First Person Suckers

[Brats]

FPS come in for a hard time because there are so many of them. An overcrowded genre is easy to attack. It doesn't stop the very best ones from being ****ing ace though. If there were thousands of mediocre on rails shooters released tomorrow, it doesn't diminish the achievements of the best in the genre like Starfox or Rez.

I'm actually going to say that Half Life wasn't as good a game as people remember. Many of the levels are lacklustre (not just the end) and the game is pretty basic by today's standards. Things have moved on so much.

The thing I don't get about FPS is that you often hear people say 'I'm bored of FPS. I played Goldeneye once and that was enough, yadda, yadda, yadda' and yet you rarely hear the same thing said about shmups. Yet they are as similar to each other as FPS are and pretty abundant to boot too.

[IainMcC]

But couldn't there be a way to keep the narrative, yet make the game so it truely is free-roaming? For example, ditch the whole scheme of levels, and just have the one big area in which the entire game takes place. This way, the player can go anywhere they want to in the area, for example, straight to the end boss. This way the game leaves more for the players to discover - did they see everything the game had to offer? Would completing a certain objective before another change the way the narrative plays out? Stuff like that. It's not an impossible task (at it's basic form, this is what Super Mario 64 does, although it still uses the levels scheme) it would just take a lot of work. But a game that takes longer to be made, yet turns out to be better because of this is a good thing, no?

What you're talking about here is essentially Morrowind. This concept works fine in an RPG, where you want to give the player as much to do and as much freedom to do it as possible, but would defeat the object of an FPS. Before you cite Thief or Deus Ex as examples of games that allow you to do this, these games are far more akin to RPGs than FPS games. They simply take place in a first-person perspective.

An FPS player is after thrills. It makes no sense to allow the player to bypass the enemies entirely. All of the most successful FPS games in recent years run entirely on scripted set-pieces and set spawn points (barring Halo and Far Cry, which instead use complex AI). The objective in an FPS is to throw as many adrenalin-inducing situations at the player as possible to keep them interested, not allow them to wander around without a firefight for a couple of hours, so that they eventually throw the game disk out of the window in boredom...

[JibberX]

Come on dude, its a completely different gaming dynamic. An FPS as a rule is an "experience" game, and shmup as a rule is a "twitch" game. Patterns paths learning improving an FPS on the other hand, with the AI buff is more about wangling through a room laying waste to all that breaths.

[IainMcC]

I'm actually going to say that Half Life wasn't as good a game as people remember. Many of the levels are lacklustre (not just the end) and the game is pretty basic by today's standards. Things have moved on so much.

Half-Life may not be very special by today's standards, but at the time it was nothing short of revolutionary. It re-wrote the rule book about what could actually be achieved with the FPS genre. Up to then, no FPS had ever tried to tell a story, and no game up to that point had ever used scripted set-pieces with anything like the same level of excellence.

Even today it stands up better than dross like Chrome, Devestation or Painkiller. And the AI... my God, the AI. The first time I came up against the Marines and they flushed me out from behind a load of crates with a torrent of grenades...

[IainMcC]

Come on dude, its a completely different gaming dynamic. An FPS as a rule is an "experience" game, and shmup as a rule is a "twitch" game.

Disagree. I'd class Serious Sam as a twitch game, and that's an FPS, unless we're not following the same nomenclature. There aren't any "Oh. My. God." experience moments in that, like there are in say Medal Of Honor: Allied Assault. (e.g. Omaha Beach) You're far too busy screaming and fending off the hordes of headless Syrian suicide bombers as fast as your fingers can move...

[Ish]

For me the FPS genre is live and kicking. Love it. Still.

FarCry I thought was ace - I'm not sure what people are expecting from a game when they criticise its "free roaming". If it had been anymore free roaming it would have been utterly without focus. You need some constraints to give a game like that focus in my opinion.

And I love the twitchiness of games like UT2004 - to me there the 3d equivelant of ye olde style scrolling shoot 'em ups: being played as much on reactions and adrenalin as they are on strategy.

And Halo on the XBox. Still my favourite next gen game. Everything was right. It made me feel like I was there fighting the covenant. I don't think if that had been a third person game it would have had the same impact even if the controls and camera were perfect.

Of course the other reason I love the FPS genre is that I don't feel there's ever been a third person game thats quite got it all right all the time in terms of controls and camera. I still to this day get annoyed with camera's and movement and often feel detached from the action. Even the mighty Mario 64 (which I did enjoy immensely but still cursed viciously from time to time). Though maybe I just suck at them.

[Brats]

Aye, all action based FPS like Quake, Doom, UT, Half Life, Far Cry are definately not 'experience' games (with all the suggested connotations that brings ) and I would even class Halo as a skill based game rather than an experience based game. Okay it tells a story, but hell so does PDO.

