Slashdot Mirror
Daikatana Goes Gold!
CaptainCarrot writes: "And this time they mean it! Here's the story at Gamespot. There's even a demo you can download. (102.4 MB - not for the faint of heart.)" The demo is over a hundred megs. I'm 23, and I remember saving up money for a 40MB hard drive and a 2400 baud modem. Anyway, congratulations to John and the rest at Ion Storm.
- A.P.
--
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
one out of four stars... would have saved the reviewers a lot of time.
I don't think Babbage's computing engine was as late as this game.
DrLunch.com The site that tells you what's for lunch!
Hmmmm, same people who made quake, thats scary, esically since that game wasnt the greatest... and part II, well, it hated my computer, yet, part III was the best!!!! hope they did better on this one...
When a game is that delayed I wonder if it went
gold with too many bugs.
Oh no! armies of mosquitos are attacking me! shoot the blue stuff at them! oh no I'm out of ammo! hit them with the sparking fist! Damn their hard to hit, oh no more mosquitos. Where's your deep woods when you need it?
Romero "Ok guys we need something that will scare people shitless in the first moments they spend playing our new masterpiece, any suggestions?"
Programmer "MOSQUITOS! Armies of Mosquitos!"
Romero "Holy shit I know that would scare me!"
Romero "Man with armies of mosquitos in Daikatana how can people not be impressed"
Programmer "Oh Oh I know! A sparking fist!"
Romero "Wow! we could make people run around and punch the armies of mosquitos with a sparking fist!"
Romero "Ok now get to work bitches! With armies of mosquitos and a sparking fist this is gonna be the best game of 1997 umm I mean 2000"
-idealego
This game has been in development for a long time, and its finally released after a LONG time .. Great, but there are some problems:
Will there be a Linux port?
Does it use key checking like Q3A, etc.. (very annoying imo)
How will this stack up against UT, Q3A, etc?
Speak out if you know any of the answers, im downloading the demo right now..
-meff
Definately looking like it could be a good game... maybe I'll dish out my money and buy a copy of this. Last game I bought was Quake II and haven't played anything since (after q3 disappointed me...)...
but anyways. I'd recomend grabbing the demo over here eidos ASAP. :) Time to try some multiplayer :)
------- What exactly is real?
lol just kidding of course.
Free music from Jack Merlot.
I might try this game, but I don't got no Windows or x86 I can play it on. I guess there going for that 90% of the market again.
Where do they get off calling this "Dai Katana" or "Big sword" in japanese, when it obviously has little to do with it? Are they trying to mooch off of good ideas like Oni?
-tschak
Again, we may very well have a case of too little too late. Every time game companies delay this long, the game is often rotten and outdated (considering the technology that's been aging as the game was being "perfected"). I'll download the *shudder* huge demo at some point and try it out, but I doubt that it's all it was cut out to be. I mean, once a game is delayed for more than a year, what's the point anymore!? oy.
-- Bandit450...If-Else-Do-*TWITCH*!
If I recall correctly, they use the Quake 2 engine. And it was such a good one too! *cough*. Who is actually planning on buying this?
-SaintAlex
Observe, reason, and experiment.
Observe, reason, and experiment.
(if you're too dumb, just pray)
April Fools was - by my watch - a full 21 days ago. Besides, that prank's old already - no one will fall for it _again_!
-----
Why can't we see others' karma anymore?
-- Imagine how much more advanced our technology would be if we had eight fingers per hand.
As amusing as it has been to sit around and watch Ion Storm disintigrate while the coders played dueling egos, it does make the point that maybe, just maybe, management isn't quite as useless as Dilbert would have us believe.
As for Daikatana: Why bother? A game based on an ancient engine featuring "quests" like "find the key" just doesn't push my buttons anymore.
----
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
190K http://ftp1.gamespy.com/pub/fileplanet/gamedemos/a ction/dkdemo.exen a/demo/dkdemo.exed emo.exea ikatana/releases/dkdemo.exe
N/A ftp://ftp.telepac.pt/pub/3dfiles/games/dkdemo.exe m o.exem o.exe
114K ftp://ftp.gameaholic.com/pub/games/action/daikata
36K ftp://209.247.108.212/pub2/daikatana/demopatch/dk
13K ftp://ftp.zdnet.com/gs/action/daikatan/dkdemo.exe 10K ftp://ftp.avault.com/demos/dkdemo.exe
7K ftp://ftp2.3dgamers.com/pub/3daction/00archives/d
7K ftp://ftp.cdrom.com/pub/3dfiles/games/dkdemo.exe
N/A ftp://ftp.epix.net/pub/3dfiles/games/dkdemo.exe
N/A ftp://fileplanet.gil.com.au/gamedemos/action/dkde
N/A ftp://mirror.aarnet.edu.au/pub/3dfiles/games/dkde
-idealego
The demo is over a hundred megs. I'm 23, and I remember saving up money for a 40MB hard drive and a 2400 baud modem.
*lol*, I can't help but recall that my 32MB video card has more RAM than my first system! Darn kids these days and their new fangled graphics.--// Hartsock
Live to Code, Code to Live!
But what I would like to ask is why computer games are advertized months, sometimes years, before they are released? In the console market this dosen't really happen at all.
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If god dropped acid, would he see people? -- George Carlin
They used the wrong spelling. They should have used "Dai Kata naa" or, "sure are large shoulders, aint they",
or maybe "Dai Kitanai", which is poor grammer for "very dirty".
I could go on.
Lycestra
At first I thought, oh, this might be good..
hehe. boy, was I ever wrong.
There are 2 kinds of enemies. Ones on the ground, and ones not on the ground. Some of them have different models, but that really isn't important.
Then you get to a boss.. And run out of ammo.
