The "fun-shooters" return. But why would anyone want that?

[repeating integers]

Sure, for some games a story makes it better, but the same old generic war shooter clones (Call of Duty, Battlefield, Halo, Medal of Honor, etc.)

Sorry for the minor derail, but in the order you listed those games:

Spoiler: images

Find the odd one out!

Thank. You. So. Goddam. Much.

I'm sick of people labeling Halo as just another generic shooter, because it isn't, as you just demonstrated.


Anyway.

OT: Personally I think the thread title is a bit of a misnomer. Why do you think people nowadays play so many shooters like CoD online? Not to revel in the awesome realistic-ness, but to have simple fun with friends. The definition of a fun shooter.

Still, I get what you mean, and if I'm honest I think I'm looking forward to some of these games as well (assuming 1) I can get my hands on them and 2) they don't suck).

Comedic shooters and "serious" shooters have always been enjoyable for different reasons. Personally, I can't see why we could never have had both at the same time, and thus get the best of both worlds, but I guess that's the way corporations work (or rather, don't).

Actually... I think I do see why. It's because of a simple divide between multiplayer and singleplayer. HYPOTHESIS:

Generally, Multiplayer is seen as where the crazy fun happens. If you want to loosen up, let your pants down and indulge in some serious hilarity, you go and play CoD or Halo or Battlefield online. And let me tell you... as a general rule for the amount of fun you'll have on a game's multiplayer with friends, assign an arbitrary value (from 1 to 5) of how much you enjoy the game in question, and multiply this by the number of friends you're with. The arbitrary number you come up with roughly sum up how much of a good time you'll have if you aren't a horrendous sociopath.

As such, game devs generally see the singleplayer as where they get down to business, as it were, and set about trying to craft a decent experience that can be taken seriously on your own. After all, they reason, if the player just wants crazy fun, he goes to the multiplayer lobby - we have to give them some reason to play the singleplayer. The logical choice is to make it enjoyable for a different reason - say, a gritty story that tries to take itself seriously. Whether you think games like CoD succeed with this (or whether it's a good idea) is another matter.

Of course, since I can't speak for the devs, there's a chance I am talking bullshit. But it makes sense to me.

...Wait, that wasn't "OT" at all, was it? Oh, dammit.

This does make good sense. However, some people (usually the old school gaming crowd) find the idea of interacting with people terrifying, so they hat multiplayer on principle.

You messed up the quote a little, but thanks for the support.

One of these days I am going to create a thread listing and refuting all the major misconceptions about Halo, and "Halo is a modern realistic war-shooter" is going to be right at the top. It's so blatantly untrue - it's nothing like Call of Duty, Battlefield and MoH.

 

[lumenadducere]

I think this ultimately boils down to what you expect your video games to be. Do you expect them to be games, fun and enjoyable and something that you can do to relax at the end of a long day at work? Or do you expect them to be something more than that, something that will grow and become the next major expressive medium - greater than films, greater than anything else currently out there? Or do you expect both?

Those who want games as stress relief and entertainment are most likely celebrating the return of "fun-shooters." They also likely are tired of games that "take themselves too seriously" - a game by its very name is defined as something that is supposed to be fun, no? So why bother with it if it's not?

Those in the other camp probably wouldn't mind less fun-shooters and more experimental games like Braid or Portal. To some (not all!) of them the medium should look towards "growing up" and having some more depth.

And those who want both realize that...well, there's room for both. Just like in film you can have Rambo and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button - let alone all the other indie films out there that can cover the spectrum - you can have your Bulletstorm and your Limbo too. There's a market for everything.

 

[Cowabungaa]

snip

Thing is, you're assuming that those flaws the old shooters suffered from aren't fix in the shooters that make up this little revive of the old style. As someone else said before, badassery and comedic effect doesn't require abandonment of years of game development. Bulletstorm doesn't, for example, and we have yet to find out in what regard Duke Nukem Forever does.

You're right about their inflated, immature, testosterone-laden nature though. And you know what? I actually like that every now and then. I too had my fill of these serious dramatic shooters that are oh so serious. I want to shoot hordes of crazy enemies with all kinds of insane weaponry for once.

I massively disagree.
Duke Nukem is a shallow first person one man v the world shooter.
It's shallow. VERY SHALLOW. even compared to the COD series.
You are definitely blinded by nostalgia goggles.

Not true at all, if only by the simple fact that the Duke is actually a character. An incredibly over-the-top stereotype, yes, but he's a character. He's got a face, he's got personality, he's got a clear reason to do what he does. No CoD game has that, only Black Ops comes close in that regard.

Someone else also mentioned the fact that it had puzzles and whatnot. CoD is just a linear, movie-like path.

