the first person shooter game thread (eew fps)

[drauch]

Was replaying through some Half-Life last night with my best bud and having a similar discussion regarding endless dialogue and halted gameplay. Not going to beat the whole QTE dead horse, but I miss the whole "hey mother fucker, this is the situation you're in. Fucking get through it, pussy." and that's it! I don't need worthless NPCs reminding me every second of my mission or stopping the gameplay to be forced to listen to some nonsense. Sparsity is the key. Uncovering information through subtlety: finding logs, documents, or overhearing conversation--and only if you want to.

[Ed Oscuro]

My problem with the System Shock / Deus Ex style of audio log history is that it really can cut into the gameplay pace. In a game like Morrowind, you usually get a short setup and then you go do your shit. Then you can do as you like after. DOOM III is badly paced when you're trying to shoot and also find damn locker codes (and even worse if you try for the Martian Buddy codes on the websight).

[BareKnuckleRoo]

DOOM III is just a bad game. The whole flashlight fiasco (no duct tape on Mars?) is silly and an artificial way to add tension by making the only weapon with light relatively useless. It's also not styled well for exploration/tension in the same way that System Shock is. System Shock 2 is fantastic - you spend a lot of time exploring, searching for upgrade modules or extra cash/ammo, and enemies are randomly encountered so going through areas you've cleared are not always safe from enemies when you stay in them. The logs can be mostly ignored if you prefer, and just quickly read or memorized for the applicable codes (some of them can be bypassed). There's so much extra stuff to be found rather than exploring being just for health/ammo, so it feels more interesting to backtrack.

Quake II's always good fun, but the mission info is irrelevant once you've memorized it, so it just becomes a pain to have to keep hitting F1 to shut the little blinking icon up.

[Obiwanshinobi]

Assuming you'd find duct tape, what would you attach the flashlight to?
Not ever stumbling in first person shooters is artificial enough, but more desktop warriors could use walking around for a day wearing weighty head gear.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Assuming you'd find duct tape, what would you attach the flashlight to?

If Heather in Silent Hill 3 can figure out how to keep a flashlight attached and fight at the same time, and if a bunch of teenagers in Obscure can figure out how to tape flashlights to handguns and shotguns to fight off living plant monster things, I would fucking expect a trained professional not to be intelligent enough to figure out how to secure a decent light source so he can fight without dealing with it being unnecessarily dark all the time. (I'm pretty sure one later edition of Doom III, BFG Edition?, actually gives him a light attached to his armour, finally.)

[XoPachi]

ROFL I love the subtitle to this thread. xD

Anyway. The main two FPS's I play a lot (I mean a LOT) are Tribes Ascend and Blacklight R. Both are dying games! \:3/
But I love these two games to death. Got about 90 hours on TA, and over 100 on BLR. I play both religiously. My two favorite online games. Period.

But I'm trying to get good at a Quake styled indie game called Warsow. After (I lose) a match, there's a bit of a free for all. And in that time, the few players that play it are kind enough to leave alone and practice the movement mechanics of the game. It's pretty hard to get speed going, but I'm trying my hardest. It's definitely fun though.

Then there's an arcade FPS I really love called Drunken Robot Pornography. Really frantic game with nice music and COLORZZ!!!! 8D
You have to do certain tasks to earn points and spawn the level boss.

Yesterday, my friends and I relived middle school memories. We broke out the 360, popped in Modern Warfare 1 and went to shipment. Except we did a tradition of replacing the music (360's best fucking feature), with the music of Mario Circuit from MK64. Had a blast. Amazing the mindset music puts you in.

[drauch]

Assuming you'd find duct tape, what would you attach the flashlight to?

If Heather in Silent Hill 3 can figure out how to keep a flashlight attached and fight at the same time, and if a bunch of teenagers in Obscure can figure out how to tape flashlights to handguns and shotguns to fight off living plant monster things, I would fucking expect a trained professional not to be intelligent enough to figure out how to secure a decent light source so he can fight without dealing with it being unnecessarily dark all the time. (I'm pretty sure one later edition of Doom III, BFG Edition?, actually gives him a light attached to his armour, finally.)

Yeah... I mean, most military grade weapons (note: NOT cyber demon weapons) will have a place for a detachable flashlight, even. Maybe they outlawed them on Mars? You would know that if you read the logs!

I dunno, I can't say I feel the same towards the Deus Ex/System Shock loggy logs. It's not imperative to read them, so why not check it out after clearing an area? That's what I would usually do. Those games are both designs with lots of backtracking in mind, so I really don't think it detracts from the flow of action, which at times is at a complete standstill.