The guns are all as lame or lamer than Unreal 1. They went totally overboard with the partical effects, so you get distracted cuz it is raining hard are you are firing the 10 trillion bright green bouncing sparks gun.
Deathmatch reminds me of doom.. Low detail levels, and LAG! The sword sucks in HTH.
These guys are gonna get slaughtered. This is the "Blood 2" of the year 2000.
-Teman
There's no mystical energy field that controls my destiny. It's all a lot of simple tricks and nonsense.
Got the demo, started to play, hit F2 for quicksave and a message stating, "No gems to save game" pops up. WTF?! No gems!? Get outta here!
Has Romero been living in a cave these last few years? He must have noticed all the uproar about these types of games that don't offer an unlimited save game option.
This is just more proof that Romero doesn't give two shits about anyone, even the folks he's trying to sell the game to.
I read on a couple of boards that there may be installation glitches with the 100MB download.
.EXE file (DKDEMO.EXE?) to install, you may get an error that says "Insert next disk." Installation then aborts.
After running the
If this occurs, rename the file to DKDEMO.ZIP, extract the files to a temp directory using WinZip (or whatever), then run SETUP.EXE from the temp directory.
Hope this helps...
------
Kudos to ION Storm for putting out their first great product and proving the critics wrong. It's nice to see a spark of innovation alive in the gaming industry.
Yu Suzuki
Yu Suzuki
Deamcast. It's thinking.
My first computer? A Timex Sinclair ZX-81. I think it had 2.4KB of RAM.
;-)
Forget the hard drive cache -- my keyboard buffer is larger than that!
------
GUIL: What?
ROS: Daikatana.
GUIL: Just a conspiracy of gaming magazines, you mean?
ROS: I mean I don't believe it! (Calmer.) I have no image. I try to picture it arriving in stores, at Babbage's perhaps... or EB... a sales clerk to point it out... its shiny red box... playing it for a day or a fortnight and then uninstalling it... That would be the logical kind of thing. ...But my mind remains a blank. No. It can't be real.
GUIL: Yes... yes... (Rallying.) But you don't believe anything til it happens. And it has gone gold. Hasn't it?
(just another of the wierd things that pop into my brain)
--
share and enjoy
..is that now John Romero can finally move on without losing his face. We all know by his actions that the guy is too stubborn to give up on his Grand Project, and generally everyone agrees that the job of finishing Daikatana can easily be compared to beating a dead horse -- beating a dead horse for years.
However, we all have also witnessed Romero's undeniable talent as a game designer. Let's just hope that the next project he embarks upon has a separate project leader with some organizational skills.
Marko Karppinen
fucker
stupid rent-a-pig, you try to make me stop, but you better back off or i'll knock you off the block
Daikatana has finaly gone gold. Whats next Duke4?
and in related news the weather forcast for hell shows a cooling trend after the sudden 400degree drop in temperature this evening.
Is this really Windows only? Grrr.. don't make me wish I had a Windows box.
Looks real perty... sigh.
- Hugh Buchanan
- Userfriendly.com
Well, I hope just for the sake of everything that it's a really good game, on the level of half life or something. The n64 version is supposed to suck ass, though.
By the way, does the Kanji letterin in the logo actualy say 'dai katana', In chinese it would say 'da cha', or "Big Knife", I could see the word being 'dai ka' or 'dai kat', Is Kanji in japanese not sylabalic the way chinese is? (one sylable per character)? or does it just not really say "Dai Katana" on the box?
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
John Carmack still works at iD and worked on Quake II and III; Romero left after Quake I to inflate his ego, I mean, form ION Storm.
Green Monkey
Actually, from what I've heard most of the coders hated it there, so much that they have had mass exoduses of programmers on more then one occasion. In fact Romero disliked the 'coder centric' Attitude of JohnC at id, and that's one of the reasons that he left to start his own company, where design, not code, would rule.
And look where it's gotten him.
Meanwhile, Carmak and ID continue to dominate the industry. Along with epic mega games, where Tim Sweeny, one of the head coders, gets a lot of say on what goes on.
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
±ÁÌÌèÓÆOE¾½Æ±ë¾ÇÈY
-tschak
Come on guys - there will always be someone around who was in the game earlier than you. Except for the older guy/gal in the business, and I doubt that they could even read the bloody screen before. Hey, but, for my two cents, I'm 19, and I learnt to type before I could speak(you'll notice proper spelling, more-or-less correct grammar, and, yup, you got it, capitalization ;). Anyways, my first computer: An Atari. Yeah, one with the keyboard that came with a great big 'ol 5"1/4' diskette drive(no, no hard drive). The first computer I put together: A 286 with 512k of RAM. Did most of the soldering myself, too.
Barclay family motto:
Aut agere aut mori.
(Either action or death.)
Talking about old days. I had an Atari 65XE. It ran software off of tapes. Games took 30 minutes to load. You could get software by recording FM radio trasmissions. I bet that games like Road Race and Spy vs. Spy, would still be more fun than Daikatana. And imagine how psyched I was when I finally added a floppy drive.
Biggy
I remeber when I was 8 and my Dad would telecommute from our basement with his 300 baud modem. Of course, it was over 5 years before he bought me my first 286...
ftp.cdrom.com is much faster than the ZDNet FTP server.
I'm getting 25K/sec instead of the 2K/sec from ZDNet.
ftp.cdrom.com/pub/3dfiles/games/dk demo.exe
Wallace J. Lee
If "Daikatana" was a real, or even a *possible* Japanese word.
"Reactionaries must be deprived of the right to voice their opinions; only the people have that right." - Mao
First of all, it's slow as hell. I get a timedemo of 30FPS in quake3, and yet I couldn't be getting more then 10-15 in this. And compared to quake2 the game looks like shit. I played some of the first level, and you fight giant mosquitoes that come out of eggs, as well as little frogs. And since the enemies are so small you can't even see them half the time when they are attacking you.
