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"Do we enjoy shooting humans more than aliens?????"

I have always personally enjoyed realisim in games, and you can't get much more real than beheading a granny with a sniper rifle, then going up to her, stealing her money and giving her one last kick before running away ala GTA3.

But why does red blood entertain me more than green????

But what makes maiming humans more fun than aliens?

Is it our own morbid fascination with death and violence, or do we prefer humans because of the added realisim, In whatever sense (could you imagine if the censors had mad GTA3 developers turn the pedestrians into aliens??? - would it have been so addictive??)

Throughout the years censors, especially in other european countries have tried to move away from realisim. Even as far back as command and conquer, german versions of the game had blood animations taken out of them, and the infantry were referred to as 'robots'. When I played this version even with its simplistic graphics engine it just didn't have the attraction. Yes the gameplay was the same, but there was something missing.

Or would alien games become better if we could believe in the storyline?

I have enjoyed very few FPS recently, Perfect dark, Goldeneye, Jedi Outcast and Red Faction are the only ones that stand out for me. Yes, three of them had aliens in, but they all have very good stories behind them - ones that give a good lot of information at the beggining (either as a cut scene or in the instruction book) but still start off slowly to get you into the jist of things.

Red faction has a superb storyline, which doesn't involve any sort of aliens until around the middle of the game - but you know why they are there as it has been explained to you. Any star wars game doesn't really need explaining to be honest - thats how well George lucas (to his credit) has created and advertised the star wars universe. Perfect dark again doesn't start off with all out alien blasting.... It takes a while and a lot of storyline to explain what is happening.

However I did not find half - life anywhere near as enjoyable as any of the above titles, Why? Because I felt a bit let down by the storyline. The core thingy exploded, and all of a sudden there were loads of aliens. Why?.... I can't remeber being told. The fact that the aliens in many cases behaved like animals (dogs cats etc.) already in existance or already created by someone else (the alien like creatures) also lessened the realisim, I couldn't imagine those creaturs anywhere else but the alien film universe - and that lessend the realisim for me.

Perhaps when AI becomes better in games this feeling will disappear for me? When aliens behave less like humans or modern day animals. With human killing games, you can sometimes predict there next move, as you have a similar thinking pattern to the characters in the games (the AI in MGS2 was excellent, probably the best computer intellegence I have ever played against), and have to outwit them. With alien games programmers can and should use more creativity in the way that the aliens behave. Vamp in MGS2 was a very creative character, with the qualities he had, excellent jumping skills, running on water etc, and he entertained as well as threatend me as a player.

Half life was very unimaginable - using humans taken over by aliens many times - call me funny, but haven't we seen this before????.

Does anyone have any thoughts about this??

I personally think it's irrelevant what you are shooting at.

It comes down to how good the game is. Aliens are just the result of someones imagination after all and if they shuffle towards you then that is down to the coding of the game.

What it needs is for the programmers to put more effort into trying to create something that looks realistic in it's movements - This applies to Humans or Aliens. The realism comes from making the movement flow rather than look like some jerky shuffle.

Your right there, thats where gta3 has another good point - when the cops get aggressive. The actual police are none to intelligent, but there driving can be - forcing you into things and attempting to kill you.

'Humans' in general and in groups give you more of a sense of challenge I think as well.

If the game is good, I don't care what I shoot/slash/blow up.

PastaMasta wrote:
> In addition: Does anyone have any ideas on how else to improve aliens, by way of
> physical ability or intelligence???

make them look/talk/shoot lik humans?

I'd much rather shoot humans, Aliens are always out of shape, they either have huge heads or small bodies.
I love just running around randomly shooting people.
Gives more to the storyline too, aliens appearing from outta space having special deals with humans trying to take over the world...yadda yadda.
Humans talk english/Japanese/whatever and just try to kill you because your alive and in the way of their gun, makes more sense.
+ red blood is much better than green, I don't care what anyone says, splattering a fresh body against a wall is obviously going to be good fun, get the biggest gun you can and see how much damage you can make, Theres a simple rule to killing simulants, but an art to do it well.

Aliens also tend to attack in groups in games, 1 on 1 battles with humans can be good fun, but seeing a rampaging mob armed with grenades and rifles will always be a little more intresting than a few aliens wabbling over to you.

In addition: Does anyone have any ideas on how else to improve aliens, by way of physical ability or intelligence???

I have always personally enjoyed realisim in games, and you can't get much more real than beheading a granny with a sniper rifle, then going up to her, stealing her money and giving her one last kick before running away ala GTA3.

But why does red blood entertain me more than green????

But what makes maiming humans more fun than aliens?

Is it our own morbid fascination with death and violence, or do we prefer humans because of the added realisim, In whatever sense (could you imagine if the censors had mad GTA3 developers turn the pedestrians into aliens??? - would it have been so addictive??)

Throughout the years censors, especially in other european countries have tried to move away from realisim. Even as far back as command and conquer, german versions of the game had blood animations taken out of them, and the infantry were referred to as 'robots'. When I played this version even with its simplistic graphics engine it just didn't have the attraction. Yes the gameplay was the same, but there was something missing.

Or would alien games become better if we could believe in the storyline?

I have enjoyed very few FPS recently, Perfect dark, Goldeneye, Jedi Outcast and Red Faction are the only ones that stand out for me. Yes, three of them had aliens in, but they all have very good stories behind them - ones that give a good lot of information at the beggining (either as a cut scene or in the instruction book) but still start off slowly to get you into the jist of things.

Red faction has a superb storyline, which doesn't involve any sort of aliens until around the middle of the game - but you know why they are there as it has been explained to you. Any star wars game doesn't really need explaining to be honest - thats how well George lucas (to his credit) has created and advertised the star wars universe. Perfect dark again doesn't start off with all out alien blasting.... It takes a while and a lot of storyline to explain what is happening.

However I did not find half - life anywhere near as enjoyable as any of the above titles, Why? Because I felt a bit let down by the storyline. The core thingy exploded, and all of a sudden there were loads of aliens. Why?.... I can't remeber being told. The fact that the aliens in many cases behaved like animals (dogs cats etc.) already in existance or already created by someone else (the alien like creatures) also lessened the realisim, I couldn't imagine those creaturs anywhere else but the alien film universe - and that lessend the realisim for me.

Perhaps when AI becomes better in games this feeling will disappear for me? When aliens behave less like humans or modern day animals. With human killing games, you can sometimes predict there next move, as you have a similar thinking pattern to the characters in the games (the AI in MGS2 was excellent, probably the best computer intellegence I have ever played against), and have to outwit them. With alien games programmers can and should use more creativity in the way that the aliens behave. Vamp in MGS2 was a very creative character, with the qualities he had, excellent jumping skills, running on water etc, and he entertained as well as threatend me as a player.

Half life was very unimaginable - using humans taken over by aliens many times - call me funny, but haven't we seen this before????.

Does anyone have any thoughts about this??