[Obiwanshinobi]

Yeah... I mean, most military grade weapons (note: NOT cyber demon weapons) will have a place for a detachable flashlight, even. Maybe they outlawed them on Mars? You would know that if you read the logs!

The point is, he's not geared up for combat. Some flashlight happened to be there by accident and it's only one.
By the way, flashlight attached to armour would make for some pretty obnoxious delay in a first person shooter. I can totally see why Chronicles of Riddick and Republic Commando resort to night vision instead.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Realism =/= fun. I'm totally okay with acceptable breaks from reality for the sake of enjoyment.

[Obiwanshinobi]

In Silent Hill 2 visibility is actually better without flashlight. Why did they put it in, then? At least in Doom 3 it's fundamental to gameplay mechanics.

[BIL]

In Silent Hill 2 visibility is actually better without flashlight.

Are you talking about the shitty Xbox and PC versions? I seem to remember both suffering from this and getting a good laugh out of it.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

The flashlight's actually best kept off to keep it from alerting monsters as quickly. This is especially important in Silent Hill 3's harder modes, but it definitely helps with visibility, at least in the PS2 versions.

Doom 3's lighting is just stupid. There's areas where there are clearly lights in the ceiling or on the walls that are bright, but the surrounding areas are dark as fuck for some reason when you should be able to see them, even if it's just dimly. The original Doom (and other FPSes) generally were very good about using their dark areas well (and sparingly), but Doom 3 just uses it constantly as a means to create horror/tension that it gets tiring more than anything wandering around in the dark.

[Obiwanshinobi]

Ligthing in games hardly ever makes much sense.*) MGS3 is the only one I've played where accommodation was a thing.

Are you talking about the shitty Xbox and PC versions? I seem to remember both suffering from this and getting a good laugh out of it.

PC version. Care to share some screenshots of PS2 version where you can't see more without flashlight than with it?

*) And lighting in films really, but you can't make live-action films without photography, and photography won't be good without decent lighting.

[BIL]

Care to share some screenshots of PS2 version where you can't see more without flashlight than with it?

I wouldn't know where to find footage of the PS2 original mimicking the performance issues of its Xbox conversion, or the latter's PC conversion. Glowing walls are a feature unique to the latter two hack jobs, AFAIK.

[Obiwanshinobi]

I'd do like that: in dark room take one photo of the TV screen when flashlight's on, then switch it off and take another photo.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

I've played the PS2 versions of SH2 and 3 quite a bit, and I can definitely say I've never had an issue with the flashlight reducing visibility. Maybe in a small room with a close-up camera angle with James pointed right at the screen with the flashlight, but never in any normal part of the game. The street areas don't allow you to turn the flashlight on/off as far as I can tell, and it definitely helps with visibility in darker corridor areas, but in Silent Hill 3's Extreme difficulties, enemies are easily alerted just by sight (and possibly the sound of your radio? I turn the radio off in both games), so it's easier to sneak past enemies even in dark areas with it off.

I've not looked at the PC/XBox conversions though, so I have no idea what weird lighting bugs they introduced (other than that they're generally hack jobs). First time I've heard of them having glowing walls.

[BIL]

I'd do like that: in dark room take one photo of the TV screen when flashlight's on, then switch it off and take another photo.

In the PS2 version, if a location is meant to be pitch-black (eg the top floor of alternate Brookhaven Hospital), you can't so much as make out wall or floor textures without the flashlight. Darkness never seems to reach that depth in the hacks, creating the effect you mention. Fog is similarly not as profoundly obscuring in non-PS2 versions.

If you turn off the flashlight you can't see in the dark, but will have a longer window in which to run past monsters. With it on, they'll see you coming and smack you as you pass by. So "why did they put it in, then?" is a question best specified to the game's afterthought XB/PC conversions. Even with their flawed lighting, in darkness you need the monster-alerting flashlight on for James to read the map or notice items.

First time I've heard of them having glowing walls.

In Xbox SH2, go to a dark place adjacent to a light source, like the hallway outside the handgun room in Wood Side Apartments, and kill the flashlight. Radioactive!

[Edmond Dantes]

DOOM III is just a bad game. The whole flashlight fiasco (no duct tape on Mars?)

Worse than the whole duct-tape thing, Half-Life was made five years before Doom III and it had a flashlight on your effing suit, practically from the point the game begins.

Remember when Id used to make GOOD games?

[BareKnuckleRoo]

You know, I've never actually played Half-Life. Blasphemy, I know, but it's one of those games I keep meaning to pick up and then forgetting about.

