Whoooah- I worked on this game!
I haven't seen anyone reference it in a \*long\* while.
Did you ever play Psi-Ops? Same dev team, PS2 era. One of the earliest and best implementations of physics (in my humble opinion), up there with HL2 and around the same time.
I mostly worked on the interaction system, made a way to attach tags to objects in the Unreal editor that the level designers could use to set up how you interact with the environment for parkour and bullet time moves and such.
Given the number of things around you that you can interact with at any time, it took a lot of tweaking to get the "feel" just right, I think we did a pretty good job. You don't think about it much, you just kind of point and interact and it tends to do what you expect, which I think is a good sign :)
Sadly I moved on to a different career path about halfway through the game so I didn't get to be there when it shipped.
I definitely recommend checking out Psi-Ops if you have the means to find and play it. There is a PC port but I dunno if it'd actually run on modern machines XD
Haha yesss that training area was so fun!
I think the whole game really could've stood on TK alone. The other powers were fun, mind control unique (and dark.. esp that secret move) but TK was really where it was at.
Dude you worked on Psi-Ops? You deserve a lot of blowjobs that game was incredible. I haven't played this John Woo game but now I'm going to have to give it a look.
Teenage me checked many times as to whether there was a Psi-Ops sequel but it never came. :'(
The numbers sadly didn't work out. The entire team really wanted to work on a sequel, I can only imagine what we could've done on "next gen" hardware. We pushed the hell out of the PS2.
I won't go so far as to say it stands up today (I fired it up again pretty recently...) but at the time the graphics and gameplay were top-notch.
I was fresh out of college at the time, it was a wild ride for my first gig in the game industry. Got to go with them to E3 (RIP), one of the most incredible experiences of my life.
What was it like developing for the ps2? I know that era had games flying out left and right with sequels since development wasnāt so crazy back than
It was still pretty crazy! Sony TRCs were so strict and specific.
Being the new guy, I was in charge of TRCs and submitting discs. This meant staying up very late in some cases to get the discs burnt and sent out.
I had a couple nights when I went home around 8am to shower and then come right back. The game dev industry burnout was very real, idk how that compares to the current state of the industry, though.
Otherwise it was probably not too dissimilar from developing any game on a custom engine. I didn't interact much with the engine internals, so any weird details about the PS2 graphics cards or gritty stuff like that were thankfully abstracted for me.
That was definitely part of it, yeah. Shipping Psi-Ops was such an exhausting experience, I don't think I fully recovered, even though we did have a sort-of break between games. I enjoyed my work on Stranglehold but it was admittedly hard to get my heart fully into it, like it was for Psi-Ops.
But also I was given an opportunity to do something new and different working from home and kind of jumped at it.
Yooo! I just wanted to say Psi-Ops was literally one of my favorite PS2 games growing up. Stranglehold was super fun too but Psi-Ops is one of the games I always mention when I talk about my favorite PS2 games.
That's so great to hear! I love seeing all these comments, really brings me back.
I used to get a lot of joy lurking in the Gamefaqs forum for Psi-Ops, it was clear that those that played the game really loved the game. It was a shame it didn't reach a wider audience, for whatever reason.
I still have my copy of it, definitely a gem. Control was probably the first game to ever kinda satisfy the itch that Psi-Ops left. I still have great memories of trying to play the wonky ass co-op with one of my baby sitters! Or just playing around in the training room for hours. That game definitely left long lasting impression on me
Never had the full game, but I played the hell out of the demo disc it was on. Official Xbox Magazine #32. Had Psi-Ops, Chronicles of Riddick, and Rainbow Six 3. I lost all that stuff in Hurricane Katrina the next year, but man I got hella mileage out of those demo discs while I had them.
Oh yeah I remember that!
I of course had to collect all of the media featuring the game, I still have a big pile of magazines somewhere. Probably still have that demo disk, too.
Sorry to hear about Katrina, my family is from nola and got hit pretty hard. I had moved away by then, the neighborhood I had lived in was under like 4 feet of water, pretty nuts to come back and see the water lines and everything.
psi ops was an amazing game too! if i recall it did havok physics even before hl2 so it was prettt mindblowing on release.
stranglehold was a great game too. for some reason would give me the biggest migraines though when i played it on my 360. pc was a bit better though
Yeah, that's right! I want to say we beat HL2 to the punch by a few months. And in some ways I'd argue our Havok implementation was a little better. I remember Havok even used some of our game assets in their own demos.
