HarneyDashBarrow
2011
The community surrounding Xonotic is a cockroach that's almost as resilient as the Id Tech predecessors proper.
So the original IP holders sell it off to a German studio for a console-only CryEngine reboot, published by THQ? No sweat, here comes Xonotic, a kneejerk fork of Nexuiz Classic, likely created in the same year of the selloff. A new website and Quakenet IRC channel are created.
Nexuiz 2012 releases and bombs. Also THQ goes bankrupt. Xonotic still lives.
Shootmania comes and goes, Ubisoft is underwhelmed by the lack of engagement and shuts it down. Xonotic still lives.
Toxikk is gonna bring back the REAL and HARDCORE ARENA SHOOTER Action (NO REGENERATING HEALTH HERE!! 1999 IS BACK BABY!!!!!!) aaand the game underperforms and the developers quietly shutters it. Xonotic still lives.
Oh my goodness, Epic Games is bringing back Unreal Tournament 4! UT4 is here and real! It's coming to a paid open alpha and uh... whoops haha uhh Epic's got their obscure indie hit Fortnite to maintain so they'll just pretend UT4 doesn't exist. Xonotic still lives.
Okay okay, we know Epic will never touch that property until the Fortnite train dies. But look, Cliff Bazinga's got an arena shooter coming out! It's like the best of Overwatch and Quake combined, look at the hot new eSports tournament they're producing!!
Lawbreakers bombs, Xonotic still lives. (shoutout to Radical Heights LOL)
It's been over a decade and a scrappy arena shooter based off an incredibly hacked apart Quake 1 source port is still able to have pulses of life. I have seen an honest to god Xonotic tournaments livestreamed in this decade, with live commentary. One even topped 69 viewers, outdoing Cruelty Squad in that game's well-earned buzz cycle for that year. And there's a reason for that.
Even the act of getting pubstomped by semi-competitive players is a joy, just from the movement alone. The autohopping can quickly send you flying across the rooms of a map, air control letting the player cruise through like a plane. The weapons may not have a clean eSports™ balance but only a weird analytics nerd would dislike the selection. This is not an 'edgy' pastiche, but a game whose predecessor was released in 2005, one year before Quake 4. Pure iteration.
And it's free, both in payment and in source code. With the exception of Warsow, Cube 2 Sauerbraten, and arguably Quake and Doom, no other "revival" of this genre has dared to take this step for fear of market competition.
So the original IP holders sell it off to a German studio for a console-only CryEngine reboot, published by THQ? No sweat, here comes Xonotic, a kneejerk fork of Nexuiz Classic, likely created in the same year of the selloff. A new website and Quakenet IRC channel are created.
Nexuiz 2012 releases and bombs. Also THQ goes bankrupt. Xonotic still lives.
Shootmania comes and goes, Ubisoft is underwhelmed by the lack of engagement and shuts it down. Xonotic still lives.
Toxikk is gonna bring back the REAL and HARDCORE ARENA SHOOTER Action (NO REGENERATING HEALTH HERE!! 1999 IS BACK BABY!!!!!!) aaand the game underperforms and the developers quietly shutters it. Xonotic still lives.
Oh my goodness, Epic Games is bringing back Unreal Tournament 4! UT4 is here and real! It's coming to a paid open alpha and uh... whoops haha uhh Epic's got their obscure indie hit Fortnite to maintain so they'll just pretend UT4 doesn't exist. Xonotic still lives.
Okay okay, we know Epic will never touch that property until the Fortnite train dies. But look, Cliff Bazinga's got an arena shooter coming out! It's like the best of Overwatch and Quake combined, look at the hot new eSports tournament they're producing!!
Lawbreakers bombs, Xonotic still lives. (shoutout to Radical Heights LOL)
It's been over a decade and a scrappy arena shooter based off an incredibly hacked apart Quake 1 source port is still able to have pulses of life. I have seen an honest to god Xonotic tournaments livestreamed in this decade, with live commentary. One even topped 69 viewers, outdoing Cruelty Squad in that game's well-earned buzz cycle for that year. And there's a reason for that.
Even the act of getting pubstomped by semi-competitive players is a joy, just from the movement alone. The autohopping can quickly send you flying across the rooms of a map, air control letting the player cruise through like a plane. The weapons may not have a clean eSports™ balance but only a weird analytics nerd would dislike the selection. This is not an 'edgy' pastiche, but a game whose predecessor was released in 2005, one year before Quake 4. Pure iteration.