:P
(Although, I have to say the sight of my gibed (but bloodless) body with these two little bullfrogs next to it was pretty funny)
It's to bad I guess, I figured this game would ether suck a whole lot or be awesome. Considering how much Romero stands to loose if this game blows I would have figured he would have made damn sure the game rocked. If this is the best he can do...
What's really strange is that the 'multiplayer' demo that came out a while back was actually pretty damn fast, faster then q2 even back on my pentium200. but on my AMD-k6-2-450, the final game is slow as hell and uglier. Strange.
Of course all the free entertainment I've gotten over these past few years by the drama over there in Dallas makes up for it
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
Example:
你好吗 ==
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
Just curious.
Free music from Jack Merlot.
867-5309 (Jenny)
Yeah.. And floppy disk's were as big as your head!
Funny.. I don't seem to remember frame lag on PacMan.
-
air and light and time and space
Ironically, that quote probably had more to do with releasing the game then beating it...
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
screenshot
OK, download. Boot into the W2K bug (all 65000 of them). Run installer. "Please insert disk one." WTF? Pointed it at the temp directory that the thing had unpacked to. No luck. After reconfiguring the location of my temporary directory to "C:\winnt\temp" it managed to go through the whole process, hit 100%, then asked for the disk. I figured "well, it is at 100%, so I'll just click 'cancel'." It promptly deleted what it had installed. Ran the program again, got to the same place, went out and made a copy of the directory it had installed to, then cancelled. It deleted the original as expected, but left the copy. So I ran the copy. It worked. Damnit, just give me a zip with the files in it! I don't want an installer!
Anyway, started up the game. Greeted by nice GUI and OK backround music. Bumped resolution up to 1600x1200 (3dfx can kiss my ass. GeForce all the way!). Went to configure controls and... it did not recognise my keyboard layout. I use a dvorak keyboard, but the thing assumed querty. Just like every other Quake engine game. Damnit, Carmack, what's the big deal!? Unreal recognises my keyboard just fine!
Started playing. Got eaten by mosquitoes. And shot by turrets that pop up out of nowhere. And frogs jumped on me, which apparently is deadly. Don't get me wrong. I am usually the top scorer at LAN parties. I don't suck. As long as I have a weapon and some freeking ammo!
Then, all of the sudden, the Windoze task bar appeared in the middle of the screen. One of the entries on the bar was titled "program error", but I could not see the corresponding window. So much for that game.
------
2. Spend 3 minutes installing.
3. Start first game. Find mosquitoes. Kill mosquitoes. Find frogs. Get poisoned by frogs. Die.
4. Start second game. Kill mosquitoes. Kill frogs. New map loads. Kill more mosquitoes. Get mowed down by pop-up machinegun turret.
5. deltree c:\games\daikatanademo
6. Feel pity for the daikatana development team, knowing that the 15 mintues of my life that has been wasted on this game pales in comparison to the combined DECADES that they've squandered.
Slashdot: come for the pedantry, stay for the condescension.
You're joking right? Engines don't make the game. The content does. ;P
This "eww it's not cutting edge!" whining crap from modern gamers is getting pretty old.
Quakeworld Team Fortress, even with the threat of cheating,
is still more entertaining to, not just myself, but to a GREAT MANY people
despite having a 4+ year old engine. There are people who,
god forbid, still enjoy playing Doom on a LAN with their buddies.
Nevermind the myriad of folks who enjoy a fun game of Super Mario now and then using the NESticle emulator now and then.
While flashy effects and slick textures make for good show, if you get bored of it quickly
because the game is no fun, then what's the point? It will ALWAYS be
the content that matters. Wether Daikatana has this or not...remains to be seen.
-- www.bteg.com | bleh.n3.net | hac47.dhs.org
Well this is just sick. Most people that I know that have played the WHOLE demo, agree with me that this a great game. The fact that people are already setting this game aside is sad. Alot of hard work was put into this. People who say DK sucks have not played through the WHOLE demo. Most of these people play 15 minutes and give up.... because of what? They can't handle the diffuculty level. So I say if you have the banwidth downloaded it, play through it all. You will be happy. After all I havent had any problems, and just to let you know playing through it is definitly worth it...the AI kicks ass, and the action gets intense, Romero style. Well either way no one should have to wait this long. The retail product will be great. After all this is a Demo and one of the best demos to come out in years! Peace.
emmett, you missed April Fool's Day by almost a month. No one's falling for your joke.
(In case you didn't get that, take a look here)
You should never take life too seriously - You'll never get out of it alive.
the third year of development I knew this game was going to suck, and boy does it. This game is just truely piss poor, I don't have any idea what took Ion Storm so long to develope. Sure everyone else had said it sucked too but why shouldn't we say that, especially where /. is giving them free publicity. What I really don't understand with this game is why they didn't release it a whole lot sooner, I don't see many improvements over the original Q2 engine. Oh look mommy, rain. Please.
Enough griping, computer game companies really need to look at console gaming for inspiration. There are tons of epic console games that have kicked major ass dispite the limitations imposed by the console. It seems computer gaming companies have become soft around the middle when it comes to development. It just seems like anymore few companies ship quality products anymore (of course not all console games are quality products by they TEND to be a bit better in general than computer games). If it were my I would try to develope the best game I possibly could for the really low end, that way everyone could enjoy it but people with the better systems would get even better performance out of the game. Daikatana ran poorly on my system, a system that runs Q3a beautifully and has never choked on any other game. I just find this strange, why should a game that uses a three year old graphics engine and has spent 3 years in development suck so damn badly. Get the bugs out BEFORE you release the game, pretend you're making a single production run and don't have the ability to offer software patches on the net.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
bah fuck you... watta say we settle this on q3dm13 ? or perhaps q3dm6? you bitch ass fuck.