Descent 2 can get pretty dark at some points because lighting relies on wall lights in some places that are now shootable, but it has the flares you can shoot from the first game and a headlight item you can turn on (it drains energy fairly quickly though).

[Ruldra]

I never understood why people like Half-Life so much. I played it back when it was released, got pretty far but ultimately I thought the game was really boring and stopped playing it. Same thing happened with Half-Life 2. I jus roll my eyes when I see everyone begging for HL3.

The mods, however, are awesome. Spent many nights playing Counter-Strike, Team Fortress and Natural Selection. The latter is easily the best FPS I've ever played.

Unfortunately, these days I can't play FPS for 5 minutes without feeling motion sickness. I'm getting old.

[Edmond Dantes]

Half-Life 1 is one of those games that I like... sometimes. Depending on when I play it, its either the best FPS ever or else the game that killed the FPS genre (unlike Doom, which is always the best FPS ever no matter what phase the moon is in).

The appeal is more the narrative than the action, and that's exactly the problem. It does a great job telling its story without forcing scripted cutscenes on you... but it also means the actual action is lacking. Shooting the same grunts who behave much the same way again and again gets boring, largely because of how slow the game is (Doom, by comparison, keeps things fast so it never gets boring). However, if a narrative is exactly what you want, then its a good ride.

I never played Half-Life 2. When it came out, the whole Steam thing burned me--at the time I was still on dial-up and the idea of needing a persistent internet connection to install and play the game made me say "no thanks. I don't care if this game actively gives you a blowjob while you play it, I'm not putting up with that bullshit." I do know that you can enable an offline mode, but my problem is... what if I need to reinstall the game later but have no access to the internet for some reason (and there are millions of things that can prevent an internet connection)? Half-Life 1, I can install and play with just the CDs. Half-Life 2, you're fucked. Sorry, but I have little tolerance for DRM.

.....

In other news, a friend of mine recently dumped a bunch of his old games on me. He decided I might like them better than he did.

One of the games was a compilation called Totally Unreal, which includes Unreal Gold and Unreal Tournament (the original). Unreal Gold is the original Unreal, just it includes the expansion pack.

Unreal is... one of those games. I can't decide how I feel about it. Sometimes it feels like the precursor to Half-Life (and all that entails), but I like some aspects. At the time its hallmark was the vivid landscapes and huge locations and... I'll be the first to admit, those are kinda pretty. But then, so is Myst, and Myst at least has puzzles I can solve. Unreal is just boring shoot-outs, until later when the enemies get incredibly tough.

My biggest problem though was how it handled the flashlight. You either had flares or flashlights, and both were limited and when they ran out, you were screwed until you picked up another. I always liked Half-Life's system of the regenerating flashlight more.

So, anyone else have thoughts on Unreal?

I also have Unreal Tournament and Quake 3 Gold, thanks to this dumping, but since I don't play multiplayer I don't know if there's a reason to keep them. Are there any decent single-player mods for either one that would give them usage for me or am I better off forgetting them?

[Ed Oscuro]

Unreal Tournament is more fun in single-player than Unreal Gold is. Unreal Gold's bot mode is kind of fun for a play too. The weapons work better in the context of multiplayer than they do in regular gameplay, really; this is probably the point where developers started thinking seriously about doing something beyond a one-size-fits-all solution for multi- and singleplayer.

Unreal's problems are that, as you say, the shooting aspect does get a bit repetitive, and it's also too long-winded by far. Usually a very long game is a good thing, but Unreal just seems to run out of steam, and then it does that a couple times over. There's plenty of good stuff and I like the quieter moments running through landscapes - but there's actual filler there, too, which is bad. Still, too many iconic scenes to count. The expansion pack prolongs the pain even further, IMO, and is really only for people who are super bored and don't know what else to do.

About five-seven years ago I had a phase where I was really enamored with HL mods and map packs. The default weapon set doesn't have the punch and coherence of the original DOOM II weapon set (and I've even criticized that before!) but it gets the job done. Mostly I liked the number of rather inventive scenarios various clever mappers have designed over the years.