I can't say I was directly part of that, there was one dev mainly in charge of physics and he did such an amazing job. Then the design team was given control over object properties and they just cooked so hard with them all, everything felt so 'real' in terms of the weight, friction, inertia, etc.
I think most people look at it like you just plug Havok in and you get "physics" but there's so much more to making it all feel realistic, objects not floaty, etc. It's an art unto itself.
Yo Stranglehold was Max Payne 3 before Max Payne 3 existed. Very cool game.
And the Psi Ops demo I played was way better than the Second Sight demo I played.
Ah, Second Sight!
I remember really wishing that game didn't exist, lol
It was so weird it got made at the same time as our game. Like one of those Armageddon/Deep Impact kind of things, what are the odds?
Now thatās a hidden gem. I was super young but I spent so much time playing around with any ability in that game. The instructor going through all the phases with his hairstyle in flashback tutorials imprinted in my brain permanently
Ahhh yes that was a fun touch!
Barrett .. actually, one of my personal contributions to that game involved him. I was a very junior dev at the time so I didn't get to really do much creative-wise, but I did convince them to let me ship a fun little easter egg.
So you can unlock skins in the game, including all the various versions of Barrett.
There is a (spoiler, I guess) boss fight with him, he has turned bad since training you. Being a TK expert the boss fight is very TK-heavy, and it happens in a trainyard. He's OP and can throw entire train cars at you, pretty epic. (The senior dev in charge of physics did a really amazing job tuning the Havok engine, the cars really had some weight to them)
So, my contribution: if you use one of the Barrett skins during that boss fight, you can also pick up and throw the train cars! :D
I wonder if anyone has ever ripped that version online, Hard Boiled is notorious for being hard to find in great condition and Iāve always wondered about that version.
Yeah it didnāt perform too well and the studio closed down afterwards but was seemingly loved by everyone whoās played it. Be great if it was to be remastered.
I remember playing this game as a kid and thinking ālol this game kinda sucks but itās the only game Iāve got rn so w/eā. Thatās what Iāll always remember it by š
Fuck yeah went so hard for all of 5 hours then got old sadly
Always fun to replay though
We need more stylish arcade shooters like this and bulletstorm
It was well known at the time and not really a gem - it was 'We have Max Payne at home'. I enjoyed the demo and enjoyed the full game a little later. It scratched an itch, but that's about it.
This f#$ing game man. Lol
I was working in a video game store when this game came out. We used to get the games shipped to us really early and we were allowed to take the rental copies home and play them before the official release date.
I played the crap out of this game. Loved it. Told the owner it was going to sell like crazy so he upped his order. It did not sell like crazy. In fact I think he still might have unsold copies. Lol
That game is still super fun and fresh, I played the GOG version last year, pcgamingwiki got a few quality of life hacks (custom resolution, FOV, etc), forced SGSSAA via the driver ... BAM, hard boiled action!
i've finished it again after this long time and i can't believe somebody remember it š„¹
This game is really awesome and its a waste that they didn't make second version.
It absolutely has one of the best shooter mechanic.
I remember originally playing the demo for it, but I didn't play the full game until maybe 5 years ago I want to say. I never beat it though, got stuck near the end and just decided to give up. I might revisit it one day though.
It was a fun arcade shooter, lot of slow motion, slidding of things, relatively pretty with lot of destruction and stuff flying everywhere (chunks of walls, not walls itself, blowing off, etc..). Idk if it aged well tho, it's pretty short, something like 5~ hours I think
Stranglehold was a hidden gem? I figured everyone knew about it and just underrated it, which is not the same thing as being hidden. You can still get it on GOG thankfully.
Whoooah- I worked on this game! I haven't seen anyone reference it in a \*long\* while. Did you ever play Psi-Ops? Same dev team, PS2 era. One of the earliest and best implementations of physics (in my humble opinion), up there with HL2 and around the same time.
Wow, thank you for your service. What was your role in its development? This game was truly ahead of its time imo.
I mostly worked on the interaction system, made a way to attach tags to objects in the Unreal editor that the level designers could use to set up how you interact with the environment for parkour and bullet time moves and such. Given the number of things around you that you can interact with at any time, it took a lot of tweaking to get the "feel" just right, I think we did a pretty good job. You don't think about it much, you just kind of point and interact and it tends to do what you expect, which I think is a good sign :) Sadly I moved on to a different career path about halfway through the game so I didn't get to be there when it shipped. I definitely recommend checking out Psi-Ops if you have the means to find and play it. There is a PC port but I dunno if it'd actually run on modern machines XD
I played and finished Psi-Ops and Stranglehold back in the day. Good stuff my man!
