God I love Crusader: No Remorse

[Vympel]

And it's sequel, No Regret.

I finally got these games working on Dos Box (ISO rips) with the help of D-Fend, and they're as much of a joy to play now as the first game was way back in 1995.

Leaving aside the cheesy FMV acting (oh my god is it bad in the first game especially- "Weasel", who you buy weapons from, is easily the most camp, bizarre FMV character I've ever seen) this is easily one of the best shooters I've ever played.

It's amazing that, 14 years on, the moment the first level started up, I could predict how the (awesome) music was going to go, and remembered instinctively to kill everyone - as a rogue Silencer (a badass in Red Stormtrooper Armor) of the evil World Economic Consoritum (WEC), you now work for the Resistance infilitrating WEC installations and BLOWING SHIT UP.

And killing everyone. Civilians in this game are not to be trusted- They'll put up their hands and act all shocked that you're there - and then push the nearest alarm button and make your life difficult.

EVERYTHING can be blown up (except the walls and floors) - and with what a badass arsenal of kill. There's your standard pistol, shotgun, submachine gun, and rocket launcher - and there's the sick weapons that produce all sorts of bizarre, gruesome, fallout-style death animations. Setting people on fire is especially a pleasure, their screams are just blood-curdling. The sequel adds even more sick-ass weapons.

Anyway, hail to Crusader. I'm on Mission 3 of the first game, and it's fucking awesome to be back in 1995.

(Fun fact, Crusader is part of the same universe as both System Shock and Wing Commander - just different points in history. You can determine this from reading all their manuals together).

[Stark]

I just wish someone would make a frontend that gets around the somewhat strange control system. It's pretty sad that modern games of this sort aren't nearly as good.

[Vympel]

I just wish someone would make a frontend that gets around the somewhat strange control system. It's pretty sad that modern games of this sort aren't nearly as good.

Yeah, I find the keyboard / mouse option frakking useless, using just the keyboard is way better. The Numpad as the primary control system is still somewhat clunky, though.

[Oskuro]

I've been trying to track the Crusader games for some time now, with no success.
I remember them being all kinds of awesome, although the No Regret copy I played was stuck in the easter egg Christmas music, wich was annoying yet delightfully surreal (Setting people aflame while Jingle Bells plays in the playground should be a genre on its own).

[wautd]

One of the coolest games ever. A real shame they never went with a multiplayer mode.

In my opinion, the sequel was in many ways inferior to the original though (no more rebel base to resupply, less variation in enemies)

[Lagmonster]

That was a great old game. There were rumours of a remake in 2008, but I don't believe they ever went anywhere.

[Stark]

Yeah, I find the keyboard / mouse option frakking useless, using just the keyboard is way better. The Numpad as the primary control system is still somewhat clunky, though.

I blame you for reintroducing me to door-induced rage. Why were doors so hard until 1998? Why are ladders STILL hard?

[wautd]

It was also pretty mild on the "find a stupidly hidden red key to open red door" or "pull the switch at the other side of a small country to enable an elevator" developers annoyed us with in that period. Your trusty grenade laucher was usually a good key to open most of the doors.

[Tolya]

Crusader: No Remorse was great. I played the demo of No Regret but for some reason I didn't buy the full game. And the best thing about it was the ultra-cool roll manouver.

Controls... AFAIR they were awkward mainly because the character could move only in six directions.

[Stark]

No, the guy can move in 'all' eight directions possible by the tile based maps, but the logic behind where he can do is flaky as hell and it only decides AFTER you've moved; so you can move from a square next to a door to a square on th eother side, only to have the game realise you passed through the corner a bit and move you back. This happens on obstacles all the time when running, but is especially egregious in the frequent entry manouvres.

[Oskuro]

Yeah, I remember those glitches. I didn't even have a manual back then, so I had to learn the game by trial and error, wich did make for a frustrating time.

[Karza]

No, the guy can move in 'all' eight directions possible by the tile based maps, but the logic behind where he can do is flaky as hell and it only decides AFTER you've moved; so you can move from a square next to a door to a square on th eother side, only to have the game realise you passed through the corner a bit and move you back. This happens on obstacles all the time when running, but is especially egregious in the frequent entry manouvres.

