I know the “hold a button to lock-on to an enemy” was in Mega Man Legends, but in the first game you had to stand still for the lock to work. On MML2, you could lock and run around freely, but that game came after OoT
The fact they used Navi to do the targeting really demonstrates how the devs felt they needed to explain the new mechanic and not just use it ‘because game.’
I thought that the uproar about horse armor was that it was the first pay-to-win DLC. The armor was not just cosmetic but actually provided a stat boost to your horse. The accusation was that the developers had made it too easy for enemies to kill your horse and decided to patch the game to fix it but made players pay for the patch.
It was the beginning of the end, because they saw how much money they made on the horse armour vs how much effort it took to make it. It was actually generally criticized at the time, but it also sold really well.
I’d argue that quake did far more for 3D graphics then it did for FPS. Like Doom is what got FPS into the spotlight even though Wolfenstein 3d came first. Like quake is pretty much what made real 3D possible and doable on the hardware of the time thanks to everything going on under the hood
Absolutely, we didn’t even have any special graphics cards at the time for 3D, I believe? I remember that started some time around Quake 2 but I am not sure, I might remember wrong.
While I don’t know much about video cards, the IBM Monochrome Display Adapter (MDA) is often called the first video card and had a couple of contenders for first that were either designed earlier or released at almost the same time in 1981 and were all for displaying text only. The first GPU card sold to the public was the GeForce 256 in 1999. I’m assuming there’s some in between that were not really used by the public that would have been used in movies and whatnot.
The reason why nobody was selling GPUs before Quake was because quake was THE first 3D game. Doom and other games before Quake were 2.5D and didn’t have 3D models only sprites. Games before Quake essentially mimicked 3D while Quake IS 3D
The term GPU wasn’t used yet. It got applied as something of a marketing term to cards that had hardware transform and lighting, and that was indeed the GeForce 256. Before then, they were “3d accelerators”.
GeForce 256 was marketed as “the world’s first ‘GPU’, or Graphics Processing Unit”, a term Nvidia defined at the time as “a single-chip processor with integrated transform, lighting, triangle setup/clipping, and rendering engines that is capable of processing a minimum of 10 million polygons per second”.
So it kinda depends on perspective. If you take Nvidia’s marketing at face value, then the GeForce 256 was, indeed, the first GPU. You could retroactively apply it to earlier 3d accelerators, including the SNES Super FX chip, but none of them used the term at the time.
At that point, what even is the purpose of defining it? It’s such a specific term that was designed to only apply to their hardware. It’s like creating a new word for a car because you added air conditioning to it.
Sure, they had the first GPU because they coined a term that only applied to one specific product.
The first GPU card sold to the public was the GeForce 256 in 1999.
No it wasn’t. Rendition had the Verite back in 1996 that was true 3D and 2D on the same single video card. At the same time as the Verite was the 3DFX Voodoo (released 1995), but it was 3D only and needed a second card for 2D. Rendition was also the only 3D accelerator natively supported by Quake.
Sony coined the term GPU in 1994 for what was in the Playstation.
Nvidia might have marketed it as the first GPU, but other companies had combined 2D/3D processors on a single chip marketed to consumers well before the GeForce, including Nvidia themselves with the Riva 128. The GeForce was the first product from Nvidia marketed as a GPU, but that doesn’t mean it was the first product to market that was either called a GPU or not called that but still was one. It WAS the first to market with a T&L system (though Rendition had T&L on a chip first it never made it to market).
This is correct. I remember running Quake II in software mode with hardware effects (could that have been OpenGL already?). It ran at like 1 frames per second, because I didn’t have a 3D graphics card. Although the lighting looked lovely when you shot a rocket through a hallway.
And then there was the Quake 2 engine which gave us Deus Ex, American McGee’s Alice and then (through the modified GoldSrc version) Half-Life, Counter Strike and countless others! The family tree of 3D engines is really interesting.
and the Unreal engine which gave us I don’t have any idea how many but just a staggering number. Both solid games on their own, but long-term the engines were the real rock stars
Guardians of the Galaxy on my Steam deck. I would imagine the fps and graphics would be better on a more capable device but its been fun. Great dialogue, music, and settings.
Iirc (edit - apparently incorrect) Halo was the first to use left joystick as forward/backward and left/right strafe; and right joystick as look up/down and pivot left/right.
I even recall articles counting it as a point against the game due to its ‘awkward controls’ …but apparently after a tiny learning curve, the entire community/industry got on board.
