If DOOM was made today

[sabrage]

Obviously inspired by the Quake video, but I thought this one was better. (it's also a month old, but it was new to me)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4yIxUOWrtw&feature=youtu.be

Honestly, it raises the question of why modern games need a single-player component if they're going to be so relentlessly bad. Once upon a time, Call of Duty had a fantastic campaign mode, but those days are clearly over. Why bother anymore? Battlefield 3 had such a clearly half-assed campaign mode that I couldn't even make it past the second level. That's my, and judging by the review critic's as well, biggest complaint with the game. I can think of dozens of retail games offhand that have done just fine without a single-player component. Most of these are PC-only, but look at MAG or Warhawk on the PS3: both have moved respectable numbers with no single-player component.

</rant> Anyways, to echo Yahtzee, it's sad that the best modern shooters are the ones just now catching up with Valve.

[jp0249107]

BF3/COD manshooters are what I consider to be a whole different genre from shooters like DOOM. In all honesty that video does nothing for me besides bring to mind the bitterness and cynical attitude that permeates most of the videogame crowd nowadays. Anytime a game becomes popular there is an immediate backlash from a "community" that gets pissy about everything from Origin to the lack of easter eggs.
There are more modern shooters than classic ones because the modern ones with an emphasis on multiplayer are what sell. The beauty of the PC gamer's situation is that we have a large indie scene to cater to the old-school tastes if the market is big enough or someone comes along and tries to make one just for the heck of it. The Unreal Engine is out there isn't it? There's our opportunity!
I'm not necessarily making disparaging comments about the "community" referring to you. So please don't take personal offense to my opinion. It just makes my blood boil that gamers are so spoiled with our huge amount of choices and can only find time to make parody videos or negative memes about something rather than going out and HAVING FUN. Anyways that's my two cents so take it as you will.

[sabrage]

Honestly, if it was only Battlefield and Modern Warfare, I wouldn't be complaining. I've skipped over RAGE, Bulletstorm, Crysis 2, Duke Nukem Forever, and... Oh look, that's every major shooter released this year, bar Human Revolution and Brink, which as far as I'm concerned doesn't have a campaign. They all suffer the same problem I don't want to have my hand held anymore. I remember playing DOOM at my best friend's house when I was 7 or 8 years old. It's nice to see the indie scene trying to pick up the torch, but Hard Reset didn't really deliver like I had hoped and most everything else I've seen is just another Quake clone. There's a gaping hole in the shooter market, and I'm frankly surprised that STALKER has been the only game in the last several years that feels any different.

Look, it's easy to pass it off as cynicism, but this is a genre that I love and truly enjoy. All of a sudden I almost know how Wizardry feels.

[SirKicksalot]

Once upon a time, Call of Duty had a fantastic campaign mode, but those days are clearly over. Why bother anymore?

Except that they're all following the same formula established by the first CoD. Well, BLOPS gave the protagonists voices and added cutscenes. Hell, there's a beach assault and some pushing-the-front levels in MW3 that are basically Call of Duty 2003 with a modern skin. The production values are insane and they add more varied scenarios with each new entry, but other than that it's the same bloody formula which nobody is capable of imitating.
It's baffling how on paper Homefront and BF3 sound exactly like Call of Duty yet in execution they're shit that barely holds together.

Anyway, people bitch all day about modern shooters and then proceed to ignore games like Necrovision, Cryostasis, Bulletstorm, Timeshift, RF Armageddon, Fear 3, Singularity, Wolfenstein, Assault on Dark Athena, Section 8 for various retarded reasons. Either that or badmouth games like Bioshock 2 for "destroying the integrity of the franchise" and Far Cry 2 because "why are these dudes attacking me?"... Even RAGE, which totally channels Doom 2 in some missions and features copious amounts of good ol' id Software carnage, is bashed for AMD's fuckup and mostly ignored.

Meanwhile nostalgia glasses make old games seem like the Labyrinth of Crete with every enemy being the Minotaur and every weapon being Zeus' lightning. I grew up on a steady diet of shooters, I love the original Quake, I love Raven's 1990s shooters and when I'll be rich I'll fund Undying 2, but I also know that there are plenty of modern shooters which are fucking awesome too!

I'm sorry but when games like Bulletstorm and Singularity bomb, gamers deserve more shitty CoD copycats.

[coldvvvave]

Whats with the selective elitism? Go all the way already, tell us that FPS games were always shit.

[soldant]

Battlefield 3 was always going to be a primarily multiplayer game. What's the problem with that? Battlefield 2 and 1942 didn't have single player campaigns, they just had ineffective AI bots. Not everything has to have a 20 hour single player expensive.


I remember playing DOOM at my best friend's house when I was 7 or 8 years old.
I do too. I remember it took me ages to play Doom. That's because I was pretty crap at it, it was oh so new and so exciting, and it was easy to get "lost" in the "huge" maps. Play it today and the first level can take under a minute. The actual playtime of Doom is remarkably short with today's level of skill and mouse aiming. You're just looking back with rose-tinted glasses.

