First Person Suckers

[Alf-Life]

Funeral... good idea for an actual event rather than just a location, although I think someone's been watching 'Assassins' too much. :P

Also, Eight Rooks, you just reminded me... I was watching Band of Brothers the other day and there's an episode in which Winters (I think it is) shoots a German and keeps seeing him shooting him in flashback until at the end it's revealed the German was unarmed, and it zooms in on the very young German lad looking round with fear in his eyes, and Winters panicking and killing him accidentally -- now, would it be too traumatic if in an FPS (or GTA game) each time you killed a civilian you got a first-person flashback in slo-mo and silence of the civilian looking at you confused and then collapsing in strams of blood with a vacant look on their face?

[Daniel]

I appreciate what you mean about the futuristic settings providing an easy way out, by the way; I'd be interested in it more simply because I like sci-fi elements... and I said five-minutes-into-the-future, I meant I didn't want the standard green blobs and nondescript aliens either. (Not accusing you of slating me, just explaining.) But I do like some level of detachment from the real world, and I do like technobabble and impossible technology et al. Not all the time, but some of it....

If I ever made games, I might let people do that stuff, but I'd punish them like nothing else.

Setting things straight - my rant against cliche sci-fi fps games wasnt slating you. I just don't see why fps games constantly put us on mars or in trenches. And yeah, such games MUST have a level of justice proportional to the crimes. For instance, a single gunshot in the suburbs might attract the odd prowler, but emptying a semi automatic would mean helicopters, swat teams and curious neighbours with shotguns and shaky trigger fingers investigating the commotion next-door.

[Eight Rooks]

I've never seen Assassins, either. No, really.

I'd quite like it if - to continue with the assassin/contract killer thing - basically your boss wants you to get jobs done with the minimum of fuss, and you get penalised for killing any civilian. Start the levels off so it's not likely to happen, make it something you have to work hard to avoid as you go along, possibly throw in some kind of story branches where you can purposefully steer clear of certain levels where you're more likely to incur collateral damage (as a sop to all the twisted little psychos out there, hehe). And have the game keep a running total, too, and basically if you kill more than the "acceptable" number of bystanders your boss just gets tired of you and has you taken out, ergo a (somewhat) plausible reason for why innocent person killed=mission failure.

And it would be nice to see a police force who were actually effective... this was another of the Things That Would Be In This Game I'd Love To See (this is getting into currently unavailable technology, but what the hell) a city that actually had hundreds of thousands of people in, certainly crowds comparable to, say, London streets at rush hour. Without going into too much blathering you've got to move through the crowds somehow/for some reason, close in on your mark(s), but if you alert him/them prematurely - or maybe even inevitably - gunfire breaks out, people run screaming in every direction, police swarm the location and everything's suddenly gone to hell...

And no, I didn't think you were slating me, Daniel. On that note, it was nice - even though I haven't actually played the thing for myself - to see Kreed getting a critical/GameFAQs pasting, just on principle (Acclaim + yet another generic-seeming sci-fi FPS = not terribly heartening).

[Alf-Life]

Yeah, I agree about the crowd thing - hopefully that's the next big thing that games can claim, Proper Crowd Systems(tm)... imagine the civilians running around, crawling to safety and being taken hostage ? la Time Crisis 3, in a real time 3D FPS environment.

[Daniel]

Yeah i've often wanted to see a crowd scatter during a shooting (in a game of course ). I imagine some drop their shopping bags and stand in shock while the rest scream and scatter in every direction. I think the hitman idea would provide some structure, so long as freeroaming was still included.

I still don't like story though. For me, my contact would simply supply me with the marks address, or maybe if he/she was a dignitary, then an itinerary for the day including ribbon cutting, speaches, meetings etc. Then i could visit the scenes (being careful not to raise suspicion of the secret service i.e. arriving at different locations in the same anonymous truck) and select my method of dispatch. Could either be sniper rifle bullet to the 20th floor of a business meeting, or threading a trip wire thru the ribbon and wiping out half of the new walmart store. All good fun.

The need for a clean job could be included in the contract. It would make for greater challenge and add more artistry to the gameplay : ) For instance, maybe the wife wants the rich cheating husband killed and so you might be taking him out at a red traffic signal while your paying client is in the passenger seat screaming and crying appropriately when cops arrive.

And i've not seen assassins. I've seen leon, godfather 2 (good idea about rooftops - rooftops are sniper heaven since dirty harry) and le femme nikita.

[Marvelon]

I think the thing I don't like about FPSs is the "big-button" syndrome. You need to opena door somewhere, you need to press a button. that button is going to be HUGE. Why? Because otherwise you wouldn't be able to see it or press it.

this comes partially I think from the flawed control system (don't get me wrong I think Mouse/Keyboard workd fine for what the FPS genre has become) Doom was originally intended to be played with a Joystick : )

My FPS of choice is Soldier of Fortune II (Demolition Multiplayer) it's a cruel gametype with long wait for respawn, but it means you're life or death means something. For yourself and the team you are with.

[Darwock]

I made it up to page 4 of this thread, but all the games I'm reading about just induce big yawns in me really.. Halo 2, Half-life 2, Timesplitters 2, Doom 3... who cares...

I've never really liked FPS games, I don't see the appeal. I played Medal of Honor Frontline but it made me nauseous, and I tried to finish Metroid Prime (although I gather it doesn't count) and it bored me senseless. Each to their own.

[Alf-Life]

Marvellon: To be fair, recent FPSs don't really do that anymore... I remember one FPS that did indeed have a 'small' button (I think it might have been Elite Force) - or even the button in the first level of TimeSplitters 2 to open the door to the caves and it proves too confusing unless the buttons are highlighted in some way.
Fair enough, it's lazy design, but you could also argue that 'hiding' a button to make it realistic is unneccessarily confusing design.