very competent, but not much else. on one hand i appreciate the high-tension, almost dungeon-crawl nature of the levels. you're trained very early on to understand that every corner, item pickup, hell - even secret room is liable to be a deathtrap. kinda reminds me more of a 2000s shooter than a boomer one with its slower pace, which i'm not opposed to

on the other hand... every enemy being a sponge gets pretty fucking tiring at points and resultantly your weapons tend to feel like peashooters (especially against anything running on all fours). there's limb dismemberment, which sells the overwhelming strength that some monsters clearly hold over you - and it can be used to literally disarm the especially tanky ones - but also feels a little undercooked as it's usually a better idea to just shoot someone's head off anyway

level design's a mixed bag. i'm not a fan of the whole "take a wild guess and shoot a hole in the wall" philosophy, but none of the 'puzzles' are too out there to figure out. environments kinda suck though. i found myself enjoying the quake knockoff-y industrial areas the most and really, really was not too fond of episode 2's bland egypt theme (or its shitty platforming). definitely not much of a looker overall

it's pretty clear why some people love this game and some hate it. the generic setup is made a hell of a lot more standout by its relentlessly troll-heavy design, but if you're not a fan of that then there's probably nothing here for you

if chasm: the rift were a person it'd be this scandinavian guy i knew when i was 13 who frequented 4chan and constantly veiled himself in irony as a substitute for personality

Отличный ремастер среднякового во всех аспектах шутера. Из плюсов можно выделить большое внимание разработчиков к окружению, игровое пространство наполнено разнообразными декоративными элементами, с которыми можно даже взаимодействовать, например разбить лампочку на потолке, от чего комната предстанет кромешной темноте, или же разбить окно и обнаружить там секрет. Да и в целом графическое оформление уровней очень неплохое. Звучит как что-то обыденное, но на период своего времени очень редкое явление. Так же несомненно стоит отметить большое технологическое достижение разработчиков в плане расчленения противников, которое если я не ошибаюсь впервые реализовано в этом жанре именно в этой игре. Это не только отлично выглядит, но и полезно с точки зрения игрового процесса, когда игрок может отрубить руку противника в которой он держит оружие, делая тем самым его лёгкой и безвредной целью. Звуковой дизайн непримечательный, на уровнях играет мрачный эмбиент, иногда встречаются композиции более задорные, оружие и противники звучат нормально, ничего выдающегося или запоминающегося выделить нельзя. Присутствует сюжет, даже есть небольшие заставки между миссиями с анимированной мимикой у персонажей (опять же на то время крайне редкая вещь, что достойно похвалы). Но здесь он представлен формально дабы разъяснить “невероятные” вещи которые происходят в игре. А именно мы перемещаемся во времени в разные эпохи что бы остановить злодеев. Задумка интересная и идет в плюс к разнообразию локаций, ибо посетим мы различные техногенные военные базы, Египет и его смертельные полные ловушек гробницы, мрачные замки и подвалы средневековья, и наконец, инородное логово самих злодеев. Пожалуй плюсы на этом заканчиваются. Сам игровой процесс представляет собой банальный отстрел монстров в крайне простеньких с точки зрения дизайна карт. Из-за ограничений движка, максимальная высота игрового пространства очень маленькая, из-за чего уровни выглядят и играются плоскими, особенно это видно в прыжковых секциях, где игрок касается невидимого потолка даже если ты находишься на открытой местности. Что собственно убивает возможность сделать дизайнеру карт какой-никакой комплексный интересный уровень с различными интересными решениями. Вкупе с этим на последней сложности враги имеют очень большое количество здоровья, что превращает их в губку для пуль, и никакое расчленение этому не помогает. К тому же большинство противников это хитскан (когда противник тебя увидел и стреляет, его пуля моментально достигает своей цели и наносит тебе урон), то есть пойти лоб в лоб не получится из-за того что тебе 100% нанесут существенный урон (а на харде он очень существенный), из-за чего приходится абъюзить глупый искусственный интеллект и сейв-скамить. В придаток к этому дизайнеры любят телепортировать перед тобой толпу вражин которая тебе обязательно снесёт половину здоровья, и это только если тебе повезёт. Это неприятно. Присутствуют боссы в конце каждого эпизода, которые красиво и интересно выглядят, но к сожалению ужасно играются. Для большинства из них игроку требуется носиться на арене в поиске какой-нибудь кнопки которая в конце концов прикончит гада, пока он тебя нашпиговывает свинцом (опять же учитывая высокий урон, занимаемся сейв-скамом). Продолжительность около 4-5 часов со сбором всех секретов. И всё же учитывая эти весьма большие недостатки, игра обладает своей приятной атмосферой и очарованием. К тому же для разработчиков с СНГ это действительно очень крутое достижение. К самому ремастеру притензий никаких, выглядит и играется отлично + присутствует дополнение которое выходило для оригинала. Разве что есть очень неприятное достижение где надо пройти игру с начальным оружием на высокой сложности без смертей, что скорее не сложно, а очень нудно и неприятно.

