A tentative discussion on game innovation and the FPS genre.

[BabyHeadCrab]

Haha, alright, I'll just edit the original post, I suppose the first line was a bit over the top.

 

[KagePrototype]

I was being tongue n' cheek, sir, but I appreciate the heated response. I don't actually think anyone who enjoys FEAR is a peon. If you'd read any post I've made on this forum since 2003, you'd know that I was just being silly.

I was being tongue n' cheek too.

I do, however, think a developer like Monolith is capable of something much, much better than a game like FEAR 2. And what's this about games costing a lot of money being the excuse to push the same tired concept out twice? Monolith has incredible publisher support and a team that's taken risks, and succeeded in taking risks -- your point is nil.

The last real risk they took was Tron 2.0, and that bombed. They obviously wanted to keep making successful AAA games but it was obvious they were less interested in taking financial risks, and so games like FEAR and Condemned come along.

I'm not really trying to defend or condemn anyone, I'm just trying to illuminate the situation a bit more beyond "why aren't games as interesting as they used to be" (or "why aren't games as interesting as these 4 or 5 games I remember as being innovative from my childhood). I think the real question that should be asked is "why aren't more people interested in new experiences", since a lot of these decisions are based on wide-spread demographic interests more than anything. It's easy to blame developers for being boring and lazy, but they're really just reacting to the market at large.

 

[BabyHeadCrab]

fair enough, we don't exactly disagree on that.

 

[Tagaziel]

I sure hope no one will start claiming that FPS is more technologically advanced than isometric view.

 

[Eejit]

Way to bait there Mikael McTroll

 

[Krynn72]

Isometic views are more technologically advanced than FPS games.

 

[Kadayi]

Let's have a look at the best selling First Person Shooter game franchises in the last few years, you know the lineup before I even finish this sentence: Halo, Call of Duty, Rainbow Six, and the outliers such as Bioshock and Half-Life 2: Episodes 1&2. When is the last time you played a well narrated, beautifully executed, atmospheric and deep thinking first person shooter? Dues Ex perhaps? Half-Life? Bear in mind in not talking about free-roaming shooters which lack any kind of genuine narrative coherence like STALKER and Boiling Point or even glazed over turds like Far Cry 2 which masquerade over minor immersion advances like the lack of a screen-transitioning GUI or objective system (I must say though, that there are ways in which Far Cry 2 has been the most progressive shooter to come around in quite some time, which is somewhat sad).

The only reason we had corridor shooters, was because that's pretty much all the early 3D game engines were capable of delivering (game play is beholden to technological limitations, and games are therefore very much of their time). Large scale open world environments such as those found in STALKER, Boiling Point, and Farcry 2 are the natural direction for future (FPS) game development. This was the inherent promise of Deus Ex (there more than one way to skin a cat), and is already being widely explored in games such as GTA IV.

Consider what ID are up to with RAGE. Sure it's a shooter, but it's clearly set within a wider interactive game world much akin to Nikko's adventures in Liberty City. If Farcry 2 has a failing, it's that the developers misunderstood players expectations of what an open world FPS would be like. People expected to roam freely ala GTA IV, and became frustrated by the fact that the reality was they were cast as an unwelcome interloper in a warzone.

The FPS as a pure genre experience (where the solution to every challenge is a bullet in the head) is kind of played out now tbh.

 

[Adabiviak]

It sounds like we're lumping all genres of FPSs into some single super breed that may never exist (not impossible, just implausible given the various reasons mentioned earlier in this thread). They're like pizzas, for example. Some people like anchovies, some don't. Some people like pepperoni, some don't. A pizza should have a dough and tomato sauce foundation at least, but it's not mandatory. Complaining that pizza technology isn't improving sounds awkward, no? Ingredients include storyline, physics, gameplay, immersion, graphic/audio quality, DRM schemes, etc. Few restaurants are selling pizzas with everything because they're costly to make. Some restaurants have shitty ovens (I'm looking at you S.T.A.L.K.E.R. - you are an awesome if undercooked pizza). What I'm getting at is that pizzas as a food aren't maligned for not progressing, the same way that first person shooters should not be maligned for not progressing. If a restaurant offers a mayonnaise pizza as an attempt to try something different, I'll try the demo first, and give kudos to the restaurant for trying something different. Given the risk of developing something well when it may or may not sell, I'm okay with where games are at now myself. I'm always down for a better pizza, but I'm content with the local fare. When I go to Mike's Pizza, I know they have excellent italian sausage, whereas when I go to Stuft Pizza, I know their ingredients are fresh. I still go to both, and I still play first person shooters of all ilk (and don't expect them to be the same).

