Re: Prime Gaming 2 November 2024

On Fri, 15 Nov 2024 14:53:30 +0100, H1M3M <wipnoah@gmail.com> wrote:

Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

 
Still keeping up with that schedule! Let's see what we have this
fortnight...
 
It's quite the list!

>

 

>
I just saw a few extra games, but the one that caught my eye was Chasm:
The Rift.
>
I saw that game in an article about the next generation of games coming
after Quake and Quake II. Duke Nukem Forever, Prey, NAM... and right at
the end Chasm: The Rift, which had the selling point of not requiring a
3D accelerator card and being able to run in any hardware.
>
This should be interesting. Crossing my fingers that I can copy the GOG
game files to my retro PC and it will run (that's not the norm, sadly).

I enjoyed "Chasm", and yes it definitely sold on its not requiring a
3D accelerator! It actually ran pretty well too; I think I played it
on my 486/33! It certainly ran better than Quake did on that machine!


IIRC, it used a 'traditional' (for the time) ray-casting engine, like
Doom, but used polygonal monsters and threw in a few polygonal
constructs here and there... enough to give the ILLUSION of being a
full-3D game. Certainly it fooled me, back in the day.

The gameplay was fairly average for a 'doom-clone' of its time.
Compared to what we're used to now, it's awful, but there were A LOT
of terrible FPS games in that era.

     [Most of them published by Capcom ;-P]

Against that backdrop, "Chasm" wasn't that bad. But it lacked the
spark that made games like "Doom" or "Dark Forces" such classics. It
featured the usual dull-looking mazes filled with unexcitingly (and
often unfairly) placed monsters guarding the requisite keycard needed
to progress. It wasn't the worst of the bunch but it wasn't anywhere
near the best. It's biggest selling point was that it looked and felt
enough like Quake that those of us with lesser machines could pretend
we were playing the same game as those cool kids.

It was store-brand Quake.

It's not a game I'd recommend anyone seek out. I enjoy it for its
historical curiousity and for nostalgia (I'm not immune!) but it's
been largely forgotten by gamers for a reason.