I played this a lot, back, oh, about 15 years ago. But now, I'm getting killed really quickly.

I don't know if it's because:

1) my reflexes are slower, or

2) I'm just remembering it as easier, or

3) I just automatically entered GOD mode back in the day, or

4) all of the above. ;)


No matter; still having fun. :)

Maybe you used to play with the "Good" difficulty settings whereas now you play with "Ugly"?

Or maybe you're just getting... wiser :D

I can't remember what difficulty setting I used to use, but I'm trying "Bad" right now.

If when you say "wiser" you mean "older", well, that's clearly so. If you actually DO mean "wiser", well, I'm clearly not wise enough to not get shot. :)

Well, the problem with the game (and i think it is a problem) is that it relies *too much* on the random number generator for damage count - both from you and from the enemies. You can shoot one enemy with the gun and he'll die instantly and you can shoot another point blank with the rifle and he'll take several hits until he drops dead. And the enemies can shoot you regardless of their orientation (like they can shoot you from their ass or something :-P).

To play this game isn't so much about shooting reflexes (which help of course) but movement reflexes since if an enemy can see you it is a dice roll if he will shoot you and for how much damage. So the goal is basically to try and keep the enemies that can see you as low as possible at any time.

This is quite different from how most FPS games play (especially these days) and if you are used to those then you might find it hard to adjust. But after a while you get used to running from corner to corner, ducking, etc while trying to keep only one or two guys in your aim.

Personally i played the game for the first time a couple of months before it was added on GOG. I found the demo on archive.org, played it for a bit and after seeing it wasn't available on GOG and the game wasn't exactly popular, i bought a boxed version from ebay. Then GOG added it :-P.

And yeah, i was totally slaughtered while playing the demo :-P. Once i got the game i played for a while until the canyon level (i think 3rd or 4th) and then got distracted by something else. The last few days i played it again from the beginning using the GOG version and found it much easier (well, i was playing Alien Rage, Alpha Prime and Hard Reset previously which are *very* unforgiving and insta-death loving games, especially the first two, so i got a bit used to borderline unfair mechanics :-P). I can almost finish the second level without dying :-) assuming the RNG is on my side at least :-P.

I think newer FPS games have softened us up. I remember it being quite challenging back when it was released, though I played it on the hardest difficulty back then. This game doesn't use RNG to determine damage. The damage is location based, so if you shoot a guy in the head, he takes more damage than if you hit him in the arm, leg or chest. The same goes for you. Also, if I remember correctly, some enemies wear armor, like you can. You also need to remember that this game uses sprites instead of 3D models, so sometimes it appears like they're looking a different direction when shooting at you.