"there's a big difference between kneeling down, and bending over" - FZ
Here's my gripe: that the cheap prices for fast hardware allow programmers to get so lazy that they can just up system requirements and forget about it. Although, from the reviews I've seen thus far, I shouldn't get too worked up, as there's not much to get worked up about. Still, the point remains.
Fighting the War on the War on Drugs.
http://smokedot.org/
I remember, way back in the day, when John Romero left id Software. He said, (not exact quote) "There comes a point whene it is time to stop worrying about the technology behind a game and start working on the content." When I heard that, I thought "Wow, at least someone in the industry knows what they are doing.
At the time, I got the impression that he was talking about making a game with a story. Or an least something different. Well, that there demo has a whole two paragraphs of story, and it doesn't even make sense. Also, it is quite clear that you don't need to know the story to play the game.
Basically, to make your own Daikatana, take Quake 1 or 2 (they are pretty much the same), add some nifty graphics enhancements and a perdy user interface, and make all the monsters *real* small so that they are impossible to hit.
I actually would rather play Quake 1. The reason being the monsters. In the first few levels of the Daikatana demo, you fight:
- mosquitoes
- frogs
- small but deadly gun turrets that pop out of the ground and shoot you before you realize that they are there.
All of these things are small. Small is just a pain in the ass. The fact is that they are so small that you can have your crosshairs lined up perfectly and still miss because your gun is offset slightly to the right (because you are holding it in your hand). The fact that you don't get much ammo just makes it worse. Imagine trying to punch a flying mosquito to death.Basically, Daikatana looks like the same old thing. Shoot the monsters, get through the map. I admit that I didn't play very far, but any writer knows that you are supposed to do something special at the beginning of any story to get the audience interested. I saw nothing special, except a funny window titled "program error".
For a well-done FPS, see Half-Life.
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well, I've only played a few minutes of it, but from that, it apears to suck. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad if I was getting > 5 fps. but I'm not. (dispte the fact that I get 30fps in q3 at 800x600...)
A game should be entertaing when you start the game, you shouldn't have to work before you have fun. And if the later levels are so much better, why not just have them fist?
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
: Celeron 333MHz, 64M SDRAM, and an 8M Matrox Productiva with a 3dfx Voodoo. Since when is that a 486?
Hell dude k6-2-450, 128 megs of ram and a 32meg TNT2 card, the game runs like shit (but q3a gets like 30fps). I was getting like 5-6 FPS, and I couldn't even see those damn frogs half the time.
Try lowering your texture res, that speed my system up a bit, but not much...
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
hehe, I loved that game.
Cheers,
Rick Kirkland
well i guess if JR's market is low end, "gee the best games were old games" market then his genius has surpassed mine. I would doubt seriously that his reasoning behind the elongated devolopement of daikatana was to eventualy hit up the "starving for some classic gaming" crowd... pulease... why must the slashdot readers be so "backwardscompatible" ... just because i use linux, it doesnt mean that i use a 486/386 ... for christs sake there is no money in releasing a new version of some console game that only plays on consoles.. ok? do you understand that? while some folks are willing to produce such a game in their spare time, there arent any(or are there?) companies that will do so, with the intentions of making any money. ID intends to make money.
"there's a big difference between kneeling down, and bending over" - FZ
Bah, that's capitaliSation.
daniel
Note that my post merely said that just because an engine is old, doesn't mean
the game written using it will suck. I'm not advocating that we stick with the Q2 engine
because it's "good enough", I'm merely protesting the "I've got a
Voodoo 6 in my 1 Ghz Athlon, and if this game doesn't make it crawl then it's
outdated and therefore sucks" train of thought. This immediate dismissal of
games because they don't contain the latest and greatest under the hood is
shallow in the extreme. It's like these rabid techno-freaks who won't even
go NEAR a VCR anymore and treat it like some sort of diseased animal ever
since they got their DVD player. The DVD might look a little better and have
lots of neat toys, but goddamn...now the VCR that was "good enough" for 20+ years suddenly has herpes.
-- www.bteg.com | bleh.n3.net | hac47.dhs.org
Hear Hear!
Whenever I read a games mag review which says something like:
* Graphics: 4.5/5
* Sound: 4/5
* Gameplay: 2/5
* Overall: 4/5
I feel a little saddened. I'd personally be willing to completely discard fancy graphics and sound in my games if it meant better gameplay. I still think Tetris is fun. I still think Wizardry VII: Crusaders of the Dark Savant is fun. I still think Doom is fun. I still think Zork, yes Zork is fun. Defender of the Crown on the C64 is fun.
Yes, some of those had cutting edge graphics. I don't have anything against them - but I just don't consider them essential, or even important, to a game being any good, except perhaps where "atmospherics" matter. But who cares how dark and forboding a level of Bloodthirsty Let's Kill'em All Rampage 3D is, if the playability is shite?
These days, you'll often find Zangband sitting on tty2 of my box at home.
If a game is pretty to look at, and sounds cool, then fine... but you may as well be watching TV (or replaying your Matrix DVD for the umpteenth time).
I know this is a rant, but I just yearn for the good ol' days, y'know? :)
-Spiv.
1st Guy: I think Daikatana Sux0rs
/. and go write a better game or add something constructive to the discussion, rather than whining.
2nd Guy: Me too...
Get a life, try thinking for yourself for a change. Stop reading
Well. I just played the WHOLE demo.
Not bad.. but not great either. The graphics were.. less than stunning. I didn't experience any performance problems.... but I have a geforce 256.
It was somewhat entertaining. I did sit through the whole thing, after all.. but it wasn't that satisfying. Much like tomb raider, actually.
I agree.. frogs and mosquitos.