Ironically, I feel that instead of the "gee whiz" designs of the Half-Life era (and earlier), where it's assumed that players will get bored if there is more than one rifle-type weapon and that you need at least one alien symbiote weapon, and at least one take each on the rocket launcher and plasma rifle, my favorite retail game from the Half-Life engine may well be Ritual's B-movie (but not quite B-movie style) action epic contribution to Counter-Strike: Condition Zero, the Deleted Scenes portion. These include some of the best mapping seen yet in a HL game. It suffers from some outdated gameplay notions (I bet you I spend a significant fraction of my time worrying about efficient use of bonus ammo and health pickups - a bit more self-control would be good here) and the occasional intrusion of dumb Half-Life series staple elements (helicopter attacks, environmental insta-kills and the like) but on the other hand it provides fairly dense and engaging worlds to explore - in fact despite repeated playthroughs I was still discovering easter eggs and the occasional weapons cache, and I consider myself a fairly observant and dedicated secret-finder. Although the weapons featured in this pack are different from those featured in the final Condition Zero multiplayer component, they are okay, just not brilliant. Weapons could have been handled somewhat differently - shotguns aren't punchy at all, for instance, and many things perform poorly without headshots, which is not to my liking - I would have rather more liked a "realistic" damage model - but still a multiplayer-focused set performed quite well in singleplayer. The typical loadouts do work better than one might expect coming from a DOOM-type varied inventory, but there is still some boredom from having things be a bit too similar. The single-player gadgets would have resulted in a slower multiplayer game (and more difficult mapping) more akin to Rainbow Six or the fairly obscure Global Operations (not to be confused with Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, though Global Operations was made by a former Counter-Strike development studio). Global Offensive arguably implemented gadgets into multiplayer more effectively than the Deleted Scenes, although this was quickly superseded by efforts like the Spies vs. Mercenaries multiplayer from Splinter Cell games (or so I assume) and similar efforts.

However, a fair number of mods arguably do Deleted Scenes one better, although without the same running time. Surely Poke646 (and its unusual sequel) and the They Hunger episodes are up there; there's others too that I can't think of at the moment (and plenty that are "neat, but maybe not quite classic material," like the western-themed Wanted and the space spaghetti western-themed Gunman Chronicles). Cry of Fear and Afraid of Monsters are great, but also a bit too weird to really appeal long-term for repeated visits (not to mention the Silent Hill type horror angle does get old quickly, though Cry of Fear does a lot to try and modulate the tone).

Half-Life is kind of hard to appreciate as fresh at this late date. There are snippets of the early Black Mesa complex levels which still amaze me with their ingenuity and cohesiveness, long after the suspense and surprise have faded. However, there's also a lot of elements which I don't think really panned out well in gameplay terms. HL2 is definitely an improvement here, but again there are many areas that I find hard to appreciate now. I am cautiously interested in HL3, but to be quite honest I think that the Left 4 Dead games really did fit the bill for many HL enthusiasts quite nicely, while also offering up modes more suitable for competent players (as opposed to a full range of baby modes).

To summarize what I think are issues with average HL engine games: Weapons aren't punchy and health/ammo hikes are always a drag on the action. Encounters are often really just dressed-up version of the greatly reviled monster closet - something changes in the environment when you cross an invisible trigger plane, and you react the same way, every time - there are too many overly simple scenarios will not hold your interest for repeated plays like the drawn-out close-quarters battles between the player and multiple enemies seen routinely in DOOM. In terms of the game engine itself, there are too many abandoned military base (the Timeline alternate history games, Paranoia) games and probably too many city-based games (although this is one of my favorite types of setting for an FPS, but add in that the HL engine dictates these are typically handled in a rather too familiar way).

[Edmond Dantes]

The mention of Afraid of Monsters and Cry of Fear reminds me of another reason Doom is better than Half-Life:

Doom's mods will run on the same machines that Doom itself will run on.

Half-Life's mods will sometimes require machines or Steam connections that Half-Life itself does not.

(Yeah, I'm still bitter over Afraid of Monsters not working on my precious Mazinkaiser)

[Ed Oscuro]

Given the incredible longevity of the DOOM modding scene, there's compatibility problems all over the place - requiring different executables oftentimes, and PRBOOM+'s latest release gave me less than stable performance in Batman DOOM when I tried it out last year or so. I think it is more accurate to say that there are few computers that won't play even the most advanced DOOM mods well - but it is another thing entirely to say that even a randomly picked DOOM WAD or map/mappack will perform well on a 1996 PC, let alone one from before 1994, because it is routine to break the original visplanes limit (there's something similar in HL1 which got removed by Valve, I think, but development for that engine hasn't been as aggressive either). I think DOOM is more competent with varying artistic styles than many people give it credit for, though - witness the frankly amazing cel-shaded looks of the Urban Brawl games.