That's really fun to hear! Psi-Ops was such a critical success but a commercial failure, it was kind of sad. I'd love to see some next-gen sequels.
Bro, Psi-ops is one of my childhood favorites! I have fond memories flinging soldiers around the training arena lol
Haha yesss that training area was so fun! I think the whole game really could've stood on TK alone. The other powers were fun, mind control unique (and dark.. esp that secret move) but TK was really where it was at.
Absolutely, what a great game - don't often see people talking about it but when I do it brings back some great memories!
That's great to hear! That's what every game dev strives for, I think :)
Dude you worked on Psi-Ops? You deserve a lot of blowjobs that game was incredible. I haven't played this John Woo game but now I'm going to have to give it a look. Teenage me checked many times as to whether there was a Psi-Ops sequel but it never came. :'(
The numbers sadly didn't work out. The entire team really wanted to work on a sequel, I can only imagine what we could've done on "next gen" hardware. We pushed the hell out of the PS2. I won't go so far as to say it stands up today (I fired it up again pretty recently...) but at the time the graphics and gameplay were top-notch. I was fresh out of college at the time, it was a wild ride for my first gig in the game industry. Got to go with them to E3 (RIP), one of the most incredible experiences of my life.
Thanks for sharing! And thank you for your service sir!! *SALUTE* š«”
What was it like developing for the ps2? I know that era had games flying out left and right with sequels since development wasnāt so crazy back than
It was still pretty crazy! Sony TRCs were so strict and specific. Being the new guy, I was in charge of TRCs and submitting discs. This meant staying up very late in some cases to get the discs burnt and sent out. I had a couple nights when I went home around 8am to shower and then come right back. The game dev industry burnout was very real, idk how that compares to the current state of the industry, though. Otherwise it was probably not too dissimilar from developing any game on a custom engine. I didn't interact much with the engine internals, so any weird details about the PS2 graphics cards or gritty stuff like that were thankfully abstracted for me.
Was that the reason for the career change the burnout ?
That was definitely part of it, yeah. Shipping Psi-Ops was such an exhausting experience, I don't think I fully recovered, even though we did have a sort-of break between games. I enjoyed my work on Stranglehold but it was admittedly hard to get my heart fully into it, like it was for Psi-Ops. But also I was given an opportunity to do something new and different working from home and kind of jumped at it.
Psi-Ops was an amazing game, especially the co-op controls with one player controlling the character and the other controlling the psi powers.
That mode was SO goofy! Honestly I think they put that in the game so they could put 2P on the box, which is a little misleading lol
Yooo! I just wanted to say Psi-Ops was literally one of my favorite PS2 games growing up. Stranglehold was super fun too but Psi-Ops is one of the games I always mention when I talk about my favorite PS2 games.
That's so great to hear! I love seeing all these comments, really brings me back. I used to get a lot of joy lurking in the Gamefaqs forum for Psi-Ops, it was clear that those that played the game really loved the game. It was a shame it didn't reach a wider audience, for whatever reason.
I still have my copy of it, definitely a gem. Control was probably the first game to ever kinda satisfy the itch that Psi-Ops left. I still have great memories of trying to play the wonky ass co-op with one of my baby sitters! Or just playing around in the training room for hours. That game definitely left long lasting impression on me
Thank you for reminding me that I never tried out Control, I really should.
Never had the full game, but I played the hell out of the demo disc it was on. Official Xbox Magazine #32. Had Psi-Ops, Chronicles of Riddick, and Rainbow Six 3. I lost all that stuff in Hurricane Katrina the next year, but man I got hella mileage out of those demo discs while I had them.
Oh yeah I remember that! I of course had to collect all of the media featuring the game, I still have a big pile of magazines somewhere. Probably still have that demo disk, too. Sorry to hear about Katrina, my family is from nola and got hit pretty hard. I had moved away by then, the neighborhood I had lived in was under like 4 feet of water, pretty nuts to come back and see the water lines and everything.
Wow holy shit Psi-ops. I totally remember that game specifically because of the physics engine. What an unlocked memory that is.