First Person Shooters. Some people just like to blow shit up.

I do! One of my favorite ingredients in a first person shooter is how fun it is to shoot things. I know that sounds primitive, but if I didn't want to shoot something, I'd play something else. I only played the demo for F.E.A.R. 2, but it did put targets in my crosshairs and scared me in the meantime, so I'm good to go. Bioshock put a nice variety of targets on deck, gave me interesting ways of shooting them, and included a fun storyline to boot.

BHC, what do you have in mind for first person shooters that would revolutionize the genre? Even if they took all the good features present in the best first person shooters and mashed them into one super game, it'd still amount to just that: a very good game, but still a first person shooter.

 

[CrazyHarij]

The FPS as a pure genre experience (where the solution to every challenge is a bullet in the head) is kind of played out now tbh.

I totally agree. And whatever happened to the tactical shooter? Oh right, it didn't sell. ****ing capitalism.

 

[Warbie]

The FPS as a pure genre experience (where the solution to every challenge is a bullet in the head) is kind of played out now tbh.

But it wasn't before we had headshots. Suddenly we had a specific body part to aim for and fps were transported to a whole new level. Think how much the humble headshot did for the genre - and not just because it's satisfying as **** to shoot someone in the face and watch their head explode, but because it added an extra layer of complexity, risk and reward, a reason to be accurate. Golden Eye let us shoot individual limbs - hit an arm to stop a bad guy shooting. Hit him in the leg and he'll limp away. Feel sadistic in Perfect Dark and a neck shot rewards you with a slow gurgling fall to the knees. Haven't got a gun? The game let you rip one out of your opponents hands and use it back on them. Elites/Brutes in Halo have shields that require specific ammo types to take down. The jackals could be forced to drop their shields by shooting them in the hand. Hunters had weak spots at the base of the spine and in the neck. These are just a very few of the possible examples I could pick from these three game. They're also examples of exactly what current fps nearly all fail to give us - something to push proceedings above that of the generic. What sets the better fps aside from the rest - at least in terms of gunplay - always comes down to gameplay mechanics like this.

I want to have to choose the right weapon and have to learn how to use it the right way. Different enemy types/classes/ranks. To have to prioritise targets quickly. Equipment, vehicles, melee, nades. AI that isn't retarded. Weakspots for massive damage. And all of it intergrated. In a good shooter you should find yourself behind cover as the bullets come whizzing by and thinking 'what the ****ing **** am I going to do now'! Each encounter should be a challenge and play out differently - if only slightly - each time, and there should be a learning curve and balanced difficulty settings that give real scope for improving your game. The problem with virtually every shooter released these days - HL2, Far Cry 1 & 2, Fear, CoD, Quake, Doom, Crysis etc - is that they all fail to include what should by now be the most basic of fps elements. These games let you rely on your experience of decade old fps game mechanics and point and click your way out of any situation - no thinking required.

There are so many cool elements - each one building upon the coolness that the headshot introduced - that current fps could be delivering, but aren't.

//and don't start me on Killzone 2. Exploding barrels and copy paste bad guys. **** off!

 

[Kadayi]

I totally agree.

Glad you concur. I feel I should elaborate a bit more on what I mean as well. Personally for me HL & HL 2 have been as much, if not more about problem solving in first person as they been about the shooting. Titles such as Portal, Mirrors Edge & L4D have also added to and extended the first person game space both in terms of how we as gamers envisage we can engage with it, through navigation, movement & co-operation. Parallel to this you have the evolution of game engines capable of handling much larger environments that we are used to, as well as being able to render complexity in terms of NPCs, entities and sequencing.

Ultimately as we all (should) know the SP FPS experience pails in comparison to the MP FPS experience as a pure combat event. What generally makes them interesting as games has very little to do with combat (although it can be novel at the time) and more to do with other aspects of the experience, so the emphasis for future development has to lie in enriching those areas. As it it, I'd say that very much follows the model eluded to in Deus Ex, and games such as Stalker, Boiling point & Farcry 2. FPS as open world action RPG, where equipment, player nous and the characters ongoing in game history (choice and consequence) replace statistical meta gaming.

