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)


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.

[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.