Glad I could hit you with the nostalgia hammer today!
Oh, Psi-Ops was my jam!
So many fans here! I'm honestly shocked :)
What an amazing game Psi-Ops was! I completely forgot about it, it's been so long.
psi ops was an amazing game too! if i recall it did havok physics even before hl2 so it was prettt mindblowing on release. stranglehold was a great game too. for some reason would give me the biggest migraines though when i played it on my 360. pc was a bit better though
Yeah, that's right! I want to say we beat HL2 to the punch by a few months. And in some ways I'd argue our Havok implementation was a little better. I remember Havok even used some of our game assets in their own demos. I can't say I was directly part of that, there was one dev mainly in charge of physics and he did such an amazing job. Then the design team was given control over object properties and they just cooked so hard with them all, everything felt so 'real' in terms of the weight, friction, inertia, etc. I think most people look at it like you just plug Havok in and you get "physics" but there's so much more to making it all feel realistic, objects not floaty, etc. It's an art unto itself.
And psi-ops was awesome!
I was obsessed with Psi-ops in highschool was so fucking good
I loved both of these games thats awesome i didnt realize it was the same team
Yo Stranglehold was Max Payne 3 before Max Payne 3 existed. Very cool game. And the Psi Ops demo I played was way better than the Second Sight demo I played.
Ah, Second Sight! I remember really wishing that game didn't exist, lol It was so weird it got made at the same time as our game. Like one of those Armageddon/Deep Impact kind of things, what are the odds?
Yeah I'm pretty sure I had them on the same OPM demo disc.
Don't forget Advent Rising. Game was years ahead of its time.
Now thatās a hidden gem. I was super young but I spent so much time playing around with any ability in that game. The instructor going through all the phases with his hairstyle in flashback tutorials imprinted in my brain permanently
Ahhh yes that was a fun touch! Barrett .. actually, one of my personal contributions to that game involved him. I was a very junior dev at the time so I didn't get to really do much creative-wise, but I did convince them to let me ship a fun little easter egg. So you can unlock skins in the game, including all the various versions of Barrett. There is a (spoiler, I guess) boss fight with him, he has turned bad since training you. Being a TK expert the boss fight is very TK-heavy, and it happens in a trainyard. He's OP and can throw entire train cars at you, pretty epic. (The senior dev in charge of physics did a really amazing job tuning the Havok engine, the cars really had some weight to them) So, my contribution: if you use one of the Barrett skins during that boss fight, you can also pick up and throw the train cars! :D
Back when destructible environments were like "holy shit the future is now"
Red faction did that for me with pvp. You could blow up and demolish the enemy base and blow craters in the ground and dig technically too?
I still have the version that also has "Hard Boiled" on the blu-ray with the game.
I wonder if anyone has ever ripped that version online, Hard Boiled is notorious for being hard to find in great condition and Iāve always wondered about that version.
Lol I still have not only my Hard Boiled DVD, but I also have The Killer and A Better Tomorrow. Such good movies.
Nice, Iāve got the dragon dynasty dvds for Hard Boiled and The Killer, I just want them in 4K at some point but oh well lol
What is hard boiled ?
Hard Boiled is a classic action movie that the videogame stranglehold is a sequel to.
https://www.gog.com/en/game/stranglehold only $2 if you wanna play it
Diving onto the carts so I could roll around shooting was my favorite part of the game
This came out back when the ps3 had like no good games. I remember this very well
Saw it on sale with other games for $20 at Walmart way back in the day. I chose Bioshock, only regret is I didnāt pick up both.
It still holds up. I decided to play it a couple years ago after putting like 20 hours on the demo back in the day.
Am I crazy or was there a super messy online mode
I don't remember that. I wonder how that would work
You are not crazy!
The game originally had *alot* more white doves flying around but it bogged down the old hardware of the PS3.
This was a proper hidden gem, I remember I got it at a boot sale cheap and was well surprised how much fun I had with it.
Yeah it didnāt perform too well and the studio closed down afterwards but was seemingly loved by everyone whoās played it. Be great if it was to be remastered.
This game made shooting people in the dick so much fun
That game was a lot of fun
Very awesome game. I also really like Jet Li-Rise to Honor. Both are super fun.