 

[Warbie]

Ultimately as we all (should) know the SP FPS experience pails in comparison to the MP FPS experience as a pure combat event.

That shouldn't be the case. There is so much scope for scenarios and gameaply mechanics that simply wouldn't work in multiplayer.

 

[Kadayi]

That shouldn't be the case. There is so much scope for scenarios and gameaply mechanics that simply wouldn't work in multiplayer.

My point exactly. The SP excels at putting you in the scenario, and access to unique opportunities, but in game AI is pants in comparison to a talented human opponent, unless it 'cheats'. Better to enrich your SP game though other means.

 

[Jintor]

I do! One of my favorite ingredients in a first person shooter is how fun it is to shoot things. I know that sounds primitive, but if I didn't want to shoot something, I'd play something else. I only played the demo for F.E.A.R. 2, but it did put targets in my crosshairs and scared me in the meantime, so I'm good to go. Bioshock put a nice variety of targets on deck, gave me interesting ways of shooting them, and included a fun storyline to boot.

Very true. I noticed that one of the reasons I love the FPS's that I love is that generally when firing a gun, you feel like you're actually firing a gun (well, what I imagine firing a gun would feel like, but you get my point). The gun sounds, bullet ricochets, impact noises, the way the gun moves when you fire it - all this kind of stuff adds up to a feeling of power that you can experience temporarily with your digital weapon. It's definitely a noticable part of FPS gameplay, and if you can't get that right I'm not sure how much attention I'll pay to everything else.

 

[Sparta]

In a good shooter you should find yourself behind cover as the bullets come whizzing by and thinking 'what the ****ing **** am I going to do now'! Each encounter should be a challenge and play out differently - if only slightly - each time, and there should be a learning curve and balanced difficulty settings that give real scope for improving your game. The problem with virtually every shooter released these days - HL2, Far Cry 1 & 2, Fear, CoD, Quake, Doom, Crysis etc - is that they all fail to include what should by now be the most basic of fps elements. These games let you rely on your experience of decade old fps game mechanics and point and click your way out of any situation - no thinking required.

There are so many cool elements - each one building upon the coolness that the headshot introduced - that current fps could be delivering, but aren't.

The thing is, all of those games (which the exception of maybe Doom, Quake and HL2 on Easy) all have those moments you're talking about. You simply choose not to remember them despite the fact that you simply cannot get through a game like Crysis, Far Cry, F.E.A.R. or Call of Duty without taking cover repeatedly. This "point and click" thing you say is not true. The truth of the matter is that if it weren't for the recharging shields of the Elites, almost all of the strategy in Halo simply wouldn't be there because every other enemy in the game can be taken down in the same "point and click" fashion that you deride so much. Even on Normal difficulty the game is still mostly "point and click". As are most FPS games.

I think its more to do with the combat itself being the same thing we've played countless times before, that no one can really remember a time FPS games didn't have similar combat to what we have now. FPS games before Half-life and GoldenEye largely involved finding the key, mowing down a bunch of bad guys standing or circling in a room, and then moving on. Now its become a case of using cover to help you take out these guys in this area and then moving on. Some games actually have challenging A.I. that responds to you quickly, or at least seem's too. Most don't, or simply have A.I. that's too easy to take out. Every FPS series seems to be leaning towards the idea of "more bad guys = better" way of thinking that games like Call of Duty started. I'd much prefer fighting more bad guys like those Ninja bastards from the first F.E.A.R game or the Special Op's from Half-Life or just some badguys that keep me on my toes and moving for the whole fight. It's so much more fun and energetic than crouching behind a wall and peaking out behind cover.

 

[Warbie]

Better to enrich your SP game though other means.

I totally agree. Make the combat more involved, more visceral. I honestly found HL2 and the episodes a chore to play through simply because the combat didn't at any point ask any tricky questions. It didn't have any 'wtf are you going to do now moments' becasue all you had to do was pick the biggest gun and point and click faster than the bad guys. Much older games had done this much better. Compared to everything else HL2 does so amazingly well this tired gunplay is such a contrast it grates on me whith each play through. Many other games are just as guilty, but the contrast isn't there.

