Would current gen gamers accept DOOM style gameplay in a 'serious' FPS?

[Sixcess]

As much as I still enjoy Halo: CE there's one thing that's always been a minor annoyance at the back of my mind when I play it - Master Chief doesn't feel like an elite enhanced super-soldier. Take away his shields and he dies about as quick as any other FPS protagonist, and the third person view you get of him rag dolling across the landscape when you die doesn't do anything to alleviate that feeling.

And he's supposed to be the best of the best.

So that, and playing some DOOM again, got me to wondering - would a modern audience actually accept a Doom Marine style protagonist in a serious game? Not a self aware retro romp or semi-spoof like Serious Sam, but a game that was intended to be taken as seriously as any other FPS (whether or not you can take any of them seriously is an altogether different topic.)

This is a protagonist who is not in any way supposed to be above the ordinary - except in being a badass. He's not enhanced or inhuman, he's just a grunt marine who can carry 8 weapons, who moves faster than a sprinting supersoldier at his default speed, and who can take multiple shotgun blasts to the face at the highest difficulty levels even if he isn't wearing any armour.

With realism (or pseudo-realism) being such a big thing in games these days would present day gamers with little familiarity with the original even accept this if a hypothetical DOOM 4 really went back to basics and played out just like the originals?

Thoughts?

 

[RandomWhiteGuy]

This is a protagonist who is not in any way supposed to be above the ordinary - except in being a badass. He's not enhanced or inhuman, he's just a grunt marine who can carry 8 weapons, who moves faster than a sprinting supersoldier at his default speed, and who can take multiple shotgun blasts to the face at the highest difficulty levels even if he isn't wearing any armour.

I think the problem you're gonna run into is you basically just described the protagonist from Serious Sam. Which, as you pointed out, is not meant to be taken seriously as anything other than a video game with very video game-y elements. Honestly, I prefer it that way. I think there's too much of a push to make every modern shooter "realistic". I'd much rather play something like Serious Sam, which knows it's a video game, and lets you do ridiculous things precisely for that reason. Even DOOM wasn't meant to be taken seriously when it was released. It was meant to be over-the-top. Give me more of that, that over-the-top attitude, games like Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon. Let the Call of Duty fans have their "realistic" shooters. Me, I'd rather play something campy and fun.

 

[optimusjamie]

I think it depends on what you mean by 'serious'.
If you mean that it takes itself seriously as a fun game, then yes, DOOM-style gameplay is acceptable. If you mean 'serious' the way spunkgargleweewee could be called 'serious', then no, it wouldn't work. Serious as in grimdark? You can have whatever gameplay you want.

 

[tilmoph]

I don't really know what you mean by serious. Regenerating health basically means all modern FPS characters are declawed Wolverines, so I'm not sure why more classic shooter elements like multiple weapon slots, health packs, and no explanation superhuman endurance would break SoD any harder than what we have now. So yes, I'm sure they could. Not sure if they'd want to, given how accustomed to certain game mechanics modern shooter fans have become, but if they could be persuaded to try that sort of game, I don't see any reason for them to have trouble accepting it.

 

[Zhukov]

What exactly do you mean by "serious"?

For example, if someone tried to make... oh, I dunno... something like The Last of Us in first person with Doom-style gameplay? No, that can fuck right off. It would be ridiculous.

Hell, I thought Bioshock Infinite was pushing it in that regard. I don't think old school shooter gameplay really suits anything other than childish, knowingly silly romps like the Serious Sam games.

 

[Sixcess]

Even DOOM wasn't meant to be taken seriously when it was released. It was meant to be over-the-top.

I'm not so sure. Sometimes yes, but DOOM was to a certain extent a horror game - the crude blocky visuals make it so much less so to modern eyes, but the intent is definitely there, particularly with the PS1 port which had a creepy ambient soundtrack. What we now call OTT was, I think, just the conventions of video games - almost any video game - at the time. Although it is (along with Wolfenstein 3D) the godfather of the FPS, DOOM is far closer in spirit to arcade shooters going back to Space Invaders than the FPSs that followed in its wake.

I don't really know what you mean by serious. Regenerating health basically means all modern FPS characters are declawed Wolverines, so I'm not sure why more classic shooter elements like multiple weapon slots, health packs, and no explanation superhuman endurance would break SoD any harder than what we have now.

It's true that no game featuring regenerating health can really lay claim to 'realism', but I think what it does do is use an unrealistic mechanic to enforce a more realistic style of play, by driving the player to at least seek cover now and again. Doomguy, of course, has never heard of cover, except dodging behind the occassional Pinkie to let monster infighting do some of his work for him.

I suppose what I mean by 'serious' is a story and setting that doesn't have to keep winking at the audience to justify itself. If we do get a DOOM 4 I don't want to see it degenerate into a parody of itself *cough*SaintsRowtheThird*cough*.

 

[Doom972]

I don't see Halo as a good FPS, it's barely mediocre. I recently decided to give Halo 1 a try, and a few corridors of suicidal aliens and shitty vehicle sections later, I went back to playing Serious Sam HD (which follows the Doom formula of FPS), which I recently got at the Humble Weekly Sale.

Halo is just so basic - it has the basic things that a shooter needs to have but not a single thing to make it stand out, and the shitty vehicle sections only make it look worse. I guess it's just popular because it was designed with the X-box controls in mind.

To answer your question - yes, I would love to play as a walking arsenal with no personality, as long as the game world is engaging enough for me not to care about it. Especially if that walking arsenal is named Gordon Freeman.

