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I'm sick of some games, they're all one trick ponies. "Oh, look, you can do X in this game!" they tell us. "But you can't do Y or Z!" I cry, throttling the PR agents. A few great games come along and come up with loads of great ideas between them... then nobody steals them! They have one good idea each, instead of one game with a dozen. All your favourite songs, films and TV programmes are rip offs (or "inspired") by something else! How many times do you hear a song on the radio, then later on realise it's a cover version?
Game creators either steal TOO much (how many 3D platformers do we need?) or not enough.
Outlaws came along years ago. You had to RELOAD your gun! I'd never seen anything like it! You could put a sniper scope on your gun, giving you a sniper rifle! Of course, Goldeneye came along, and went even further. Not only did you have to reload your gun, not only did you have a sniper rifle, but it had area related damage! Shoot a guy in the leg and he hopped around! Shoot him in the head and he goes straight down! It was amazing that up until then, we'd never really seen anything like it. Games like Kingpin promised "Goldeneye like damage!"... but failed. Sure, if you shot them in the leg, blood appeared on their leg, but that was as far as it went. It still had the usual crappiness of being able to shoot people in the head repeatedly without them dying. What's with that? It went on about realism, yet you could unload a pistol magazine into some meat head's melon and he'd still come at you! Terrible.
Half Life seems to be the only game that people have taken the best bits from and used for themselves, but even then, they've left out other great stuff from other great games. They MUST know this stuff exists, they must know it's good, so why don't they steal it for themselves? When Duke Nukem came out, afterwards there were still games being released that didn't allow you to put bullet holes in walls. Why? It was done in Duke, it looked good, yet Quake 2 came along and you couldn't even leave a mark with a ROCKET LAUNCHER!
Skip forward a few years, Red Faction. OK, so it didn't work the way they planned, but why haven't other games implemented the destruction of scenery? Eh? Even in the ultra destructive Postal 2, setting off a rocket launcher indoors has the same effect it did in games that are over 5 years old. A scorch mark on the floor. Wow, glad to see gaming has evolved! I'll tell you what it is, people are becoming acceptant of crap. We see it so often in the games we play that we don't even care when we see it again... and again and again and again. I want to be able to blow holes in random walls, I want to be able to shoot locks off with my shotgun. If I can take someone’s head off with it, why do I have to find a key for a door, or complete some elaborate puzzle? I want to engulf a room with my flamethrower and actually see the walls turn black, then to ash and dust. Why can't I? It's what I want, why aren't the game makers catering for what I want? Because they're lazy. They think that the ONE good idea they have is enough. It doesn't MATTER how pretty your game is, how many levels you have, how many pointless NPCs they've stuck in, not when they're still running with the Doom way of thinking. Shoot, walk to door, find key, shoot. OK, so the doors/keys have been replaced by "objectives" but it's still the same formula. You find something, and do something with it. I want more. I want REAL missions, varied missions. I want to have to attack a base with an ARMY. The closest you get to that is Medal Of Honour on the D-Day level. After that you're either by yourself or with two or three others. That's crap. They've been able to do that for years, why are they still doing it now? We should be able to work as part of an army, dozens of men on each side, with each soldier having realistic AI, with a desire to win but a desire to live. I want original ideas, but not at the expense of ignoring all the good stuff from previous titles, which seems to be what they're doing. Somebody needs to take the best bits from every first person shooter and put them together. I think it'd look a little something like this.
The blood and damage effects of Soldier Of Fortune (a mix of 1 + 2) the destructible scenery of Red Faction (but not just walls, I'm talking doors, tables, rooms, items, everything) the realism of Postal 2, Duke Nukem and Half Life (as in real life settings, not some damn alien planet) the humour of Postal 2, Redneck Rampage and Duke Nukem, the swearing from Kingpin, *intelligent* AI, not just NPCs that act like dumb polygons, so something along the lines of Medal Of Honour. You should be able to shoot somebody in the leg. Again and again and again. They should plead for their life, cry, wet themselves, do SOMETHING other than die from getting shot in the leg. In fact, I only want them to die if I shoot them in the head or the chest. Anywhere else is just for pain. I want to re-enact Robocop, where Bodicker shoots the poop out of Morton's legs. I also want to blow off people's hands with a shotgun, or take the arm off at the elbow. I want to take off both their legs so they drag themselves along the floor. Blood lust? No. A thirst for REALISM. Hollywood's depiction of violence and warfare is more realistic than ever before, so why are games still crap? Why do I just ACCEPT that a shotgun to somebody's stomach doesn't spill their guts onto the floor, or tear them in half, why do I accept that two shots to somebody's leg will kill them, why do I accept that there's an invisible wall stopping me from leaving the level? Why do I see terrible graphics and animation and don't complain about it? If you see bad effects in a film, you think "Oh God, that's terrible!" so why don't we do the same for crap looking textures, unrealistic animation and bad engine physics? I want perfect graphics, great animation, credible voice acting, sound effects taken from Hollywood (like in IGI) and a REAL sense that I'm in the real world, doing real stuff.