 

[MultiVaC]

The problem with virtually every shooter released these days - HL2, Far Cry 1 & 2, Fear, CoD, Quake, Doom, Crysis etc - is that they all fail to include what should by now be the most basic of fps elements. These games let you rely on your experience of decade old fps game mechanics and point and click your way out of any situation - no thinking required.

I find it odd that you mention FEAR and Crysis in there. Especially in the case of Crysis, which has far more combat options than any game. Say what you want about the story and how it sucks when the aliens show up, but in every encounter with the KPA soldiers you find yourself making split second decisions, cloaking to fall back into the jungle, picking off enemies one by one, smashing through walls, strength jumping onto higher points and going into armor or cloak in mid-air. So much more room for improvisation than a game like Halo, where you run around spraying everyone with your aim-assist. The first FEAR gets major points for nailing the presentation of combat better than any other shooter, which unfortunately seems to be lost in the sequel. I'm curious as to what you would say Halo has that those two games don't.

 

[Warbie]

ISo much more room for improvisation than a game like Halo, where you run around spraying everyone with your aim-assist.

I'm afraid there isn't. The abilities in Crysis give you options, but your opponents in no way demand that you utilise them effectively. The options are there to play with - and that's that. I'm being a little unfair in lumping it with the CoDs of this world, and a bit unfair on FEAR too, as these games at least give you options to kill people in cool ways. The depth is in killing in style. They're not difficult, though, and enemies never require more than point and click, but you can look awesome while you're doing it. They're a bit like Devil May Cry in this respect. (I don't intend to criticise these elements btw as they're all good - we need more of this stuff)

The 'spraying with aim-assist' part shows that you haven't a clue what you're talking about in regards to Halo, though I'd like to see how far you get in Halo 3 on Legendary, especially with a few skulls added, with that approach. Crysis on the hardest setting is so, so much more less involved than this. In every way. The same for FEAR, Far Cry, CoD ...

Let's take CoD, or Far Cry, or whatever. You're presented with a bunch of identical bad guys and all you have to do is shoot them with a few bullets and they fall over. There's various weapons, but, bar the obvious sniper vs. shotgun differences, it doesn't really matter what you use. There's never really a question of 'how am I going to tackle this situation' - it's obvious. Now you ramp the difficulty setting way up. The gameplay compared to normal doesn't change at all. You simply have to do the same things better - be more accurate, make better use of cover, but the actual mechanics of the game don't demand that you adapt (even if you wanted to - there's nothing new to adapt to). This is entirely different to Halo 3. In Halo you can run and gun on normal setting just like in all these other games. It doesn't mater what gun you use - pick whatever you like the best. Bullets rip down shields, weakspots don't matter, you don't even need to use equipment, nades and melee. Now play it on Legendary with skulls added (say, for example, only plasma can take down shields, enemies have double health and are more aggressive and accurate) and you'll die in seconds unless you've familiarised yourself with the ridiculous no. of varibales at play and understand the depth to the combat (a depth which I look for in every fps and don't find in the Crysis games of this world). When you're presented with a bunch of bad guys - usually a combination of enemy types, ranks and vehicles - you have to prioritise your target almost instantly. You have scan the area while fighting and register where certain weapons/nades/equipment have dropped. You have to use the weapons/nades/equipment you have on you in the right way. Each encounter plays out differently and is a combination of different, critical split second decisions (i.e. the polar opposite of HL2 et al). How do you take out a few brutes and jackals while a vehilce is also gunning down on you? How do you do the same thing when you have a completely different set of weapons? Surviving is nearly always possible - a testament to the best balanced difficulty settings seen in a fps - and each time you'll achieve it in a different way.

Anyways, rather than me saying the same shit I always do, why don't we discuss what we want from fps. Surely I can't be alone in being sick to death of the gameply 90% of fps give us?

 

[Sparta]

Anyways, rather than me saying the same shit I always do, why don't we discuss what we want from fps. Surely I can't be alone in being sick to death of the gameply 90% of fps give us?