And it's free, both in payment and in source code. With the exception of Warsow, Cube 2 Sauerbraten, and arguably Quake and Doom, no other "revival" of this genre has dared to take this step for fear of market competition.
2011
Wouldn't it be messed up if a dog murdered a guy and they went "I did not have homicidal relations with that man" and the court and jury were like "oh okay"?
2000
My first knowledge of this came from one of Michael Cusack's first animations from 2012 where everyone is watching E3, excited for the third iteration of Half Life or Left 4 Dead. Gabe Newell enters on stage and announces Ricochet 2.
It's like the rolling ball minigames from Mario Party but it looks like a royalty free Tron. A thrown disc automatically attaches to a specific number of vertical levels. Feels like there is an odd, juttery delay of throwing a disc, so I'm not talking about any internet latency or said discs not being hitscan.
Ricochet is multiplayer only, including a server browser with slim choices. Near empty aswell.
Of all the moments of Valve picking up whatever mods they came across, this and Day of Defeat really shows that case. Or this was just a mere tech demo ("What for?", not sure).
Would play a Ricochet 2 though. Am certain that this could be expanded into a 'real' game, and so on.
It's like the rolling ball minigames from Mario Party but it looks like a royalty free Tron. A thrown disc automatically attaches to a specific number of vertical levels. Feels like there is an odd, juttery delay of throwing a disc, so I'm not talking about any internet latency or said discs not being hitscan.
Ricochet is multiplayer only, including a server browser with slim choices. Near empty aswell.
Of all the moments of Valve picking up whatever mods they came across, this and Day of Defeat really shows that case. Or this was just a mere tech demo ("What for?", not sure).
Would play a Ricochet 2 though. Am certain that this could be expanded into a 'real' game, and so on.
2022
While the story isn't an instant barn blazer from its first hour, once it gets going, got dang does it then step up. More turns and twists that managed to catch me off, and even a cliche ending that makes more sense when contextualized. Some were easy to catch (art style, music cues), others were patchy and obscured. Very good for a relatively compact ('medium' length acccording to vndb), free VN. I do wish the developer a better numbers count in the future, considering the kickstarter behind this project.
EDIT: oh sweet it's getting expanded (an expansion? dunno the right word. update?), here's to hoping I can buy it on Itch.
EDIT: oh sweet it's getting expanded (an expansion? dunno the right word. update?), here's to hoping I can buy it on Itch.
2021
The following review has been brought to you by the platform owned by the formerly known Hammer & Chisel service Discord. Discord: Chat For Gamers Your Place To Talk
In some sense, Modus and the wider Haunted PSX & 'boomer shooter' communities at large are a great embodiment of the contemporary aspect of the (U.S./Anglosphere) indie scene online, for better and worse. Solo-small teams that jam and/or create equivalent vertical slices to prop up, like the "Alt Lit" of gamedev. Network and BYOH (Bring Your Own Hype).
For what is intended to be a direct throwback to an then/currently untranslated JP game called Germs, ends up having the closer visual aesthetic to the pale, juttery Mondo Medicals/Agency. An early proto-walking simulator minus any long digressions to further bog an experience down. Text boxes flow slow and a more lenient version of tank controls.
The music loops are pleasant, with a couple feeling notable enough that they could have been on a demoscene style musicdisk. ItemLabel would probably publish something like this. A whole cottage industry of Vibes.
In some sense, Modus and the wider Haunted PSX & 'boomer shooter' communities at large are a great embodiment of the contemporary aspect of the (U.S./Anglosphere) indie scene online, for better and worse. Solo-small teams that jam and/or create equivalent vertical slices to prop up, like the "Alt Lit" of gamedev. Network and BYOH (Bring Your Own Hype).
For what is intended to be a direct throwback to an then/currently untranslated JP game called Germs, ends up having the closer visual aesthetic to the pale, juttery Mondo Medicals/Agency. An early proto-walking simulator minus any long digressions to further bog an experience down. Text boxes flow slow and a more lenient version of tank controls.
The music loops are pleasant, with a couple feeling notable enough that they could have been on a demoscene style musicdisk. ItemLabel would probably publish something like this. A whole cottage industry of Vibes.
2020
If there were two guys on the moon, and one killed the other with a rock, would that be fucked up or what?