Somebody needs to take the best bits from every decent game, then their own ideas, and make the ultimate game, the uber first person shooter. Until that day, I'm stuck playing one game at a time, just for its one trick, then moving onto the next. What a sad state we're in if that's the case.
Game creators either steal TOO much (how many 3D platformers do we need?) or not enough.
Outlaws came along years ago. You had to RELOAD your gun! I'd never seen anything like it! You could put a sniper scope on your gun, giving you a sniper rifle! Of course, Goldeneye came along, and went even further. Not only did you have to reload your gun, not only did you have a sniper rifle, but it had area related damage! Shoot a guy in the leg and he hopped around! Shoot him in the head and he goes straight down! It was amazing that up until then, we'd never really seen anything like it. Games like Kingpin promised "Goldeneye like damage!"... but failed. Sure, if you shot them in the leg, blood appeared on their leg, but that was as far as it went. It still had the usual crappiness of being able to shoot people in the head repeatedly without them dying. What's with that? It went on about realism, yet you could unload a pistol magazine into some meat head's melon and he'd still come at you! Terrible.
Half Life seems to be the only game that people have taken the best bits from and used for themselves, but even then, they've left out other great stuff from other great games. They MUST know this stuff exists, they must know it's good, so why don't they steal it for themselves? When Duke Nukem came out, afterwards there were still games being released that didn't allow you to put bullet holes in walls. Why? It was done in Duke, it looked good, yet Quake 2 came along and you couldn't even leave a mark with a ROCKET LAUNCHER!
Skip forward a few years, Red Faction. OK, so it didn't work the way they planned, but why haven't other games implemented the destruction of scenery? Eh? Even in the ultra destructive Postal 2, setting off a rocket launcher indoors has the same effect it did in games that are over 5 years old. A scorch mark on the floor. Wow, glad to see gaming has evolved! I'll tell you what it is, people are becoming acceptant of crap. We see it so often in the games we play that we don't even care when we see it again... and again and again and again. I want to be able to blow holes in random walls, I want to be able to shoot locks off with my shotgun. If I can take someone’s head off with it, why do I have to find a key for a door, or complete some elaborate puzzle? I want to engulf a room with my flamethrower and actually see the walls turn black, then to ash and dust. Why can't I? It's what I want, why aren't the game makers catering for what I want? Because they're lazy. They think that the ONE good idea they have is enough. It doesn't MATTER how pretty your game is, how many levels you have, how many pointless NPCs they've stuck in, not when they're still running with the Doom way of thinking. Shoot, walk to door, find key, shoot. OK, so the doors/keys have been replaced by "objectives" but it's still the same formula. You find something, and do something with it. I want more. I want REAL missions, varied missions. I want to have to attack a base with an ARMY. The closest you get to that is Medal Of Honour on the D-Day level. After that you're either by yourself or with two or three others. That's crap. They've been able to do that for years, why are they still doing it now? We should be able to work as part of an army, dozens of men on each side, with each soldier having realistic AI, with a desire to win but a desire to live. I want original ideas, but not at the expense of ignoring all the good stuff from previous titles, which seems to be what they're doing. Somebody needs to take the best bits from every first person shooter and put them together. I think it'd look a little something like this.