The same thing applies for the "non-linear" level design. Yes, it wasn't a straight line to the end. That's because there was a great deal of switch or key hunting. The actual path you take still has to be the same; go over there, find the switch to open the cage to get the blue key, go to the blue door, now find the red key, and go to the red door... Doom's levels were creative not because of their layout (because some of them have a crappy layout) but because they're somewhat abstract due to engine limitations. Suburbs in Doom 2 doesn't look like a suburb until someone points it out. Nor does Downtown. Phobos Base might as well have been anything, unless the story specifically told you what it was, the game could have taken place on the Moon for all the difference it'd make.

Call of Duty's progressively craptastic campaign is nothing to heap with praise and anyone that does is clearly deluded, but trying to turn things like Doom or Quake into "modern" shooters is nothing more than a cynical attempt at getting cheap laughs. Gaming has changed, and the indie scene doesn't particularly care either. Most of the indie games people are fawning over are simple, arcade-style games, not complex monstrosities like some people seem to think should be the only games around today. They're not going to herald a return to Doom or Quake.

The world has moved on from those days. Doom and Quake's gameplay mechanics are incredibly simple and far removed from the kind of story-driven play that people expect from games today. Doom and Quake have no real story. The story is completely irrelevant. Once you start making story an important part of the game you invariably introduce more talking, scripted sequences, and things like that. I think the video you posted completely misses that point and ignores most of the reasons why games changed. Like the "Return to the battlefield" thing. In older games, you just had an invisible wall separating you from the background scenery. Or in many cases there wasn't any background scenery at all. No skyboxes or anything, just a parallax backdrop. That's because there was no reason to go out there, there was no gameplay or actual useable geometry out there.

Sorry, but these kind of movies are just ridiculous and tries to make out the Doom era as some golden time when everything was 100% gold with complex gameplay mechanics and fantastic storylines.

[sabrage]

Words

I can only speak to Call of Duty 2, as that's the only one I played, From what I recall (and forgive me because it's been 5-6 years) the maps felt a lot more open than the most recent Call of Duty I played (Modern Warfare 2, which I dropped out of boredom about halfway through). More broadly, and this could just be the fact that I played on the hardest difficulty my first time through, the game really felt like it was putting me in a warzone. I remember fighting my way to the top of Hill 400, clearing the bunker on top, and the feeling in my gut when my commanding officer shouted to take cover from the mortar barrage. It was terrifying. The new Call of Duty games completely throw away that feeling in favor of bombast and crude violence (which I'm not opposed to in, say, God of War, but it's not what Call of Duty was built on)

I just bought Cryostasis last night! Bulletstorm is actually the one game on the list in my original post that I actually played, and I was severely disappointed. Why do I only get points for doing the combos that are explicitly outlined in the game? Why can't I free-form my own combos? Why the fuck do my points double as my money? Oh, this is just a score attack game. *toss* To say nothing of the fact that the level design, from what I saw, was linear as all fuck. I own Far Cry 2, and really need to spend more time with it, and I'll readily admit that I haven't much paid attention to the rest of the games on your list (though I do plan on getting Rage and Fear 3, when the price is right and assuming I can find a co-op buddy for the latter)


You're just looking back with rose-tinted glasses.

Not really. I tried playing Doom again recently, and you're right. I got bored of the key-hunt within a few levels. But Doom, the game that introduced the genre to most everyone I know, was filled with secrets, hidden passages, mystery. A feature notably absent from damn near every game I play these days. That's what I remember the most about Doom. Which is why I'm not content, as jp##### suggests, to simply replay the old classics. I want an improvement on what we had two decades ago. WGRealms 2 is the closest example we have, but I'd love to see someone take that game, polish it up and make a full release out of it.

[Gentleman Jim Stacey]

Except that they're all following the same formula established by the first CoD. Well, BLOPS gave the protagonists voices and added cutscenes. Hell, there's a beach assault and some pushing-the-front levels in MW3 that are basically Call of Duty 2003 with a modern skin. The production values are insane and they add more varied scenarios with each new entry, but other than that it's the same bloody formula which nobody is capable of imitating.
It's baffling how on paper Homefront and BF3 sound exactly like Call of Duty yet in execution they're shit that barely holds together.

Anyway, people bitch all day about modern shooters and then proceed to ignore games like Necrovision, Cryostasis, Bulletstorm, Timeshift, RF Armageddon, Fear 3, Singularity, Wolfenstein, Assault on Dark Athena, Section 8 for various retarded reasons. Either that or badmouth games like Bioshock 2 for "destroying the integrity of the franchise" and Far Cry 2 because "why are these dudes attacking me?"... Even RAGE, which totally channels Doom 2 in some missions and features copious amounts of good ol' id Software carnage, is bashed for AMD's fuckup and mostly ignored.

Meanwhile nostalgia glasses make old games seem like the Labyrinth of Crete with every enemy being the Minotaur and every weapon being Zeus' lightning. I grew up on a steady diet of shooters, I love the original Quake, I love Raven's 1990s shooters and when I'll be rich I'll fund Undying 2, but I also know that there are plenty of modern shooters which are fucking awesome too!

I'm sorry but when games like Bulletstorm and Singularity bomb, gamers deserve more shitty CoD copycats.

