[Mod] Next Encounter PC Remake Announced

[OneFootInTheGrave]

+1 - for not played as it was not on PC... and will buy if it comes.

[*Serious Godzilla*]

man I feel sorry for you PC gurus as you really don't know what your missing out on. thats why I play on both formats so I don't miss out on anything

[Fiendian]

It has nothing to do with prejudice in my case, I just do not see the sense in buying an ancient console, controller and any other stuff just to play a single game that is probably ridiculously hard to find new and sealed nowadays (I have been burned too many times buying used stuff.).

[Squadala]

Originally Posted by Fiendian

It has nothing to do with prejudice in my case, I just do not see the sense in buying an ancient console, controller and any other stuff just to play a single game that is probably ridiculously hard to find new and sealed nowadays (I have been burned too many times buying used stuff.).

Emulators baby. With some tweaking you can rig the emulator to use a keyboard layout similar to the PC SS games. if you can't, there's always the X360 controller.

[Fiendian]

That sounds. . . illegal.

[OoPpEe]

Always could pick up the PS2 version. I believe PC2SX allows you to play PS2 games off the drive.

[Scratch]

Just another piece of vaporware, ladies and gentlemen. Nothing to see here, move along.

(I hope I'm wrong.)

Originally Posted by Fiendian

That sounds. . . illegal.

Emulators aren't illegal if you play games on it you already own yourself, right?

[Finzy]

Originally Posted by Angelo

Emulators aren't illegal if you play games on it you already own yourself, right?

Emulators are not illegal as long as you are using A) an original BIOS image of your own console if needed and B) own the games you intend to rip, obviously.

NE works fine on PCSX2, and latest builds should play it even more flawlessly as I last regularily played it a year ago. Would post a link to my old thread but it got deleted in the forum crash.

[*Serious Godzilla*]

Originally Posted by Finzy

Emulators are not illegal as long as you are using A) an original BIOS image of your own console if needed and B) own the games you intend to rip, obviously.

NE works fine on PCSX2, and latest builds should play it even more flawlessly as I last regularily played it a year ago. Would post a link to my old thread but it got deleted in the forum crash.

Too bad most people don't realize this

[Solais]

Oh wow!

[Dave3d]

Thanks Galvatron3000.
Can you tell us how much has been finished, and what the release (guess) timeframe might be?
SO interested in this.

Thanks.

[Fiendian]

I smell 2012.

[Dave3d]

I thought it was a straight remake?
I was hoping to play it like it was on the console (except on pc, with keyboard and mouse), since I dont own a console.

[Fiendian]

A straight remake would be very difficult. Plus new touches are interesting for people familiar with the original NE.

[Deepblue]

Just like SS:HD has physics on corpses and such where the original didn't.
and realtime lighting of course.

[Devostator]

Have someone noticed that the rockets at the third picture looks like the rockets of Serious Sam II? Maybe thats are the Heatseeking rockets.

[*Serious Godzilla*]

nice job on the screens galvatron! but I warn you, since i might be among the only console goers on here that have played that masterpiece and loved it, I will very hard on it

[Solais]

I played it too, and I will be hard on it too.

[OoPpEe]

Just played through the first episode last night of NE. It will be hard to replicate.
Can I make one suggestion though? Can you merge some of the maps into a individual one? The levels are quite short, especially if playing 2 player co-op. So to keep the flow of the game, I'd say merge some of the levels that can be. Like ones ending with you going through a gate, and the next level starts with you on the other side of it.

Also if you check the Next Encounter forum, I released the Next Encounter soundtrack. Could be nice to include it as a alternate soundtrack for those who want to go "retro"

[*Serious Godzilla*]

Originally Posted by OoPpEe

Just played through the first episode last night of NE. It will be hard to replicate.
Can I make one suggestion though? Can you merge some of the maps into a individual one? The levels are quite short, especially if playing 2 player co-op. So to keep the flow of the game, I'd say merge some of the levels that can be. Like ones ending with you going through a gate, and the next level starts with you on the other side of it.

Also if you check the Next Encounter forum, I released the Next Encounter soundtrack. Could be nice to include it as a alternate soundtrack for those who want to go "retro"

it is a next encounter remake. they had better put all that stuff in it becuase otherwise they can't call it a NE remake.

[Fiendian]

You are already straying far away from the literal meaning of the word "remake" by using an engine two generations newer than original NE uses. They might as well reduce the number of transition points considering the amount of resources modern PCs have available compared to the GameCube, or the modern consoles for that matter. The PC version of Thief 3 has needless "portals" between tiny levels just because it was ported directly from a console.

[OoPpEe]

^^ Part of the reason why I said to merge some of the levels. The length of the levels are limited due to the Gamecube's hardware; PC it isn't a issue. The levels in NE are VERY short for a Sam game, however you can tell they intended to make the levels seamless. Your exit is the start for the next level. Why I suggested it.
When we did our NE play a few days ago, on co-op in Serious Difficulty we were finishing every level in under 15 min and it always seemed like we were just getting into the level and volia done. The merging of levels will increase the playtime per level without actually shortening the game itself - which is a huge plus.
Never suggested anything about removing. I simply said "merge". So take the entire of "map x" and merge it with the entire "map y". Doubles the map size, while still keeping it full.