Awful level design and enemy placement. It seems that Chasm is inspired by those moments in Quake and Doom where the game pulls a sort of "prank" on the player, for example, by trapping them in a room full of enemies, or by setting up a trap after luring them with pickups. The designers of Chasm misunderstood the reason why those moments worked: they were rare and unexpected, serving as tests of the player's adaptiveness and quick thinking. In Chasm, almost every encounter is one of these "pranks" (and they get less creative as the game goes on), making it simply annoying to progress. It's almost a troll game, you could compare it to Cat Mario.
This wouldn't be such a terrible problem if the rest of the gameplay didn't consist of poorly thought-out maze-like levels that don't establish clear directions. A lever in one corner of the level can trigger a door 3 or 4 rooms away. In order to progress, at one point, you're required to slide a moving wall that wasn't shown to be interactable at any point. There are multiple arbitrary actions required of the player that aren't explained in any capacity. If you don't add clear markers to your game, players will end up lost, confused and frustrated. Some developers "solve" this with handholding (objective markers, pop-ups, etc.), but Chasm decides not to address it at all.
The game isn't just trash though. The "raw" combat mechanics are incredibly fun (even if comparable to Quake 1), the visuals are appealing (even if comparable to Quake 1), and the atmosphere is captivating (even if comparable to Quake 1).

+1 The Soundtrack is good.
-1 The story is bad.

Original post here: https://cultclassiccornervideogames.wordpress.com/2017/06/06/chasm-the-rift-1997-pc-review/

In the 90’s, ID Software was the king of the FPS genre. So much so that for about the first half of the decade, First Person Shooters were called Doom Clones. Quake had a similar effect, but to a lesser extent, and the focus was more on the tech than the gameplay, but there were still a lot of games trying to ape off of it’s success. By 1996 with the release of Quake, FPS games had finally settled own as the genre that we all know and love today.

And one of the Quake clones is an unfortunately forgotten game called Chasm: The Rift.

Chasm: The Rift (AKA “Chasm: The Shadow Zone”, which was the name for the demo, and “The Chasm – Entering the Shadow Zone”, which was it’s announced name before being changed to Chasm: The Rift) is a FPS released in September 30th, 1997, and was released for Windows and MS-DOS. It was developed by Action Forms, who are most famous for “Cryostasis: Sleep of Reason”, which came out in 2008, and their cult classic Carnosaurs franchise.

It was published by GT Interactive as competition to Quake, which came out the year before, as a way of getting back at Activision since GT lost the publishing rights of Quake to them. The release for Chasm: The Rift was poorly timed however since it came out a month after Goldeneye 007 for the Nintendo 64, and was release about 3 months before Quake II, which was released for the Christmas rush, meaning that Chasm never had a chance. The only reason that I even knew about it is that I found a cheap copy of it released by one of those bargain bin labels.

The plot takes place in the not too distant future where scientists have discovered that the normal flow of time has been disrupted, from the past to the future, and time rifts have been forming in the Earth’s atmosphere, leading to different periods of history. Mutants known as Timestrikers (unrelated to Timesplitters franchise despite the name similarity) have been making their way through history to try and eradicate all human life. You play as am unnamed commando who has been volunteered and specifically trained to investigate and stop the attacks of these Timestrikers before all life is wiped out. You start out at a power station to investigate why people aren’t getting any power, and the game goes on from there.

The is basic but is enough to explain what is going on and gives you enough reason as to why you’re doing what you’re doing. At the end of each episode, the game is broken up by a cutscene further explaining the plot as you’re playing. The plot is a nice addition to make it stand out from Quake and helps break up the action, but the cutscenes are essentially fancy profile shots of characters and are there just to justify the next level. No award winning writing here, and no need.

There are only two other characters besides you, and one of which pretty much disappears from the plot immediately after the first cutscene and becomes almost completely forgotten after that. Enough other FPS games had at least some plot at this point, so this is nothing special, but it’s still pretty neat.

