Topic: Yahtzee's crusade against chest high wall shooters continues ...

[Ron]

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/6492-Medal-of-Honor-Warfighter-Doom-3-BFG-Edition

I have to say I agree with him.
Those modern shooters are just no fun at all.
They are piss easy and pretend to be realistic.
How can you call something that involves you killing over 300 fellow man realistic anyway ?

I like games that make you sweat when you play them.
Rocket jumping through Quake, killing hordes of creatures in Painkiller and Serious Sam.
There are no games like that anymore.
Proper shooters, I mean.
Shame, really.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1ZtBCpo0eU&feature=related

[Tomaldinho]

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/6492-Medal-of-Honor-Warfighter-Doom-3-BFG-Edition

How can you call something that involves you killing over 300 fellow man realistic anyway ? ...


... killing hordes of creatures in Painkiller and Serious Sam.

I do agree to an extent, but if the only difference between the two is that one has said its trying to be realistic before, but actually isn't, is there really that much to worry about?

[Ben J]

Most "shooters" these days have more in common with light gun games than classics like Doom, Half Life, Goldeneye and even more modern games like Halo and Timesplitters.  I finished Spec Ops: The Line last week and although the writing and the story was fantastic, the gameplay bored me to tears.  Hide behind a wall and kill guys, pick up a slightly different gun, hide behind a slightly different wall, kill some slightly different guys. I got bored about 90 minutes in and changed the difficulty to the lowest setting just so I could get to the next cutscene a bit quicker.  How can a 5 hour long game bore me so quickly?

It's not a question of realism, Call of Duty isn't really realistic if I can take 30 bullets to the chest without complaint and all my half empty clips magically pool together and refill themselves whenever I reload.

Obviously I'm in the minority as these games sell like hot cakes, but I can't say I've enjoyed one since probably COD 4.

[Ron]

Obviously I'm in the minority as these games sell like hot cakes, but I can't say I've enjoyed one since probably COD 4.

I think that might be the problem.
The market has grown to big and the demand for graphical masterpieces makes it almost impossible for companies to invest in games for hard core gamers anymore.
All they want to bring out are games that your mom can finish too. Too keep the market as big as is possible.

The only games I did like this year were Dishonored, and I also enjoyed Sleeping Dogs and Sniper Elite v2 somewhat.
Maybe Far Cry III will be good. I fucking hope so ...

[stoa]

Yahtzee is usually spot on with everything he says. Of course his emphasis is on the negative aspects of a game, but that comes with the thing he's doing. If you took the points he's making and put them together in a more neutral way, probably most of the people would agree.

Another thing that pisses me off big time with modern games is that the "Get 100%"-achievement has become such an important thing and that a lot of people see it as a way of "extending" a game. If it has no impact on the progress of my game, I couldn't give a fuck whether that number is at 100 percent or 25 percent. I can't be arsed looking for things that are scattered around the map, so that I can show off to my friends what great gamer I am. On the contrary, I think it's pretty sad that people have time for doing useless stuff like that...

[Hierro]

I think the popularity of games like COD is basically through the ease of use and play.  Pick up, point, shoot.  Most people don't see themselves as the next Duke of Wellington or Alexander the Great - being a master tactician on the virtual battlefield really doesn't mean much. 

In today's world, where people care more about being thrilled as soon as possible (whether that be from games, sports or in the cinema) rather than the back-story or build up, our generation and the next generation went everything now now now.  It's all about attention span, and something that is easy to use and offers non-stop entertainment, will appeal to most.  It's why Michael Bay makes so much money, despite his films having the intellectual depth and story-telling ability of a 6 month old MacDonalds Happy Meal.

That's why we remember games like Mario, Street-Fighter, Doom, Castlevania etc - because you were straight into the action.  Of course on the other-hand, games like Zelda will always remain much loved because of the problem-solving and depth of the experience - but that's all too amiss in our era, where games developers are looking for the next big thrill, and why games like Skyrim, whilst being very popular, simply aren't something you'd buy for your 12 year old to open on their birthday or at Christmas.

To me, the problem with this all started with the racing game genre.  Think back to absolute greats like Outrun, Sega Rally, Pole Position, Mario Kart......no one cared about what type of shock absorbers your rear wheels had, people just wanted to drive as fast as possible.  Which is not to say games like Gran Turismo haven't been incredibly popular.  But to me those games aren't racing games.  They're driving simulators. The last truly great racing game (IMHO) was Burnout Paradise.  And that's simply because it was a hark back to the days of the arcade racer.  In fact all of the best racing games in the last decade have been like that - the Burnout series, Mario Kart Wii, Wipeout etc.