Not realistic, but modern. It was pretty much the birth of the modern, boring shooter. All Halo ever did was take inspiration from games like Timesplitters and move backwards from there.

It's kind of a mix. It has the gunplay style of Doom-like games yet it's linear and setpiece-driven like modern shooters. Still, I don't think it deserves to be dumped in the modern-shooter catagory. I've played 3 CoD's, a bit of the new MoH and Halo 1 2 an 3, and the 2 groups felt quite different indeed.

 

[Sporky111]

Because I'm tired of games that take themselves so fucking seriously.

First post ends thread

While I won't deny the need for a story, the majority of shooters do story so badly that it might as well not even be there. Honestly, there is hardly any effort put into it on the developer's part when they know that the vast majority of gameplay will be in online multiplayer anyway. It's not an excuse, but at least these "fun" shooters aren't trying to fake it. They're out to be stupid, funny, over-the-top games and have no problems with saying it.

 

[TerribleAssassin]

Because it's nice to see a change every once in a while.
[sub]I thought I was going to kill myself if another WWII game came out.[/sub]

Don't worry, we're past Hitler, we're on Russians and Terry Taliban now...

The reason we're celebrating is because instead of the horrible, gritty, chest high wall shit, we're getting a break where you have to run into health-packs and jam them into your eyes to get health, and pig-alien police officers.

 

[Not G. Ivingname]

Snip

1. It's not murdering story for gameplay, all these games just are throwing out the drop dead seriousness of the last decade. The 90's lacked the techincal power to have any close to a what we consider a good game. Having a great and deep story is something I love a lot in my games (why I love Half-Life) but serious story does not equal a good story. Nor does an unserious story equal a bad story. Are you telling me you really enjoyed the story of MW2, or that GTA: Vice City had a bad story? Besides, a few games can simply forgo story for gameplay if the gameplay is good enough. Besides,, Bulletstorm says it will keep things interesting with thousands of unique point gaining kinds of trick shots.

2. Variety was actually the 90's shooters strength. Tell me, how many different kinds of enemies are in Doom? Now, list all different kind of enemies in CoD. Even in Halo you still only need two fingers to count all the enemies. The good 90's FPS's had tons of enemies, so you had to pick your targets carefully. Without regenerating health, you were forced to explore the levels for every ounce of health.

3. They have the "door doesn't close till you kill X enemies" nowadays, but more well hidden so you don't generally notice it. It is now areas that you have to wait for an NPC to walk and open X door. Black Ops has a good example on the mountain level were the NPC's won't hack the computer till you clear the room.

 

[The_ModeRazor]

Damn.
We need a Warhammer 40k FPS.
Fuck that, we need a TPS. Where you can choose all the available factions with good stories and shit and drive around huge fucking things. TPS because that helps with the melee+lets the game show off the epic.

I get the feeling you'll like Warhammer 40k: Space Marine.

If they don't fuck it up. Like making it an MMO.

I DON'T WANT MMOS, I FUCKING HATE PEOPLE GRAAAHH

 

[Verkula]

Because I'm tired of games that take themselves so fucking seriously.

Exactly what i was going to say.

 

[NinjaDeathSlap]

Sure, for some games a story makes it better, but the same old generic war shooter clones (Call of Duty, Battlefield, Halo, Medal of Honor, etc.)

Sorry for the minor derail, but in the order you listed those games:

Spoiler: images

Find the odd one out!

Thank. You. So. Goddam. Much.

I'm sick of people labeling Halo as just another generic shooter, because it isn't, as you just demonstrated.


Anyway.

OT: Personally I think the thread title is a bit of a misnomer. Why do you think people nowadays play so many shooters like CoD online? Not to revel in the awesome realistic-ness, but to have simple fun with friends. The definition of a fun shooter.

Still, I get what you mean, and if I'm honest I think I'm looking forward to some of these games as well (assuming 1) I can get my hands on them and 2) they don't suck).

Comedic shooters and "serious" shooters have always been enjoyable for different reasons. Personally, I can't see why we could never have had both at the same time, and thus get the best of both worlds, but I guess that's the way corporations work (or rather, don't).

Actually... I think I do see why. It's because of a simple divide between multiplayer and singleplayer. HYPOTHESIS:

Generally, Multiplayer is seen as where the crazy fun happens. If you want to loosen up, let your pants down and indulge in some serious hilarity, you go and play CoD or Halo or Battlefield online. And let me tell you... as a general rule for the amount of fun you'll have on a game's multiplayer with friends, assign an arbitrary value (from 1 to 5) of how much you enjoy the game in question, and multiply this by the number of friends you're with. The arbitrary number you come up with roughly sum up how much of a good time you'll have if you aren't a horrendous sociopath.

