So what's up with all the Build games re-releases?

[67312ac17eff0JDoran]

Civvie 11's reviews are always interesting. He mostly reviews old games, and he sometimes reviews games that he already knows are bad, and those reviews are more fun than the games themselves.

And even though I like to try old (and new) first person shooters that I've never played before, thanks to Civvie I know NEVER to try Tekwar, From Dust till Dawn, Bad Day L. A., The Varginha Incident, Island Peril, Robocop by Titus, and others. Phew!

That

[67312ac17f1d7voodoo47]

he does exaggerate for entertainment purposes though - RR is not that awful, as I did actually finish the game, and I'm no completionist by any extend of imagination. the sewer level was awful though, no argument there - lets take the most annoying enemy and make a level chock full of them, and also construct it in a way that makes landing any hits nigh impossible, that will be fun, right?

but after watching the video, I'm guessing I'll have to take a look at the expansions as well sometime.

[67312ac17f73aJDoran]

but after watching the video, I'm guessing I'll have to take a look at the expansions as well sometime.

He also said that the DLC for Duke Nukem Forever was much better than the base game. I've heard others say that, too - apparently the best parts of DNF were cut from the game before release, and turned into paid for DLC as a cynical and greedy ****-you to the customer. I can't imagine why Randy Pitchford is so unpopular with gamers  )

But DNF was so boring and tedious and lots of other related synonyms that after finishing the base game, I didn't have the will (or courage) to try the DLC. I had to force myself to go through it, and that was only down to my love of Duke Nukem 3D and Duke Nukem: Zero Hour, and my inability to absorb the fact that a game that was in development for the best part of fifteen years, and was developed by the people who made the immersive, innovation, and extremely enjoyable DN3D could have somehow created this and then expected this game to actually be deserving of peoples' time and money.

How did "Right, our last game, Duke Nukem 3D, has achieved stellar sales and popularity, and it's now 1998, let's make a sequel" become "You know what would really make this sequel to DN3D popular with fans of the original? By getting rid of most of what fans love about the first game. Let's get rid of secrets, innovative level design, non-linear areas, and the ability to carry more than two weapons at a time. And let's add regenerating health, because no body asked for it. Oh, I know, I know, let's add in swimming sections where you drown if you don't get to an oxygen bubble every eight seconds. And let's copy the end boss fight from DN3D, and use it as the very start for the new game, that'll really impress gamers with how innovative we are. And, and we can repeat that boss battle ad nausiam throughout the new game!

And instead of a gentle(ish) pastiche of cheap and cheerful 1960s science fiction films and 1980 action movie heroes, let's sledgehammer in some monumentally misjudged and chronically unfunny and unskippable sometimes semi-interactive cutscenes. Bung in some tedious boss fights, make sure we include lots of difficulty spikes (because nothing spells well designed like a lot of irritating difficulty spikes), bung in some boring driving sections, some blah platforming, add in no sense of accomplishment at all (either by the player or the designers), and we have a game that should be ready in eighteen months, will sell in record numbers, and will redesign the first person shooter genre."

[67312ac17f8b3JDoran]

Someone is remaking Redneck Rampage, in the Unreal 4 engine, and it does look good. I'm not too interested in the game (I never took to RR, I never liked it at all, let alone loved it like I do Duke Nukem 3D, or Blood) but some people must like it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FkuzaIuhAfo

[67312ac17fa57JDoran]

Since I mentioned the Redneck Rampage remake, I thought I'd mention the Duke Nukem 3D remake, Serious Duke 3D. It's a remake of episode one of Duke Nukem 3D, made in the Serious Sam 3 game engine, and it's mostly very good, and is available now. Actually, it's been available for a couple of years, and has been updated sporadically since then.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ta7aBXz3FE

[67312ac17fb76voodoo47]

well, GmanLives sums it up nicely, as always. as for the Redneck Rampage video, it really seems just like playing the game in a different engine right now - if you want me to ditch Build (which I kind of like), you'll have to offer more than that.

[67312ac17fc7avoodoo47]

speaking of GmanLives..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WD-idpNFAlw
I need that 0:25 gif.

[67312ac17fde7voodoo47]

more Civvie stuff;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=soYqDq9nGIg
this is the interesting bit: https://raze.zdoom.org/about

//filtering available, slope tilting can be turned off, and no more issues with custom assets missing when loading the Shadow Warrior datadisks. I'm sold.

[67312ac17ff23voodoo47]

Ion Fury is 10 bucks on GOG right now. guess it's time to check it out.


// well;
- performance isn't amazing at 1920*1200 fullscreen. potato pc, but still.
- facey face cannot disable. bleh.
- cannot look down or up fully. why.
- no texture filtering option. boo.
- need mouse sensitivity of about 12. max is 10.
- very few config options generally.
- protagonist not quite as charming as guys from the big three.

but yeah, it's not bad, will definitely play.

[67312ac1801cfvoodoo47]

the NDS PowerSlave(K)EX is going to be based on the PS1/Saturn version, not the pc DOS version.

and it will be called PowerSlave Exhumed;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWWY_kf9boA
this is probably going to be interesting, we'll be able to play a version that never quite existed before, one the free ports do not offer.