Going slightly off-base there, but the point is, no-one wants to have to spend an age trying to get a game started.  Pick up, point, shoot.

'Tis the world we live in.

[Walshy nMe®]

I don't know if I agree with that Hierro.

Games like Skyrim, Fallout, Uncharted e.t.c are slow burners.  They either almost endless gameplay which slowly develops over time, or in Uncharted's example, a very good story, well told with great gaming in between.

A 12 year old wouldn't want Skyrim because it's not aimed at them.

You could say the same about Music and Film, there are different target audiences.

How real can you make a modern shooter?  Spend 4 hours cleaning weapons before you go into a game?  Spend 2 hours perched in a sniper position waiting to take that one shot?

They could do a lot of things, like reloads (you lost the unused ammo).  They could make ammo more scarce but that isn't fun.  It's great in games like Fallout where you have limited Ammo (or should have).

Different games for different people.  There are fantastic military simulators out there, but they attract people into that thing.  I know nothing about real life military, so for me a game where I can enjoy it with a good balance of realism and fun, is essential in gaming.

You said yourself about Gran Turismo.  It isn't a racer as such it's a simulator.  But some people crave that sort of thing - they are balls deep into cars, and getting to tweak shock absorbers, rear suspension e.t.c to get an extra 0.005 off their lap time is porn.

Others love games like Burnout or NFS because it has (in their opinion) the right balance of fun and difficulty.

[SamAteTheRedAcid]

Interesting points by both Hierro and Walshy.

I work in a school and a surprising amount of kids do like Skyrim actually.

Although Minecraft is the big one - massive among the teenagers, I couldn't believe it. Thought it would be too boring for them. I guess it's effectively virtual Lego though, and they get to run their own servers and stuff and get really techy about it.

I firmly err on the side of fun when gaming, although I love a good story and the option to get deep, I don't want to be forced to do it. It's a very fine balance though - for me, ACIII blew that balance when it frontloaded the training/growing missions, whereas ACII was great.

Something i noticed when reviewing Doom 3: BFG edition recently, was that Doom 3 took about an hour, maybe more, to get to the bit where monsters were there for the shooting. Included on the disc were the first two Doom games - you turned it on, and you were in the action. It was far more fun. And what did Doom 3 gain for the extra 'atmosphere'? Nothing, I never finished it.

[Rusty Oysterburger]

'The Tyranny of Realism'

[Danny Boys Dad]

Seems a bit ludicrous to expect shooters to be realistic.

I think one of the MoH or CoD series had a 'one shot kill' setting where if you were hit once you died. That slowed everything up a bit and stopped all the run and gun stuff. In some of them you could use a Garand rifle that couldn't be reloaded after a few shots, you had to fire the full clip.

They are only computer games after all. If you want realistic join the army, they'll give you all the realism you can handle.

[Red_Isle_Chap]

Interesting points by both Hierro and Walshy.

I work in a school and a surprising amount of kids do like Skyrim actually.

Although Minecraft is the big one - massive among the teenagers, I couldn't believe it. Thought it would be too boring for them. I guess it's effectively virtual Lego though, and they get to run their own servers and stuff and get really techy about it.

I firmly err on the side of fun when gaming, although I love a good story and the option to get deep, I don't want to be forced to do it. It's a very fine balance though - for me, ACIII blew that balance when it frontloaded the training/growing missions, whereas ACII was great.

Something i noticed when reviewing Doom 3: BFG edition recently, was that Doom 3 took about an hour, maybe more, to get to the bit where monsters were there for the shooting. Included on the disc were the first two Doom games - you turned it on, and you were in the action. It was far more fun. And what did Doom 3 gain for the extra 'atmosphere'? Nothing, I never finished it.

See i'm different. I got the Doom BFG the other day and i'm loving Doom 3. Easily the most enjoyable shooter i've played in ages which is probably down to it's simplicity and the fact it doesn't hold your hand. Well that and you get value for money.

The big problem isn't the "realism" in modern shooters, none of them are realistic, it's the hand holding, objective markers and the like. Games are simply piss easy these days, and fps's are the worst for it. Combine that with the fact that most of the AAA shooters have no interest in making good single player games, this is where the dissatisfaction comes from. For people like me, who hate online play, the games industry is going from bad to worse. Everything now has to have a multiplayer aspect to it, which takes budget away from single player experiences. Which is reallly annoying even if i can understand it due to the cash cow that is multiplayer.

