Have single-player FPS gone backwards?
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- čas přidán 9. 07. 2013
- TotalBiscuit brings you an exposé on the current state of first person shooters in comparison to older games in the genre.
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Another thing gone is running around at 90 mph.
having the same speed as your rockets and shooting while you are running, good old days.
Rocket jumping!
Sorry to reply to such old comment but one thing that I personally like is the advanced movement techniques: bunnyhopping, straferunning, rocketjumping etc.
Alex Wellbelove Still got TF2 for that
Running faster than rockets and SR50 to exit 😂
In short, basically FPS has turned into an interactive movie.
"M4 wielding simon says simulator". TB is a genius.
John Bain's definitive eyeopeners and masterpieces:
- "The Great Framerate Non-Debate"
- "What a PC Options menu is supposed to look like"
- "Have single-player FPS gone backwards?"
- "Modern Military Shooters in a nutshell"
- every FarCry video featuring alligators
Don't forget "Stop liking things I don't like"
exactly hahahaahah
As well as his videos on pre-orders and Early Access.
The Bioshock series actually handled this system pretty well. Most notably the first game. Multiple weapons, hidden rooms, scavenging, non-regenerating health, etc.
And sadly Bioshock Infinite threw all that interesting stuff away
@@rockys201 not entirely accurate. It definitely still had exploration, non-regenerating health and resource management. But it did have the 2 weapon issue, which for me was more than made up for by the utterly startling relationship between booker and elizabeth. There aren't many films written as good as that. But back to mechanics, using plasmids/vigors with a weapon automatically made infinite a more liberating game. I still think bioshock 1 is probably better, only because of its significance in 2007, but infinite is still a masterpiece and I believe that the game losing some hacking minigames, and including lockpicking, got misinterpreted by fans as debasing the core of the franchise.
@@AJ-pc9gu no, the minigames were at the core of what gave Bioshock it's depth and replay value, and the beauty of it was that it was nearly entirely optional. There's a security camera that hasn't spotted you - do you destroy it? Do you sneak past it, or do you hack it and use it against your enemies? No good at hacking? Use a buy out, or a hack tool.
You've got electrobolt, inferno, telekenisis and enrage near the beginning, but only have 3 slots, which do you pick? Explore and unlock things as you progress and get more slots for your infinitely fantastic abilities.
These are just a couple of examples of the choices you get in B1, and B2 as well. Infinite never comes close to this in any way shape or form. You get a strict two gun limit from the start and you're given your vigors at scripted points. Gun turrets always see you when you enter a room, so there's no true choice or strategy involved there. Possession comes nowhere near as interesting or involved as hacking because it just feels like a nerfed, watered down version of it
@@rockys201 I totally agree with the economical side of bioshock 1, where you buy slots and the plasmids that you want. But that aside, the hacking was extremely repetitive and I can promise you no one found it difficult. However, I dont think that the decisions were that big of a deal, since there's huge imbalance with the plasmids. Also infiinite did add the armour system, which i found to be roughly tantamount to all the upgrade slots that the first game had. Crafting being removed was a shame tho, not for the process but for the outcome. Having multiple ammo types was great, but for me was counterbalanced by Elizabeth's tear. The weapon upgrades were a loss tho.
@@AJ-pc9gu sure it got repetitive, especially towards the end, but it was still a very interesting and dynamic system that demanded more playthroughs from you in order to see everything. Infinite never had any interesting systems from beginning to end and some mechanics don't even make sense within itself. The two weapon limit was stupid when combined with an upgrade system because this game constantly encourages you to drop old weapons for guns that are more suited to the level. This means dropping an upgraded gun and hope you come across it again later in the game, which you mostly don't.
You could argue that the first game was easy, but that doesn't mean it's bad, and in fact the game design was still way better than Infinite. Infinite is only hard at times because it throws overwhelming enemies at you all at once, while you're constantly scrabbling around looking for health kits.
In the original there was loads of room for planning your attacks, which was vital for Big Daddies, but you get nothing remotely close to this with Infinite.
Resistance:Fall Of Man had you shooting enemies immediately after the intro cutscene
Using a controller.
I can't remember playing Doom thinking "Well this is ok, but I really wish I could only have two weapons (and less imaginative at that) and IF ONLY there was more grey and brown.
lol
And the demons should be replaced with scary foreigners.
TheBuilderize They refer to the demons in the mod Call of Dooty as "Russians"
God, I miss this man. Thank God we have the Internet to listen to his pearls of wisdom whenever we like. 😿
Same. Such a shame to lose him so early 😢. Would love to hear him wax poetic about the current state of FPS and games in general.
The best gaming CZcamsr IMO Nobody has even come close to filling that void. He was a fellow Brit, genuinely insightful and didn't pad out his videos with meaningless waffle. RIP TB, you're greatly missed.
Doom 2016: Attacked as soon as you start the game
This makes me happy.
and melee kills killed game. Doom eternal even has 16 or something ammo for shotgun with a lot of platforming. Move on people. Move on.
@@MrSp0iler Nushooters vs OS shooters is a huge argument right now. I much much prefer OS shooters to Nushooters. I like ultra fast paced fluid shooting action, which is why I think PvZ Garden Warfare genre of TPS does so well today. I just wish it was doing better, and the new one is alright I s'pose.
@@Skellotronix Too bad consumers think otherwise- they want interactive movies not games. Only thing I wish is that mega corporations at least wouldn't buy small studios. But they just buy qualified workers that way I guess. Rest in peace, TotalBiscuit.
@@MrSp0iler I wish the new FPS games were as fast as the old school ones. Speed and power and control beat graphics and flair any day. Your skill is more important than your "experience" AKA time spent in game.
@@Skellotronix Yup Doom 3 is a tombstone. Good action guns sound effects but you see the dirt that is coming to you in the future- consolised crap with gun taking third of the screen. DUSK better than Doom eternal and Doom 2016. But games so rare I just moved to audio, much more easily made quality content. If you manage to find what suits you.
I loved the exploration in the older FPS games. Honestly, I find the gameplay was alot more tactical. It was filled with difficult choices. Like:
"Okay... do I clear the next room with my chaingun, or do I hold onto that ammo for if I find a boss and try to get by on my Uzi... Oh hey a rocket launcher! Bet I'll need that later, better not waste it."
Or
"I could save my ammo for my BFG... but then I'll risk losing more health and I don't know if there's another healthpack in this level..."
Remember back when taking damage was actually a problem to be solved, rather than just 'Oop, better duck for 5 seconds and get fully healed'?
I miss it... i really do
Specifically in shadow warrior id remember health packs i specifically didnt use or couldn't use yet for later if i needed it
And the better you got at the level, the more id have that went unused
@@elgatochurro When games have pickups that meld with the maps and encounters well they are masterpieces, regardless of genre. FPS with those are probably the best tests of skill in gaming period IMO.
For the people that acutally thinks that the game is TOO UNFORGIVEN because you have to restart the level everytime you die...The game has a Quicksave feature and normal save from the menu as well. TotaBiscuit was too concentrated talking about old FPS and forgot to save often, because there's no checkpoint on the levels, just autosaves at the start of each level, if i'm not mistaken.
That's what we hardcore mode gamers like to call 'Ironman'.
exlensic or 'Fuck Sephiroth Over mode'
F6 and F9 are your best friends in old FPS
Bruh... Try starting each level without all the weapons you get from previous levels. They are actually designed to be finished like that. This style of level allows for a lot of cool shit to be done.
Modern FPSs have ruined me, i can't finish the first level of Shadow Warrior ;_;
TORILLA TAVATAAN!
I have a problem with Shadow Warrior as well. I cleared Doom, Doom 2, I fought through Duke Nukem and all itś expansions, I have SLAIN Blood and its expansions including Death Wish. But I dont remember ever having seen the second level in Shadow Warrior. It just feels like I have little control and any kind of inconvenience throws me into unavoidable, unrecoverable death.
lol try blood, might be easier
@RetroDoomer40 You meant
Yes, please do
It aint
@@ScileSc Really? Shadow Warrior is definitely hard as balls, harder than the other build games. It's not impossible though. I was able to get through a few levels so far on the 2nd highest difficulty
Here's a comprehensive list of all the classic FPS's from this era (I recommend trying out at least a dozen of them):
Doom
Doom 2
Final Doom
Hexen
Heretic
Star Wars: Dark Forces
Duke Nukem 3D
Shadow Warrior
Blood
Powerslave
Witchaven
Witchaven 2
Wolfenstein
Wolfenstein: Spear of Destiny
Strife
Rise of the Triad
Realms of the Haunting
Cybermage
System Shock
Outlaws
Chasm: The Rift
Retro Blazer
WW2: GI
Redneck Rampage
The Terminator: Future Shock
SkyNET (The Terminator: Skynet)
The Terminator 2029
Terminator Rampage
Blake Stone: Aliens of Gold
Blake Stone: Planet Strike
Alien Trilogy
Zero Tolerance
Damage Incorporated
CyCloneS
Alpha Storm
In Extremis
Mortal Coil: Adrenalin Intelligence
Rebel Moon
Rebel Moon Rising
Rex Blade
Skaphander: Der Auftrag
Last Rites
William Shatners Tekwar
Quake?
bud389 No Shadow Warrior? ;-;
Doom,Doom 2,Duke Nukem 3D,Wolfenstein 3D,Hexen,Heretic,Strife,this is where i am,and i really don't mind the "old" graphics,it is about how i feel,not about what i see
What about Blood OUW?
i don't know what does "OUW" means but i know Blood, it's a very good game,love the story,but there is one thing that i hate in this game,hell hands, it is just one of the best old 3D games :)
By OUW I meant Blood One Unit Whole ( I hear it called that and just blood ). One of the best Build Engine games IMO
*****
i wish they would make redux version of blood, have bought both duke and shadow warrior and its great, 20+ hours of gameplay on 3rd difficulty, beat that modern fps, when i have finished fear 3 in 5 hours i ve died a little inside
@@GenetixmaN i know that's five years old but blood is one of my favorite games of all time
FPS's will eventually go round back to the beginning.
Yea.
they are already starting too. thank heavens, its only indipendants mainly at the moment, but, once console gaming inevitably has another major crash soon, i think the "retro FPS movement" will start to really pick up steam as the older, PC (master race) audience will become the mainstream again, meaning more money will be available from backers for proper old school shooters.
Dont Get me wrong Modern Shooters Have there place but its alot more fun to rocket jump across a map and bash a enamy players head in with a shovel....
Simeon Yves Try "aleph one:Rubricon X"
Trust me "No Remorse"
I am going to Point out that Far Cry 3 Blood dragon Stand Alone DLC is probably one of the Early Signs of triple AAA Slowly going back to Arcade style FPS Games :P
if only he could've seen Ultrakill :(
Actually what you explain in this video also applies to many other genres too. Third Person Shooters, Hack & Slash, etc... Thanks to Resident Evil 5-6, the horror genre has pretty much also turned into this same roller-coaster ride type of experience. (As well as turning into action games) You never backtrack anymore. The environments no longer have a story behind them, they are just pretty graphics.
What is insane too is that developing those elaborate linear story sequences costs millions of dollars. And because they have almost no interactivity, they are consumed super fast only to never be seen again. No wonder companies have to lay off employees, outsource their stuff and try to figure out ways to milk us with DLC. : P
Let's hope "The Evil Within" will bring back the horror genre back to it's glorious days.
Even Resident Evil 4 sucked already.
*****
It's okay in some games, but not all of them.
Come on! you cant think resident evil as horror, try amnesia, damned and outlast theres youre horror!
Grand Theft Auto is amazing, at least San Andreas and Vice City.
