Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Sandwich on November 03, 2003, 03:26:14 pm
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FPT is an acronym I came up with (can't find it with this meaning anywhere else (http://www.acronymfinder.com/af-query.asp?String=exact&Acronym=FPT&Find=Find)), so I came up with it - nyah! ™ ©) for First Person Tactical games, ala Battlezones I & II and Hostile Waters, to name a few.
Anyway, I don't have anything in particular I want to talk about here, I just felt like bringing up the subject. Maybe someone has an insight as to why this genre does not seem to be too popular.
So yeah, discuss! :)
EDIT: Added the definition to that site, so it may show up now. ;)
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Well, maybe because RTS players doesn't like the first person perspective and FPS ones finds them too complicated?
Personally i really like them...
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ditto. i liked battlezone 1 but i never picked up the second
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Both were cool enough, though to me hostile waters was better.
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So with the advances in both RTS and FPS games in the past decade, what kind of improvements do people see coming for FPTs?
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Hostile Waters is third-person, is it not?
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Originally posted by Sandwich
So with the advances in both RTS and FPS games in the past decade, what kind of improvements do people see coming for FPTs?
More of them.
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Originally posted by Petrarch of the VBB
Hostile Waters is third-person, is it not?
Well if you want to be technical about it.... :)
But Hostile Waters is obviously the adopted child of Carrier Command and that was first person :)
I loved Hostile Waters. I thought it was one of the best games I ever played (it knocked Carrier Command out of the running). As I've said before the only thing that game was really missing was a decent multiplayer mode. If it had that I'd probably be playing it online all the time :)
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I'm a big fan of UPRISING and UPRISING 2.
Those games were awesome.
Cheers!
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I love FPTs! Best genre ever! :D (well, maybe other than RPG)
I'm guessing the reason it's not well liked is because there aren't many, and there aren't any popular/famous ones (the latter due to marketing, audiences, multiplayer popularity, so on). For example: Hostile waters wasn't marketed very well at all, their publisher was Interplay.
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Natural Selection.
Best. Half-Life Mod. Evar.
www.natural-selection.org
aliens vs. marines. tactical, what else do you want?
(and uprising was cool too)
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Battlezone 1 I think is spectacular. BZ2 has good visuals, but overall I think isn't gritty enough and fighting "aliens" in their solar system though visually interesting isn't quite as fun as smashing the CCA forces all over the surface of Io :)
Plus BZ1 just has some great cinematic moments in it, such as the landing on Venus and all positions being taken out by Golems, etc.
BZ2 did have some great GUI improvements, but most base buildings being fixed emplacements, and the inclusion of biometal wells I don't think improved the gameplay.
I liked how in BZ1 you had some resource deposists and then had to scavenge for biometal from the remains of combat zones. Similarly you could keep your base on the move except for when you took the risk of building some of the very large and non-mobile buildings.
I think though BZ2 was reduced to more standard RTS gameplay since BZ1 was too revolutionary for most gamers. :sigh:
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I sitll have to get BZ1. It should still be sitting in EB's bargain basket. ;)
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I think this genre is also known as FPSS, First Person Shooter Strategy. You can download a demo of a game called Savage at fileplanet, I bought the game, and I think it's a pretty good FPT/FPSS. BZ1 was revolutionary, BZ2 was buggy, but still pretty good, and I hope to see this genre really grow into something great. I just think producers and gamers alike need to warm up to the concept a little.
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Originally posted by Setekh
I sitll have to get BZ1. It should still be sitting in EB's bargain basket. ;)
got it, played it, loved it, same with BZ2, and hostile waters..
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It's time I played HW again, just a shame that the joystick makes it **** up.
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Yeah I found that too. But after applying the patch and playing it on mouse and keys I doubt I could use a joystick for the game now :)
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I loved BZ1, especially sniping. That was very cool. However, I still wished there were useable aircraft. Guess you can't have it all.....
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I loved teleporting in BZ2, racing around in BZ1, and hopping from craft to craft in HW in the middle of a firefight, making sure they all perform optimally. :)
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"My name is Ransom"
Did anyone ever use that plane in HW? I can't remember it's name, but you couldn't fit any equipment to it, other than the weapons. I used to use it for bombing runs on occasion, but it was woefully weak.
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I saved my Energy for Turrets instead. Had I had the plane earlier I probably would have used it but it appeared too late in the game to be of any use.
"I came. I saw. I blew your lungs out past your backbone. Look grateful"
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"It'll take more than that to get me into bed darlin'"
But why did she only say that to Borden, eh?
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Originally posted by Anaz
Natural Selection.
Best. Half-Life Mod. Evar.
www.natural-selection.org
aliens vs. marines. tactical, what else do you want?
(and uprising was cool too)
well, the Warpstorm crew is absolutely happy with hits game, but i can't get my hands on a HL copy.
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Natural Selection. Best Half life mod EVAR
yeah ns is good. i only discovered it a week ago, and i suck at it but it is a great hl mod :)
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Originally posted by Petrarch of the VBB
"It'll take more than that to get me into bed darlin'"
But why did she only say that to Borden, eh?
