First Person Shooters: The Thread

[Spark Of Spirit]

They got the anger across very well without having our hero say anything. Nobody messes with Doomguy.

The most impressive aspect is how much it feels like the classic DOOM games, only with a modern touch. Jumping, aiming (no iron-sights, thankfully), climbing, and even alt-fire options and hidden upgrades, add so much to the classic formula. The game encourages exploration at a level I haven't seen from a shooter in a long time.

I hope id eventually plans expansion pack levels. This is the type of game that could use them.

[Spark Of Spirit]

I was just playing a bunch of Blood Dragon earlier.

Amazing that this never got a sequel. Ubisoft sucks.

[gunswordfist]

Yessir. Probably my 2nd favorite FPS from last gen. Like the only successful shooting Ubisoft hasn't given a sequel.

[Spark Of Spirit]

Gotta say, there's something about ramming a car with yours, jumping out as it crushes the passenger in the other car, blowing off the driver's head with a shotgun, and knifing the gunner, all in a swift motion.

And then giving the corpse the finger while you make an '80s action movie quip.

I don't like Far Cry at all, but Blood Dragon just understands shooters and their appeal so well. The soundtrack certainly helps.

[gunswordfist]

The soundtrack is just perfect. Probably my 3rd favorite in the genre.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

This is a great video that explains what makes DOOM's gameplay formula work so well: https://youtu.be/yuOObGjCA7Q

[Spark Of Spirit]

Good video. DOOM 4 manages the exact same trick which is probably why it is so popular.

I noticed that Blood Dragon had this when I finished up my 100% playthrough. There were the normal soldiers, grenadiers, the armored flamethrower users, the wandering animals, the blood dragons, and the undead scientists. They all behave much differently, but the fact that there are so few types means prioritizing before you attack and finding the right patterns.

All the best shooters seem to do this sort of thing.

[Spark Of Spirit]

Here's another video as to what DOOM 4 does that makes it so great.

The initial argument falls flat, thought. Of course, the PC gamer argument that it's the consoles fault is unabashedly silly when it took over a decade of console exclusive shooters before COD casualized the genre and made all the things these guys dislike about it. GoldenEye, Perfect Dark, Timesplitters 1-3, Red Faction 1 and 2, and Halo, were not slow games based on hiding. COD came out of nowhere with Modern Warfare and changed everything. It has as much to do with the aforementioned games as Silent Hill 2 has to do with Resident Evil 5.

But the rest of the video is really good. It does go over a lot of why DOOM 4 should be a standard (again) and why a lot of the lesser parts of modern FPS games really should ride off into the sunset.

I just hope DOOM 5 has a better soundtrack. It's probably the only part of the single player experience I'm just not a fan of.

[Rynnec]

I'm okay with Doom's soundtrack, but it would've been better suited for a Quake game (speaking of which, I hope Champions is successful enough for Id to do another single-player Quake). Doom's music should be heavy and melodic rather than ambient and industrial, it's the main reason I haven't touched Doom 64 yet.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Found this gem from a YouTuber who's channel is quickly becoming one of my favorites: http://youtu.be/p_3LQhncl2c

Man, this really makes me want to replay F.E.A.R. when I next get a chance. It's still my favorite FPS of all time, personally.

[Foggle]

F.E.A.R.'s combat mechanics and enemy AI have still yet to be topped 12 years later. It remains my favorite FPS after all this time as well.

[Spark Of Spirit]

I finally got to play a lot of Shadow Warrior (the remake) last weekend. Excellent game.

If DOOM 4 didn't prove it, this does. FPSes need to go back in this direction again.

[Foggle]

The Shadow Warrior reboot/remake/prequel/whatever is a really amazing game. I don't even want to use guns most of the time because fighting with the sword is so fun. Great sense of humor, too.

Not getting on too well with Shadow Warrior 2, though. For some reason they decided to take the sequel in a co-op and loot-focused direction with spongy enemies and elements of procedural generation in the level design. The writing also took a considerable hit without the buddy comedy dynamic.

But yeah, I hope the new Shadow Warrior, Doom, and Wolfenstein games start an FPS renaissance or something. These games manage to be old-school without banking on nostalgia (e.g. Strafe, which looks like garbage IMO) - they're updated for the modern day while still retaining what made classic titles great. Even Titanfall 2 seemed to be leaning in this direction.

[Spark Of Spirit]

Strafe looks like one of those chintzy "retro" games that uses nostalgia to sell itself instead of gameplay. The gameplay looks nothing like what makes the best FPS games great.

What made the old games great were the exploration and enemy types which lead to surprising gameplay situations. Also, varied settings and guns help. All modern FPS games have the same enemy types, the same settings, the same guns, and the same lack of AI. We need more games going back to what made the older games like DOOM and Duke Nukem 3D so great without copying the art style and thinking that's what people want.

I just want the genre to go back to being awesome again.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I'd like to point out that modern FPS design isn't inherently bad. F.E.A.R., Half-Life, and Bungie-era Halo took the fundamentals of classic shooters and then melded them in with updated mechanics. It's when the later Call of Duty games started trying too hard to be interactive movies and almost all big-budget FPS'es followed suit that the genre really staggered, outside of occasional deviations like BioShock or Bulletstorm.

But yeah, it's genuinely great to see modern games that understand the fundamentals of what made classic games in the genre work while also updating them with modern mechanics that actually mix well with the classic elements.