Just remembered this video again, when started to playing (first, singleplayer) UnreaL. You crash with the ship, nothing is explained to you, you explore by your own and you must find out how to get out and survive. There are enemies even before you got a weapon, and when you do finally get a PISTOL the first enemy you face has TWO ROCKET LAUNCHERS :D Now THAT is a game!!
i agree but they're not gonna get rid of the new style of FPS anytime soon. games like battlefield and cod are just printing money cause people always blindly buy the newest game. if there is any hope of change the gamers need to stop buying the generic titles and force game companies to be more creative
The modern resurgence of retro FPS games is something you'd be very happy about, no doubt. Ah, TB, what a shame you're not with us anymore. Rest in peace, good man.
Half life 2 and Half Life 2 Episode 1 was my favorite fps because it WAS a maze and a very good one!
no it wasn't
While I agree that military FPS games are crap for the most part, I don't see why so many people harp on story, as if it's automatically bad that it's included, instead of directing it at those telling the story instead. I enjoy immersion in games; it's part of the reason I play them and why I don't listen to outside music while doing so. Personally, story is key for my enjoyment of a game, otherwise it's just run and gun and find health. While some people find this enjoyable and "WHAT A GAME MUST BE..RAAAGE!!"..I get nothing out of it once I stop playing it.
Yes, modern, mostly military, games all have very generic stories, but let's direct the blame at the story tellers, not the idea of a story.
You can have your old school experience if you want, but don't be so arrogant as to say story in gaming, or FPS, is bad.
its not the developer's fault, its the consumers. We wanted more realistic military based shooters. I know people who consider back tracking to be a sin of game design. We wanted the high end graphics and multiplayer focused shooters like Battlefield and COD. The only reason we buy shooters is for the multiplayer. Its the consumer's fault for allowing the devs to stick to this formula of game design for so long without question. Its that endless quest for realism that has led to this. We wanted it they gave it us Its gotten to the point where the realism out weighs the fun.
horseshit, its pushed on us, like shit hollywood movies and crap cartoons... people gotta turn to japan for the good stuff
look at Konami a shit company from japan
I think this video could have been 7 minutes shorter and still have made the same points. Regardless, I believe that the cinematic experience that has grown into becoming part of the modern shooter has given us a new type of game instead of taking away from the "old-school" genre. It's not a true comparison when you see them as two different genres. it just turns out that the shooter with a focus on linear storytelling and on-rails gameplay has become more popular than the maze-shooter genre, owing a lot of that popularity to online multiplayer. It's a lot easier to balance a multiplayer experience when the weapons are similar in performance, unless you give the players unrealistic superpowers like rocketjumping or super fast movement. games like battlefield 3/4 and CoDMW have their place, as do games like unreal tournament/quake arena/TF2, and Duke Nukem/serious sam/shadow warrior. But they're not within the same genre just because they all are shooters, and all are played from a 1st person perspective.
I hope that made sense.
I agree and disagree at the same time. Yes, they're different kinds of shooters, but they're still within the big classifying genre called "First Person Shooter." And the bottom line is, these days when someone hears the term, they don't think of Doom or Quake or Half-Life. They think Call of Duty, Battlefield, Crysis, games like that.
And the biggest problem is that the Doom-like games aren't being made anymore because the modern gaming audience is convinced that FPS means "CoD clone" If they're supposed to be different kinds of games, they should all be being made in equal amounts. But it's not like that. CoD clones are being pumped out like crazy and we get maybe one old-school style shooter per year if we're lucky.
Mister Poly Being different types of games does not mean they should be made in in equal amounts. Game developers make the games that will make them the most profit, and CoD has made a lot of money, so game developers will try to make "modern" shooters over "old-school" shooters, because the chance of them making money is greater.
A big problem for the old-school genre is that the games aren't getting pre-release hype, and the one game that did (Doom 3) tanked because people didn't like it. I know literally no one who plays old school shooters, and there may be many legitimate reasons for that, but I can imagine that one of the biggest is that they have too many different games to choose from like Crysis, Battlefield, CoD and maybe even Far Cry. Supply comes from demand, and the demand doesn't seem to be there.
I feel like the subgenres should be emphazised because of that. That way Serious Sam and Shadow Warrior wouldn't have to compete for buyers among the big names.
McJaews The demand is definitely there. It may not be coming from the common gamer, but that doesn't mean nobody wants to play old-school shooters anymore. There's plenty of smaller developers who understand this. They acknowledge their fanbase and as a result their games are very enjoyable: Serious Sam 3, Rise of the Triad, Hard Reset, Shadow Warrior, etc. They may not have sold as much as AAA releases, but they also aren't the ones that put millions of dollars into marketing to shove the games down everyone's throats. This is another big reason modern shooters are hated so much - excessive exposure.
Another problem with many AAA developers is that they seem to believe correlation equals causation. "CoD has this? And it sold? If we do that too, we'll also sell!" Then they act shocked when they find that nobody likes their game. They'll get a few sales during the initial period from those who want a similar experience to CoD, but then they'll realize that if people wanted to play CoD, they'd just go back to CoD.
Mister Poly You have some good points, but I disagree with you on the "over exposure is bad" part. People don't hate CoD because of over exposure. Most hate it beause they either
1) tried and failed at playing it,
2) can't afford or have time to play it,
3) had no interest in shooters to begin with, and as such don't want to hear about it at all.
(all of this, I realize, is speculation)
My point is that the only people who will hate extra exposure for old school shooters are hipsters who like their games to be underground and secret because it makes them feel special. Exposure works, and even though you get a lot of haters, you get a lot more buyers, and more buyers will in time equal more games. (which then will mean more copycat titles, sequels with little to no innovation, lower quality, and the little guys who make the games now being lost in oblivion because of the few that become massively successful.)
Mister Poly
Don't forget the people who are tired of the children screamin on the mics when they play cod.
While I agree with some of what you're saying, you are not giving nostalgia enough credit. I think you're roughly the same age as me - early thirties - so you probably remember how our parents complained that their toys required real imagination and effort to have fun with, as opposed to these gaming system kids are rotting their brains with nowadays.
But now the boot is on the other foot. We've grown up, many of us have got kids of our own, and we are telling them that the games we grew up with required more imagination and effort. "When I was your age, you had to make up your own story based on the game's levels and environments. And if you got stuck, you couldn't just look up the solution online. Not that you need to, given how easy modern games are. And the stories? If you were lucky, you'd get a few lines of text at the start. Not like modern games with their cut scenes and exposition".
It's an endless cycle. The fact that some of what you're saying is right means little. Even if modern games kept the tried and tested formula of these old FPS games, we would find something to complain about regardless. It's called getting old. And it sucks balls.
... or maybe I'm just being an equally cynical Brit? It must be in our DNA.
and this is why Metro 2033 is my favorite FPS
After playing some old school FPS's for the first time I can really agree. At first it kinda felt like bullcrap having to find secrets to beat levels until I realised that it wasn't required, it only made things easier. I also really did notice how much fun the level design was, and to be honest I really don't think it would be that much harder to develop for, it would just take a different mindset. I really do hope more games go a more old school style of doing things, it feels much more fun to play.
Whoa, this is new, someone who is open to the idea of playing some of the old School games, I dont know how old you are or how long you have been playing games, but this is commendable either way. You dont see the "new Gen" of gamers trying out the old stuff, because of how it looks, or whatever the dumb reason that comes. Kudos for you man.
I have been playing FPS since Wolfenstein 3d, and i gotta say. Single player wise, the games today, dont come close to how fun Wolf3d, Doom, Doom2, Marathon1&2 and Quake, Half-Life (to name a few) were. Even the multiplayer. I cant recall a Multiplayer game that i had as much fun as i had playing Quake III or my all time personal favorite RTCW (multiplayer on RTCW was just incredible). The TEAM aspect of RTCW is still unmatched to this day, even Battlefield wish they could come close to what RTCW had to offer.back in 2001.
If you never played Return, go try it out, sadly the multiplayer is "dead" today, but the Single Player still kicks major ass. I recommend you try it out if you havent.
Peace.
PhobosAE Yeah picked up Shadow Warrior on steam and was blow away how fun it was, then I noticed the original was free and gave that a shot. After the comparison I feel bad about what Duke Nukem Forever turned into when it could've been something awesome like Shadow Warrior. Oh well I guess anything Gearbox touches but Half-Life, Borderlands, and Company of Heroes turns into trash.
Super cool man, im happy you found those old gems. And i agree with you, gearbox really has a thing now for ruining older franchises. Try out Return To Castle Wolfenstein if you get the chance, as i said, the MP sadly is dead, but the Campaign still kicks major ass.
Cheers
PhobosAE
I found Return to Castle Wolfenstein for 50p and I agree, the Campaign is brilliant.
There might be mods to make multiplayer work somewhere, like there are for some of the Tony Hawk games.
Recently I've been playing three great series of shooters: STALKER, Red Orchestra, and ARMA. I used to play a lot of Battlefield (still do from time to time), and I really didn't realize how much hand-holding the battlefield series does until I started playing these games, which barely hold your hand at all. The great thing about these games is that, even though you get your ass kicked when you start out, you see yourself improve and actually notice yourself becoming a better player. A lot of FPS games have such a compressed skill gap that you don't really notice your abilities improving anymore.
Spooky799kil STALKER has the coolest premise, ARMA offers the most diversity in gameplay, and RO2 (in my opinion) does the best job putting you in the action; the weapon damage, suppression, and sound effects make it the most intense shooter I've ever played.
I remember the days of Soldier of Fortune 2 where I had to explore the levels. I remember the days of old where I found secrets in Doom and Terminator Rampage. I remember that joy when discovering a new weapon or weapon upgrade in Turok 2.
I remember, you remember, but think about all the young ones who don't know anything except for the modern FPS.
I've actually found myself playing older games and mods of older games because they are more FUN. I've also started making LPs of these games so that the "younglings" can check out a little bit of classic gaming.
Turok 2 is probably one of my favorite games of all time. Good on you sir.
A new doom is coming out hopefully it's good.
Personally I don't think we will ever go back to the classic style of FPS for quite a few main reasons. Multiplayer right now is really the only thing people are focused on, they think that every game is different and you can have limitless experiences in just that style. The press and reviewers, I remember back in the early 2000's where games that required back-tracking were instantly shunned because all that they wanted to do was finish the game so that they could get paid. And of course the whole content vs. convenience debate that SHOULD be talked about other than just being glanced over.
i think we will get back very soon, 2016 at the latest. Why?,
First of all, MMS is dying, Cod Ghosts and Battlefield 4 are officially FLOPS according to there publishers, they have fallen way short of there targets and as a result, they have sent the stocks and shares at there publishers into freefall.
Secondly, a repeat of the 1983 games crash is now absolutly inevitable, the circumstances and financial state of the industry (recession), as well as the state of current games (shovelware) and the introduction of a supposed next generation of consoles that are extremely badly made, bricked out of the box in many cases, and 5 generations out of date technically and specification wise compared to PC (answer me this, am i describing Xbone or the Atari 7200?), wich has resulted in a sort of industry insustanability and toxic financial state that are absolutly indentical to the ones that caused the 1983 crash.
All it needs is for EA or Activision to collapse, and i dont think that is far off going on there plummeting shares. A Games crash will wipe out the consoles, and the casual gamers, and probably put an end to mutiplayer mania, as well as see the end of the lazy and incompetant gutterpress that supports the casual gamers, such as IGN and Gamespot.
Thirdly, these sorts of games are now being made again! mostly PC exclusive A and AA titles by indies at the moment, but Bethesda are launching one into the AAA multi platform market in Febuary 2014 and may reset the direction of the AAA FPS back to what it was Just after Half Life.
Finally, the action genre is actually clearly starting to reset. Ghosts and Battlefield 4 completetly failed according to both abysmal sales fiqures and the 1;/10 average player reviews even from franchise Die Hards, and the current Biggest selling game of all time, GTAV, just happens to have medkits (semi regen health though sadly) no gun limit, locked crosshairs, lets you go through the levels your way, and has a pretty massive SP as well as massive MP.
Beleive me, i predict that by 2016 you won't be able to move for this kind of game on the, owing to console failure caused by games crash, Thriving PC market.