"Why make love when you can make war?"
Man, the voice-acting in that game is truly superb. ;)
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why choosing when you can do both :D ( No, really, there's some girls, well... erm, never mind ).
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I hear ya' Venom. I know some girls... well, never mind. ;)
Seriously, Sandwich (HA!, get it!? HA! I kill me! yeah, I know, you wish), i've never seen or heard of these games. :wtf: can you give me a description of the game play?
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Originally posted by mikhael
I hear ya' Venom. I know some girls... well, never mind. ;)
Seriously, Sandwich (HA!, get it!? HA! I kill me! yeah, I know, you wish), i've never seen or heard of these games. :wtf: can you give me a description of the game play?
Battlezone is like playing an RTS game from a first person view where you can jump in and out of vehicles freely and generally do most FPS stuff too.
If you haven't played it yet (understandable, no one bothered to look at it, it is the greatest gaming tragedy ever that this game was ignored because it is STILL my all time favourite) I'd highly reccomend keeping your eyes out for it. Such a fantastic game.
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I'll go you one better Mik
Here's (http://www.gamesdomain.com/gdreview/zones/reviews/pc/feb01/hostile.html) a review with lots of pretty pics of Hostile Waters running. It still looks pretty good now actually :)
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i'll one up kara
here is a battlezone review http://www.gamesdomain.com/gdreview/zones/reviews/pc/mar98/bzone.html
here's a pic (the game is from 1998 so that graphics are a bit dated)
(http://www.gamesdomain.com/gdreview/zones/reviews/pc/mar98/bzone05.jpg)
battlezone is really fun in multiplayer
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Originally posted by mikhael
Seriously, Sandwich (HA!, get it!? HA! I kill me! yeah, I know, you wish), i've never seen or heard of these games. :wtf: can you give me a description of the game play?
You've got to be kidding me. :eek2: Ok, here goes... You start out with a base, be it BZ's buildings/construction mech or HW's carrier - it's your HQ. From there you can build some units, scavengers (harvesters), and hop in one of them for a FPS-in-a-tank feel. You also usually have 2 methods of handing out orders while in a vehicle... overhead map of some sort, where you can point and click to move units, just like a typical RTS more or less, and hotkey commands. For example, in HW you memorize quite quickly the key combo that will tell a unit to follow your vehicle (guard you), or to attack your current target.
Generally provision is made for switching vehicles... in the BZ games you would actually hop out and walk/jump around as a little man, so you'd have to physically make it to another vehicle, whereas in HW everything is done via remote control, so if your vehicle gets destroyed, the screen fills with static and you have to switch back to the command interface or jump to another vehicle to control.
Basically these games allow you to have the immersiveness of an FPS with the tactical situation planning of an RTS - best of both worlds IMHO. :yes: I highly recommend any of them, but if you want to try BZ2 you probably should try BZ1 first, just for continuity's sake. ;)
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I'm going to class OpFlashpoint as one of these then, despite the lack of base building. (Unless it's that mod, CTI, that does include base-building and RTS elements)
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I'm definately going to have to find a copy of BZ. I've been looking but it doesn't appear to be in any of my local stores. I guess I'll have to try online.
Hostile Waters is somewhat easier to find since it's much newer (it was also given a budget release recently in the UK). The voice acting is great (the hired actors from Doctor Who and Blakes 7 to do some of the acting) and the comments the soldiers who work for you never get boring or repeatative.
The only problem is that the more we talk about it the more tempted I get to reload it and take a week off from MG to play it.
*must resist urge....*
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Originally posted by karajorma
I'm definately going to have to find a copy of BZ. I've been looking but it doesn't appear to be in any of my local stores. I guess I'll have to try online.
Hostile Waters is somewhat easier to find since it's much newer (it was also given a budget release recently in the UK). The voice acting is great (the hired actors from Doctor Who and Blakes 7 to do some of the acting) and the comments the soldiers who work for you never get boring or repeatative.
The only problem is that the more we talk about it the more tempted I get to reload it and take a week off from MG to play it.
*must resist urge....*
If you really get stuck for a copy, I may be able to help out. But hush!
I was actually suprised at how nice looking the original Battlezone is once you've applied the hi res and voodoo2 patches.
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I managed to get a Battlezone Gold copy off the internet a long while back...
I just checked, they still have Battlezone 1 and 2 at the place I got it, here (http://www.chipsbits.com/cgi-bin/order.cbi_home?client=318635&source=10678&page=catalogs/home.html&newpage=infopages/BATTL.IR.html)
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I have both of the BZ games and they are indeed excellent. I thought that BZ2 had better game mechanics and a much nicer interface, although the first game's story and singleplayer mission design was superior. The forgotten enemies mod for BZ2 is also a great example of a community-wide mod project.
