Civvie 11 - Retro FPS Boomer

[Kane Lives]

Too bad you don't get 'em for free for owning old CD-ROMs from back in the day.

Not directly, but I wouldnt be surprised if you can contact support (unsure if Steam, ND or id/Raven Software) to redeem a free key for this. It was how I managed to finagle a Steam key for DoW from a CD copy all those years ago

 

[Lurkerish Kandor]

I've been having more and more trouble finding ye olde serial key dump sites in recent years, but I've had luck with a handful of games by finding hyper-autistic archives where the archiver has included scans of the manual or even photos of the case with the disk inside - with the CD key right there in plain view

 

[skykiii]

I've been having more and more trouble finding ye olde serial key dump sites in recent years, but I've had luck with a handful of games by finding hyper-autistic archives where the archiver has included scans of the manual or even photos of the case with the disk inside - with the CD key right there in plain view

Yeah but Heretic and Hexen would not have CD keys. Those were MS-DOS games.

Oh well, I'll just wait for Nightdive's version to go on sale. Here's hoping it has a quickly accessible Mods menu like Doom I and II did.

 

[Bubble Ba'ath]

An you get em fo free if you already own an OG copy on steam or GoG

I didnt even remember but I somehow have both of these games linked to my account so I was able to get the remaster for free. Already two episodes through Heretic and I have some impressions.

Heretic, which I am a big fan of, always had one big flaw: underpowered weapons/spongey enemies. Thats gone now: the combat pacing is much more like Doom now but with inventory items. The way the game plays and the quality of life improvements are making this a blast.

Havent played the Hexen remaster yet but looking around in the options shows they addressed most of my concerns with the original game. Those switches and objectives are now marked on the map, you can switch classes during the playthrough (removing the locked into 4 weapons only effect of the original), and it rebalances some of the weirder weapons. Looking forward to giving it a go too.

Between this is the balls-out amazing System Shock 2 remaster, as well as other things, 2025 is the year of the Nightdive.

 

[Deus Exica]

On one hand yes the current Monolith dev team should be mocked for taking 8 fucking years to make what would at best be a mediocre licensed game,

This is a pretty rare instance where I do actually blame the Publisher. What the fuck were they going to do with an open world Wonderwoman game with the Nemesis System? You can't really make a Shadow of War clone out of that character without changing everything about the character, and you know WB wanted them to cram progression systems and live service elements as far up that game's ass as they could.

 

[Captain Syrup]

Blood 2 was...

After all this time I’m still slack-jawed at how much content they crammed into those old DOS games. Months ago I fired up Blood to see what all the hype was about and oh my god, that thing is a monster. I tapped out somewhere after the carnival level. I don’t even want to imagine how long it takes on Extra Crispy (more enemies, makes them all twice as hard to kill).

 

[Takayuki Yagami]

Brace for a new Civvie video soon, take a look at what just dropped. I know he covered both of these games many moons ago, but he'll probably still cover it for the sake of it.

View attachment 7752304

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3286930/Heretic__Hexen/

Hexen+Heretic got a Nightdive remaster, complete with an alternative soundtrack, quality of life and weapon balancing (including a setting that makes the switch hunting far less autistic), two new episodes, multiplayer and co-op support, and overall cleaned up visuals. If you enjoy Doom but ever wondered "what if melee weapons and magic instead of guns", you will most likely enjoy these games.

Have you fiddled with it yet? If so, is the option to make the key/switch shit less painful enough?

 

[Smaug's Smokey Hole 2]

Watched Gmanshills's video on it, the changes to Hexen sound actually good. Maybe if I had grown up with it I wouldn't find it so annoying but the low-res switch hunting was so fucking tedious. Wonder if we'll get a Hexen 2 remaster and if God wills it, a third fucking Hexen because if there was ever a time it'd sell...

I always thought Hexen was the one that sucked for a lot of reasons while Heretic was fun. Same with the sequels, Hexen 2 blows while Heretic 2 is pretty, pretty good... It looked absolutely stellar for a Q2 engine game.

 

[skykiii]

After all this time I’m still slack-jawed at how much content they crammed into those old DOS games. Months ago I fired up Blood to see what all the hype was about and oh my god, that thing is a monster. I tapped out somewhere after the carnival level. I don’t even want to imagine how long it takes on Extra Crispy (more enemies, makes them all twice as hard to kill).

Extra Crispy is explicitly said in the Readme file (god remember when games had readme files?) to be meant for co-op play, so that should tell you something.

I was having a chat with a friend last night. One thing that's funny about a lot of these retro FPSes is a lot of them fall into a zone I call "you had to have played it as a kid."

Blood came up as a notable exception. I, in fact, did not play it until just a few years ago, and yet it quickly became my favorite of the Build Engine FPSes--even beating out Duke Nukem 3D, which I did play as a kid.