This x1000.

[DarthBenedict]

I like not having a story far more than being forced to sit around for a bad one.

[bennie1saldana]

BF3/COD manshooters are what I consider to be a whole different genre from shooters like DOOM.
http://www.thejustyle.com/jh3.jpghttp://www.thejustyle.com/13.jpg
http://www.thejustyle.com/03.jpghttp://www.bookunion.org/3.jpg

[soldant]

Not really. I tried playing Doom again recently, and you're right. I got bored of the key-hunt within a few levels. But Doom, the game that introduced the genre to most everyone I know, was filled with secrets, hidden passages, mystery. A feature notably absent from damn near every game I play these days. That's what I remember the most about Doom. Which is why I'm not content, as jp##### suggests, to simply replay the old classics. I want an improvement on what we had two decades ago. WGRealms 2 is the closest example we have, but I'd love to see someone take that game, polish it up and make a full release out of it.
The fact is most people don't really care. They'll laugh at an easter egg or something similar, but nobody wants to go pushing up against a bunch of random walls to see if they do something. That's not particularly fun or amusing for most people. Doom had to do that to keep people interested, it was a reason for people to keep playing the otherwise short levels. It's just another switch-hunt, just one that nobody has to undertake. That's hardly an "improvement".

EDIT: And for the record, Doom remains my favourite game of all time (well, Doom 2 is better than Doom in my opinion, but it's more or less the same thing). But I'm not blind to its flaws and how far we've come.

[Nalano]

The FPSs I played way back when and the FPSs I play now are substantively similar, though we're just stuck on a couple modern fads.

- Glorified TPSs with sticky-cover.
- Pseudo-military manshoots.

I suppose you could also add RTwP Action RPGs like DXHR, but... eh. Ultimately, the problem's not that we have BF3 and MW3 but that the hype for them tend to drown out the others. The old-school FPSs, tactical FPSs, horror FPSs and stealth FPSs that are out and have been coming out regularly tend to get ignored during the holiday shopping cycle because every TV commercial, every city bus ad, every billboard is MANSHOOT SEASON.

I mean, we still have TF2, UT3 (fwiw), all those zombie games, Rage, Dead Space 2, Hard Reset, the never-dying CS installments, Serious fucking Sam, etc.

Now, to be more positive, I'd like another NOLF or something as stylistic as NOLF. We could always use more humor with our shooting.

[Angel Dust]

It's funny because the other day I was thinking about how diverse FPSes have actually become. You've, of course, got your linear shooter (some of which are actually good too e.g. Metro 2033, Cryostasis and I'd stick RAGE in here too) but you also have your open world stuff (STALKER, Far Cry 2), the 'wide-corridor' (Crysis, Far Cry), the old-schoolish (Hard Reset, Serious Sam 3), the RPG hybrid stuff (Deus Ex, Borderlands and maybe Prey 2 would go in here), as well as all the unique takes on FPP games (Penumbra, Portal, Mirror's Edge). The problem is, as Nalano said, the focus is all on the linear pseudo-military manshoots but it's worth remembering that they aren't all bad either; Modern Warfare 1 is a pretty good game still, I reckon.

Basically, I'm also a huge fan of the FPS genre from way back and I'm still more than satisfied with the games that have been coming out. I just pretty much ignore the COD stuff now.

Also, just go out and get Serious Sam 3. It's freakin' awesome.



Now, to be more positive, I'd like another NOLF or something as stylistic as NOLF. We could always use more humor with our shooting.
I'd absolutely love it if Valve would make a single-player FPS where you play as Saxton Hale.

[Drake Sigar]

Honestly, it raises the question of why modern games need a single-player component if they're going to be so relentlessly bad. Once upon a time, Call of Duty had a fantastic campaign mode, but those days are clearly over. Why bother anymore? Battlefield 3 had such a clearly half-assed campaign mode that I couldn't even make it past the second level. That's my, and judging by the review critic's as well, biggest complaint with the game. I can think of dozens of retail games offhand that have done just fine without a single-player component. Most of these are PC-only, but look at MAG or Warhawk on the PS3: both have moved respectable numbers with no single-player component.
I'm sick of what should be a pure multiplayer game (Battlefield 3) refusing to drop single-player and what should be a pure single-player game (Bioshock 2) refusing to drop the multiplayer because for some unspoken reason everyone expects a game to have both modes even when it doesn't make any sense.

[Vandelay]

I'm amazed it has taken this long for someone to mention Serious Sam 3. It is awesome and everyone complaining should get it. I'm going to go out on a limb and say it is the best shooter since Half Life 2. I actually felt physically drained when I reached the closing moments, which also happened to contain probably the best boss battle I've played in a long time.

[Angel Dust]

Not to mention a strangely affecting closing shot. In those last few levels I really did feel like the last man on earth.

[Nalano]

I'm sick of what should be a pure multiplayer game (Battlefield 3) refusing to drop single-player and what should be a pure single-player game (Bioshock 2) refusing to drop the multiplayer because for some unspoken reason everyone expects a game to have both modes even when it doesn't make any sense.

