A Retro-style Shooter Overview
Hey! Wanna hear about something great? 90's shooters. You know the ones: big levels, awesome arsenals, inventive enemies, secrets. Well, in the recent years, there has been a resurgence of such games, especially in the indie sector.
Now, let's begin by talking about the elephant in the room: Doom (2016). Yeah, that was a big deal, wasn't it? A current generation bloodbath with sprawling levels, high speeds, weapons with alternate fire modes and a whole lot of demons. So far, so good. It has a few modern parasites, like upgrade trees, but they were not really a deal breaker, since the moment to moment gameplay was still amazing. The multiplayer, on the other hand had another addition which doesn't really fit: loadouts. Gone were the days when all the players would scramble around the map, searching for something better than their starting pistol. Anyway, the meat of the game is still the singleplayer and Snapmap, aka the level editor. Even better news: the sequel is coming out this year, with even bigger levels and more classic enemies updated for a new generation. Also lots more metal music.
So far so great, but I want us to take a look back at the year 2013, in which we find a title which is often overlooked: Rise of the Triad (2013). It is a remake of the 90's bonkers FPS of the same name, featuring pretty big levels, crazy pickups (God mode literally turns you into God, and there is also Dog mode, which turns you into an invincible good puppy), bonkers secrets, kinda bland enemies in retrospect, at least in the first few levels and.. just buy it, it's only 15 Euros. It also has a multiplayer mode which is actually retro, featuring pickups and everything, and music by Andrew Hulshult. This guy really did an amazing job for this game and some of the ones which we'll talk about immediately.
Dusk (2018). Great game, plays like a mixture of Quake and Blood, with Redneck Rampage aesthetics. Music by Andrew Hulshult, because of course it is. Anyway, this game was made by one person (except the aforementioned soundtrack) and it is full on balls to the wall action. It also has mod support, so you can make your own levels, weapons etc. Fun fact: you can also pick up and throw props from the environment, damaging enemies. Of course it also has multiplayer, named Duskworld (a play on the name Quakeworld), which is similar in implementation to the Rise of the Triad one.
Next is Amid Evil. It is a retro game by the aesthetics of Heretic and Hexen, with weird magical weapons (you have a sword which sends out beams, a staff which shoots homing projectiles, a staff which shoots literal planets at the enemies, a black hole shooting thing, a mace which shoots shards and can pin enemies to walls and a trident which shoots lightning). Oh, also, this game recently got updated with Raytracing, just to make it's already amazing art direction look even more awesome. Enemies are fast and they can gang up on you if you are not aggressive with your movement and weapons. You can also collect the souls of enemies to fill up a bar. When full, this bar will overpower your weapons for a short period of time, letting you rip and tear through enemies even more efficiently. Music by, you guessed it, Andrew Hulshult. There is no multiplayer, so that is a bummer, but what is here is very meticulously designed.
Ion Mai...Ion Fury. Yeah, they changed the name for legal reasons. Anyway, this game was made using Build Engine. Yeah, a literal 90's era engine, which isn't actually 3D, as it does not support stacked rooms, but what they did is amazing. The levels are huge, intricate and full of secrets and weird enemies. If Duke Nukem 3D, Shadow Warrior and Blood were the trifecta of Build Engine games, this one is their god, as it plays smoother, looks crisper and sounds better, as the soundscape isn't as compressed as its 90's brethren. This time, the soundtrack was composed by Jarkko Rotsten, and it is amazing. The secrets in this game are the most well hidden out of all the games I've talked about, but the game encourages you to search for them, especially as near the end of a level the game tallies up the number of secrets you found.
Honorable mentions to this list are Wrath: Aeon of Ruin (a Quake Engine game) and Prodeus, as I did not play them yet, but from what I have seen, they are pretty spot on with their retro roots.
Images: cover, Doom, RotT, Dusk, Amid Evil, Ion Fury, Wrath
Doom, I played it on PS One 20 years ago!!
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Fun fact: the PlayStation version of the game has a more horror soundtrack, making the game feel almost survival horror:)
Made a grave mistake and forgot to mention Project Warlock which is another modern cassic, by the way of Wolfenstein 3D. You go through single plane levels filled with mobs and secrets and, between levels, you go to your base and choose which weapons and spells you upgrade.