Video Game History - Rise of the Triad (2013)
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Video Game History - Rise of the Triad (2013)
Rise of the Triad promotional art
In 1994 Rise of the Triad Dark was released. The game was originally intended to be a sequel to Wolfenstein 3D that id Software had asked Apogee Software to make for them whilst they focused solely on Doom. But when id Software changed their mind about the sequel, Apogee had to re-tool the game into something new. That something new featured a heavily modified version of the Wolf 3D engine, members of Apogee where digitized into the game. A new physics mechanic was introduced for the jump pads. The gore was turned up to 11 with the introduction of ‘ludicrous gibs’. ROTT:DW also featured some brilliant power-ups such as god mode and dog-mode. It also featured some hair-pulling frustating power-downs such as shrooms-mode. where-in an unlucky player would be handicapped by a psyhadelic trip complete with extreme head bobbing, echoes, and brightly coloured enemies.
Rise of the Triad 2013 - 'ludicrous gibs'
In 2010 a company called Interceptor Entertainment was busy working on a game called ‘Duke Nukem 3D Reloaded’. It was a straight up remake of the original Duke Nukem 3D from 1996. To avoid legal issues the game was being developed under a non-commercial license, meaning it would distributed for free upon release. Production of the reboot continued into 2011, when the project finally hit a snag. Gearbox had acquired the IP for the long anticipated ‘Duke Nukem Forever’ and they didn’t want a fan project to damage their future sales. Several executives Gearbox made the decision to demand that under no circumstances could work on the fan project be shown to the public and that development had to cease. Sometime after the cancellation of DN3D:R, Terry Nagy the CEO of Apogee Software, contacted Interceptor Entertainment with an offer to ROTT’s license. At Quake-con 2012 Interceptor announced that the ROTT reboot.
Quakecon 2012 (Dallas)
In 2010 a company called Interceptor Entertainment was busy working on a game called ‘Duke Nukem 3D Reloaded’. It was a straight up remake of the original Duke Nukem 3D from 1996. To avoid legal issues the game was being developed under a non-commercial license, meaning it would distributed for free upon release. Production of the reboot continued into 2011, when the project finally hit a snag. Gearbox had acquired the IP for the long anticipated ‘Duke Nukem Forever’ and they didn’t want a fan project to damage their future sales. Several executives Gearbox made the decision to demand that under no circumstances could work on the fan project be shown to the public and that development had to cease. Sometime after the cancellation of DN3D:R, Terry Nagy the CEO of Apogee Software, contacted Interceptor Entertainment with an offer to ROTT’s license. At Quake-con 2012 Interceptor announced that the ROTT reboot.
Quakecon 2012 (Dallas)
ROTT was developed virtually, meaning team members for the project would not meet but would work from home and development would be managed through a private phpBB forum. Andrew Hulshult who had worked on Duke Nukem 3D reloaded took on the role of musician for ROTT. It would be his job to recreate the iconic soundtrack of the original game, for Hulshult it would be a trial by fire as it was his first job on a professional project. His first task to make a cover of the classic ‘Going down the first way’. This would be no small order since the original had been composed by the now legendary videogame composer Lee Jackson, who had worked on the original ROTT, Duke Nukem 3D, and Shadow Warrior. Lee would return to aid Hulshult in Interceptor’s bid to recapture the magic of the original game.
Interceptor Entertainment also wanted the level design to remain faithful to the maze-like style from first person shooters of old. However upon release ROTT suffered from a variety of bugs and glitches, including serious performance and frame-rate issues even on high-spec machines. Mouse acceleration also made the game unplayable for some and required a tweak of the .ini file to fix. Additionally the added login for multiplayer was particularly unfavorable amongst many, seeing as steam players already had a usable account. It seems that in the modern era of pc gaming it is becoming more and more acceptable to release a game with multiple serious issues. But Initial teething problems asides ROTT is very faithful to its source material. You still have to find keys to open doors to progress through the levels, jump-pad platforming remains a big component in gameplay and the original cast of playable characters are back. This time around their catchphrases have been updated to modern pop-culture references, whilst the juvenile humor remains in-tact. Just how I like it. One of the playable characters even quips ‘suck it down’ an obvious reference to John Romero’s now infamous advertising campaign for ‘Daikatana’. If you’re willing to overlook the glaring release bugs then ROTT serves as a fine throwback to the golden-era of first person shooters.
Dodd, R. (2013). ComicConReviews: Video Game History - Rise of the Triad (2013). [online] Comicconreviews.blogspot.co.uk. Available at: http://comicconreviews.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/video-game-history-rise-of-triad-2013.html [Accessed 11 Aug. 2016].
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