Why are FPS falling into categories?

[Lord Krunk]

Portal is a FPS.
Its in First person, and you get through things through shooting your portal gun.
Its an ingenius idea to mix guns with puzzles in an active manner. Sorry, Valve, but the gravity gun is a cool gun, but it doesn't mix well with puzzles.

I made a thread about that 6 months ago. The general consensus is that we agreed that it was a puzzle game.

Anyways, I recommend Half-Life (and pretty much any Valve game, really). I swear, mentioning Halo and not these shining examples of the genre is a crime.

 

[Neosage]

I've been having this dilemma for some time, and I'm certain it has been discussed before, but EVERY SINGLE TIME I'm gleefully playing CoD4 on my 360 and suddenly feel like a change, I turn to my Halo 3. Then I have some more fun, until the moment comes and I have to play something else. So there I go, down the street to ask my friend for GoW, and after a session of brutality, I get back home and star playing that, only to find out that I just played that ten minutes ago (although, of course, Halo 3 lags less). So then, I get out my ram and go to another friends house to have a go at his sparkling CoD WaW, only to realize that I played exactly the same thing just an hour ago. After that, I feel sad and abandoned and go play Rock Band. And I realize I'm just playing Guitar Hero with the circular notes substituted by Arkanoid Bars.

My point is, inside the genres, FPS titles are starting to look too much alike, and even though I know that I'm a poor, grieving spaniard, and that I haven't bought games in too much time (I'm open to (POLITE) suggestions on buying FPS titles), I'm starting to regretfully think a little bit like Yahtzee, and that developers are making games just to please the fans.
And I, as a fan, am not pleased, so either they are too obsessed with repeating the same ideas over and over again, or perhaps we should try making them go through the process of indiefication, that is, to stop buying their games so that the same desperation and sheer man eating hunger makes them come up with ANYTHING midly original.

This is the time of year I like to call RPG mode, wheather it be MMO or not I tend to go off my shooting games this time of year and get addicted to WoW or maple or something.

 

[hypothetical fact]

1. However, that makes them bro games and that makes them mediocre. Not bad, but mediocre. And personally, I think that's far worse for consumers like myself. It's not like I'm a stranger to modulating my expectations based upon the targeted demographic something is built for; I do it all the time for brainless action movies. However, I like my brainless action movies to be very well done and entertaining...Not mediocre. Does that make sense?

1. When that bro game that does blow your mind arrives you will find yourself the last person to enjoy it if at all because of your close minded attitude.

The same goes for the OP; the best way that you will find fps's that you like is to try every fps you can.

 

[Tonimata]

I reckon Mr hypothetical is right. If you want something that is different, you should go for Mirrors Edge. Its like the awesome classic, Another World, only its 3D. But you die as often, but it is still fun. Dice and EA really did something fantastic there.

I'd REALLY like to agree to your points, and perhaps I should've already mentioned that a friend lent it to me and I found it to be the videogame equivalent of an or@#$m, quite good, but TOO BLEEDING SHORT
AND REPETITIVE
and of course white.

 

[Tonimata]

Well, I would've liked to mention those, but I'd rather not go into the most dustful cobwebby recondits of my mind just to find another game to quote.

 

[Rankao]

Same reason we put different animals in categories?

 

[meatloaf231]

And what thread on elitism?

This one. Hooray!

 

[Bulletinmybrain]

Mirror's edge if you want to waste money

Fixed for you.

 

[Joos]

...

I'd REALLY like to agree to your points, and perhaps I should've already mentioned that a friend lent it to me and I found it to be the videogame equivalent of an or@#$m, quite good, but TOO BLEEDING SHORT
AND REPETITIVE
and of course white.

I like your reference and I agree to some point about it being a tad bit short. But I don't think its repetitive at all. Of course, you have to see the variation in jump from platform to platform, both in style of graphics and layout. If you don't it will be repetitive, but that is like blaming super mario brothers for being crap because it requires to much jumping around.
One other thing the ZP review, and many others fail to mention, is the sheer exhilaration you get from, instead of overcoming opponents with brute force like most fps', you have to run away from them. Having bullets wisp around you as you try to get away from a firing squad of blues is very different. This is what really makes the game for me.
But the sharp light of the perfect sky, the white texture of the buildings and the slightly overdone bloom can be a bit much from time to time.

