Multiplayer Shooters For Modems And Slow PCs?

rekrutacja writes "Soldat is a multiplayer action game which takes the best from games like Liero, Worms, Quake and Counter-Strike, and gives you fast action gameplay with lots of gibs and gore. It only requires a modem and a PC with a 333mhz processor, since it was written to meet the reality of the Polish Internet, still dependent on modem connections and cheap computers." For those countries and locations where you can't get broadband, and PCs just aren't that swift, what other action-based shooters are still reasonably playable?

Comments

wonder..

[Neck_of_the_Woods]

I have often wondered what would happen if someone put a FPS out that had amazing error correction, cheat protection to the hilt, great game play, and crappy graphics. Sometimes I really think that the above would do much better, then I see something like DoomIII and I go into a trance and mutter "ewwwww, ahhhh" for about 30 minutes and can't remember what I was talking about....

Re:wonder..

[Samedi1971]

Global Operations fits somewhat closely with your criteria. It's not so much that it has a lot of cheat protection as it just isn't popular enough to spawn any signifigant cheats.

It's got pretty decent gameplay, it's cheap ($10), runs great on a somewhat dated computer since it's got dated graphics, and doesn't require quite so many different key presses as some of the other 1st person shooters out there.

So, no, it doesn't do better. It has a small following, but enough people that you can always find at least one 8 vs 8 game full at all hours. I've been playing daily for about 6 months (and I get tired of games fast).

Don't both trying with a modem. It's pretty bandwidth intensive, and a lot of people will kick you out if you have modem-level pings.

Re:wonder..

[cgenman]

Beautiful graphics engines seem to be the anthesis of flexible gaming engines. Asheron's Call II, for example, sacrificed the flexibility and dynamic world changes of Asheron's Call 1, but in exchange recieved some very pretty, rediculously high-res textures. SecondLife has some truly, truly hideous vistas, but allows any player to create and script any object they may desire in-game. Worms 3D has fully deformable terrain that resemble lumpy marshmallows.

Personally, I would prefer to keep Counterstrike or earlier level graphics and create fully dynamic worlds that are fun to play in. Otherwise, what is the point? Hopefully soon we will have both, but as Hollywood blockbusters dominate with hundred million dollar special effects and a six hundred dollar script, so too will the back end engine of many major releases be ignored.

I wouldn't call it 56k friendly...

[szemeredy]

I tried soldat out about two weeks with a bunch of friends that have cable or DSL. The game lagged quite a bit even with three people playing simultaneously. More than six people was annoyingly lagged and nearly unplayable (like Ragnarok Online in open beta). And yes, we did rotate game hosting duties, so no it didn't lag because the person hosting the game was slow.

Yeah, you might be able to play Soldat on a slower computer, but you can't do medium to large multiplay on a 56k with it...

Tribes 1?

[Komarosu]

I always remember playing Tribes 1 on a low spec K6-2/300 with a Voodoo2, now that was a game!

Fast action, excellent teamplay modes, also the bonus was it run nice on dialups (even with my 33.6!) and it seemed alot less ping orientated which i liked alot :)

Fine it may be a bit OT, but old games still pack the punch imho, i still play on T1 with a few mates...always a good laugh to get that mid-air snipe :P

stick to basics: DOOM&QUAKE

[gl4ss]

doom and the various 3rd party doom engines now available should run splendidly(doomsday engine provides hw acceleration too, and 3dmodels if you wish).

and then, of course, quake. heck, quake2 even.. combined with the various mods for them that come in boatloads should provide enough gameplay for the next millenium... switch to tribes1/2/ut if you get bored with it. mw2:mercs, it-76...

if a game only has ipx gameplay you can use programs such as kali(http://kali.net) to wrap it to work over internet easily.

Re:stick to basics: DOOM&QUAKE

[Chelloveck]

Don't forget Duke Nukem 3D. And, for that satisfying visceral 2D-platform game deathmatch, nothing tops Abuse.

Old games, sure, but still a lot of fun.

Any older game

[Guspaz]

Why go 2D for 56K gameplay? Tons of 3D FPS are playable on a good hardware dialup modem. As for the slow computer requirement? Well, why do so many people like Half-Life and it's mods? Because the game runs on just about anything.

Re:Any older game

[duffbeer703]

Because if you look up some facts about Poland:
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factb ook/geos/ pl.html

You'll notice the the per capita GDP is $9,500. Nobody has the money to purchase expensive gaming systems

Unreal Tournament

[Dot.Com.CEO]

I remember playing UT on a P200 with 64Mb RAM,a Voodoo 2 card and a 56k (42k really) connection and it was a really good experience running at 640x480. Since the main problem with online gaming is high pings and not low bandwidth, as long as you stick with local servers or manage to get a truly global ISP (i.e. Via.Networks and UUNET in Europe, everything else does not have its own backbown afaik), you are guaranteed to play a good online game. Why you would need a 333MHz PC to play a game that is this basic is beyond me.

Here's one...

[ErnieD]

Duke Nukem 3D! Ahh the joys of playing this game on a 486 back in the day. Tons of fun, and trite system requirements.

Maybe SOMEDAY we'll have that fabled follow-up game. Maybe.

Why use pretty graphics?

[aleonard]

When playing Quakeworld, I always played at 320x200, even after getting a Voodoo and having glqw opened up to me. Why? Because framerate was much more important than eye candy.