Definitely. However, only an incredibly small percent of people who bought have actually played with those skulls. On top of that, alot of those kind of challenges can still be found in other games. The big difference (and its a big one) is that Halo 3 rewards the player with these challenges for finding the skulls in the first place. If you want a challenge, play HL2 with only the gravity gun. There is only a few exceptions in the whole game when you'll have to use a rocket launcher to take out a Strider, but playing with just the gravity gun adds a ton of strategy and challenge to it. Crysis not challenging enough? Play through it using only the augmentations you have, and no weapons. Same goes for FEAR.

It sounds like playing Halo 3 with those skulls would be a lot of fun, but i'm so over the whole series gameplay that i can't be bothered with it. Same goes for the rest of the FPS genre.

What i'd love to see developers do, is what the Ninja Gaiden (black and up) series does with its difficulty. Tougher enemies with each increment of difficulty. That gives you a reason to go back and play it again, and it makes you a better player. That would be ace.

 

[kineaesth]

Halo Threeeeeeeeeee

While I agree with most of your point your description of Legendary mode on Halo 3 does not sound fun or interesting at all, but in fact quite dull and tedious and anal, like memorising levels in old Mario games.

 

[Warbie]

While I agree with most of your point your description of Legendary mode on Halo 3 does not sound fun or interesting at all, but in fact quite dull and tedious and anal, like memorising levels in old Mario games.

Quite the contrary - this isn't gaming with hindsight, it's the opposite. That's the beauty of it. It's not something for everyone, but more an example of what fps can offer us beside the norm.

What i'd love to see developers do, is what the Ninja Gaiden (black and up) series does with its difficulty. Tougher enemies with each increment of difficulty. That gives you a reason to go back and play it again, and it makes you a better player. That would be ace.

Agreed. I'd argue Halo does this (or you can do it yourself with skulls).

It'd be great if all bad guys did a 'Ninja Gaiden' in all fps. Anything that forces you to practise and learn the game is all good.

 

[Asknoone]

I refuse to be drawn into this debate with you, Warbie.

 

[MultiVaC]

The 'spraying with aim-assist' part shows that you haven't a clue what you're talking about in regards to Halo, though I'd like to see how far you get in Halo 3 on Legendary, especially with a few skulls added, with that approach.

FYI, I've beaten Halo 3 on Legendary 3 or 4 times, or too many times to count if you include my co-op playing (meta-game, skulls, all of that stuff). It is more difficult than Crysis, but that's about it. The difficulty difference between Crysis on Delta and Halo 3 on Legendary boils down to arbitrary difficulty buffs. If you want, go ahead and open up the difficulty configuration files for Crysis and ramp up some of the variables. Dying "in seconds unless you've familiarized yourself with the ridiculous no. of variables at play" is the effect of a very high difficulty setting, not some genius stroke of game design. We view Doom as the most straightforward shooter out there, but when you put it on Nightmare difficulty it becomes a pretty complex affair. All of the sudden you have to move very quickly and conserve ammo, otherwise you'll end up with an unbeatable horde of demons. I'm not saying Doom has anywhere near the depth of any of the games we have now; my point is that at extreme difficulties almost any game will demand more involved tactics. Crysis is just too easy (although this is probably not the case for most gamers). Regarding "How am I going to tackle this situation?": When you come to the top of the ridge at sunrise in the first level of Crysis, after being introduced to the silencers, scopes, and tranquilizer darts you can attach to all of your weapons, your ability to cloak and strength jump, and you look through your binoculars at huge open area crawling with enemies, with boats and Humvees and fully destructible houses everywhere, that's exactly what goes through your head. I think what you're really looking for is higher difficulty settings.

 

[Warbie]

The Doom example pretty much goes with what I was saying. The increase in challenge doesn't encourage or demand that you adapt other than doing exactly the same thing better - you just have to not miss as much. Be quicker at avoiding the enemy. The difference in Halo 3 and Crysis is more than arbitrary buffs. Sticky nades don't stick to certain enemies. Some weapons have no effect on shields. Some have enemy types have weak spots. The weapons have more specific functions. If you opened up the config files and messed with Crysis it would not result in the same thing at all (and would most likely result in something terribly unbalanced) - you'd still be taking down enemies in the same way because there is nothing to taking them down.

All the suit stuff in Crysis is great, but there has to be a foe worthy of matching it. Where's the fun in being able to do all this cool shit when you're fighting the most generic of bad guys.