I was thinking about CS:S and TF2 being, more or less, their own games, but people still tend to think of them as what their earlier iterations once were: Mods on the MP portion of HL and Quake.

But then, there's L4D, and the UT series basically having no SP to speak of. There is also, of course, BF2. In fact, now that BF3's come out, a lot of BF fans are (rightly) pointing out that BF already had plenty going for it and slavishly copying MW wasn't going to help.

But while we're on nostalgia row, the most batshit conjoining of SP and MP had to be RtCW. The SP was a weird nod to BJ Blazkowicz with Nazi supersoldiers and the demon occult and babes in skin-tight leather, and then the MP was a pretty damn good class/objective-based WWII team game.

[sabrage]

Serious Sam 3, a game that intentionally shirks and ridicules modern shooter design: best shooter of the last 5 years?

SHOCKING. I am quite looking forward to playing it, especially in co-op. It'll probably bring my computer to its knees, but I'm ok with that.

[Nalano]

Serious Sam 3, a game that intentionally shirks and ridicules modern shooter design: best shooter of the last 5 years?

Because its creators aren't offering live noob sacrifices to their patron saints, Michael Bay and James Cameron, but instead remembering that they're creating goddamn games and games are meant to be goddamn fun

I also remember liking UT2k4 because not every single goddamn session was logged in a permanent, publicly-available statistical mock-up of my "skill" and as such I could actually enjoy the game instead of rage against the noobs on my team for fucking up my win ratio, goddamnit, why do you have to take the fun out of shooting men in the face, I used to like doing that

[The JG Man]

I will always claim, Nalano, that no matter how much I sucked at UT2K4, I always enjoyed. There aren't too many games you can eliminate someone by teleporting through them. The other weapons were still icing on the cake.

The ironic thing about BF3 is that the more DICE has tried to copy, the worse their campaign has got. Bad Company 2 was finishable, but hardly great. BF3 I stopped, yet Bad Company 1 had open maps, generally unlinear objectives and a more fun plot because it wasn't "Enemy army. Go kill it." It wasn't exactly original, but I found it surprisingly enjoyable.

[thesisko]

Why does everyone keep confusing the terms "modern" and "mainstream"? CoD doesn't dictate what "modern game design" is any more than "Transformers" dictates what modern film design is. Are we going to start saying that "Farmville" is a more modern take on strategy gaming than GalCiv 2 because it's more popular?

[soldant]

Why does everyone keep confusing the terms "modern" and "mainstream"? CoD doesn't dictate what "modern game design" is any more than "Transformers" dictates what modern film design is. Are we going to start saying that "Farmville" is a more modern take on strategy gaming than GalCiv 2 because it's more popular?
Probably because "mainstream" can be difficult to define. Is CoD mainstream, or is mainstream actually the casual games market? It's also just another elitist word to draw a line in the sand and say "My games are superior to yours because yours are mainstream. Also, my jeans are tight and I'm a non-conformist."

[thesisko]

Probably because "mainstream" can be difficult to define. Is CoD mainstream, or is mainstream actually the casual games market? It's also just another elitist word to draw a line in the sand and say "My games are superior to yours because yours are mainstream. Also, my jeans are tight and I'm a non-conformist."

I don't think it's difficult to define. CoD is mainstream because it's the most popular game among actual gamers. Casual games are mostly played by non-gamers, as a distraction.
There's nothing elitist about it either. Mainstream and casual are not a new phenomena. In the 90's Nintendo and SEGA games were mainstream while casual games like Solitaire, though vastly more popular, were hard to monetize.

But whatever you want to call it, claiming that the most popular product determines "modern" design is the wrong conclusion. You could however say that it has the appropriate design for its target market.

[soldant]

So basically if something is "popular" it's mainstream? Does that mean that indie games classify as mainstream amongst the RPS demographic? I can manipulate the definition as much as I like to twist it around. I think the term is ultimately relatively and therefore largely meaningless and just a term used by people to, again, differentiate between their "higher" taste in games. Much like hipsters do with music.

I don't disagree that popular games don't always determine "modern" design, because there'd be no innovation and advancement if that was true. But I think "widely popular" games is a better term than "mainstream" games.

[sabrage]

The modern trend in shooters is tight, linear corridors and notifications everywhere so you don't get lost. The outliers are few and far between enough that I'll keep using that term and not think twice of it. For every counterexample you provide, I can give you 10 that conform to the description I just gave.

Farmville is a more modern strategy game by very virtue of the fact that it is more recent. That's a poor example.

[Zetetic]

I think the term is ultimately relatively and therefore largely meaningless
Buh? You must have a great deal of trouble with words like 'tall' or 'mine'...

and just a term used by people to, again, differentiate between their "higher" taste in games. Much like hipsters do with music.Sure, that's one aspect of it's use, but it doesn't rob it entirely of use in a suitable context. I think once people have started talking about FPSs and citing CoD as a 'mainstream' game, I think that pretty well establishes the sort of population that we're concerned with.


But I think "widely popular" games is a better term than "mainstream" games. If you want, substitute one for the other as you read along.
There's also connotations of how large in people's conciousness these things are - and you certainly can't deny that many people actively define their choices in games and game design against the CoDs - and like you say, at worst, of how discerning consumers of such games are. But you won't miss much.