Graphically, Chasm wasn’t pushing the limits of the hardware of the time like Quake 1 did or Quake 2 would, since unlike those games, which used the graphical capabilities of OpenGL and 3DFX cars for higher video resolutions and colored lighting, Chasm instead goes for a 2.5D engine like the original Doom did, the main difference being that it looked completely 3D and had mouselook but operated on similar physics to Doom. It was designed this way to be able to run on as many machines as possible, taking advantage of the fact that games like the aforementioned Quake 1 and 2 requiring high end PCs to get a good framerate, letting a lot people be able to play their game over other games without having to upgrade their PCs. So while you couldn’t brag to your friends about how powerful your rig was, you still were having fun.

But what it lacks in graphical prowess, it makes up for having a good art design. Because of the time travel plot, the game jumps from the futuristic sci-fi setting that the game starts with and ends up having places set in ancient Egypt and the middle ages. As a way of making up for the lack of the graphical capabilities of the engine, the levels come with neat little details scattered throughout the levels, such weather effects that include rain and open windows that rocked back and forth in the wind, which you could shoot out and destroy.

The only downside to the levels are that more than a few of them come with sections that have close quarters combat, and if you happen to have one of your larger more powerful weapons out at the time, you can accidentally kill yourself from the splash damage of shooting a nearby wall. Once you get used to the tight nit parts of levels, you can train yourself to use some of the lesser weapons, but it’s annoying the first few times it happens to you.

Chasm’s weapons are mostly standard for a 90’s FPS game. You’ve got the Rifle, which is the default weapon and has infinite ammo, the Double-Barrelled Shotgun, Land Mines, which I never used because the other guns always had plenty of ammo and the levels were just small enough that I could get myself blown up on them if I wasn’t careful with their placement, the Blade Gun, which shoots out deadly spinning blades, the Grenadier, which looks like a grenade launcher but acts like a rocket launcher, the Laser Crossbow, the Chaingun, and the Mega Destroyer, which is this games BFG. And despite the fact that the game has tight corridors, I did manage to use this a few times in the slightly more open areas.

Of course, Chasm comes with the obligatory ’90s FPS power-ups too. Other than the health and armor pickups, there is temporary invisibility, which works pretty well, temporary invulnerability, and the reflector, which bounces some of the enemies attacks off of you and right back at them, and can be fun after some practice.

Unfortunately, the game is on the shorter side, with only about 15 or 16 levels total, and it’s pretty easy to complete this whole game in an afternoon. The only thing preventing it from being shorter is that more often than note, parts of levels turn into mazes that you can get lost in pretty easily, so half of your play though will be trying to find the next button or area. Thankfully, the game comes with a mini-map when you press the TAB button so it lessens the impact, but it’s still an annoyance.

While the enemies might mostly act the same, they all have unique look to them. You have your standard military looking guys in the first section of the game with the weapons that you’d expect them to have, such as lasers and rocks, but the enemy roster soon includes a variety of baddies that depend on the time period that you’re in, such as zombies, giant mutant warthogs, half animal half human mutants, alien warriors, mutant scorpions, and a gremlin-like creature wearing a jester outfit that the creative team like the look of so much that they put it onto the games cover. The game comes with a type of strategy where you can blow limbs off of the enemies, resulting in some of them changing their strategy by running up to and trying to beat you to death because you blew off their arm that was holding their ranged weapon. It adds that extra layer to the gameplay that Quake didn’t have.

At the end of each episode, there is a boss battle, which there is a total of 4. But instead of being bullet sponges like a lot of FPS games from the 90s, you have to use parts of the level to try and kill them. For example, you have to defeat the first boss by trapping it in a room with a giant fan and press a button to suck it into said fan.

Action Forms even released a free 3 level map pack on the website for this game, which has gone down over the years, but exists in both an archived form via the Web Archive, and is packed in with an installer that includes both the base game and these extra levels. These new levels add in even more variety in terms of it’s visuals, featuring snow levels, and has a few new monsters to boot.

The most surprising thing about the game is that it came with a level editor, but sadly I couldn’t find a whole lot of levels or mods for it other than a few ports of E1M1 from Wolfenstein 3D, a few test maps that few people have made, and even a Transformers mod that didn’t make it that far before it was eventually abandoned to be work on as a Quake II mod, which from what I can tell, didn’t make it far into development either. It is possible to make levels with the Doom SLADE editor, but I doubt it’s worth investing time and effort into a game no one remembers, unless you’re impressing the other 4 people who still love playing the game.

On the sound front, it’s pretty solid and everything sounds good. The soundtrack consists of atmospheric music, cribbing off of Quake’s soundtrack. It might not have had the talent of Trent Reznor or even be as memorable, but it’s still a pretty solid soundtrack.

Believe it or not, Chasm even comes with a multiplayer component, but compared to other FPS games coming out at the time, it’s one of the most unmemorable multiplayer experiences out there. It also comes with two cooperative modes where you can play through the game with or without enemies with friends. Considering how close quarters the game got at points during the Single Player, I can’t imagine how it would have been with other people. But it’s still an appreciated feature.

