While I was looking at the portable apps test releases page, I saw something called AssaultCube FPS.



It's pre-verion 1.0 so far. (version 0.93 currently)
Runs on old hardware and on Mac, Linux and Windows.

Has anyone played this? I'm curious how it will turn out.

Here is the version 1.0 discussion thread.


On a side note, why isn't Nexuiz on the portableapps.com list?

assault cube isn't new.

Anyways, nexuiz can be played from a USB key, why not get us listed?

New is relative.
I've never heard of it, and it's not even v1.0 yet.

Anyway, where did I say it was new?

I think I've heard of it. I've played a fair few other open source FPS games but I eventually settled on Nexuiz cause its the best

Is this based on the sauerbraten engine or is this a prequel to it? Sauerbraten is a pretty slick.

Eh, Sauerbraten doesn't look that good. The only really nice things they have (that we don't) is nice looking inexpensive water, fake caustics, and grass (the grass is so-so, but still impressive).

I think this is the old cube engine though (not cube 2).

I think Nexuiz could benefit hugely, visually at least, from water more similar to that of sauerbraten- right now, our water is pretty awful.
What would need to be done to update water (I have no idea if any of this is possible):

•Fake caustics look really good. They would (I imagine) require a different way of handling water by the engine, where they would project caustic-looking patterns on surfaces the water touches.

•Water that changes how things sound when you are in it.

•Some nice water shaders (not just various sawtooth functions to simulate waves).

•Particle effects when the player enters/exits/moves over the top of the water.

•When the player looks up at the surface of the water, the opacity of the water increases as the viewing angle decreases (only totally clear when you are looking straight up). Same with looking down at the surface.

•Fixing the tearing/creases that occurs when water intersects uneven surfaces. This just looks bad.

•More mappers should allow water to be affected by the lightmap. This adds a certain dimension to it.

Any of these would make Nexuiz water be much more convincing. Right now, it tends to look like either a wavy, slightly transparent mirror, or some kind of dirty jello, at best.

torus wrote:Eh, Sauerbraten doesn't look that good. The only really nice things they have (that we don't) is nice looking inexpensive water, fake caustics, and grass (the grass is so-so, but still impressive).

Forgetting the in game editor? How about the fact the engine is more suitable for large outdoor maps?

Looks pretty sexy to me

Trust me, it doesn't look that good when you are playing it. I mean, it's relatively good looking, but it also plays not like an fps but a tech demo.

I'll agree with the water thing (to an extent), but I also think we really need to support segmented playermodels first. Water should at least have a decal on the surface when you jump in.

[-z-] wrote:Is this based on the sauerbraten engine or is this a prequel to it? Sauerbraten is a pretty slick.

It's based on the Cube (1) engine. It doesn't look too good, but it plays very nice. (assualtcube)

torus wrote:Trust me, it doesn't look that good when you are playing it. I mean, it's relatively good looking, but it also plays not like an fps but a tech demo.

You're talking about Sauerbraten? Give the CVS version a try. It includes pre-compiled binaries. It is very pretty and while it does have an incomplet-ish feel to it, it only requires different skins and better movement/control feeling to be a ripe product.

PS: the media license of AssaultCube is pretty weird.

As is the media license mix of Sauerbraten.

When I tried different opensource (related) FPS games a year ago, I also tried Sauerbraten. It looks good, but it didn't feel right, somewhat blurry, missing sharpness and fast reaction. Anyway, Nexuiz beats them all in my opinion, especially since 2.4.

torus wrote:•More mappers should allow water to be affected by the lightmap. This adds a certain dimension to it.

How do you do that? I mainly use modified versions of the included water shader (water_0.tga and water.shader), and I have no idea how to allow (or deny) it to be affected by the lightmap. But it looks good anyway (when reflections are turned on).

I tried it.

It was mildly entertaining. It's a bit like the retarded bastard child of vanilla Cube and True Combat Elite, not that there's anything wrong with that. You have some urban environments, the basic rifle/smg/shotgun/sniper rifle (and knife and pistol and grenade), new playermodels, and gameplay similar to cube but slower, and with jumping deemphasized,

There are two very interesting leftovers from Cube. Straferunning is very fast, and the way weapon recoil pushes you around. It's possible to jump and fire the assault rifle straight down, and get a significant boost upwards and slow your descent, or fire it an an angle and float off, or use it for precision jumping. I thought it was fun.

It runs well on my PC, which is really saying something.

It's a bit buggy, though. It seems as though the correct map isn't always loaded for you, so you run around doing your own thing, and everyone else appears to be running through walls. It's very trippy. This happens A LOT. I wonder if it has any potential for abuse.

Speaking of abuse, it seems as though cheating is a problem with this game, although I didn't notice anything overt. Their wiki makes a big deal about it, and it seems that things that should be server side, aren't.

There was also a good amount of French players.

So, in conclusion. it's kind of fun. There's not really much there, but there's a hell of a lot of potential.

Dunno, but I don't like the Cube/Sauerbraten-engine games.
Graphics look good at first, but when you're ingame, they're getting lame after a while. As mentioned before, in general the games play more like tech demos of that engine. It may be fun for 15 minutes, but then the silly animations and cheesy effects annoy me.
If it comes to semi-realistic fun shooters I prefer UrbanTerror.