Thank you for doing no commentary. The difference between a Let's Play and a Longplay is commentary, and as much as I love a good let's play, some games just need to be enjoyed in Longplay format. I remember playing this game back in 98/99 and having it ruin me, but I've always been fascinated and intrigued by it. Thanks for letting me enjoy it like this.
@@xeelwarbeast I especially cant stand commentaries where the user talks so much it starts giving you a headache. plus they talk so loud their voice drowns out the sound of the video
@@Name-nk6bd I played this back in 1996 on a crappy 486 computer. Could barely get it to run and it crashed most of the time. But I loved the overall vibe and atmosphere of this game. I agree with you, definitely grateful to the author for this playthrough
I wish I could have been a game programmer in these days when everything was C and it was a brand new brave world. You could create so many quirky strange things and expansive original trippy worlds, it was way more creative.
You can still do it. Indy gaming is on the rise. There is Unity and Unreal Engine (very powerful and pretty easy to learn), tons of assets (bitmaps, 3d models, sfx, music) for sale or you could generate all these with AI including the text (plot, story, dialogs, etc.). It's never been so easy (technically speaking) to develop games, even if you're doing it all by yourself. =)
It's still incredibly impressive; it's crazy how ahead of its time it was (much like one of its 1995 contemporaries, "Virtual Hydlide"). And there's something so enticing and enigmatic about this 90s style of CGI, especially when complemented with MIDI-patch-based music and fuzzy low-fidelity voices and sound effects - for me it's the absolute epitomy of cyberpunk. The aesthetic feels inherently otherworldly, but not in a disturbing way - in fact there's almost something comforting about it; there's this uninterrupted, all-encompassing stillness, as though you could sit down in one of these locations and never witness any movement whatsoever, save for your own. I don't know why but I find that still aspect comforting, it's much like the silent and [mostly] derelict "ages" in the "Myst" series.
Thank you for taking me down memory lane. I remember this vividly: December 31st, 1995. Had my 3 month old Cyrix 486 DX2/66 with 4MB Ram I worked for all summer and just installed a 4GB (!!!!, Quantum Grand Prix XP34301) Harddrive (yes, got it from a friend who "found" it and had to get an Adaptec 2940 SCSI controller to get it running, I was 18 years old at the time). I called my parents and their friends into my room after installing this and we were all in awe what was possible on computers regarding FMV. One of my best gaming memories ever.
If I recall correctly, this was the first game that Origin marketed as an “Interactive Movie.” Later on, they did the same with Wing Commander 3 & 4. Brilliant games - all 3 were among my favorites.
@@nicg1883 I mean look at the Remake of Resident Evil 2, it can be possible, you would first need to see what needs to be changed to make it work in a modern setting.
Gotta simply love that despite havin' been turned into a cyborg freak and facing a hostile, the protagonist is still sincerely trying to be a good guy even when he's forced to clobber up the foe with his severed arm, shouting out with the distorted voice about how they shouldn't be enemies and work together instead. And then laments they're both victims.
Lol, it's hilarious when he says something like "I don't want to hurt you! We should really be working together!" while attacking an enemy with their own severed limbs! 😂
Found out about this game from a YT channel called "OutsideXbox." I really enjoy some of the visuals in this game...the developers did a great job creating an oddly compelling atmosphere. The main character has a really cool look to him too! I don't understand why some of these super old PC games can create something so cool yet you don't see this sort of thing done in a lot of modern games. You'd think with the new tech we have developers would be creating tons of bizarre, compelling experiences......seeing stuff like this really makes me appreciate the imagination of previous generations. I've only seen bits and pieces of gameplay so far so I'm looking forward to watching this long-play. Thanks for uploading this!
There were tons of forgotten gems in 90s. Some were poorly commercialized, others were just too much ahead of their time or considered too weird at that moment. Just an example: "Dark Reign: The Future of War" was released just 1 year after the famous C&C Red Alert (1996). This game had: build queues, unit formation move, real tech capture, unit transformation, complex field of view for every unit, move path programming, unit behavior settings, well-written multiplayer, interesting and non-standard story, etc. None of these were present in C&C Red Alert, and some wouldn't be implemented in other famous RTSs in several years to come. Still, everyone have at least heard about C&C Red Alert, and I know really few people who'd have heard about Dark Reign. These days we are suffering from general mental degradation. It can be seen in the books, movies, games, etc. No more riddles without obvious hints, mazes, etc. Instead of thinking and living the complexity of the virtual world/story we're here just for the special effects ride. The ingeniousness, originality and quality have been replaced by commercial studies and "success formulas" that do bring revenue to the game devs and publishers while leaving their creations without a soul. There's a very good video about the subject I've seen recently: ua-cam.com/video/NLIq4ceXZAw/v-deo.html (especially the second part "Setting Supremacy"), and though the guy talks about RPGs, actually it applies to every genre.
