Squad based RTS in the vein of Syndicate 1993. Only other one I can think of now is Jagged Alliance Back In Action but that game was.........off.
Old game mechanics that you miss
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Here's my thoughts on limited weapon slots in modern shooters: if Bulletstorm has a thing where holding down the "Switch Weapon" button allows you to see all of Grayson's guns and use the control stick to pick one, what's everyone else's excuse for not just doing that too?[footnote] To my knowledge, there aren't many games with a weapon select wheel besides that and Assassin's Creed.[/footnote] And heck, it's not even hard to adapt - the PC keyboard already has a bunch of number keys just so we can switch between eight different guns!
I actually miss health pickups - you used to end a battle at 32% health and that would play into how you proceeded forward (aggressive or cautious) you'd be scowering beneath every staircase looking for a few more points of health instead of just hiding behind a wall for 10 seconds and getting full health.
Agreed.BlueberryMUNCH said:
My vote. Directional pad usage. I liked the analog stick just fine, but some games I just prefer directional pad for movement. Fighters for instance, I tend to SUCK with an analog stick. Darksiders 2, although I've only played it long enough to notice how different from its predecessor it is, in the menu screens you can't even use the directional pad. It just feels more natural to me to use that to navigate a menu and not an analog stick.
Edit: This as well:
I miss the good old days of couch co-op. I don't mind online too much but my friends and I would really like to sit down and play a game like Uncharted or whatever, in a local co-op capacity.Glover09 said:
Tutorials. Seriously, I still play the Half Life 1 tutorial every time I play it to this day. I loved how you had a specific area where you slowed down and set up all the game mechanics and didnt have them pop up as you went along and you had to see "Press E to open door".
Down time in games. Someone else mentioned this but I had to say it. Again, going back to Half Life series, I think of opposing force where you wander around the training camp and nothing happens to you. I think of Soldier of Fortune where you went back to your base in the comic book store for a while and relaxed, reflecting on what you did and gearing up for whats next on the agenda. It doesnt have to be all guns all the time, and actually having some quiet time in between makes the action BETTER because it puts you in a false sense of security
Down time in games. Someone else mentioned this but I had to say it. Again, going back to Half Life series, I think of opposing force where you wander around the training camp and nothing happens to you. I think of Soldier of Fortune where you went back to your base in the comic book store for a while and relaxed, reflecting on what you did and gearing up for whats next on the agenda. It doesnt have to be all guns all the time, and actually having some quiet time in between makes the action BETTER because it puts you in a false sense of security
Getting rpg levelling as you might expect in rpg games. As in, these days you tend to only get skill trees. Want to level guns? Go to the gun skill tree and pick specific bonuses. Want to level stealth? Go to the stealth tree and pick specific bonuses. Whatever happened you YOU deciding the stats your characters get? Strength/stamina/agility/luck/whatever. I want to be able to edit those as I like! Not have the game do it for me, or not allow it at all. Maybe it's because I started my rpg history with D&D tabletop, but I want detailed customization. Not generalized! ME2 has been the worst offender in this in recent years, of the games I've played...
I also agree with the 'two weapon slots only' thing. I was really glad ME3 didn't copy that over from ME2... And it's one of the reasons I'm put off by a lot of recent shooter games, even if only a minor one.
Difficulty too...I hate how all games these days at the very least come with a 'I can beat it with my hands tied behind my back' difficulty setting. And then the hardest setting being 'okay, I may die here and there and need to pay attention, but any gamer can still beat it'. Whatever happened to a difficulty where the average gamer would go 'Argh, this is impossible'? Or things like save points being around every corner. I remember mario 1, where there were no save points. If your lives ran out, you had to do the entire game from start again.
I also agree with the 'two weapon slots only' thing. I was really glad ME3 didn't copy that over from ME2... And it's one of the reasons I'm put off by a lot of recent shooter games, even if only a minor one.
Difficulty too...I hate how all games these days at the very least come with a 'I can beat it with my hands tied behind my back' difficulty setting. And then the hardest setting being 'okay, I may die here and there and need to pay attention, but any gamer can still beat it'. Whatever happened to a difficulty where the average gamer would go 'Argh, this is impossible'? Or things like save points being around every corner. I remember mario 1, where there were no save points. If your lives ran out, you had to do the entire game from start again.
1) Health bars in first person shooters. Hell, just health bars in general.
