Lets talk or play... Breathless

[B00tDisk]

I liked the look of Breathless' corridors and textures, but the enemies looked like bath toys and the whole "stream of bullets" thing just annoys.  I much rather prefer "hitscan" weapons (point the gun, pull the trigger, enemy is struck) for ballistic weapons.  Rockets and energy weapons (strangely enough) I'm OK with seeing the ammo fly.

[fishy_fiz]

You, good Sir, just won this thread! :lol:

Is the thread the prize, or the contest itself ?  

[fishy_fiz]

Sorry, I know it's off topic, but has anyone ever played Testament ? I had a demo from a CU Amiga magazine cover cd, but I enjoyed it more than Breathless and actually preferred the visual style more. Textures probably werent as well drawn, but there was more color and it didnt look so much like a generic "game that shall not be named" rip off. (visually I mean, the games themselves (doom/breathless) play very differently)

[motorollin]

I liked the look of Breathless' corridors and textures, but the enemies looked like bath toys and the whole "stream of bullets" thing just annoys.  I much rather prefer "hitscan" weapons (point the gun, pull the trigger, enemy is struck) for ballistic weapons.  Rockets and energy weapons (strangely enough) I'm OK with seeing the ammo fly.

Actually I agree about the "stream of bullets". It does look tacky. After all, in the real world you can't see bullets flying through the air. Rockets you probably could, and energy weapons don't exist (at least in the form we see them in games AFAIK) so they can look however they want

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moto

[motorollin]

Sorry, I know it's off topic, but has anyone ever played Testament ? I had a demo from a CU Amiga magazine cover cd, but I enjoyed it more than Breathless and actually preferred the visual style more. Textures probably werent as well drawn, but there was more color and it didnt look so much like a generic "game that shall not be named" rip off. (visually I mean, the games themselves (doom/breathless) play very differently)

No I never played it. IIRC it was released just before I got rid of all my original Amiga gear. I wasn't too impressed by the graphics, which of course is of prime importance in a FPS

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moto

[fishy_fiz]

Sure, the graphics werent drawn all that well, but at least it wasnt bland like breathless. I only thought of it as its another Wolf3d style fps (as is breathless, even if they tried to hide it).

[runequester]

Testament sort of looks like a PD Wolfenstein clone

I liked that there was a map viewable while playing. For some reason, its super buggy for me. Maybe its just a bad version.

[koshman]

So I played through the first 5 levels of Breathless yesterday. Almost finished the 6th level, but then it crashed... Not a bad game I must say, the actual experience is not that far off from the game-that-we-shall-not-mention. The graphics is not bad and it has more variety than I thought (besides the opening stage). I'm playing on 060 in 1x2 full screen and with mouse control it seems fluent to me (1x1 was playable, but mouse was a little jerky).
I found the game quite difficult in the beginning, but I once I got the rhythm it was actually quite simple to blast through the levels - mouse control and strafing help a lot.
The gripes - I want to see my weapon, it does a lot for the atmosphere. The level desing isn't great - a lot of huge empty rooms that don't make sense, but that's normal for a 1st gen FPS. I'd like more variety in enemies, sfx differing in volume (when I activate a switch the opening wall sounds like it's right behind my back even though it's on the other end of the map).
 
Overall it's not bad for what it is.
 
Still it's hard for me to understand why would anyone want to play 3D games on Amiga (especially AGA) and why would anyone want to play 1st generation FPS regardless of platform today (maybe with the expection of.... DOOM...). This is a genre that has really evolved and improved a lot.

[runequester]

So I played through the first 5 levels of Breathless yesterday. Almost finished the 6th level, but then it crashed... Not a bad game I must say, the actual experience is not that far off from the game-that-we-shall-not-mention. The graphics is not bad and it has more variety than I thought (besides the opening stage). I'm playing on 060 in 1x2 full screen and with mouse control it seems fluent to me (1x1 was playable, but mouse was a little jerky).
I found the game quite difficult in the beginning, but I once I got the rhythm it was actually quite simple to blast through the levels - mouse control and strafing help a lot.
The gripes - I want to see my weapon, it does a lot for the atmosphere. The level desing isn't great - a lot of huge empty rooms that don't make sense, but that's normal for a 1st gen FPS. I'd like more variety in enemies, sfx differing in volume (when I activate a switch the opening wall sounds like it's right behind my back even though it's on the other end of the map).
 
