Worlds Gaming has VASTLY overlooked

[Haradar]

My favorite setting for a game would have to be a free-running mirror's edge-esque game. Except instead of rooftops, it's in the Amazon or some similar rainforesty thing. You have the ability to climb basically anything and you must get from point A to point B, for whatever reason, in X time.

However, the game I want to see most of all, is actually one of those aforementioned space marines games. My idea went something like: Dude's just moved into a human colony on the far reaches of human territory. Shortly thereafter, aliens attack without warning and basically slaughter every living thing on the face of the planet. Our hero barely manages to escape and makes it back to Earth to warn people. Throughout the game you fight on various different planets and environments to stop the complete annihilation of humanity. Then towards the end, the humans develop some biological weapon that will exterminate their enemies. You take the mission to deliver the weapon, drop it down, and on your way out stumble on papers with English writing on the alien mothership. You grab em and run and then the bomb goes off and all the aliens are dead. Final cutscene of the game is the hero reading the papers and discovering that the aliens he had just killed were the last few remnants of their society who had attacked in revenge, because the humans had tested an experimental device on their homeworld that wound up destroying it and slaughtering their people.

Perhaps, instead of finding out that the aliens were just pissed off at us, we could find out that the aliens WERE in fact humans, or something to that effect. Instead of an actual alien shooter, it could be a neat, stealth type game, or possibly a (real) survival horror type (not the Dead Space kind.)

Edit: That's kind of where I thought you were going with that idea, and I think it would be an interesting idea that, instead of being an actual Aliens game, make a kind of pseudo-civil war, in space. Of course you wouldn't be the macho space marine, you'd just be a regular guy who happened to survive the attack. There would obviously be more as to why you were attacked, and obviously your side might well be the aggressors, but I just think that aliens are a horribly over used punching bag.

 

[Hakazaba]

However, the game I want to see most of all, is actually one of those aforementioned space marines games. My idea went something like: Dude's just moved into a human colony on the far reaches of human territory. Shortly thereafter, aliens attack without warning and basically slaughter every living thing on the face of the planet. Our hero barely manages to escape and makes it back to Earth to warn people. Throughout the game you fight on various different planets and environments to stop the complete annihilation of humanity. Then towards the end, the humans develop some biological weapon that will exterminate their enemies. You take the mission to deliver the weapon, drop it down, and on your way out stumble on papers with English writing on the alien mothership. You grab em and run and then the bomb goes off and all the aliens are dead. Final cutscene of the game is the hero reading the papers and discovering that the aliens he had just killed were the last few remnants of their society who had attacked in revenge, because the humans had tested an experimental device on their homeworld that wound up destroying it and slaughtering their people.

You havent played that already?

 

[Doug]

I must have missed the secret levels in the call of duty series with the space marines and the bipedal tanks.

You did - it was odd to see Hitler riding his giant 1,000 ft tall mech against Liberity Prime (Fallout 3 reference). That and the Japanese robot squids sucking marines off of the beaches and into the sea's...

Hell, lets make a mod with that stuff!

 

[Agayek]

You havent played that already?

Surprisingly enough, no. I've never seen a game where humanity ends up as the bad guys.

Perhaps, instead of finding out that the aliens were just pissed off at us, we could find out that the aliens WERE in fact humans, or something to that effect. Instead of an actual alien shooter, it could be a neat, stealth type game, or possibly a (real) survival horror type (not the Dead Space kind.)

Edit: That's kind of where I thought you were going with that idea, and I think it would be an interesting idea that, instead of being an actual Aliens game, make a kind of pseudo-civil war, in space. Of course you wouldn't be the macho space marine, you'd just be a regular guy who happened to survive the attack. There would obviously be more as to why you were attacked, and obviously your side might well be the aggressors, but I just think that aliens are a horribly over used punching bag.

Yea, that's more or less what I was aiming for. Basically, average joe that got lucky and wound up fighting against aggressors, but it turns out you were fighting for the bad guys all along. Replace aliens with pirates, or ninjas, or cyborgs, or other humans, etc etc. I really just want to see a game where you end up unknowingly aiding the bad guys.

Edit: Having it be a first person stealth/survival game would be god damn amazing. Especially if the stealth (and possibly melee combat) worked like the Chronicles of Riddick game(s). Methinks that would be a lot of fun.