Considering the graphics horespower available today, they don't give much to look at.
Oh.. where is this intense action you mentioned? I must have missed that part.
Hell yeah, one of those Star Trek games and some Berzerk ripoff were the only games, other than my own inane ones (Yahtzee, anyone? Yeah, me neither.), are the only games that I still can remember from my old Trash-80! I think that Tandy tape recorder drive still stands as the single worst piece of computer hardware that I ever used on a regular basis.
Cheers,
ZicoKnows@hotmail.com
Okay, for a good laugh I suggest everyone check out Old Man Murray. They've been ripping Romero a new one for a good year now over this game, and I suspect actually having a playable demo will fuel their fire. They'll trash this baby in style. Check out some of the older Daikatana coverage to see what I mean.
Totally hilarious.
--
I think there is a world market for maybe five personal web logs.
Interesting. That actually worked under Mozilla.
John Romero, you owe me 5 hours of bandwidth and 2 hours of gaming back! This is honestly the worst game I've played since "Scarab" (a lame-ass Egyptian robot-style game from about 3 years ago).
/. ers and said to myself "aw hell, I'm sure it's better than they say it is . . . they're just pilin' on Romero". . . well, after 5 hours of downloading, I wanna jump on that pile too!
:) is sluggish for gaming, and its graphics card sucks. But, I can still run Quake 3 or UT very well and enjoy those games heartily. When I first started up the "Single Player" game, I was treated to a dense haze of green streaks that I could hardly see through (are we near Cheyrnobyl or something?). I disabled those (something crashed . . . iosomethingorother.exe) and played again . . . it was SOOOOOOOO slow. . . rebooted, turned to lowest settings . . . still SLOOOOW . . . stuff popped out of nowhere . . . I felt so lost.
I really, really wanted to love this game, I really did. I figured that "Hey, Romero's been panned in the media and is considered to be one of the biggest jokes of the gaming world" . . . It would be so fitting, so great if he silenced all critics and released a bad-ass game.
Back when the multiplayer-only demo came out, I was very excited. The game was mediocre, at best, but there was so much potential. It looked pretty cool . . . nice visuals, powerful weapons, fast-paced action . . . this could be something good.
Over a year later I can say one thing . . . this isn't something good . . . this must've been designed by "HeadGames" (makers of masterpieces like "Extreme Paintbrawl" and "Swamp Racing"). I've read all the short reviews by other
The graphics were, um, interesting, to say the least. The machine I'm using (not mine, that's why it has Windows on it
I don't suck at FPS . . . I can whoop it up at Quake 3 and I'm especially good at Single Player mode in games like System Shock, Unreal, Quake 2, etc. I got raked in this game . . . like the US Men's soccer team . . . just bitch-slapped hardcore. As I grabbed my weapon (wtf is this thing?) and headed down the green river (how come *EVERYTHING* in this is green . . . I thought I'd get hurt when I jumped in . . . radioactive) I was attacked by some flying creature that looked like it came from Pokemon. As I figured out these giant flying things, I was conftonted by these jumping frogs that pissed me off to no end . . . I'd shoot them, and they'd lunge at me and poison me . . . wtf!?? Die you little bastards! And where the hell did this crocodile come from? What I really want to know is only one thing . . . WHY ARE THEY ATTACKING ME? Why not just live peacefully . . . can't we all just get along? Oh yeah, how come they just kinda appear all the sudden? Just *POOF*, I'm getting hurt . . . still can't see the little prick though!
After playing single player for about 40 interminable minutes, I decided to fire up MP . . . this is the worst multiplayer I've ever seen . . . I'd rather play C&C: Sole Survivor!!!! I'd just die all the sudden and not have a clue as to who killed me, or from where 'cause I didn't see anyone . . . they just appeared . . . John, can you say it with me . . . LAG . . . L-A-G . . . good boy!
After a couple games of that horrible torture, I came back to post . . . I saw all the negative reviews and tried to like this game again. . . I saw a few people defending the game . . . I figured, sure, why not give it another go . . . it deserves it . . . I'm sure it's much better after one or two tries . . .
I assure you folks, it ain't!!!
If you want to experience bad-game design, pick this up NOW. Although you may wanna just save 30 bucks and get "Extreme Paintbrawl" instead. The BUILD engine gets a better fps anyhow, and I'm sure you'll get more fun from it than this crud.
I WANT MY BANDWIDTH BACK!!! I COULD'VE BEEN DOWNLOADING MORE PORN - ER . . . I MEAN STOCK ANALYSIS
Bad games suck
John Romero, you suck
War id Software
I'm OUT!!
I don't know what you guys would be complaining about.
This download, while it may not be the best game ive ever played (tribes), it was definately worth the 10 minutes it took me to download.
~zero
insert clever line here
sig?
That's the first time I ever heard someone refer to a shipping piece of software as vaporware. I wonder why I believe Unreal took longer to come out than Daikatana
This is my sig. The post is over.
AFAIK, Romero is the only one in Ion Storm who was at id.
What's funny tho, is that if you listen to Romero, he created Doom and Quake all by himself. No wonder Carmack and the others got rid of him, he's an irritating little monkey who thinks he's good at game design. The only things he's really good at are puffing his own ego and conning people into giving him money.
Hokey statistics and ancient misconceptions are no match for a good thought in your head, kid!
Yeah, agree...
They should also get a |337 nick and write |337 comments about the other aol lamers...
--
"I'm surfin the dead zone
In the twilight, unknown"
I remember reading something about this time last year, that the game would have to sell around 2 million copies just to break even. This was a year ago. And now Eidos are reporting financial problems, what is to become of Romero?
I hope we still get to se Deus Ex. Now that really does look like it has 'content'.