It was especially bad with altitude changes. God forbid you roll or jump down the stairs, try to jump to a moving platform or anything that isn't just a leap over flat ground. It always resulted in the Silencer being stuck in some retarded pose and bouncing around like a pinball for five seconds .

But still, I like No Remorse. The music is good, the FMV is delightfully cheesy and the ultraviolet rifle never gets old. Bonus points for actually letting the player use his insane arsenal as a lockpick. No Regret on the other hand never captivated me like that. Its level design felt somehow lackluster, and there just wasn't a suitable difficulty level. In the original, both mid difficulties were ok, whereas in No Regret the easiest is too easy and the mid-easy is well into the "total fucking bullshit" territory already.

[wautd]

No, the guy can move in 'all' eight directions possible by the tile based maps, but the logic behind where he can do is flaky as hell and it only decides AFTER you've moved; so you can move from a square next to a door to a square on th eother side, only to have the game realise you passed through the corner a bit and move you back. This happens on obstacles all the time when running, but is especially egregious in the frequent entry manouvres.

whereas in No Regret the easiest is too easy and the mid-easy is well into the "total fucking bullshit" territory already.

The hardest part in No Regret were the first two seconds of the game really. I still remember walking out the door only to get blown to smithereens

[Jade Falcon]

I loved the first game, never played even a demo of the second. I've made it one of the items on my wishlist on GOG.com, but that means that GOG will have to negotiate with EA which I don't hold out much hope of.

The only other game of this sort where you basically shoot anything that moves that I remember in that era was SCi's rather badly flawed Gender Wars.

[Nephtys]

(Fun fact, Crusader is part of the same universe as both System Shock and Wing Commander - just different points in history. You can determine this from reading all their manuals together).

Also don't forget Terra Nova: Strike Force Centauri. The H-h-hacker's next job after surviving Citadel is to steal tech info on the armor

[RecklessPrudence]

Out of curiosity (and because I recently found a stash of old DOS games I thought I had lost, and this was one of them), what settings did you use on DOSBox to get No Remorse working? I really want to fire it up, and then do some other things involving fire...

[Stark]

I haven't used 'settings' in DosBOX since 62. It runs pretty well without any, and for some stuff with strange memory requirements just throwing numbers in dosbox.conf is enough. 73 is out now, and it runs Crusader out of the box.

[Vympel]

If you want your Crusader fix and don't have it, really, just torrent the ISO. It's abandonware.

[RecklessPrudence]

That's what I did as soon as I found that the actual, official disc that I bought forever ago was scratched to hell and gone, even to the point that resurfacing won't do anything, because the data layer itself is damaged. I lent it to someone way back when and... something, don't remember what, apparantly happened to it. Needless to say, he didn't get any games lent to him for quite a while after that. Never finished the damn game, either - didn't have a good enough computer to run it, had to play on a family member's borrowed computer when I was over their place. I've got No Regret queued now - if it's even half as good as I remember No Remorse being, it should be a blast.

Just wasn't sure as to the official board policy on saying that I had done so was - I've checked now.

By the way, you probably already know this, but there's two patches for it, one of which apparantly works wonders with the occasionally dodgy sound, here. Just in case you need them.

[RecklessPrudence]

Ghetto Edit: The patch links seem to be bad, although that could just be my currently-flaky internet connection - could someone let me know, please?

[Vympel]

Note we can't explicitly tell you where to get this stuff, post it, doesn't mean can't mention the possibility in passing though.

[Ohma]

Well, the Origin tech page seems to have the patch...and I vaguely recall downloading it from there last time I set Crusader up on my computer. Man...once I've replaced my comp's dead screen I think I'll load Crusader up again, I recall the music in that game as being pretty rocksome.

[MKSheppard]

Leaving aside the cheesy FMV acting (oh my god is it bad in the first game especially- "Weasel", who you buy weapons from, is easily the most camp, bizarre FMV character I've ever seen)

You don't like his ferret?