Shadow Warrior... is probably in the "you need to have played it as a kid" zone. That one, when I finally played it, I just could not get into it. I liked it enough to get through the five episode demo campaign but not the main bulk of the game.

Also I've always wondered how 3D Realms got away with literal child nudity in 1997. She appears eight seconds into this old Gmanlives video if you don't know what I'm talking about. I would be very shocked if not-Sasami is still there in the modern ports/remasters.

.... I always liked both Heretic and Hexen, though yeah, Hexen can be a bit of, shall we say, an "acquired taste" in some respects. One of these days I need to finish Hexen 2 and Heretic 2.

 

[BrunoMattei]

Shadow Warrior... is probably in the "you need to have played it as a kid" zone. That one, when I finally played it, I just could not get into it. I liked it enough to get through the five episode demo campaign but not the main bulk of the game.

I'm always conflicted over Shadow Warrior. I never played it back in the day but probably saw that giant game box in a store once. When I finally did play it I thought "This isn't as good as Duke, Blood or Doom... It's fine." And I still walk away from it with that in mind. I don't know what it is that just doesn't gel with me. I blame it on the key hunting, unnecessary vehicle sections, and some blase' enemies.

 

[Healthy Boy Brand]

I was a bit of a Japanophile as a kid (mostly due to samurai/ninja books, so not a classic weeb) so that helped Shadow Warrior for me.

 

[GeorgeFloydFentanylStash]

Oh well, I'll just wait for Nightdive's version to go on sale. Here's hoping it has a quickly accessible Mods menu like Doom I and II did.

I looked at my Steam purchase history and i bought the collection for 99 cents last year. So glad i did since i’ve been wanting a Doom + Doom 2 type remaster for Heretic. Hopefully we can get a wolf3d and SOD type remaster.

 

[skykiii]

I was a bit of a Japanophile as a kid (mostly due to samurai/ninja books, so not a classic weeb) so that helped Shadow Warrior for me.

I had a weeb phase around that time too, but for me there was also an aspect where I found it offensive when westerners tried to do anything Japan or anime related, so that would have biased me against Shadow Warrior.

These days I don't mind.

 

[Captain Syrup]

Shadow Warrior... is probably in the "you need to have played it as a kid" zone.

Like I said, I’m still pretty new to this whole Build engine shit, but Shadow Warrior’s the one that kinda holds up better than the rest. (Blood’s fun enough, but it’s way too dry...ironically, Blood 2 went so far the other way it completely ditched the gothic vibe the first game had and just cranked out frat bro humor). Shadow Warrior feels like Duke Nukem 3D without the low-res puke graphics.

 

[GeorgeFloydFentanylStash]

Shadow Warrior... is probably in the "you need to have played it as a kid" zone. That one, when I finally played it, I just could not get into it. I liked it enough to get through the five episode demo campaign but not the main bulk of the game

I tried to play it but it would crash my computer 30 minutes into the demo when i was a teen.

 

[skykiii]

(Blood’s fun enough, but it’s way too dry...ironically, Blood 2 went so far the other way it completely ditched the gothic vibe the first game had and just cranked out frat bro humor)

Blood 2 bugged me. Caleb seemed like a completely different character. One part that stands out to me was a pre-level text thing where Caleb says he loves the smell of sewers.

In general the Caleb of Blood 2 feels almost like the people making the game didn't really understand the character and just decided that since he's supposed to be kind of a psycho, that means that absolutely nothing about him can be normal--so far gone he even thinks sewers are pleasant. The Caleb of the first game was evil but still rational, still someone you could understand and even empathize with in a weird way. Like watch the FMV from Episode 4 just before the boss fight with Tchernobog.... despite having been on a mission of revenge, Caleb's tone is more somber and questioning, hurt, rather than angry. The dude had nuance. Blood 2's Caleb is an over the top cartoon character.

It actually reminds me of The Punisher, and how his personality was warped when Garth Ennis started writing him. If they ever make a Blood 3 I hope they go back more to the first game's portayal of Caleb.

This has been "Overthinking FPS Protags with Skykiii!"

 

[LightDragonman1]

I was a bit of a Japanophile as a kid (mostly due to samurai/ninja books, so not a classic weeb) so that helped Shadow Warrior for me.

I had a weeb phase around that time too, but for me there was also an aspect where I found it offensive when westerners tried to do anything Japan or anime related, so that would have biased me against Shadow Warrior.

These days I don't mind.

As someone who is still a bit of a Japanophile, I still couldn’t really get into the OG Shadow Warrior for some reason.

 

[Captain Syrup]

Blood 2 bugged me.

I'm not like some Blood superfan but come on. Even if they hadn’t thrown in that RNG nonsense that turns every weapon into a pea shooter, it still would’ve been a slap in the face to anyone who cared about the first title.

Maybe that slapstick stuff was GT Interactive's fault, but this game had no chance.