Are almost all military shooters mediocre since Medal of Honor 1999?

[B-Cell_v1legacy]

Hey there,

my all fellow gamers, friends, buddies just recently i was thinking something. i look at history of this sub genre. some say modern millitary shooter suck since modern warfare etc but i look deeper and say its always been bad apart from very few like COD1 and MOH allied assault and they were just decent titles

This was the game back in 1999 that play exactly like COD (or even worse id say) and any other modern millitary shooter. then we look into deeper history of millitary based shooters either they set in WW2 or set in modern warfare they become stale very quickly especially we compare them to Sci fi FPS, old school shooters and FPS/RPG hybrids.

6th generation were dominate by WW2 shooters and 7th were Modern war and they were all same stale as mention in above picture we discuss earlier.

hopefully this gen we will have more old school shooters like they were on PC in late 90s. and success of Doom will lead to make FPS genre great again.

Discuss

 

[ZeD [taken 0]]

It's amazing that, even when it's an entirely different forum, I knew who posted this by reading the thread title.

Anyway, no, I don't agree.
There have been a lot of mediocre FPS games, but so it is with every genre.
All the games you listed up top were fantastic (with the possible exception of MW3, imo).

 

[Barbas]

No, since the new Wolfenstein has a military setting.

And why would you not aim down the sights of your weapon in a military shooter? That's how you hit what you're aiming at and hopefully miss what you aren't. Know what I don't like? Prop scopes. The FPS genre's fine, dude, and it's probably been one of the strongest for as long as it's been around.

 

[B-Cell_v1legacy]

All the games you listed up top were fantastic (with the possible exception of MW3, imo).

hey zed, welcome here my old freind.

anyways my point was all these type of games almost ruined FPS genre last generation. until this gen where raise and return of Old school FPS.

EA originally reboot MOH to modern times just to compete with COD but series bombed so hard that EA has to abondon the franchise and shift focus toward battlefield.

only military shooter i found even decent were COD1 and MOH allied assault. they were good but not really great imo.

Hopefully success of Doom change the landscape for FPS genre as ID software revolutionize FPS genre back then too. Doom just released. next is Quake Reboot. do it ID.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

I actually enjoyed the first Crysis game, even if it was ungodly difficult. Fucking 1000-yard perfect accuracy with a shotgun enemies.

 

[MysticSlayer]

No.

Medal of Honor: Allied Assault and Infinity Ward's first three Call of Duty games (CoD, CoD2, and CoD4) would all be considered far superior to the original MoH. The same could go unquestionably for Battlefield 1942 and Battlefield 2. I'm sure most people would at least put Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30 above it as well, and anyone considering Wolfenstein a military shooter also would. And those are just the most obvious games. I'm sure fans of the genre would only recognize the 1999 Medal of Honor as an influential classic to military shooters, but it would hardly be considered the best, especially after Allied Assault nearly unanimously took over as the best Medal of Honor game.

I'm not sure if there's something about MoH that would appeal to someone who doesn't like military shooters, though I'm also not sure what it would have done that Allied Assault didn't also do. But maybe consider that if you're not a fan of military shooters, you're drawn in by anything that makes fans of the genre enjoy it, and, as a result, perhaps not a good authority on what the best (or last great one) was.

But as someone who actually was really into military shooters, I'd say I lost interest in them around Modern Warfare 2. In general, I would say it all fell apart around 2008-2011, but that's just me. The fact that Call of Duty and Battlefield still are among the best selling games any year shows that they're still appealing to some people.

 

[Fox12]

Wait, what was wrong with the Ghost Recon series? I don't even like shooters, and I think those are well made tactical shooters. It's got deep, involving combat and it focuses on strategy instead of blind violence. I disliked the themes and writing in the games, because it's a game based on Tom Clancy, but the actual combat was pretty solid. Ghost Recon 2 is still the best military shooter I've ever played (which admittedly isn't saying much).

 

[Saelune]

Only if there hasn't been any good music since 1999. The answer is no. Also looking down sights is kind of how you aim a gun.

And honestly, as boring as most FPS campaigns are, the old games were boring too, they just weren't as many.