2) Accurate hip-firing - ironsight aiming has spread like cancer
3) Visuals that don't rely on BLOOOOOOM, and visuals that don't rely on shades of gritty brown
4) Less bullshit cutscenes, more gameplay
5) Quick-time events
2) Accurate hip-firing - ironsight aiming has spread like cancer
3) Visuals that don't rely on BLOOOOOOM, and visuals that don't rely on shades of gritty brown
4) Less bullshit cutscenes, more gameplay
5) Quick-time events
Actually actually, Halo had regenerating shields and the standard health-pack system. Halo 2 got rid of the health packs and used regeneration for both health and shields.crazyrabbits said:
OT: Well, Darksiders 2 has actually been scratching a lot of 'old-school' itches for me. It's got smooth, action-y combat, but the maps are huge, with tons of nooks and crannies to explore, extra bosses that will kick your ass if you're not careful, puzzle/platforming sections that provide a nice break in between combat encounters, randomized loot provided at a (mostly) properly scaled rate (though it's not too hard to trivialize the normal enemies if you find a decent pair of upgradeable weapons), more of an emphasis on letting you play the game than watch the story, and pot/crate-smashing to gather up gold and health potions because health doesn't auto-regenerate (or at least not at a rate that has been noticeable to me so far).
Far Cry 2 let you have 3 guns (one of each size), but there the limiting made sense because it was a game about planning ahead.SajuukKhar said:
I miss when there was an entire paragraph on the back of the box. Now you get a stupid catch phrase that doesn't tell you anything. It happens once in a while now, but not enough. Just saying, I've bought games I've never heard of, based solely on the back of the box.
It was actually a design choice in Halo (which I assume you are talking about) for strategic combat. Plasma works best vs shields while bullets work better vs non shielded foes. All of the weapons have vastly different functions as well. You had to decide what to bring to a fight, you couldn't just swap between all of the guns on the fly. Especially on the first playthrough it was a great mechanic that kept things tense.Elect G-Max said:
Now in COD and such other games your argument holds much more... vitriol? The guns have very little differentiation and there is no real reason aside from ammo availability to switch between them.
I have seen several games that incorporate more that 2 weapons just fine on a controller. Most have a "hold button to bring up weapon list and use left analog to select", just use the D-pad (which can have up to 8 weapons), or even just let you spam the weapon switch key till you get the one you want all of which are actually faster to use than attempting to hit the 6-9 keys while playing a game with a WASD/mouse setup.
OT: Local 4 player Splitscreen. Honestly, when I was a kid we huddled around TVs that were a quarter of the size of the ones today to play our games. Now even 2 player spitscreen has to be touted as a 'feature' in some games and 4 player splitscreen is nowhere to be seen.
I miss the classical FPS/RPG Hybrids, like Deus Ex and System Shock 2. While System Shock 2 was sort of angled towards a hacker character (indeed, you can't finish the game without at least 3rd level hacking software), both of those games allowed for a level of specialization that I have yet to encounter again.
Human Revolution and Bioshock are great games, but I can't help but feel that the whole RPG part has been a little bit watered down (no pun intended).
Oh, and I hate how FPS characters these days are so damn slow. I don't want to play as someone who moves like they're waist-deep in water. Why can't we have more characters like Doomguy, who runs at approximately 60 MPH, all while carrying a good 200 pounds of equipment?
And most of all, I miss games where you could do stuff like this:
Human Revolution and Bioshock are great games, but I can't help but feel that the whole RPG part has been a little bit watered down (no pun intended).
Oh, and I hate how FPS characters these days are so damn slow. I don't want to play as someone who moves like they're waist-deep in water. Why can't we have more characters like Doomguy, who runs at approximately 60 MPH, all while carrying a good 200 pounds of equipment?
And most of all, I miss games where you could do stuff like this:
The magic compass thing annoys the hell out of me. Coupled with there never being enough dialogue to find something on your own (Skyrim I'm looking at you) so you can't turn it off unless you want to be frustrated walking the world.TehCookie said:Exploring within a story. Modern games seem to be divided between transparent narrative sandboxes and linear corridors, but I want something like the old Final Fantasies back. Also where magic compasses don't exist and you have to remember or talk to NPCs to know where to go.
Also turn based combat, everyone hates on it for not being interactive enough but then the games require all my attention. If it's turn based combat I can multitask. I also want more color and world variety. What happened to colors and unique fantasy worlds?
I mean sometimes you get a quest and you somehow magically know the exact location of "the ultra secret caverns" and not only that, once you get inside you have preternatural abilities to know exactly which direction and how far away you are from whatever doohickey you are required to get/kill. And people talk about immersion, fft.
Side quests that add depth to the story/world/characters/etc. instead of just being grinds or fetch quests toward getting the ultimate equipment. Chrono Trigger actually made me like Lucca, a character I never used, because of her side quest, and I can't even remember if there were any other rewards beside character development for her and Robo.