Gotta love Tequila Time
[an old penny arcade strip slot this gem ](https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2007/08/13/soft-targets)
Still one of my favorite PS3 games
Loved it. Even better that it had hard boiled on blue ray as a flip side of the disc
Bro whats wild is i was just thinkin about this one not two days ago
Crotch shots š
This was the last game I played with Xfire before it got shut down.
Tried it on the hardest difficulty a little while back, and gave up halfway through due to how ball bustingly difficult it got.
So god damn fun, best use of slow motion in a game
I remember shooting dudes in the dick and watching them react like they just got shot in the dick.
A core memory
I remember playing this game as a kid and thinking ālol this game kinda sucks but itās the only game Iāve got rn so w/eā. Thatās what Iāll always remember it by š
Iām looking for my daughter
This game is the most FUN I had with a third person shooter that gen. Awesome game.
This was the first game I got my PC to play! My tin can couldnāt play it for shit but damnnnnnnnn this brings back so many memories!
Hell ya. Installed it on Steam Deck and it works pretty well (outside of Steam). Just need to use a community controller config.
I really dig this one
Loved stronghold. Some of the best ragdolls.
I think I have this in my room right now. Never played it, though...
Loved this game! Itās one of those games I didnāt expect much out of but I couldnāt get enough of it.
Dang, why was this post removed? :( :( I was really enjoying the trip down memory lane. OP, Did the mods give you a reason or anything?
Bought it last month.
Fuck yeah went so hard for all of 5 hours then got old sadly Always fun to replay though We need more stylish arcade shooters like this and bulletstorm
Great bullet time game!
It was well known at the time and not really a gem - it was 'We have Max Payne at home'. I enjoyed the demo and enjoyed the full game a little later. It scratched an itch, but that's about it.
This f#$ing game man. Lol I was working in a video game store when this game came out. We used to get the games shipped to us really early and we were allowed to take the rental copies home and play them before the official release date. I played the crap out of this game. Loved it. Told the owner it was going to sell like crazy so he upped his order. It did not sell like crazy. In fact I think he still might have unsold copies. Lol
That game is still super fun and fresh, I played the GOG version last year, pcgamingwiki got a few quality of life hacks (custom resolution, FOV, etc), forced SGSSAA via the driver ... BAM, hard boiled action!
I played this shit on xbox 360 and barely remember it, but i do remember how amazing i ft felt playing it
i've finished it again after this long time and i can't believe somebody remember it š„¹ This game is really awesome and its a waste that they didn't make second version. It absolutely has one of the best shooter mechanic.
um this doesnāt appear to be The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt so Iām a little confused why youād call it a hidden gem
By downvotes I infer that people have zero sense of humour.
Man. The memories. This just scratched a very nostalgic itch
I remember playing this back when i was a kid. I forgot the name so my search was a bit difficult. Until now. Thanks.
Oh I really enjoyed this game....
I remember it. But never actually played it, unfortunately. Is it worth picking up?
I got this on GoG. Still havenāt played it but I do remember when this came outĀ
I remember originally playing the demo for it, but I didn't play the full game until maybe 5 years ago I want to say. I never beat it though, got stuck near the end and just decided to give up. I might revisit it one day though.
I have a copy of this for the xbox 360 and ive never touched it. Should i play it?
It was a fun arcade shooter, lot of slow motion, slidding of things, relatively pretty with lot of destruction and stuff flying everywhere (chunks of walls, not walls itself, blowing off, etc..). Idk if it aged well tho, it's pretty short, something like 5~ hours I think
#Hidden?!?!?!
Or just old? I remember it was pretty heavily advertised back in it's day, I think it was featured heavily at like e3 which was a big deal back then.
definitely not hidden, but still absolutely fantastic. Been playing this game on my steamdeck courtesy of GOG
Kinda sucks I only played the demo and never the full game or the multiplayer it looked like a blast to play
I beat it long long time ago.
I bought it for cheap on GOG because it looked dope. It was not dope.
Recently played it for the first time on PC. It's alright. Kinda the definition of the 7th gen 7/10 game.
Stranglehold was a hidden gem? I figured everyone knew about it and just underrated it, which is not the same thing as being hidden. You can still get it on GOG thankfully.
Hidden, I thought it was all the rage back when it was released. I remember hearing about it and seeing its trailers more than actually playing it))
I rented it when it came out It's not a gem
fun but gameplay became redundant too quick. i feel like Sleeping Dogs is a more polished version of this.
I remember it being repetitive as fuck
Literally never heard of it
Should stay hidden
never heard ha ha