When i buy a game, i'm wanting a decent length for a single player campaign, and by decent i'm talking 10-12 hours at the very least. Very, very few FPS's give you that now and it's a massive, massive shame (at least for me)

[Macphisto80]

I agree with every single thing he said. It's for all the same reasons I look at games like BLOPs 2 and shite like it and just pass it off. Ditto for the Crysis series, which some people seem to have a real hard-on for for some mad reason. It looks nice. Great. To me it doesn't even look nice. It looks fucking boring; like a tech demo or something with that has you in control of a walking tank that can turn invisible at a whim. Here's the major issue for me with these modern FPS games: COD-style regenerating health that comes with a hit marker indicator that fucking shows you where you're taking 100 bullets in the face from before you duck behind cover, regenerate health, then mow down the 20 or so troops that just filled you with more lead than what was fired in WW2. That is the shite that needs to die. It's that design choice coupled with the linear conveyor belt style level design that's usually coupled with a big neon flashing arrow directing you to "go here" that just needs to fuck off and die a death. It's just lazy.

I've posted this before, and here it is again for reference.

[Something Awful]

That image just blew my mind. I'm not sure I can play these games again. Doom was the best

[Ron]

Wow ! Some great posts in here !



I HATE games where you have no freedom at all !
Games where you can get behind cover because the game engine marks that spot as somewhere you can crouch.
If you are standing somewhere else, you can't crouch/jump.
I think it's insane, you can save the fucking world, but jumping is a bit too hard for your character

Some modern games get wonderful reviews at Gamespot IGM and what have you.
But if you look at the core of the game it is utter crap !
Sure, nice skyboxes. Nice view too, shame you can't go there ...

I am starting to sound like a broken record (remember those  ), but I was playing the Uber praised Mass Effect 3 a while back.
Some of the actual playable areas where smaller then the old Quake 1 maps !
Sure, they where tarted up so normal players would still think it was a massive map, but the parts of it where you could go was so incredible small.
What I do not understand is why it took so long to develop that game.
You could make one of these maps in a day, per person.
I'm not joking !

Wonderful picture, that !
And so very true 

[stoa]

I am starting to sound like a broken record (remember those  ), but I was playing the Uber praised Mass Effect 3 a while back.
Some of the actual playable areas where smaller then the old Quake 1 maps !
Sure, they where tarted up so normal players would still think it was a massive map, but the parts of it where you could go was so incredible small.

To be fair, I still think Mass Effect 3 is superior to Skyrim in terms of story-telling. A huge map does not necessarily make a game-better. In my view Mass Effect (as a series) is not really about gameplay. The games are good despite the game-mechanics being awful. Mass Effect is about story-telling, about "living" the life of your Sheppard. And I think they did a very fine job in that respect (despite the awful ending)...

[Ron]

To be fair, I still think Mass Effect 3 is superior to Skyrim in terms of story-telling. A huge map does not necessarily make a game-better. In my view Mass Effect (as a series) is not really about gameplay. The games are good despite the game-mechanics being awful. Mass Effect is about story-telling, about "living" the life of your Sheppard. And I think they did a very fine job in that respect (despite the awful ending)...

There is game and there are stories.
The word is computer GAME.
A game is something where I can do some fun stuff, like trow myself off the cliffs or blow my legs away with some explosives.
A story is already there.
It doesn't need me.
And the more games become like me having to do some things in between cut scenes, the less I like them.

BTW, I LOOOVE Skyrim, fanboy alert !

[Macphisto80]

Wow ! Some great posts in here !



I HATE games where you have no freedom at all !
Games where you can get behind cover because the game engine marks that spot as somewhere you can crouch.
If you are standing somewhere else, you can't crouch/jump.
I think it's insane, you can save the fucking world, but jumping is a bit too hard for your character

Some modern games get wonderful reviews at Gamespot IGM and what have you.
But if you look at the core of the game it is utter crap !
Sure, nice skyboxes. Nice view too, shame you can't go there ...

I am starting to sound like a broken record (remember those  ), but I was playing the Uber praised Mass Effect 3 a while back.
Some of the actual playable areas where smaller then the old Quake 1 maps !
Sure, they where tarted up so normal players would still think it was a massive map, but the parts of it where you could go was so incredible small.
What I do not understand is why it took so long to develop that game.
You could make one of these maps in a day, per person.
I'm not joking !
Wonderful picture, that !
And so very true 

I think it's a little unfair to be critical of maps in games like ME. I've yet to play the 3rd, but for games like that, I don't really play them for map design. It's more about the story and progression of characters and such and the world. Everything is fairly stellar in those games.

[stoa]

A game is something where I can do some fun stuff, like trow myself off the cliffs or blow my legs away with some explosives.

