Poll: What, in your opinion, makes for a bad FPS?

[NerfedFalcon]

Allow me to use a textbook example of the one competitive multiplayer FPS I genuinely enjoyed. That would be Halo Reach, which I played the multiplayer of for six hours at a launch party last year. Note that I won't touch on the campaign - for an example of how to do that right, look at something like Half Life 2. Iron sights optional, but you look more badass shooting perfectly from the hip.

*ahem* Back to Reach. Allow me to list a few things that Reach has that it's often accused of not having:
-Regenerating health - well, not exactly. It had regenerating shields, and there were still medkits around for your health (in some of them, anyway.) It also has a health/shield meter in every game, rather than spraying ketchup all over the screen. Besides, how is waiting for the bullets to fall out, the holes to close up and the ketchup to wipe itself off "realistic"?
-Interesting weapons. Allow me to list some weapons from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare: Six assault rifles that do sliiiiightly different things but aren't similar enough to share bullets, five sub-machine guns that do sliiiiightly different things but aren't similar enough to share bullets, three light machine guns that do...you get the picture. Halo has the Spartan LAZOR!!!!, Needler (homing), Energy Sword, a grenade launcher with grenades that go off when you want them to rather than the instant they hit something...
-Colour. This is something Halo takes a lot of flak for, and I honestly don't see why. If Halo was nothing but grey and brown, why is the Machinima named "Red vs. Blue" rather than "Brown vs. Grey"?

Can't say anything about the campaign of any Halo games, but that's my take on its multiplayer.

 

[The Breadcrab]

-Colour. This is something Halo takes a lot of flak for, and I honestly don't see why. If Halo was nothing but grey and brown, why is the Machinima named "Red vs. Blue" rather than "Brown vs. Grey"?

Anyone that says that Halo isn't colorful is either colorblind or blatantly misinformed.

On topic, three things can really kill a shooter for me: bad controls, dull-sounding and looking guns, and bad pacing. I do have a lot of other little problems, but those three are what really hurt the experience.

The best shooters are the ones that have great level design, great weapons, fun to shoot enemies, and pacing. Really, pacing is pretty important in any game but especially shooters. See Crysis 2 VS. Black Ops - both action heavy extremely linear shooters, but one is much, much better than the other because it knows when to ramp the action up and when to tone it down for a little while. Explosions are like boobs - they're great, and I enjoy seeing them frequently, but seeing one every other second of my entire free time would lessen the experience a lot.

I agree completely, especially about the pacing. Without valleys, you can't have peaks, and interspersing some down time with the high action makes it all the more engaging. It is absolutely vital in an FPS, and is probably the reason why I finished Resistance 3 in one sitting. Not because it was short, but because Insomniac put so much painstaking detail into the pacing.

I may have to check out Crysis 2 now...

 

[TheYellowCellPhone]

Replayability does it for me. Which, really, is because of some boring weapons or enemies.

 

[2fish]

Ok list time!

What breaks a game of the FPS type?

1. Why does my gun sound like a staple gun?
2. Ok the ai is stupid or way too smart.
3. Two clips in the face and you are still not dead?
4. Single player is crap= me no buy.
5. Not fun


My good shooter list:
Perfect Dark
Metro 2033
STALKER SOC
Fear
Bioshock
Starwars Battlefront II

 

[KarmaTheAlligator]

Realism. I don't care what you say, a game shouldn't be realistic. Especially when the so-called realism is just as surreal as the rest.

 

[Lagwalker]

honestly it is a mix of almost all of the options save for the last for me.

I think the single worst thing about the majority of the "recent" shooter games is how samey most of them are. Then again that is not exactly a new problem. but the whole "call of honor: battlefield " hodgepodge of shooters really take the cake. there so similar that i personally have a hard time telling them apart these days.

Second worst is they have managed to remove every iota of feeling like a bad ass and moments of tension out of the games. your not leading the charge, your not kicking ass and taking names. your baby siting and being babysat by the game and squad mates. you don't feel like there is danger any where. Get shot up six ways from Sunday? Just sit behind a chunk of wall and suck your thumb and ask mommy to kiss the boo-boo and make it better.

Back in my day if you managed to get your self stuck with a boat lode of enemy's in front of you, while you were down to 10 hp and only had 6 rounds remaining, you figured out how to make it work and you liked it! /geezers off to bed

 

[Aethren]

If it's in a series whose acronym is also the name of a fish, it's a bad FPS.