Edit: Apologies if this comes across as unpleasant or aggressive. I just think that people try to argue that vague or relative terms are some how inevitably unhelpful, as opposed to be things that we have very little difficulty dealing with on a day-to-day basis, and that 'mainstream' is actually quite a useful word (if open to abuse).

[thesisko]

The modern trend in shooters is tight, linear corridors and notifications everywhere so you don't get lost. The outliers are few and far between enough that I'll keep using that term and not think twice of it. For every counterexample you provide, I can give you 10 that conform to the description I just gave.
It's the modern trend in mainstream (or widely popular) multiplatform shooters, yes. But it doesn't make any sense to compare it to Doom like it's some kind of evolution of that gameplay.

Someone who enjoyed Doom for it's non-linear levels and exploration is more likely to enjoy Bioshock, Deus Ex or S.T.A.L.K.E.R. today than CoD. It's like making a "If Sim City was done today"-video and showing CityVille instead CitiesXL or Anno 2070, just because the former is more popular.

[SirKicksalot]

The ironic thing about BF3 is that the more DICE has tried to copy, the worse their campaign has got. Bad Company 2 was finishable, but hardly great. BF3 I stopped, yet Bad Company 1 had open maps, generally unlinear objectives and a more fun plot because it wasn't "Enemy army. Go kill it." It wasn't exactly original, but I found it surprisingly enjoyable.

Same thing applies to KAOS. Frontlines had a competent SP despite the primitive mechanics, Homefront was... not good.

[sabrage]

It's the modern trend in mainstream (or widely popular) multiplatform shooters, yes. But it doesn't make any sense to compare it to Doom like it's some kind of evolution of that gameplay.
.

I don't think there's anything in the word "modern" that implies "progressive" or "better." Look at the modern presidential candidate (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PAJNntoRgA).

[Nalano]

I don't think there's anything in the word "modern" that implies "progressive" or "better." Look at the modern presidential candidate (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PAJNntoRgA).

Yet that's how it's used. See: Electric trolleys are old! Let's replace them with sleek, modern buses!

[Keep]

If Doom was made today, it'd still be based around the core that made it valuable in the first place: Fun.

Stupid over the top violent fun.


Call me naive, but I don't think when id made it back in the day, they had dollar signs in their eyes. - No, let me take that back: of course they did. They wanted the game to be a success, they wanted to make money.

But I don't think they had a sense of cynicism, of trying to 'game' the market and basing what they'd design about what they figured would sell. They reasoned "We'll make something fun" and tried to sell it.

If you made a game today with that same attitude - oh (http://serioussam.com/), hello there. Please, I'm in the middle of something. Can you wait? - if you had that attitude today, of "Let's make something we like, and then sell it" I see no reason why a) it wouldn't be great, and b) it wouldn't sell.

It's cynicism is the problem, not modern-anything.


(Relevant quote from Frank Zappa, but I can't find it exactly so I'm paraphrasing:
'In the 60's, anybody could get a record deal. You'd go to the label and they'd say "Who knows what kids like! Sure, we'll give you a shot."
But in the 70's, you'd want a record deal and the label'd turn to you and say "No no, that's no good. Let us tell you what kids like..."')

[DigitalSignalX]

Now, to be more positive, I'd like another NOLF or something as stylistic as NOLF. We could always use more humor with our shooting.

There was this low budget shooter a couple years back where your helmet, gun and backpack all talked to you.. can't remember the title but it was hilarious.


I don't think there's anything in the word "modern" that implies "progressive" or "better." Look at the modern presidential candidate (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PAJNntoRgA).

Look at the up and down rated votes for that advert:

12945 for positive
493659 for negative

A disparity no marketing team would ignore.

[soldant]

Edit: Apologies if this comes across as unpleasant or aggressive. I just think that people try to argue that vague or relative terms are some how inevitably unhelpful, as opposed to be things that we have very little difficulty dealing with on a day-to-day basis, and that 'mainstream' is actually quite a useful word (if open to abuse).
Apologies? Clearly that was your intention. Perhaps you shouldn't have opened up with an attack if you didn't intend to be aggressive?

But regardless, this was exactly my point; the term "mainstream" is more often not abused, particularly here on RPS where anything "mainstream" is automatically equated with "crap" and with no innovation or thought. I just wrapped this up with satire and highlighting that I can abuse and twist relative terms around to take credibility out of the analysis. That's what I've been getting at; the abuse of the term is so great that any sort of discussion involving it results in a whole superiority complex developing. And RPS is prone to it more-so than others I've noticed. That's not to say that in the "hardcore" gaming world that mainstream games are all gold (the CoD series has progressively gone downhill since CoD4) but the irrational hatred makes the discussion ultimately pointless. There's little objectivity here. I can see that already by the way people are remembering Doom and the DOS days. Those games were great, sure, but they definitely had their shortcomings, which lots of people seem to conveniently forget.


f you made a game today with that same attitude - oh, hello there.
Thing is, if everyone kept following the Doom approach like Serious Sam did, there'd have been no progression in the FPS sector at all. You'd still be playing games where the plot takes a backseat to killing everything. Doom games have their place, but so does Deus Ex, and Human Revolution was part of the mainstream gaming sector with a multiplatform release. Bioshock, as thesisko mentioned, kept the "non-linearity" (though Doom is hardly non-linear, the path is still the same it just backtracks) while keeping a strong story. Hell Half Life pretty much bucked the trend at the time and insisted that the story was important, to the point where there were scripted sequences introduced (which people hate today for some reason).

