Why modern fps aren't fun, or rather why some people feel they aren't.

[bobtheorc]

First of all let me say that I am not claiming that either camp is right in this argument, this is just my analysis of peoples opinions and my theory as to why these are prevelant.

I enjoy fps'es and I always have but just recently I've started to feel like I'm not as interested in the new realeases as I used to be. I was wondering if there was something to the idea that shooters have shot down in quality in recent years however looking at the recent crop objectively, or at least as much as you can, I don't feel that's the case.

If you look at the major gaming genres, rpg's, shooters, 3p action games, the thing I notice is a major difference in the diversity of the control system. other genres have far more varied controls, rpg's come in all shapes and sizes and even if many use a similar action-bar based control system it plays differently based on how the abilities are designed. Shooters dont have quite this variety.

You push button to select weapon, point it at an enemy and push fire, the biggest variety seems to be whether or not you have to push aim before you shoot. Now there are subtle variations, abviously setting changes dramatically and the pacing varies game to game but at its core its always the same base control system.

I think that gamers who've been gaming fro a while probably find that even if there are good shooters on the market after you've played so many they start to feel like they're all blending into one another. The older games, the ones we grew up with still have an appeal based on nostalgia, we remember how fun they were when we first played them and they are still genuinely fun, we play through in anticipation of the defining moments we remember. However the new games feel like they aren't adding anything to our experience.

I'm sure that this isn't a universal rule, there are definitely poeple out there who appreciate newer shooters as much as the old classics and I doubt there's a set number of games you have to play before they start to seem overly familiar. So how does this sound in relation to your experience of the genre, do you think this has happened to you? Are you convinced that older shooters really are better? Are you new to the genre and feel this could happen to you in time? Thanks for listening escapist.

 

[Big Bruce]

For me, it's all about who I'm playing with. For example, when I play TF2 (I know it's not too old, but it's different) my team will help me defend the base, let me know if the other team has a sentry set up, and have a general idea of everything in the game. All I get from people playing Black Ops is "Wow dude, I shot that guy like 20 times.", people blindly running around, ignoring the objective and just killing people.

I said I wasn't going to buy Black Ops, but all my friends were getting it. So, I bought it, then realized all my friends are tards. Pretty bummed .

Someone I know plays MW2 and B-Ops, and he loves it. He flips out when people kill him and cheers when he gets a multi-kill. Who am I to say that is not having fun? We all have our own preferences.

Maybe I just take it too seriously.

 

[Numb1lp]

I don't feel like there is much you can do to change the fps system. It works, and I'm not sure a new control scheme could shake things up. I do think you should be more variety in shooters today. It seems like mostly everything is the same. I didn't like Borderlands, but I appreciated how different it was from everything else I had been playing up until that point.

 

[s0m3th1ng]

The last FPS I really enjoyed was Amnesia...and that's more of a first-person-run-like-a-little-girl...or FPRLALG.
Maybe we're all getting desensitized to the whole genre. Five years ago Killzone 3 would have been the shit...now it's just shit.

 

[cowsvils]

I'm curious: do you think there's a way to fix the standard control scheme or do you just thing that the genre is doomed to repetitive mediocrity for all time?

I think that the control scheme continues being repeated because it works. Perhaps we just need to totally rethink questions of setting, pacing, and even your role, in order to make the genre work in the future.

 

[Valanthe]

You make an interesting point OP, can't say I've put much thought into it myself, but I can say that I am finding myself burned out with all of the Call of Duty X's and their subsequent clones coming out. And honestly, I cannot even say it's because they are all the same, because I've been playing Halo on the weekends since the original and that game hasn't changed one iota since release ten years ago. So why do I keep on playing it?

I think Big Bruce almost has the answer here. Shooters over the past decade or so have gradually shifted from Single player centric stories with multiplayer tacked on, to Multiplayer games that have a Single player campaign to serve as a tutorial and give enough perspective to justify whatever goes on in multiplayer. Thus, we haven't changed, but rather, what we are looking for in a game has.

To call a game fun or not, you have to judge it on what sets it apart from others of it's genre. Multiplayer shooters can largely be broken down into "kill the dudes not on your team, and/or do X at point Y before they do." Don't break out the pitchforks yet, I understand this is an extremely broad brush I'm using to paint over a million tiny variations that can completely change how shooters work, but it's on purpose.

What I wish to illustrate, is exactly as Bruce said, the real variable, is in -who- we play the game with. now I could go on for hours, or in this case pages, on why certain people choose to play certain games and why the Team Fortress 2 community is so vastly different than the Call of Duty one, but it all comes down to this:

In multiplayer, the Community defines the game, and we enjoy games where the general community thinks and acts as we do, this is why I can waste hours on Team Fortress or Halo split-screen, but I'm done after ten minutes of Call of Duty online.