2015
ok BingAI,
draw coke-smeared stephen king at midwest furfest talking about donnie darko
draw coke-smeared stephen king at midwest furfest talking about donnie darko
its okay
Still feels somewhat novel to experience an expansion that has enough new, original content to be its own standalone package. Does have the rocky sense of being so compressed and distilled in order to meet its smaller state on the half-life totem, and so on. Compare-contrast this to the semi cancelled Counter Strike singleplayer game.
Still feels somewhat novel to experience an expansion that has enough new, original content to be its own standalone package. Does have the rocky sense of being so compressed and distilled in order to meet its smaller state on the half-life totem, and so on. Compare-contrast this to the semi cancelled Counter Strike singleplayer game.
2016
A freeware experience that's more than the sum of its parts, goofy visuals and writing stringing it throughout. One of the most compact worlds filled with detail (I think the entire map is indeed shaped like a pyramid). One of the few best showcases for the rougher, western associative relative to RPGMaker in OHRRPGCE (what an acronym).
1998
The "archaic"/old school FPS design and first person platforming is what keeps this from being overly tedious. Also of note is how quaint the linear scripting feels, at times almost being able to be broken with ease. Xen was mostly fine except for when an area started spawning endless enemies, or relying on the floaty platforming that added even lower gravity.
Curious to know how much the Xash3D pathtracing mod changes the visuals up with just lighting alone. One thing I noticed is how rough the lighting is, with the flashlight essentially being a small circle that moves around the environment.
Curious to know how much the Xash3D pathtracing mod changes the visuals up with just lighting alone. One thing I noticed is how rough the lighting is, with the flashlight essentially being a small circle that moves around the environment.
2013
The problem and solution don't feel concrete, but it starts out resembling a fairly simple chain of rooms that can be grasped and understood enough to get through. Comprehension isn't fully there, should've drank more water after [menial labor]. The world itself twists and boundaries of rooms get corrupted. But it's hard to really 'corrupt' what is felt as hazy and coarse as one could be. Looking earlier, the earlier version was mostly memorable in the buzz and whirr of coolers and clocks and the sprinkling of nature at very specific angles.
You somehow return to one of the rooms, and the boundaries are roughly the same, but further changes knocks one off further. It's enough to cause a far longer to cause a challenge, but at times some solutions deviate enough to raise flags. "That doesn't feel right", but the solutions keep you moving on. Things that must be broken, even when nearly nothing indicates that's how you do it. And then the world pauses.
Top audio/visual design that makes sense in a greater picture. It's good, very dense for such a relatively short time. Granted, I was also dehydrated and thus a more glassy experience than possibly intended. Not sure.
Thank you for reading.
You somehow return to one of the rooms, and the boundaries are roughly the same, but further changes knocks one off further. It's enough to cause a far longer to cause a challenge, but at times some solutions deviate enough to raise flags. "That doesn't feel right", but the solutions keep you moving on. Things that must be broken, even when nearly nothing indicates that's how you do it. And then the world pauses.
Top audio/visual design that makes sense in a greater picture. It's good, very dense for such a relatively short time. Granted, I was also dehydrated and thus a more glassy experience than possibly intended. Not sure.
Thank you for reading.
Shoutout to the OpenMW project (https://openmw.org/en/) for making a great game even greater. This source port(?) even runs better than vanilla now.
2006
And the jumping sprite of Knytt said "I have become Knytt, embracer of all comfy".
2004
gamer academic guy in mid 30s to early 40s: ...yeah okay so the main dillemma of picking the best game of all time is that everything is good and delightful so really the only way to get a good measure is to aggregate player data. the largest database of gamerknowledge comes from either mobygames or metacritic or backloggd, so we average out the most common top rated one but the problem this creats is that those top rated games can be biased and weighted so what this actually means is that popular opinion is useless and critic opinion is useless because of publisher backings, and the search for objectivity in wide favor is a worthless endeavor so my answer is that there is no best game of all time though if you held me at gunpoint i would probably say super mario bros for the nintendo entertainment system also known as the famicom because it was such an impact on the gamer world in its essence of the gameplay
me, smart and epic: Ford Racing 3 for the PlayStation 2. Tim Follin's greatest music work.
me, smart and epic: Ford Racing 3 for the PlayStation 2. Tim Follin's greatest music work.
2022
It Good. Imagine Experiment 13 but remove nearly all prestige and personal branding, closer to a small group of gamers likers. 8 individual pieces loosely related, and the 'Garden' placed first in the larger title/framework isn't there for no reason.