We need games like Serious Sam for fun, but to suggest that the SS games are the way forward simply because "they're fun" seems a bit short-sighted to me.

[Wizardry]

I don't understand what you mean by games following Doom's approach because not all games did. There was the System Shock lineage too that led to games like Deus Ex. The linear and scripted Call of Duty type of FPS came from games like Half-Life in the 90s. If anyone is to blame for the crap we have today it's Valve.

[Serenegoose]

I don't understand what you mean by games following Doom's approach because not all games did. There was the System Shock lineage too that led to games like Deus Ex. The linear and scripted Call of Duty type of FPS came from games like Half-Life in the 90s. If anyone is to blame for the crap we have today it's Valve.

I don't think so. The way I see it, games like that originated from Quake 2, which generally represented the first baby step towards that overbearing narrative and increased linearity and scripting - then games like medal of honor for the PS1 copied that and amplified it - culminating in the first real AAA WW2 manshoots of allied assault, which, let's be honest, was actually inspired by saving private ryan, a film. Infinity Ward thought they could do better, split off and made call of duty, and the rest is history. Valve made a game inside that timeline in the form of Halflife which certainly had those linear elements and lots of scripting, but seems to exist down its own branch that actually, very few games were inspired by - it took til HL2 and the gravity gun to give people a thing they'd gleefully rip off of valve, engaging enemy AI being a bit too much to ask for.

[Wizardry]

I don't think so. The way I see it, games like that originated from Quake 2, which generally represented the first baby step towards that overbearing narrative and increased linearity and scripting
What do you mean by overbearing narrative and scripting?

[Keep]

We need games like Serious Sam for fun, but to suggest that the SS games are the way forward simply because "they're fun" seems a bit short-sighted to me.

Definitely agree with ya there.

What I was pointing out is that what made Doom so Doom-ful wasn't the specifics of its design but the attitude behind it.
And also, in a way Doom was made today - or, little over two weeks ago to be exact - and the whole argument's a non-starter anyway.

But bang on, there's no formula we should want FPS to follow because by nature, take it too far it'd lead down a dead-end.


If anyone is to blame for the crap we have today it's Valve.

I hear what you're saying and yet at the same time I really really don't.

1. Half Life didn't inspire cash-ins. How many other AAA games have physicist protagonists, are set in labs, involve alien invasions? (And you might think "Those aren't the essential elements of the game" and you'd be dead right, only people making cash-ins aren't as keen as you and would believe they were). Half Life was influential. There's a difference between that and kick-starting a fad.

2. I've got to allow more specifically, Half Life's scripted set pieces were the first of their kind. They inspired game designers who wanted to tell stories of their own. But blaming them for what AAA FPSes have become is like blaming Tolkien for all the crappy fantasy novels that insist on telling you the backstory of every race in the book. At the time, it was a unique perspective on how to tell a story, but over time its effectiveness has rendered it banal.

3. What's wrong with a lot of big-name FPSes aren't the set pieces. It's how the game treats you as a witness to them. Half Life showed you things you'd no control over anyway - an elevator hurtling to its doom, a guard being dragged into an air vent. It added to the immersion, the story, and, even, maybe, your personal sense of being able to act within this world.

What's wrong with contemporary FPSes is that their set pieces take from, rather than add, to those aspects of the game. Their problem is that their goal is to subject you to someone else's attention, rather than let you have one of your own.

Blaming Half Life for that is like blaming Jaws for Michael Bay.

tldr: "Respectfully disagree".

[Wizardry]

1. Half Life didn't inspire cash-ins. How many other AAA games have physicist protagonists, are set in labs, involve alien invasions? (And you might think "Those aren't the essential elements of the game" and you'd be dead right, only people making cash-ins aren't as keen as you and would believe they were). Half Life was influential. There's a difference between that and kick-starting a fad.
You've asked and answered your own question there.


2. I've got to allow more specifically, Half Life's scripted set pieces were the first of their kind. They inspired game designers who wanted to tell stories of their own. But blaming them for what AAA FPSes have become is like blaming Tolkien for all the crappy fantasy novels that insist on telling you the backstory of every race in the book. At the time, it was a unique perspective on how to tell a story, but over time its effectiveness has rendered it banal.
I'm pretty sure that Dark Forces II (or was it Mysteries of the Sith?) did it earlier.


3. What's wrong with a lot of big-name FPSes aren't the set pieces. It's how the game treats you as a witness to them. Half Life showed you things you'd no control over anyway - an elevator hurtling to its doom, a guard being dragged into an air vent. It added to the immersion, the story, and, even, maybe, your personal sense of being able to act within this world.
So like planes crashing overhead in Call of Duty then.

