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

[ZeD [taken 0]]

Jesus, I hate that CoD/Doom IGN picture. Yes, the scores, if you solely want to look at 'em, are pretty different.
But in the text, they're mostly praising Doom's singleplayer.

 

[B-Cell_v1legacy]

Jesus, I hate that CoD/Doom IGN picture. Yes, the scores, if you solely want to look at 'em, are pretty different.
But in the text, they're mostly praising Doom's singleplayer.

If they are praising SP why give it 7 while other 9? because MP is not good? like any one care about Doom MP? I guess they need MP in every game. SP is most important part and worth for games alone. I dont really play MP at all.

 

[MysticSlayer]

It was first with the MW2 ret-con that it is confirmed that none of them died

The only two who didn't die were Soap, who we were all reasonably sure managed to live, and Price, who had been questionable for the couple years leading up to MW2. Some would have even said Gaz was questionable and thought he and Ghost were the same person, at least until some comic revealed that they were two different people voiced by the same person.

but MW2 also plays its' jingoism painfully straight after the subversion that was MW.

The American part of the campaign, sure, but the characters of TF141 seemed to care little for their country of origin (which really removes the "extreme patriotism" part of jingoism), and that side of the campaign showed that the extreme patriotism from America was really the core of all the problems that arose during that story. So yeah, it showcased quite a bit of jingoism, but it wasn't particularly kind to it if you stuck with the story to the end, which I would say is quite subversive in its own right.

 

[Samtemdo8_v1legacy]

You insulted games like Rainbow Six 3 and Battlefield 2 which I happen to like a lot.

And the image of Battlefield 3 and COD MW 3? I know which one is which because Battlefield 3 looks better.

 

[ZeD [taken 0]]

Jesus, I hate that CoD/Doom IGN picture. Yes, the scores, if you solely want to look at 'em, are pretty different.
But in the text, they're mostly praising Doom's singleplayer.

If they are praising SP why give it 7 while other 9? because MP is not good? like any one care about Doom MP? I guess they need MP in every game. SP is most important part and worth for games alone. I dont really play MP at all.

Well, thanks for proving you haven't read it.

And yes, that was one of the points they made.
Along with bad AI, repetetive demon cages (defeat all demons to continue), and weapon imbalance (upgraded shotgun is awesome, but makes rocket launcher very underwhelming).

Doesn't matter how little You care about multiplayer in Doom. It's part of the game and will be part of the reviewing.

 

[Saelune]

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.

I do. Though most good stories in an "FPS" game are in games that are more than shooting things.

 

[B-Cell_v1legacy]

Jesus, I hate that CoD/Doom IGN picture. Yes, the scores, if you solely want to look at 'em, are pretty different.
But in the text, they're mostly praising Doom's singleplayer.

If they are praising SP why give it 7 while other 9? because MP is not good? like any one care about Doom MP? I guess they need MP in every game. SP is most important part and worth for games alone. I dont really play MP at all.

Well, thanks for proving you haven't read it.

And yes, that was one of the points they made.
Along with bad AI, repetetive demon cages (defeat all demons to continue), and weapon imbalance (upgraded shotgun is awesome, but makes rocket launcher very underwhelming).

Doesn't matter how little You care about multiplayer in Doom. It's part of the game and will be part of the reviewing.

so why is not battlefield SP is a part of review since its a part of game?

 

[Erttheking]

Well the Red Orchestra games exist. And Wolfenstein the New Order. So no. And can you please not spam the thread with giant pictures? Use spoiler tags.

 

[Poetic Nova]

Eh, the Killzone series is a thing, and they all had subtile but many ways that made them stand above most military shooters. Although admittedly Killzon 3 dropped the ball.

It's one of the few militairy shooters I enjoy, hell, even why I wanted Sony's hardware.

And there's also Wolfenstein. While I'm not really invested in that series I absolutely fucking love The New Order.

 

[Mcgeezaks]

Well the Red Orchestra games exist. And Wolfenstein the New Order. So no. And can you please not spam the thread with giant pictures? Use spoiler tags.

No you see, RO is multiplayer only AND it has iron sights so it's the spawn of satan. Wolfenstein too since it has cutscenes and iron sights.

 

[Erttheking]

Well the Red Orchestra games exist. And Wolfenstein the New Order. So no. And can you please not spam the thread with giant pictures? Use spoiler tags.

No you see, RO is multiplayer only AND it has iron sights so it's the spawn of satan. Wolfenstein too since it has cutscenes and iron sights.