 

[Singularly Datarific]

Length is less of an issue to me if it does not need it. If a game was designed from the start to be 4 hours long, and not expected to be some vast epic, it's okay. Just so long that the narrative fits in fine and doesn't feel unfinished or stretched it is a fine length.
I'm thinking that COD4 has a lot of these issues, but it still works because it has some sort of cool modesty to it. It's realism and thus believability and immersion stems from the fact that it holds itself back just that little bit, doesn't overblow itself or anything at all. It's not the "realism" or weapon limit or regenerating health, it is how they keep trying to be progressively more shocking in their stories. From an unusual death of a main player character to it happening 2 or 3 times a game now. What makes a bad FPS is the same thing as what makes a bad musician: blowing your quality to death with an unhealthy obsession with volume and shock.

 

[The Breadcrab]

If it's in a series whose acronym is also the name of a fish, it's a bad FPS.

Pretty 'lulz', though your statement is vague. Care to elaborate? I dislike when people crap on something without giving reasons for their bowel movements.

 

[twistedmic]

Personally, I think a heavy emphasis on Multiplayer (on line specifically), like with just about every single shooter that's come out since the first Halo can severely hurt even the best FPS (or any type of game period). Especially when people judge the game solely on the multiplayer experience and blame the game for how other people play it (either by cheating or using 'noob weapons').

Of the reasons listed, however, my vote goes to cliched or lackluster plots and stories. The extremely cliched and poorly executed twist in Sniper: Ghost Warrior instantly killed all interest I had in finishing the game, despite the pretty cool, interesting and fun shooting mechanic (especially on the harder difficulties).

And a good deal of the Home Front plot weakened the game considerably, though there were many more reasons why that game was a steaming pile of shit that deserves to be wiped from existence.

 

[MetallicaRulez0]

Overpowered explosives, a focus on vehicles, campy gameplay, or anything that isn't gun-focused run and gun infantry combat.

See: MW2, Battlefield series as examples of BAD FPS games in my opinion. CoD4 or any PC shooter of the mid-late nineties as examples of GOOD FPS games.

 

[Grumm]

Call of Duty is everything wrong with FPS.

 

[Grumm]

Call of Duty is everything wrong with FPS.

 

[Sniper Team 4]

Story--or a lack of one--is what makes a good FPS for me. It has to be engaging to me though. Example:
F.E.A.R was nothing more than killing the same, let's see...I think six enemies in the same rooms over and over again. Boring doesn't begin to cover it. However, the story--What Fettel was doing, who was Alma, what was Alma, what's going on--put those flaws into the back of my mind. I loved the game because the mystery of the story kept me going.
A bad example is Battlefield 3. Sure, it looked pretty, but the story was pretty much every cliche they could think of. Throw in the fact that characters were not developed, questions were never answered, and the plot just sort of stopped without closer, and it's an example of what I consider to be a bad FPS.

So yeah, I voted for the cliche plot option.

 

[The_Blue_Rider]

Bad gameplay, if the other things are present but the gameplay is rock solid, i might be able to give it a chance, however if the setting is unique, the characters interesting, had inspired art and an incredible open world with a multitude of ways to handle any given situation, BUT it had bad gameplay, well then im sorry, it may not be worth it

 

[veloper]

Worst thing an FPS can do is make the shooting itself a chore.

1. mouse acceleration like it's some 360 controller
2. little feedback and poor sound fx (can fit under boring weapons)
3. terrible inaccuracy

Poor, repetative encounter design comes a close second.

 

[TheRightToArmBears]

If the controls are rubbish, if the guns feel like peashooters and if it's imbalanced.

Personally I don't mind CoD, the biggest issue I have with it is the killstreaks and perks in MW2 and BlOps. If I had to pick any game as the closest to perfect multiplayer FPS, I would pick WaW. I like CoD's class system, but in MW2 there's too much. WaW is much more stripped down, and the killstreaks are fairer. The maps are well designed and the tanks are useful, but they're not invincible. I guess it's not got a brilliant campaign, but it's not half bad. Also, Nazi zombies is always fun with friends.

I guess FPS games by and large are very similar so it's easy to be nitpicky. For instance, I think all the guns in TF2 feel like crap to use (a problem that I think there is in a lot of Valve games).