http://store.steampowered.com/app/562860/Ion_Maiden/ screenshots from Store page: from 3D Realms too so as old school as it gets! Looks extremely good and the EA version is a mini-campaign instead of concept demo or just part of main campaign. Expect full release in 6 months. Final release will be same price as EA version. Excerpt from EA info: Spoiler “For Ion Maiden, we wanted to develop a special "Preview Campaign" which is available through Early Access. The campaign is specially made to introduce people to the world of Ion Maiden. Our Early Access is not like traditional Early Access games. The Preview Campaign is a fully finalized and polished product, which you can all play right now. During the Early Access period, we'll periodically update the campaign and introduce new features and content to the game. Later this year, the full Single-player Campaign will be released as a free update to all of you!”
The Preview Campaign is it's own thing. And it will stay in your library once the full game is released. They've said small portions of the Preview Campaign may appear in the full game, but otherwise it'll all be new content. And, this is published by 3DRealms, but it's being developed by Void Point. A small independent studio run by TerminX and Hendricks266 (along with other people), the guys behind eDuke32.
Okay... but completely different style of shooter. Serious Sam is a twitch/horde shooter, like Painkiller. Ion Maiden is more in line with Duke 3D and Shadow Warrior. It is a lot of fun, very well made. And their use of the build engine is very impressive.
Yeah to each their own. I'd take this or Shadow Warrior over Serious Sam any day. Very cool that a new game is made with Build engine. The original engine and not a source port. Also Ion Maiden has the same protagonist as Bombshell. The devs said that they wanted to make Ion Maiden to distance the protagonist from Bombshell a bit. I think.
Yah, in total agreement. Blood, Shadow Warrior, Duke, or Redneck Rampage (to name a few) are easily some of the best FPS games ever made. I wish someone would remaster (meaning overhaul the graphics and sound only without touching the game ok idiot bean counting morons who ruin everything ... I'm talking to people like you Randy Bitchford) all of them. The best memories I have of gaming are playing those classics, pure joy
Yes! Only nitpick I have is the price, bit steepish, but on the other hand considering the amount of work needed and the fact this game won't sell hundreds of thousands of copies, it's fair. Plus 20 bucks or EURs for something like this is more value for money than 95 % of AAA games.
Don't know if you picked up Dusk on Steam but it is well worth the money, really great (new) old school shooter in the vain of Heretic/Hexen.
Well, for 20 bucks you get the Preview Campaign right now, which is about an hour long. Unless you hunt down the secrets, then it's definitely longer. And, it gets you the full campaign, which Void Point has said is 8 to 10 hours long. And, you get to keep the Preview Campaign as it's own entry in your library. It does not get replaced by the full game once it's released. And, Ion Maiden was built using a branch of eDuke32. So, yes, it's the Build Engine. But, no Ken Silverman's original tech that was used on vanilla Duke3D. And this started life as an extra for people who purchased the Digital Deluxe versions of Bombshell. But, as the team started making it, they expanded on the concept and really made it their own. They retitled it to Ion Maiden to distance it a little from the original Bombshell, which had a less then great release. And, they've been working on this for the past two years. Dusk is more so inspired by Quake, Blood and the like. NewBlood's other title, Amid Evil, takes heavy influence from Heretic and Hexen.
Fair enough although the overall aesthetic still reminds me of the Heretic/Hexen. And nice heads up on Amid Evil, added to my wishlist
Yeah, the crossbow in Dusk is definitely a straight call out to Heretic's crossbow. Just, the tone of Dusk reminds me more of Blood, Redneck Rampage and Quake. There are bits that remind me of Heretic though, so I see where you're coming from.
Meh, i don't get the appeal in such a game... i want my games to look beautiful, not like i couldn't afford to buy a new computer and / or games for the past 20 years.
Lots of easter eggs/jokes everywhere : Spoiler Really fun! I hope the final campaign would have slightly higher difficulty. Playing at Ultra Viscera (?) and slightly more challenge would be nice. @BangTail no I didn't, thanks, gotta check that out too!
Yeah... there are some great references in the game. Hellraiser... Duke... And... just a friendly message from the Devs.. I've dropped 6 hours into this preview already. Some of those secrets are a real pain. But... can be fun. Also, the full campaign will feature a LOT more stuff that's not shown here. Such as secondary ammo/alt fires for weapons. Of course, new enemies and weapons. And TerminX said he was thinking about a harder difficulty more, something similar to Doom's "Nightmare" mode.
Great game > great looking game every f**king time. I will concede that there is an element of nostalgia involved but these games are as good now as they were then even if they do look their age.
Inspired by this I also grabbed Shadow Warrior Classic Redux as I hadn't bought it earlier for some unfathomable reason. As I already had remake SW and SW 2, got 10 % off the package which ofc only included Classis Redux in this case (in other words 10 % off Redux's price). Nice! Some content to keep me going until full release of Ion Maiden. Moar Build engine games plz!!
What makes a great game is highly individual though, and the visuals are probably nr 1 on that list for me.
Yes, it is subjective but visuals alone don't make a good game imho, they can only make it look good otherwise you might as well just go watch Bladeruuner