I spent the better part of the last few nights playing Every Man for Himself and well, I love Marathon: Resurrection. If they keep up that good work it will blow away UT mods like SF or Infiltration when it is done.
Yet the beta has many flaws, is lacking features and quit bugged.
I am using an iMac 333 - 160 MB RAM with an ATI Rage Pro (eww) chip and OS 8.6. I was using IP Net Monitor until I found out that its extensions disconnect me from the net when playing longer than 20 minutes M:R on another server.
Apart from that issue I had some crashes, but nothing you wouldn't expect from a beta, well nothing but the crash with the Bab models. I was curious playing with them. :/
If I got the description right Resurrection tries to port the "feel" of Marathon to a modern engine and while I haven't played Marathon in the last... 3 or 4 years I liked what I saw when playing this mod.
I love the HUD, IIRC Wolfchild did that. Good job. Although I would like to see "powerups" in the hud too and the health bar goes transparent and not semi transparent (on my machine) when depleted, it is the nicest piece of HUD I have used in any recent games. It is useful and has style. (that and I like the motion sensor above all) :) Also I really like IAN's skins and the level design. Visually really nice.
So I was there, playing and noticed a few things about the "game play" I thought I'd share:
It is way too fast on 100%. Well I am a bit older than the people who usually do these twitch fests, so that might be me. After the first game I played I set it to 75-80% (usually 77% on netgames) and was happy again. It plays slower and more "realistic" than UT, but still unreal (compared to those "realistic" mods like SF or Inf) enough to be fun. It took a while to get used to the weapons, but thanks to the SPNKR I am able to beat people with my 500ms pig now. :D
The weapons offer a wide variety of tactics, from close range (shot guns and flame-thrower), melee (Fists and Pfhor staff) and ranged (Flechette, AR, Spanker..) so there is something for everyone. Although I noticed some flaws with the weapons:
Fists:
I never am able to hit something with them. But that is probably because of my ping.
Handguns:
Strangely they fire slower than I had expected. I don't usually use them, so maybe I am just too accustomed to the Enforcers.
Fusion Pistol:
It seems even less powerful than the handguns. Or is it a bug when I press "best weapon" and get the magnums instead of the FP (happens with shotguns too). Anyway, bots don't really use the secondary function (if they do they blow themselves up) and the FP is useless against "invincible" players, so, well I consider that a flaw. If it was able to penetrate those shields it would be really useful. I love the effects and the overpower hit "mental trauma" tough. Nice.
Shotguns:
I sometimes couldn't shoot while still having ammunition, so that is probably a bug. Also they look too much like the magnums, so well I sometimes don't look long enough and pick up a silver shiny magnum instead of a shotgun. Well that and the shells are silver too (::choughs:: red! :D)
AR:
I love this one. Although grenade belts are scarce (and I never found out what they look like. I suppose they are dark grey things), that makes up for the power of the grenades. While some people said the AR is too weak, the combination of machine gun fire and explosives is very powerful, if used right. Pressing both triggers at the same time causes players and bots that are hit by the spry gun fire to stand still while you blow them to pieces.
Flamethrower:
Powerful at close/mid range, but useless if the enemy can run fast enough. Really well balanced, especially the napalm usage.
SPNKR:
Powerful. BFG. But the load times recoil and ammo make it a very balanced BFG, but still a lethal one. I love it. :)
Enforcer gun:
A bit too powerful IMHO, at least at close range. I cant seem to get out of range though since I am quite... paralysed when it. A bit too much ammo maybe, but overall nice.
Pfhor staff: There was a graphical glitch with one of the animations, but that was probably mentioned already. The melee function is nice and the ranged (underwater!) attack make it useful. I also like the projectile visually.
Flechette:
This is the only weapon I had trouble with aiming without cross chairs. That is... until I noticed the way the model was holding it. (off center).
Overall the weapons were quite balanced with room for improvement, but useful and fun. What would make me laugh harder when killing would be more individual "kill messages" - I know that "Bob was riddled with bullets" with the AR (yea that isn't the real one. I know), but I'd also like to read if I was blown to tiny bits by a grenade, or if someone killed me "left handed with the magnum." But I don't think that is possible.
I mentioned cross chairs earlier. I really think that MR improves "game play" by not including them. Of course some people already have stickies on their monitor, but overall it really improves your aiming skills. I noticed that when I played EMFH InstantGib. You don't need a cross chair after using a weapon for 15 minutes straight. Either that or your give up and take a SPNKR and just aim at the general direction. :D
Gameplay wise I also missed a few things. Running backwards should be a tad slower, unless you are shooting :) and some of the weapons have a really bad recoil which makes "hopping" way too easy. (Shotguns and alien weapon) Especially the alien weapon was disturbing me, although the recoil helps balancing it, I have mixed feelings about it. Maybe there could be some restriction on "going into the air" with recoil as opposed to "going back on the floor." Oh well I am just rambling.
There is an issue with power ups. I hardly know what I am using and how long it will stay. It would be nice to see this information when scrolling though the HUD windows.
Another problem is with Bot pathfinding. I noticed that - especially on mortal - bots are just standing there and cannot move, they kick ass when they notice you, but they seem to be running on the spot. Aside from that I like the way Bots are patrolling, walking up and down, especially when you can sneak up to them and BLAM. I hope something like that makes it into the single player.
I think this is enough for now about the multi player mode. Now to the single player. I tried the demo levels and although there were no aliens I noticed some things. When starting the single player there was no option to set the speed (also practice screen and server screen had no settings tab, but I think this is a known issue) I would really like to play though the game without running at 80mph. Lightning was gorgeous, but overall I noticed a lack of scenery, which might be added later, but I don't know, so I mention it. It is odd that I can see a camera view of a place, then go to the spot where the cam should be and see nothing...
There also was an issue with saved games, but that should be a known problem too. Apart from this it was really stunning to run though the Marathon.
A friend of mine (Hi erby!) also noticed a few things. The first thing he said was about repeating (non seamless) textures, which are a big "no go" with UT maps, at least from his point of view. He also complained a bit about the simplistic level designs. While I know that this is desired by Team Unphforgiven (fitting name, eh=), I tend to agree. I suppose that much more eye candy (well maybe not that much) will be added in the later stages of development and that M:R will not stay 100% accurate to Marathon, but capture the feel. If someone really wants to play Marathon he or she can go to:
http://bighouse.bungie.org/m1/ss.html
The same game with a better engine. Marathon Resurrection offers more. At least I hope so and with a bit of eye candy in those levels (and action! and aliens! ;) I bet even people who never played Marathon will like it.
There was something else erby mentioned about the textures. Let me quote:
Oh and something else... I really would have liked if they had used new textures. There is that UT Builder Map "Deathstar" (http://www.planetunreal.com/utbuilder/) with beautiful reflecting floor textures... that are textures like I enjoy them.
Oh and he wants a real "Gatling Gun" instead of the SMG, but I don't think he tried the SMG yet... I suppose I need to beat him into playing more with me.
Anyway, good job. I cannot wait for more game types other than Deathmatch and a single player game that kicks ass and I bet it will.
