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[verek_22]

A company called Interceptor Entertainment are developing a remake of Rise of the Triad, an FPS published by Apogee in 1995. A trailer of this remake was shown at QuakeCon.

Here's a video of the original Rise of the Triad, if you want to compare them.

Rise of the Triad was one of my favourite games back in the mid-90s. My family didn't really have the money for top-end computers, so I spent a lot of time playing RoTT while everybody else was playing Quake. So hearing about a remake is pretty darn exciting to me. I really hope it turns out well.

Below are a list of promised features, stolen from an article over at Rock Paper Shotgun:

– Step into the shoes of the H.U.N.T. (High-Risk United Nations Taskforce) with five unique characters, each with different play styles.
- Blast through over 20 of levels of explosive single-player action.
- Unique multiplayer maps bring back all the fun and excitement of classic ROTT.
- The full arsenal of over-the top weapons is back, including the Flamewall, Firebomb, Split Missile, Drunk Missile and, of course, the Excalibat!
- The maniacal modes return, too, with God mode, Elasto mode, Mercury mode, Shrooms mode and everyone’s favorite, Dog mode!
- Build your own levels, mods and share them with Valve’s Steamworks.
- Offline single-player and multiplayer allows for instant action.
- Find tons of secrets, collectables, special events and hidden areas to explore.
- Get more than 100 achievements to add to your score, which is tracked on our worldwide leaderboard and stat-tracking system.
- ROTT is bloodier and more ludicrous than ever, with full character and enemy dismemberment.
- The iconic original soundtrack has been completely re-forged in the fires of heavy metal!
- Nostalgia abounds with the option to play with all the original sounds and music.
- Built on fully-licensed Unreal Engine 3 technology, ROTT will run on low-end PCs and push high-end PCs to their limits!

Here's a link to the trailer.

And a link to the RPS article for more information.

DOG MODE.

[Zaru]

Thanks for sharing these great news!
The remake looks very promising, although some wall textures could be made more similar to the ones we all remember from original ROTT. And of course it needs more open space! The action that take place in the trailer looks like it's set in a very claustrophobic environment.
The music is great! Revamped "In the thick of it", I believe?

[DarthHelmet86]

Looked very good, I saw a few rather large open areas in there as well. RotT was a over looked classic to me, they pushed the Wolfenstein engine to its limits and made a very fun over the top shooter. How that will fair in today's market I don't know, a lot of current gamers didn't play games back then and just might not get the idea. Other gamers who did play it back then might think that the style of game is no longer any good or was never any good.

It would be nice if with that remake that include the original game, to let people try it out and for older gamers to let the nostalgia flow back in.

[hunvagy]

Originally Posted by DarthHelmet86

Looked very good, I saw a few rather large open areas in there as well. RotT was a over looked classic to me, they pushed the Wolfenstein engine to its limits and made a very fun over the top shooter. How that will fair in today's market I don't know, a lot of current gamers didn't play games back then and just might not get the idea. Other gamers who did play it back then might think that the style of game is no longer any good or was never any good.

It would be nice if with that remake that include the original game, to let people try it out and for older gamers to let the nostalgia flow back in.

*cough* Not Wolf engine. ROTT is built on the first version of the Build engine.

[MrFlibble]

Originally Posted by hunvagy

ROTT is built on the first version of the Build engine.

No it's not, it's a very updated version of the Wolfenstein 3-D engine with some code from the Doom engine thrown in:

Rise of the Triad contains code taken from Wolfenstein 3D, as well as early versions of the Zone memory and WAD file systems from the Doom source code. It also makes use of an early version of Doom's patch_t image format which is close to that used in the press release beta version, indicating that Hall's team was given access to an early transitional source base, perhaps related closely to other contemporary games such as Shadowcaster.

(source)

In his article about ROTT Kevin Bowen quotes Mark Dochtermann on the tech sided of the engine:

The Engine

The story behind ROTT's Engine is quite interesting. While doing research for this article, it seemed to me that the ROTT Engine was built from scratch. However, Ritual's Mark Dochtermann gave me the full story (warning: slightly techie):

ROTT had many features later picked up by the BUILD engine: Bullet hole marks in walls, destroyable objects (Tables, lights, you know stuff like that), breakable glass, thumbnail pictures in the saved games, and adjustable, password-protected violence settings. It was the first "clone" that a had look up \ look down ability.

The engine could handle pretty big levels too: up to sixteen stories high and an area of one million sq. feet.

ROTT also had things the BUILD games didn't have like parallaxing skies, fog, boulders, real lights that illuminate walls (that you can shoot to make the room get darker), ricocheting bullets, touchplates, and gas grates. They were nasty little buggers that pumped a room full of gas (almost as bad as being in Taco Bell on your lunch hour). If you didn't have a gas mask, you were toast. It also had a 180 turn key (great for keyboarders).

ROTT was the first game that let you fall off ledges and die. If you weren't careful jumping around you could fly off the edge of a cliff. And of course, there where the famous jumpads. They where like mini-trampolines that hurtled you 5 stories in the air. Once in the air you could maneuver yourself around and do all sorts of weird stuff. Aerial battles often got pretty crazy. Jump pads were used to jump over obstacles, walls, other players, to get weapons and items… they're all over (and yes, enemies could use them).

On the other hand, a game that can be said to use a "very early" version of the Build engine is Ken's Labyrinth.

[Scatty]

Originally Posted by MrFlibble

On the other hand, a game that can be said to use a "very early" version of the Build engine is Ken's Labyrinth.

If I remember correctly, it was also the first game made by Ken Silverman (hence the name), after which followed more games which used his improved Build engine (Shadow Warrior for example).

[MrFlibble]

Originally Posted by Scatty

If I remember correctly, it was also the first game made by Ken Silverman (hence the name)

CuteFloor has a neat video about the whole story:


I also love how Ken not only coded his first game on his own (which is a feat in and of itself) but also did all the graphics and wrote some very nice music (It's a real pity the music and sounds in Ken's Labyrinth seem to somehow interfere with each other when run under DOSBox.)

[TheChosen]

I joked at the chatbox that you never know what surprises they might have in Quakecon and that they might even announce a new Commander Keen game. I'd say this comes very close to that.

Very interested to see how it turns out. Honestly though the trailer seems bit lacking.

[MrFlibble]

So the secret project was really a ROTT remake - there has been some buzz about it recently in Duke Nukem fan forums, but mostly the people there are still disappointed about Interceptor Entertainment because of the Duke Nukem 3D Reloaded letdown. Some speculated it could have been a Shadow Warrior remake.

Personally I'm a fan of Rise of the Triad, and the project is welcome to me I also respect Joe Siegler for his efforts to preserve Apogee/3D Realms' legacy, as well as his role in the original ROTT (and the Red Dwarf references, I love Red Dwarf as you might have guessed ).

Also, nice Fat Pony avatar! I'm a fan of Kate Beaton too

[Edit] Gameplay videos:






And here are some screenshots, renders and concept art:
http://www.jeuxvideo.com/news/2012/0...-de-retour.htm

[Zaru]

I remember from the original game, that Excalibat was an ordinary baseball bat spitting several explosive baseball balls at a time. In the remake. it has a weird blinking eye(!) embedded in it and shoots a single fireball. I don't intend to cavil, but I'm not sure if it was a good decision to make by the developers. I, for example, absolutely hate it.