I do agree with you that there will be another crash soon (Epic Games CEO made a statement earlier this year stating that consoles only have one generation left before being out run by mobile platforms) but I don't think that the FPS genre as it is will end up changing, due to the fact that on both consoles and PC multiplayer is the main selling point of FPS and action games and will still be the main selling point as we further ourselves into the Information and Technology age. Also there is the fact that its easier and faster to create a game like Call of Duty than it is to create the games like the old FPS games due to the amount of time and resources it takes to create levels and gameplay of that style. I know games like this are being made again but of course they are done by, essentially, indie teams who have the time and plans to make them.
You also have to look at the Content Vs. Convenience debate I slightly glanced over. There's a reason why games like COD are so popular where as a game like Arma II is almost unheard of. Both are MMS games but where COD just gives an illusion of being tactical, Arma II actually requires thinking and time to learn how to play the game and learn how to be tactical. You also have to look at the buyers of video games where age 12-45 all have different things going on in their lives so whats going to sell better, a game that you can learn and play in under 5 minutes that only takes a short amount of time to play, or a game that will take you hours to days just to get comfortable with the controls and even longer trying to learn how to flank and outwit a set of enemies so your team wont take losses with games that could take an hour or more just to play one match. Obviously the game that only takes a few minutes to learn is going to be better suited to a player who only has a few hours on his hands, eg. most of the population that either goes to school or works or the "casual" gamer.
Your comment about the press is valid but the fact is when I made my reference to them, that was during the early days of the PS2, Xbox, and Gamecube, where gaming was still considered underground for the most part. The fact is the press are ALWAYS going to have agendas they need to get to and they will ALWAYS give the games made by companies who pay them the best reviews while smaller titles get worse reviews or none at all.
As for EA and Activision those companies are not going to die off in the slightest. They have too much money and just use their best selling franchises as a way to keep their bottom dollar form falling. Just because Battlefield 4 and COD Ghosts essentially failed doesn't mean they don't have other franchises to fall back on. Hell, EA has Madden to fall back on and it makes way more money that Battlefield will ever make. Activision will just start a new franchise.
GTA games have never really been the kind that follow the crowd in terms of both gameplay and design so that franchise will stay forever, but then you have to look at a game like Skyrim where Bethesda were innovators before that game but decided to follow the path that COD did and chose a style that requires holding the players hand through the game as well as making, in my opinion, VERY bad design choices.
As for Bethesda's games coming next year, I don't have much hope for them seeing how they essentially fucked up Skyrim in a lot of long time players hearts (my self included.) ESO is going to be horrible and Fallout 4 will probably end up the same way Skyrim did.
So far the only games I'm looking forward to in 2014 are Arma III and Star Citizen because they seem like the only games that are going to be completely original.
Brandon Dougherty. console gaming will crash long before this generation is due to end, i reckon march 2014.
i think the FPS genre will change a lot as casual gamers will dissapear, that means MMS will fail completely as will most of the big publishers, also, MP is only the big selling point with Modern Multiplayer Shooters, many Shooters are starting to come out again that only offer Single Player Only and are still recording 3 or 4 million sales. wich is Massive for PC exclusive!
yes, MP will always be popular, but i cannot see it being the Raison Detre for a games entire existance as it currently is much longer, i can see it going back to being the "nice bonus" it was in the past.
Yes, i know it is easier to make games like COD, and faster, and cheaper, wich makes them more appealing to big companies who want maximum profit for minimal effort, and also appeals to lazy developers such as treyarch and dice who would clearly rather prat around than do there damn JOB! (when was the last time you saw on a AAA game "developer diary" people actually doing there Job rather than pratting around! as far as i am concerned a good developer is an effecient developer and an effecient developer is one that does its job professionally, and most of all, Silently with 100% focus! you can prat around when you are not on the companies time in my book, prat around on the companies time, and imo, you should be fired as a disruptive influence),
But as i said, most of the Big companies are DOOMED! without consoles, there are no casual gamers, without casual gamers, the big companies cannot exist because they are too lazy to make a game for the surviving hardcore market. that will result in stocks and shares failure due to lack of sales and company collapse.
I personally think that there will be a Siesmic Shift in FPS post crash!, i think it will go three ways, the Smaller Teams or developers at the few surviving big companies who are not very confident at MP will go for Single Player Only games with resolutly old school mechanics as the market for single player games tends to be either older players who prefer classic mechanics, or individuals such as myself, on the high functioning end of the autism spectrum who find modern gameplay downright insulting to the intelligence!, who prefer SPO owing to the fact they find MP a waste of money as they never use it owing to a dislike of the "social" element.
Larger companies who have more confidence will return to making games with a Primarily Single Player Focus, but still with a decent Sized MP componant as a "nice bonus" as seen in the 1990s, or recently with SS3 and GTAV, and some, mostly asian/south korean developers, will make MP Only titles with a mix of old and new mechanics such as AVA or CS:GO.
There has, and always will be the Quality vs convenience argument, its just that titles such as COD have taken it to an Extreme owing to the fact they are dumbed down to appeal to people with NO brain what so ever. .
The Problem with COD and ARMA as examples is, you are going from one extreme to another from something so easy it can patronise a person with learning difficulties (me), to something that is Daunting even for a hardcore gamer with 20 years of PC experience! (me again),
Remember even when gaming was considered to be a "nerds" hobby, back in the 1990s, Games in the mould of ARMA, IE, very daunting, very hard to learn, and very "authentic", wich, in the '90s was pretty much the Historical RTS game such as Age of Empires or Ceaser, were very fringe titles! even back then!
I do agree, very few people will have time for a game that takes a good week or 2 to learn and get comfortable with, even I dont fancy spending that long learning a game if i can help it!.
However, just because you want a game that can be learned in 5 minuites doesnt mean you have to make it completelty wihthout ANY sort of challenge or learning requirments, i mean, How hard is it to remember the the R key reloads the gun? a person with downs syndrome can remember that! you dont need to flash it up every time the magazine gets low. just make the ammo counter flash to show the mag is running out!
Games such as Doom, Quake, Etc, actually only really took 20 minuites or so to learn, yes, they did take a lot longer to master, but they could be learned fast.
you have to remember, most people in the mainstream gaming bracket will dissapear in a games crash, as they will become scared off and find another hobby to do, and we dont need to worry about them coming to PC, as many who do try and jump from console to PC find installing a game to PC and configuring the game to run correctly far too complicated, wich puts them off and makes them go back to console, and sprout anti PC diatribes in any forum they can find, when consoles fail, they will dissapear or move onto mobiles and handhelds.
with that market gone, most of the market will be between 24 and 45 years old, who remember games from the 1990s, that will want games in that style.
a game like ARMA will never be truly popular as it is simply too difficult to learn for anyone who has time constraints.
I personally think the future lies in games like Doom or Quake, wich can be learned in about 20 minuites, but take months to master, but allow you, via a Firm but Fair learning curve, to master them in "segments", the need to "finish in less than 3 hours" can also be abated by either One, removing the story, or 2. making the story a lot more "slow burn" so there is less desire to see "how it ends" as fast as possible. i have always said that a person who wants to see a reslution in 3 hours or less should watch a movie, not play a game.
Games such as doom or Quake lie perfectly in the centre of the Quality Vs Conveniance scale. they offer very high quality in that they take a long time to master, yet they also offer convenience as you can play them at least semi competantly within 20 minuites.
i know, there is the fact that many people cant cope with challenge today. that is because companies are aiming at teenagers, it is FAR too late to introduce a person to challenge at that age! wich is were the hand-helds come in. by aiming hand held games at Children, with games that also fall bang in the centre of the the "quality vs convenience" scale, such as the classic sonic or mario titles of the 1990s that can be learned in 5 minuites and played for an hour or so after school, yet can take Decades to master (i have still yet to master super mario 64), and offer a firm but fair learning curve, by adapting people to challenge as young children, they will be very accepting of challenging games in later years when they move onto the PC. as it was in the 90s.
and please dont say todays children will not accept challenge, children actually love a challenge as they love the sense of reward gained when defeating it, you need only look at the grin on a childs face when they tie there own shoelaces for the first time as proof!
if they are introduced to games that are very simple to learn, yet offer a firm but fair learning curve, they will soon adapt, the perfect example is my own neice, a 4 year old with ADHD, whos favourite game, is, beleive it or not, the original Super Mario World on my old SNES. a game that, again, can be learned in 5 minuites and can be played and enjoyed for a couple of hours after school, but yet still takes years to master!
yes, there will always be an Agenda with the mainstream press, sites such as IGN and Gamespot, pretty much gamings answer to "The Sun" and "The Daily Mail" (sorry but, as a brit, i dont know what the american gutter press papers are, only the UK ones), and that agenda is "what is in it for me and my wallet!" the more money a company offers, the better the review! you need only remember what happened to gamespots ONE decent reviewer when he "dared" to have the integrity to stand up and tell the truth about a truly abysmal game despite the fact the sight had been paid for a glowing review.
But again, its only really the mainstream Gutter-press that have this agenda. if you go for smaller, Indipendant magazines and sites, that agenda often isnt there, hence why ROTT, a game that got a 5/10 on gamespot, (presumably because it "didnt appeal to the modern gamer", but we all know its because Apogee couldnt afford to pay them as much as EA and activision can) got a FAR closer to the truth 9/10 from N4g, an independant site!
again, most of the readers of the Gutter Press are casual gamers on the consoles, with most experienced/ hardcore players prefering to either use player reviews, wich are often far closer to the truth (even franchise die hards have been giving COD ghosts 1/10's. and if the casual gamers think its bad, then it is b.a.d.) or the independant sites, as a result, in the event of a crash and the dissapearance of casual gamers, sites such as IGN and gamespot will be left with a choice due to the loss of readership., Drop the pro casual agenda, and start telling the truth, or face closure, because the surviving market will NOT tolerate being called "outdated morons" by some high school failure, brady bill supporting (even as a Uk citizen, where guns are basically completley outlawed, and even as a person who does not want a gun themselves as i know i would be a Liability with one!, i think its disgracefull for an "anti gun" person to review an FPS, as they dont notice the moronic mistakes, such as reload animations that would cause receiver malfunction in real life, semi automatic weapons masqurading as full automatics, fire selectors set on safety. or the notorious "COD error" of calling a magazine a clip, all of wich make me wonder "what else did these morons screw up!" wich means i then start noticing all the bugs, glithces, texture error, performance failures, and other signs of an inept developer even more!) "mall tactical ninja commando" derp-troll! simply because they prefer carrying all guns in the game at once like a 1980s action man rather than just 2 of them like a oscar bait wimp.. why do i, or any classic gamer, want to play emo wuss Daniel "skyfail" Craig when i/they can play as Brigadier Badass Clive "Shoot 'em Up" Owen?. All guns and medkits is manly, 2 guns and regen is pathetic! every classic FPS fan knows that!
As a result, they wont read the sites./magazines, as they wont want to be insulted by a no nothing kid because of there "classic" or "elitist" tastes, and unless they refocus there agenda onto "promoting" the kind of games the surviving market will want, they will close.
and good riddance to them!
Gaming will go Underground again, mark my words, and become seen again as "nerd" or "geek" hobby pariahd out to the unpopular "socially awkward" scene. it happened before, before the crash of 1983, gaming was very "in the limelight" with a lot of casual gamers and a massive market, exactly like it is now!, when gaming crashed due to market insustainability and financial toxicity owing to recession, it went completely underground and became considered, as a "nerds" hobby well up until the dawn of the first "casual gamer" focussed console since the atari 7200, the Xbox360, and the same will happen again! owing to the fact the games companies will aim for the hardcore audience, who are the ones who will stick with gaming during a crash were as the casuals will run like rats, as they did in the 1983 crash, in order to survive, wich will lead to the games being seen as "too intelligent" and "too hard" by the majority of people, resulting in it becoming a "nerds hobby" again.