@@xeelwarbeast I wouldn't say we're going through some sort of general degradation. Or, rather, I wouldn't bring up the topic in question as a good illustration of it. The thing is, video games specifically went mainstream since the period we're talking about. Catering exclusively to small demography of people who enjoyed solving puzzles and testing their reflexes is not really the best way to go about game design these days. Indeed, that means project with large budgets behind them usually try to stick to some formula. But it's not like we don't have some fresh ideas implemented in modern games, or good puzzles, or some games that can please more "hardcore" gamers. It's just that industry is large and if you try to follow it all, a lot of games will be drowned by sheer amount of info noise, especially since smaller experimental projects aren't ones with huge budgets, including PR expenses. That also kinda means it's not really fair to compare an average game of 90ths to an average modern game. They used to be "special taste" products at the time while such games are only a portion of markets these days. On top of that, there was still a lot of trash games back then, just easily forgotten by now. It's really a common occurrence. Today we hurf a lot about classical literature, but even renown authors have written things so average nobody cares about them now. Same can be said about classical music - there were well-known composers with thousands of works, of which only a few dozens are now remembered, otherwise they were doing same stuff modern pop musicians do, churning out what sells. It's no different in gaming, what's with us digging through archives to find hidden gems among some average stuff. And speaking of games themselves and their design. There's more to interesting games than huge number of features. Case in point, Dark Reign. I've played it for quite a while, and while it was an interesting game to explore (all those original mechanics!), it was severely lacking on fundamental level. Simply put, fancy and expensive toys you can build aren't worth their cost in brute force solutions. Some mechanics are pointless (no use of fancy vision areas when you're operating in blobs in a game this fast). Some pitfalls of C&C are "successfully" repeated (building management). Not going to comment on balance since C&C/RA were always irredeemably terrible in that department and nobody really cared. It's kinda like pitting modern tabletop wargames versus classic games like chess or go: the former ones have rulebooks containing hundreds of pages worth of original mechanics that are fun to explore, but those games are often a lot easier to deconstruct as a player than the latter ones. At that point you know the difference between depth and complexity. As for Bioforge... Honestly, looking at it right now, I can see maybe one thing going for it that did not age poorly: a metric ton of effort being put into lore and background. I guess you can make a lot of arguments on what of it was good and what wasn't, they did a lot of work. Other than that I find it hard to defend almost on all fronts, although granted, a lot of weaker point of the game boil down to limitations devs had to work with. Oh, and something important: thanks for uploading this. As someone who was playing games since early 90ths, I find it interesting to catch up with things I've missed and to go back to those games in general, to look at them with more experienced eyes.
@@Annokh I agree on some of the points you’ve mentioned. Yes, we remember only good games and not tons of garbage that always existed (and yes, it applies to every form of art: music, theatre, movies, painting, etc.). Yes, having many advanced features does not replace a good and polished gameplay, that can be primitive by itself (e.g. almost every popular mobile platform casual game). My point was more about entertainment industry giants in general. Speaking about PC games, in particular, let’s take a look at the main dev studios / publishers these days: Electronic Arts - got a “successful franchise killer” fame, Bioware - switched from quality RPGs to barely functional mainstream bs (e.g. Dragon Age 2, Mass Effect Andromeda, etc.), Bethesda - no comments (e.g. Fallout 4 and Fallout 76), Blizzard - just take a look at the latest BlizzCon, Ubisoft - the guys are just lost. These companies are not novices, their teams got decades of experience in game development, they know what they are doing. And still, what do we see in almost every new release today? Crude and unpolished gameplay, tons of bugs (in some cases the games even get released in beta stages), cut at the last moment content that if we’re lucky will appear in costly DLCs. But worst of all, and you’ve said it, everyone seems just forgot about lore and background (the "Setting Supremacy" I previously mentioned). I recognize that there are some genres that can perfectly exist with minimal or without any lore and background: sport, platformers, managing, puzzles, casual, scroll shooters and even some first person shooters. But if we’re talking about adventure, RPG or RTS these are a must.
Oh the 90's memories. I remember my brother and I laughing while fighting the one armed prisoner, because while we're smacking him with his own arm and he's beating us up our character stoops down between blows to pick up, "A Logbook!" XD
With slightly better camera angles and a more fleshed out story this game could have been a cult classic. As it stands it's still a pretty memorable game.
This game changed my love for gaming. It was ahead if its time for sure. They need to remake it! It has so much potential. Hell they have remade games and I was like Really? That game??? Bioforge is a great game. If I could remake it I would.
The part where you drop the bomb in the tunnel was so hard cause you had the cloaking device in the other hand and kept the bomb in the other lol great game!!!
Not just that. The timer screen kept randomly appearing and you had to turn it manually off to continue running. When I played it for the first time in the early 90s, I remember dying so many times because of it.
Man I wish SO much that more modern games would use fixed camera angles. The ONLY recent game I can think of that used them was "Eternity: The Last Unicorn", but unfortunately the jankiness of the gameplay makes it impossible to recommend (which is kinda a shame because every other aspect of that game is fairly compelling, particularly the general aesthetics).
For years this game has occasionally popped into my head, but I could never remember what it was called. Finally took to reddit and asked, describing it as "a creepy, mid 90's, sci-fi adventure puzzle game, with fixed camera-angles in each room, probably inspired by resident evil. There were enemies, but in an FPS shooter sense, but you more had to kill them with the environment by solving puzzles"
IMHO, some games are better left with low resolution. Just look at the tons of indie games (e.g. Creeper World, Mindustry, etc.). If they would use high res graphics (I know they technically use high res, but in reality it's just scaled low res) they would lose their charm and the reason to exist.
Apparently the developers Origin Systems **were** working on a sequel, but this was later curtailed and became an expansion pack called "BioForge Plus" instead - before ultimately being cancelled entirely. It's rumoured that a nearly-fully-playable beta of the game exists, and it's believed that Mythic Entertainment (developers of "Dark Ages of Camelot") acquired the expansion's source code as part of a merger with Origin Systems; unfortunately it's totally unknown what may have happened to the beta as well as the source code... hopefully it turns up in someone's basement someday! 😅
Уникальная, Великая, Гениальная во всём ИГРА! До сих пор не могу объяснить себе как разработчики умудрились сделать ВСЁ ЭТО ВЕЛИКОЛЕПИЕ тогда, да так что с какой стороны ни посмотри - чистейший бриллиант. И при всем при этом она игралась на IBM 486Х!!!!
Yep, the fact that the developers accomplished all this in 1995 is insane! This game and "Virtual Hydlide" released the same year were both incredibly futuristic and ahead of their time. I'd seriously do anything for a modern remake of this forgotten masterpiece!
Imagine getting to the end and realising you have spent the energy in the only batter that can power the ship. Yes that happened to me in my first almost-complete walkthrough.
As frustrating as stuff like that is, I kinda miss the way old games had the balls to punish the player like that. It helps that most older games are comparatively short; if it was a 40-hour open world epic you had to restart it wouldn't be cool at all.
They cancelled the sequel in production, because they went through a rough year with many ppl getting fired. I even had it pre-ordered. God, I'd love to know how they intended to end the plot...
Every now and then when I load the dishwasher and my wife is wondering what I'm doing I say in a crude voice "If you've come for the fork, you'll be sorely dissapointed!" she doesn't get it but it makes me laugh my head off.