 

[Thaluikhain]

I think the OP has a point there.

However, there's still room for weird gimmicks and things that change the way the game is played, IMHO.

 

[Azex]

first person perspective games are fine...i dont mind them...bioshock,thief,dues ex,system shock....they all win...

its the shit like CoD:MW that is really depressing. if they wanna keep making games like that they should adopt the naming system EA sports uses and just call each one; CoD:2011, CoD:2012, CoD:2013 ect, that way people can easily defferentiate between generic shit thats slightly updated each year, and an actual unique game that just happens to be played thru the eyes of the protagonist

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

I don't think the control scheme is the problem at all. Looking back at the time period where platformers flooded the market, the controls to those all followed a pretty standard scheme, as do most games within a given genre. I think the real problem is that modern shooters are all too samey, following in the footsteps first of Halo and now of Call of Duty 4, which was itself following in Halo's footsteps. Modern shooters all have tons of guns with very minor variations, mostly in terms of rate of fire and damage per bullet. Contrast that to the older shooters, in which you never knew what that crazy gun you just found was going to do. Sure they all had pistols, a shotgun, a melee weapon, and a rocket launcher, but that's four buttons out of the ten that were used for weapons at the time. The rest of the weapons were usually unique to the individual game, and there was an element of discovery there absent in today's "level up to get the best gun" system.

Beyond that, the games were very different; there was a much higher level of mobility, the levels were much more complex, the plots were different from today's games, if not necessarily more varied -- and for that matter, the plot was rarely more than an excuse, in the manual no less, to go out and get killing stuff. Modern shooters have become samey compared to other modern shooters, but the older shooters were in a completely different subgenre. Saying they're the same would be like saying people who like thrash metal but not death metal are just getting tired of how metal has been the same since the days of Metallica, but it seemed newer back in the 80's than it does now. The reality of that statement is that you're looking at two very different styles of music, which are completely understandable for an individual to like one and not the other. The same applies to 90's shooters and modern shooters.

 

[scyther250]

I mess the old, faster FPSes. There's UT3 right now, but that has a puny online presence. We need more games like that, rather than the cover-based regenerating health drudgery that is the modern FPS.

 

[razelas]

First of all let me say that I am not claiming that either camp is right in this argument, this is just my analysis of peoples opinions and my theory as to why these are prevelant.

I enjoy fps'es and I always have but just recently I've started to feel like I'm not as interested in the new realeases as I used to be. I was wondering if there was something to the idea that shooters have shot down in quality in recent years however looking at the recent crop objectively, or at least as much as you can, I don't feel that's the case.

If you look at the major gaming genres, rpg's, shooters, 3p action games, the thing I notice is a major difference in the diversity of the control system. other genres have far more varied controls, rpg's come in all shapes and sizes and even if many use a similar action-bar based control system it plays differently based on how the abilities are designed. Shooters dont have quite this variety.

You push button to select weapon, point it at an enemy and push fire, the biggest variety seems to be whether or not you have to push aim before you shoot. Now there are subtle variations, abviously setting changes dramatically and the pacing varies game to game but at its core its always the same base control system.

I think that gamers who've been gaming fro a while probably find that even if there are good shooters on the market after you've played so many they start to feel like they're all blending into one another. The older games, the ones we grew up with still have an appeal based on nostalgia, we remember how fun they were when we first played them and they are still genuinely fun, we play through in anticipation of the defining moments we remember. However the new games feel like they aren't adding anything to our experience.

I'm sure that this isn't a universal rule, there are definitely poeple out there who appreciate newer shooters as much as the old classics and I doubt there's a set number of games you have to play before they start to seem overly familiar. So how does this sound in relation to your experience of the genre, do you think this has happened to you? Are you convinced that older shooters really are better? Are you new to the genre and feel this could happen to you in time? Thanks for listening escapist.

I feel it's not the controls, but rather how the player interacts with the environment and with other players other than using a weapon.

In Battlefield: Bad Company 2, there were a number of tools not designed to kill and actually served a function: the repair tool, health pack, tracer dart, ammo pack, defribulator, motion sensor. Combined with a stratified class system, squad-system, vehicles, and evolving maps, that certainly set the game apart from any other FPS game as reaction was reduced in importance and team work was visibly effective.

And I'd like to see more innovation in tools like that in FPS games. I want players to be able to breach doors and open up buildings in multiplayer. I want razor tape so I can string it along an open road and force players to go into the chokepoints of the buildings on the side, until a sapper uses their knife and cuts my razor tape.