[67312ac180337icemann]

Looking good that.

[67312ac1804c0voodoo47]

so, Powerslave Exhumed is out, but I'll definitely wait for a 50% discount, especially because my RX560 just died and I'm rocking a HD4770 for now, and I can't imagine that experience would be anywhere near tolerable. and the gpu market seems to be dead right now, like dead dead, with just a couple of gpus available in the 300+ buck range - checked whether I maybe can get another rx560 on ebay, and it's 2x the price than what I've paid 5 years ago for my original card.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDKrc_OK5EY

[67312ac180639JDoran]

Thanks for letting us know about the release of the game, Voodoo. I've just checked, and the PS4 version is out now, so I will get it tonight.

I have to say, it's great that Night Dive Studios are releasing their remasters/ports on the consoles as well as the PC. It's going to be fantastic having both the System Shock Remake, and System Shock 2 Enhanced, on consoles, too.

[67312ac180777voodoo47]

yeah, I have to admit, they did a pretty good job here, bringing everything everywhere, allowing everyone to play everything. not having to rely on emulators to play the wobbly mess that are the originals is a godsend (funnily enough, you actually can enable all the wobbliness and lowresness if you want, it seems - wonder whether it's possible to turn the pc version weapon reload and slaveguy barks on).

now we only need someone to port the PSE resources back to the Build engine and I will be a happy camper.

[67312ac180870icemann]

Now they just need to do a remaster of "The Fortress of Dr Radiaki" and "Chasm - The Rift". Two FPS's that could use it.

[67312ac180959voodoo47]

don't care much for the Wolf3D clone, but Chasm, yeah, sign me up.

[67312ac180c3aJDoran]

Someone is claiming to have a playable build of the 2001 version of Duke Nukem Forever, and will (he or she says) be releasing it for download in June.


https://duke4.net/duke-nukem-forever-2001-content-4chan-leak/

According to that person:

"Almost every chapter is present in some form. A huge chunk is playable, a huge chunk is block-outs with no enemies. All of the E3 content is there.

Not just the editor, we will be releasing the full source code too.
All weapons are functional with the exception of the chainsaw and the freezer.
Do you have any date on when you are gonna leak it then? June.
The editor works. We also have the engine and UnrealScript source code and have written instructions for compiling it.
Two builds, but only the content for one.
It is Unreal Engine 1, like the final game.
There is no complete game. It was never finished.
The E3 2001 iteration but not the E3 2001 build.
The shrink ray is in the game, it’s the first weapon in slot 4.
The theme is just the Megadeth version. It starts playing as soon as you boot the game.
Bombshell is not visually present in the game at this point, there is a log file showing that her model was deleted.
The strippers can be seen and interacted with when you first enter the club. By the point in the game that was recorded, most of them are dead."

So, if this does exist, and if it is as the person describes, and if he/she doesn't get dissuaded by the inevitable legal cease and desist letters, and if a collector doesn't step in and buy this build and then not release it to the public, then maybe, just maybe, we will get to play it.

We can hope.

[67312ac180d95voodoo47]

iirc, a 80% finished 2001 build is in the hands of one of the developers (Randy Pitchfork), but he said he will not release it.

so if this is getting leaked, then that's great, very sure the community will be able to finish it up, and give the world the DNF it deserves.

[67312ac180f7bZylonBane]

On the one hand, Randy is a money-grubber for refusing to release anything that he can't monetize.

On the other hand, Gearbox has managed to stay in business for over 20 years, so maybe that's what it takes to keep a mid-tier game studio running.

[67312ac18108avoodoo47]

if you are letting something to rot away, then maybe it's better off in someone else's hands.

[67312ac1813c3icemann]

iirc, a 80% finished 2001 build is in the hands of one of the developers (Randy Pitchfork), but he said he will not release it.

so if this is getting leaked, then that's great, very sure the community will be able to finish it up, and give the world the DNF it deserves.

Sounds like the Resident Evil 1.5 stuff, with original versions of games before the overhauls.

[67312ac1814f9voodoo47]

not quite, as we never got a game based on those older builds - RE2 still is quite close to RE1.5, there are changes, but you definitely can see the games are closely related. DNF2011 is nothing like those old 1998/2001/2002 builds, iirc.

[67312ac1816beJDoran]

The Duke Nukem Forever 2001 build in question has now been leaked, genuinely! I don't think I can post links here as this subject might be a little too contentious, given that both Gearbox (who own the Duke Nukem IP) and 3D Realms still exist, but Google should help you find them. And they will probably be on the Internet Archive too.

Or PM me for the links.

And read the (short) incstructions at:

https://forums.duke4.net/topic/12013-leaked-duke-nukem-forever-2001/

as apparently you need to download and install a small file, to get the game working propely.

There are two leaked files, the game's archive being 847 MB in size, and the press kit being 47 MB (plus you should download the 3 MB file from the forums.duke4.net link given above). Though the 'press kit' is just fifteen screenshots, so it's probably not worth downloading unless you are an utter Duke Nukem fanatic who has to have everything DN that you can find.

[67312ac1817ccvoodoo47]

good. I'll probably hold off and see whether the modders plan to clean it up - waited for some quarter of a century for this, what's a couple of more months.