If we're talking Goldeneye, I believe the C-button aiming was an alternate control scheme. IIRC, the default controls had the stick control both your forward/backward motion, but also your left/right turning, instead of left/right strafing, so your aim was controlled horizontally by the stick, but vertically was pretty much locked on the horizon at all times. To do fine-tuned aiming, or to aim vertically at all, required holding R to bring up the crosshairs which you could then move with the stick, while standing still.
In hindsight, it's amazing that we ever tolerated that.
You’re correct. In addition you could strafe using left/right C buttons, and you could look up/down using up/down C buttons, but that was awkward and not really designed to aim.
But we also must remember that those games had an auto lock system. Your character would actually target the ennemies by himself, you would only use the crosshair to dona headshot when you have time to aim, or to aim at a specific object in the game.
But yeah, that seems so clunky compared to what we have today
Metroid Prime used them too, and it worked fine. The game was designed around it, so enemies were either already on your level, or were slow enough to react that you could stop and aim.
The remake has other control schemes, but I don’t use them because I like the one the game was made for.
Tbf it was always gonna be hard to make good fps controls on the N64 controller. The movement itself was fine once you got used to it (including strafing etc), but the real sticking point as you mentioned is the shoulder button aiming. It pretty much forced you to stop dead to aim accurately. So you really had to pick your time to hold position and take a few shots before running again.
I still had a lot of fun with it despite knowing there were better options out there with mouse and keyboard (although come to think of it when I was first playing wolfenstein and Doom I think I played with keyboard only back then).
Goldeneye scheme was forward and back on the joystick moved forward and back but left and right on the stick turned the camera in that direction. The opposite movements were on the c buttons (strafe left and right and look up and down).
It was incredibly disorientating going from that to Turok which used the strafe on the c buttons and looking on the stick. It’s the same feeling I now get when I try to go back to Goldeneye now that the other orientation has been made universal.
On a side note, the goldeneye controls allowed for a unique way of moving around the map with circle strafing that you can’t really replicate in other games.
Goldeneye got it functional, but it was janky. Try playing 4p with the old N64 controllers and you’d sorta struggle to move and aim.
Halo updated the standard with something usable in modern games. I think a few games in that genre also set the expectation that weapons should have no aim penalty while strafing, since console players would use small strafing motions to do light aim correction.
First thing that came in to my mind was Gears of War with its specific third person view and hiding behind covers. I don’t think it was the first game with that mechanic but the most influential one
I think you need to be more specific than just “third person”. Third person view was in Pong, Pac-Man, Asteroids, Centipede, etc. It’s the default for most games.
First person was probably introduced with Battle Zone.
Which, I don’t mean to sound pedantic, I just literally don’t really know what you mean here.
Then you will need to extend that to the OP of this comment chain as they didn’t specify either what Gears of War is. I am going to edit my comment to clarify but I do feel you are too pendantic for asking this.
Thank you. Sorry. Never played that game and didn’t know that was specific to FPS. I know some arcade shooter games had that mechanic, but not in the context of free-roaming FPS. I think you’re right about Tomb Raider.
If you are attempting to ask which game popularized 3d, third person shooters, then yes, the original Tomb Raider is probably the most early, widely popular game that popularized this.
The term I refer to is “hiding behind cover” singular - so when I hear “hiding behind covers” I think of the COG seeing locusts, getting scared, and wrapping themselves up in blankets. Lol
Started playing the Fallout: London mod over the weekend and it’s such a joy to play. It’s jam-packed with all kinds of great enviornmental details and map design that I always felt was missing to the Fallout4 base game.
Lemmy is small enough and growing that if you want a community and it doesn’t exist, you should start it. Since it will be small the amount of moderation would be reasonable even for a part time user. As the community grows and if you no longer want to mod it, you can hand it off, but, start it none the less.
I just got invited to a Steam Family and got a couple hundred new games so…a lot!
Lonely Mountains Downhill not a big fan of this one.
Elden Ring - only for a few minutes but excited to start this one.
Dead Space - played quite a bit of this one. Controls and vantage points are frustrating but it runs using about the same amount of energy as Hollow Knight on Steam Deck (~8W), which is quite impressive.
My Friend Pedro - Also a REALLY good and fun game with frustrating controls. Kinda like a modern side-scrolling Max Payne.
Doom + Doom II - I think I bought this a long time ago as a DOOM “package” or whatever you call the sets on Steam. I can’t do it LOL it’s just bad. The new music tracks are excellent though.