I dont think Madden will save EA, EA has, even with casual gamers, and ABYSMAL reputation these days, with all there major franchises failing, and with the rumours of the cancellation of the "underground" (nothing after hot pursuit 2 can be called need for speed, imo) movie owing to rivalz failing to meet sales targets, and Madden facing stiff competition from 2K's own NFL series (wich unlike madden will be DRM free!) i dont think madden will save EA, i think they are cooked! not even titanfall will save them as there are reports of massive cancellations upon the revelation its just an MMS with robots, and people are genuinely fed up of MMS!
Yes, Activision will doubtless launch new franchises, but, as we saw with blur and prototype every time Activision starts a new franchise, it FLOPS on them because the casual gamers they aim at do not accept New Ip's and never have done. Owing to that, Activision's complete financial failure UNLESS they change there target market to one that is more open to new Ip's is all but assured.
Come on, they even managed to get 007 to BOMB! and those were some of the highest selling titles back in the Nintendo/EA days. sure, Daniel "emo" Craig's "thug bond" didnt help as he is a massive turn off for the classic bond crowd (who wouldnt play a COD clone anyway as they tend to be older, classic/elitist gamers) but he is a masssive draw for the sort of young "trendy" kewliokyd who would play a COD clone, so to fail to sell to them shows that Activision are in Serious, Trouble unless they change target audience as casuals wont accept New franchises!.
It doesnt matter how much money a company has in reserve, what matters is the stock and share prices!, many companies in the 1983 games crash were rolling in money, including the Original Activision! (the current company is the second to use the name, yes, they went bankrupt Before, and they can and WILL go bankrupt again) yet, because wall street TANKED the stocks and shares of those companies in revenge for the investor money lost when Atari went Belly up, those companies still failed and collapsed because there stocks and shares were valueless! and the stock and share prices of EA and Activision are in free-fall, it wont be long before one hits "valuless" and causes wall street to tank the stocks of every other company due to massive investor loss. same as the 1983 crash.
I used GTA-V as an example because its massive popularity, despite its rather 1990s gameplay design values, prooves there is No need to dumb a game down to COD levels, you can still make a massive, and very challenging, yet fair, single player game, all you need to do is make it quick to learn, give it a firm but fair learning curve, so it can be played in 2 or 3 hour segments with enough competance to be thoroughly enjoyed, yet also takes years to truly master, and a plotline that is very slow burning so players wont mind waiting months to see the outcome as they want to have more time before the finish to get to know the charachters, as they become interested in seeing what happens to the charachters with a slow burning story, rather than being soley interested in seeing how massive the next set peice will be as in a fast moving "brain dead" MMS story. It also prooves that just because you have a Massive MP mode, there is NO excuse for sacrificing the quality of the SP experience, other than Incompetance, as seen with "Bawsaq" wich has lead Rockstar north to make the staff responsible for its inclusion "redundant" as it damaged the SP mode owing to the fact it only worked online and it angered a majority of gta players, most of whom prefer Single Player, in fact, if you look on rockstars forums,/ social club, a Majority of players actually consider GTAO a Gimmick, proving that MP may not be as "mandatory" as some over Publishers make it out to be!
the only excuse for dumbing down to COD levels is LAZY DEVELOPERS who use "casual gamers" as an excuse for the fact they cannot be Bothered to make a decent game, well, as the 1983 games crash prooved, lazy developers are the first to join the dole que when companies go into survival mode as they need to make good games to attract the few people who are still gaming in a crash scenario!
Bethesdas 2014 game is Wolfenstein: The New Order, wich i have had the honour of beta testing, and it is a VERY good game in that it doesnt follow the COD direction, its actually ressurects the idea of difficulty dependant gameplay! regardless of difficulty its pretty old fashioned (very large, open levels with NO waypoints that can be explored, no gun limit, locked crosshairs, some very challenging half life like puzzles, and you need Medikits!) but it changes its hand-holding on difficulty, ie "can i play daddy" has health regenerate to the nearest 20% (say if bj is knocked down to 41% health, he will regen to 60% tops), on screen control hints and glowing objects, "quick kill" knife and fists, vehicles are automatic gears,half the regular number of nazis,. a bloody screen effect, etc. "dont hurt me" gives you the regular number of nazis, activates a manual real time melee system for fists, (knive is still quick kill), controll hints turn off leaving only glowing objects and the "action icon" and only the very bottom 20% health regenerates . on "bring em on" health regeneration and bloody screen are disabled, glowing objects are disabled, Knife also gains a real time melee system, and vehicles gain manual gears, hit "i am death incarnate" and you get double the number of Nazis and aim down sites is Disabled on guns that do not have a "scope". the harder you go, the more old school it is. wich strikes me as a fair way of doing it, easy is casual, hard is hardcore. combine that with the fact its PC lead development, with next gen consoles getting a "direct from PC" port with full keyboard and mouse support and and FOV slider, its even ressurecting "correct" porting
Dont be so disheartened, things are changing FAST at bethesda! Owing to the complete failure of Skyrim in the minds of many older Elder Scrolls fans, as well as the dangerous financial failure of rage, Bethesda-Zenimax FIRED its CEO early this year and replaced him. The new CEO promptly cancelled Doom 4 and Rage 2 for being "too like call of duty", Fallout 4 was also cancelled for the same Reason, they are considering closing id for "incompetance", he also stated at Quakecon that "Bethesda will become a PC only publisher within the next 5 years, because PC gaming rocks" wich suggests a transferance back to Hardcore. ESO meanwhile is being COMPLETELY remade to make it "less casual", and if that fails the developer, and this has been confirmed by Zenimax themselves. Will. be. Closed. Down.
there are a few games i am looking forward to in 2014. these are Devolver/Flying Wild Hog's next game, wich is either a Remake of DN3d or BLOOD going on there tweet of "another long lost 3d realms FPS classic of the 1990's", Wrack, Wolfenstein the New order (as mentioned above), and, yes, Star Citizen.
ARMA III however has Lost my interest owing to its 2020s setting wich strikes me as an attempt to cash in on the similar era setting of BF 4 and the last 2 COD games, and makes me think Bohemia are "selling out". i wouldnt be suprised to find it has Aim Assist and regenerating health in all hounesty!
keep ARMA set in the 1980s! thats were ARMA belongs! why make up some future conflict like the casual games? there are many Historical conflicts that mil-sim gaming hasnt even looked at yet outside of non official Mods! i am still waiting for a Proper official mil-Sim about the Faulklands war!
A lot of your points I do agree with, I do know that once the crash hits consoles will be gone, and the FPS genre in general will get a nice reboot. But the fact stands that both EA and Activison will still be around, proof of it is that EA has had this happen to them back between 2003-2007 where they would never take chances and would be pushing titles out the door before they were finished, yet they survived though all the hate and barricades they went through. The large corporations don't need need consoles to survive, the consoles need the corporations to survive.
As for FPS games in general, I do agree with you that they will split off in 3 directions, but I believe its going to take some time til we are back into the old style of FPS because new "hardcore" gamers wont be used to having a game where nothing is pointed out to them (complacency.) I have already seen games being released as multiplayer only games (like Breach) that are actually good.
I do agree that comparing the two extremes of games is pointless but most of the time people don't get the point I am trying to make. I probably should have compared COD with Rainbow 6: Vegas 2 being that they are both corridor shooters with roughly the same game mechanics but with Rainbow 6 there is actual tactics that you control in the game compared to the illusion of tactics. Also I feel that Rainbow 6: Vegas (both) actually did a lot of things right for the MMS style of games rather than hurting the genre, and if they kept going we might have a completely different MMS than we do today.
As for learning curves I do agree that a game should have a relatively small learning curve to get into it, learning to play a game in 20 minutes should be the max amount of time it should take to learn the controls. Unless the game is a sim or an RTS game controls should be easy to learn but still allow for more complex controls.
Of course I would never say that kids shouldn't be challenged when playing a video game, in fact a good game always challenges the player and causes them to think. I do agree with you GTA is probably the best example that you can use the same style of gameplay over and over and it will never get old as long as it challenges you, there's also the fact that GTA games are largely spread out over time rather than being released every year which keeps the old gameplay fresh.
I have never heard of the new Wolfenstien game so that's news to me, but Bethesda has been putting their hands on every game they can since the release of Fallout 3. I'm not surprised its another Id Softworks game either. It sounds like it will be fun. And since I rarely keep up with gaming news any more (I have lost a lot of hope) I had no Idea that Zenimax fired the CEO of Bethesda or cancelled Fallout 4. Its great to hear they will be back to a PC only developer and listening to the players voices again (Oblivion, I feel wasn't as bad as people say and I started with Morrowind.) ESO is being made by Zenimax but the use of the Creation Engine scares me because look what it did with Skyrim, that's not to say they can't make a good game with the engine but when people are expecting the game to play like Skyrim and get something like Morrowind or Oblivion I feel the game will end up just like any other MMO that's not WOW and end up failing and becoming Free-to-Play.
As for Arma 3 being in the 2020's it isn't a bad thing (if you know the military as it is the technology is stuck 10-20 years in the past for most units, I know this because I'm ex-Army), mainly due to the fact that they can create their own war/ conflict without having to deal with pissed off conservatives and press saying its too much like real life (remember the 6 Days In Falluja debacle and the Medal of Honor reboot problems.) I have played the Alpha of it and I'm impressed on how much it is like Arma 2, Essentially its Arma 2 with a new paint job, with all the graphical bugs almost fixed. Its still a simulator with a persistent open world, there are more guns, still no aim assist, no regenerating health (seriously, who thought that was good idea in the first place) and, so far, planning to include a stock game mode for roll-playing as a platoon on patrols against the enviroment, with team based objectives. Oh and they have rebooted the AI system where enemies will ambush, and try to out maneuver you. I can't wait for the full game to come out.
Brandon Dougherty.. I dont think consoles will go forever however, i think they will take a much needed hiatus for about 5 to 10 years, wait for mobile gaming to suffer a hiccup, then come back in there "true" form, easy to use, cartridge based systems aimed at children, but, still with some appeal for adults via really good quality arcade/simcade racers (think early NFS) and good quality, challenging platformers. consoles are at there best when aimed at children, yet still have a bit of grown up appeal as well, if they come back as a "modern day" SNES or Megadrive, id welcome them back with open arms!
I am really looking forward to that FPS reboot, as there will not only be more FPS games i can really enjoy, but, i may even get the one ive been "working on" (pencil and paper) stages accepted, as its stuck in a catch 22 at the moment being too ambitious for indie, but FAR too old fashioned for corporate, perhaps New Order doing well may get some, possibly bethesda at least, interested in the lease.
I remember those Days... they are still going on, its becoming very difficult to find some titles that are not shovelware from the megacorps now.
Perhaps EA and Activision will still be around, but, hopefully in a very different form to what they are today, with any luck they will still take a pretty hefty financial knock that will force them to be a bit less greedy, shrink down a bit, and change audience. Activision made some VERY good games in the past, as Did EA, in fact, several of my all time favourite shooters do have "activision" on the box. if they get less greedy, shrink a bit, and start making games like they used to again (and EA stops trying to make NFS appeal to street thugs and burnout fans and starts making ones like the 2nd and third titles again) i dont mind them sticking around. but, they really need to dissapear in there current form, where they are basically real life versions of OCP (EA) and Weyland-Yutani (Activision).
in my experience, yes, consoles need the big corporates to survive, but, big corporates also need the consoles to stay as big corporates, if you look at Activision and EA back in the 1990's (ie, when they made good games) when gaming was still very underground and "nerdy" (i use that as a term owing to public perception of gamers at the time, today its 20 year old strapping hulks with male model faces, 80's stallone muscles and the latest fashion (kewliokyd)... in the 1990s it was teenage with spots, big glasses, bow ties, pants pulled all the way up and penny loafers, basically a "nerd") they were only a 20th of the size they are now! perhaps shrinking back to that size, due to the loss of consoles, may help them recover some of that lost Mojo...who knows, we may even finally get a 3rd "Soldier of Fortune" actually worthy of the title!