[soldant]

I don't understand what you mean by games following Doom's approach because not all games did.
I didn't say that. I was saying that it's a good thing that people didn't just follow the "fun shooty kill" Doom style. A few people here seem to be suggesting that games like Serious Sam are inherently much more fun and better games than a narrative-driven FPS experience, like Half Life. I know that's not the case (given the love for Valve and their franchises) but that's what it sounds like. I didn't say "everything comes from Doom".


What I was pointing out is that what made Doom so Doom-ful wasn't the specifics of its design but the attitude behind it. And also, in a way Doom was made today - or, little over two weeks ago to be exact - and the whole argument's a non-starter anyway.
The attitude behind it was "nobody cares about story" after Carmack decided that stories aren't important in games. The original design documents for Doom (and Wolf3D for that matter) paint a very different picture, one with a much stronger story driving the whole experience. Then they said "Screw it, let's just make a raw shooter." Which is probably just as well because the gameplay stands well enough on its own, but I don't think there was any particularly special attitude behind Doom.


Half Life was influential. There's a difference between that and kick-starting a fad.
I agree entirely.

Half Life might have popularised scripted sequences and the importance of story in an FPS, but it's the fault of subsequent developers if they don't use it properly. Half Life's scripted sequences are pretty primitive by today's standards, but the pacing was about right. Where I think games like Modern Warfare 3 fall down is that they're almost nothing but scripted sequences, and they're largely pointless. Half Life spaced them out relatively evenly and give you downtime between them. The CoD games have turned into a non-stop Hollywood movie, which isn't really fun. That said I actually don't mind that the player isn't Super Hero Marine who has to finish the entire battle by himself. I don't like how they take away an obscene amount of control from the player, but I don't mind that the player's role has changed from one man army to part of the team.

[thegooseking]

Half Life might have popularised scripted sequences and the importance of story in an FPS, but it's the fault of subsequent developers if they don't use it properly. Half Life's scripted sequences are pretty primitive by today's standards, but the pacing was about right. Where I think games like Modern Warfare 3 fall down is that they're almost nothing but scripted sequences, and they're largely pointless. Half Life spaced them out relatively evenly and give you downtime between them. The CoD games have turned into a non-stop Hollywood movie, which isn't really fun. That said I actually don't mind that the player isn't Super Hero Marine who has to finish the entire battle by himself. I don't like how they take away an obscene amount of control from the player, but I don't mind that the player's role has changed from one man army to part of the team.

I agree with that except that I don't think Call of Duty is that bad. At least, I don't think what it represents is that bad. I'm not a big fan of it, but that's for more superficial reasons. As I've said before, agency and challenge are important aspects of gameplay, yes, and CoD kind of doesn't do them. It's not even that it doesn't do them well; it just doesn't do them. But it's reductive and oversimplifying to think they're the only elements of 'gameness', and Call of Duty gets a lot of the other, less considered elements of gameplay right. That's one thing the video in the OP ignores, and that's one thing a lot of comments ignore. A lot of developers work on agency and challenge, but Call of Duty foregoes that to concentrate on making progress in areas very few developers are even thinking about. That kind of innovation from an indie would be lauded, but since Call of Duty is a money tree, its genuine contributions can somehow be ignored. Saying that playing Call of Duty is like watching a movie is (a) not really true to begin with, and (b) doing a massive disservice to gaming, because it implies dismissing Call of Duty without learning from what it does right to improve the medium.

And yeah, I've been a bit vague about precisely what Call of Duty's contributions are, but that's because it's something few people are thinking about, so the language and terminology to talk about it is immature and ill-defined.

[Wizardry]

Call of Duty does nothing right to improve the medium.

[Mistabashi]

Call of Duty doesn't nothing right to improve the medium.

And a new meme is born...

[Gentleman Jim Stacey]

If Modern Warfare 3 was the exact same game but not even 10% as popular, people would hail it as a brilliant send-up of hollywood movies and America-Fuck-Yeahism as well as being good crazy fun.

It's not really my cup of tea but even I can see that the beating that series takes from gaming community's "cool kids" is silly and contrived.

[Zetetic]

I'm not sure that the '10% as popular' scenario really tells us much, or even that it's particularly coherent. Just Cause 2 and even Bad Company 2 are fairly easy to justify as a satires, but MW3 (regardless of its creators' intentions) is a lot more difficult.

But let's assume that your 10% scenario is credible - if things like MW3 (and the many films that it draws directly upon) weren't both wildly popular and influential then the whole political and cultural landscape would be massively altered. To then claim that MW3 was a satire... well it'd be hard to conceive of what, it was a satire?!

soldat, my opening in that post was born out of extreme irritation. I should've toned it down, but I was too happy with the utility of the examples I provided. I really didn't mean to be unpleasant. I appreciate the issues with its use on here, but I think it's perfectly useful and fair to suggest that MW3 typifies the 'mainstream' FPS, whilst also acknowledging the popularity of games like DXHR that do differ considerably in style and content from MW3(, yet also clearly show its influence).