 

[veloper]

Doom is also a science fiction. Is there any reason why science fiction armor shouldn't allow the soldier to absorb multiple shots to the head and sprint great distances?

So it all comes down to gameplay.
Do we enjoy Serious Sam as a game? If yes, then that style of play should also work for an armored soldier within a science fiction setting, serious or not.

 

[RandomWhiteGuy]

To answer your question - yes, I would love to play as a walking arsenal with no personality, as long as the game world is engaging enough for me not to care about it. Especially if that walking arsenal is named Gordon Freeman.

Damn, you took the words right out of my mouth.

What exactly do you mean by "serious"?

For example, if someone tried to make... oh, I dunno... something like The Last of Us in first person with Doom-style gameplay? No, that can fuck right off. It would be ridiculous.

Hell, I thought Bioshock Infinite was pushing it in that regard. I don't think old school shooter gameplay really suits anything other than childish, knowingly silly romps like the Serious Sam games.

This is more or less what I was trying to say, only better constructed and more coherent.

 

[Wakey87]

I'd love for their to be another big tournament shooter like Quake or UT. Games like Painkiller and Serious Sam are atleast still being made.

 

[Smooth Operator]

Well considering modern "realistic" shooters also don't explain where the lens flares, bloom, color blindness, floating neon hint text, jello squirts, insta regen, ally immortality, telepathic hit confirms or a foot soldiers private air force come from it actually wouldn't be a problem at all doing any old silly thing.

But if someone was was even moderately concerned with context you just go the "advanced armor" route and then you can explain pretty much anything.
Although I'm not sure why you would torture yourself with realism on a game that is not intended for it.

 

[Woodsey]

Hell, I thought Bioshock Infinite was pushing it in that regard.

It was more baffling that they would go to the trouble to come up with some weird in-universe reason to justify a shield when they could have just give you a bigger health bar, which would've been much less noticeable.

 

[Arkynomicon]

Eh, my problem with a lot of modern shooters is that it pretty much feels that I'm following a rail-road with little things to do on the way except killing stuff while I pick up stuff they drop.

Games like Doom and Duke Nukem 3D allowed me to explore at my own leisure, finding secrets with cool rewards like rocket launcher 5 levels before I'm suppose to find one and even finding secret levels all while I play the game the way I like it.

Most shooters I play today want me to play the game in a certain way rather then maybe doing my own thing. It's like the devs are afraid that I might have fun in the wrong way. Deus Ex Human Revolutions did that right. It lets you play the game in the way you like it, it rewards your curiosity and the levels (while some of the hubs confined) doesn't feel like I'm stuck on that dreaded rail-road.

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

With realism (or pseudo-realism) being such a big thing in games these days would present day gamers with little familiarity with the original even accept this if a hypothetical DOOM 4 really went back to basics and played out just like the originals?

Thoughts?

You're proposing old school PC twitch-based FPS gaming...

That sort of game style doesn't work well with consoles (well, controllers, anyway), which means excluding most of the bro-set, and that means no large publisher would touch it.

Maybe Paradox would pick it up when they finally admit War of the Roses is a turd.

 

[Little Gray]

I really doubt that they would. That style of game play is just really boring and there isn't much to it. There is a reason that you dont see those types of games anymore.

 

[Bonecrusher]

There is a belief that Doom and Duke Nukem 3D style games are "old", and every "new" game must to look like Call Of Duty and Battlefield 3.
However, there is a mistake in that belief. We had "modern warfare" games like Delta Force and Rainbow Six in the Doom/DN3D era.
Existence of one of this genre doesn't obstruct other one.
So DOOM-style gameplay can be still done. And I think many FPS follows "Doom-style" gameplay, recent example is Borderlands 2.

I think a game can be done in Doom style and still be as serious as BF3. But the question is: Would publishers want such a game?
Publishers don't want to enter risk, so they prefer to copy directly successful formulas.

 

[RandomWhiteGuy]

Gamers are always willing to try something new-ish as long as it is fun. See Minecraft.

Can someone please tell the developers this? I know Jim Sterling's been ranting about it on and off for months now. There is a seriously untapped market for games that don't try to capture the Call of Duty crowd.

 

[Shoggoth2588]

I don't see why people wouldn't like that kind of thing for the juxtaposition alone! "Oh look" they say, "Another realistic military shooter taking place in the Middle-East, Russia and, eventually China...is this footage sped up? Why is that gun firing purple lightning?! They just made an entire room explode into fucking limbs and giblets with one shot!?!"

blah...It's the kind of thing I'd definitely like and buy, especially if giant robots and, jet-packs are introduced early on and used frequently...also other power-ups like Berserker Pills and, Chainsaws.

 

[porous_shield]

I'd rather all games be more like Doom than COD or Halo. Both are unrealistic and I prefer the suspension of disbelief that goes along with a game like Doom than a modern military shooter with two weapons slots and regenerating health. With regenerating health it always feels like I've kicked over a bees nest when I turn every corner with the amount of bullets coming at me and the enemies circling around and the reason they do that is because you can simply duck behind something and regain your health. In contrast, a game like Doom couldn't function like that because health are limited pick-ups. Though old style shooters certainly have their problems as well, I really intensely hate that angry bees design philosophy of modern military shooters.

To answer the question in the OP, I don't think old style fps would be accepted because most fps games are on consoles and twitch based old school fps style gameplay doesn't translate well to those platforms.