 

[stompythebeast]

FPS games are supposed to be the same. The same way that you want a platformer to be choke full of puzzles, you want an FPS to be just that, a First Person Shooter. Im sorry, but if you dont enjoy Halo, Gears of War and etc. you should just find a different genre. The best a developer can do with an FPS is to give it a brilliant story, amazing visuals, and a lot of cool and original guns. Thats something that HL2 did, and thats why it was met with huge succes. I mean, come on, the gravity and the portal gun are a staple of the genre.

 

[Proto Cloud]

FPS games are supposed to be the same. The same way that you want a platformer to be choke full of puzzles, you want an FPS to be just that, a First Person Shooter. Im sorry, but if you dont enjoy Halo, Gears of War and etc. you should just find a different genre. The best a developer can do with an FPS is to give it a brilliant story, amazing visuals, and a lot of cool and original guns. Thats something that HL2 did, and thats why it was met with huge succes. I mean, come on, the gravity and the portal gun are a staple of the genre.

Wrong, the gravity and portal guns are not staples of the genre...yet. The staples of the genre are the pistol, shotgun, grenades, sniper rifle, assault rifle, and submachine gun. (Optional: flamethrower, rocket launcher, and scopes)

It's a shame that more games don't take use of the portal and gravity technologies of HL and Portal.

 

[stompythebeast]

FPS games are supposed to be the same. The same way that you want a platformer to be choke full of puzzles, you want an FPS to be just that, a First Person Shooter. Im sorry, but if you dont enjoy Halo, Gears of War and etc. you should just find a different genre. The best a developer can do with an FPS is to give it a brilliant story, amazing visuals, and a lot of cool and original guns. Thats something that HL2 did, and thats why it was met with huge succes. I mean, come on, the gravity and the portal gun are a staple of the genre.

Wrong, the gravity and portal guns are not staples of the genre...yet. The staples of the genre are the pistol, shotgun, grenades, sniper rifle, assault rifle, and submachine gun. (Optional: flamethrower, rocket launcher, and scopes)

It's a shame that more games don't take use of the portal and gravity technologies of HL and Portal.

Wrong. Those aren't staples of the genre, those ARE the genre.

 

[Eldritch Warlord]

[words]

[more words]

Wrong. Those aren't staples of the genre, those ARE the genre.

Staples are the most basic and important aspects, Proto Cloud's list certainly covers that.

Awesome as they are the Gravity Gun and Portal Gun are only in one game each (I count the HL2 Episodes as expansions). Neither are essential elements of the genre.

Your abitrary distinction is really quite foolish, without its staples something can't exist.

 

[Tonimata]

I don't think there's help for you, not if you're considering Gears of War the equivalent of Halo.

If two such dissimilar shooters strike you as nearly identical then I don't think you'll find any shooter to be "original."

This.

I find a huge differences in gameplay and game mechanics between games like CoD4 and Halo 3 and GoW (1 or 2). I mean, the perspective and basic idea is the same (Look through eyes, shoot stuff), but that doesn't make the games blurringly similar. Not by a long shot.

And we're talking FPS here hahaha

 

[Tonimata]

This happens because the gameplay elements in a first person shooter are shooting things with a first person view. You can add destructable maps, nazis, zombies (or more nazis), space aliens, space marines, the government, whatever. doesn't matter. its all the same game reskinned.

We could do with a few more out of the box titles like Painkiller and Serious Sam, not so much in game style but in concepts and light heartedness.

This guy gets exactly what I mean. Serious Sam was brilliant, I seriously thought that i was playing Doom 3. Or I would've liked to.

Hm. I agree. I say we do an "I Am Sam" FPS.

who is with me

 

[Tonimata]

...
I didn't mean to say they're identical. Not by far. I'm the person that gets hyper when seeing Fenix chainsaw the hell out of a randomly appearing dude and then eating his guts and desecrating his BODY AND THEN HANG HIS DISEMBOWELED CORPSE FROM THE SPIRE OF WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL, OH MY GOD IT'S THE ONLY TIME I FEEL ALIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIVEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!

Sorry got a bit off message there
But anyways, I meant say they're awfully similar in the basics. Of course every FPS has its own tiny details, but I'd like to see more variation in the set pieces.

 

[DirkGently]

If you want a somewhat different brand of shooter try Rainbow Six Vegas 2. It has the thing so many online games lack these days, Co-operative game modes.