 

[Gethsemani_v1legacy]

The answer is no. The reason we saw loads of WW2-themed shooters in the late-90's and early-00's is because WW2 was in vogue in mainstream culture at the time. The 50 year anniversary of the end of WW2 and movies like Saving Private Ryan, The Thin Red Line and Enemy at the Gates pushed WW2 into the mind of the general public and it stayed there thanks to shows like Band of Brothers. The video game industry just capitalized on this by making games that followed this general trend in society (hence why MoH:AA mimicked SPR and CoD EatG/BoB). By the mid-00's the war on terrorism and US war efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq were on everyone's mind instead and the games industry followed suit, starting with MW4, where the Marine sections are basically Not-Iraq. This was a thing up until the mid-10's, and now science fiction is the new cool.

I'd say that most military shooters have been comparatively good, but all at different things. CoD has been the go-to series for cinematic action pretty much since its' release and is still the undisputed king of that subgenre. Meanwhile Operation Flashpoint/ArmA has set the bar for realism in military shooters and Bohemia are the undisputed masters of realistic military shooters. Sure, there have been low points like the 2009 Wolfenstein or the MoH reboot, but as a genre I'd say that military shooters are actually relatively high quality compared to many other genres.

 

[B-Cell_v1legacy]

And honestly, as boring as most FPS campaigns are, the old games were boring too, they just weren't as many.

I think you mean military FPS. because Half life, Stalker, Crysis, Deus Ex, Doom has some of the most amazing SP Experience history never give any other example.

 

[Zhukov]

because Half life, Stalker, Crysis, Deus Ex, Doom has some of the most amazing SP Experience history never give any other example.

Crysis is a military shooter.

Especially the first one.

You play a US soldier. In the army. Shooting Koreans. With soldiers Oscar Mike Charle Foxtrotting all over the place.

 

[Kingjackl]

You're forgetting that before it became the basis for years of stale sequels, the first Modern Warfare game had one of the most innovative and subversive campaigns for a war game up to that point. So much of that game is iconic, and almost deconstructive of military jingoism in places, at least in the first half.

 

[Gethsemani_v1legacy]

You're forgetting that before it became the basis for years of stale sequels, the first Modern Warfare game had one of the most innovative and subversive campaigns for a war game up to that point. So much of that game is iconic, and almost deconstructive of military jingoism in places, at least in the first half.

The second half is pretty subversive too though. Keep in mind that all the "actual" protagonists (Soap, Price, that Captain dude) are killed off in the final scene on the bridge, delivering a pretty poignant point about the cost of war and revenge. It was first with the MW2 ret-con that it is confirmed that none of them died, but MW2 also plays its' jingoism painfully straight after the subversion that was MW.

 

[B-Cell_v1legacy]

You're forgetting that before it became the basis for years of stale sequels, the first Modern Warfare game had one of the most innovative and subversive campaigns for a war game up to that point. So much of that game is iconic, and almost deconstructive of military jingoism in places, at least in the first half.

what is so innovative about first modern warfare? its basically COD2 in modern skin but even more linear, scripted. only NPC can open door and game has no level design, rely on set pieces.

 

[Kingjackl]

The second half is pretty subversive too though. Keep in mind that all the "actual" protagonists (Soap, Price, that Captain dude) are killed off in the final scene on the bridge, delivering a pretty poignant point about the cost of war and revenge. It was first with the MW2 ret-con that it is confirmed that none of them died, but MW2 also plays its' jingoism painfully straight after the subversion that was MW.

Fair point, though I never got the impression Soap and Price died in that final scene, so I wouldn't call it a retcon. It felt more like they passed out after delivering the final blow before being taken into medical care, which is a common trope in action movies. I agree though, MW2 and every subsequent games attempts to top the first one just led to more jingoistic products.

what is so innovative about first modern warfare? its basically COD2 in modern skin but even more linear, scripted. only NPC can open door and game has no level design, rely on set pieces.

It's the set-piece moments that made it innovative, but unlike later games, they were actually used to either make a point or diversify the gameplay, giving you lesser or greater control where needed. For example, the AC-130 sequence where you play a camera operator for a gunner deliberately limits your engagement with the ground battle to create a sense of alienation. The ghille suit mission changes the fighting style, making it more about tense stealth engagements and picking and choosing your targets. And the post-nuke sequence at the end of the American campaign was a huge deal at the time, basically a precursor to what Spec Ops: The Line ended up doing, when it was clear later war games failed to get the point.

 

[B-Cell_v1legacy]

The ghille suit mission changes the fighting style, making it more about tense stealth engagements and picking and choosing your targets.

that was scripted stealth where you follow orders. not real stealth i would say.

