Starker on 18/6/2020 at 00:04
SS1 looked old when I played it (I played it several years after SS2, so it seemed especially dated by then), but I still prefer it to SS2 that for me has always felt just a bit on the wrong side of cartoonish in its visuals. One of my fears when Kickstarting the thing was that Stephen would make it too much like SS2, since he's such a big fan of it.
heywood on 18/6/2020 at 00:50
I played SS2 when it first came out and it looked old then. I remember thinking the UI was great, the levels were OK, and the character models were terrible. But the A3D sound with headphones was something that made up for the weak graphics. The strange thing is, every time I've replayed it and tried the Rebirth mod, I've switched back to the original models. That might just be nostalgia/familiarity.
I recall Stephen saying something about RPG elements at some point, which ended up being controversial. I absolutely loved the RPG elements in SS2, but remaking SS1 with those elements would result in a very different game.
Pyrian on 18/6/2020 at 00:56
Quote Posted by heywood
I played SS2 when it first came out and it looked old then. I remember thinking the UI was great...
Wow. I like in that game how doing stuff in the in-game menus doesn't pause the game, but switching up the basic controls so they could use the mouse in the UI was IMO inexcusable.
ZylonBane on 18/6/2020 at 01:33
Please rephrase your complaint in a less nonsensical manner.
heywood on 18/6/2020 at 15:38
I'm not sure what you're saying either Pyrian. Are you complaining about the default key bindings, or is it the use/shoot modality of the HUD that you find inexcusable? I got used to toggling modes quickly enough in the tutorial level. I wish more imm sims used an interface like this to keep the game going real-time.
Pyrian on 19/6/2020 at 02:51
Quote Posted by heywood
I'm not sure what you're saying either Pyrian.
Sorry.
Quote Posted by heywood
...or is it the use/shoot modality of the HUD that you find inexcusable?
I...
Think so? Lol. The fact that in "normal" mode you've got mouselook and then once you start interacting with menus you don't. You can still move, turn and do most things, but you have to use keyboard commands like original Doom controls, if you can even remember the bindings while a rumbler is chasing you around.
Harvester on 19/6/2020 at 07:45
Yeah but one press of the tab key instantly puts you back in shoot mode. Didn't cause me any problems to be honest.
Pyrian on 19/6/2020 at 08:29
Quote Posted by Harvester
Yeah but one press of the tab key instantly puts you back in shoot mode.
Which you nearly
have to do because the game makes it too difficult not to.
Quote Posted by Harvester
Didn't cause me any problems to be honest.
It's a terrible bit of UI design, not a game killer.
D'Arcy on 19/6/2020 at 08:30
One press of the middle mouse key puts you back in shoot mode. If you still had mouselook while having the menus open that wouldn't make much sense and would make using the menus and moving around simultaneously practically impossible. I guess it's a throwback to the original Shock, where you didn't have mouselook and could move around while interacting with stuff and using the menus - I still play it like that and am yet to experience System Shock using mouselook.
And anyway, why would you want to keep interacting with the menus while being chased by a rumbler? :)
Pyrian on 19/6/2020 at 08:42
Quote Posted by D'Arcy
If you still had mouselook while having the menus open that wouldn't make much sense and would make using the menus and moving around simultaneously practically impossible.
Right now it's "practically impossible" (ironically at the time of release I was able to do it, albeit still poorly, due to having played a lot of Doom
before mouselook - most recent time I played I couldn't do it at all). It doesn't "make sense"
because the menus are mouse driven.
Quote Posted by D'Arcy
And anyway, why would you want to keep interacting with the menus while being chased by a rumbler? :)
Getting the right weapon or other equipment ready/fixed/maintained/loaded with the proper ammo/recharged/used. On later playthroughs it's relatively easy to always be ready, the game is actually very predictable, tending to spawn the exact same enemies in the exact same places. Also, coulda really used a proper toolbelt instead of random hotkeys for various consumables. (I remember my first time getting all the way to the big pools of radioactive water in the body of the many before figuring out there was a key for rad hypos, lol.)
Anyway, I never saw many games falling over themselves to imitate SS2's UI. ...Because it's not very good.