The multiplayer features the standard Deathmatch mode you’d come to expect from a 90s FPS with multiplayer, and even though it does have a few Deathmatch arenas, most of the levels are from the Single Player. And to gain access to most of the level, you have to play it like you would the Single Player. Why it doesn’t have the entire map unlocked from the beginning is baffling. And who would bother with trying to unlock these areas when you’re just going to get killer by the other players anyway, unless there was some mutual agreement to let someone open up the areas. And you’re limited to what weapons the level had to begin with. There is no reason to play Deathmatch unless you’re a sadomasochist who wants to set up a multiplayer game with an old FPS game and have several friends who are also sadomasochist who love obscure FPS games.

Chasm is a solid little game even if it couldn't compete with it's contemporaries. Back in the day this would have been difficult to get up and working which was compounded by it's obscurity meaning that not a lot of people could help you get it up and working, but thankfully developer General Arcade has come along and given the game a remaster which lets you not only play the game on modern systems but at resolutions up to 4K at higher frame rates without having to fiddle with some ini file.

If Civvie brought you here like me let me you warn this game is aggressively mid. Being able to do all this in a 2D engine is indeed truly impressive but it doesn't make up for utterly poor the level design is and how amateur hour the enemy placement is as well. The game starts off decent enough, but then the game just devolves into monsters teleporting behind you every time you flip a switch and cramped corridors where you can barely fight enemies. The bosses are lame, janky puzzle bosses that make Shub Niggurath in Quake look good as well. There are some positives that kept me playing; the weapons are solid, the atmosphere is good, the enemies are nice and varied, and the dismemberment system is neat. Too bad the flaws seriously weigh down the positives.

Overall this game is a poor man's Quake 1 in every way and unless you're really into boomer shooters there is just not that much here for the modern FPS fan. I'm also baffled what the creator of DUSK sees in this game, because he clearly knows how to make a great FPS and this game ain't it.

I'd honestly suggest playing this dev's last FPS they made, Cryostasis, instead which while also jank, was a beautifully atmospheric game with some good writing unlike this game's "skinwalker talk" as Civvie so aptly put it.

Like Quake, But Stupid™

inbetwixt my horrid episodes of sonic hyperfixation and procrastinatory youtube binges, i've been craving some dos shooters. that good 320x200 pack. cue me watching a civvie video and seeing this glorious ukrainian quake imitation that uses a heap of 3d models in a 2.5d engine... for some reason. it looks like and effectively is a 3d shooter, minus its z-axis. that's so weird and it warms my stupid autistic little heart. so in an attempt to further put off my homework, i downloaded david syzmanski's "chasm portable" (screw the source port) and jumped right in.

chasm is strikingly standard - which is exactly what i like about it. your weapons include the shotgun - super shotgun - chain gun - projectile weapon - rocket launcher - bfg combo that doom ii popularized. everything feels. looks, and sounds nice and responsive (if unexceptional). as expected, you use em to mow down jobbers and hunks in a hunt for keys. you could call this game "generic", though it feels like a passion project by a bunch of fps fans rather than a cynical cash-in.

the personality of these avid fans shines most in the silly level design and dismemberment. chasm's 5ish hours will be spent turning a corner and walking directly into some kind of ambush. get out of the way, fight off the troublemaker(s), rinse wash repeat. it reminds me a bit of the meatheadedness of serious sam: tfe or the meanest moments of quake. so hold s a lot and be prepared for a monster closet if you see an item. one of the most common foes in episode 2 deals 40 damage in one hit and takes 4-5 shotgun blasts to kill! the dismemberment helps out with heavier enemies like that. it's a lot easier to focus on landing your shots when you're not dodging attacks, so blast off a limb or two off to limit your enemy's movesets. oh, and the way enemies change up their strategies to account for missing body parts is so sick. the game also keeps it fresh with new baddies and settings every few levels, like a colorful taste test of different classic shooters. derivative though it may be, it's never stale. my favorite enemies are the jesters in the middle ages, who dismember real easily and have super silly death animations. awesome.

and that's... kinda it! pretty much every other detail i could mention is standard for a good 90s fps. i tend to favor games that are unique, over-the-top, or even shitty to games that are "just good", but i can't complain about chasm. even if nothing strikes me as outstanding, sometimes i just wanna shoot bad guys with a nice shotgun in some diverse n cozy levels. chasm: the rift does the trick more than f.e.a.r. or any modern fps imitating these old titles ever could. i might prefer this to dusk. it's that AUTHENTIC shit: flat levels at a low resolution with unstable performance and janky mouselook. the gamefeel is more than i'd expect from an early quake clone too. man, i need to finish quake. it'll definitely end up in my 5 stars. for now, this clone's pretty cool.

