By Jim Rossignol on November 9th, 2010 at 6:19 pm.
As an animal of the Quake eras I should find myself intrigued by Genesis AD‘s claims about intensity and twitchiness, and I am going to take a look. Nevertheless, the micro-paymentised Unreal-powered shooter doesn’t seem to do itself a lot of favours by doing the incongruous thing of marrying machineguns and realistic environments to insane bunny-hopping physics. Click down the the trailer below and you’ll see what I mean.
It’s free to play now, as a beta, apparently.
09/11/2010 at 18:34 Dominic White says:
Oh god, the bunnyhopping. That stuff is why I fell out of love with online PC FPS’s for the longest time. Yeah, it may require skill to do right, but you look like AN ENORMOUS TOOL all the time. It destroys immersion faster than anything.
09/11/2010 at 18:39 DrGonzo says:
Agreed, that’s why I don’t play COD or Unreal Tournament or Quake any more. It’s all just a bit silly.
09/11/2010 at 19:24 zin33 says:
what console FPS do you mean then? Halo? (thats the only known non PC FPS im aware of)
anyways in CSS or COD you dont jump anything like that and those are the most played PC FPS.
normally it also doesnt look that silly but in this game it does. i guess its because they move too slow while they jump and the game overall doesnt seem so fast.
anyways how you look in the game shouldnt really matter as long as its fun & challenging
09/11/2010 at 20:22 Sam says:
Because immersion is why you play an online FPS.
09/11/2010 at 20:36 Vaughn says:
Sam just took word for word what I was going to say. Not to mention, worrying what you look like in third-person in a competitive FPS? You seem to have some weird insecurities living vicariously through your temporal, online, character.
“Does this rocket-powered suit make me look fat?”
Also, the game is by ijji, what did anybody expect? Look at their catalog to see the market they cater to.
09/11/2010 at 21:11 Dominic White says:
Maybe I’m strange, but when I play a game, I want it to at least make a vague attempt to look internally consistent. Having the characters bouncing through the air in a weirdly locked hunched position just looks really, really stupid. Why even have a sci-fi theme at all? Just give it vector graphics and make each player a rectangular target if you’re not going to make any attempt to make it look like a proper (or even stylized) gunfight.
Would you watch a John Woo movie where, instead of people diving dramatically round corners, they just kinda hovered sideways?
09/11/2010 at 21:53 Crane says:
I want to back up Dom here, kinda.
For me, the point isn’t so much that it’s immersion breaking as that it’s just ridiculously inconsistent with the behaviour of bipedal entities in real life… Actually, when I read that, it sounds like I’m talking about immersion, so perhaps I am.
It’s just… it’s not that I care about immersion per se, it’s that this particular thing is so very prominent. It is essentially the default form of movement in a great many FPSs, and it seems very odd that when developers actually design a game from the ground up to revolve around bunnyhopping, they don’t do something to make it look less absurd.
09/11/2010 at 22:21 MD says:
Quake style physics *are* internally consistent. That’s what makes them great; you’ve got a set of simple physics rules and controls, and the more advanced stuff emerges from that.
10/11/2010 at 14:10 DrazharLn says:
I hate playing online FPSs where the characters move around crazily. Bad walking animations and bunny hopping being the worst offenders.
I don’t care whether it’s particularly realistic or not, I care about whether it fits plausibly into the game world and whether it looks good or not.
Bunny hopping looks ridiculous if your jumping animation is that stupid knee-tuck thing. Jet packs or a more realistic jump (but bigger, they have leg enhancers or something) would make all the difference for me.
Look at Team Fortress 2, the movement of characters and their interactions with the game fit really well and look really good. A bunny hopping heavy still looks absurd, but it’s discouraged (gives no speed bonus), so you don’t see it often. Jumping scouts, by contrast, you see all the time; they look awesome, so it works.
09/11/2010 at 18:39 fuggles says:
“Intense twitch action” sounds like an FPS where you have parkinson’s disease. Would certainly be more original than this. I like to imagine they are all scared of the floor, like they are playing pirates.
09/11/2010 at 22:21 GoodPatton says:
Marty McFly is an unlockable character I’ve heard.
09/11/2010 at 18:53 Miker says:
For a moment there I thought Platinum Games’ Vanquish was coming to PCs, but no, it is not to be. Must I buy a console this generation of I am to enjoy shooting people while sliding on my knees?
09/11/2010 at 19:09 Dominic White says:
On a related note, Vanquish solves the bunny-hopping problem by giving you a lot of different movement options, but not a direct jump button. You can vault over cover (often more useful than hiding behind it), dive, roll, flip and power-slide wherever you want, though. Very high-skill game – unlike most console shooters, it has zero aim assistance – if you just scored three headshots in a single slowmo dive, that was all your own skill.
09/11/2010 at 19:20 DrGonzo says:
That’s the same system Gears of War had no? And I have played Vanquish and its far more silly than Quake or the like ever were, it’s just that it embraces it and the entire game is based around that silliness.
That makes me want a new self aware Quake or Unreal, maybe it would work.
09/11/2010 at 19:36 Dominic White says:
Gears of War is more of a slow, heavyweight shooter where you generally stick to cover and play whack-a-mole with enemies. Really not that nuanced. Vanquish is all about charging straight into otherwise suicidal situations and dodging attacks at point-blank range so that you can jam your shotgun right into a hole in the enemies armor and pull the trigger.
