Things aren’t looking good for me. I’m a few levels into Selaco, a new FPS out now on Steam, and I’m stuck behind a bar as a group of sci-fi soldiers unload their rifles and shotguns into my hiding spot. I’m also low on health. So yeah, a bad spot to be in. I take a deep breath and try something.
As smoothly as I can I slide out from behind the bar, toss an ice grenade toward the enemies, and then dash behind a wall. A moment later a boom happens and my foes are frozen. I spot a nearby propane tank, pick it up, and chuck it at them. A second later I shoot it and watch them blow up. On my screen, a notification lets me know I’ve killed enough of these bastards to unlock a new milestone and earned some new crafting materials to make my assault rifle even better. Sweet!
I then remember that the game I’m playing—that lets me do all this and more was built using a modified version of the ancient Doom engine and giggle. This kind of thing happens a lot in Selaco, a game that rarely feels like it’s built on old bones and dated tech, but instead feels like a polished and modern shooter with some slick retro visuals. What’s most surprising about Selaco isn’t that it’s developed in GZDoom, but that it might be one of the best shooters I’ve played in years.
Makes sense. I’ve always been disappointed that instead of using better processing power to make bigger, more complex games, we used it to make the same games with more complex animations and details. I don’t want a game that only differs from its predecessors through use of graphical upgrades like individual blades of grass swaying in the wind, or the character starting to sweat in relation to their exertion; I want games with PS1-PS2 graphics and animation quality, but with complex gameplay that the consoles of that era could only dream of being able to handle.
There’s something special about a game like red dead 2 or ghost of tsushima that makes you stop and just enjoy the scenery. Games with good graphics have their place, it’s just that they need to also have all the other elements to be any good.
Red dead redemption 2 didn’t stop at being pretty. If it did I don’t think we would all talk about it so fondly. Totally agree that it’s a great looking game though.
thing is, games aren’t pretty because they model every cell in every lifeform and have 5 gigabyte textures for each individual leaf, they’re pretty because they have good graphical design.
Just lighting alone is like 50% of making a scene look nice, you can literally just slap together a low-poly flat-colour scene in blender and set up nice lighting and people will call you talented.
A prime example of this is valheim: ps2-style models and textures and yet the lighting and general graphical design makes it look lovely and atmospheric, especially combined with the music.
Hell, minecraft’s vanilla textures look downright gorgeous with lighting mods.
it annoys me to no end that people think minecraft looks terrible and attribute that to the textures, it’s literally just pixel art! Other games are praised for having pixel art! aurgh!
Minecraft might be considered ugly, but in that case it’s probably moreso because its lighting is… rudimentary… or that person specifically just doesn’t like the artstyle.
Also something that almost no one ever talks about is render distance! Games with a gargantuan render distance look SOOOOOO much more appealing and are easier to navigate, but people just don’t think about it!
I recently played Satisfactory and holy shit that render distance, when i called down the space elevator it’s the only time i can recall a game ever making me just sit there in awe, never before have i felt such a visceral sense of scale from something on a display!
Oh, don’t get me wrong, minecraft’s art style is absolutely charming and a perfect fit for the “blocky” nature of the gameplay. See how many of its imitators try to look more realistic and end up looking genuinely ugly. But to speak to the top comment’s point, when fancy shaders are added minecraft’s simple style gets elevated so much and it goes to show how simple and effective design paired with good-looking lighting can make even the lowest-poly games look absolutely gorgeous.
Hyper Light Drifter is absolutely stunning and its a 2D pixel art game with amazing lighting.
This is exactly how i feel about genshin impact. Its art design is absolutely stunning and can run on a damn phone.
All the photorealism is nice and all but i prefer good art styles and better and more gameplay.
Great point. I saw an interesting video recently that touched on this exact issue:
https://youtu.be/x4_8rIUh7E8?si=-E1VWA8bZ-eVibkL
As graphics increase in quality, the desire for developers to fill spaces with clutter grows – which makes it harder to make meaningful levels with thoughtful design.
There are plenty of big and complex games with great graphics.
Triple AAA games are usually very polished. But polish doesn’t make games fun. Polish is important with accessibility, and it’s easy to see why accessibility is important for a big studio casting a wide net.
But fun? That comes from creativity and innovation. Big studios are averse to risk taking, and struggle to attract creative individuals, because the corporate culture seeks to stamp out individuality in the name of process and procedure.
