FPS Creator Review
| Developer: The Game Creators | Publisher: The Game Creators |
| Release Date: September 23, 2005 | Also On: None |
If you are reading this review for a quick impression on whether or not to buy this program, let me put it clearly. BUY IT. If you are interested in a review, read on. There have been many game making programs released over the years, including the early “Fighter Maker 95�, “RPG Maker 2000/2003� and “Game Maker� for PC, as well as some RPG Makers for the PSX, but they have, of course, had their limitations. I can’t say FPSC is limitless, but really, it almost is. Everything is customizable; but it comes packed with 2 default sets of items, Aliens and WWII. Each set has dozens of characters, weapons, items, scenery, walls, floors, rooms, and more.
The program is very accessible to people only familiar with “drag-and-drop�, no coding needed. The map editor view is fairly basic, it’s on a grid. You can start slapping down floors and custom walls, or, if you want a quick, simple game, you can use the game’s “prefabs�, which are pre-made rooms which can be snapped together quickly instead of making the levels from scratch. This makes the game much more accessible to people who just want to make their own game, or people who are uninspired. However, should you choose to make your rooms from scratch, you can. There are many floors, walls, and ceilings to choose from, as well as half-height walls, windows (with or without glass), stairs, doors, lights, tons of things, and that’s only what’s built in, you can import whatever else you want!
Obviously the one thing you can’t change is the engine itself. Or can you? FPSC gives you all control. You control the texture sizes, resolution, sound quality, shaders, lighting, physics, etc. The models which come built-in are not terribly cutting edge, but it has been in development for over 3 years, so they aren’t bad when you consider that. The base engine and resources they give you seem like a Medal of Honor game engine, which is obviously a good thing. You can put lights in your level, any color you want, using hex values (for instance, FFFFFF for white or 000000 for black). The lights work great, the colors reflect on your weapons and on enemies. You can select how powerful the lights are too, its really all up to you.
Even on the pre-made, included enemies, you can select their weapons, rate of fire, spawning areas, number of lives, textures, transparency, health, speed, weight, etc. etc. etc. You can set checkpoints for reaching areas, getting keys, killing enemies, and you can create healing areas, hurt areas (e.g. Lava), winning areas, event triggering areas, sound triggering areas for narratives or instructions, or Story zones for cutscenes, videos, etc.
Using the weapons included you can have some features like zoom, which works flawlessly. You can make destructible walls, I really can’t say enough. You can do anything. I was able to make a level of my house, where my brother is the boss. My house has 3 stories, if you include the basement, and FPSC supports that too. Up to 20 floors of rooms, connected with stairs, elevators, or teleporters.
In Half-Life 2, one of the big selling points was the physics system, because most FPS games lack a physics system. But yours won’t. You can set the weight of objects and characters, and knock stuff over! Hell yeah! The sounds which are included are just your normal, generic WWII and Space gun and item sounds, but once again the beauty of it is the fact that you can use your own sounds in the game, as well as your own… well… your own anything. You can even write and use your own AI scripts.
You can create standalone .exe files so others can play your games, and there are no watermarks whatsoever. No evidence you used this program at all. Best of all, Their license allows you to sell anything you create. You could start your own game company with this $45 program. But I know what you’re thinking, “This is nice and all, but there’s no multiplayer�. WRONG. FPSC allows you to create online and LAN multiplayer games to play against others on your own maps. You set the rules, like time limits, frag limits, etc.
The one thing I would like to see in this program would be some type of post-rendering settings. At the current point in time, if you want to change the default resolution, you have to go in and change settings.ini, which is kind of a hassle. Also when you render the game, you choose whether or not to use dynamic lights, and how large of textures to use. There are no post-rendering options. Also, it might be nice to have a simple texture/model import/export area. However, that is only a small flaw in such an amazing program. Of any game maker I have ever used, this is by far the best. If you have ever played an FPS and liked it even remotely, and happen to own a PC, do yourself a favor and buy the First-Person Shooter Creator now.
| Graphics: | 8 |
| Sound: | 8 |
| Gameplay: | 10 |
| Creativity: | 10 |
| Replay Value/Game Length: | 10 |
| Final: | 9.2 |
| Written by Dave | Review Guide |