 

[Danman1]

I think Assasins Creed is the erfect example of overlooked options. The middle east and its NOT a fps or strategy game. and Italy in the 1400's (i don't know how to spell fithteenth)



And Pirates! More Pirate Games!!

 

[Haradar]

I think that stealth is a very dangerous area to foray into, because, while Thief did it well, and the Chronicles of Riddick did it sort of well, it's something that most games have not. So it would HAVE to be done well. I think that early Silent Hill game might be emulatable, but on a larger scale, and possibly in more varied environments.

As for the reasoning for the fight, if anyone has ever read Orson Scott Card's "Xenocide", that might be something to think about. A full out misunderstanding between two races falls into conflict. (I say Xenocide, because in Ender's Game the Formics were just generally evil, with no sympathetic qualities until the final chapter.)

 

[Haradar]

I think Assasins Creed is the erfect example of overlooked options. The middle east and its NOT a fps or strategy game. and Italy in the 1400's (i don't know how to spell fithteenth)



And Pirates! More Pirate Games!!

I would love an open world pirate game, akin to the Pirates of the Caribbean game that Bethesda made, but more open, and with more options. Pirate games are fun when you can take over another ship, capture it's crew, plunder it's cargo, and then go sack a major nation's fortress. Having things like privateering be an option would also be nice, because I like the idea of being one of the English Sea Dogs and beating up on the Spanish Galleons. In all, I liked Pirates! and I liked Bethesda's Pirates of the Caribbean. I just thought that they both fell short in some respects. Of course, I want to be able to land anywhere and bury my treasure too, so the land would have to be open.

Of course, I'm a very demanding gamer.

 

[llamastorm.games]

Actually...BioShock might not be the best example really...I mean, it was System Shock 2...UNDER WAAAAAAAATER! (Cue dramatic thunder!) That said, it was still a pretty unique game in it's own right. However, my point is, that while the setting is important, if you don't have a plot or game to hinge it on it's worth diddly squat.

I have to wonder, would BioShock be a worse game if it was a direct sequel to SS2? If something like Dead Space was set on a submarine instead of a ship would it suffer too much?

Why wouldnt BioShock be a good example?
Sure it was slightly done before with SS2 but only once before. Most of todays games have been done before a handful of times or more, compared to most on the market its very original also it copied a game like 8 years old at the time, most other games are copied every 3-4 weeks.

Although Dead Space on a submarine sounds good

 

[Agayek]

I think that stealth is a very dangerous area to foray into, because, while Thief did it well, and the Chronicles of Riddick did it sort of well, it's something that most games have not. So it would HAVE to be done well. I think that early Silent Hill game might be emulatable, but on a larger scale, and possibly in more varied environments.

As for the reasoning for the fight, if anyone has ever read Orson Scott Card's "Xenocide", that might be something to think about. A full out misunderstanding between two races falls into conflict. (I say Xenocide, because in Ender's Game the Formics were just generally evil, with no sympathetic qualities until the final chapter.)

Yea, but since it's my imagination, it's always done well.

OSC's books are actually what sparked the idea in my head. I'd love to see it in a game, but alas that probably won't happen for a while. Moral ambiguity on behalf of the "good guys" doesn't lend itself well to sales.

 

[Undeed]

We have a fuck ton of space marines.

Is that a metric or stanard fuck ton?


I think I'd like to see more team based games in the style of TF2, but not nessacarily combat oriented. Like two colonies of ants moving to collect food, some are fast, some are strong, some can dig tunnels and traps to make moving to and from the flag quicker. No combat abilities untill the first or second update, and them limit them ridiculously. It's just a thought.

So...An RTS...?

Yes, but no. Real Time Strategy in that you must coordinate with your teammates to complete a goal. Every player gets one character at a time, and plays in either the first or third person. Maybe make a single player mode that's an RTS and make the multiplayer a team based, class based, goal oriented game.

TF2 meets AoE with ants.

 

[Undeed]

Although Dead Space on a submarine sounds good

I believe they did a similar game on a tanker ship called Cold Fear, where you were tasked with finding out why the crew was monsters and discovering the dark experiment etc. I may be making stuff up, so fact check me at your leisure.