I think we will head back "hardcore enough" (ie open plan levels, locked crosshairs, medkits (even if via semi regen for a year or 2) unlimited aresenal" etc Very quickly as games seek to copy the few that are selling well on PC in the fps genre, wich tends to be throwbacks.
Sadly, i agree, I also think the majority of games will still point things out to players, i dont think we will ever go back fully to the old " RTFM: Read The eFfin Manual" days, other than with some indie titles, (ie, the new rise of the triad) as much as I would like that to happen, i know its business suicide even with a hardcore audience.
What i Can see is games adopting what "the new order" is doing and dialling out the hints and pointers depending on the selected difficulty mode. I know the new shadow warrior already does that, as does Bethesda's own "Dishonoured" wich i really enjoyed once i set the crosshairs to "static" as it was basically the "real" Theif 4, even if it was, sadly, a little short!. I dont mind games offering controll hints if the hints are limited to "easy" difficulty, as i play my games on Hard anyway,. its when the appear on "hard" that i feel patronised! i dont need my hand held if im playing that high up!
On MP only. i only personally hope that they remain "occasional" not everyone can actually cope with MP owing to various learning difficulties, and i would hate so see gaming falling foul of the Uk's VERY strict disability discrimination laws!
yes, Vegas 2 is a much better comparison to COD, in that it pretty much IS COD except with a decent story-writer and the sqaud being in player command rather than AI command. (and it calls a magazine a magazine!) sadly however, they were Still a massive insult to the classic Rainbow 6 games (original through to Raven Sheild) as Vegas was very COD like at times were as the first titles were pretty much "ARMA before ARMA existed".
If i am hounest, i can see the Modern Militaty Shooter of the future being the sort of MMS i actually like, Basically "modern" versions of the Original "Soldier of Fortune", with perhaps some of the "tactical" feel and advanced AI of SOF-II. classic Quake style shooters, but with a modern day setting and a military theme, wich i am fine with, i have no problem with games using a modern day military theme, seeing as i come from an Army family (but was classed as mentally unfit to serve), and i also think you can make a much more interesting story with humans (see, no one lives forever) than you can with aliens or demons.
its just the gameplay of the typical Modern Multiplayer Shooter that i do not get on well with!
20 minuites is fine with me as well, as thats round about the time it takes to complete the tutorial on Half Life, wich acclimatised you to all the controlls perfectly, and even rememberd to flash up the correck keys if you had rebound your commands! wich is good, as i Really struggle with WSAD! it gives me terrible finger cramp! so i tend to rebind to the cursor keys, and bind important controls to either my mouse (9 button Corsair Vengeance m65) or the right hand numberpad (i use a Cooler Master "CMStorm Trigger" full length mechanical keyboard) and i do like the tutorials to show my rebound commands and not the default WSAD based set! for a typical classic FPS, 20 minuites is more than enough to gain enough comfort to play competently on at least "normal" difficulty.
of course, Sims and RTS are a lot different! i like a good complicated RTS, actually, so does my nephew, (6, and an aspie, like me..yes, i have both a neice and a nephew)..if hes round here he cant get onto Age of Empires 2 HD (thanks GOG!), Rome: Total War or Ceaser III (thanks again GOG!) fast enough on my rig!
as with sims, they have to be realistic or they defy there own genre, and realism needs a lot of controlls!
Indeed, challenging, but fair, games are good for kids mental wellbeing, they teach the child how to cope with a challenge, and that there is no shame in asking for a bit of help sometimes, this can be vital to learn for children with learning difficulties as it will Really help them to cope with, and even enjoy! the myriad challenges of later life!
agreed, a game cant be fun without challenge, as there is no sense of reward! and a game that isnt fun can never be anything more than a bad game.
Indeed, i am glad rockstar takes the time to use "valve time" and launch GTA only when it is ready! its what keeps the quality high. more companies need to take that example, Sure, its no good for short term profit, but the long term gain can be 20 times higher! sometimes you need to take the long view and look at 5 years time, not 5 weeks!
i actually lost ALL hope in gaming in 2008. i actually didnt return until serious sam 3 and hard reset re-ignited hope for me in late 2010. perfectly timed as well as that was the year my overclocked Pentium 4 CPU in my old XP rig decided to expire in a cloud of acrid black smoke and the smell of fried motherboard! requiring me to get a new rig anyway as the CPU meltdown also trashed the case chasies! so i dont blame you for not keeping up as i was out the loop myself for a good 3 years!
Bethesda admitted to firing its old CEO, and the massive wake of cancellations owing to the games being "too like call of duty" and "too casual" at this years Quakecon, seeing as Bethesda now runs Quakecon as they own the rights to All Id softworks games and properties seeing as all the rights came as a "package" when Bethesda purchased the nearly defunkt id from Activision in 2010.
The New CEO is a PC gamer himself, quite a young chap for a CEO, late 30s, its good to have a gamer in charge of a games company, as they listen to players, support modding (often giving the best modders jobs) as they know its how the best developers learn the tricks. i think he may be another "gabe newell" a businessman who understands PC gamers! im glad bethesda aregoing back to PC as well, it means they can make the games harder and a bit more old fashioned as well as gaining the ability to push them to the max graphically as they will be dealing with Geforce GTX 780's and Titans, not old GTX550 chips as used in ps3.
Fallout 4 will be made eventually, as will Doom 4, but they will be started from scratch to ensure they have classic mechanics and are aimed at the hardcore.
The New Wolfenstein isnt from Id actually, although id supervised, its been developed by a Swedish Studio called "Machine Games".
Machine are the old "Riddick/The Darkness" team from Starbreeze who seperated and formed a new studio when Starbreeze was aquired by EA, pretty much the same as how Flying Wild Hog split from People Can Fly when PCF was aquired by EA.
Id only supervised as they are currently in no fit state to make games at the moment, half the current staff have been fired because they only want to make COD clones like Rage, and of Id's "classic" 1990's staff, only Tim Willets remains owing to John Carmack leaving to work at Occulus Rift and John Romero, although now returned from his self imposed exile after the "massive F**k up" (his own words) that was Daikatana, and is helming "wrack",. he has stated he has No interest in returning to Id.
Dont Worry, Creation Engine is not like cryengine 3 and "mechanically limited"..
Creation can be used to create any sort of gameplay you want, in fact, Wolfenstein the New order uses elements of it Hybred into the IDtech 5 engine to give the engine Nvidia support as the version of id5 in rage refused to recognise Nvidia properly as it was programed for the AMD GPU in the Xbox360 (12 fps on 2 titans? talk about bad optimiseation) thats how i got to beta test "new order" actually,. i have freinds in sweden who gave Machine my details when they anounced they wanted someone with a really powerfull Nvidia SLI rig (wich i have as i now have 4 superclocked (1100MHZ each) liquid cooled Titans) outside of the company, to test the game to make sure it was optimised properly, and give hounest, uncensored (by the pr department, natch) feedbag and i am pleased to say it runs perfectly at 120 FPS, stable, at 4K resolution, with full 8X MSAA, 6x v-sync and all details at max!
Creation is more than capable of handling gameplay from Daggerfall if Zenimax really wanted to please the Elder Scrolls die hards. (i have been with elder scrolls since Arena, but, i played that a Long time after it came out as it wasnt until round about 2005 that a freind introduced me to Fantasy RPG via tabletop!. since then, ive been obesessed, Elder Scrolls, Baldurs Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Etc)
Hopefully the focus on "hardcore" will give us something that looks like skyrim and plays like a real time version of daggerfall.
I am more than aware how out of date the military is, seeing as i am from a military family (although, as stated, i was classed mentally unfit to serve), we, the Uk army, were using the Stirling L3A3 SMG well into the mid 1990s before we finally replaced it with the HK MP5-A3. and the Stirling (L3) had been designed originally as the Patchett SMG in the late 1940s to replace the old Enfeild STEN MkII. yup, we were using a gun that was originally designed just after WW2 well into the mid 90s,. oh sure, the stirling was a very good gun! but, it was getting long in the tooth, it wasnt "timeless" like the M1911 (i reckon special forces will Still be using a version of it, probably Kimber or Vickers Tactical, right up until we get actual star trek phasers!). i also see a number of american units, on the news, are still using M16-A2's. from the early 80's. and i have read that some rear-guard units of the russian federal army are still using 2nd series AKM's... wich have been replaced at frontline level a good 5 times now (AK74, AK74M, AEK97..now the AK12 is being phased in)..so, yes, army tech never really changes all that quickly. heck, the Mp5 itself can still trace more than one part of its firing mechanism back to the old Schmeisser MP-40!
i quess i just got worried they were trying to copy BF4 and COD, wich are both set in the 2020s. paranoid i quess!.
still, i would like to see them go back to the 80s as an add on. as i really do want to see an official mil-sim about the faulklands, not only because 1, my dad was in that war, and 2, it would interest many british players, but 3, because it would need very! good tactics at long range, such as found at goose green, seeing as both forces had varients of the same gun as there main arm! (argies had the FN FAL, we had the L1A1 SLR, a semi auto only version of...the FN FAL) meaning very little firepower advantage in long range, of course, the Uk did have the advantage up close via the L3A3, seeing as the Argies were using a locally produced clone of the old WW2 vintage M3a1 "Greasegun"!
plus, dangit, i Really want to fly an AVRO Vulcan Bomber in a game!
err, i thaught it was the liberals who got angry over MOH and 6 days in fallujah?
the press wouldnt know real life if it sat on there head! if MOH is "close to real life" then im a little yellow dutch Duck called Alfred!
Half the reload animations in warfighter would cause total receiver failure, (the AR-15 series of rifle designs, including colt, daniel defence, la-rue, diemaco, etc, has a nasty tendancy to slamfire itself to death if you hit the bolt release on a hot magazine...your better of using the charging handle!) or, with the AK series weapons, see the soldier cutting his hand open on the fire selector lever as he "racks" overhanded with his left hand, instead of the proper Underhand with the right hand! (info courtesy of Dad again, as the IRA were rather fond of the old 3rd series Ak47 and many were recovered by Uk troops who were then trained in its use)
but then, 90% of journalists have never really seen a gun outside of some unusually heavily armed oscar bait depression fest like skyfail anyway (damn depressives, give me Terminator, Rambo, Robocop (the Real one with Peter Weller in it!) Under Seige, Die Hard, Delta Force (the ones with Chuck Norris),Top Gun or any other classic 1980s macho-man movie any day!). so... heh, you cant really expect them to get it right!
I'm glad they fixed the graphical Bugs! Bohemia has never really been all that good at graphics i am afraid! even for its time ARMA 1 (Cold War Crisis, formerly the original "operation flashpoint") looked terrible!
im glad there is still no Aim assist, it isnt needed on PC! not when you have a mouse at 8200 DPI instead of a little thumbstick at about 120 DPI. if anything you need to Slow the imput speed of a good gaming mouse down, not speed it up! as the "snap" of aim assist combined with 8200DPI imput often ends up with you aiming at the border of argentina more than the enemy soldier it was trying to snap you onto!
Vincent (flaming moron) Zampella created regenerating "health" in COD 2 after being inspired by the regenerating "sheild" in HALO,. he should have been fired., but then, so should whoever greenlit HALO in the first place...
hmm, that patrol mode sounds good! as i am sure we can both agree (you being in the army yourself, and what my dad has told me) thats what real war is, long encounterless patrols were you are more likely to get done in by a rockslide (due to artillery damage from a battle 3 months ago) than a sniper.. this, "ten billion baddies at once and emmagurd a sky scraper fell on me!" is just micheal bay stupidity,. i mean i Like OTT action movies (hence shoot em up being in my collection..well that and the fact im a massive clive owen fan)... but his are just braindead! and the games that copy them, we can both agree, are even worse!
Finally, a game with AI! i was beginning to think games developers had forgotten what the I was short for!
thanks for that info on ARMA-III. i think i may actually give it a chance!
ps. as i wont be on tommorow. Merry Christmass pal!
Wish he was still here to see the continuing rise of old school style shooters. And so many absolute gems too
you could say the level design is...... a-maze-ing
Bioshock *cough* *cough* is *cough* your answer *cough*
Great take on FPS genre! We miss you, mister Biscuit!