 

[Gethsemani_v1legacy]

You're forgetting that before it became the basis for years of stale sequels, the first Modern Warfare game had one of the most innovative and subversive campaigns for a war game up to that point. So much of that game is iconic, and almost deconstructive of military jingoism in places, at least in the first half.

what is so innovative about first modern warfare? its basically COD2 in modern skin but even more linear, scripted. only NPC can open door and game has no level design, rely on set pieces.

1. The general narrative structure of letting you follow two different people in reaching the same goal. Different character was a thing since CoD1, but MW was the first time they shared a story other then "kill axis dudes".
2. The AC-130 sequence was truly groundbreaking and paved the way for every single game with aspirations having a "pilot the support vehicle"-section. At the time it had never been done before and the seamless transition between gunship and soldier on the ground just made it all the more effective.
3. The post-nuclear detonation scene was one of the first times a FPS killed off a protagonist in the middle of the storyline without the player having any chance to stop it. It also set the bar for "shocking death scenes from player perspective", something that later CoDs (and many other games) would abuse the hell out of.
4. Most missions varied their fighting distances tremendously. The assault on the Russian village or the lead up to the AC-130 section are great examples of this, where you move between houses and long/medium range firefights dominate, then you fight short range in the houses and the game keeps mixing it up like that.
5. The game tapped into the contemporary "War on Terrorism" and instability in Russia to deliver a storyline that was grounded in a real world that people could recognize. The story was also, at the same time, a clever subversion of the "evil arabs"-archtype.

I could go on, but just those five points alone should be enough for any game to prove its' merits.

EDIT: Not to mention how its' multiplayer innovations of load outs and kill streaks would go on to become such an industry standard that even the DOOM reboot got in on it.

 

[B-Cell_v1legacy]

More like the vast majority of shooters, military or other. I have no idea how you can stand to play so many of them.

the Old school shooters and FPS/RPG hybrids certainly not. Doom and Deus Ex MD are alone the reason why 2016 will be best year since 1998.

 

[B-Cell_v1legacy]

You're forgetting that before it became the basis for years of stale sequels, the first Modern Warfare game had one of the most innovative and subversive campaigns for a war game up to that point. So much of that game is iconic, and almost deconstructive of military jingoism in places, at least in the first half.

what is so innovative about first modern warfare? its basically COD2 in modern skin but even more linear, scripted. only NPC can open door and game has no level design, rely on set pieces.

1. The general narrative structure of letting you follow two different people in reaching the same goal. Different character was a thing since CoD1, but MW was the first time they shared a story other then "kill axis dudes".
2. The AC-130 sequence was truly groundbreaking and paved the way for every single game with aspirations having a "pilot the support vehicle"-section. At the time it had never been done before and the seamless transition between gunship and soldier on the ground just made it all the more effective.
3. The post-nuclear detonation scene was one of the first times a FPS killed off a protagonist in the middle of the storyline without the player having any chance to stop it. It also set the bar for "shocking death scenes from player perspective", something that later CoDs (and many other games) would abuse the hell out of.
4. Most missions varied their fighting distances tremendously. The assault on the Russian village or the lead up to the AC-130 section are great examples of this, where you move between houses and long/medium range firefights dominate, then you fight short range in the houses and the game keeps mixing it up like that.
5. The game tapped into the contemporary "War on Terrorism" and instability in Russia to deliver a storyline that was grounded in a real world that people could recognize. The story was also, at the same time, a clever subversion of the "evil arabs"-archtype.

I could go on, but just those five points alone should be enough for any game to prove its' merits.

EDIT: Not to mention how its' multiplayer innovations of load outs and kill streaks would go on to become such an industry standard that even the DOOM reboot got in on it.

But my friend, it was not "innovative" in a good way as it take FPS genre backward and focus more on Multiplayer. all points you mentioned reflect cutscenes rather than gameplay. most important thing in FPS is level design and shooting while level design are non existance there. and entire game was full on rail. I was never super impressed with original COD but modern warfare quickly become most overrated game of all time tied with GTA series.

now look at this

Spoiler

Lazy developers copy paste same thing over and over again.

even more


Exact Same movement!!?/

kinda sad IGN gave MW2 9.5 and Ghost 8.8 while actual hardcore FPS got 7.1

Spoiler