The blood and damage effects of Soldier Of Fortune (a mix of 1 + 2) the destructible scenery of Red Faction (but not just walls, I'm talking doors, tables, rooms, items, everything) the realism of Postal 2, Duke Nukem and Half Life (as in real life settings, not some damn alien planet) the humour of Postal 2, Redneck Rampage and Duke Nukem, the swearing from Kingpin, *intelligent* AI, not just NPCs that act like dumb polygons, so something along the lines of Medal Of Honour. You should be able to shoot somebody in the leg. Again and again and again. They should plead for their life, cry, wet themselves, do SOMETHING other than die from getting shot in the leg. In fact, I only want them to die if I shoot them in the head or the chest. Anywhere else is just for pain. I want to re-enact Robocop, where Bodicker shoots the poop out of Morton's legs. I also want to blow off people's hands with a shotgun, or take the arm off at the elbow. I want to take off both their legs so they drag themselves along the floor. Blood lust? No. A thirst for REALISM. Hollywood's depiction of violence and warfare is more realistic than ever before, so why are games still crap? Why do I just ACCEPT that a shotgun to somebody's stomach doesn't spill their guts onto the floor, or tear them in half, why do I accept that two shots to somebody's leg will kill them, why do I accept that there's an invisible wall stopping me from leaving the level? Why do I see terrible graphics and animation and don't complain about it? If you see bad effects in a film, you think "Oh God, that's terrible!" so why don't we do the same for crap looking textures, unrealistic animation and bad engine physics? I want perfect graphics, great animation, credible voice acting, sound effects taken from Hollywood (like in IGI) and a REAL sense that I'm in the real world, doing real stuff.
Somebody needs to take the best bits from every decent game, then their own ideas, and make the ultimate game, the uber first person shooter. Until that day, I'm stuck playing one game at a time, just for its one trick, then moving onto the next. What a sad state we're in if that's the case.
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Just gonna say... You could make it even more realistic when after youve caved in the walls around you, you could actually suffocate.
No, I think it could be pulled off nicely. People wouldn't want to waste their rockets/grenades if they were playing seriously, and if they weren't playing seriously, they wouldn't mind stuff caving in. But they could just blow up the stuff blocking their way anyway...
I reckon by the time the PS9 comes out (probably only five years till we get to that, knowing Sony) we'll be able to do all the stuff I said. By then, a 2gig processor will be like a calculator (kind of like how back in the day a P100 was great, now it's doo doo)
I reckon by the time the PS9 comes out (probably only five years till we get to that, knowing Sony) we'll be able to do all the stuff I said. By then, a 2gig processor will be like a calculator (kind of like how back in the day a P100 was great, now it's doo doo)
To create a game where you could destroy the sceneary realisticly would take years and years to make.
On Red Faction, most of what I played was in a mine, so when blowing up a wall all you got whs a big indent and same wall texture inside.
Now any game with varied sceneary, something like Goldeneye, it would be a bloody nightmare trying to draw in what's behind all the walls you can't normally see behind, and then what's behind that, and behind that etc. etc.
Oh, and it wouldn't be very challenging if you could just blow through a couple of walls to reach your goal would it.
And then you could fire a rocket, collapsing the scenary and blocking your path to the etc. Then you might run out of rockets and be screwed.
You have to remember that:
real life = no fun
When you put to much realism in a game, it becomes crap.
On Red Faction, most of what I played was in a mine, so when blowing up a wall all you got whs a big indent and same wall texture inside.
Now any game with varied sceneary, something like Goldeneye, it would be a bloody nightmare trying to draw in what's behind all the walls you can't normally see behind, and then what's behind that, and behind that etc. etc.
Oh, and it wouldn't be very challenging if you could just blow through a couple of walls to reach your goal would it.
And then you could fire a rocket, collapsing the scenary and blocking your path to the etc. Then you might run out of rockets and be screwed.
You have to remember that:
real life = no fun
When you put to much realism in a game, it becomes crap.
Operation Flashpoint, El Blokey, Operation Flashpoint.
Great post. Whilst i agree with you that a lot of games rely solely on one unique selling point, i think in practice to use 3 or 4 'gimmicks' in one game could be hard to programme. If you want true realism, you will want to rip massive holes in the walls and watch buildings collapse. Destroying so much scenery would be a damanding prospect.
its true, look at Red Faction. Ok, so it was a good game deep down but they focused on one selling point - Geomode (i think) where you could destroy walls.
Turned out to be crap!
Turned out to be crap!
GAD1 finished ages ago
;)
Good post :-D
;)
Good post :-D
Halo's quite good... leaves marks, head shot theyre dead... It has driving and flying. What a damn good game.
But one game isnt enough, more games should be like this.
But one game isnt enough, more games should be like this.
I don't like one trick ponies, I want the total package. I don't think game creators will ever make one though.
What would you rather have, a decent game that focuses heavily one one trick, or another game that crams too much in?
This is why I'm cautious with regards to Enter the Matrix; they've got fighting, driving, flying and shooting. It could end up as a jack of all trades, but a master of none so to speak.
This is why I'm cautious with regards to Enter the Matrix; they've got fighting, driving, flying and shooting. It could end up as a jack of all trades, but a master of none so to speak.
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