EternalNothingness said:
Publishers over-rely on anything that's popular and copy-off its success, rather than simply innovate and create their own, more different games than others.
Wrong, they rely on what's
easy, and the modern FPS is one of the easiest sets of mechanics to churn out thoughtlessly; regenerating health means that as long as levels are cluttered you don't really have to design the game at all and the player can still win through sheer attrition, you can further emphasise hiding behind broken shit by underpowering grenades to the point the player can just ignore them and making weapons unable to hit the broadside of a barn unless you're in ADS, the two-weapon system means you don't have to balance weapons in singleplayer since you can just withold ammo until the uber-gun has to be thrown away, the silent protagonist gives your writers a break since they don't have to involve the player in the plot in the slightest (and as a bonus they can constantly have NPCs nag you with objectives so you don't go exploring the empty levels). Compared to the delicate balancing of healthpack placement that was required before, the game practically writes itself.
The Sonic knockoffs (they were usually Sonic, not Mario) were usually frustrating because they forgot the central Sonic mechanic was that Sonic was for the most part invincible as long as he had at least one ring; games like
Bubsy would kill you instantly (in
Bubsy's specific case you could die just by running into something fast), so failed to give you the ability to run through levels quickly. The JRPG-knockoffs failed because they require needlessly intricate plots and stat systems that hack developers couldn't be bothered to write. Compared to these, the FPS is more common simply because the rules behind it are so airtight it's remarkably hard to make a genuinely awful game under them (though people still do).
In fact, to quote myself, here's my "how to make an FPS."
* The player's entire health bar should regenerate. This means you just have to make levels cluttered [with square crates, obviously, since for some reason they're accepted in place of actual scenery] and the player will be able to keep alive no matter what.
* Only allow the player two weapons. This means you don't have to bother to balance the weapons since you can just refuse to give ammo for them until they have to be thrown away. For bonus points, make the pistol fit into the same system so it ends up completely useless.
* Throw in at least two of the following: an on-rails shooting section, a sniping section, a section controlling a mounted weapon, a vehicle section with a vehicle that doesn't have regenerating health, a stealth section, an escort mission, a defend area mission, a timed section.
* Use checkpoint saving. Nevermind that modern consoles can manage quicksaving, you know better than the player when it comes to that and being forced to replay sections over and over is a good way to make the game difficult. Nevermind the implication that forcing the player to play your game more constitutes a punishment. For bonus points, put checkpoints immediately before long unskippable cutscenes.
* The enemy force should consist largely or entirely of humanoids using weapons the player uses. They should have some kind of dropships and some kind of helicopter, which will act as a boss in one of the few sections where the game bothers to give you a rocket launcher. The remainder of the vehicle list should be: a buggy from your side, a buggy from their side, a tank from your side, a tank from their side, and a turret.
* If you're feeling adventurous, throw in mutants with ridiculously strong melee attacks. This is an especially good idea in games that feature a weak shotgun or don't have a weapon equivalent to one.
* Assign a motion sensor gimmick. Make it as pointless and annoying as you possibly can.
* If you have a melee attack in the game, have it so strong the player starts wondering why the gun can shoot bullets at all.
* Have a key assigned to throwing grenades, but make the grenades themselves extremely underpowered. If enemies can throw grenades, let them do so with ludicrous precision. Add in a grenade indicator so the player is never actually in any danger from them.
* Make sure the first section of the game is a needlessly condescending and unskippable tutorial because never before has a game asked the player to move around or switch weapons.
* Throw in several bad actors and assign a role to Steven Jay Blum.
You now have another FPS! Well done!
The "modern" shooter exists for the same reason WW2 is popular: the three Ws. A shooter's plot primarily needs to tell you
Who you are,
What you're doing and
Why you're doing it; with modern and WW2 shooters, people already know, and if they don't you can say it's them being uneducated rather than you failing to tell a story coherently. In addition, the uniforms, weapons, vehicles and locations are just a conveniant google image search away rather than requiring actual design work. While idiots like Yahtzee harp on about how it's
America!!1 (and their
imperialism!1111)*, the truth is it's just the lazy, easy way to do things.
[small]*If you honestly believe the purpose of such games is the ebil US governments trying to persuade people to become soldiers by making it look cool, then I would have to ask if you also think there's a US government conspiracy to make people want to become 18th century pirates, given that's also portrayed as a kickass thing to do in almost everything.[/small]
