Excellent AI as enemies of FPS game in middle 1990s at least.
Remember "Doom". All enemies just came closer to players, didn't they?
See "Marine", "Phantom" and "Ghoul" type enemies of "Gloom". They don't always come closer to players.
We can't know their next actions. Their next actions are decided at random.
More tactics must need.
Maps of "Gloom" consist of 17 regular "events" per 1 level at most.
When player come across a line of each "event",
immediately each event would happen. (e.g. Enemies would appear.)
Imagine that new enemies appear behind where you have already passed.
You have to practice and learn where dangerous spots are.
In addition, map editor allows other 5 special "events" per 1 level at most.
Those special event would be repeated permanently.
They are usually used for teleporters, however,
map designer can also use them for "Respawning Enemies",
which would make the game much tougher than "Nightmare" mode of "Doom".
Figure 1:
Once you step over this event line, enemies (#1~3) would appear.
After that, nothing would happen after you step over this event line again.
Figure 2:
Once you step over this event line, you will teleport to the point #4
and enemies (#5~7) appear.
Then if you step over this event line again,
you will teleport to the point #4 ,and enemies (#5~7) appear again. |
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"Minimum specs" doesn't require Fast RAM.
We can play the game on plain CD32 console.
You know it is too expensive to expand RAM for CD32, don't you?
Of course we know other titles which doesn't require RAM expansion as minimum specs.
Those titles, for example, "Citadel" and "Testament" are more sluggish than "Gloom".
We can use "akiko_1" for c2p routine that Peter McGavin wrote.
Surely "akiko_1" might show MC68040's performance only when we expand CD32's RAM, however,
obviously the game would become faster even if we don't expand CD32's RAM.
Simple style which doesn't allow us to select weapons.
I know many people think that it is one of shortcomings of "Gloom".
Remember "Doom" and other titles. You could
select weapons properly. It meant that you had to use stronger weapon
against tougher enemies.
But how are you going to make excuses for your
failures after you were killed in a specific level of "Doom" ?
I guess you can say "I couldn't find enough weapons, so I failed." , and so on.
People in general aren't willing to acknowledge their faults resulted from their poor controls.
Ultimately, as FPS games, it matters whether
player can avoid and hit. If you failed that, it meant your controls
were poor.
There is no excuse you can make for such failures. But tough battles should be such style.
For example, imagine "Who is the hardest boss
ever". It is somewhat similar to "who is the strongest boxer?"
In the championship match, one player has a special weapon that the other doesn't have? Never!
They probably can show the high-quality fight, however, what they would do actually would be simple.
Needless to say, they would be going to punch the opponent and avoid the opponent's punches.
A large audiences always goes crazy at such a simple thing! So "simple" is not bad thing.
Both 2P co-op mode & combat mode are available.
We could come across very few titles which have
both co-op mode and combat mode in that era. (e.g."Bloodshot")
In addition, "Gloom" allows another specific
sprite-file for even the 2nd player after a game-designer edited
specific variable of program file.
Even "Doom" & "Duke Nukem 3D" didn't allow
that, though. (e.g. "Marine vs. Marine" , "Duke vs.Duke" )
