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First person brawlers
- Thread starter kanesha
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- beat 'em up fps
Idk for certain, it's been awhile. Soul Fighter on the Dreamcast may of had a feature where you could fight in first person.
Probably doesn't really qualify, but Mount and Blade can be played in first person.
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No reason to be hesitant, there aren't enough perfect examples to keep this thread alive, so no harm done. Though have to admit I'm seeing a lot more games here that fit my definition than I expected, guess I was a bit under a rock on this after all.
I vaguely remember playing this once in an arcade. But since i didn't know what i was doing, i lost on the second screen and gave up giving it money, regardless how nice the game looked.
Have been playing it a bit more in the last few months.
The game my brother made sure I never stop hearing about. Thanks for reminding me LOOOL. I’ll probably play it eventually.
It's good. There's an unbelievable amount of mods, too, to freshen things up. The sequel is also great, but much, much more demanding. If you go for the first, make sure you get M&B: Warband, as it is a much expanded version of the base M&B and pretty much every mod expects that one.
I probably have three copies of warband because of my brother
What, you thought I was exaggerating earlier? LOL
Yes, actually I thought you were LOL.
If you're committed to the build/character you're role-playing, the 3D Fallout games and contemporaries like Cyberpunk 2077 fit the bill.
I guess there's also a variety of boxing titles, like the (terrible) Digital Champ on the TurboGrafx-16.
I guess there's also a variety of boxing titles, like the (terrible) Digital Champ on the TurboGrafx-16.
I generally never try builds like this because on average games aren't really built with this in mind, in my experience. I know NV has some pretty nifty mods that expand upon barehanded (with styles, stances and whatnot) but vanilla? I don't think I'd go for it.
It's my most stereotypical American opinion, but I love the guns, I wouldn't play without them.
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Thx for making me remember this game, it was truly unique.
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I went through all the games here that looked like they fit the bill (except doom mods, there's apparently a doom mod for everything and a certain skunky is determined to put one in every thread), and I'm back with a report.
Fallen Aces
Couldn't get it to work, don't have problems with Unity games usually, but I guess it's doing something special, or could be the early access situation.
Fight Knight
Fast paced grid based dungeon crawler with absolute minimum RPG mechanics(gather monster parts to unlock power ups or exchange for consumables) and random brawling encounters that are simplified to the point of feeling like a rhythm game. It might seem like a unique mixture of genres, but it cheats a bit, and instead of having you fight in the dungeon like many action oriented crawlers would, it opts to completely separate the battle from the exploration akin to a more traditional RPG, and judging each of these separate parts on their own, the game doesn't really do anything exceptional outside of its style and flare. If like me you went into it expect Legend of Grimrock with more flashed out combat you'll be disappointed, but can't really fault a game too much for my expectations, it's definitely good at what it's doing and absolutely worth a try to see if it clicks with you.
Condemned: Criminal Origins
I played it already and it is the horror brawler, among brawlers of all perspectives cause nothing does horror better than first person. If you like horror and you like brawler, this is your GOAT.
Condemned 2: Bloodshot
Emulator was really glitchy with this one, so I couldn't get into the meat of the game, but I sure wanted to, first impressions are way better than what I heard about it. It's definitely not as good as the original, even the combat, while more varied thanks to the combos, feels also more gamey and streamlined in its core, so the fights are much more relaxed and not as freaking intense (a random junkie with a pipe in the original was almost as scary as they are in real life), which in turn diminishes the overall horror atmosphere, but if I refrain from comparisons and take it on its own merits it felt really good.
Maken X
Amazing game, feels very different from others on this list, much more super-powered is the way I could describe it perhaps, as you character can attack very fast, jump super high and dash to dodge attacks, ticking all the boxes in combat as well, with combos (sort of), blocking and countering and a very beat em' up charge attack that drains a portion of your health, all coupled with an Avenging Spirit-esque possession mechanic and bizarre story give it that distinct classic console game vibe. It's categorized as hack and slash, I guess cause you use weapons, but it plays a lot more like Oni than Devil May Cry. That said it doesn't do anything really exceptional, it's pretty much run of the mill, but a very good quality mill, the product of which you can't not enjoy. The only gripe I have with it is the lock-on system, you need to be very close to the enemy to acquire a lock and you can easily lose it if you break line of sight (which is possible even on a plain field somehow) which stifles the otherwise excellent combat flow.