 

[Agayek]

Yes, but no. Real Time Strategy in that you must coordinate with your teammates to complete a goal. Every player gets one character at a time, and plays in either the first or third person. Maybe make a single player mode that's an RTS and make the multiplayer a team based, class based, goal oriented game.

TF2 meets AoE with ants.

So DotA, League of Legends, or Demigod?

 

[Undeed]

So DotA, League of Legends, or Demigod?

I am certain I have never played these titles. I was fairly certain that this was an original concept, and had come up with it in a rather slapdash manner.

 

[Haradar]

I think that stealth is a very dangerous area to foray into, because, while Thief did it well, and the Chronicles of Riddick did it sort of well, it's something that most games have not. So it would HAVE to be done well. I think that early Silent Hill game might be emulatable, but on a larger scale, and possibly in more varied environments.

As for the reasoning for the fight, if anyone has ever read Orson Scott Card's "Xenocide", that might be something to think about. A full out misunderstanding between two races falls into conflict. (I say Xenocide, because in Ender's Game the Formics were just generally evil, with no sympathetic qualities until the final chapter.)

Yea, but since it's my imagination, it's always done well.

OSC's books are actually what sparked the idea in my head. I'd love to see it in a game, but alas that probably won't happen for a while. Moral ambiguity on behalf of the "good guys" doesn't lend itself well to sales.

Fair point. Nobody wants to be the bad guy. I think Haze was fair in that respect, except they messed up when changing sides. Obviously in the first part you would have it easy, you would be able to absorb damage that would make the Master Chief blush, and could fill all your enemies full of lead. The second part of the game should not have been more of the same. When you defect the game should've become an exercise in self control, hiding in bushes, fighting a guerrilla war against the enemy who would still be super powerful bullet walls with a fair capacity to fill you full of lead. Instead of confronting these tankmen, you would use traps, cunning, and stealth to beat them. Of course, few people outside of the Escapist actually have the intelligence to survive such a game, so it wouldn't be marketable...but neither was Haze anyway!

 

[OrenjiJusu]

There's a game which i think a lot of people have overlooked, mainly because it was cancelled just before release. Demonik.
it was an open world game where you play as a demon brought up from hell by a woman who was a bit of a sociopath and told to kill everyone. i think more things like this where you get to play as the baddie, with intent to harm everything you could touch or Steampunk style games- with all of the design being it not just a few scatterings. i would love to see something like fallout 3 retro-styled to Steampunk.
one other thing id like to see is a game in a completely broken environment, maybe fallout-esque, where instead of you making changes that last only while your there or if the game tells you time has past, you could actively influence the entire world, with the goal being either to finish off the job others failed to do and wipe the planet clean or create a new society out of the wreckages. a game where every action actually has a consequence: you knock over a wall, more rats infest the city. you kill a lot of people, everyone becomes paranoid and stay away and economies die. you blow up an industrial building and more unemployed and homeless people appear on the streets. things like that...

one more thing i think video game developers should be slightly more realistic in open world game play, if you upset the police and kill all they through at you, and you kill their toughest guys, they should stay away, build road blocks, make a perimeter, allow you to make demands...not keep charging in and dying over and over. this may anger some but it would make others more cautious/ if you reach this level you and you make one mistake you'd die. it'd be interesting to see it in at least one game.

I think I've typed too much now... meh, my opinion has to go somewhere =P

 

[Haradar]

There's a game which i think a lot of people have overlooked, mainly because it was cancelled just before release. Demonik.
it was an open world game where you play as a demon brought up from hell by a woman who was a bit of a sociopath and told to kill everyone. i think more things like this where you get to play as the baddie, with intent to harm everything you could touch or Steampunk style games- with all of the design being it not just a few scatterings. i would love to see something like fallout 3 retro-styled to Steampunk.
one other thing id like to see is a game in a completely broken environment, maybe fallout-esque, where instead of you making changes that last only while your there or if the game tells you time has past, you could actively influence the entire world, with the goal being either to finish off the job others failed to do and wipe the planet clean or create a new society out of the wreckages. a game where every action actually has a consequence: you knock over a wall, more rats infest the city. you kill a lot of people, everyone becomes paranoid and stay away and economies die. you blow up an industrial building and more unemployed and homeless people appear on the streets. things like that...

one more thing i think video game developers should be slightly more realistic in open world game play, if you upset the police and kill all they through at you, and you kill their toughest guys, they should stay away, build road blocks, make a perimeter, allow you to make demands...not keep charging in and dying over and over. this may anger some but it would make others more cautious/ if you reach this level you and you make one mistake you'd die. it'd be interesting to see it in at least one game.