Maybe this demo is just a joke they realized to fool us all in to thinking the game sucks, so that when they realease the REAL version, _they_ can laugh at _us_.
Or maybe not.
--
With thousands of people downloading the demo today (I'm downloading it even after the reviews just to see how bad it is...) the internet is going to be in sorry shape all day - better forget about online multiplayer today and go do something else.
In a way, it's Romero's final revenge - not being able to produce a great game, he is content with disrupting all other games for a few days with a huge demo.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I'd suggest the G400 if you're a Linux user. Plenty fast enough for games, plus it works great under XF86. Won't cost more than $150. If you're buying $50 games, you can afford a $150 video card. Yeah, the Pentium III is expensive, but you don't get high performance from a $35 CPU.
Or a Pentium III. Try an Athlon system; a fella gets more for less.
Anyway, I'm fscking tired of paying $1,000 a year to buy new hardware. If developers keep making games need the CPU and RAM of a major portal's servers and video good enough to render Toy Story 2 in real time, why aren't there games that will run on a lowly 200 MHz Pentium? I'd guess game firms are in bed with hardware manufacturers. But why?
It doesn't have to be this way. Game firms can gain market share by developing something other than a me-too first person shooter. A good game design will create more fun than a Beowulf cluster of all the Cray and Apple supercomputers in the world. And here are some games to prove it:Will I retire or break 10K?
What about frame lag on that old Vitamins game, where you had to drop pills on the viruses to kill^H^H^H^Hdestroy them? I don't recall any lag on that.
Will I retire or break 10K?
-O2 damnit! i forgot the -O2!
[NEXT GENERATION, DEC '97, P146 - 2 full colour Advert featuring Ion Storm personalities by Eidos]
... Rules must be broken. Catagories must be erased. Emprerors must be overthrown. The status quo must be spanked. And contentement must be routinely taken outside and smaked upside the head (sic), It's a dirty job, but someone has to do it. We're all ready to apply for the position.
......
We're ION STORM, A bunch of misfit, zelot freaks who tried to rest on our past successes but just didn't find it comfortable. There was a gap out there. A big fat void, and we were hell-bent on filling it. We had all a big fat void. And were (sic) ready to jump off. So here we are. New name. New identity. New games rattling thier cages, waiting to be let out.
JOHN ROMERO: Long haired smart-ass known for his fast Ferrari and his uncanny ability to sing the theme song to the Spiderman cartoon really, really well. Oh yeah, there was also that DOOM and QUAKE thing.
personally I don't care much for commenting on *personalities* as such, I'm much more interested in the technology side of things but I couldn't help including the text here from an old Next-Gen magazine 2 page Advertisment (full 2 page color spread) as I was reading today about the original playstation specs. There's no humility here folks and this is one reason why it's a good idea to let the games (and the code) speak for themselves - I guess they already have.
But don't tar all of ION's work with the same brush. I'm looking foward to seeing how Anachronox and Dominion (must already be released - nothing special here) and Doppelganger (Dues- Ex) turn out, as they get closer to release.
peterrenshaw ~ Another Scrappy Startup
Your first computer had a hard drive? Mine sure didn't.
if the folks in *.au are getting as slow
a download speed as i am...
i'm putting up a mirror of this at:
ftp://mirror.aarnet.edu.au/pub/games/daikatana/
it should hopefully be finished downloading in a
few more hours... (note: only accessible in *.au
and *.nz)
-jason
The most intriguing thing of all is the fact that daikatanademo.exe contains the (backwards) message "id software developers are weenies"...
Slashdot: come for the pedantry, stay for the condescension.
I read most of the comments 2 and up on here and then decided to play the game for myself. My initial response was the same, "What the hell are these giant bugs and frogs doing killing me? Why is it choppy?" But after playing it a while i began to get decent (crouch to kill the frogs with fist, shoot the mosquitos with that gun, shoot the alligators while running backwards) and i think there is actually some kind of sinister plot (anyone else hear metal hitting the ground when you killed the animals?? and then seeing them running out of the fortress in swarms??) Maybe this game is not that bad, it just gets off to a rocky start. We can't always start off running with a shotgun and 80+ monsters. If they would just get better lighting!!! I've shut all the windows, turned off all the lights and pumped my monitor WAY up and i can STILL barely see where I am going. Oh well.
You have to understand, the moderators aren't intelligent - they just read slashdot...... =)
Nope. It seems that Heff has decided not to publish the pics.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
I thought he was talking to his programmers.
Later
Erik Z
Democrats or Republicans. They are both taking us to the same place and they are not afraid of us anymore.
There's quite a bit more to the history of Ion Storm and the 'breakup' of Id, I believe Mike Wilson also quit to form Ion-Storm, but quit after a while.
:)
One of the biggest problems in that company was the management. Romero didn't want to do it, and Todd Porter, a worthless weasel who was able to con himself into controlling a majority stake in the company sucked at it.
Romero can design a game, that's for sure. He had no trouble with Quake and Doom and all of that. Sure it wasn't him alone, but he does deserve a lot of the credit. The problem at Ion was that he couldn't manage a company. Edios is basically running the place now, and if they weren't We probably wouldn't have seen DK in a long time. This company has probably burned through a total of 20-40 million dollars, and produced nothing of worth.
There was a good article, god over a year ago on The Dallas observer (and this Other one from july), If you're interested in all the details. It's a pretty entertaining read, and probably worth the time you wasted playing the DK demo, if any
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
First of all, The Unreal guys wrote their own engine, including a software renderer. And there was a reason for the hype; it was a part of Intel's hype for the MMX chip. Unreal was supposed to be one of the first games to support it.
Compared to the hype for DK, Unreal was practically below the radar. And you never heard Tim Sweeny say that he was "Going to make gamers his bitch" or talk about how he was famous in Japan...
And the major difference? Unread didn't suck...