Acute Nostalgia incoming. The days of sitting quietly as a kid watching my dad play this after a long day at work. Falling asleep watching and remember being carried to bed. Later i got to play some. Wish a remake would happen, or just a blatant rip off would be appreciated as well; instead of jumping through copyright hoops. Either would be ok with me.
Thank you for doing this! I loved this game, I actually purchased it some time ago from GOG. It is so weird how much I still remember (e.g. dialog) but also how much I forgot...
captain here: protagonist real name is Blake Rathman, Α member of the Berserkers lower social class which once populated the eastern sector of the planet Astarte. As he matched rare tissue type required for ABA candidacy he was discovered through a routine scan of computer files and he was abducted by the Mondites. As a "Berserker," he would not be missed by any respectable element of his society. He underwent AFA cybernetics, Stages One and Two by Dr. Amet Mastaba. However he ultimately deemed physiologically inappropriate for ABA project.
2:04:30 That gun with the visual ammunition indicator on the side that changes in real-time, reminds me of the health gauge on Isaac Clarke's back in Dead Space. Pretty advanced stuff for 1995 3D tech! This game actually seems to have quite a few similarities to Dead Space.
It is heat indicator, in fact. When it reach the end, the gun must say with robotic voice "Tonfa Gun is overheated"=) Damn, that was 25 years of my life ago...=(
I loved playing this game when I was younger almost as much as I love the MIDI techno music LOL and basically the Mondites are the Borg with individuality.
Man, I miss that 90s-style CGI so much, there was something innately, indescribably atmospheric and alluring about it. This game looks absolutely brutal! How are you supposed to know where your bullets are going to go? It's absolutely bizarre that they didn't include a reticule or any kind of aiming assistance. Like that's not just hard, that's idiotic and seems almost intended to frustrate rather than create a pleasurable experience. This seems like the kind of game about which people who brag about no-hit "Dark Souls" runs would incessantly pontificate. It's kinda a shame (IMHO) that they didn't opt for more conventional point-and-click adventure gameplay, because the premise and world building are incredibly enticing, and the overall aesthetic is deliciously cyberpunk - for me these early pre-rendered 3D graphics are inextricable from that genre, and are innately imbued with a certain distinctive otherworldly atmosphere that modern CGI seems completely incapable of replicating (perhaps it's a variation of the "uncanny valley" effect - the environments are superficially realistic enough to be genuinely immersive, but the unnatural and stark lighting, the flatly textured surfaces and the decidedly alien designs engender a strong sense of things being slightly "off" and not at all what they seem). At the same time though, forging their own path was incredibly admirable and what they accomplished here was pioneering and very much ahead of its time, and also contributes to the game's mystique, like many of its über-difficult contemporaries that almost nobody completed, but many developers were inspired by. I mean this is essentially one of the first real-time third-person action adventure game, the same year as "Virtual Hydlide" and a year before the much less advanced - though frankly far more playable - "Resident Evil". At the time practically all such games emulated the LucasArts style (though LucasArts didn't originally devise the style, they were probably the most renowned developers associated with it), and 3D adventures were essentially uncharted territory at the time; really, it's bloody amazing what Origin Systems were able to do with such primitive hardware! I gotta say though, a modern remake of this game would be totally AWESOME! I'd only be satisfied if they retained the fixed camera angles though - it was incredibly disappointing that the recent "remakes" of the second and third "Resident Evil" games opted for an utterly generic and soulless third-person-shooter approach (combined with how middling and entirely devoid of terror "Village" was, I'd say that series has sadly run its course 😢).
Actually its very interesting to read Phyxx texts, around 1:30:00 or so on. We see how 135000 years ago race was divided to two classes, High and Smart Learners and Low Stupid Workers\Soldiers (which also was turned into cyborgs). Learners rules over Phyxx and was quite satisfied with this system, while Workers texts show quite passive aggressive flavor. Around 25000 ago years things was OK, but at some point Learners degraded into straight dictatorial buffoons, with wars starting over "philosophical disagreements" costing thousands of lives. And then Soldiers overturned Learners and became Leaders themselves and...implemented even more brutal police state tyranny then before, switching roles and stripping Learners of any basic right. But as you can imagine, Soldiers was as crappy leaders as Learners, or even crappier, they cared not about tech, only war and power. So nobody was bothered to maintain cities and stuff. And then they all died.
Each playthrough I made the identity was different. I think it was just randomized. I still like that though. Like the journal states, it doesnt matter who you were, now.
played the demo of this game from pc zone from 1995. Just when double speed cdroms were required for everything. You could run this game fine on a 486 dx4 100 with 8 meg ram i remember. Amazing what you could do with just 8 meg ram those days with those 3d graphics when my notebook now running chrome and win 10 is taking up 3000 meg already
one of my favorite games. Pity for the poor puzzles, but i loved the combat (too bad for the bug, a missing empty move, the middle right punch has no effect), i love the slight non-linearity, and the graphics.
We played without knowing English. So all those hints didn't tell us anything. It was a very cool game. The beginning where the dude with the robot saw was very impressive.
Now that I think about it, when I played this, my English wasn't all that good. I didn't understand the nuances of the story very well, and I had a lot of trouble getting through it. Luckily, I *did* understand computing well enough to realize that the game could be "hacked" by changing the plaintext config files to change the "user avatar" to others, so that I could fly past one puzzle and kick more ass in fights. Ah, the good old days.
Wow… I got this game in 1995 I think. Pretty sure it was a new release. I’ve used the term Bioforge since then wherever people spoke of a coming trans human trend. This morning I thought, “ there must be a gameplay video on YT”. Sure enough there is. Great nostalgia!
21:30 I don't get it. What was the use of maneuvering the bot to pick the severed arm and place it in front of the palm scan if it was just for dropping it and have you pick it up yourself and scan it?
Because at first you need to ulock the Control Room with a code and the hand must be placed near the sensor. When the code is entered it is then sufficient to open the door only by hand scan for some time.