So yeah, more evidence of this. My money is going to Indy devs who prioritize fun over polish. (But polish is good to have too).
Triple AAA
I absolutely love AAAAAAAAA games
Oh you mean the Serious Sam series? Tons of fun!
Ah, the memories… 2001, lan party at a friends house just after we’d turned 18. Way too little sleep, and playing Serious Sam on coop. Good times.
I remember being so psyched about the original Serious Sam that I pirated a copy to play right away, and then bought a boxed copy as soon as I saw it in Best Buy.
Hype confirmed!
Love me Serious Sam. Really wish Croteam wouldn’t try to be a AAA studio. SS4 only real issue was it was an optimized mess. Great game mechanics, great levels, great music, great writing and VA work, but uglier and more stuttery then their previous games. They switched to using Unreal Engine for Talos 2, so I’m guessing they prioritized on just making the game rather then trying to make their own game engine, which had previously been a point of pride for them. Really looking for to their future games. Expecting a Talos 2 expansion before a new Sam game, but looking forward regardless.
distant screaming noises grow louder
Sounds like dankpods
“You don’t suppose he meant the Camauuuugh?”
Yeah, exactly the same thing at play in the movie industry as well.
Agreed. I think it’s why TV exploded so much and led to things like Netflix making 1 billion shows a year. Breaking Bad showed people you can get away with deep stories with engaging character development on the home screens imo. Or that’s when I saw the change or awakened to the tide.
Edit. I think we are also seeing it become exactly what it left the movie industry for though. Wonder what our next medium will be they exploit to death with mundane entertainment.
@SkyNTP @IndustryStandard Indie games may be janky, but jank is experimentation, jank is risk, jank is beautiful
When PUBG was just coming out, it was absolute jank city and I LOVED IT. I was driving a motorcycle and my partner was in the sidecar, and we were suddenly jettisoned into space, apropos of nothing… flat ground.
We laughed but it was also a bit sad, as only about eight other people were left.
We fall down from space and land… and we don’t explode. We don’t even bounce. The motorcycle is on fire. We have taken no damage. We get off the motorcycle and walk away, laughing our butts off.
I believe both are pretty important, at least to me. I highly value accessibility as someone with various disabilities and particularities and limited concentration, a game that is accessible to me is easy to start playing and for any amount of time so I can stop and afk as needed. It also means difficulty and quality of life options and features so I can choose how I want to play and play efficiently at my own pace. However if the gameplay/fun factor isn’t there I’m not going to enjoy it regardless. So both are very important in my experience.
Yeah, I think also worth remembering that people love games that serious gamers consider beneath them. I love indy games but I also understand why AAA games are fun, simple handholding game play is great sometimes.
Polish = guarantee ?
Tommy:
Let’s think about this for a sec, Ted, why do they put a guarantee on a box? Hmm, very interesting.Ted:
I’m listening.Tommy:
Here’s how I see it. A guy puts a guarantee on the box 'cause he wants you to fell all warm and toasty inside.Ted:
Yeah, makes a man feel good.Tommy:
'Course it does. Ya think if you leave that box under your pillow at night, the Guarantee Fairy might come by and leave a quarter.Ted:
What’s your point?Tommy:
The point is, how do you know the Guarantee Fairy isn’t a crazy glue sniffer? “Building model airplanes” says the little fairy, but we’re not buying it. Next thing you know, there’s money missing off the dresser and your daughter’s knocked up, I seen it a hundred times.Ted:
But why do they put a guarantee on the box then?Tommy:
Because they know all they solda ya was a guaranteed piece of sh*t. That’s all it is. Hey, if you want me to take a dump in a box and mark it guaranteed, I will. I got spare time. But for right now, for your sake, for your daughter’s sake, ya might wanna think about buying a quality item from me.What’s this exchange from? I feel like I’ve seen this somewhere, but maybe not?
Tommy boy
Thank you! I haven’t seen that since the late 90s. Chris Farley was such an incredible man.
Doom wads and hacks in recent years have been doing some absolutely insane things, and it’s only been getting better as more and more people are realising the things they can do with it. I’m not surprised in the slightest.
Total Chaos has got to be the most mind-blowing to me, it’s a total conversion mod built of GZDoom. https://youtu.be/L7IITZDBvqE
I can’t believe I have never heard of Total Chaos. It looks awesome!