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
Actually, they talked about Dominion: storm over gift 3 in the great Dallas Observer Article as well. Apparently, Todd "preacher boy" porter convinced the rest of Ion to buy the game from his old employer for a cool $1.5 million, saying the game was 'almost done' and would only need a few touch ups before burning. Since they were guaranteed $3 million from Edios, for there first 3 releases, it seemed like a good deal.
But, as you can already guess, that wasn't what happened. Ion spend the whole $1.5 million of profit they were expecting, and then another 1.5 million. Supposedly the game was going to have to sell nearly as many copies as DOOM or something like that to turn a profit. They were going to have to sell millions of copies.
They sold Four Thousand Copies. Four Thousand, about the number of hit's I've gotten from my slashdot sig.
The game sucked.
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
.. first, the mosquito sound is REAL cheesy, I've heard 10000x better even in Ken's Labyrinth (ok the sounds were all OPL2, but hey it sounded better still)
second, attacking a bunch of mosquitos, frogs and alligators isn't the type of game I was expecting of Daikatana. The worst is that maybe the other levels are interesting, but I can't even figure out how to beat the boss in the first level. Well they should have at least put one of the most interesting levels in the first level - not the worse of the game!
third, I can now understand why all those people fled Ion Storm.. this game is going nowhere, period, at least I'm not convinced until I get positive feedbacks from a courageous gamer.
What if it was Eidos who asked Ion Storm to make a crappy game? They only know how to release such games... (Tomb Raider. FF7 (FF7 isn't crappy in itself; it's the 320x240 graphics I don't like). Tomb Raider 2. Tomb Raider 3. Tomb Raider 4).
i dont know where romero got off using those characters for the name...see, theyre actually *chinese* not japanese.
the first character is pronounced "die" which is chinese for big or large or whatever. the second character is actually pronounced "doh!" (roughly equal to the homer-exclamation) and is chinese for a knife or sword or blade.
(note: my pronunciation is in cantonese, not mandarin. "dai" is actually "dah" in mandarin, and im not sure how to pronounce sword but i think its still "doh!")
i guess calling the game "big knife" doesnt sound quite as good as calling it daikatana, but there you have it...maybe it should be pronounced "die doh"?
unc_
Okay, mabey you folks can give me some help here. I'm running a Celeron 400 w/ 128 megs of ram and a TNT vid card. Granted thats not exactly a smokin' rig, but I can get 30 fps in Q3 in medium detail and 40 fps in UT on high detail. I was getting (litteraly) .5 fps on the MENU in Daikatana. I got something like .3 in the actual game. This just doesn't seem right. Any suggestions? I didn't see an option anywhere in there to turn OpenGL on or off. I was running it at 640x480 with every detail at its lowest.
I have to agree with most people here, the first level sucks. Punching flys and frogs is not fun. But if you manage to save enough ammo to get past the first level and beat the uber-fly then the second level is much better.
The disk weapon is kinda cool and the monsters are actually monsters though there still are annoying ground insects who, evidently, I can't crush under me feet. When you finally meet your "sidekicks" is when the game gets marginally more interesting. The interface with the "sidekick" is difficult to use at first since you have to center objects in the crosshair to get them to "get" or "attack" them. However I don't want them ganking my ammos and powerps either.
The third stage is ok, but snow is not that much more impressive or necessary than the rain on the first level. Oh and why does it rain UNDERWATER in the first level? Anyway... in the third level controlling two sidekicks was just a pain. Yeah, we wiped up the level but I could have done that by myself while not eliciting such comments such as "Stop pushing me around!" or "You could have just asked me to move." when I bump into the sidekicks. All in all I can't see 1)where Ion Storm's money went and 2) how this demo makes the game seem worth spending money on. It's neat but it was done before in Unreal and Thief and almost everyother first person singleplayer (with the exception of the "sidekicks" of course). I don't think I'll buy it.
The next remark is false. The previous remark is true.
Just Downloaded the demo
and it was the best game i have seen in years!
Well, it's about f&^%$@ing time! As a recent convert to the "Church of the FPS"--previously, my idea of an action-packed game was Sim City--I've been waiting for the chance to try this thing out on my PII rig for awhile. I've already got QII and III, and while I realize that Daikatana will not come even close to being better then QIII in my book--at least, not in the pretty graphics department--it'll be interesting to see what all the fuss and long wait was about. Let's hope DIII doesn't take nearly as long to get here!!
--
Ion Storm employee? Suspicious I would say, considering that you know so much about the demo the day it's released, and you're the lone voice defending this horrible excuse of 3 year's work.
I'm not talking about getting killed, I'm talking about the technology. It's horribly pathetic and ugly, especially compared to other Quake2 games like Soldier of Fortune, which has been in development for a much shorter time. The controls in the game are very sluggish, and overall the first few levels are very dark and murky, probably meant to cover up the lack of polygons gone into the levels.
I guess Eidos would have canned this game, if they haven't already poured in millions in Daikatana. Not that they are going to recoup much from an actual release though.
R.I.P., Daikatana.
Though it has been a good 4 years since I looked at any german...
It actually took me five minutes to figure this out, since the game was otherwise running mad slow (talking .5 fps here) and it was either do something about it or delete the demo. A quick look through the config files and the .DLL files in the installed dir gave me an idea and it worked. That makes me an Ion Storm employee now?
The controls feel fine to me, not sluggish at all. Dark levels... is that new? At any rate, I don't care much about technology (my computer can't run most of the latest technology without low detail and stuff like that), so I guess I'm the lone voice that cares about gameplay.
We'll see what happens when the game hits the stores.