We need more games like Deus Ex and Half-Life. They give you a goal, but no clear way of getting there. Let us choose our approach, give us a story to motivate us to the goal, make it personal, and provide an interesting balance of characters, items, and scenery.
Maybe game designers will take a hint went Half-Life 3 comes out, whenever that is. (Not that I'm counting on it)
The sad thing is Half-Life, one of my favorite games and many others is the cause of this. I mean its a fantastic game and a great example of a realistic shooter especially for the time but honestly it does raise the question of would the FPS genre be better without it?
i think that half life wasnt really the cause, it was more of the transition
But still, in half life, there still is a bit of that backtracking and weapon placement. Also just a question, why call it realistic, i remember, in half life opposing force, picking up a barnacle and using as a weapon(awesome btw)
thats another thing games now and days need a bit more of: MEMORABLE WEAPONS
This way, you could probably accuse wolfenstein for spawning the MMS genre just because it's a precursor to the modern first person shooters. But Half Life has no blame for this, Half Life didn't introduce shooting from chest-high walls, rechargeable health, sprinting, cinematic cutscenes everywhere, scripted events that limited gameplay (it had some, but most of them didn't interfere with what you were doing), it didn't limit your freedom with kill barriers, etc. The only similarity would probably be the linearity of the levels, but at the time HL was out this was the general trend and it was mostly caused by engine limitations. And the game still managed to overcome this by having multiple routes throughout the corridors and by allowing you to backtrack.
I see your point i think i was going about this the wrong way. What I was trying to say is that at the time no other game went to the level of realism Half-Life did thus making more company's want to have there games more "realistic" and in the end fucked it up and and just went the wrong way with it.
Gah fuck I admit when i'm wrong
Half-Life is realistic?
Old shooters = made by nerds for other nerds to enjoy.
Modern shooters = made by weapon manufactures to market guns to children.
Karl Slicher correction on modern fps.its money hungry companies selling glorified movies of much lower writing quality.
In my opinion, the reason that modern FPS games like Battlefield and COD stories get shit upon, is the fact that they are modern day MILITARY shooters. A story in the modern world can only go so far in the storytelling, especially when its a military shooter. "Who is the bad guy? A terrorist." What does he want? To kill everyone." With modern day military shooters, theirs only so many different stories you can tell that keeps it realistically in the modern world, until it goes off into being either sci-fi or fantasy, or just sounding ridiculous, and getting shit upon again that its not realistic enough.
He was right about being close to classic FPS making a comeback. Just a few years later, a classic was revived to rip and tear up the competition
@Jotaro97 there aren't any "hold S and left click" moments. Doom 2016 is more like Quake than anything
Thats why i dont understand why so many people like CoD, its just plain and simple "game" based around who can shoot first whit the hardest hitting gun, Strategy (and brain funtions for that matter) is useless and thats sad, now if you excuse me i will go back a game that actually makes me use the brain: Planetside 2
holy shit isn't your profile pic explosive dude joe from duel masters
***** To call any gameplay mindless is ignorant all together, the entire experience of a video game revolves around your own mind and your own exprience. Nobody plays a game the exact same way as someone else.
+1
You probably never played the first Call of Duty
It had likeable characters great gameplay like for example all grilled up
I miss this man, God rest his soul.
*EDIT* I wanted to edit this to add; before the "TL;DR" crowd shows up, it's a lengthy post. I don't expect people that don't want to voice a serious opinion to read it.
I feel as if, to say someone is 'wrong' or 'dumb' for enjoying one game type over another.. just means they can't accept the opinions of others and need to not share their own as well.
I grew up with old school FPS. Wolfenstein 3d, Doom, Quake.. the Duke. And I enjoy those games for what they are. Fun, run-n-gun monster shooters. Make no mistakes.. that is basically what the CoD and Battlefield games of this generation are. You can try to say they are different all you want, and that's fine. But both of them (new and old) are mindless shooters.
Granted, older ones you had more freedom to explore, and less ammo. No one will argue that. But you still had tons of enemies on that stage that you blasted through, all while working your way to the end of the stage.
People need to learn that 'gaming' has moved from a hobby for a few... to lifestyles for many. Games back then could do those things that they did because the people that played them, often did little else. Today, you have the Dad that spends 10+ hours working to provide for his family, or the guy/gal that just started working and has 2 jobs.. all of them having little free time outside of their job/house hold duties. To punish them by not allowing them to enjoy their time off, by making it so they get lost/can't finish a stage/can't find ammo.. is unfair. They just don't have the same kind of time to put into a game that a kid has.
Now someone will say "then don't play games", but.. what's the point of games at that point? Aren't they, like movies and books.. about enjoying some of your time doing something you like? No one should be told they can't enjoy something. They make movies for all kinds of people, there is no reason games shouldn't be done the same way.
I'm not saying all games need to be CoD, play for an hour and beat half the story then play MP. I don't agree with that idea at all. But on the other side of that same coin, not all games need to be 'simulators' either. By 'simulators' I mean games that take hours upon hours to learn basic game mechanics. That could be games like ARMA.. or for someone older, learning the proper way to Rocket Jump.
In closing, if you want gaming to come back around to an 'older' FPS era.. stop buying into the modern games. Buy those hardcore simulators and spend your time there. Don't even talk about games that are popular like CoD. TotalBiscuit, The Cynical Brit I understand you make money by doing just that.. but at the same time, you're supporting the very thing you go on about hating so much. You can't have it both ways bud.
Modern fps games are about storytelling and multiplayer, something old school shooters just couldn't do as well. You can't criticize modern shooters without acknowledging that they're simply a different type of game. If you prefer fast-paced maze action with diverse weapons and creative enemies to immersive cinematic experiences with fun and competitive multiplayer, that's fine. But your preference doesn't mean modern shooters are inferior.
Think about how your last FPS started:
"AGIANST ALL THE EVIL THAT HELL CAN CONJURE, ALL THE WICKEDNESS THAT MANDKIND CAN PRODUCE. WE SHALL SEND UNTO THEM, ONLY YOU. RIP AND TEAR UNTIL IT IS DONE."
So, 7 years later, I'm happy to answer this question. Rest in peace TotalBiscuit.
If you think about it, people still WANT the old style of games. Look at Call of Duty Nazi Zombies mode
They throw you in, all you know is zombies, points, guns, survive
when a nazi zombies map is first released, people go freaking nuts about "oh what secrets are there" and "whats the story behind this map"
im for abandoning DLC politics, remember UT, quake etc. the whole Mod community and maps? now they want 10 bucks for 4 maps? lol f*ck it!
musicotaku666 why did you reply to me to say this?
The old school fps is screaming to be let out
I don't really understand why so many people disparage the storytelling portions of modern videogames.
There is a place for videogames that you just play and that's it, ie. videogames that are like tetris or sudoku: You just launch it, play it for a bit, and that's it. The fun is in the gameplay itself.
However, why should _all_ games be like that, especially given how much design space a computer gives developers. A game can be a piece of art, not just a simple tetris-like puzzle. Like a movie, good stortytelling excites your imagination and makes you emotionally invested. It makes you interested in knowing what happens, and if the storytelling is good enough, it can actually cause emotions. You may feel joy, empathy, pity, sadness, anger... all while being immersed in the game. Why is that a bad thing?
Storytelling can also make the gameplay itself more interesting. What do you prefer, a cold, brief textbox telling you what to do next, or a sympathetic NPC talking about it? Of course this can be done in a bad and annoying way, but it can also be done in a good way.
Complaining about storytelling in videogames makes no sense.
As long as the storytelling doesn't get in the way of good gameplay, I say go for it. But the problem is, most of the time it does. FPS games have turned from actual shooters to interactive movies in this misguided attempt to add "story." There's ways to tell stories without doing so. Half-Life, for example.
Sometimes there are just crappy stories though like CoD campaign. When is the last time you have played a CoD campaign? I personally have never gotten so interested in the story that I actually wanted to play it.
Archn Scythe
Of course there are and there will always be FPS games with horrible storytelling (in the exact same way that there will always be horrible movies.) But this doesn't mean that storytelling in FPS games is _always_ bad. That would be an unjustified generalization.
WarpRulez Of course there are good FPS games but a lot of the ones I know of are also another genre of game also.
The only good example I can really think of for an FPS is Fallout but the combat is somewhat lacking.
In Call of Duty? The difference between an AK-47 and an M4? M4 has less damage per shot but fires more accurately, while the AK-47 fires less accurately but with more power when you actually hit. You compare those two, and then your counter-point is an Uzi (a 9mm submachine gun) and a rocket launcher (A. Rocket. Launcher). Apples and oranges, man.
Overall I do agree with you, the modern FPS has gone downhill, and its gone downhill bad. Not because, oh it doesn't give you radically different weapons, or something of that nature. But more because of points you brought up in your previous video about Warfighter. It puts you on a linear path, "Travel here, do this, travel there, do that, deviate and die". /That/ is where the FPS has started to peter out these days.
Really for most of this video, I agree with you. Old-school shooters were challenging in the ways you pointed out. If I was low on health, it wasn't a matter of just sitting behind a table for a few moments while it regenerated. It was a matter of sucking it up and charging head-long into the enemy with hopes that there would be a health pack along the way.
For the most part, yes a lot of modern games have forgotten how to do it. I think part of the problem is all of the focus these days on just having multiplayer. Cramming as many people into a 10x10 grid as possible and let any sort of story for those of us who aren't interested in or don't have access to online multiplayer be damned.
In short? I think its an absurd comparison to measure an AK-47 and an M4 (both assault rifles, differing in caliber, ROF, range, and accuracy - but still both assault rifles) against an Uzi and a rocket launcher (one being a 9mm submachine gun and the other being a /rocket/ /launcher/) for how games have variety in weapons (CoD and Medal of Honor have those too even if they are less common because, in your own words, they are a very situation-based weapon).
But overall? I can agree with you. The idea of a good level design, of letting the player actually play the game without forcing him/her through 30 minutes of hand-holding tutorials? Those kinds of things? They've been lost and the game world has suffered for it. For example in MoH: Warfighter, I would have loved perhaps the flexibility to find a way I could completely bypass the snipers' nest entirely, or swept in and cleared it out rather than flattening the whole thing with obscene amounts of high explosives. But sadly the only option your given is to lase the target and blow it up.
. . . man I just feel like I rambled for way too long to get my points across . . .
Backtracking is one reason why i play Metroid, And i LOVE me some Metroid!!
This is a DOS game! Mindboggling.
why is there not a partial biscuit?
Nope. Half Life 2 started with a nice exploration of City 17 c:
HL1/2 did the big long exposition right, though. It gave you an idea of the scope of the game. How huge, overbearing, and powerful Black Mesa and the Combine are.
I don't need that kind of exposition in a game where it has none of those elements that end up making the exposition pointless.
Rest in piece totalbiscuit 😔
peace
About the regenerating health. I remember reading about why they decided to use that for a game, which name I can't remember (sorry... extremely fuzzy memory).
Apparently, the reason for using it is because it helps the action to flow or something like that.
Back then and now, I couldn't believe that they said that, because it couldn't be further from the truth. It outright stops the action and forces you to hide behind cover, instead of trying to solve your shitty situation yourself, i.e not stopping the action for a timed healing process.
I've been waiting for health packs ever since every fucking game started doing that shit. Can't they AT LEAST try to mimic what F.E.A.R. did?
The system was introduced in Halo:CE with a regenerating shield - which only took seconds to heal, and traditional health system beneath it.
With typical action game, losing life points means you made a mistake, and you can't make too many mistakes. That means you have to be careful and avoid all damage, which is straight up a design pattern for a cover shooter, unless you introduce another mechanic which punishes you for taking cover for too long. The regenerating shield forced you to use some cover and to assess the situation tactically, but also allowed for bursts of getting yourself out into the action and attracting some fire, and not being punished for that. Obviously Halo was nothing like cover-shooters which came afterwards - and i'm not sure there's any game design justification whatsoever in combining regenerating health with cover-shooter mechanics, other than just making a game accessible and make it pass focus testing smoothly.
