Retro FPS video games have had a terrific run the previous few years: on high of throwback video games like Nightfall and Amid Evil and Ion Fury, Nightdive has revitalized gems like Powerslave and Quake, making them play higher than ever on fashionable PCs. It feels just like the effectively of ’90s shooters must be working dry at this level, however each few months one other obscure FPS seemingly misplaced to time simply pops up on Steam unannounced. Right this moment’s is Chasm: The Rift, a 1997 FPS that I am fairly certain nobody has considered since 1998.
Chasm’s Steam web page calls it a “ground-breaking traditional first-person 3D shoot-em-up,” although PC Gamer US scored it a weak 56% on the time, saying it did not evaluate too effectively to Quake, which was the present hotness because of, whoa, absolutely 3D ranges. “Chasm simply isn’t very attention-grabbing,” wrote PC Gamer’s Michael Luton. “The extent structure is uninspired, and the drab, muted colours make Quake look brilliant and cheery by comparability.”
However perhaps the a long time have been type to Chasm: the screenshots on Steam look fairly good working at excessive decision, and I recognize what appears like a really late-’90s character design model the place each enemy has a bolted-on sawblade arm or weapons for fingers, as a result of holding weapons was so 1995. Chasm could not have been on the slicing fringe of tech, but it surely did allow you to blow the limbs off dangerous guys, which continues to be fairly cool right this moment.
Little-known writer SNEG Ltd. has been chargeable for fairly just a few retro recreation releases on Steam not too long ago, together with the Gold Field D&D RPGs and Blade of Darkness. On the FPS entrance (the S is for Slasher), it is introduced again Witchaven and its sequel. Nightdive recurrently brings again previous video games, however these revivals are typically extra cult traditional, much less utterly forgotten (although Sin is likely to be an exception).
A few of these previous shooters bubble their option to the floor, but it surely’s wild what number of are simply lurking within the depths of Steam, technically revived however probably forgotten once more. There’s Z.A.R from Nightdive. and NAM, Hall 7, Operation Physique Depend, and Final Rites from Ziggurat Interactive, one other retro revival writer that should’ve received some form of bulk public sale for IP rights to ’90s video games you have by no means heard of.
Exterior a pair “large” names like Bloodrayne, Ziggurat’s undoubtedly the writer to keep watch over for those who do not wish to miss the obscurest of the obscure pop again up on Steam. Possibly we’ll be fortunate sufficient (or cursed sufficient) to get William Shatner’s TekWar in the future.