As such, game devs generally see the singleplayer as where they get down to business, as it were, and set about trying to craft a decent experience that can be taken seriously on your own. After all, they reason, if the player just wants crazy fun, he goes to the multiplayer lobby - we have to give them some reason to play the singleplayer. The logical choice is to make it enjoyable for a different reason - say, a gritty story that tries to take itself seriously. Whether you think games like CoD succeed with this (or whether it's a good idea) is another matter.

Of course, since I can't speak for the devs, there's a chance I am talking bullshit. But it makes sense to me.

...Wait, that wasn't "OT" at all, was it? Oh, dammit.

This does make good sense. However, some people (usually the old school gaming crowd) find the idea of interacting with people terrifying, so they hat multiplayer on principle.

You messed up the quote a little, but thanks for the support.

One of these days I am going to create a thread listing and refuting all the major misconceptions about Halo, and "Halo is a modern realistic war-shooter" is going to be right at the top. It's so blatantly untrue - it's nothing like Call of Duty, Battlefield and MoH.

Yeah sorry, I'm new to this today...

and that would be the most useful thread ever.

P.S. anyone who says Halo has no sense of humor clearly has not encountered Grunt Birthday Party and IWHBYD.

 

[Sephychu]

I've played Bulletstorm, and damn was it fun. Duke looks nostalgia ridden, but nonetheless fun.
Every modern shooter I've played recently(barring one or two) has been an exercise in frustration. I just want to shoot things and have a laugh about it. If I want plot, I'll play a BioWare game.

 

[Popadoo]

There's a clue in the name. 'Fun'.

 

[duchaked]

why not? it's not like we don't have a new Call of Duty every year
what's another shooter that breaks the mold by going retro?

so...why not?

 

[Grimlock Fett]

Its nice that they've all worked so hard to make games super realistic and gritty and all that dramatic stuff but how much "MOAR" realistic can you get?? Nintendo for the most part has kept the same style and they've done pretty good with the same 5 games! I enjoyed Goldeneye64 because it was fun and a bit silly! I never judged it on its graphics! Hopefully these new "fun shooters" will put something back we lost long agooooo

Because we need a break before another COD comes out...

Because you'll buy it regardless of what anyone says about it same as me!?

 

[WorldCritic]

Because every shooter takes itself too seriously these days.

 

[Isshin]

I like to play games for their story a lot, but you have to play for fun too. When every FPS started doing WWII over and over they all got really old and boring. Even these "modern" wars aren't very entertaining to me. They take themselves *way* too seriously and since I really suck at them I don't play online either, which is what 90% of the games production actually seems to go into.

Anyways, Serious Sam was one of the first FPS games I really remember playing. Getting a bunch of different guns that all basically scream "hold trigger till everything dies" was a lot of fun when demons were popping out of nowhere throwing fireballs while hordes of monsters were running across the field towards you. They're really completely different types of games. One coming back doesn't mean the other has to die, or that you have to hate the other one.

 

[Stewie Plisken]

What story? The same military BS of CoD that gets spewed with every game, until nobody cares anymore? Besides, the Half-Life series can be considered one of those "fun shooters" and they've got a story, a far more intriguing and imaginative one that most recent FPS games actually.

That aside, drowning in pseudo-realism and military fetishism also raises gameplay issues, mainly because it limits it. How much can you improve on your standard health regenerating-slow sprinting-dying with three hits while enjoying the exhausting setpieces that blow shit up every other nanosecond, before you realize that maybe you should try a different direction altogether? You can add a weapon that shoots exploding monkeys in an FPS about, say, aliens, but you can't do that in a 'realistic' shooter.

That's not to say the military/realistic shooter subgenre should go away. I enjoy it every now and then as much as the next person. But there needs to be a balance. Take one of them out of the picture and the other one loses weight immediately.

Also, I have to take issue with the following statement:

The kind of fps we had, before fps became any good.

The First Person Shooters ruled the PC gaming landscape throughout the '90s and most of them were considered great; either because they were technological achievements (like your Dooms and Unreals), or because they were bringing a new format of storytelling to the genre (like your Half-Lifes) or because they were just solid games (like your System Shocks and Deus Ex). The difference between then and now is that gaming is a lot bigger as a whole and that console gamers actually know what a First Person Shooter is.

 

[veloper]

I love it when people try to ape Yahtzee with phrases like "Kill they ass" and yet complain about the exact thing Yahtzee wants.

Well, honestly, I think that DNF looks about as fun as repeatedly punching yourself in the fact and that everyone who really wants those shooters back doesn't really remember them that well, and that Bulletstorm was only fun to me because of its smooth, very CoD-like controls.

But I'm a CoD guy. If the stylistics of Bulletstorm or the gameplay of DNF appeal to you, that's fine and dandy. I'll stick to my super-realistic, super-serious shooters myself.