By the way, did anyone else notice that in the second game, the scion armories can build some mortar-based weapons but none of their units have any mortar hardpoints? The only way you could use any of those was to capture an ISDF vehicle and then use those weapons. :p
(understandable, no one bothered to look at it, it is the greatest gaming tragedy ever that this game was ignored because it is STILL my all time favourite)
The BZ series was a bit like FS in that respect; it never really got the attention it deserved, possibly due to poor marketing.
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Originally posted by CP5670
The BZ series was a bit like FS in that respect; it never really got the attention it deserved, possibly due to poor marketing.
You know, it seems like both the FPT and Space Sim genres are dying in the public's eyes. I wonder if there is an "HLP" of BZ/HW - we should get in touch with them and mutually p1mp each other's sites and stuff. ;)
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Good luck finding it.
FPTs are fun when done well. Hell, all games are fun when done well, so that ain't sayin' much, but the problem is that it's so rare that they're done right. Hostile Waters is probably the only example of a really well-done one I've heard of, and I don't even have that. There are a good number of bad ones I know about, mostly old ones, but the decently-made and popular ones are indeed a diminishing minority.
However, I dunno that the concept is dead. It seems an awful lot to me like some games, particularly the EA sportsclones, are effectively FPTs. After all, you set up the strategy and how the units are going to be deployed, but in the end you're playing as a single unit (switching off between different ones, most of the time, but still one at a time) when you're actually in the whole scrum of things, and have to trust not only that the strategies you decided on at the beginning were good enough to enable a victory, but that you yourself are good enough at "fighting" to give the strategies their punch and carry the day.
And there's a limited degree of that sort of thing in games like FS and so on, too. It's quite simplistic the way they left it, but you're not gonna get very far in the game unless you can throw your wingmen around effectively.
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Originally posted by Turnsky
got it, played it, loved it, same with BZ2, and hostile waters..
Well, that settles it. ;)
It'll probably run nice and fast on my new PC, when I get it, too. :)
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Hostile Waiters for all!
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BTW has anyone tried the cheat code for Hostile Waters that brings up some guy singing his own version of the Hostile Waters theme tune?
"Hostile Waaattttterrrss, Waters that are rather... hostile" :lol:
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Originally posted by Petrarch of the VBB
Hostile Waiters for all!
Better than Hostile Waitresses. :p
Originally posted by karajorma
BTW has anyone tried the cheat code for Hostile Waters that brings up some guy singing his own version of the Hostile Waters theme tune?
"Hostile Waaattttterrrss, Waters that are rather... hostile" :lol:
The game has SO MANY cheat codes I haven't even tried.
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ok...you've lost me here.
I've never heard of any of those games, or any games in this category.
Is it something like Resident Evil 3?
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Not played RE3 but the basic way Hostile Waters and Carrier Command work is that you're given an aircraft carrier capable of building smaller craft and given an objective to complete. The craft can carry out your orders to a certain degree but at any time you can take control of it yourself and fight the enemy.
Basically you need to keep swapping between the craft to win game as a single craft can't do all the tasks you need to do to win. For example in Hostile Waters you would have to make sure that your tanks were supported by units capable of shooting down aircraft since the tanks had no way of hitting them easily.
Have a look at the review I linked to above if you want a deeper picture of how the game works.
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Originally posted by Singh
ok...you've lost me here.
I've never heard of any of those games, or any games in this category.
Is it something like Resident Evil 3?
:wtf:
Originally posted by Sandwich 12 posts up
You start out with a base, be it BZ's buildings/construction mech or HW's carrier - it's your HQ. From there you can build some units, scavengers (harvesters), and hop in one of them for a FPS-in-a-tank feel. You also usually have 2 methods of handing out orders while in a vehicle... overhead map of some sort, where you can point and click to move units, just like a typical RTS more or less, and hotkey commands. For example, in HW you memorize quite quickly the key combo that will tell a unit to follow your vehicle (guard you), or to attack your current target.
Generally provision is made for switching vehicles... in the BZ games you would actually hop out and walk/jump around as a little man, so you'd have to physically make it to another vehicle, whereas in HW everything is done via remote control, so if your vehicle gets destroyed, the screen fills with static and you have to switch back to the command interface or jump to another vehicle to control.
Basically these games allow you to have the immersiveness of an FPS with the tactical situation planning of an RTS - best of both worlds IMHO. :yes:
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Originally posted by karajorma
BTW has anyone tried the cheat code for Hostile Waters that brings up some guy singing his own version of the Hostile Waters theme tune?
"Hostile Waaattttterrrss, Waters that are rather... hostile" :lol:
Yes, I've used that one. The code is "allyourbasearebelongtous", I do believe
There's also one that turns all the cabal forces into Scousers. (The radio comm, anyway). If memory serves, the code is "deydododatdohdontdeydoh" :D
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I'll have to try that one then :)
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I loved Battlezone. I thought Battlezone original was better than the sequel but the sequel had its strong points. Especially the graphics, which are still quite good even today.
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Originally posted by karajorma
I'll have to try that one then :)
Oh yes, you must. It's exquisitely irritating.