Dark Messiah of Might & Magic
Played this one as well, awesome game, but had to check it out again to make sure it's a good brawler without kicking everybody into and off of everything which was always my go-to tactic as well, and yep, it totally does the job, it's still a lot of fun and is a bit more challenging without that gimmick.
Breakdown
This game seems to have so much potential, with the involved combo system that it even takes time to tutorialize, and unique gun mechanics: in-world rendering, no HUD for ammo, and tedious animations for every pickup to differentiate a clip you take out from someone's pocket from one you take off someone's gun; all giving off total hidden gem vibes. Unfortunately the moment I got to the actual gameplay I realized that the cake was a lie - the MP5 you start off with feels inaccurate and weak (and from what I've gathered this is going to be your main gun for a long time if not forever), the best way to use is to close the gap tanking any damage and spray at enemies from like 10 feet away, which is not at all what I expect from a shooter. The melee is even more disappointing - as long as it's one guy you'll win no matter what, all the cool combos and such are completely interchangeable and don't seem to make much difference just pick your favorite and stick with it, but the moment the second guy shows up, you are in big trouble. I'm currently stuck in burning level where the game throws two alien bouncer guys at you that are immune to guns, so you must melee them. There just doesn't seem to be a way to deal with them in any satisfactory way to me. I've watch a couple of playthroughs on youtube for clues and one player just gives up and runs right past em and the other tries to line em up behind each other and barely manages to beat them in a total mess of a fight tanking a lot of damage and somehow coming out on top, it looked like a total fluke, but even if that was skill it was not at all impressive. In some comment there I read that the game overall was one of inspirations for Mirror's Edge (which deserves its own honorable mention in this thread), and I can totally believe that. The game just oozes coolness, but alas fails to bottle and deliver it, and feels in general unfinished, like a prototype of sorts. Also have to point this out: you have this female companion who's this badass that acrobatically melees 3 soldiers in 3 seconds in an in-game cutscene, and then proceeds to become a useless escort that only gets in a way and can't kill anyone with her puny pistol, and guess what her name is.... AlEx... yep her name is Alex... this game came out almost a year before Half Life 2...
Indiana Jones
My puny PC couldn't do it. Apparently it has best graphics in the world, sad part is I can't tell the difference between that and an average PS3 era game, even with glasses on.
The Super Spy
Rail shooter except it's Wolfenstein mechanics and focused on melee. The core gameplay is simple and enjoyable, but level and enemy design gets repetitive and boring very quickly, with the usual coin munching difficulty spikes that plague so many arcade games.
Crossed Swords
Alright, let's choke down the obvious third person transparent render of the player character to the possible moral, political or religious refusal of the hypothetical artist to draw disembodied hands upon a first person perspective request, and count this one in, especially since it plays a lot like The Super Spy, except improved in every way - better combat, better pacing, I can see myself actually playing and beating this one without getting bored.
Cyberpunk 2077, Fallouts, Mount and Blade
While I'm sure you can roleplay a brawler in these at times, ultimately the main RPG mechanics fundamentally clash with the idea - your goal is to find better loot and "level up" and make your character OP, instead of relying on your own skills as a player. Mount and Blade comes closest, cause it's the most grounded. The chivalry tournaments that you get to participate in with standard gear were perhaps my favorite part of the game, but still I wouldn't call them anything but barebones.
With that all out of the way, it's time to reveal the REAL reason behind me starting this thread! Muahahaha!
Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena
aka the undeniably BEST movie tie-in game
aka F.E.A.R. is nervously smoking in the corner
aka it's a brawler???
