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General discussion (archive)FPS games gone Backwards?(79 posts)(79 posts)
(79 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted July 11, 2013
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keeveek: haha, I tried to play Quake 2 split screen with my friend on PSX. This was a disaster :D
Yeah, I once bought a second-hand copy of Quake 3 Arena for PS2 just to see if it was at all possible to play something like that on a console. It wasn't.

When Epic made UT3, they had to give up the original plan of allowing interplatform multiplayer, because in order to make the game at all playable on PS3 they had to lower the game speed by 20% compared to the PC version.
Posted July 11, 2013
He's right in that modern military shooters suck on the other hand old shooters like Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, Blood and RoTT were very repetitive and very quickly boring IMO.
The only FPS's of the old generation I could stomach were Dark Forces and System Shock.
For me it was the late 90's with FPS's like Half Life, Unreal and NoLF which I think was really great.
Posted July 11, 2013
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Wishbone: I'm guessing that multiplatform gaming is to blame for the simplification of shooters. The limitations of current-gen consoles and of a gamepad control scheme dictate the gameplay features and level design. Once, you'd often see significant differences in a game on different platforms, because the different versions were actually adapted to the platforms they were made for. Nowadays, all multiplatform games are developed for consoles and then ported straight to PC with the absolute minimum amount of adaptation necessary.
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keeveek: haha, I tried to play Quake 2 split screen with my friend on PSX. This was a disaster :D
I used to be pretty damn good at that game, then I bought the pc version... what a difference. But I'd still play the psx one every now and again!
Posted July 11, 2013
Ah nostalgia - you gotta love this shit! Everything was always so much better back in the "old days" when men were men, and consoles were used to wipe your ass with. So he mentions 3 good shooters from those days and then says that shows how the FPS have devolved into pure horseshit - but the simple fact is that I can easily name 3 great modern FPS that are fantastic: Far Cry 3/FC3 Blooddragon, Crysis 1 and Borderlands and maybe even throw Bioshock into there aswell and FEAR series.
And lets not forget the Doom clones back in the day that were terrible plus lets not forget how frustrating it could be to not be able to find that damn keycard anywhere in the level and be stuck for fucking days trying to hunt that fucking thing down in a maze-like level design. Old FPS where not better and 3Drealm created DN3d for the very same reasons that Infinity Ward creates MW-games and that's for profit.
Yes, FPS have changed over the years but it's not all for the worse. Regen health is not better or worse than big floating boxes called med-packs - it just creates different gameplay.
I'm happy that we got games like Half Life 1/2 NOLF 2, Deus Ex, Medal of Honor, Call of Duty 1 etc. and not just Doom 8 and Duke Nukem 3D 11 and Blood 7.
Trends change in the gaming industry and fast-paced FPS went out of style and that sucks but don't kid yourself into thinking that everything was so much better 20 years ago because it was not.
Posted July 11, 2013
"Mainsteam AAA" FPS'es are shit, yes, you mean you haven't realized this years ago?

The good thing about this is that despite the fact that the FPS market is complete shit right now, there are still good FPS'es being made

Hard Reset was great, Serious Sam 3 was awesome, FC3: Blood Dragon was a breath of Fresh air, the new Rise of the Triad looks amazing
Posted July 11, 2013
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jepsen1977: Ah nostalgia - you gotta love this shit! Everything was always so much better back in the "old days" when men were men, and consoles were used to wipe your ass with. So he mentions 3 good shooters from those days and then says that shows how the FPS have devolved into pure horseshit - but the simple fact is that I can easily name 3 great modern FPS that are fantastic: Far Cry 3/FC3 Blooddragon, Crysis 1 and Borderlands and maybe even throw Bioshock into there aswell and FEAR series.
And lets not forget the Doom clones back in the day that were terrible plus lets not forget how frustrating it could be to not be able to find that damn keycard anywhere in the level and be stuck for fucking days trying to hunt that fucking thing down in a maze-like level design. Old FPS where not better and 3Drealm created DN3d for the very same reasons that Infinity Ward creates MW-games and that's for profit.
Yes, FPS have changed over the years but it's not all for the worse. Regen health is not better or worse than big floating boxes called med-packs - it just creates different gameplay.
I'm happy that we got games like Half Life 1/2 NOLF 2, Deus Ex, Medal of Honor, Call of Duty 1 etc. and not just Doom 8 and Duke Nukem 3D 11 and Blood 7.
Trends change in the gaming industry and fast-paced FPS went out of style and that sucks but don't kid yourself into thinking that everything was so much better 20 years ago because it was not.
Pure bullshit. Health regen creates worse gameplay. Finding items provided incentives to explore the larger maps and find secrets. While health regen just incentivized staying behind a wall and waiting.
Post edited July 11, 2013 by Crosmando
Posted July 11, 2013
I'm not a great fan of FPS games in general, but I think he doesn't make a very good case of explaining why the FPS design he likes is objectively better than the FPS design he doesn't like. Personally I would agree that exploration and getting right into the action is more enjoyable than strictly linear gameplay and long and slow introductions, but then he more or less claims that it's essential to find secrets to survive and involuntarily exemplifies that you can destroy a wastebin that you'd need to reach a higher area? I can't really relate to praising such frustrating design choices as "better".

