I find action games boring. (Wolfenstein related)

[Guy from the 80's]

I bought Wolf due to the positive ZP review and STEAM summer sale but my oh my, how boring the game is. In therms of craftsmanship the game is fine, but I found it so boring rushing from scripted scene to scripted scene I decided to uninstall it....I have limited space on my SSD.

Don't get me wrong, I do like mindless gun actions....Black was a great game, but Wolfenstein is just boring. The game sends you from place to place and basically forces your hand.


(Never liked MOH-AA since I owned a PC and had access to proper games)



Now I like action movies, so why does action games fail? Is it because games are more of a dialog rather than a monolog?

 

[Shim3d]

I never used to feel like this, but I have for the past year or two as well.
Recently I played Spec Ops: The Line because I heard so much about it's narrative but the gameplay just felt like walking down a shooting range. So boring.

My guess is you can only go down so many corridors of infinitely-respawning antagonistic foreigners before it starts to feel the same.

 

[TheYellowCellPhone]

Yeah, I've been getting that as well. RAGE, Borderlands, Wolfenstein 2009, Red Faction, Red Orchestra, or whatever other games. It's fun to kill cannonfodder enemies, but it's hard to stay with it for six or more hours when you aren't working toward anything fun or achievable. Easier to just uninstall then launch TF2 again.

I never used to feel like this, but I have for the past year or two as well.
Recently I played Spec Ops: The Line because I heard so much about it's narrative but the gameplay just felt like walking down a shooting range. So boring.

Funny thing is, some people argue that the game was meant to be generic and incredibly underwhelming in terms of gameplay to better bring out its narrative and tone. I personally think that line of thinking is bullshit whether it's true or not, but I still enjoyed gameplay in Spec Ops: The Line because it looked really nice, the level design was great, and shooting just worked.

 

[SecondPrize]

Buy and play system shock 2, force yourself past the difference between it and what your head tells you games should look like now. Corridor shooters are boring. That's it. When you stop buying into the excitement that the set pieces offer then they aren't for you, and you're better off giving them a rest.

 

[SAMAS]

Yeah, I've been getting that as well. RAGE, Borderlands, Wolfenstein 2009, Red Faction, Red Orchestra, or whatever other games. It's fun to kill cannonfodder enemies, but it's hard to stay with it for six or more hours when you aren't working toward anything fun or achievable. Easier to just uninstall then launch TF2 again.

I never used to feel like this, but I have for the past year or two as well.
Recently I played Spec Ops: The Line because I heard so much about it's narrative but the gameplay just felt like walking down a shooting range. So boring.

Funny thing is, some people argue that the game was meant to be generic and incredibly underwhelming in terms of gameplay to better bring out its narrative and tone. I personally think that line of thinking is bullshit whether it's true or not, but I still enjoyed gameplay in Spec Ops: The Line because it looked really nice, the level design was great, and shooting just worked.

More like: The game was gonna be vanilla and derivative, so they took a chance on playing the mindscrew/deconstruction card.

 

[mitchell271]

I agree with you! For the past 2-ish years, I've played a lot less shooters and gravitated towards action/adventure, beat 'em ups, horror and artsy indie games just because they're different. And I'm having way more fun now! I've spent a bit more money, sure (thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster for Steam sales), but there's only a handful of purchases I regret.

Check out They Bleed Pixels if you want something inventive or if you're feeling a little pretentious, try Thomas was Alone. The former is a tough-as-nails-in-your-anus action-platformer and the latter is a story driven and exceptionally well done story game.

 

[The Random Critic]

There are different types of action games/shooter, for example

Even though Dark souls feels like a fighting game, I would be insane if I were to compare it to Street fighter, Soul caliber or even SSBB.

There is also a significant difference between ARMA and Doom/Quake/Team Fortress.

 

[AmberSword]

This basically boils down to.... If your core game sucks, no amount of sugar you paint on that shit will make it taste good. Gameplay first guys, remember, don't try to be something that you're not. Don't try to be a movie (*cough Order 1886 cough*). Don't try to be a novel (*cough Alan Wake cough*). I don't care even if a developer says he wants to make an "ART" game (*cough Gone Home Dear Esther*). Brothers and Journey exist my friends. So if you can't come up with good gameplay, or at least make it obvious you've put effort into gameplay, don't make games.

 

[krazykidd]

I bought Wolf due to the positive ZP review and STEAM summer sale but my oh my, how boring the game is. In therms of craftsmanship the game is fine, but I found it so boring rushing from scripted scene to scripted scene I decided to uninstall it....I have limited space on my SSD.

Don't get me wrong, I do like mindless gun actions....Black was a great game, but Wolfenstein is just boring. The game sends you from place to place and basically forces your hand.


(Never liked MOH-AA since I owned a PC and had access to proper games)



Now I like action movies, so why does action games fail? Is it because games are more of a dialog rather than a monolog?

Funny wolfenstein restored me faith in FPS. I found it to be fun. Story wise it was drivle, seriously i started feeling sympathy for the nazis, something went terribly wrong somewhere. I am playing mostly stealth, unless forced into a gun fight which they do very often. Going through the game mostly undetected is real fun, finding hidden paths and items. This is a game i could really play how i wanted. DUAL WIELDING SNIPER RIFLES LOLWUT?!

 

[Smooth Operator]

Well I have the same thing going for action movies, I'll pick them up sure enough but then I just end up being bored because they can be such empty romps on inconsequential nonsense. Which I can totally equate to any action game just the same, difference for me probably comes in with the fact that in a game you actually do stuff and not sit there uselessly.

But even so I can't really go more then 3 hours with a game like that at a time, there is only so much nonsense one can take.

 

[Pink Gregory]

Well put it this way.

An action movie can usually sustain itself for about 1 1/2 hours, and be fondly remembered and tremendously exciting. Set pieces are close together, short, clipped and catchy dialogue, can still be flawed but can cover them in such a short time.

An action game...well. Would you be happy with an action game that lasts 1 1/2 hours?

It's a terribly reductive idea, but I think there's some truth in it.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

There are different types of action games/shooter, for example

Even though Dark souls feels like a fighting game, I would be insane if I were to compare it to Street fighter, Soul caliber or even SSBB.

Dark Souls feels like an RPG to me... I know it's an action-RPG, but I would never confuse it with an action game...