Siana Gearz I know about Halo (how could you not?) and I did like that system a lot more than the usual crap we have now.
Borderlands 2 uses a similar system, too. If it didn't, I'd probably hate that game.
The problem is that it isn't about making too many mistakes, it's that it's about realizing quickly enough that you just made ONE mistake. You can make an infinite number of mistakes if you want to waste time waiting for the blurry screen (which gives me a freaking headache) to go away several times.
Blurry screens aren't freaking necessary, either. My low health is punishment enough, thank you.
Has any of these developers ever played Half-Life? If they did, they'd probably realize how shitty this system is... but it isn't about quality now, is it?
Siana Gearz
Also, in Halo I can accept it because it's a plot element that you're wearing a very expensive suit of armor, different from any other game that has soldiers being able to survive being shot in the liver by resting for a few seconds for no apparent reason.
this was easily his best video, i'm sorry he didn't live long enough to see Ion maiden come out
Goddamn this popped up in my recommended again. So glad we’ve had a resurgence in good FPS design.
...and so sad that he’s hardly here to see it.
hardly?
today's modern fps
=
counter strike's ripoff
So I have been watching this guy for the first time over the past few days. I knew that he passed away back in 2018 but I got into his stuff after watching his guise of the wolf lets play and the more I see his stuff the more I realise what we missed out on. Watching this video however is one of the saddest as he talks about wanting to play games like the classic fps games of his child hood. He died just months before dusk was completed meaning he never got to see how it ended. Rip.
We need BFG's and NO a Rocket launcher is NOT a BFG
I have found a very rare, INTELLIGENT comment section, were people hate on cod instead of games like doom and halo.
Most people hate on cod, and halo is just as bad as it
777HAZARD Indeed. I consider Halo worse than CoD. Halo was also the First FPS with simplistic level design, two gun limit and regenerating health.
I miss you TB
This was the video that got me in to classic FPS games, and in general PC gaming. I owe a huge chunk of my gaming interests to this man. RIP John TotalBiscuit Bain
It's because developers are focusing more on the multiplayer aspects of a game where the main point is killing someone with 1+ bullets, keeping track of your precious K/D ratio, unlocking achievements/guns,and buying bullshit DLC's with content that should, frankly, be part of the game from the start. They really started to just slapstick the SP as a bonus or something. I mean, why do BF 3/4 even try to have a SP campaign when it's obviously a MP oriented game? Do people really care for the cliche SP story with it's generic modern FPS elements with no real innovation in gameplay?
That's a big problem. I never play multiplayer. Only back in the days when we played over LAN with 6 people in someones cellar.
Thing is, focusing on multiplayer isn't the problem. There are a few old classics that are completely multiplayer fps games like Counter Strike that do it right.
back then in call of duty cod 4 to mw2 is when they focused mainly on the story and did multiplayer as an afterthought after bo1 they focused on both until mw3 fucked it up with the mediocre gameplay of the campaign and the cookie-cutter clone of the user interface
That is so true. Nowadays even the FPS games that try to be a bit oldschool style (like Bioshock) have to include hand-holding resources (the quest arrows, vita chambers, etc.). If you want to play the game correctly, you have to go and disable those things.
Zelda,shadow warrior,half life1 and duke nukem 3d are the best and always will be the best................ANY QUESTIONS!?
This just makes me want to play all the old games i missed growing up cause i didnt have a pc at the time. Plus this game is FREE on STEAM right now!!!
the best FPS is guise of the wolf
helps to have a map
I'm really tired of 'modern' military shooters. The majority of them have levels that are practically corridor shooters or shooters with linear paths, it just feeds you kills and lets you feel like a badass, but there soooooooo dull. I miss fantasy shooters, open-world shooters with interesting storys where the main campaign was actually the main part of the game, not the multiplayer. Freedom is a lie in games like COD and Battlefield where the campaign is an afterthought, it exists to justify their $60/£40 price tag.
Best FPS I've played in awhile is Far Cry 3 Blood Dragon, its an open-world with an interesting story which is hilarious and is full of references with some actual decent level designs in places. I'm looking forward to Borderlands 2 this Xmas because its looks like the plot is actually interesting.
Someone feels my pain. Thank you for ebbing my hatred of my fellow human beings and their CoD loving, tea-bagging habits.
well i am sorry but borderlands 2 sucked sorry just wanted to warn you
get Fallout New Vegas open world fps/ 3rd person hours and hours of game play and its made by Bethesda
or serious sam 1 2 or 3
I'll look into it, oh and I'm only getting Borderlands 2 because its a free PS perk in the EU.
Kinda surreal to hear that I'm hearing the words of a dead man right now. Not so long ago he was still with us.
I often see good gamers complaining about how bad modern games are. They always seem to know how the games should be done. So all that is left to do now is gather one or two (or more) gamedev teams and _create some really good games by ourselves_. And I honestly think it is the only way for us, oldschool gamers, to play some really good games ever again.
The game that I feel is really good is Borderlands because of the fact that the levels were quite well designed and the enemies were tough enough that I ran out of ammo quite a few times and had to replay the section again. The shields in that game also were well thought out since only the shields regen and to regen your health you had to have med packs which get expensive later on and you die a lot in that game espcially with friends.
The riddick games are done well imo, they have good puzzles & lots of exploration, but I cant think of many other modern FPS that do not fit your description.. great subject well done,,
Except Half-Life series
precisely what i was going to say.
Tr00
I like how you didn't say anything about restarting the level twice. You should probably save a little more often... :P
EDIT: Removed inaccurate comment regarding the ceiling fan.
That was his reflection in the mirror. I re-watched it at least 6 times and I saw no enemy. That was clearly an oddly placed mirror.
Okay, you're right. He did deliberately repeat the ceiling fan incident to show it. My mistake.
I AGREE WITH EVERYTHING THIS MAN HAS TO SAY ON THIS TOPIC!!
DO NOT deny how much you know is TRUE!!!!
I cannot agree with you more.
On a separate note, being an RTS-fan, i can't help but feel that we've lost something on this front as well.
I think this is why the zombie survival genre has sky rocketed
The last FPS I played I spawned in a room, went out and got gibbed by sentries made by the camping Engineers of the other team
Tf2 noobs in a nutshell.
tf2, qwtf, tfet, ff, or tfc
Lol...Farcry 3: Blood Dragon...you were right, I did start on a turret!
If we don't make our games like Call of Duty then they won't sell. Says the Triple A Big Game Corporation.
In the old FPS you play the game.
In the new FPS the game plays you.
Personally I could never stand the maze like old school shooters back in the day or the current crappy new school shooters. I prefer the in-between generation of FPS games on N64, PS2 and the like. Goldeneye, Timesplitters, Halo 1, Metroid Prime. Now those were the days. And some modern FPSs are pretty cool like Fallout 3 and Team Fortress 2.
Although i seriously love the old 90s shooters. I have got to agree with you the "Silver Age" of FPS (Post Half Life, Pre COD) pretty much hit the sweet spot! all the gameplay that made the classics great but with more realistic level design, better storytelling, and a better sence of player involvement, The NOLF games on PC, Half Life (and its sequal), the first Project IGI, the 2 Elite Force games based on, of all things that really shouldnt be the basis of a pair of Really Good First Person Shooters, the "Star Trek" Voyager and The Next Generation Liscences, the First 2 Soldier of Fortune games, SiN, PD64, GE64, TS2 and 3, Agent Under Fire and Nightfire on PS2 (and TWINE on N-64)... great games...
Disagree with Halo being on the list however, you do realise that Halo is every bit as responsible as COD for creating the modern shooter dont you? (popularised control hints, 2 gun limit and regen, COD copied them from halo)
Simeon Yves I still think Timesplitters: Future Perfect is the single best FPS ever made and will probably never be topped. Also funny you mentioned NOLF, I beat that for the first time about a week ago.
You know what was another game I very much enjoyed? CoD4. The controls were good and the action was sweet. Now there is a problem when you release the same game over and over again with no innovation. And it's a further problem when people keep buying these new games. And it's even more of a problem when every other developer out there is trying to also make the same type of innovativeless game.
For me MW2 is the fall of shooters. They released more or less the same game as the last and made bucket loads of money. That game should have been shunned for it's lack of creativity but people voted with their wallets and they voted to kill creativity in FPSs.
Also have you actually played a CoD game before? The only reason I ever got CoD/Halo was because people kept saying it was casual crap and I had to see for myself. Don't knock it till you've tried it. But buy CoD used, I don't want them getting anymore money.
Chosen One 41.. hmm, TSFP was a very good FPS, a solid 10/10 and its very rare i grant that score.. could have done with being a bit longer perhaps..but, im nitpicking.
But.. i can think of more than one i have enjoyed more... for me personally, if there is any one game that gets the Best FPS game of all time accolade... to never be beaten, its probably the Original Half Life in Version 1.4 (HD pack) on PC... the console port got pretty butchered though sadly as gearbox really lowered the difficulty compared to Valve's original Specifications!
Did you enjoy NOLF? its pretty much my candidate for the second best FPS of all time its GOTY Version.
To Me Personally, FPS died with Halo and COD one. as soon as Gun Limits, Forced Aim Down Sights, constant control hints, and that damn regenerative health were made popular by those games (they had been in games before...but were less than warmly received before Halo and COD!), FPS as i knew and loved it was killed pretty much stone dead.
I did try a COD game, two of them in fact!, the first one (simply because Jason Statham was in it!), and the Fourth One (to see what the fuss was about), and hated Both of them with a passion, i did about 2 levels of each before i wanted to chuck my system out the window just to make the horror of the experience stop!.
Sorry,I don't know if its my age, the fact i've been gaming for, as of now, 24 years, 20 on PC, or if i am just a hipster by nature, but i simply just cannot Tolerate any form gun limits, regenerative health, Forced ADS, Corridor level design, being Constantly nannied and told were to go and what keys to press.. or really really bad ports! (COD4..no AA! No FOV slider, No key Rebind, no option to turn off the mouse acceleration... and 30FPS at 720P... on a 2Gb Geforce Five! (wich was, in 2006, the equivalent of what the GTX Titan is today)...why did they even bother to port it if they couldnt be bothered to reprogramme it for PC?) i end up in a state of mind that combines both being patronised out of my brain and bored to tears that leaves me with a very unhealthhy urge to slam my head through a monitor!
as a result, i have the same problem with 90% of modern Videogames as they use the exact same Patronising interface and intolerable, for me at least, gameplay mechanics....and we still get really bad ports on top of that, wich compounds things even worse as i have been a PC only gamer since 2008 due to my sheer Dissapoinment with the xbox360 and PS3 putting me off any console post PS2, Xbox mk1 and Gamecube (the last of the good consoles) for life.
+Simeon Yves
We are not so different you and I. Although with Half-life 2 I tried it and while I though that the story was amazingly well told and the visuals were great the gameplay felt kinda bland to me. A 7/10 at best. So yeah, I still liked it.
NOLF was pretty cool. It could be really funny at times but sometimes the cinematics would drag on and on. The gameplay was top notch with the stealth mechanics and the ammo types adding to it. 9/10. It only loses a point for those moments where it drags on.
Now while I do like games such as CoD4, Halo 1 and Gears 1 I cannot stand the sequals because they just do the same thing with zero innovation. And I even ended up giving up at consoles and moving onto PC in part because of my absolute boredom of FPS games that dominate consoles. I've been completely avoid games like those but have found that there still are some great shooters out there. Spec Ops: The Line comes to mind. It pretty much tackles the ideas brought up by consuming too many of these types of games while still being one to drive the point in perfectly. Though it is a 3rd person shooter, I don't really identify the perspective as something important to differentiate. Easily my number 3 favourite game of all time, and no. 1 when it comes to shooters.