 

[Tagaziel]

I refuse to be drawn into this debate with you, Warbie.

How about we agree that there are different gameplay styles intended for different groups of gamers? Yours is more suited to the casual crowd, Warbie's for people who are less of a weekend gamer.

All the suit stuff in Crysis is great, but there has to be a foe worthy of matching it. Where's the fun in being able to do all this cool shit when you're fighting the most generic of bad guys.

The Korean nanosuit soldiers come close, although they don't fully utilize the strength of their suit.

 

[Asknoone]

Yours is more suited to the casual crowd, Warbie's for people who are less of a weekend gamer.

No, mine are not more suited for the 'casual crowd' -- don't dish out the condescension, Mik. I find my gameplay perspective to be far more sophisticated than that; and, ironically, more so than Warbie's. But I don't mean that in a bad way, and I'm pretty sure Warbster knows it.

 

[Warbie]

Aye

I'm still trying to work out exactly what your definition of gameplay is (along with most other people i'll wager ). For me it's what you actually have to do in a game. Your gameplay exists on another plane of thought!

 

[Asknoone]

For me it's what you actually have to do in a game.

But that's precisely it!

 

[kupocake]

Quite the contrary - this isn't gaming with hindsight, it's the opposite. That's the beauty of it. It's not something for everyone, but more an example of what fps can offer us beside the norm.

I think that valve's games could benefit from a 'beyond hard mode'. I'm currently playing through both PC Halos on legendary (because since I first played them, I've apparently got a lot better) and there is certainly something rewarding about seeing entire chapters through, thinking on your feet and getting those flukey action-hero moments...

That said, 99% of the 'difficulty' in the PC Halos is generated by a retarded checkpoint system that saves either every time a grunt farts, or after 30 minutes of seeing off multiple waves in a single room. That isn't decent gameplay.

I pretty much see Halo and Crysis on an equal footing. Well, Halo 2 anyway. ****ing library.

 

[Tagaziel]

No, mine are not more suited for the 'casual crowd' -- don't dish out the condescension, Mik. I find my gameplay perspective to be far more sophisticated than that; and, ironically, more so than Warbie's. But I don't mean that in a bad way, and I'm pretty sure Warbster knows it.

It is. You're somehow convinced that your is the perfect approach, infallible, best. It's not.

 

[Warbie]

Your gameplay perspective does show a blind eye to overly simple gunplay, though, Samon. I like my sophistication to be a little bit more consistent.


I think my biggest want in shooters is for the each body part to become as much a fps staple as the headshot. Disarming foes with shots to the hand/arm/gun. Slowing them down by hitting the legs. 1 hit kill heartshots. Shots to the gut and groin if you're feeling evil. Let each zone have a different effect on gameplay. Now couple all of this with the appropriate hit animation/ragdoll - shots to the shoulder spinning bad guys on the spot. Shotgun blasts up close launching them into the air and through windows. I want to be able to shoot someone in the leg, hear a cry of pain, and see them limping away, holding the wound and shooting back over their shoulder. It's not only the sadist in me that desires this stuff, but the part that likes to work out how to take down a tricky foe. Take the annoyingly quick Ninja women in HL. I'd like to be able to take away their advantage with a shot to the knee. Who's laughing now, bitch?!

When we can be in the middle of a John Woo style shoot out in a restaurant, crouch down behind a table and shoot a foe in the knee, forcing him to fall to the ground and thus give you the angle for a headshot that previously eluded you, we'll have a fps that's very special.

 

[Viperidae]

strategy games are almost all the same and few

Company of heroes was the most innovative RTS to come out since Dune 2. It took almost every aspect of the game and turned it on its head. Spamming would never help you. Gameplay/economy evolved based on what units you kept in the field. Being the best in the ladder had little to do with your CPM. Resources were not something you hid away and turtled, they were on the frontlines: they were the frontlines. And the biggest change of all: random damage/accuracy modifiers. No two encounters were ever the same. You could never confidently predict the outcome of unit X vs unit Y (unless hard counters were involved). You had to lay everything on the line and then some. Every encounter was a calculated risk.

It seemed for a while that Relic had created the ultimate RTS. It had such an amazing balance of macro and minute micro. Sure it had some balance issues but people adapted (poor Axis). CnC3 paled in comparison.