You hold the hand on the scanner with the droid, then type in the code, then also stand on the platform because..... Basically because they probably made a droid model first and then had to work it into being necessary to the game.
Удары персонажа по скорости равны движениям под водой. Хотя в нашей От винте, мульон лет назад, показали другую версию игры. Там вертуханы и хай-кики идентичны натуральным по скорости.
Вот оригинальный выпуск: ua-cam.com/video/EO_V8Ffq1qE/v-deo.html Да, пожалуй быстрее. Плюс, у них как-то все дергается. В те времена многие игры синхронизовались напрямую с ЦПУ, и при слишком большой частоте процессора могли работать быстрее задуманного.
xeelwarbeast Yeah that’s true, I mostly saying the tank controls, fixed camera angles and gameplay is similar, of course Bioforge came out before RE:1, maybe it gave Capcom some inspiration.
No. It's definitely a different engine. Time Commando used an upgraded version of a proprietary engine created by Adeline Software for the first Little Big Adventure game (a truly awesome game as well). Afaik, Bioforge dev team used their own engine. You can find about development of Bioforge, Time commando and engines they used on their respective Wikipedia pages.
The dialogue feels extremely radical for today. A main character taking joy in revenge, forcing others into actions through violence and stimulating the suffering of others. Would you see something like that today? Nah, we'd end up with shallow stories that subconsciously want to cherrish christian values of peace and friendship. Just like the newer Tomb Raider games...
Yeah. Many of the old games weren't so explicit in showing stuff, but they did were dark in context and thus more realistic. Nowadays, it's boobs, blood & guts all over the rainbow screen with a polit-correct nun with a shotgun talking about love and friendship.
@@robopigcop7637 Я в свое время сам люлей от этого динозаврика получал. Там если хоть маленькую паузу зделать, он так может разойтись, что мало не покажется. Вообще эта игрушка, как и многие другие из той же эпохи, ошибок не прощает.
![Archimedean Dynasty - 07 Machina Antarctica [No Commentary 100% Walkthrough, 3dfx, HD]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/acseA65wDdw/mqdefault.jpg)
![AquaNox - Part 1: Argentine Basin [No Commentary, 100% Walkthrough, HD, 60fps]](/img/n.gif)
I remember being amazed at how great the graphics were during that year.
O James im amazed nowaday, it kinda has ps1 level graphics!
Same and as 2018 i cant believe how ugly it is .. lol
@@BOMNN The PC had many games better than PS1 graphics back then. Doom on PS1 looks worse apart from lighting.
Honest it looks pretty good for a DOS game
They are still good
Thank you for doing no commentary. The difference between a Let's Play and a Longplay is commentary, and as much as I love a good let's play, some games just need to be enjoyed in Longplay format. I remember playing this game back in 98/99 and having it ruin me, but I've always been fascinated and intrigued by it. Thanks for letting me enjoy it like this.
Yeah, hate comments in walkthroughs myself.
@@xeelwarbeast I especially cant stand commentaries where the user talks so much it starts giving you a headache. plus they talk so loud their voice drowns out the sound of the video
@@Name-nk6bd I played this back in 1996 on a crappy 486 computer. Could barely get it to run and it crashed most of the time. But I loved the overall vibe and atmosphere of this game. I agree with you, definitely grateful to the author for this playthrough
This is a gem that needs to be remade/revisited. Honestly I’m really impressed considering this was released in 95’.
I seriously dont understand why idiots like you dont leave shit in the past how bout encourage new ideas not regurgitated remakes no one asked for 🙄
@@GMOTP5738 What the hell is wrong with you?
@@Nov-5062 he is just overecouraged with new ideas, could be drugs I guess )
@@GMOTP5738 I sincerely hope "idiots" like yourself realize that without understanding the past, there is no future.
Especially since it ended on friggin Cliffhanger...!
I wish I could have been a game programmer in these days when everything was C and it was a brand new brave world. You could create so many quirky strange things and expansive original trippy worlds, it was way more creative.
You can still do it. Indy gaming is on the rise. There is Unity and Unreal Engine (very powerful and pretty easy to learn), tons of assets (bitmaps, 3d models, sfx, music) for sale or you could generate all these with AI including the text (plot, story, dialogs, etc.). It's never been so easy (technically speaking) to develop games, even if you're doing it all by yourself. =)
I was greatly impressed of this game at the time. The atmosphere, the graphics, the sound and the story were unequaled.
I'm greatly impressed with it in 2023
It's still incredibly impressive; it's crazy how ahead of its time it was (much like one of its 1995 contemporaries, "Virtual Hydlide").
And there's something so enticing and enigmatic about this 90s style of CGI, especially when complemented with MIDI-patch-based music and fuzzy low-fidelity voices and sound effects - for me it's the absolute epitomy of cyberpunk.
The aesthetic feels inherently otherworldly, but not in a disturbing way - in fact there's almost something comforting about it; there's this uninterrupted, all-encompassing stillness, as though you could sit down in one of these locations and never witness any movement whatsoever, save for your own. I don't know why but I find that still aspect comforting, it's much like the silent and [mostly] derelict "ages" in the "Myst" series.
Thank you for taking me down memory lane. I remember this vividly: December 31st, 1995. Had my 3 month old Cyrix 486 DX2/66 with 4MB Ram I worked for all summer and just installed a 4GB (!!!!, Quantum Grand Prix XP34301) Harddrive (yes, got it from a friend who "found" it and had to get an Adaptec 2940 SCSI controller to get it running, I was 18 years old at the time). I called my parents and their friends into my room after installing this and we were all in awe what was possible on computers regarding FMV. One of my best gaming memories ever.
Had an 486 myself when this game came out. These were exiting times for a PC gamer.
Finally seen the ending to this game. Spent so much time trying to finish it as a kid.
8:40 i have no wish to harm you! *smacks him with his severed arm*
"Stop hitting yourself!"
That always used to make me laugh
This is where I got the idea of beating someone with their own arm
If I recall correctly, this was the first game that Origin marketed as an “Interactive Movie.” Later on, they did the same with Wing Commander 3 & 4. Brilliant games - all 3 were among my favorites.