Heading to the nearest EB and laughing at anyone who buys a copy. Unfortuantely i was one of the poor souls who downloaded the *gasp* Mwanker demo last summer. It was about as fun as playing quake with severed hands, no input devices, a 14.4 connection through aol, and an electrical device strapped on to your genital of choice with a sensor so that every time you get hit a near fatal jolt shocks you. No I take it back, that would have been more fun.
English: Fry's 30 day money back guarentee
The Wolfenstein 3D and Spear of Destiny FAQ includes this and other nifty bits of info.
I think that people are just getting bored of 3d shooters, that's why you all are complaining about daikatana. It seems like they are all esactly the same! Because they are. There's not really much originality you can put into a 3d deathmatch game. No matter how many wierd enemies (in this case bloodthirsty mosquitoes) and cool guns you put into it, it just ceases to be exciting to your common gamer, who has already played tons of games just like it. but not the game we at freespeechfunhouse.com are making. No! IT's GOING TO BE BETTER!! IT'S going to have tons of weapons and COOL CHARACTERS and...and..oh who am i kidding... *sob*
----------------------------------
I'm not sure you're giving Quake its due. You're right in that the plot was absoultely forgettable, but there were genuine moments of absoulute terror for me in that game: the first time I saw (and heard) those zombies get back up, or when I first found myself toe-to-toe with a shambler.
It also was the first FPS to be genuinely playable over the internet, Kali notwithstanding. Not to mention the polygonal critters. And truly 3d environments, as opposed to the sort of stacked-2d method that the Dooms used.
Every game they've released since then seems to have been a case of diminishing returns. Quake was a major step forward for the FPS genre, if only for the polygonal critters and environments. Q2 was Q1 with a plot, better graphics, and lower latency. Q3... urgh. I was really disappointed by Q3.
I think maybe that Romero could forsee where this was all heading, which is what created his dissatisfaction with id software. It's a pity that Daikatana doesn't look like it's going to come near being the game he thought it would be.
Actually, what am I saying? Any man with hair like that deserves what he gets.
Well, I toughed it out and played the complete demo. So here's my review.
Up front, let me say that I had very high expectations. Romero has always said that "Design is King", so I while I wasn't expecting cool engine toys galore, I was expecting a good, solid story with lots of environmental interaction. I was also expecting to see what took them almost four years to produce (Romero quit/was fired from id in Aug, 96). Even more, what the extra 2.5 years over the initial "Christmas 97" release date meant.
The first time I started, I didn't notice the gun sitting right there at the start, it was so dark. Eventually I figured out that I must be missing something (after having bashed frogs and gators and mosies with the glove for 10 minutes. I restarted the game, and found the weapon (after cranking brightness to 129 and the other brightness value to 3. The game was more enjoyable after that.
The levels design and monsters were very remeniscient of Hexen II, another game I didn't purchase. I must say though, Hexen II wasn't this linear. At no point are you going to have to find something, everything is pretty obvious. It even includes my pet peeve, switches the size of your head, and everything is a huge pull switch.
I was expecting more interactivity from the NPCs as well, but they seem to be only good for target practice.
The monster AI is also pretty disappointing. They kept getting stuck, and considering that there was never more than 5 on the screen at once, I don't understand why they weren't smarter.
The "Greek" level was even less interactive. Most of the time, it was monsters jumping out of the walls at you. I believe I pushed a single switch in the whole level. Not much in terms of interactive there.
Finally the medieval level. The sidekicks were interesting, but generally useless. While better able to follow you, they still managed to frequently get confused. I would expect them to be able to follow me if they are core to the game. The monsters were just as annoying as the other levels. That worm especially. The werewolves, while interesting in that they could disappear and re-appear, didn't add a heck of a lot.
Perhaps some of this could have been saved if the demo had flowed more. But it all seemed disjointed. You really didn't get much feeling for what the story was about or what you are attempting to achieve. Perhaps if it had been the first couple levels in the whole game, that may have been more interesting.
In conclusion, I won't be buying this game, I'm going for SOF instead. It would have been a good game if it had come out a couple of years ago, (say around Hexen II, Heretic II, etc) but after all of the hype, Daikatana can't help but disappoint.
Thanks for taking some valuable time explaining it to me!
Free music from Jack Merlot.
Actually, it sounds like Daikatana is EXACTLY the *original* concept for Quake. Originally Quake was supposed to be all outdoors, in nasty places like jungles and swamps full of bugs, and caves full of bats, where the idea was "immersive realism" rather than ongoing combat (a la DOOM). The player was described as going hand to hand with a few very tough enemies rather than firing at them from a sensible distance.
h tm
For a good rant on gameplay vs "immersion" take a look at [shameless plug] http://home.earthlink.net/~rividh/asylum/wartime.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
BTW, does anyone know for sure that her Playboy pictures won't be published, and if so, why?
And the men who hold high places must be the ones who start
To mold a new reality... closer to the heart
I guess I will have to concur. As sad as it is Atari 65XE still kicks ass.
Biggy
I have to say, this game is way below my expectations, for a trial playout: the pathing was unclear. The graphics sucked vs. UT and dying in a sewer are not my Ideal cup of tea. Nice try JR, but you put depth beyond playability. This from a Doom player from the 486 days. I will stick to UT and know UT will only get better as the open-source community will make UT Rock. Check out Http://www.Planetunreal.com if you don't belive me. While closed source code is the death of playability. you seem to embrace a dead Engine. RIP. Get a life. Half-life at least. A True Gamer Rethink your position. Matrix 2000
Well guess this means that pigs must be flying
*blinks*
*looks outside*
Holy crap! Pigs really are flying!!! Now I wonder, does this mean that I will finally get my wish? Will I indeed be the best quaker there is?
welll hey it's nice to dream =P
i just finished downloading daikatana. does anyone know how to turn off crap mode?
Let's see, now, I bet someone will tell us how his first computer was an abacus. That's what always happens in these conversations. :)