[*Serious Godzilla*]

Originally Posted by Fiendian

You are already straying far away from the literal meaning of the word "remake" by using an engine two generations newer than original NE uses. They might as well reduce the number of transition points considering the amount of resources modern PCs have available compared to the GameCube, or the modern consoles for that matter. The PC version of Thief 3 has needless "portals" between tiny levels just because it was ported directly from a console.

thats not what i meant though. i understand making the levels longer for PC and thats fine. I 'm talking about things like music,enemies models, weapon models, and level designs. these are things that were in NE that defined it as to what it became and if they intend to make a NE remake, it needs to have those things.

[Fiendian]

There are absolutely no official plans for that, it was just an idea thrown out in this thread.

And do you really understand the idea? You seem to think that merging levels would somehow change the architecture or make the game longer than it was. Think of a Half-Life 1 remake that only has 50% of the original's loading points. The game would be the same but the levels are merged into fewer, bigger parts for the sake of convenience.

[OoPpEe]

Ah that's why I suggested using the tracks I ripped as a alternate soundtrack. In posts above the soundtrack is going to be inspired by the original which is great, I just suggested having the original soundtrack as a optional alternate (a .gro file you put into the folder to use, remove to disable).

For the enemies, honestly I'd be happy if they used the default SS:HD models for some of them that had little to no real differences (red reptloid, bio mechs, kleer ect) and only have remakes of the enemies that had changes (werebull - it had 4 horns for example) and of course the new enemies.

[Edit as Fiendian posted same time as me]
Exactly what I am trying to say Fiendian, thanks for making it more clear.
Yeah it's simply just merging the levels together, no way changing a single thing on the maps. As I stated before, many of the maps have a seamless transfer into the next aside from the obvious loading screen. You can even use a action replay in the GCN version and use the L to moonjump code and go over the walls of some of the entrances and you'll see that even the part you can't get to or see normally is indeed a copy and paste from the previous map. So it wouldn't be hurting or changing anything from the remake - it'd be making it better as the game would "flow" better instead of hitting a loading screen every 10 minutes. It'd be the same game but with less than half the loading screens in a nutshell.

[Deepblue]

Originally Posted by Fiendian

Think of a Half-Life 1 remake that only has 50% of the original's loading points.

There's a big difference with the way Half-Life and Serious Sam handle new areas/levels though.

The Half-life series tends to have it pretty seamless like one whole level.
SS series has loading screens between each level and you can tell they're seperate.

From what I've heard, SS:NE's levels are too small compared to other SS games and merging some levels would make them feel bigger, although at the cost of reduced number of levels.

Originally Posted by OoPpEe

Ah that's why I suggested using the tracks I ripped as a alternate soundtrack. In posts above the soundtrack is going to be inspired by the original which is great, I just suggested having the original soundtrack as a optional alternate (a .gro file you put into the folder to use, remove to disable).

I think the fact that the authors are using the actual textures is already making it hard to release on this site as it is.
They need to ask Climax if they can do this and if they use the original textures and music, that's another thing they have to ask about.
E.g: Climax may let them make a HD of NE but may be asked to make their own textures, models, sounds and music.

Basically right now it's illegal unless Climax say otherwise.

[Fiendian]

Ooppee's post suggests at least part of the game has seamless transition points.

Originally Posted by OoPpEe

^^ Part of the reason why I said to merge some of the levels. The length of the levels are limited due to the Gamecube's hardware; PC it isn't a issue. The levels in NE are VERY short for a Sam game, however you can tell they intended to make the levels seamless. Your exit is the start for the next level. Why I suggested it.

[*Serious Godzilla*]

Originally Posted by Fiendian

There are absolutely no official plans for that, it was just an idea thrown out in this thread.

And do you really understand the idea? You seem to think that merging levels would somehow change the architecture or make the game longer than it was. Think of a Half-Life 1 remake that only has 50% of the original's loading points. The game would be the same but the levels are merged into fewer, bigger parts for the sake of convenience.

but again thats not what I meant. I meant the music,enemy models, weapon models and the actual level designs, NOT the length of the levels. I am perfectly fine with them extending the levels, becuase yes, alot of the levels are very short. it would interesting to see how they approach the secret levels though.

[Squadala]

Originally Posted by *Serious Godzilla*

but again thats not what I meant. I meant the music,enemy models, weapon models and the actual level designs, NOT the length of the levels. I am perfectly fine with them extending the levels, becuase yes, alot of the levels are very short. it would interesting to see how they approach the secret levels though.

They're already working on porting the NE models. SeriousAlexej posted the NE scorpion enemy model because he needed someone here to debug it.

[*Serious Godzilla*]

Originally Posted by Squadala

They're already working on porting the NE models. SeriousAlexej posted the NE scorpion enemy model because he needed someone here to debug it.

yup thats it! if they have those my reservations have gone on their flight!