Then they released an expansion, Opposing Fronts.

Everything went to shit. The inclusion of the Brits just ****ed it all up. A race entirely centered around turtling. Their HQ's generated their own resources so there was no point in moving out. They also happened to be the most popular race among the newcomers to the game, as they were piss easy to play. Suddenly, after a year of solid, well-received patching and updates, Relic stopped supporting the game. Between Jan and Sept 2008 they all but disappeared from their own forums. Why?

Opposing Fronts made way more money than a year of patching did. They realised they didn't have to support a core group of gamers like they did with Homeworld and vanilla CoH to stay successful. Opposing Fronts came out and tens of thousands of new players bought it, beat SP, maybe dicked around a bit in MP and lost badly to the core players, and then forgot about it.

In the interim, the core players were left to whine on the forums while Relic silently made DoW2. No doubt to be another successful game they'll abandon after about two expansions. Do I care for it? No. They once made a great game that still exists in a mauled form. I'd rather they fix it than hope they make another good game. Oh wait, they won't, because most of the original CoH devs left Relic and formed some other company. Oh well.

 

[lame-o]

Yes, the genre is enduring a washing machine effect - it is spinning endlessly and derivatively through the same old, same old, and unfortunately, people are lapping it up. Games like FEAR 2 and Call of Duty 4 exemplify what is so very wrong with the state of things; it is pure regression. Make no mistake, there is nothing significantly good about these games, bar illustrating that, really, you're a moron willing to indulge in the brainless. We are seldom rising above the Michael Bay types of the market. The quality, the innovation, the intelligence - it just isn't there. Valve have honed these to a point, but even their most recent, Episode 2, does little to raise the bar in the context of Half-life games. Among the pack it has perfected a kind of game design very few developers seem capable of comprehending, but when we've seen this in Half-life 2, and when we've experienced the slew of quality seeping out of the likes of Portal and Team Fortress 2 and L4D, we're just that little bit underwhelmed.

The problem is nestled within this Neanderthal thinking most developers seem caged by. The videogame thinking. Never transcending the barriers of, shoot the bad guys, or, how can we make this gun bigger and better. There's this refusal -- or inability -- to explore the countless, far more innovative, thought-provoking avenues we've seen only touched upon here and there. And you know, there's also the non-linear problem. We have incoherent, unpolished, fractured turds like STALKER and Far Cry 2 that seem to think opening up is the key forward. On the contrary. It's not.

That almost made me cry, thank you.

I always go back to old games like Fallout, Baldur's Gate 2, Opposing Force, TFC, and Starcraft. But, I've never really gone back to the newer games after I played my initial share of them... And I have a rather widely shared idea of what happened:

I think the common "thing" that those old games had, and I don't think I can really explain it, was a kind of gamer's vision. It's like the developers went like "I have this great idea that would fulfill my dreams of gaming so let's make it." There weren't any demographics. Money was thought of in the rockstar sense, not the business sense. There were no gameplay gimmicks they implemented because they wanted to hook players. It was just pure creativity and the gameplay just sort of happened in the process of wanting to make the best experience.

I think the only way to fix games, and other things that parallel the progress of gaming, is to just do it yourself. Shake it up like Joaquin Phoenix is hopefully doing with Hollywood..

 

[Bob Saget]

Wow, some of your guys are real cocks.

 

[CptStern]

every time I see you post I want to tear your throat out. I hated you on that crappy show full house and you're just NOT FUNNY, NO ONE WAS ON THAT SHOW, YOU ESPECIALLY!!!! please retire

 

[Ravioli]

Let's start with FEAR 2, it seems Monolith has perfectly exemplified the retrogression of the FPS genre into a slobbish, repetitive cliched rubbish I've come to expect with every single player FPS released since the post HL2-era. Where are the innovative AAA titles? They quite simply don't exist. People are doing interesting things with the third person perspective (Drake's Fortune, Gears of War, and even to some extent MGS4 - but the major publisher/developer uprisings have lead to little to no intriguing titles in one of my most beloved genres. (Epic, Id, and even Valve to some extent seem to have abandoned the concept of major AAA titles with full featured MP/SP components).

note: this can also be partially attributed to the rise of the digital distribution / web 2.0 era, but there's quite a lot of things to take a look at first. The way gamers are communicating is rapidly changing, let's slow down for a minute and discuss both what this means to the FPS genre and the video games industry in it's entirety.