Man, the concept of this game really needs to be revisited. Perhaps a full blown RPG with the Bioforge setup.
How. Who can remake this?
@@nicg1883 I mean look at the Remake of Resident Evil 2, it can be possible, you would first need to see what needs to be changed to make it work in a modern setting.
@@DieHardjagged To be clear I'd LOVE it to be remade.
@@nicg1883 Well it was made by Origin Systems so the IP belongs to EA now. So...
Agreed/ There are lot's of improvements to make too on the by now rather clunky feeling controls.
"I have no wish to harm you!" *Beats man to death with his own arm.
I played this and only got about to where you did 30 mins in. Thanks for showing the full game. Epic.
Damn so Mastaba actually got away with everything and is free to continue his objectiveless reign of terror.
Lol yeah, what exactly was his goal?!
Gotta simply love that despite havin' been turned into a cyborg freak and facing a hostile, the protagonist is still sincerely trying to be a good guy even when he's forced to clobber up the foe with his severed arm, shouting out with the distorted voice about how they shouldn't be enemies and work together instead. And then laments they're both victims.
Lol, it's hilarious when he says something like "I don't want to hurt you! We should really be working together!" while attacking an enemy with their own severed limbs! 😂
Found out about this game from a YT channel called "OutsideXbox."
I really enjoy some of the visuals in this game...the developers did a great job creating an oddly compelling atmosphere. The main character has a really cool look to him too!
I don't understand why some of these super old PC games can create something so cool yet you don't see this sort of thing done in a lot of modern games. You'd think with the new tech we have developers would be creating tons of bizarre, compelling experiences......seeing stuff like this really makes me appreciate the imagination of previous generations.
I've only seen bits and pieces of gameplay so far so I'm looking forward to watching this long-play. Thanks for uploading this!
There were tons of forgotten gems in 90s. Some were poorly commercialized, others were just too much ahead of their time or considered too weird at that moment. Just an example: "Dark Reign: The Future of War" was released just 1 year after the famous C&C Red Alert (1996). This game had: build queues, unit formation move, real tech capture, unit transformation, complex field of view for every unit, move path programming, unit behavior settings, well-written multiplayer, interesting and non-standard story, etc. None of these were present in C&C Red Alert, and some wouldn't be implemented in other famous RTSs in several years to come. Still, everyone have at least heard about C&C Red Alert, and I know really few people who'd have heard about Dark Reign.
These days we are suffering from general mental degradation. It can be seen in the books, movies, games, etc. No more riddles without obvious hints, mazes, etc. Instead of thinking and living the complexity of the virtual world/story we're here just for the special effects ride. The ingeniousness, originality and quality have been replaced by commercial studies and "success formulas" that do bring revenue to the game devs and publishers while leaving their creations without a soul. There's a very good video about the subject I've seen recently: ua-cam.com/video/NLIq4ceXZAw/v-deo.html (especially the second part "Setting Supremacy"), and though the guy talks about RPGs, actually it applies to every genre.
@@xeelwarbeast
I wouldn't say we're going through some sort of general degradation. Or, rather, I wouldn't bring up the topic in question as a good illustration of it.
The thing is, video games specifically went mainstream since the period we're talking about. Catering exclusively to small demography of people who enjoyed solving puzzles and testing their reflexes is not really the best way to go about game design these days.
Indeed, that means project with large budgets behind them usually try to stick to some formula. But it's not like we don't have some fresh ideas implemented in modern games, or good puzzles, or some games that can please more "hardcore" gamers. It's just that industry is large and if you try to follow it all, a lot of games will be drowned by sheer amount of info noise, especially since smaller experimental projects aren't ones with huge budgets, including PR expenses.
That also kinda means it's not really fair to compare an average game of 90ths to an average modern game. They used to be "special taste" products at the time while such games are only a portion of markets these days.
On top of that, there was still a lot of trash games back then, just easily forgotten by now. It's really a common occurrence. Today we hurf a lot about classical literature, but even renown authors have written things so average nobody cares about them now. Same can be said about classical music - there were well-known composers with thousands of works, of which only a few dozens are now remembered, otherwise they were doing same stuff modern pop musicians do, churning out what sells. It's no different in gaming, what's with us digging through archives to find hidden gems among some average stuff.
And speaking of games themselves and their design. There's more to interesting games than huge number of features. Case in point, Dark Reign. I've played it for quite a while, and while it was an interesting game to explore (all those original mechanics!), it was severely lacking on fundamental level. Simply put, fancy and expensive toys you can build aren't worth their cost in brute force solutions. Some mechanics are pointless (no use of fancy vision areas when you're operating in blobs in a game this fast). Some pitfalls of C&C are "successfully" repeated (building management). Not going to comment on balance since C&C/RA were always irredeemably terrible in that department and nobody really cared.
It's kinda like pitting modern tabletop wargames versus classic games like chess or go: the former ones have rulebooks containing hundreds of pages worth of original mechanics that are fun to explore, but those games are often a lot easier to deconstruct as a player than the latter ones. At that point you know the difference between depth and complexity.
As for Bioforge... Honestly, looking at it right now, I can see maybe one thing going for it that did not age poorly: a metric ton of effort being put into lore and background. I guess you can make a lot of arguments on what of it was good and what wasn't, they did a lot of work. Other than that I find it hard to defend almost on all fronts, although granted, a lot of weaker point of the game boil down to limitations devs had to work with.
Oh, and something important: thanks for uploading this. As someone who was playing games since early 90ths, I find it interesting to catch up with things I've missed and to go back to those games in general, to look at them with more experienced eyes.
@@Annokh I agree on some of the points you’ve mentioned. Yes, we remember only good games and not tons of garbage that always existed (and yes, it applies to every form of art: music, theatre, movies, painting, etc.). Yes, having many advanced features does not replace a good and polished gameplay, that can be primitive by itself (e.g. almost every popular mobile platform casual game).