Chasm the rift, oyunun sunduğu elementleri parça parça değerlendirdiğimde fena olmayan bir deneyim sunuyor. Çıktığı yıla göre şaşırılacak derecede kaliteli 3d yüz animasyonlarına sahip, düşmanların uzuvlarının kopması ve yaşadıkları farklı duruma göre farklı aksiyonlar almaları, kapı arasına sıkışan düşmanların parçalanmaları vs vs derken bir çok case spesifik olarak düşünülmüş ve oyuna eklenmiş.
Yeni nesil oyuncular için oyun biraz fazla old school kaçabilir. Dar koridorlarda çatışmaya girmek insanı yorabiliyor, bu dizaynın bir diğer dezavantajı ise çatışmaların stratejik unsurlarını ortadan kaldırması ve çatışma olayını tamamen reflekse veya ezbere dayalı bir sisteme dönüştürmesi diyebilirim. Eski nesil oyuncular için quick save/load olayı alışılageldik iken yeni oyuncular için alışılması zor bir durum olabiliyor.
Retrofili değilseniz yada milenyum bebesiyseniz bu oyunu sevmenin imkanı yok. 90'lar başı 80'ler sonu oyuncular için quake yanı güzel bir alternatif.

This is the strangest and worst designed boomer shooter I have ever played. The level design is complete madness, in act 2 level 1 I ended up with not a single clue as to where the level continues. A few minutes before that, I had to look into a guide to find my way out of a small square room I was trapped in. The solution to this room is to shoot one of the walls with your rocket launcher. I did not think of this solution myself because the room is so small that you hurt yourself when shooting a rocket inside of it and there is also no visual indicator that the wall can be destroyed. There are trap passages in the game that are profoundly confusing and are impossible to traverse without taking considerable damage. Some enemies are able to damage you instantly when they see you. The rocket launcher as a weapon is quite terrible as well, as the hit boxes of the environment are only roughly in line with what you can see. This leads to constantly hitting yourself in the face with an explosion of the rocket that did not reach its intended target. The dismemberment feature is a nice addition , but not very well executed. I felt like it is utterly inconsistent and thus offers nearly no tactical us to target limbs first instead of the head. At one point I found a weapon that looks like saw blades that you can throw. I was excited because I thought I could easily dismember my enemies now... I was wrong, it took like 10 hits with those things to kill the next enemy and it did not cut off any limb. All in all I am really disappointed with the game. There are much better boomer shooters out there, do not waste your time and money on this one.

Oooh yeah, this is the good stuff right here. That QUAKE-y goodness all over the place. Gliding around corridors at 45mph popping heads off monsters like dandelions with a chunky ass shotgun. And it looks soooooo good, the beautiful low-res hand drawn textures on the low-poly character models ... magnificent. Look no further than the hilariously unnerving mission briefings where two dudes stare into your soul awkwardly from like a foot away - look at those guys! They absolutely rinse HALF-LIFE's bland scientists.

Anyway, there's plenty to yeah-but about - it's short, not particularly innovative or surprising, levels have basically no verticality for some reason, a majority of the weapons are useless, and it is monster-closet-y as all get out. But that last one is honestly not a big deal once you realize how much they love doing it, they kind of elevate it to an art form, lol.

The gripes don't matter if you're looking for a good FPS time - this is it. Sometimes meat and potatoes can be really well done.

Does Quake 1's atmosphere better than Quake. Fight me.

In all seriousness I had a lot of fun with this game despite, or perhaps because of, it's quirks. The aforementioned atmosphere is a lot like Quake's but with not just more color but variety. The weapons are all brutal and satisfying to use thanks to the dismemberment system, the saw blades being one of my favorites. You just chuck em around like a lunatic slicing limbs off like crazy. It honestly makes the combat more dynamic too since it's genuinely advantageous to aim for an arm or the head. I'd heard some people complain about a lack of ammo for certain weapons but I thought they all had enough time to shine.

Admittedly there's a lot about Chasm that's a bit lacking, like the flat level design, but apparently that was because the engine is actually only 2.5D and was only capable of creating levels reminiscent of Wolf 3D which is honestly so impressive to me I don't even care. The voice acting is also quite cheesy, but that just adds to the charm for me.

Chasm is a game I can understand not leaving much of an impression on a lot of folks. However, if your brain happens to be wired like mine or David Szymanski's, I highly recommend checking it out. It's a stange gem.