Let's have a look at the best selling First Person Shooter game franchises in the last few years, you know the lineup before I even finish this sentence: Halo, Call of Duty, Rainbow Six, and the outliers such as Bioshock and Half-Life 2: Episodes 1&2. When is the last time you played a well narrated, beautifully executed, atmospheric and deep thinking first person shooter? Dues Ex perhaps? Half-Life? Bear in mind in not talking about free-roaming shooters which lack any kind of genuine narrative coherence like STALKER and Boiling Point or even glazed over turds like Far Cry 2 which masquerade over minor immersion advances like the lack of a screen-transitioning GUI or objective system (I must say though, that there are ways in which Far Cry 2 has been the most progressive shooter to come around in quite some time, which is somewhat sad).

So what in particular is holding developers back from even slightly risky projects? What is keeping developers from investing heavily in games with solid MP AND SP components (remember those days: SOFII, Jedi Knight series, the original Red Storm Rainbow Six titles, etc?) There's a lot of factors that could be contributing, namely the cost risk analysis in an economy that doesn't support risky development practices -- but primarily we're seeing what the movie industry saw not too many years ago -- very few studios remain independent from major conglomerates which spark projects purely based on assumed demographic interest and to please major investors. Case and point; the rise of Activision Blizzard, and their dropping of Schafer's latest project and now attempting to claim that they still somehow own publishing rights to the IP.

I've digressed severely here and you're probably not still reading -- but I dearly miss the days of well crafted, story driven FPS. You know, games like No One Lives Forever. While interesting franchises do exist, and games like Bioshock, Far Cry 2 and Half-Life 2 + episodes have been intriguing genre highlights, they do very little in the way of innovation, replay ability or balancing / integrating community involvement (modding), or co-op game play and significant narratives, things I feel the gaming community has reached out for and even constructed themselves out of dire situations developers have left us with. (UT3, FC2, Crysis) and so forth -- wonderful communities rising out of little to no developer support seems to be a trend amongst online gaming communities.

 

[Eejit]

Thanks Ravioli, such valuable insights.

 

[Ravioli]

Thanks Ravioli, such valuable insights.

 

[Asknoone]

You could substitute that for all of your posts and there would no discernable difference. Well, I suppose it is good you are no longer pretending.

 

[Kadayi]

I totally agree. Make the combat more involved, more visceral. I honestly found HL2 and the episodes a chore to play through simply because the combat didn't at any point ask any tricky questions. It didn't have any 'wtf are you going to do now moments' becasue all you had to do was pick the biggest gun and point and click faster than the bad guys. Much older games had done this much better. Compared to everything else HL2 does so amazingly well this tired gunplay is such a contrast it grates on me whith each play through. Many other games are just as guilty, but the contrast isn't there.

Actually I think we are talking at cross purposes. Personally I really don't see what more can be added to ingame FPS 'combat' beyond what either FEAR or Crysis deliver in terms of kinetics & atmospherics tbh. Inevitably as tech improves we'll achieve better physics, better graphics & fight smarter AI, but a better smarter murder simulator doesn't interest me tbh.

http://www.halflife2.net/forums/showthread.php?t=151950

In the GTA IV sub forum I posed the question 'Dwayne or Playboy X?' because I wanted to see what peoples reasoning was behind why they elected to pick one over the other. Even though you're introduced to Playboy X first and do a few more missions for him, a lot of people chose to kill him instead of Dwayne regardless of the material rewards. Why? because the characterization came across so successfully, and people clearly derived a degree of satisfaction in taking him out. Certainly Rockstar made Playboy X out to be a bit of an asshole, but it wasn't as though Dwayne was wholly sympathetic, of particularly good company.

When HL2: EP2 ended the phrase that summed up my feelings was pretty much 'Come EP3, combine mother****ers are going to PAY for that shit for real!!!'. Strong emotions to be honest, and all brought about by excellent characterisation by the developers.

Forget faceless hordes of anonymous enemies coming at you. If I'm going to be killing anyone I want to be that emotionally invested in what I'm doing. The tools exist to bring FPS ingame characters to life, the more developers can get you to buy into them, the better I say.