedded in the base). That's literally enough storytelling for me - the manual tells us that Deimos suddenly blinked out of existence before the game starts, the level design in Deimos shows us something strange is happening to it and it's being subsumed by Hell, the end-of-episode text crawl reveals that this is because the moon has been suspended over Hell itself. That's the basic level of storytelling and "meaningful" visual design that I think can boost an FPS game and make it memorable.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Half-Life isn't conveying a story, it is making you live through it.

Unreal tried something similar but it was mostly confined in the intro level. When i realized the whole game was like that in Half-Life i was kinda floored.

 

[NecroLord]

Half-Life isn't conveying a story, it is making you live through it.

Unreal tried something similar but it was mostly confined in the intro level. When i realized the whole game was like that in Half-Life i was kinda floored.

How are you not living through the story in Unreal, dude?
You trying some of your philosophical shit again?
Unreal also has some logs which you can choose whether or not to read with your translator. Unreal never takes control away from the Player. It is way more expansive than Half-Life and has some enormous levels. However, the progression is similar to that in Half-Life, you move from one area to the next ingame.

 

[Morenatsu.]

Almost all of the story in Unreal is logs. Everything already happened before you showed up, and the parts that you live through are just you walking around on a cool space vacation. It's really different from Half-Life's making you feel like you're actually part of some big thing that's actually happening actually.

 

[Darth Roxor]

Yeah, wherever you go in Unreal, it always feels like you're exactly 5 minutes too late to the party.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Almost all of the story in Unreal is logs. Everything already happened before you showed up, and the parts that you live through are just you walking around on a cool space vacation. It's really different from Half-Life's making you feel like you're actually part of some big thing that's actually happening actually.

Like i said, Unreal does what Half-Life does in the opening mission, up to and including little cinematic sequences. It eases up after that and becomes more traditional.

 

[Lemming42]

I love the "you got here slightly too late, lol" aspect of Unreal, especially when you follow the trail of that one survivor of the crashed ship who's pretty much on the same journey you are, only to find her dead in a sniper post, presumably killed just before you arrived.

Also thought it was really cool how you sometimes found the corpses of other Vortex Rikers crew or prisoners littered around, less and less so as the game goes on, just to prove that there are some other people who've made it as far as you have.

 

[NecroLord]

I love the "you got here slightly too late, lol" aspect of Unreal, especially when you follow the trail of that one survivor of the crashed ship who's pretty much on the same journey you are, only to find her dead in a sniper post, presumably killed just before you arrived.

Also thought it was really cool how you sometimes found the corpses of other Vortex Rikers crew or prisoners littered around, less and less so as the game goes on, just to prove that there are some other people who've made it as far as you have.

There are also some logs on corpses that are full "I think I will be safe here for the time being", but later you discover the unfortunate SOB's body...

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

The mistake a lot of boomer shooters make .... is being made.