09/11/2010 at 21:12 DrGonzo says:
Gears of War online is a very different game though, where your sprinting and diving about like a monkey.
09/11/2010 at 19:10 Armyofnone says:
Am dissapoint.
10/11/2010 at 03:57 Geordi says:
Honestly, agreed. This game is not reminiscent of Quake at all and looks to be about 20x slower. Twitch my ass…
09/11/2010 at 19:21 DrGonzo says:
I have obviously played way too much League of Legends. I read the title and had flashbacks to that bloody rat appearing out of no where to shoot me in the face.
09/11/2010 at 20:15 DevilSShadoW says:
also, this
09/11/2010 at 20:58 JeCa says:
Ditto.
Though the more I play that game, the more my reaction’s shifting from “OMGOMGI’MGONNADIE!” to “OMGLOOK! A SQUISHY!”
Ah, good times…
09/11/2010 at 23:59 Solcry says:
What JeCa said. Its pretty much how I differentiate new players from ones with a little more experience – if they have an inbred instinct to runaway, they’re the new ones. Admittedly, sometimes it is a good thing to run away but more of then not a whole lot of problems (for your team, maybe not for you) would be solved if you just turned around and smacked that rat a few times in the face.
10/11/2010 at 15:11 mavvvy says:
Oracles elixir all the way!!!!
09/11/2010 at 19:29 Surgeon says:
B’Doing!!!
No thanks…
09/11/2010 at 20:14 DevilSShadoW says:
ijji
them be the same fagballs that have been holding huxley hostage for the past 5 years?
I really loathe those guys
fagballs
10/11/2010 at 01:17 Thants says:
You’re charming.
10/11/2010 at 09:53 Nethlem says:
Holding hostage? I would rather call it “keep it away from us so it doesn’t terorize us”.
Nobody would hold huxley hostage because nobody would pay ransom for that game…
Played the beta and it’s dissapointing beyond believe..
09/11/2010 at 20:19 Dave says:
I hate video games in general, and the most recently posted ones especially.
10/11/2010 at 07:09 Demonbooker says:
And yet you are reading a site about Video Game News… Hrmm… =S
10/11/2010 at 15:21 Hmm-Hmm. says:
Hi, Dave!
09/11/2010 at 20:34 Navagon says:
Couldn’t they have at least tried to make it look a little bit more unique?
09/11/2010 at 22:10 Gabbo says:
Looks like generic warehouse shooter with bunny-hopping as a central gameplay element.
Even for free-to-play, I think I’ll pass if this is all G:A.D. has to offer.
09/11/2010 at 22:26 MD says:
Could be good! It looks pretty clunky from that trailer, but I’d probably have more fun with it than most modern shooters. I wonder how they’ll go though; the Quake crowd have QL, and from the comments I read on the internet most people who aren’t Quakers find Quake-inspired movement systems offputting.
09/11/2010 at 22:50 John Bovril says:
I read something a while back, by a very wise man, about first person shooters. Which goes roughly like this: There’s survival by cover and survival by evasion. Doom and Quake Three/Live are the only immediate examples I can think of of survival by evasion. You’re fast in those two games. You move on greased lightning with a teflon body coat. I don’t really think quake three has been better as well (correct me if there’s an obvious title I’m missing). All dem ovvy games over there, such as your Halo’s and Gears of War and mass effect maybe and call of duty fieldfare five: Revenge of the Grand theft
What looks wrong then, about this game, is all that chunky pausing right before you take off. Completely butchers the fluidity. Oh and the concrete. Really incongruous with the sci fi body suits thing.
09/11/2010 at 23:02 John Bovril says:
I read something a while back, by a very wise man, about first person shooters. Which goes roughly like this: There’s survival by cover and survival by evasion. Doom and Quake Three/Live are the only immediate examples I can think of of survival by evasion. You’re fast in those two games. You move on greased lightning with a teflon body coat. I don’t really think quake three has been better as well (correct me if there’s an obvious title I’m missing). All dem ovvy games over there, such as your Halo’s and Gears of War and mass effect maybe and call of duty fieldfare five: Revenge of the Grand theft
What looks wrong then, about this game, is all that chunky pausing right before you take off. Completely butchers the fluidity. Oh and the concrete. Really incongruous with the sci fi body suits thing.
(here’s hoping this isn’t a duplicate post).
09/11/2010 at 23:09 Longrat says:
Man, I was so happy when I thought the age of inapproachable twitch gameplay bunny hopping FPSs was behind us. Please don’t let it become trendy again! Please!
09/11/2010 at 23:57 Sam says:
The thing that got me the most was how slow all the players were moving. I have a feeling that it wont quite be fast enough to reward jumpy-twitchy play.
10/11/2010 at 04:02 MountainShouter says:
I don’t know about you guys, but for some reason, the game is always on a “connection” loop when I start it up.
10/11/2010 at 04:03 kingsley says:
nice i believe i have played this before when i was looking up css and cs
10/11/2010 at 11:23 frags says:
OMFG! This is the worst fucking game network system ever! Has anyone tried to download this game and try it out? I went to their site, downloaded a 1.2GB setup file for the game, installed. Click on shortcut that takes me to their website. Click play downloads the same fucking 1.2GB file again!
So fine i register an account and sign in, same thing, no go. So i realise I probably need a client they call Reactor(Impulse, sue them), downloaded reactor and the setup failed half way! Sigh…
10/11/2010 at 16:31 pWEN says:
What’s the guy from Dark Void doing in Counter-Strike?