Hell, Serious Sam is actually fun as shit.

Serious Sam basicly is a Duke Nukem clone, so that makes no sense.

Serious Sam is bloody nothing like Duke Nukem. I'm going to assume you're talking about a Duke Nukem that isn't Forever, because that hasn't been released yet. There are two types of Duke Nukem games, side scrolling shooters, and Duke Nukem 3D a First Person Shooter with graphics more similar to Doom than to Serious Sam. The only notable similarity is that they both have waves of enemies (THough Duke Nukem wasn't that focused on enemy spam) and occasionally Sam will say something. Please, enlighten me as to where you got that idea.

Since you're asking so nicely.

Both squared jawed heros, fighting hordes of aliens all by themselves.
Silly oneliners, colorful game design, oversized weapons, huge inventories, fast movement, no cover system, emphasis on sidestepping attacks, no iron-sights, precision = skill with the mouse.

Just because Duke3d has older graphics, doesn't make Serious Sam less of a Duke clone.

 

[A Weakgeek]

Fun-shooter? Tell you what, FPS is the single most shitty genre when trying to make realistic games! If a FPS is realistic you:

1. Always use the same guns, either AK-47s and M16s or MP-44s and Thompsons. (Vehicles include)

2. The enviroments are boring, theres literally no other that A) a dirty ruined city B) a jungle C) some european village/farm

3. Graphics are same sh*t brown and grey all the time.

4. Enemies are the same, I don't care if im shooting nazis, russians, vietnamese or what ever, they are all just some dudes holding guns and sitting behind cover.

5. This is the most important part... YOU DIE IN 2 SECONDS! I don't care if its realistic, you should be able to retaliate! I hate when it becomes hide and seek, and the one who spots the other first wins regardless of skill.

6. Lastly the overall lack of suprises not counting the storyline in Black ops (which was a nice change of feel) realistic shooters are so predictable, and ofcourse they are! There's no room for imagination here, so how could there be originality/suprises?

So yeah thats why i hate realistic shooters, I like the "Fun-shooters" for the same reasons I prefer 80's action movies to the ones made today. Realisim is good when we are talking about say a stradegy game, where familiar units and vehicles make a history junkie like me feel smart.

 

[MattyDienhoff]

Games that kill you with 1 hit/shot suck and aren't even worth mentioning, real or not. People bring up CoD because it's competent while retaining realism.

Oh, they suck? I don't think you're being fair. Why do you think so? Because that would make them way too difficult? Have you actually played Operation Flashpoint or ArmA? The harsh damage model actually does work for those games, because their gameplay is fundamentally different to that of a conventional shooter. In comparison to, say, any Call of Duty game; you don't get shot at nearly as often, combat takes place at much longer ranges, and the main challenge is not in dodging grenade spam and shooting enemies; it's learning how to outmaneuver the enemy and engage only when you have the advantage, so that they hardly have a chance to shoot at you.

If you get into a tight spot and your entire squad gets mowed down, it's almost always an avoidable mistake and there are usually any number of different ways to go about it next time. Yes, in games like this being shot is very bad, but if you know what you're doing (and with a little luck) it's possible to complete a 20 minute long combat mission without even being hit, and every near miss is intense because you tend to have a more potent fear of being shot due to the consequences.

Like I said, it's fundamentally different, but it can be very satisfying. Far more satisfying to me than gunning down endlessly respawning enemies, shooting the fifth guy to occupy the same cover spot as you bide your time until you've worn them down enough to push forward to the next scripted "move the enemy spawn back 20 meters" spot.

But if you were to impose one shot kill rules on a game like Call of Duty, then yes, it would suck because it'd be absurdly hard. That's because in Call of Duty you're usually stuck in close quarters combat, you're always outnumbered, and you rarely go for more than a couple of minutes without taking fire. It's essentially impossible to complete a mission without being hit at least a few times. Add the possibility to be killed in one hit and you've got a truly maddening experience. Veteran mode is already most of the way there and that to me is far more frustrating than Operation Flashpoint is, because in Call of Duty many of my deaths are unavoidable due to grenade spam or having no choice but to push through some location that's packed with enemies (there being no other options).

tl;dr? Frivolous and fun shooters and ultra-realistic tactical shooters can both be enjoyable and I enjoy both. Call of Duty isn't in either category, it's somewhere in between. It's grounded in reality, but it's not particularly realistic.

 

[GiantRaven]

Why exactly does not featuring military/space marines and not being gritty/realistic make a shooter fun? Why does that opposite apply?

When I play Call of Duty, I have...fun! I'm not quite sure why people are saying the 'fun' is gone from shooters. I can get the arguments for wanting a variety of settings and styles but, at their basest level, aren't all shooters fundamentally 'fun'?