My point was more about entertainment industry giants in general. Speaking about PC games, in particular, let’s take a look at the main dev studios / publishers these days: Electronic Arts - got a “successful franchise killer” fame, Bioware - switched from quality RPGs to barely functional mainstream bs (e.g. Dragon Age 2, Mass Effect Andromeda, etc.), Bethesda - no comments (e.g. Fallout 4 and Fallout 76), Blizzard - just take a look at the latest BlizzCon, Ubisoft - the guys are just lost. These companies are not novices, their teams got decades of experience in game development, they know what they are doing. And still, what do we see in almost every new release today? Crude and unpolished gameplay, tons of bugs (in some cases the games even get released in beta stages), cut at the last moment content that if we’re lucky will appear in costly DLCs. But worst of all, and you’ve said it, everyone seems just forgot about lore and background (the "Setting Supremacy" I previously mentioned).
I recognize that there are some genres that can perfectly exist with minimal or without any lore and background: sport, platformers, managing, puzzles, casual, scroll shooters and even some first person shooters. But if we’re talking about adventure, RPG or RTS these are a must.
Oh the 90's memories. I remember my brother and I laughing while fighting the one armed prisoner, because while we're smacking him with his own arm and he's beating us up our character stoops down between blows to pick up, "A Logbook!" XD
With slightly better camera angles and a more fleshed out story this game could have been a cult classic. As it stands it's still a pretty memorable game.
This game changed my love for gaming. It was ahead if its time for sure. They need to remake it! It has so much potential. Hell they have remade games and I was like Really? That game??? Bioforge is a great game. If I could remake it I would.
The part where you drop the bomb in the tunnel was so hard cause you had the cloaking device in the other hand and kept the bomb in the other lol
great game!!!
Not just that. The timer screen kept randomly appearing and you had to turn it manually off to continue running. When I played it for the first time in the early 90s, I remember dying so many times because of it.
@@xeelwarbeast Exactly the same here mate, exactly ^^ Thanks for your answer, amazing game, brought back good memories
I also remember that the game was not afraid to show actual damage on the character and npcs. Love also the RE fixed cameras.
Man I wish SO much that more modern games would use fixed camera angles. The ONLY recent game I can think of that used them was "Eternity: The Last Unicorn", but unfortunately the jankiness of the gameplay makes it impossible to recommend (which is kinda a shame because every other aspect of that game is fairly compelling, particularly the general aesthetics).
For years this game has occasionally popped into my head, but I could never remember what it was called.
Finally took to reddit and asked, describing it as "a creepy, mid 90's, sci-fi adventure puzzle game, with fixed camera-angles in each room, probably inspired by resident evil. There were enemies, but in an FPS shooter sense, but you more had to kill them with the environment by solving puzzles"
There is another awesome old pc game that also fits your description btw, Ecstatica: ua-cam.com/video/yjNRvKMPdrA/v-deo.html
Me too lol
I was upset that there was never a sequel. I would love to see someone try to run this game at 4K.
IMHO, some games are better left with low resolution. Just look at the tons of indie games (e.g. Creeper World, Mindustry, etc.). If they would use high res graphics (I know they technically use high res, but in reality it's just scaled low res) they would lose their charm and the reason to exist.
Apparently the developers Origin Systems **were** working on a sequel, but this was later curtailed and became an expansion pack called "BioForge Plus" instead - before ultimately being cancelled entirely. It's rumoured that a nearly-fully-playable beta of the game exists, and it's believed that Mythic Entertainment (developers of "Dark Ages of Camelot") acquired the expansion's source code as part of a merger with Origin Systems; unfortunately it's totally unknown what may have happened to the beta as well as the source code... hopefully it turns up in someone's basement someday! 😅
Уникальная, Великая, Гениальная во всём ИГРА! До сих пор не могу объяснить себе как разработчики умудрились сделать ВСЁ ЭТО ВЕЛИКОЛЕПИЕ тогда, да так что с какой стороны ни посмотри - чистейший бриллиант. И при всем при этом она игралась на IBM 486Х!!!!
Yep, the fact that the developers accomplished all this in 1995 is insane! This game and "Virtual Hydlide" released the same year were both incredibly futuristic and ahead of their time. I'd seriously do anything for a modern remake of this forgotten masterpiece!
32:48 "So I'm gonna do what's called a 'Pro Gamer' move"
I remember my cousin had that back in 1995 and he was stuck in a lava place waiting for the water to freeze the lava. Such a great game.
Imagine getting to the end and realising you have spent the energy in the only batter that can power the ship. Yes that happened to me in my first almost-complete walkthrough.
Hahaha that also happened to me and I literally came here looking for a comment of someone else who did it as well.
As frustrating as stuff like that is, I kinda miss the way old games had the balls to punish the player like that. It helps that most older games are comparatively short; if it was a 40-hour open world epic you had to restart it wouldn't be cool at all.
I played this through more times than I can count. They promised us a sequel!
Me too :)
It will have to be a remake/reboot now
They cancelled the sequel in production, because they went through a rough year with many ppl getting fired. I even had it pre-ordered. God, I'd love to know how they intended to end the plot...
@@dr_booze6106 Where did you preorder it? Do you rememeber?
I dropped this game halfway in the 90s, thanks for the longplay!
p.s. So much text! My eyes are bleeding 😵💫
I remember playing for hours on this game all those years ago. Was seriously addictive and graphically brilliant. Thanks for putting up.
Every now and then when I load the dishwasher and my wife is wondering what I'm doing I say in a crude voice "If you've come for the fork, you'll be sorely dissapointed!" she doesn't get it but it makes me laugh my head off.
I Want to live in your house.
Hahaha
This is still my favorite game of all times. I loved everything about it! 🙏🏻
Acute Nostalgia incoming. The days of sitting quietly as a kid watching my dad play this after a long day at work. Falling asleep watching and remember being carried to bed. Later i got to play some. Wish a remake would happen, or just a blatant rip off would be appreciated as well; instead of jumping through copyright hoops. Either would be ok with me.