I wonder what other good other good GZDoom based games I am missing out on. :)
Here’s another one, Solace Dreams https://youtu.be/IcrYfmkPl-E also really impressive, though the game didn’t seem all that balanced when this video was posted, not sure if it’s been improved since or if the creators moved on to another project.
Thanks! Looks interesting. I will be sure to check it out.
So excited to see how the genre grows. Expecting some really fucking cool rogue like(lites?) games from it.
Started playing it and I’m liking it so far! The low health regen is very clever. Solves the problem in Half Life 1 where the player is always finishing encounters at 1 HP without the need for excessive health pickups. Now the player is guaranteed to have at least 35 HP.
The immersion is really great as well. Often I forget that all the enemies are just 2D sprites.
The Demo was great, Im going to play this today
Let us know what you think of it! It certainly looks like it could be entertaining.
I’m not the same person, but I’ve played a few levels now. I think it’s really good, especially for being early access. Reminds me of original Half Life, so if you like that kind of game it’s a strong recommend!
Thanks for following up! I played the OG halflife when it came out, so I will be sure to check this out.
Just following up in case anyone reads this in the future. The game is really good. In FPS games muzzle flash obscures the target and there’s a little of this here, and there’s a rhythm to shooting enemies and then stopping when they are dead so you don’t waste ammo. Once you get used to it, it feels like a challenging part of the game. I didn’t find the map key until like an hour ago and I wandered around a lot looking for the next thing. Navigating is a large part of the game, because exits and tunnels are not always obvious. Sometimes it’s irritating especially if you don’t use the map. Movement and the world are awesome
Thanks for the follow up!
Been on my wishlist since 2001! I can’t wait to have time to play.
Whattt 2001??
Oops… 2021. Fail me!
The funny thing is that with these doom engine games it might as well be a project from 2001 :)
Good point! They could have even had a period accurate trailer, with that guy with the really deep voice like in movie trailers back then “A game, 20 years in the making…”
(Online features require 56k modem)
I swear when I had dial up I could tell how fast my connection would be by the sound of the static. If it didn’t sound clean I’d get a crap connection and just hanging up and dialing a different connection number would do the trick.
Oh, trust me I know the 56k dance, too bad I never learned how to actually dance…
However! I have since purchased the game, and it is just as spicy as the reviews say :) level design is interesting, it throws in some puzzle mechanics between the gore fest
Anybody that played the Aliens Total Conversion on the original Doom engine (best Aliens themed shooter oriented FPS) knows just how awesome things can turn out.
/yes I’m old
If anyone wants a complete GZDoom game (or 2 or 3 depending on how your counting) right now to try, Hedon is really great. Also, made by a solo dev(music and VA work was outsourced), so absolute flex on AAA game companies.
+1 for Hedon. It’s pretty good.
For some weird reason that specific one doesn’t run on my Linux system. Sad.
This game is great. Feels kinda like Half Life with the fast paced combat of Doom. The exploration is just as good as the gun play and some of the solutions to secrets feel so clever
FYI: Cross-platform cloud save sync is currently not working. Developers are working on a solution.
Workaround is to enforce Proton.Edit: The workaround I’ve read somewhere is wrong. Currently the only workaround is to either manually copy the save data or to set up a 3rd party sync solution (which for Steam Deck means to enter desktop mode).
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have played for an hour, works good was greeted with a screen to select between rwo graphics presets for the deck.
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The game has settings for tweaking aim assist and such. It is exceptionally well done. As OP said they ask you if you’re playing on a Deck when you boot up, and it even has a Deck specific options menu for tweaking aim assist and what not. I played the first level on my Deck last night on regular difficulty and had a blast. Then I switched over to my PC and upped the difficulty and also had a helluva time there. It’s a phenomenal shooter.
I put it on my Syeam wishlist, until I can get some tasty wifi.
I feel like it’s a little disingenuous to call it “Doom Tech” when it’s modern GZDoom with proper full 3D and shit.
But it is true that it’s way more systemic than anything AAA in the genre.
Sure it “looks old”, but it’s sooooo smooth. Kinda reminds me of the Quake remaster in this regard, and that one holds up pretty well in this day and age.
Steam Summer sale’s lookin’ pretty good this year on my end.
Watched a YouTube video on this last night. https://youtu.be/_rcuZvU-BiQ?si=3uYytK4vkOA-5yJx
Plan to buy it later. Lol