Deadpool - Absolutely excellent 10/10 fun game to play but you can’t buy it anymore. I’m sure you can pirate it somewhere.
Under Night In-Birth II [Sys:Celes] - Made top 8 at locals. Then played a long casual set with the guy who eliminated me from bracket, came out of it feeling like I understand the Carmine matchup better now.
Kitsune Tails - Got to act 2 and I'm just replaying the same levels with a character who has a bunch of strong movement abilities. New levels designed for this character would've been great, but why am I replaying the same ones but now way easier?
Dungeons and Degenerate Gamblers - My opinions on this game keep going back and forth. I've found the strats to win more consistently by just relying on disrupting the opponent's deck, but doing so feels a little too linear. I saw there's a big balance update in beta now, so I guess I'll have to see how the changes feel.
Another week until the World of Warcraft Expansion releases, and I used the event to level all of my characters to 70. Even my very first character, who hadn’t seen the light of day in over 15 years, is now properly equipped to take on whatever may come. Too bad it’s a priest, which I really don’t like to play, so back into the dungeon he goes. The Remix mode also ends tomorrow, so all of those characters will migrate over to retail, which means I’ll look over those and do some final house cleaning.
Then I’m pretty much done with the Diablo 4 season, but not because it’s boring or anything, but I kinda finished everything I wanted to do and more. I was playing a Chain Lightning Sorcerer, but found the final item to change my build to Lightning Spear, which is just completely overpowered this season. I kinda breezed through everything, killed all the giga versions of the bosses, cleared Pit level 100, the new Infernal Hordes mode on Tier 8, and upgraded all my stuff. Today I killed some more of the Uber bosses and even got two Uber Legendaries (which I salvaged to crafter another one). I might try and push my Pit level a bit higher, and try to kill Echo of Lilith, the final Uber boss, which got reworked somewhat last season or something, so it’s not just you getting one-shot by terrible hit boxes all the time. (Edit: just killed her, wasn’t too bad, but you need to learn the fight a bit, so in the beginning it just feels you randomly die.)
Also, this last year or so I’ve been “playing” Melvor Idle, which is Runescape, but as an idle game. The game recently launched it’s third DLC, but I’ve been holding off on playing it, since I wanted to 100% everything else first. This week I finally got done with the base game and the first DLC and am almost finished with the second DLC, although it might take another one or two weeks just grinding stuff, so I can craft the missing items. I’ve played a bunch of idle or incremental games over the years, but this is definitely my favorite. It’s not a clicker, there is no constant rebirth or whatever, you just choose a skill and you slowly train it. The best part is, you can actually close the game and fully progress offline. The game also has an in-game mod browser with tons of mods, kinda like the Steam Workshop, which is fantastic.
I’ve been playing Batman Arkham origins. Never played it when it came out but loved the other ones. It’s pretty good so far!
I really enjoyed Origins. It embraced the “detective” aspect a lot better, IMO. Also enjoyed the, well, origins of what essentially became Batman and Joker’s inevitable “love story”. Troy Baker played him really well.
Also, it’s pretty funny hearing Sonic voice Batman. I mean, I know he does a ton of other voices, but the contrast is always hilarious to me.
Anyway, onto me…
After taking a weeklong break from video games, I started playing something on my wishlist that finally went on sale again: Unheard - Voices of Crime. Detective game where you solve the cases by listening to conversations and identifying people by their voices/dialogue. The visuals are basically just floor plans and moving from room to room from a top down perspective in order to hear whoever’s speaking in that room.
All the recordings are binaural as well, so wherever you move your “character”, the volume and location of the voices change. It’s pretty interesting and not too long.
Today, I began Dungeons of Hinterberg. At first, super fun. Then got a bit bored because stuff felt samey. Then got interested again. I expect this pattern is going to continue. Despite being a dungeon crawler, it’s a pretty chill game.
Basically, think Breath of the Wild-type shrines mixed with Persona-style social sim gameplay. You do dungeons (or not, you don’t have to if you don’t want to) in the day, explore and spend time with people in the city at night.
Ah see for me all I can hear is Chris Redfield when Batman talks haha. He does an ok job but he’s no Kevin Conroy unfortunately. Totally agree on the detective stuff! I love the random case files that come up that aren’t some crazy supervillain plot. Just random crimes done by random people. Good fun
Went through the ports available on my retro handheld and saw they have all three Descent games from back in the 90s so I’m playing through all of those.
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