[metalangel]

Same thing applies to KAOS. Frontlines had a competent SP despite the primitive mechanics, Homefront was... not good.

Frontlines was Kaos taking everything they learned making Desert Combat and BF2 and expanding it. On consoles at least, it remains the best Battlefield-style game. Huge maps, tons of vehicles, and more than 24 players per game (unlike BF3 on console, which is pathetic).

Homefront was, like BF3, Kaos under orders to misguidedly replicate CoD. While the singleplayer is CoD scripted silliness, the multiplayer was very clever. It was designed to cater for solo players, eliminating vehicle camping and ensuring you stood a chance because you could buy an RPG or air strike if you needed one.

[Wizardry]

And a new meme is born...

04:20 AM
Well, that's my excuse anyway.

[b0rsuk]

The beauty of the PC gamer's situation is that we have a large indie scene to cater to the old-school tastes if the market is big enough or someone comes along and tries to make one just for the heck of it. The Unreal Engine is out there isn't it? There's our opportunity!

When was the last time indie developers made a....
- turn-based strategy ?
- RTS game ?
- single-player FPS game ?
- a flight simulator ?

About TBS, you have Dominions 3, and... okay, I give up. RTS - does Achron count as indie ? I haven't played it. single player FPS - You Are Empty ? The game has good points, but it also has major quality issues like baaad animation. Flight simulator - I don't know, Take On Helicopters ? Don't overestimate indie developers.

For most part they're happy
- mass-producing multiplayer Quake1 knockoffs (Alien Arena, Nexuiz, Open Arena, even Warsow)
- making platformer games with artsy visual style
- tons of "casual" games

============

There are very promising games like Natural Selection 2, Voxatron and Overgrowth, but I think that's it. I'm skeptical about Legend of Grimrock and Warlock: Master of the Arcane. NS2 won't have Linux version...

[sabrage]

When was the last time indie developers made a....
- single-player FPS game ?


Hard Reset? EVE: Divine Cybermancy? Serious Sam 3?

[b0rsuk]

Hard Reset, okay, but it's so short. I haven't heard of EVE. I'm planning to get SS3 after hardware upgrade.
---------------------------

A fun quote from an article we discussed a while ago:



But Half-Life came at a significant cost to the first-person shooter genre. When the iD Software team was working on Doom, Romero and Carmack noted that the level design of co-worker Sandy Petersen was hideous. But the boys didn’t give a crap. It played well. On contrast, Tom Hall’s realistic military design was outright rejected by Carmack and Romero. (Hall was torn by the event and it would go a long way towards his departure from iD Software.)* (http://www.amazon.com/Masters-Doom-Created-Transformed-Culture/dp/0375505245) Carmack and Romero understood that “Does the level play well?” was the first question to ask. Half-Life marked the beginning of a shooter market where narrative drove mission structure. In order for this to happen, warehouses needed to look like warehouses and urban environments needed to look like urban environments. In creating that compelling narrative, abstract level design began to fade out of existence. And thus, developers lost a valuable tool in the creation of good level design.
http://www.the-ghetto.org/content/the-history-of-why-im-tired-of-your-tactical-shooters-part-two

=============

By the way, I think I have a solid definition of a mainstream game. A mainstream game is a game that gets much bigger budget than its peers. Typically you can see lots of $$$ poured into visual aspects of the game. This acts as a magnet for mainstream media.

This definition makes Diablo 3, Call of Duty, Civilization 5, Crysis, Far Cry, Brink, Bioshock, Starcraft 2 mainstream games.

[soldant]

I don't know, Take On Helicopters ? Don't overestimate indie developers.
Take on Helicopters was pretty good though, especially compared to their previous helicopter flight models (ARMA was the worst of the lot, ARMA2 was a step in the right direction). Also, I don't really know if BIS count as "indie" these days. Most of the time I see "indie" applied to smaller studios while BIS are much larger and are also still linked to the Virtual BattleSpace software, which is sold to governments for training purposes.

But I agree that indie devs usually focus on the more casual games, or the more ridiculous "casual game tied up in bad art" which I absolutely hate. They're easier to produce, particularly for small teams.

[Keep]

I'm pretty sure that Dark Forces II (or was it Mysteries of the Sith?) did it earlier.

The true culprit unmasked! "And I would've gotten away with blaming Valve if it weren't for you dastardly Wizardry!"

Good work chief.


By the way, I think I have a solid definition of a mainstream game. A mainstream game is a game that gets much bigger budget than its peers. Typically you can see lots of $$$ poured into visual aspects of the game. This acts as a magnet for mainstream media.

My definition is this (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Event_movie), only with "movie" swapped out for "game".

[b0rsuk]

Speaking of movies, I think many mainstream games - particularly FPS ones - are closer to movies than actual games. I rarely care (much) about graphics in a game, I analyze other properties a game has. A mainstream game is often just a spectacle, it's watched not played.

You know it's bad when board games, much inferior from technical and budget point of view, regularly out-innovate computer games. They keep introducing interesting game mechanics and new ways of having fun. Solium Infernum, a derivative TBS game compared to board games (it took so many mechanics straight from board games with little/no changes) was lauded as an original and unique game. That's sad.