This. game. makes. you. FEEL. like. you. are. fighting. It's a mess, you'll never know what's going on, most of the time you'll have your ass handed to you, but every now and then when stars align you'll go berserk and kick ass like a total badass, just like in real life!... when you... brawl... in high security prison... that you frequent... Ok, sure, it very soon turns into a shooter with stealth mechanics, however the brawling stays with you, in the back of your mind, waiting until those stars alight again and you see an opportunity to pounce at, and if you do things just right, you take down 4-5 armed guards in pitch back with your bare hands or a shiv and get your brawler hit of the day, especially because usually none of that would fly and you would just get gunned down like an absolute schmuck for even thinking about it. That contrast and that possibility is what makes this one of the most satisfactory first person brawling I've ever experienced. Yeah it's fun to punch and dodge and pull off combos in Zeno Clash, but that's normal. Yeah it's fun to catch a guy off guard and instakill with jump kick or a sweep in F.E.A.R., but that's a given. In this game you need to do both catch them off guard AND by either chance or skill execute a perfect series of (albeit simplistic but still) combos to witness an immersive and believable spectacle of assassinations or an equally immersive and believable awkward flop towards your untimely but well deserved death. You may not like it, but this is what peak performance looks like:
Fallen Aces
Couldn't get it to work, don't have problems with Unity games usually, but I guess it's doing something special, or could be the early access situation.
Fight Knight
Fast paced grid based dungeon crawler with absolute minimum RPG mechanics(gather monster parts to unlock power ups or exchange for consumables) and random brawling encounters that are simplified to the point of feeling like a rhythm game. It might seem like a unique mixture of genres, but it cheats a bit, and instead of having you fight in the dungeon like many action oriented crawlers would, it opts to completely separate the battle from the exploration akin to a more traditional RPG, and judging each of these separate parts on their own, the game doesn't really do anything exceptional outside of its style and flare. If like me you went into it expect Legend of Grimrock with more flashed out combat you'll be disappointed, but can't really fault a game too much for my expectations, it's definitely good at what it's doing and absolutely worth a try to see if it clicks with you.
Condemned: Criminal Origins
I played it already and it is the horror brawler, among brawlers of all perspectives cause nothing does horror better than first person. If you like horror and you like brawler, this is your GOAT.
Condemned 2: Bloodshot
Emulator was really glitchy with this one, so I couldn't get into the meat of the game, but I sure wanted to, first impressions are way better than what I heard about it. It's definitely not as good as the original, even the combat, while more varied thanks to the combos, feels also more gamey and streamlined in its core, so the fights are much more relaxed and not as freaking intense (a random junkie with a pipe in the original was almost as scary as they are in real life), which in turn diminishes the overall horror atmosphere, but if I refrain from comparisons and take it on its own merits it felt really good.
Maken X
Amazing game, feels very different from others on this list, much more super-powered is the way I could describe it perhaps, as you character can attack very fast, jump super high and dash to dodge attacks, ticking all the boxes in combat as well, with combos (sort of), blocking and countering and a very beat em' up charge attack that drains a portion of your health, all coupled with an Avenging Spirit-esque possession mechanic and bizarre story give it that distinct classic console game vibe. It's categorized as hack and slash, I guess cause you use weapons, but it plays a lot more like Oni than Devil May Cry. That said it doesn't do anything really exceptional, it's pretty much run of the mill, but a very good quality mill, the product of which you can't not enjoy. The only gripe I have with it is the lock-on system, you need to be very close to the enemy to acquire a lock and you can easily lose it if you break line of sight (which is possible even on a plain field somehow) which stifles the otherwise excellent combat flow.
Dark Messiah of Might & Magic
Played this one as well, awesome game, but had to check it out again to make sure it's a good brawler without kicking everybody into and off of everything which was always my go-to tactic as well, and yep, it totally does the job, it's still a lot of fun and is a bit more challenging without that gimmick.
