Chimpzy's Freebie Info - Hacknet Deluxe

[Chimpzy_v1legacy]

For the latest freebie(s), click the bigass link(s) below:

[HEADING=2]Hacknet Deluxe at Humble [https://www.humblebundle.com/store/hacknet-deluxe?hmb_source=humble_home&hmb_medium=product_tile&hmb_campaign=mosaic_section_1_layout_index_1_layout_type_threes_tile_index_2][/HEADING]

Ok, so, since I've sort of taken it upon myself to tell you guys about any freebies I come across, I decided to just post them all in one thread, instead of making a new one each time. Because who doesn't like free stuff.

Oh, and hey, if you know of any freebies, do let me know and/or feel free to post them yourself.

I'll update the thread title and link in the OP as needed.

Spoiler: original post

Yup, it's me again, here to inform you about another freebie. This time it's Unreal Gold over at GOG [https://www.gog.com/game/unreal_gold].
Free until the 24th, so anyone interested should grab it while they can. Also, no DRM cuz GOG.

So, for discussion's sake, what are your opinions on the original Unreal? Feels like it sort of got forgotten, overshadowed by its own spin-off Unreal Tournament and the titan that was Half-Life.

Hidden gem of rightfully forgotten?


I have fond memories of it. It was the first game I bought myself with my allowance. Since the most recent FPS I had played at the time was Duke 3D, I remember being wowed by the scale of the levels and the fancy graphical detail. How amazingly tough the Skaarj AI was. Playing around with the arsenal and figuring out all the ways you can use the Eightball Launcher or discovering the Shock Rifle combo. It had bots. You could play multiplayer without other people. Blew my mind at the time.

I played it again over a decade later. As far as old-school shooters go, it holds op fairly well IMO. Probably better than I remembered, since I wasn't an edgy 13 year old anymore and I actually took the time to read all the in-game fluff, explore the levels, and notice all the little environmental details. There's admirable athmosphere and world-building there.

 

[Squilookle]

Never played it myself (first cut my teeth on the original Unreal Tournament) but if this recent retrospective is anything to go on, it looks like Unreal was basically Half-Life before there was Half-Life

 

[Wintermute_v1legacy]

Thanks. I feel like an asshole because most of my games on GoG I got for free. Anyway, I used to play a lot of UT but I don't think I ever played the original Unreal... I guess I always just liked Quake more.

 

[sXeth]

Never played it myself (first cut my teeth on the original Unreal Tournament) but if this recent retrospective is anything to go on, it looks like Unreal was basically Half-Life before there was Half-Life

More or less concurrent.

Unreal was always kind of the ongoing evolution of shooters as they'd gone to that point, which got kind of oddly curtailed. I guess because Tournament overshadowed it, and the Half-life model took over the singleplayer shooter experience for a long time (arguably still, though there's been some resurgence)

Half-life was the branch that would become the nascent seed for the cinematic or story-focused shooter (although the first Half Life at least was still at least one foot in the original genre).

Then Thief was off in the corner being a shooter that wasn't entirely a shooter also around the same time. Somewhat of a codification of the System Shock ambitions, but without the jankiness of trying to do literally everything that plagued SS.

 

[Chimpzy_v1legacy]

Never played it myself (first cut my teeth on the original Unreal Tournament) but if this recent retrospective is anything to go on, it looks like Unreal was basically Half-Life before there was Half-Life

Sort of, yes.

Like Seth Carter has touched upon above, Unreal was released during a time of transition for the FPS. Singleplayer went from mostly Doom style episodic campaigns with loosely connected levels and story that was usually delivered in text or cutscene for before and after each episode (and in the manual), to long-form campaigns where levels connected more directly into each other to give the impression of a single, continuous worlds and more in-gmae story/world-building.

Half-Life is remembered as the game that popularized and codified this model, but it wasn't the first. Unreal beat it to the punch, but arguably didn't do it as well. Even Quake II showed some early signs, although it was really more mission-based.

 

[Blood Brain Barrier]

Not Tim Sweeney's best work. That would have been ZZT.

 

[Chimpzy_v1legacy]

Chimpzy here with another freebie info flash. Today I have for you:

[HEADING=2]Hacknet Deluxe at Humble [https://www.humblebundle.com/store/hacknet-deluxe?hmb_source=humble_home&hmb_medium=product_tile&hmb_campaign=mosaic_section_1_layout_index_1_layout_type_threes_tile_index_2][/HEADING]

It's one of those free while supplies last things, so grab it while you can if interested. You'll get a Steam, but there's also an option to directly download a (presumably DRM-free) standalone version. It also comes with the soundtrack.

 

[Drathnoxis]

I don't like free stuff. It makes me suspicious. And I don't like owing people.

 

[Squilookle]

It would actually be much better if you made a fresh thread each time. All of this interesting discussion about Unreal for example, is now hidden behind a thread title about Hacknet... whatever the hell that is.

 

[Chimpzy_v1legacy]

It would actually be much better if you made a fresh thread each time. All of this interesting discussion about Unreal for example, is now hidden behind a thread title about Hacknet... whatever the hell that is.

I suppose that's true. I'll keep the format, but I'll go back to separate threads.