Overall it's not bad for what it is.
 
Still it's hard for me to understand why would anyone want to play 3D games on Amiga (especially AGA) and why would anyone want to play 1st generation FPS regardless of platform today (maybe with the expection of.... DOOM...). This is a genre that has really evolved and improved a lot.

Its an acquired taste I enjoy a lot of those old FPS games, both amiga and PC (games like Alien Trilogy and Blood f.x.).
If I had to pick something, its nice to have a change from ultra realistic looking (space) marine dudes that tend to dominate the FPS genre, and I like a break from my usual poison of UT2004

Thanks for giving it a shot though. Too bad the game crashed.

There are quite a few different enemies in the game but only 3 types or so per "world", so you have to blast through 5 levels of the same 3 guys before meeting new ones. A bit disappointing but maybe it was easier on memory limitations back then, who knows.

I do agree it'd be nice to see the gun. At least you get a nice big cross hair.
It seems the hit boxes are pretty wide, so I rarely have trouble hitting a target.

[koshman]

I'll play some more next week (I'm leaving town for the New Year celebration tonight...). How many levels does the game have?
Also you mentioned something about getting access codes only every fifth level, but when I played I got them after every single level, what did you mean by that?
 
Btw, I'm desparately looking forward to Indivision MK2 shipping, because currently I'm using composite out -> VGA box and LCD and the output is pretty bad. A proper scan doubler will make using my A1200 much more enjoyable...
 
EDIT: you mentioned Blood, that was a great game. I also enjoy some older FPS games (not 1st gen though) like Outlaws, Dark Forces/Jedi Knight and Terminator:Future Shock - that one was awesome and brought us mouselook!

[runequester]

I'll play some more next week (I'm leaving town for the New Year celebration tonight...). How many levels does the game have?
Also you mentioned something about getting access codes only every fifth level, but when I played I got them after every single level, what did you mean by that?
 
Btw, I'm desparately looking forward to Indivision MK2 shipping, because currently I'm using composite out -> VGA box and LCD and the output is pretty bad. A proper scan doubler will make using my A1200 much more enjoyable...

Does your version say 1.1? I believe the patched version gives you codes every level. THe original only gave them at the end of a "world".

If I remember right, there's 20 or 25 levels in total, but I could be remembering wrong.

I have an external scan doubler that I got for a hundred bucks, which works pretty well. A tiny bit of ghosting in workbench but nothing bad at all.

[koshman]

OK, I guess it must be the patched version - it's a WHDload version I downloaded somewhere.
 
I'm thinking whether I should wait for the Indivision or buy some other SD now. WB in 1024x768 would be nice, but I have other RTG equipped Amigas so it's not necessary, plus I'm afraid how it will work with my Lisa chip...
Btw, does you SD work on an LCD? That's a requirement for me + custom refresh rate (or at least fixed at 60Hz...).

[runequester]

http://www.ambery.com/rgbcgatovgac.html
this is what I use, along with a simple amiga monitor port to VGA adapter, you cn get from vesalia or amigakit for a few bucks.

I'll see if I can take a few pictures of how it looks, but basically good. On black backgrounds, you see some slight vertical lines, but I've heard people get that on indivision as well.

It works great with an LCD, which is what I use daily.

[XDelusion]

Correct, DOOM didn't kill the Amiga, instead it gave it yet another target to aim for and it passed with flying colors! Genetic Species is another great example of this.

[runequester]

Correct, DOOM didn't kill the Amiga, instead it gave it yet another target to aim for and it passed with flying colors! Genetic Species is another great example of this.

I installed Genetic again last night and it is aaaawesome. I can't believe how quick it runs on an 030, and still looks so great.

[motorollin]

Still it's hard for me to understand why would anyone want to play 3D games on Amiga (especially AGA) and why would anyone want to play 1st generation FPS regardless of platform today (maybe with the expection of.... DOOM...). This is a genre that has really evolved and improved a lot.

I think there's a certain kick to be had from seeing how well the Amiga could do FPSs when everyone was raving about Doom on the PC. The bad ones are awful, but the good ones really showed the Amiga's potential.

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moto