Thank you for doing this! I loved this game, I actually purchased it some time ago from GOG. It is so weird how much I still remember (e.g. dialog) but also how much I forgot...
i have no wish to harm you
i have no wish to arm you *hits him with an arm*
"I no wish to harm you!" Beats guy with severed arm.
captain here: protagonist real name is Blake Rathman, Α member of the Berserkers lower social class which once populated the eastern sector of the planet Astarte. As he matched rare tissue type required for ABA candidacy he was discovered through a routine scan of computer files and he was abducted by the Mondites. As a "Berserker," he would not be missed by any respectable element of his society.
He underwent AFA cybernetics, Stages One and Two by Dr. Amet Mastaba.
However he ultimately deemed physiologically inappropriate for ABA project.
2:04:30 That gun with the visual ammunition indicator on the side that changes in real-time, reminds me of the health gauge on Isaac Clarke's back in Dead Space. Pretty advanced stuff for 1995 3D tech! This game actually seems to have quite a few similarities to Dead Space.
It is heat indicator, in fact. When it reach the end, the gun must say with robotic voice "Tonfa Gun is overheated"=)
Damn, that was 25 years of my life ago...=(
I was 11 when I got this, when it came out, and I would love playing it despite having absolutely no idea what the hell i was doing.
I loved playing this game when I was younger almost as much as I love the MIDI techno music LOL and basically the Mondites are the Borg with individuality.
Man, I miss that 90s-style CGI so much, there was something innately, indescribably atmospheric and alluring about it.
This game looks absolutely brutal! How are you supposed to know where your bullets are going to go? It's absolutely bizarre that they didn't include a reticule or any kind of aiming assistance. Like that's not just hard, that's idiotic and seems almost intended to frustrate rather than create a pleasurable experience. This seems like the kind of game about which people who brag about no-hit "Dark Souls" runs would incessantly pontificate.
It's kinda a shame (IMHO) that they didn't opt for more conventional point-and-click adventure gameplay, because the premise and world building are incredibly enticing, and the overall aesthetic is deliciously cyberpunk - for me these early pre-rendered 3D graphics are inextricable from that genre, and are innately imbued with a certain distinctive otherworldly atmosphere that modern CGI seems completely incapable of replicating (perhaps it's a variation of the "uncanny valley" effect - the environments are superficially realistic enough to be genuinely immersive, but the unnatural and stark lighting, the flatly textured surfaces and the decidedly alien designs engender a strong sense of things being slightly "off" and not at all what they seem).
At the same time though, forging their own path was incredibly admirable and what they accomplished here was pioneering and very much ahead of its time, and also contributes to the game's mystique, like many of its über-difficult contemporaries that almost nobody completed, but many developers were inspired by.
I mean this is essentially one of the first real-time third-person action adventure game, the same year as "Virtual Hydlide" and a year before the much less advanced - though frankly far more playable - "Resident Evil". At the time practically all such games emulated the LucasArts style (though LucasArts didn't originally devise the style, they were probably the most renowned developers associated with it), and 3D adventures were essentially uncharted territory at the time; really, it's bloody amazing what Origin Systems were able to do with such primitive hardware!
I gotta say though, a modern remake of this game would be totally AWESOME! I'd only be satisfied if they retained the fixed camera angles though - it was incredibly disappointing that the recent "remakes" of the second and third "Resident Evil" games opted for an utterly generic and soulless third-person-shooter approach (combined with how middling and entirely devoid of terror "Village" was, I'd say that series has sadly run its course 😢).
I used to love this and Ecstatica but I found them both so hard!
Oooh, that was great! Thank you for uploading your gameplay! ❤
God, how I wish for a sequel or remake...
This looks game so good and so annoying at the same time
Crazy how much things had screen tears mid frame back in the day. We just lived with it not even really noticing it.
cant believe i found this game. the memories
Actually its very interesting to read Phyxx texts, around 1:30:00 or so on. We see how 135000 years ago race was divided to two classes, High and Smart Learners and Low Stupid Workers\Soldiers (which also was turned into cyborgs). Learners rules over Phyxx and was quite satisfied with this system, while Workers texts show quite passive aggressive flavor. Around 25000 ago years things was OK, but at some point Learners degraded into straight dictatorial buffoons, with wars starting over "philosophical disagreements" costing thousands of lives. And then Soldiers overturned Learners and became Leaders themselves and...implemented even more brutal police state tyranny then before, switching roles and stripping Learners of any basic right. But as you can imagine, Soldiers was as crappy leaders as Learners, or even crappier, they cared not about tech, only war and power. So nobody was bothered to maintain cities and stuff.
And then they all died.
Thank you for putting this up and for letting us know who your character really is I can't find anything on google so thank you big time
Your choices throughout the game determine your former identity from a list of experimental subjects.
Really??? So the identity is never the same?
It depends of your choices.
@@Maxime_Martyr
What would be examples of such choices? What did lead to the identity choice in this playthrough?
Each playthrough I made the identity was different. I think it was just randomized. I still like that though. Like the journal states, it doesnt matter who you were, now.
I am only looking up this game because my boyfriend is the voice actor of the robot guy hahahah and he’s telling the truth
Hmm.. If it's not a secret, how old is he? www.imdb.com/title/tt1450744/fullcredits?ref_=tt_cl_sm#cast
@@xeelwarbeast hes older, 50
Ok that's cool.
Ariana... are you looking for the game?
Wonderful game, for the epoch it's amazing!!!
The movements, the characters, everything, I even started to think to play it...😅😅
I always viewed this as the next evolution in third-person games, starting with Alone In The Dark. Love both of those games.
It's been a loooooooooooooong time.. but I still remember this one. Good times :)
1:10:29 The same sound sample in a modified form may have been used in Duke 3D.
I was wondering where I'd heard it before. Makes me think it's a retro quality stock "monster" roar.
played the demo of this game from pc zone from 1995. Just when double speed cdroms were required for everything. You could run this game fine on a 486 dx4 100 with 8 meg ram i remember. Amazing what you could do with just 8 meg ram those days with those 3d graphics when my notebook now running chrome and win 10 is taking up 3000 meg already
Ahh, this brings me back :-)
A long way we have gone. Today's realtime graphics looks way better than yesteryear's CGI FMVs :D.
one of my favorite games. Pity for the poor puzzles, but i loved the combat (too bad for the bug, a missing empty move, the middle right punch has no effect), i love the slight non-linearity, and the graphics.