 

[ShatterPalm]

You want my opinion on FPS like CoD and MoH suck? Simple:

REALISM. DOES NOT. BELONG. IN. VIDEO GAMES.

Video games are a place where people can take a fantastic situation and guide themselves through it. It's a place to escape. It's a place where you can do almost anything that the real world would never allow you to do. Why do people think that video games need to be more like real life? I though we were all in agreement that life sucks, so why are we even bothering? You know why things like dragon age and mass effect are so popular? Becuase they're good, for one thing, but for another, they take the player on a ride that will never actually happen. Nothing in any truly good game could ever come to pass. Does anyone really think that a blood crazed nihilistic clown is going to become the god of magic and destroy the world? No. Does anyone think that there is a secret organization of telepaths working on a sphere that allows the person who activates it the ability to shoot lightning out of their fingertips in exchange for the lives of 10000 other people? No. Does anyone honestly believe that a truly good, truly lasting, truly impressionable, truly well thought out game will EVER come out of trying to mimic reality? well, yes, there are a couple of ways that could be used effectively, but the point remains: Trying to be 'realistic' in a game just makes it suck.

 

[Phlakes]

its the shit like CoD:MW that is really depressing.

I hope you mean MW2. Call of Duty 4 was great, maybe even better than 2. It's the games after that ruined it.

OT: It's not the genre that's repetitive, it's just that developers and publishers want money. Making something "familiar" (translation: complete rip-off), like Homefront, will guarantee them a lot of sales. Plus, it keeps them from having to do anything. It takes probably a year off development time to copy something rather than make something original.

And you see this in basically every medium, I mean, how many teen vampire books came out after Twilight got popular? A shitload. So naturally, a shitload of CoD clones had to come out. At least we might be drifting away from that now, with Bulletstorm and DNF and the new Deus Ex. Hopefully Homefront can show them that we'd all rather have an innovative game that sells decently than another CoD clone that's a blockbuster.

REALISM. DOES NOT. BELONG. IN. VIDEO GAMES.

I partly disagree. It does have its place, but it shouldn't be the main goal.

 

[Azex]

its the shit like CoD:MW that is really depressing.

I hope you mean MW2. Call of Duty 4 was great, maybe even better than 2. It's the games after that ruined it.

OT: It's not the genre that's repetitive, it's just that developers and publishers want money. Making something "familiar" (translation: complete rip-off), like Homefront, will guarantee them a lot of sales. Plus, it keeps them from having to do anything. It takes probably a year off development time to copy something rather than make something original.

And you see this in basically every medium, I mean, how many teen vampire books came out after Twilight got popular? A shitload. So naturally, a shitload of CoD clones had to come out. At least we might be drifting away from that now, with Bulletstorm and DNF and the new Deus Ex. Hopefully Homefront can show them that we'd all rather have an innovative game that sells decently than another CoD clone that's a blockbuster.

to be perfectly honest yes i fully enjoyed CoD:1,2 and MW:1. i never played CoD:3 and all of them from after MW:1 feel like they came of a convayer belt. as soon as i saw there was leveling up in MW:1's multiplayer i knew that the next few years were gonna be dominated by this samey shit

 

[pyrosaw]

FPS's aren't going to be that bland for that long. Brink's coming out, Bodycount, don't know about Bulletstorm, Tribes Ascend, Serious Sam 3. There will always be games like Crysis 2 and Homefront, that's just the genre. But I think developers are starting to realize that you don't need stark realism in today's market.

 

[JourneyThroughHell]

I hope you mean MW2. Call of Duty 4 was great, maybe even better than 2. It's the games after that ruined it.

Singleplayer-wise, CoD 4 and MW2 are the same thing. Except MW2 is better. And has coop.

Yes, they kind of fucked up the MP. It's still playable.

OT: I've always found modern "realistic" shooters much better.

"Realistic" as in not realistic at all.

 

[Irridium]

May also be another factor in why most seem rather... boring.

Think I'm going to go play DOOM now.

 

[meece]

I dislike small scale FPSs especially ones with tiny maps. Being shot in the back again and again gets old *really* quickly. Gimmi something like BF where there are battlelines.

Sadly those don't come out much these days. That and modern FPSs singleplayer tend to use the HP regen system. Which sucks.

 

[MasterWhatever]

I find now a days it's more about the community (as well as players) rather then the game style itself. (TF2, L4D, KZ3) I agree their has been a downgrade in the fps genre but with multiplayer it's still has some good left. But certainly it can use some improving.