Half-Life is also broken sometimes, but mainly because Valve doesn't want to aggravate compatibility issues further. There have been some regressions (notably, the bug on loading a save game, and also the return of the instant-stop-on-use bug) but that is a stable codebase. Additionally, most HL mods (those without crazy renderers) had to adhere to the original rendering limits of the engine, and most of these mods look at least as terrible as the original game by modern standards. The few games which do have external rendering have been glitchy, been burdened by rumors of VAC bans (in the case of Paranoia), but also seen great improvements in style and content over what was originally possible. I suppose one could make the case that DOOM mods are similarly improved - I can't begin to try to compare the difference between stock DOOM and Stronghold DOOM with the difference between Half-Life and Cry of Fear (the nice city scenes or the lake, especially). I'm sure somebody could try but I don't want to touch that, other than to say that I think DOOM consistently gets more points due to the "look, it's DOOM! and it runs XYZ!" than HL, which is "oh look, another blocy polygon/blurry textures old rendering engine which isn't up to date." What exactly this means I couldn't say, but I do think that the pixel-sharp look of many DOOM implementations is still appealing to people and conveys information nicely in a way that the famous "I CAST SPELL OF MAKE UGLY" filtering approaches for old systems often does not.

Go BUILD engine! Started out highly competent, with a laundry list of many widely-expected features, and didn't take much to make it better. The downside is that the pixel scaling modes and open-source-based renderers have been basically nonexistent, as only the source to the original BUILD implementation has been released, as opposed to proper source for each game (i.e., Blood, where the original source isn't available for release, for whatever reason).

[drauch]

Half-Life is amazing because it actually feels like you're in an adventure, surviving, progressing, and (literally) making your way to the top. I love seeing the disaster unfold and finding helpless survivors, notes, and other tidbits that tell the story at a very minimal level. I'm still amazed every time I play it, and I've played it dozens of times since it came out, and will probably play it until I'm buried in the ground. It's a completely different game compared to early FPS, and I don't compare it to such.

[Ed Oscuro]

I definitely agree that the basic premise is promising and engaging in a way that provides greater highs and lows than just "shoot your way out (or punch if you're going for a tyson record)" style. They're different approaches for different moods of gaming, really. I am cautiously optimistic about HL3, if and when it comes and in whatever fashion it does.

[Mortificator]

I'd have more anticipation for a third game if not for the episodes. Half-Life 2 had such a strong ending, but Episodes One and Two are at the fanfiction level of rearranging existing elements without adding anything new.

Spoiler

Kleinercasts instead of Breencasts hahaha! The thing that everyone thought happened at the end of the game didn't happen... OK, now it did. Oh noes Alyx is hurt!

It's too bad that the conceptual dead-end of Episode Three is something Valve's almost obligated to drive down and back out of before heading to a sequel.

[Marc]

I'm in two minds myself over Doom 3.one the one hand, it's not Doom, and it's pretty linear. On the other, it's quite atmospheric, and it's quite refreshing to play something so straightforward. Really I shouldn't be bothering with this given the pile of FPS's I need to start or finish (Darkness 2, Blood Dragon, Halo Anniversary and Call of Juarez Gunslinger just off the top of my head), but it's nice to be able to miss a few days and pick up something with stripped back controls that keeps me pointing in roughly the right direction. Some of the new master designs suck ass though.

[Obiwanshinobi]

Flares mechanics in Unreal serve the same purpose as flashlight mechanics in Doom 3 - giving the player impression of vulnerability. In so many other games darkness is only a decoration it's nice to see something else made of it now and then.
Another examples would be the camera in classic Resident Evil or switching to fpp view in Metroid: Other M. Variety is the spice of life.
I understand that kids fantasise of omnipotence rather than vulnerability, but if games fed only those fantasies, we'd never get to play Thief.

[Ed Oscuro]

A titan fall of a different kind: Irrational Games is closing, and its founders are moving onto a smaller team. Might make for some interesting games. 'Narrative-driven games for the core gamer, highly replayable.' You can read more about that right here: http://irrationalgames.com/

Also, the famed CIA Operative: Solo Missions is really short. I got really excited at the start of the first mission, because CD audio started playing track 2 (I assume) from Panzer Dragoon, which I had in a drive for some reason. Great music! Sounds a bit like a Phantasy Star...turns out there's a reason for that. I'll have to see if I can't get some audio off the game. Anyway, the game - oh boy. It's not super incompetent or anything - it's just...super ValuSoft. There's not even 10 levels, I'm pretty sure, and each can be done in literally 10 minutes - and that probably requires some serious ass-dragging. Three weapons total, and really easy enemies. No gameplay to speak of here. Hard to believe people paid money for this. On the plus side, it works just fine in Windows 7 64-bit with absolutely no fiddling around (save selecting the right aspect ratio from the monitor). Only problems are that I couldn't manually edit in a proper resolution, and the normal mapping (which is pretty neat for Quake, when you think about it) is broken. *bangs repeatedly on Bigfoot's stall*