We played without knowing English. So all those hints didn't tell us anything. It was a very cool game. The beginning where the dude with the robot saw was very impressive.
Same for me. My English was mediocre at that time.
Now that I think about it, when I played this, my English wasn't all that good. I didn't understand the nuances of the story very well, and I had a lot of trouble getting through it. Luckily, I *did* understand computing well enough to realize that the game could be "hacked" by changing the plaintext config files to change the "user avatar" to others, so that I could fly past one puzzle and kick more ass in fights. Ah, the good old days.
Yah good old config files with plaintext info!
Top story, Game needs a remake!
Спасибо! Вспомнил молодость... Дошёл только до половины...
that blaster is ridiculous and all the guns in this game. everyone could dodge such a slow moving projectile.
One of the best. I remember staring at the big box and manual, and being amazing by the animations. One of the best cyborg titles all time!
Thanks for longplay!
1:47:08 Most efficient way is two class separation: leaders (decide) and workers (obey, work).
Did anyone else go to the early internet for the walkthrough to this back then because it was insanely difficult?
You didn't do a single backflip in this entire playthrough!
Damn, that into alone give me some flashbacks ...
51:08 someone's been reading American Psycho
I think Mass Effect Andromeda creators know this game well :) finding many similarities
Well the entire story has been done to death for decades.
The environments are still impressive, imagine if you were remake some of these in a modern engine. Great game with terrible combat mechanics.
Hopefully the remake would make better combat mechanics
d1873: Flesh is the source of all corruption.
great game!
i remembered it today to compare animations with ME:A ;)
thank you!
I remember the combat controls were so frustrating. I never finished the game.....
I watch this when I'm homesick.
If you've for the fork you'll be sorely disappointed... gold.
Super game! Thank you!
24:50 Karate chop a dino! Now I seen everything!
BioForge of the Empires, SunRise of Kingdoms, PreClash of Clans!
Fascinating to watch
Good old days ;)
Damn this game looks like a gem
Wow… I got this game in 1995 I think. Pretty sure it was a new release. I’ve used the term Bioforge since then wherever people spoke of a coming trans human trend. This morning I thought, “ there must be a gameplay video on YT”. Sure enough there is. Great nostalgia!
My all time favorite game
After 9 years half life 2 was released .
21:30 I don't get it. What was the use of maneuvering the bot to pick the severed arm and place it in front of the palm scan if it was just for dropping it and have you pick it up yourself and scan it?
My thoughts as well.
And still no explanation...
Because at first you need to ulock the Control Room with a code and the hand must be placed near the sensor. When the code is entered it is then sufficient to open the door only by hand scan for some time.
Yes, basically, the first time, to open the door you need to be in 2 places. Once it's opened you can close and open it with hand only.
You hold the hand on the scanner with the droid, then type in the code, then also stand on the platform because.....
Basically because they probably made a droid model first and then had to work it into being necessary to the game.
"A device with a button"
Удары персонажа по скорости равны движениям под водой. Хотя в нашей От винте, мульон лет назад, показали другую версию игры. Там вертуханы и хай-кики идентичны натуральным по скорости.
Вот оригинальный выпуск: ua-cam.com/video/EO_V8Ffq1qE/v-deo.html Да, пожалуй быстрее. Плюс, у них как-то все дергается. В те времена многие игры синхронизовались напрямую с ЦПУ, и при слишком большой частоте процессора могли работать быстрее задуманного.
@@xeelwarbeast, о, точно, тот выпуск. На сцене с динозавром хорошо видно, что удар ногой с развороту почти всамделишный.
Que recuerdos!!! Tenia una 486SX y tenia que correr un emulador de co-procesador matemático (que traían las 486DX)...
Sip. La primera vez corrí este juego en 486 =)
And then RE:1 came out.....lol this game is a sleeper of the 95’s.
Well, it's kinda difficult to compare Bioforge with RE1. Though they are similar in mechanics, the setting is sooo different.
xeelwarbeast Yeah that’s true, I mostly saying the tank controls, fixed camera angles and gameplay is similar, of course Bioforge came out before RE:1, maybe it gave Capcom some inspiration.
@@TheRedRaven_ And Alone in the Dark
@@thewindthatblows That’s true I forgot about that game.
This game is basically just what Robocop would be if they had used a criminal instead of a cop.
Dear god i forgot how much of this game is spent reading haha
Kinda looks like "Time Commando". Same engine?
No. It's definitely a different engine. Time Commando used an upgraded version of a proprietary engine created by Adeline Software for the first Little Big Adventure game (a truly awesome game as well). Afaik, Bioforge dev team used their own engine. You can find about development of Bioforge, Time commando and engines they used on their respective Wikipedia pages.
Great game for it's time... A creepy game.
The dialogue feels extremely radical for today. A main character taking joy in revenge, forcing others into actions through violence and stimulating the suffering of others. Would you see something like that today? Nah, we'd end up with shallow stories that subconsciously want to cherrish christian values of peace and friendship. Just like the newer Tomb Raider games...
Yeah. Many of the old games weren't so explicit in showing stuff, but they did were dark in context and thus more realistic. Nowadays, it's boobs, blood & guts all over the rainbow screen with a polit-correct nun with a shotgun talking about love and friendship.
@@xeelwarbeast exactly what I was thinking!
Неплохая фантастика где надо подумать.Квест со сражениями beat"em up.
Это было определение жанра сейчас? =) Помню, один из игровых журнальчиков в 90е эту игру в раздел "Адвенчуры" записал.
@@xeelwarbeast Динозаврик там прикольный получился,орёт а толку нет,люлей почти всухую получил.
@@robopigcop7637 Я в свое время сам люлей от этого динозаврика получал. Там если хоть маленькую паузу зделать, он так может разойтись, что мало не покажется. Вообще эта игрушка, как и многие другие из той же эпохи, ошибок не прощает.
Hunt the warm.
Vacuum.
I still say 'A Fork' from time to time when in the kitchen.
hoo boy this one has aged like milk.