I think I've typed too much now... meh, my opinion has to go somewhere =P

I like the idea of influencing everything you touch, but I'd just like to see a more massive open world first. Fallout 3 was too small in scale for my tastes. It just...seemed...I dunno. Small I guess. Compared to Fallout 1 and 2 it was tiny, and a march across the wasteland doesn't feel long until you're lugging eight hundred pounds on your back. If you're running, it's a rather short distance, and fast traveling makes it even smaller. If we took the Morrorwind approach (or hell, even the Test Drive approach) and made you find your own transportation, making the world much larger wouldn't be so bad. You would need time to go everywhere, but it would FEEL large. That's just something that I haven't seen much of. Oblivion (and I know I'm going to be attacked for this...) felt large, mainly because it was very repetitive. Repetition happens in real life. Obviously no two things are the same, but after walking down a road for a couple hours, one starts to see similarities. Oblivion did large very well, and Fallout 3 just didn't have the same size, nor did it have the size that I would have liked for a Fallout game. It was just too small.

 

[Vigormortis]

I must have missed the secret levels in the call of duty series with the space marines and the bipedal tanks.

True, but the whole WWI / WWII themed games have been done to death too. Then resurrected and beaten to death again. The only COD that branched out from that genre was COD4, but that game was WAY too overrated. Sure the story mode was decent enough. The level designs were some what varied, but the AI was pre-Doom retarded and unfair, and the multiplayer was anything but stellar.

As for the topic at hand, I partially agree. Most generic (and even some high-profile) titles fall into a formulaic design philosophy. There's a reason for it. It sells. Most gamers out there don't have an appreciation of good design. They can't tell the difference between the narrative genius of games like Half-Life or Bioshock as compared to games like, say, Gears of War or Halo. For example, in the case of first-person shooters, most gamers only see pretty flashes of light, over-saturated gray/brown washed worlds, excessive bloom, gratuitous violence, grotesquely huge super soldiers, and lots and lots of explosions. That's enough to draw them in and get them hooked. It appeals to their simple, childish need to lash out and hurt things. Companies know this so they keep the crap flowing. The sad part is, people just soak it all up and come back for more. There are still a few companies out there that try to make original, engaging titles, but their numbers are dwindling.

 

[youdontbelong]

i want to see real space marines, the warhammer 40k kind. and yes i have dawn of war. but i want something more small scale,like and FPS or an RPG (and yes i have dawn of war 2 with its sorta RPG-ish elements). maybe is would be sorta cool to see and assasins creed in the 40k universe, the have some pretty cool temple assasins, you could run round as the one that has a skull mask and freddy like glave and slice people up in a crumbling neo-gothic city.
it would be cool

 

[OrenjiJusu]

As for the topic at hand, I partially agree. Most generic (and even some high-profile) titles fall into a formulaic design philosophy. There's a reason for it. It sells. Most gamers out there don't have an appreciation of good design. They can't tell the difference between the narrative genius of games like Half-Life or Bioshock as compared to games like, say, Gears of War or Halo. For example, in the case of first-person shooters, most gamers only see pretty flashes of light, over-saturated gray/brown washed worlds, excessive bloom, gratuitous violence, grotesquely huge super soldiers, and lots and lots of explosions. That's enough to draw them in and get them hooked. It appeals to their simple, childish need to lash out and hurt things. Companies know this so they keep the crap flowing. The sad part is, people just soak it all up and come back for more. There are still a few companies out there that try to make original, engaging titles, but their numbers are dwindling.

Is it bad that i liked all those games you just mentioned, and i like the whole, oooh explosion....pretty.., thing as well as the way a game tells a story or tries its hardest to make me empathise with the generic faceless arse my conscience has been assigned to?

 

[DasHunterman]

See, I've noticed how there are so many FPS's set during WW2 and it got me thinking about a little known game called Ironstorm (or World War Zero) which takes place in an alternate universe where World War One had been going on for the last 50 years. That's the kind of game I'd like to see. Hell, a game set during WW1 would be fresh.