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"Design-a-FPS"

So what makes a great shooter for you?

In the near(ish) future there are a few muchly anticipated FPSes out, Counter Strike Condition Zero, Half Life 2, Doom 3, Halo 2, XIII.

So what do you want from these, and other future shooters?

Personally I like lots of gadgets and weapons. That is one thing that I like about the Bond games, lots of variety.

I'm beginning to expect online play as almost standard now. It is something that greatly extends the amount of time you play a game for. A good multiplayer makes or breaks a game nowadays.

With advances in technology over the years, I expect decent AI. Let's face it, with out great AI Halo would have just been average.

And good level design is a must. You need varitety. I always felt that some of the old shooters were too samey. Halo was a bit as well.

I also like a good range of interactive elements in the level. Like fixed gun enplacements, vehicles etc.

So um yeah, just general stuff about what you want from some of the new FPSes on the way.

I reckon AVP2 is one of the longest lasting games you'll ever get. plus multiplayer is barrels of fun when you finally find your most comfortable unit.

For example, sprinting around as an alien runner is excellent, and listening to the chompy minigun blasts whilst chewing up a predator with a hailstorm of bullets, and hearing his cry as he flops groundwards is pleasing.

Several decent weapons that do good damage to your foes which is what's fun, Planetside as peashooters that requirer you to crouch just to hit them...boring

Er... change Perfect Dark 2 to Perfect Dark.

I just got up. :S

Notorious Biggles wrote:
> The thing is with clever programming it would be possible to play the
> same missions from either side, or make lots of level that are
> similar but to play from different perspectives.
>

Yup it's been done to a certain extent with Perfect Dark 2. Where one player could be a bad guy on the missions, against the other player, and jump matrix style to the next bad guy when the died.

I'm expecting this to be two players on each side with Perfect Dark Zero.

That's probably true, certainly not as difficult as creating whole new levels, then texturing them, testing its design, implementing set pieces, interactive objects, etc.

The thing is with clever programming it would be possible to play the same missions from either side, or make lots of level that are similar but to play from different perspectives.

Just use different textures on levels and non playable characters. Same level, but appears different.

Sure, I know it isn't quite that simple, but it shouldn't be that difficult.

True.

I like the idea of a 'mission tree' though where you have a bit of choice as to what missions you do and what path you take through the mission tree.

In switching sides you are completely destroying the story that is set out for you - It'd be cool if it was more like AvP2, but imagine the work that'd have to go into designing multiple narratives that could occur at any given point in a game. It'd be good fun, but would take absoloutely ages.

Anything where you can just let rip with a machine-gun. For some reason, I always prefer FPS games where you're against human enemies. I really dislike Turok, the alien Perfect Dark bits and others. Makes me sound kinda evil, don't it?

Yeah it'd work well in games where there's a lot of uncertainty about the people you're working for. Like Red faction 2 and Deus Ex.

I suppose they have done it to an extent with Alien Vs Predator in that you could play on 3 sides.