Frankly I got in way late when the servers were almost dead, and I still really enjoyed my time with Red Orcestra.

Shame there's no mac port for 2.

 

[B-Cell_v1legacy]

Well the Red Orchestra games exist. And Wolfenstein the New Order. So no. And can you please not spam the thread with giant pictures? Use spoiler tags.

No you see, RO is multiplayer only AND it has iron sights so it's the spawn of satan. Wolfenstein too since it has cutscenes and iron sights.

I did quite enjoyed Red orchestra 2. i got it on steam when it was on free deal. no way i would spent money on MP only game.

i was hoping rising storm 2 to have SP yet tripwire have no interest. same with killing floor 2. because that game will take huge advantage for it.

 

[ZeD [taken 0]]

Jesus, I hate that CoD/Doom IGN picture. Yes, the scores, if you solely want to look at 'em, are pretty different.
But in the text, they're mostly praising Doom's singleplayer.

If they are praising SP why give it 7 while other 9? because MP is not good? like any one care about Doom MP? I guess they need MP in every game. SP is most important part and worth for games alone. I dont really play MP at all.

Well, thanks for proving you haven't read it.

And yes, that was one of the points they made.
Along with bad AI, repetetive demon cages (defeat all demons to continue), and weapon imbalance (upgraded shotgun is awesome, but makes rocket launcher very underwhelming).

Doesn't matter how little You care about multiplayer in Doom. It's part of the game and will be part of the reviewing.

so why is not battlefield SP is a part of review since its a part of game?

It is. Just checked BF4's IGN review.

Some other job you'd like me to do for you?

 

[DrownedAmmet]

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.

I'm a fan of old shooters, I grew up playing SiN and Half-Life, but this right here is why I prefer modern games. Being able to use iron sights just seems like a straight up improvement to me, not something that's a "new feature". When it's done right (like in CoD) it gives you more choices in your gameplay. Do I hipfire a few rounds quick and hope I get lucky, or do I take that extra fraction of a second to bring my sights up and take an aimed shot?

There are very few FPS that I've enjoyed that don't let you use iron sights, only the original Halo comes to mind

 

[Hawki]

So, let's see, it's another B-cell thread with the theme of "I don't like x, discuss," but with only the veneer of wanting discussion at all.

But fine, I'll play:

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.

I'm pretty sure the "Doom clones" got stale as well. As did the "Mario clones." And the "GTA clones." And the...well, you get the idea. Maybe.

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.

"Making x great again" is a recipe for not being taken seriously. There's a reason why more people laugh at Trump then laugh with him. Also, Doom. The second reboot in its series. Regardless of what quality Doom actually has, that's not much to be proud of.

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.

Wrong on one count, in that MoH 2010 isn't a reboot, it's in the same continuity as the original games (one of the characters is implied to be Patterson's descendant).

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.

Or they could...I dunno...make Quake 5?

Quake, from a storyline perspective, is laughable, and the only continuous storyline is that of the strogg. You might as well make Quake 5 and have them do whatever. It's different from something like MoH 2010, because every game in the series shares the same continuity, even if the games are fairly isolated from one another in terms of plot.

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.

*Raises hand and declares Frontline to be best MoH game, closely followed by Pacific Assault* (Allied Assault comes in at #3 though).

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.

Pretty much agree with everything you say there. Have a cookie.

That said, I was into sci-fi FPS "before it was cool" (Halo, Killzone, etc.), so, um, there. I feel it also signifies my personal choice. Usually I say clear of MMS/WWII FPS because sci-fi is my jam, and I highly value story. Does that mean those games are bad, just because of personal preference? No. The MoH games I played were all good (bar Breakthrough), and I loved playing Battlefield 2 back in the day.

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.

Have another cookie.

In seriousness, I haven't played CoD 4, but based on reviews it got, I can respect it. For anyone who hasn't seen it, I highly reccomend watching Noah Gervais's CoD retrospective, how he discusses not only the gameplay of each CoD game, but also the themes. No surprise that in terms of themes, CoD 4 was the high point for him. It's why that, while I have little interest in CoD or MMS games myself, it would be disingenuous to dismiss them out of hand.

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.

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.

No cookie for you.

