Are slow doom bullets possible anymore?

[BrotherRool]

Old schools shooters were basically first-person shoot em ups, with this really slow bullets that you could walk around, making a fun fast, movement placed gameplay that old gamers have a lot of nostalgia for. Consoles get blamed a lot for changing this

But is that really possible anymore? Not on a Serious Sam level but a big blockbuster AAA game? I can#t imagine myself accepting them. Old school graphics were cruddy. Blocky rooms, 2D enemies. And the technology was stuttery and low d. The idea of projectile weapons was fine because everything looked so stupid that big glowing orbs that you could walk around felt like part of the technological limitations.

I just can't see a context where I would find it acceptable. Maybe if the gist of the game was matrix time and the PC almost permamently moved around in slow mo we could bring back the old sort of gameplay. Outside of that I just can't see my mind accepting it. It's the same with iron sights in a way, in silly games no iron sights are fine but it'd be weird to play a military shooter where your guys were spraying accurately from the hip

EDIT: I decided to just add a little post note because I made the writing error of being a little over the top without also including any way that anyone might tell that I was being so. I mean dogeable bullets, as opposed to literally walking round them =D

 

[Canadamus Prime]

I have no idea what you're talking about. Even the bullets on Contra moved reasonably quickly, obviously not as fast as bullets in real life but still nothing like what you're describing. The only game I can think of that's even close to what you describe is Space Invaders.

 

[skywolfblue]

with this really slow bullets that you could walk around

I've never played any game with bullets THAT slow. Unreal Tournament had a lot of dodgeable projectiles (Shock secondary, Link Gun, Flack Cannon, Rocket Launcher, etc) for example, but none you could walk around.

There's nothing preventing slow bullets. Slow mega-missiles is a pretty common theme.

However, having all bullets be really really slow means either that:
A) It becomes way too easy.
or:
B) You put an astonishing number of bullets on the field at any given moment. At which point positioning becomes of paramount importance, so a top down or third person perspective is pretty important. Thus we have the genre of Bullet-Hell games. There are plenty of games that do this.

 

[Joccaren]

Eh, I still play Unreal more than any modern shooter. If it had a graphics update that'd be great.

Honestly, modern shooter mechanics are, IMO, crap. Its not as much about skill, and more about reaction time, and IMO that sucks. I would welcome a return to even Halo CE days, but sadly I don't see that happening any time son =/

 

[TrevHead]

I think the lack of slow moving projectiles is one of the biggest failings of modern shooters, that and the lack of rail shooters.

There is nothing stopping projectiles from been used more in modern shooters gameplay wise, a large problem is down to gamers demanding realistic games with big plots which slow moving projectiles are too arcade-like to fit in.

 

[lechat]

you are forgetting bulletstorm where if i remember right you could dodge bullets in normal mode but if wrong i'm sure you could dodge them in combo (whatever) mode

EDIT:missed the serious sam thing so prolly irrelevant

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

Even in the historical context, most weapons used incredibly fast bullets. Taking as examples Doom, Quake 3, and Unreal Tournament for example in the "fast" category we have hitscan weapons (those that arrive the instant you pull the trigger):

Doom: Handgun, Shotgun, Chaingun
Quake 3: Machine Gun, Shotgun, Railgun, Lightning Gun
Unreal Tournament: Handgun, Shock Rifle primary, Sniper Rifle

Then the "Fast" projectiles that move at a finite speed:

Doom: N/A - All projectiles move at a speed such that the player actually move at a significant fraction of it.
Quake 3: Plasma Rifle, BFG
Unreal Tournament: Flack Rifle

The slow projectiles - those that are easily dodged given some amount of warning and player skill

Doom: Rocket Launcher
Quake 3: Rocket Launcher
Unreal Tournament: Rocket Launcher

And finally the very slow projectiles - those that are so easily evaded you have to dupe players into running into them or at the very least rely upon enormous area of effect:

Doom: BFG
Quake 3: Grenade Launcher
Unreal Tournament: Redeemer, Bio Rifle

Even in the historical context, most projectile weapons were very fast but then there is a catch - hitscan is only useful in a multiplayer context when lag is a negligable factor. Until around 2004 or so, the odds of any particular player having a high speed connection was low. This meant that players were already forced to lead targets and thus non-hitscan weapons that tended to have a large area of effect were often favored. To take Quake 3 as an example, at any given range one might use a rocket launcher there exists a better option that does not have an area of effect. At close range, the shotgun, plasma gun and lightning gun are all superior assuming you don't miss. At medium and longer range the machine gun and rail gun are superior, the former because the presumed damage advantage of the rocket launcher is mitigated by the fact that getting a direct hit and thus maximizing the damage of a rocket becomes increasingly difficult as range increases.

In many ways then the modern trend is simply a response to the reality that lag is no longer a common factor and thus common access to wide area of effect weapons is no longer necessary. Combine that with the trend of modern games towards arbitrary realism, and even the slow projectiles already present are required to be arbitrarily hamstrung to ensure they approach fairness.

 

[perkl]

However, having all bullets be really really slow means either that:
A) It becomes way too easy.

No, it becomes really hard. See Team Fortress 2 and Tribes for examples.

 

[BrotherRool]

with this really slow bullets that you could walk around

I've never played any game with bullets THAT slow. Unreal Tournament had a lot of dodgeable projectiles (Shock secondary, Link Gun, Flack Cannon, Rocket Launcher, etc) for example, but none you could walk around.

There's nothing preventing slow bullets. Slow mega-missiles is a pretty common theme.

However, having all bullets be really really slow means either that:
A) It becomes way too easy.
or:
B) You put an astonishing number of bullets on the field at any given moment. At which point positioning becomes of paramount importance, so a top down or third person perspective is pretty important. Thus we have the genre of Bullet-Hell games. There are plenty of games that do this.

I was being a little bit hyperbolic, I meant there were games even in first person where dodging bullets was an important part of the gameplay. Something not possible in almost all shooters nowadays, even with the non-hitscan weapons. (But TF2 is a good example in this thread of a game that stays closer to those roots for some weapons)

 

[hermes]

I don't think they are rare, or consoles could be blamed for them being rare.

In Borderlands 2, some weapons (like Torque machine guns) had slow, dodgeable bullets.... I hated those.

 

[DoPo]

Eh, I still play Unreal more than any modern shooter. If it had a graphics update that'd be great.

False. No amount of graphic updates can make UT "great". Even if you make it photorealistic 3D image and so on, it's not going to be "great". heck, slap a photorealistic nude mode and it still wouldn't cut it. Reason is, the game is already great, you're just going to improve it and make it greater.

 

[Smooth Operator]

Right... so you are one of those "only realism is acceptable" people, completely ignoring CoD and it's ilk are about as real as a Sunday morning cartoon.
Telepathic bullet tracking and regeneration that would make Wolverine jelly are all good, but slow projectiles... crikey that just kills the whole realism!

 

[aguspal]

Right... so you are one of those "only realism is acceptable" people, completely ignoring CoD and it's ilk are about as real as a Sunday morning cartoon.
Telepathic bullet tracking and regeneration that would make Wolverine jelly are all good, but slow projectiles... crikey that just kills the whole realism!

Call of duty has some realistic elements on it, but really its more of an arcade game... or something like that.


I am not sure what category it would actually be. Whatever, it works for me anways.

 

[skywolfblue]

I was being a little bit hyperbolic, I meant there were games even in first person where dodging bullets was an important part of the gameplay. Something not possible in almost all shooters nowadays, even with the non-hitscan weapons. (But TF2 is a good example in this thread of a game that stays closer to those roots for some weapons)

Ah. I agree, I'd like to see more games with dodgeable projectile weaponry. I vastly prefer UT's weapons to that of modern military shooters.

So I'd say that it's very possible, and indeed something I'd want to see make a comeback. It probably wouldn't work too well for a military shooter. But if it's Sci-Fi/Fanstasy there's already suspension of disbelief, so slow bullets are entirely fine. Mass Effect has some guns with slow/dodgeable bullets, even when in Lore they're suppose to be accelerated to absurd speeds.