By "three main companies," you mean whom, praytell? I can rattle off more than three off the top of my head: Epic, VALVe, iD, Activision, Bungie (though after Halo 3 I almost wish to sever my fanboy tie to them), and, hell, even Rockstar and LucasArts to a degree. Though LucasArts will probably be in trouble if Force Unleashed isn't as good as it looks like it is.tucci post=9.71776.737248 said:
Poll: Are FPS games becoming unoriginal and bland?
- Thread starter DarqKiller
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I don't know if I would include Rockstar. While their games are largely phenominal, their 2 major improvements throughout all 8 games in the GTA series have been the new GTA3 perspective and making the main character talk.Indigo_Dingo post=9.71776.737711 said:
Anyway, I think that in terms of game originality, the market has become undeniably partially stale (I'm talking strictly of originality in major gameplay elements like story and weapons). But theier still are major releases that give hope to the future (Portal, Mirror's Edge, maybe Left 4 Dead). They make sure that all of the other major FPS series have groundbreaking gameplay elements to cannibalize.
Feh, that's just a generic 'one man saving the world/universe/internet' story, done to death by three generations of video games... because if you generalise enough, every game feeds off the previous ones. Let's be honest, what is 'new' or 'original' in the latest batch of FPS games? Bioshock went for an interesting story and horror-themed enemies to set it apart, Crysis went with graphics, nice AI and a nano-suit gimmick, TF2 uses a group of severely limited (weapon-wise) classes and a cartoony renderer to make it's multiplayer stand out, and COD4 has... um... is generic shooting in a contemporary time frame with modern weapons.
So yeah, most modern FPS games are just rehashes of a tried and tested formula that has consistently proven itself to be highly lucrative if the producing companies don't try to be too outlandish or imaginative. Hell, just look at how many sequels there have been recently for an idea of just how afraid of innovation the industry is. Even Halo's story, which I greatly enjoyed, was drawn significantly from Marathon. Of course, there's always the odd exception, eg Spore, which is fairly from generic gameplay and design, but it's not like they are expected to change the industry much.
So yeah, most modern FPS games are just rehashes of a tried and tested formula that has consistently proven itself to be highly lucrative if the producing companies don't try to be too outlandish or imaginative. Hell, just look at how many sequels there have been recently for an idea of just how afraid of innovation the industry is. Even Halo's story, which I greatly enjoyed, was drawn significantly from Marathon. Of course, there's always the odd exception, eg Spore, which is fairly from generic gameplay and design, but it's not like they are expected to change the industry much.
Portal is a shooter. You have a gun, you shoot it. It even requires aiming and is set in a FP POV as well.Decoy Doctorpus post=9.71776.736531 said:
The definition of "shooter" as a game in which you use firearms to kill people is not wholly accurate.
Portal actually demonstrates the imminent change in trends. The FPS has been the dominant force in gaming for years now. If you don't play any shooters, your not really a gamer, if you don't design levels for shooters, good luck finding a game design job. And so on.
The reason FPS titles took off is because of the stir caused by the original Doom and castle wolfenstein and the like. Emulating a 3D environment which you moved through in a first person capacity was much more immersive than a side scroller. One of the goals of a number of games is to be immersive, get rid of huds make you feel like you are in this world and perceive it as you would any real situation (this is also one of the reasons everyone masturbates about realistic graphics and normal maps so much)
The problem being since the earl shooters, very little has changed. Pistol, Shotgun, melee, machine gun, or rocket launcher? They all do the same thing, usually you can play in space or in some woody WWII like environment.
Not a big deal, layer some new art , new mazes, and a new story and you have a very different game (is Halo Half-life? No) But it has been done so often that even grand variation starts feeling really similar, the market has been saturated.
The answer is original FPS titles that change up the rule sets and objective, using the game type in different ways. This is where Portal, and Mirror's Edge, and TF2 come in. And their success (imminent success) is the sign of the changing times.
I watch Zero Punctuation too, a game like Painkiller which alters the standard gun model is one potential way to switch things up. But I would argue not enough of a change to be effective more than once or twice. And I am of the camp that FPS titles are not fine glasses of wine that can only be appreciated once you have achieved the mastery and understanding to truly appreciate the finer points of a rifle that will kill an average player in three shots instead of four and jiggles a little bit when you fire it. And there are plenty of people out there who argue that crap.
I thought COD4 was the best FPS for the last 2 years, yes it is just another shooter like every other shooter, but it did everything better than all the other shooters. And the single player campaign offered a short and therefore intense action experience for me, similar to a war movie. So, COD4 is pretty innovative in a not at all original kind of way.
The search for ann original and innovative and fun to play FPS is like the search for the Holy Grail.
The search for ann original and innovative and fun to play FPS is like the search for the Holy Grail.
Unoriginal... yes. But bland, nah. FPS games aren't really bland... well, the mediocre ones are, but the above average ones, like Call of Duty 4, Half Life, Halo (remember, my opinion), in spite of their lack of originality, put the pieces together so well that I, as a player, am able to move past it and enjoy the game.
If you feel this way, then I suggest you play another genre. Perhaps you've gotten bored of it?
If you feel this way, then I suggest you play another genre. Perhaps you've gotten bored of it?
You spend the whole game in first person mode, and you complete every puzzle basically by shooting things, namely portals, thus: First Person Shooter. Killing isn't necessarily a requirement to shooting.Decoy Doctorpus post=9.71776.736531 said:
As to the main topic: Yes and No.
While the majority of the tittles just keep seemingly merging into the same 2 titles (armored space marine shooting aliens/zombies or realistic war simulator shooting your fellow man) to the point where it just seems to change the name and, sometimes, the specific weapon models you use, the sheer quantity of this bland, faceless, amalgamate seems to cause an inversely proportional reaction in the quality of the few that escape it. Think of Portal, a truly original and high quality production based on tempering with the idea of "first person shooter", or CoD4 that, while going the "realistic war sim" route, manages to be creative by adding several different swift and appropriate changes in gameplay that keep it all interesting (from basically "run and gun", to "stealth based", to controlling a bomber amongst other things quickly, but all in a justifiable context), or even Painkiller which went "back to the roots", and a few more...
What I'm trying to say is, the more foul and disgusting the septic sea of "generic shooter", the shinier the rare diamonds that pop up will be.
No, FPS games are not becoming unoriginal and bland. They always have been.
Well, maybe that's an unfair generalization, but there's no doubt in my mind that it's the one genre that's never really had much of a paradigm shift - probably because they didn't come around until after the move to 3D. Platformers, RPGs and other types of game have been able to add new elements since the shift from two dimensions, whereas FPS games have always all used very similar mechanics.
Well, maybe that's an unfair generalization, but there's no doubt in my mind that it's the one genre that's never really had much of a paradigm shift - probably because they didn't come around until after the move to 3D. Platformers, RPGs and other types of game have been able to add new elements since the shift from two dimensions, whereas FPS games have always all used very similar mechanics.
Nevertheless, putting Portal alongside Cod4 is a silly comparison. Portal is a puzzle FPS, CoD4 is just a base shooting game. You can say what you like about portal technically being an FPS, but they weren't wrong when they said putting it next to CoD4 as a similar genre FPS is silly.