Okay, we get it, you don't care about story or multiplayer in FPS, if not in general. That's fine. I don't care that much about multiplayer in FPS either, bar a few exceptions. That doesn't mean that a game doesn't deserve merit - it's like me calling TF2 or Quake 3 "bad" because they're multiplayer only, and therefore not in my realm of interest. Anyone with any understanding of fiction and/or politics could appreciate that regardless of how CoD plays, the fact that it touched on these things at all and executed them the way they did (e.g. the nuke scene) is worthy of merit. That's not to say that previous FPS games didn't tell stories, but I can't think of one before CoD 4 that tapped into the War on Terror so effectively in terms of how it reflected the darker side of patriotism and the risks of military intervention in the 21st century.

Doom and Deus Ex MD are alone the reason why 2016 will be best year since 1998.

One reboot, one sequel. Yay. Consider that 1998 gave us, among other things, Half-Life and StarCraft. First installments of their series, one revolutionizing storytelling in FPS, the other how RTS games functioned from that point on and kickstarting e-sports. Even if the Doom game plays excellently, it's not doing anything new.

 

[sXeth]

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.

To add to this point, the reason we're starting to see the sci-fi shooters swing back around, along with the more "cartoony" (referring to lack of realism, seriousness, and brighter pallettes) variations like DOON and Overwatch is probably related to the rapid explosion in media of such properties with the revival of Star Wars, the Marvel movies, etc.

 

[Ragsnstitches]

Typically I'd ignore a thread like this, but having just gotten into both DOOM 2016 (as of 2 days ago) and Battlefield 4 (as of last week) I feel like saying something.

The problem with Military Shooters is over saturation. But here's the kicker, that's only a problem if you actively seek out military shooters. This, conversely, is exactly why DOOM 2016 and the recent Wolfenstein ANO and TOB are so appealing. If the roles were reversed we'd be having the opposite conversation.

In a quarter century of gaming (fucking hell), the only *military shooters* I've played are:

Spoiler: Spoilers for the sake of cleanliness

Medal Of Honor 1, Allied Assault and Big Red One oops, I meant Airborne.

Spec Ops (the original game)

Battlefield 1942, 2142, 2 and 4.

Sniper Elite 1 and 2

Operation Flashpoint

Call of Duty World At War, Modern Warfare 1 and 2, Black Ops 1 and 2.

At a stretch I could also count the Killzone series, the recent Wolfenstein games and the first Resistance game.

That's 25 years. Considering I can easily complete 5 or more games a year, that's not a lot of games and they are often short games for me as I only go so far in multiplayer

I will admit to getting tired of the CoD formula which is why I never bothered with MW3 or BO3 and any other spin off series or attempts to ape the formula (hello modern Medal of Honor). This is when things were getting way too similar and each game was rapidly losing my interest. I still think WaW and MW1 are fantastic games in both campaign and multiplayer.

Until last week I hadn't played a military shooter in well over 4 years (unless Shadow Fall counts) and recently I picked up BF4 with all DLC for 20 bucks... and I'm having a blast. Meanwhile I picked up Doom and I think it's fantastic too. It should be noted the last time I played a high octane shooter like this was a long while ago (early 2000's). I did try Shadow Warrior but I really didn't like it and never got far enough into it to truly say I played it.

Variety is the spice of life and Hunger is the best Sauce. If you starve yourself of these experiences they become more appetizing, while trying different genres can also reinvigorate your interest in tired ones later on. Hell, I've become fatigued of my preferred genres as of late because there have been so many great ones come out in such a short space of time. I only completed Dark Souls 3 once and despite thoroughly enjoying it I can't bring myself to go to New Game+ or try a new build, and I typically go to NG+++ and try out multiple builds before I retire them.

 

[MysticSlayer]

Medal Of Honor 1, Allied Assault and Big Red One.

Just want to point out that Big Red One is a Call of Duty game [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Call_of_Duty_2:_Big_Red_One].

 

[The Enquirer]

There's been a lot of bad ones and plenty of mediocre ones as well, but there have been a lot of gems as well. Hell, most of the ones you listed up top were at the bare minimum above average. Hell, Call of Duty 4 was one of my, and still is one of my favorite shooters to the point where I replay it every year or two.

Rainbow Six Vegas was definitely a depart from what the originals in the series were, but it was actually still an excellent game in it's own right.

So no, there have been plenty of good ones. The most recent 2 entries in the Wolfenstein series were fan-fucking-tastic. The problem is over saturating the market with them. This is now happening with open world games.

 

[Longview]

Is it not unfair to label every single Military Shooter in the last 17 years as generic?