Breakdown
This game seems to have so much potential, with the involved combo system that it even takes time to tutorialize, and unique gun mechanics: in-world rendering, no HUD for ammo, and tedious animations for every pickup to differentiate a clip you take out from someone's pocket from one you take off someone's gun; all giving off total hidden gem vibes. Unfortunately the moment I got to the actual gameplay I realized that the cake was a lie - the MP5 you start off with feels inaccurate and weak (and from what I've gathered this is going to be your main gun for a long time if not forever), the best way to use is to close the gap tanking any damage and spray at enemies from like 10 feet away, which is not at all what I expect from a shooter. The melee is even more disappointing - as long as it's one guy you'll win no matter what, all the cool combos and such are completely interchangeable and don't seem to make much difference just pick your favorite and stick with it, but the moment the second guy shows up, you are in big trouble. I'm currently stuck in burning level where the game throws two alien bouncer guys at you that are immune to guns, so you must melee them. There just doesn't seem to be a way to deal with them in any satisfactory way to me. I've watch a couple of playthroughs on youtube for clues and one player just gives up and runs right past em and the other tries to line em up behind each other and barely manages to beat them in a total mess of a fight tanking a lot of damage and somehow coming out on top, it looked like a total fluke, but even if that was skill it was not at all impressive. In some comment there I read that the game overall was one of inspirations for Mirror's Edge (which deserves its own honorable mention in this thread), and I can totally believe that. The game just oozes coolness, but alas fails to bottle and deliver it, and feels in general unfinished, like a prototype of sorts. Also have to point this out: you have this female companion who's this badass that acrobatically melees 3 soldiers in 3 seconds in an in-game cutscene, and then proceeds to become a useless escort that only gets in a way and can't kill anyone with her puny pistol, and guess what her name is.... AlEx... yep her name is Alex... this game came out almost a year before Half Life 2...
Indiana Jones
My puny PC couldn't do it. Apparently it has best graphics in the world, sad part is I can't tell the difference between that and an average PS3 era game, even with glasses on.
The Super Spy
Rail shooter except it's Wolfenstein mechanics and focused on melee. The core gameplay is simple and enjoyable, but level and enemy design gets repetitive and boring very quickly, with the usual coin munching difficulty spikes that plague so many arcade games.
Crossed Swords
Alright, let's choke down the obvious third person transparent render of the player character to the possible moral, political or religious refusal of the hypothetical artist to draw disembodied hands upon a first person perspective request, and count this one in, especially since it plays a lot like The Super Spy, except improved in every way - better combat, better pacing, I can see myself actually playing and beating this one without getting bored.
Cyberpunk 2077, Fallouts, Mount and Blade
While I'm sure you can roleplay a brawler in these at times, ultimately the main RPG mechanics fundamentally clash with the idea - your goal is to find better loot and "level up" and make your character OP, instead of relying on your own skills as a player. Mount and Blade comes closest, cause it's the most grounded. The chivalry tournaments that you get to participate in with standard gear were perhaps my favorite part of the game, but still I wouldn't call them anything but barebones.
With that all out of the way, it's time to reveal the REAL reason behind me starting this thread! Muahahaha!
Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena
aka the undeniably BEST movie tie-in game
aka F.E.A.R. is nervously smoking in the corner
aka it's a brawler???
This. game. makes. you. FEEL. like. you. are. fighting. It's a mess, you'll never know what's going on, most of the time you'll have your ass handed to you, but every now and then when stars align you'll go berserk and kick ass like a total badass, just like in real life!... when you... brawl... in high security prison... that you frequent... Ok, sure, it very soon turns into a shooter with stealth mechanics, however the brawling stays with you, in the back of your mind, waiting until those stars alight again and you see an opportunity to pounce at, and if you do things just right, you take down 4-5 armed guards in pitch back with your bare hands or a shiv and get your brawler hit of the day, especially because usually none of that would fly and you would just get gunned down like an absolute schmuck for even thinking about it. That contrast and that possibility is what makes this one of the most satisfactory first person brawling I've ever experienced. Yeah it's fun to punch and dodge and pull off combos in Zeno Clash, but that's normal. Yeah it's fun to catch a guy off guard and instakill with jump kick or a sweep in F.E.A.R., but that's a given. In this game you need to do both catch them off guard AND by either chance or skill execute a perfect series of (albeit simplistic but still) combos to witness an immersive and believable spectacle of assassinations or an equally immersive and believable awkward flop towards your untimely but well deserved death. You may not like it, but this is what peak performance looks like:
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