When I hear these kind of arguments, I always perceive them as something like: "In our days, we were much tougher than you young whippersnappers today, we didn't have it as easy as you wussies, we still knew what work was!". :P

I'm probably reading too much into it, but I'm not really convinced that strictly catering to a niche of hardcore gamers with high frustration tolerance necessarily makes a game better. (Of course, neither does streamlining a game so much that it's almost able to play itself with hardly any active or clever participation of the player.)
Post edited July 11, 2013 by Leroux
Posted July 11, 2013
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Crosmando: Pure bullshit. Health regen creates worse gameplay. Finding items provided incentives to explore the larger maps and find secrets. While health regen just incentivized staying behind a wall and waiting.
I always hate in modern FPS games that you always find a suitable weapon just two steps before the sequence that requires it.

You know, because people just drop bazookas and sniper rifles in suitable places.

I still have an old habit to preserve ammo for the best guns, but I'm doing it wrong it seems, because there will always be a huge ammo stockpile before any boss encounter.
Posted July 11, 2013
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Leroux: I'm not a great fan of FPS games in general, but I think he doesn't make a very good case of explaining why the FPS design he likes is objectively better than the FPS design he doesn't like.
That's because doing so is impossible. We're talking about what people find fun to play (i.e. a subjective experience), not discussing the average air speed velocity of an unladen swallow.
Posted July 11, 2013
Two new-ish features I like about modern FPS games:

- recharging shields (so sue me, I've grown to like them, even though I don't mind that much even the old "pick armor scattered around"-gameplay either).

- right mouse button aim mode. I liked it instantly when I saw it first time in Far Cry. Then again the more arcade-ish FPS games don't really need it, like Serious Sam games.
Posted July 11, 2013
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keeveek: I always hate in modern FPS games that you always find a suitable weapon just two steps before the sequence that requires it.

You know, because people just drop bazookas and sniper rifles in suitable places.

I still have an old habit to preserve ammo for the best guns, but I'm doing it wrong it seems, because there will always be a huge ammo stockpile before any boss encounter.
This happens mostly in those 'realistic' modern FPS' that only allow you to carry two weapons at a time.
Since you won't be lugging a RPG launcher around for that one helicopter or whatever you get every other level, it makes sense to just have one lying around near where one spawns.. even if it sucks.
They also use 'realistic' health regeneration outside of combat instead of silly unrealistic health items.
Posted July 11, 2013
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ChrisSD: That's because doing so is impossible. We're talking about what people find fun to play (i.e. a subjective experience), not discussing the average air speed velocity of an unladen swallow.
Granted, but his opinion seems to be that the old FPS were better (as implied in the theory that the modern ones have "gone backwards"), and I'm stating my opinion that the reasons he gives don't fully convince me. (And he calls it "an exposé on the current state of first person shooters in comparison to older games in the genre", not "what I find fun to play".)
Post edited July 11, 2013 by Leroux
Posted July 11, 2013
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jepsen1977: Ah nostalgia - you gotta love this shit! Everything was always so much better back in the "old days" when men were men, and consoles were used to wipe your ass with.
Ah, the good old "it's new, so it's better by default" mentality. :)

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jepsen1977: So he mentions 3 good shooters from those days and then says that shows how the FPS have devolved into pure horseshit
These are commonly referred to as "examples".

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jepsen1977: but the simple fact is that I can easily name 3 great modern FPS that are fantastic: Far Cry 3/FC3 Blooddragon
Open world shooters revolving around performing repetitive tasks, plus there's hardly anything remarkable about their level design (the story missions are incredibly restrictive and linear, by the way) apart from an extensive land mass.

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jepsen1977: Crysis 1 and Borderlands and maybe even throw Bioshock into there aswell and FEAR series.
Total Biscuit did bother to explain which design aspets made the shooters of old so remarkable (cleverly crafted level design , secrets, risk vs reward, emphasis on forcing the player to hone his skills) - the games you've mentioned do not meet the aformentioned criteria, I'm afraid.
Post edited July 11, 2013 by Phaidox
Posted July 11, 2013
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Phaidox: These are commonly referred to as "biased examples".
FTFY. Works both ways as well.
Posted July 11, 2013
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ChrisSD: That's because doing so is impossible. We're talking about what people find fun to play (i.e. a subjective experience), not discussing the average air speed velocity of an unladen swallow.
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Leroux: Granted, but his opinion seems to be that the old FPS were better (as implied in the theory that the modern ones have "gone backwards"), and I'm stating my opinion that the reasons he gives don't fully convince me. (And he calls it "an exposé on the current state of first person shooters in comparison to older games in the genre", not "what I find fun to play".)
Indeed, I just find discussions like this can get a little bit silly.

"Hey you! Stop having fun with that game! It's objectively bad!!"
"And you there! Why aren't you enjoying this game it's objectively good! I can prove it!"
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This is my favourite topic
Community
General discussion (archive)FPS games gone Backwards?(79 posts)(79 posts)
(79 posts)