Another good series is uncharted. It's ps3 only but it has really interesting stories, some platforming and puzzle solving thrown in, beautiful as hell and incredibly tight gameplay. 3rd person again, but does that really matter?
Gonna go into to quick fire mode here. These shooters are also good and worth checking out. Receiver, it's an indie shooter that makes reloading as complex as IRL. Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon, it's silly fun. FEAR series, quite scary and pretty good gameplay. Left 4 Dead series, co-op zombie action done well. Doom 64 EX...
Actually let me go into detail with Doom 64 EX. So sometime after Doom 2 and Doom 3 (ooh, that's another good game) the Doom people made an exclusive Doom game for the N64, Doom 64. It had really creepy graphics and creepy music and was dark and creepy, but had the exact same gameplay and engine as Doom 1&2. The controls completely sucked and it ruined the game and it was forgotten about. Later on some guy lovingly ported it over to PC somehow and it is just a treat to play on PC.
There, I wrote a lot about things that I like. This feels better than what I usually end up talking about in the comment section.
Chosen One 41 Thanks :)
hmm, i will admit Half Life 2 is no where near as good as the original, the gameplay is fantatstic when it gels right...but...there are times. a lot. when it doesnt gel.. true, the graphics were and are superb, as source is a good engine, its still more than able to keep up with the best of today, depsite its age, with a little tweaking,,. its even got 4k compatability now!
Indeed, NOLF, even these days, and all the times i have completed it over the years, still reduces me to a giggling wreck in places. and i agree, the stealth is superb...and to be hounest, i don't think ive seen a game since with so many ammuntion choices before or since.
I actually quite liked the long cutscenes of NOLF, especially the ones that tell us about the charachters histories, their childhoods and so on, and the fact we get to see some unusual traits. perhaps its just because i consider "why" as a very important story element, its nice to know why a charachter is doing something, and NOLF did tell us that..
As I stated, i hate even the originals of those franchises because I just cannot stand the mechanics used... I mean, I will tolerate a lack of innovation...but, i cant tolerate the "modern" style of mechanics.
I started PC gaming with one of the very first "Alien" systems (how they fell apart when dell took them over,... its heartbreaking! and you cant get "origin" PC's, wich are basically the original "Alienware" Company under a new name, in the UK yet...wich sucks!) in 1993, but, carried on with consoles alongside PC until 2008..but, the sheer terrible build quality (basically broken out of the box!) of the PS3 and Xbox 360...especially the 360! and the complete lack of the sort of games i really enjoy (challenging old school throwbacks) has basically put me off consoles for life.
So i am fully PC only for more recent games since 2008, and revisit my old consoles from the 2nd-6th generations (From NES to the Original Mk1 Xbox) from time to time... sometimes ill play with the niece and nephew on their wii-u, its not a bad console, very well built, and its good to see the games still induce some proper Nintendo Rage in the final levels... but... i just dont fancy one for myself... not when i have a PC that, in its current form, has cost, in total, a rather unprintable 5 fiqure sum...
I found Spec Ops to have too many problems for me, although i certainly think it was a great idea to hold the mirror up at jingoist MMS games and there playes and say "This Nutcase is You!" but, again, it used a mechanics set i cannot stand, plus, the plot drifts into highly emotional territory more than once.. and well, i dont do emotion much,, most of them fly over my head. meaning that i couldnt force myself past my hatred for the mechanics for the story as i sadly, stopped understanding it! oh well, i still have a blue ray (as well as DVD and even VHS copies) of First Blood to watch when I want to see the bad side of what war does to a persons brain (NOTHING IS OVER!! NOTHING!!! YOU DONT JUST TURN IT OFF!!!.." i defy anyone to watch that scene and still try and say Sly can't act!)..and the three sequals when i want some Jingo!
Again, although i can certainly see why people really enjoy the uncharted series, the game certainly knows that its a game, pretty rare these days, and is there to be enjoyed, tells a pretty good plot despite having a rather witty sense of 90s humour, but, i couldnt get on with it myself, again, my intolerance of most of its mechanics mean i had to write it off.
I do have and enjoy receiver, its about the closest I will ever get to using a real firearm being from the UK, where firearms are basically outlawed. so its nice to be able to get some idea as to why firearm shooting is such a common hobby in the United States,,. the challenge.
I couldnt play Blood Dragon as you cannot disable the Crosshair Bloom, wich is a real problem for me as the constant movement of an "expanding crosshair" makes me so dizzy it makes me physically sick after a short time. so, if a game doesnt let you turn it off, its pretty unplayable for me as i can go for about 20 minuites tops, before the crosshairs constant movement makes me sick... a shame, as i can see why people love blood dragon, it does look fun, and i am a massive fan of the 1980s..but because of a stupid programming oversight (not putting in an option to disable crosshair bloom). i cannot play it. most annoying. i mean, how hard is it to put in an option to turn the expanding effect off?, pretty much every older game that had the effect let you turn it off! so...why wont more recent titles? lazy devs i think.
F.E.A.R again was another game i personally could not get on with, i did try. i mean, i am a massive John Carpenter fan,,,and he wrote the game, so i really tried! .but. no, in the end i just wanted to tear my hair out, as it, like so many games since 2004, limited the number of weapons the player can carry, and for some reason, that really makes me want to slam my head through the monitor... i dont know why...it just does.
not played Left 4 Dead, No Single Player, no interest, i really do not get on at all well with Multiplayer! hence why i have a strong preference to games that are "Single Player Only", pity they have been rather rare since the LAN Revolution in 1996..at least the old games remembered to put in a sizable SP mode as well as MP :)
Ahh Doom 64, one of the very few games I own on Both PC and on Console. .. Doom 64 Predates Doom 3 however, it followed on from Final Doom. I personally feel that Doom 64 is the true Doom 3, and Final Doom, being, chronologically, as its set after Doom 64, Doom 4. owing to the actual "Doom 3", although, yes, a superb game, was a total reboot of the Doom Franchise and is thus in a seperate Cannon and Chronology for me..
I will admit, the N64 controller was and still is a total Swine to get used to... only having the one Analoque stick really let it down..but,.. it was a very innovative pad in its time! no pad before it had a Stick!
I tend to set the games up, if i can, to have movement on the C keys and aiming on the stick.. it kinda feels like using a keyboard and Mouse that way (as i use my mouse left handed despite being right dominant as WSAD gives me terrible finger cramp so i rebind to the cursor keys...wich require my right hand,... plus, left hand mouse feels more natural in a shooter game.. as you control your aim using your left hand in RL..good thing i have a dual handed Razer Taipan! i used to have a Corsair Vengeance M65 Pro, but it felt horrible using it left handed so i swapped it for a Razer Taipan, the Vengeance is my spair mouse now) it makes it easier to use... but, its still a bit of a pain.
i will admit, doom 64 NAILED it,. superb horror atmosphere, great 90s FPS gameplay.. best of all worlds,. and on PC with the graphical improvements, the option of Brutal Doom Mod and the far better controls.. i think its probably the best version of DOOM in its XE PC port... i'm also suprised at how good the Doom 2 engine used looks when it starts getting some serious V-Ram and a thundering Clock Speed thumping through it!
indeed, it is nice to talk about the things we like.. its good for the brains health as well, as it causes a flow of endorphins, increasing happiness, reducing stress, and making the brain healthier. good all round :)
All i can say is that i had more fun playing brutal doom and darkplaces quake than any new fps in the last 5 years. Hope game deva are paying attention.
TotalBiscuit, I have been playing FPS games for years and have always wondered why I have so much fun playing games like Doom and Hexen, while modern shooters bore me to tears. This video was brilliantly done, and hit all the major points of why shooters have degenerated over the years. You described what I've felt for years eloquently, and you have definitely earned yourself a subscriber.
deus ex is THE BEST example of the few games that remain awsome and modern. it answers EVERY aspect he just talked about. one of my favorate games
true true.. I also thought Hitman series would remain awesome, and it still kinda is, but they had to add some BS hand holding to the newest one. (and made it Windows Vista, 7 only).
TheUnbeholden , That was kind of needed to let Directx 10/11 work, It's just getting to expensive to keep windows xp a float.
Total Biscuit if you want to play some oldschool FPS multiplayer let me know! I got Doom1 & 2, Heretic, Hexxen, Duke Nukem 3d, Shadow Warrior Redux, and Serious Sam First and Second Encounters.
Get with the times Mr Biscuit. Modern shooters reflects modern warfare (how do I come up with these puns), we have loads of guns and explosives, we use them indiscriminately on our enemies. This is the way of progress. KILL, KILL, KILL, thinking is for dweebs. Yo, TotalBiscuit, stop being such a stick in the mud. Get the your head set on, get on XBL, start spewing some bile and join the party. Testosterone up, strategical thinking - down.
Fun fact, COD doesnt reflect modern warfare correctly, countless war crimes are commited all the time, for example in one of the turret sections in MW1, you fail if you shoot the church, wich is acceptable, but shooting any other civilian property is allowed without penalty.
i only pray this is sarcasm plipo... or the world really HAS gone mad!
boooooooooo
screw that, going back to doom and wolfenstein 3d
Hitman41165 Look up the thing called Victors Justice. There are many countries that are bound by a certain code of rules created by um... i dont know who, but a country created it and spread it. the US doesn't abide by those laws and can commit war crimes. Like some soldiers massacred innocent civilians and raped women in Vietnam. two soldiers got off scott free and another got house arrest.
OneTimeFails I know, but I was hoping nobody else did.
I think Biscuit should write a game design book, a lot of the things he mentions go against the very rules defined in said books, but if you look into a lot of what are considered not just successful, but truly excellent games, you can see a lot of those elements of older games combined with newer ones rather than just one or the other.
Duke nuke 3D had some of the best 3D level design I’ve ever witnessed.
whatever happened to a good old fashioned arena shooters?
Word of advice: When you hear:
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH,
Run. Just get a machine gun or any fast firing weapon & RUN BACKWARDS AS FAST AS POSSABLE!!!!
I wonder where Half-Life 1 would fit in this argument.
The game starts in an unskippable train ride, but it's done as a way to pace the game...
You make me regret ever getting mad at Jedi Outcast for being confusing and maze-like :(. If I had known that THIS was the future of the FPS, I would've never complained.
01:17 Serious Sam.
Most FPS games are boring as f*ck nowadays, particularly your typical 'AAA' titles. There's maybe one or two a generation that try to do something a bit different or exciting. Funnily enough it's usually these games that are bent on cinematic storytelling, and have absolutely no game play to go with it. If there was a law to enact on FPS, it's that you can only have those big cut scenes when you actually design a game interesting enough to deserve them!
Brütal Doom SE in combination with the brutalized levels and helmet hud (and a few other mods) makes probably the best FPS experience you will ever have. A re-imagining of the original levels that gives you both nostalgia and a new experience. New extremely brutal and fast gameplay. The cracking of your visor as you're shot at and the blood dripping from your visor as you chainsaw imps and zombies giving extra immersion. Taunts, pulling the finger, one-liners and BRÜTAL FATALITIES really excites your inner child. You guys gotta get it. Better than most things on the market. And, it's free!
also i miss these over the top characters from 90s fps games with their cheesy quotes, Lo Wang and Caleb being my favourites
Guys, am I the only one who thinks that HEXEN should be mentioned as a good ol' FPS, here, too? I loved punching demons inside-out
PIGGIES! Best FPS weapon ever in that game
they went sideways.
Shadow Warrior 2013 was my game of the year, it mixed modern and old school elements perfectly
Given your thoughts on games that encourage exploration, survival strategizing and player freedom, I think you'd like the old Thief games from the late 90s and early 2000s. Not FPSes per se (though you do have an FPS view and can engage in a certain amount of combat from it), but the things you've mentioned that old FPS did well, those games absolutely nailed (despite being ostensibly stealth/adventure games).
the thief series are probably the most underrated games ever, especially if you look at them from the stealth perspective only. when did the first thief come out? 98, 99? the stealth mechanics are way better than most of the "stealth" games of today