Is the evolution of FPSs moving backwards?

[Copter400]

It's easy to accuse FPS's of backsliding, but have the other genres done anything really new and interesting lately?

 

[Copter400]

And Heavenly Swords may have something revolutionary in it, unless someone now knows what Twing Twang is yet?

It's where Kai shoots people with her crossbow. A little disapointing, considering Yahtzee's speculation of "cutesy lesbian cunnilingus."

 

[PurpleRain]

Agree - though Portal took fps into another dimension. There's hope still

Portal isn't really an FPS. It does have a first-person viewpoint, but the gameplay and requisite mental skills are much closer to puzzle than shooter. However, it's so innovative that it feels almost pointless to try to place it into a category.

It's first person right? And you shoot right? Doesn't that make it a First Person Shooter? i thought that was all there was to it.

And Heavenly Swords may have something revolutionary in it, unless someone now knows what Twing Twang is yet?

It's where Kai shoots people with her crossbow. A little disapointing, considering Yahtzee's speculation of "cutesy lesbian cunnilingus."

I feel so let down. On one end it could be lesbian action, and on the other it's a crossbow. That's a dissapointment.

 

[richasr]

I agree the standards seem to have back-peddled somewhat though I don't think it bothers me as much. I do hate seeing all these new games turning out to be poor and not well thought out... but with decent or even great stories. It's like the developer only spent half of the time between conception and release and just sat back playing it for the rest of the time.

I think though, that there are some great FPS titles still being released and the fact that the others are so poor makes you want to wait for the good ones.

 

[Xanrae]

Supreme Commander revolutionized the scale of an RTS.

Supreme Commander was not a revolution, but a feeble attempt to cater to the ADHD crowd by throwing the actual Strategy part out of the window in favour of OMG 500000000 UNITS WITH LAZORS. The game is pretty much dead online. I cannot say I am surprised.

 

[Gauwin]

Whatever happened to epic missions like the D-DAY from MOHAA?

Good times.

 

[SeniorDingDong]

Well I am getting bored by now very quickly. If they arent unique enough to impress me. Last year did it Stalker and Bioshock. Both impressed me by visuals, story, atmospheric and new ideas.

I miss the times of Jedi Knight 1, Doom 1+2 and Turok 1.

Arena or silly called "eSport" FPS bores me to death and team besed FPS annoys me to death.

 

[JakubK666]

Supreme Commander revolutionized the scale of an RTS.

Supreme Commander was not a revolution, but a feeble attempt to cater to the ADHD crowd by throwing the actual Strategy part out of the window in favour of OMG 500000000 UNITS WITH LAZORS. The game is pretty much dead online. I cannot say I am surprised.

Neither was W40K which had this little action-arcade feel to it, yet plenty of people still play DC or even DoW

(although these are all either turtling whores who couldn't stand the turret nerf or Space/Chaos whores who couldn't stand the nerf of their 'otherwise' uber races.)

 

[Num43]

I was going to make a long post with examples and such...


But my answer is : Yes.

 

[Prons]

A lot of the time when I play an FPS these days I feel like I'm playing Doom but 3D.

 

[BowserX]

Half-Life 2 and Bio-Shock are hardly formulaic, and TimeSplitters has effectively carried the RareWare torch.

Yeh I have to agree with you about that statement.

Although Time Splitters isn't from Rare, but rather individuals from the team behind Goldeneye and Perfect Dark forming Free Radical. Let's face it, if Rare was responsible for Time Splitters, it would have ended up being just like Perfect Dark Zero.

*shudders*

 

[Arbre]

It seems that most FPS are stuck in a formula. The very same formula that was used in the very first FPS games. You rarely see anything new. As soon as you've finished a single player campaing, you've seen all it has to offer and done all there is to do. Unless you really enjoy multiplayer, you might as well uninstall the game and move on to the next one. Perhaps you'll return to play through it again after a few years if you really enjoyed.

I don't see the problems here.
These are not issues. These elements also apply to many genres.
Besides, unless you start cheating with boring Diablo like techniques to generate random and identityless levels, you won't get anything different from one solo adventure to another.
A story is a story, and I don't see the problem with SP in a FPS playing the same.
If you're looking for new ideas, all FPSes introduce some.
Really, I don't think there's a problem here at all.
You're just probably getting bored of the genre by definition.
Or actually try multiplayer.

 

[shadow skill]

Prey was Portal before Portal existed. To be honest Half life does not actually have story telling, any kind of proper character interaction gets nuked by the fact that the protagonist is completely silent. It makes the dialogue meant for the hero from the other characters come across as forced since they have to talk around the hero. (Especially in Half Life 2) Let's also dispense with the idea that the lack of dialogue on the part of Gordon (or any of these other FPS' that use a silent protagonist.) is supposed to bring you into the game somehow, if they wanted to do that they would have given the player dialogue choices that would at the minimum influence the responses of NPC's. The fact that the issue of sameness applies to just about every art form that exists in this world does not mean that these art forms do not suffer because of it. The stories in FPS' are typically next to non-existant, which is something I encounter far more often than I do in other genre's of games. I can point to many more action/adventure games that had a story and character development than I can FPS'.

 

[EzraPound]

Half-Life 2 and Bio-Shock are hardly formulaic, and TimeSplitters has effectively carried the RareWare torch.

Yeh I have to agree with you about that statement.

Although Time Splitters isn't from Rare, but rather individuals from the team behind Goldeneye and Perfect Dark forming Free Radical. Let's face it, if Rare was responsible for Time Splitters, it would have ended up being just like Perfect Dark Zero.

*shudders*

PD Zero is shambolic. TimeSplitters: Future Perfect was much better (and I would argue, one of the best FPS on Xbox), but still seemed uninspired in certain respects - as if it's enough for a sequel to be "categorically superior" to its preceddesor without innovating much.

Then again, it was published by EA.