...The Good Old Days of First Person Shooters


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Yeah, it's not really Monolith that wants to bury NOLF and that awesome robot game. it's the fact that Monolith as the developer they used to be doesn't exist as an entity anymore :/

Either way, as great as some of the old FPS games where, and some still are. Let's face it, while we'd enjoy playing them for a little bit for that retro feel. it's not somethign we'd go back to playing over modern games, as much as we complain about them, they are better. 

do you mean Shogo: mobile armoured division with its manga style sword sounds on the mechs i still can hear it :D 

I recently played thru GLQuake 1 and q2 couple months back, looking dated but still gooood! 

Ut99 online was the first proper fps i played online its netcode was soo optimised, we used to play it daily at lunchtime at work for it dept "teambuilding" those were the days :) 

oh man i loved this series! I would totally geek if they made a 3rd.

I actually kinda know a guy who used to work as a visual artist for Monolith, and that's the first thing I asked him, if there's a chance there would be a third one. He shot it down pretty much straight away, saying a tongue in cheek parody of 60s era spy movies has a very niche audience and that there's no way Warner Bros. would put funding in it. I guess this holds even more weight now that it's been well over 10 years after the second one came out, so the fanbase has dwindled. Which sucks, but on the other hand, none of the original team would probably be involved anyway, so who know what the results would be like.

The best bet for a sequel would be if the creative team behind those games assembled, cleared out the ownership issues, and funded the games independently. But even in that next-to-impossible scenario, it still wouldn't solve the issue of audience and fanbase. Then again, Archer is a fairly popular TV show nowadays, so maybe with the right marketing...

I'd personally be happy with a proper rerelase, just to clear out any bugs on modern systems and to offer proper widescreen support. Those games make up in charm whatever they lack in modern graphics, so I'd be more than fine.

 

do you mean Shogo: mobile armoured division with its manga style sword sounds on the mechs i still can hear it :D 

I recently played thru GLQuake 1 and q2 couple months back, looking dated but still gooood! 

Ut99 online was the first proper fps i played online its netcode was soo optimised, we used to play it daily at lunchtime at work for it dept "teambuilding" those were the days :) 

Shogo Multiplayer was wesome. 

I actually kinda know a guy who used to work as a visual artist for Monolith, and that's the first thing I asked him, if there's a chance there would be a third one. He shot it down pretty much straight away, saying a tongue in cheek parody of 60s era spy movies has a very niche audience and that there's no way Warner Bros. would put funding in it. I guess this holds even more weight now that it's been well over 10 years after the second one came out, so the fanbase has dwindled. Which sucks, but on the other hand, none of the original team would probably be involved anyway, so who know what the results would be like.

The best bet for a sequel would be if the creative team behind those games assembled, cleared out the ownership issues, and funded the games independently. But even in that next-to-impossible scenario, it still wouldn't solve the issue of audience and fanbase. Then again, Archer is a fairly popular TV show nowadays, so maybe with the right marketing...

I'd personally be happy with a proper rerelase, just to clear out any bugs on modern systems and to offer proper widescreen support. Those games make up in charm whatever they lack in modern graphics, so I'd be more than fine.

you make some good points; however, i'd argue that plenty of niche game sequels are still made today

Wolfenstein is definitely one of the best examples in modern gaming. I tend to prefer a decent story so things like Bioshock and Wolfenstein are the only FPS games I really enjoy. Sad most developers forget it isn't actually hard to write a decent narrative for a 6-10 hour FPS experience.

you make some good points; however, i'd argue that plenty of niche game sequels are still made today

Lot of them are made using kickstarter though.

For example the only chance to ever see Baldur's Gate 3 is via kickstarter funding if Beamdog can eventually get the right to do it.

Lot of them are made using kickstarter though.

For example the only chance to ever see Baldur's Gate 3 is via kickstarter funding if Beamdog can eventually get the right to do it.

Even if you can't get the rights though that's what kickstarter "spiritual successors" are for.  Pillars of Eternity is supposed to be a "Spiritual Successor" to the Baldur's Gate series and Torment: Tides of Numenera is the "spiritual successor" to Planescape: Torment.  Neither game has the D&D license required to make an official sequel.

NOLF still is one of the finest games I have played.

It was only last year that I stumbled across my original discs while having a loft clearout.

Couldn't resist the temptation and loaded it straight onto the machine again. Except this time around, it had more oompf behind it to have all the settings turned up to max.

Came with an audio disc too with some real funky tunes on there.

I didn't own a PC until well after Doom did the rounds, so the first one I owned was actually Quake 2. I remember being able to throw in a dance cd while playing and it would pick some great tracks to play whilst I was doing my thing.

And modem multiplayer!!!!!!! Dialling up to Barrysworld to get online and play multiplayer maps. Awesome!!!!!

you make some good points; however, i'd argue that plenty of niche game sequels are still made today

That's what kickstarter is for!

Yeah, that's a possibility, but I can't see that Warner Bros would give up the rights to NOLF to let someone make a sequel, when they didn't even bother clearing that stuff out when a dev studio literally offered to do all the work for them, in order to re-release them. It was free money for WB, and they didn't bother. I managed to dig out the article about the failed attempt by Night Dive Studios to fix up and release the games digitally. Click. It's just so frustrating, those guys were literally already on it, but the higher-ups stopped it.

Anywho, I did some research to see what the people behind those games are up to nowadays, and several former Monolith employees actually have their own indie studio nowadays (Blackpowder Games), and they released their first shooter, Betrayer, last year. Looks interesting, might give it a shot once I find some time. I guess if these guys somehow magically got their hands on the rights to NOLF, they would be a great fit to make a sequel.

I also found a podcast interview with one of the writers and level designers from the NOLF era (and one of people from the new Blackpowder team), if you're really bored and want to find out some details on what went on during the development of NOLF and FEAR, it's a pretty good listen. Click. My favorite bit was that he actually witnessed a guy returning the game to the store, because he didn't like the fact that he was playing as a woman :laugh:

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