[Brats]

Half-Life may not be very special by today's standards, but at the time it was nothing short of revolutionary. It re-wrote the rule book about what could actually be achieved with the FPS genre. Up to then, no FPS had ever tried to tell a story, and no game up to that point had ever used scripted set-pieces with anything like the same level of excellence.

Even today it stands up better than dross like Chrome, Devestation or Painkiller. And the AI... my God, the AI. The first time I came up against the Marines and they flushed me out from behind a load of crates with a torrent of grenades...

You are right of course. But even at the time I felt the game had to much chaff to wheat ratio. The beginning is lovely, but the early levels in the offices are standard FPS fodder, the level with the rail carriages and the switches was unnecessary, the water bits were rubbish and Zen.....well you can guess where I stand here.

Any bits with the marines was awesome though.

To me, Half Life is like the Clash's Sadinista. A classic single album struggling against the weight fo an overblown triple.

[JibberX]

I've got this horrible tendancy not to give a damn what definition means what to whom. Like that whole "generation" thang. Basically I class an "experience" game with a game where it would be unplayable without the graphics, environment, sound etc, so DOOM is an experience game, to me. If you can play a game either wireframe, monochrome whatever and still have exactly the same gameplay mechanic thats a "game". Its just you, the interface and the screen.

[Brats]

But any game is effected by graphics, sound, etc. Take Dodonpachi and replace the ships with pong style blocks, the bosses with a unregconisable shapes with the odd hit point and replace the ace music and sound effects with single channel beeps, and the thing becomes a different (and inferior) game.

The original Turok had a cheat for a monochrome wirefarme mode like you describe. It didn't bring the same enjoyment, but the game mechanic was exactly the same.

[Zed]

I think i'm over FPS's too. One thing i havent seen mentioned is this; i think the problem is that FPS's are "old technology", much like 2D platformers got replaced by 3D ones, because basically before you couldnt model a decent 3D environment. Similarly first person was introduced because you could model 3D (not properly, ie DOOM) and limiting the vision aspect cut down the required power.

As a human-being i am "aware" of more than my strict head-held-in-a-fixed-position sight, so i wonder if 3rd Person Shooters are the replacement for FPS. It simulates the fact an elite <insert character genre> soldier should be pretty damn aware of his/her surroundings, and gives more "feel" of your involvement to that character, and hence the story. At the least every FPS should allow play from 3rd person, despite the arguement it allows "unrealistic" vision.

So yeah for me i think FPS's are dinosaurs, it should be 3rd person till we get the tech for goggles and head-motion detectors that truely simulate you running about killing things.

[Razz]

I've been playing Enemy Territory on PC more than anything else lately (YES, even more than FFXI).

Best FPS multiplayer of today

*runs from Quake3 fanboys*

[Daniel]

I got tired of fps games in my old pc gaming days. I'm sure for newcomers there is lots of novelty, but it didnt matter to me if the doom key had become the nazi held church. I think quake ruined it too. I played quake online so much that everything else seemed slow, while the story and set-pieces just got in the way of the deathmatch mentality i was in.

[TheForce]

I'm playing fps since the early days of Wolfenstein3D, Doom, Goldeneye till Quake 3, Halo etc etc... and I'm still lovin it , to bad my PC now ist just a little to slow to play Far Cry like it's meant to be. so I can't commend on that game,
But I'm glad and I'm thanking the mighty god of gaming that there are xbox versions coming from Half-life 2, Far Cry and of course Doom3 ! there are many very good fps shooters out now and even more are coming (Halo2, Doom3, Half-life2), so for me I'm still not tired of fps at all. For me genre is alive and kicking and only it's all getting better and better !!

[Brats]

I think i'm over FPS's too. One thing i havent seen mentioned is this; i think the problem is that FPS's are "old technology", much like 2D platformers got replaced by 3D ones, because basically before you couldnt model a decent 3D environment. Similarly first person was introduced because you could model 3D (not properly, ie DOOM) and limiting the vision aspect cut down the required power.

As a human-being i am "aware" of more than my strict head-held-in-a-fixed-position sight, so i wonder if 3rd Person Shooters are the replacement for FPS. It simulates the fact an elite <insert character genre> soldier should be pretty damn aware of his/her surroundings, and gives more "feel" of your involvement to that character, and hence the story. At the least every FPS should allow play from 3rd person, despite the arguement it allows "unrealistic" vision.

So yeah for me i think FPS's are dinosaurs, it should be 3rd person till we get the tech for goggles and head-motion detectors that truely simulate you running about killing things.

An interesting point, but I'm not sure about the 'old tech' argument. There was hack for Doom that allowed you to play it third person with no hit on performance.

Also, playing first person does bring a more involved sense of immersion. How many people here prefer to play racers using the in car view rather than the chase cam. Sure, the chase cam gives a wider peripheral vision, but the in car view is usually much more exciting and involving.