Well, that's your definition of a game. And it's a pretty narrow-minded one, if I may say so. A shitload of games wouldn't be games according to how you're defining a game. Even classics like Maniac Mansion or Monkey Island wouldn't be classed as games, as all you can do in them is combine items to progress through a story that has been set in stone by the writers... There is a lot more to a game than being able to do whatever you want...

[J-Mc-]

Growing up playing the likes of Sonic, Mario Kart, StarFox and even some of the more un-known Sega Megadrive games (such as the ever brilliant The Haunting,) and then playing the likes of CoD now, you can see how far downhill games are actually going.

The last great game I can remember playing, that was both fun and challenging, was Future Cop on the PS1, I remember sitting there with my cousin and the pair of us just trying to get past one part of a level, and it wasn't down to the game not letting us do something, it was simpy down to the skill involved in playing the game. Most of the older PS1 games are the same, with Tekken 3 being a major example, so much time spent just trying to unlock the Doc, beating Ogre and true Ogre over and over again, looking through magazines for cheat guides in order to actually make the game a little easier, when now, you can just change the difficulty and all those cheats are in the game already, just waiting for you, there is simply no challenge in gaming anymore.

Even modern greats like RDR leave something to be desired, that comes across to me as a wild west simulator, even though it is enjoyable, it comes nowhere near to the amount of fun you could have just putting the first Crash Bandicoot on again, or the first Rayman, or Sonic, Mario Bros. World, Donkey Kong 64, Banjo Kazooie, Jack and Daxter ect, all games that kept the challenge in them but were also fun to play.

Gaming needs to get away from trying to get the best out of the hardware and start moving towards the fun factor again, it's been missing for far to long.

[Ron]

Well, that's your definition of a game. And it's a pretty narrow-minded one, if I may say so. A shitload of games wouldn't be games according to how you're defining a game. Even classics like Maniac Mansion or Monkey Island wouldn't be classed as games, as all you can do in them is combine items to progress through a story that has been set in stone by the writers... There is a lot more to a game than being able to do whatever you want...

You are right.
I should have been more accurate.
It's just what I like from a game, not necessarily what others want.

[Red_Isle_Chap]

Growing up playing the likes of Sonic, Mario Kart, StarFox and even some of the more un-known Sega Megadrive games (such as the ever brilliant The Haunting,) and then playing the likes of CoD now, you can see how far downhill games are actually going.

The last great game I can remember playing, that was both fun and challenging, was Future Cop on the PS1, I remember sitting there with my cousin and the pair of us just trying to get past one part of a level, and it wasn't down to the game not letting us do something, it was simpy down to the skill involved in playing the game. Most of the older PS1 games are the same, with Tekken 3 being a major example, so much time spent just trying to unlock the Doc, beating Ogre and true Ogre over and over again, looking through magazines for cheat guides in order to actually make the game a little easier, when now, you can just change the difficulty and all those cheats are in the game already, just waiting for you, there is simply no challenge in gaming anymore.

Even modern greats like RDR leave something to be desired, that comes across to me as a wild west simulator, even though it is enjoyable, it comes nowhere near to the amount of fun you could have just putting the first Crash Bandicoot on again, or the first Rayman, or Sonic, Mario Bros. World, Donkey Kong 64, Banjo Kazooie, Jack and Daxter ect, all games that kept the challenge in them but were also fun to play.

Gaming needs to get away from trying to get the best out of the hardware and start moving towards the fun factor again, it's been missing for far to long.

That's nostalgia though J, at least thats what i get told when i say the same things. "things were always better when you were younger", which is actually shit. There's a lot of games that haven't been beaten from my childhood. The first 2 streets of rage games for example, or even better the sheer amount of brilliant RPG's with insanely good stories to play through which also had excellent gameplay.

I often feel that with the "modern" age has come the over complication of games. A lot of that has to do with the controller. Now maybe i'm just a fat handed twat who's shit at games but i used to be a lot, lot better with the older controllers. Even the PS1 without the analogue sticks i was much better at using. Guess with that though it's what you grow up with.

With the FPS's though (getting back on topic...), i think a large amount of the problem is that developers pump so much into graphics now they can't do the amount they used to with far more limited graphics where the gameplay had to sell the game. A big part of this is the AAA studios having movie sized budgets now, and with them comes the movie expectations. With that i mean a lot of the modern shooters for me are very "switch off your brain" and just shoot at things. THere's nothing to figure out, nothing to explore and even the stories are pretty weak. Like i said earlier, fps is all about the multiplayer now and fuck everything else because that's where the cash is.

[stoa]

To be honest, there are two things that Yahtzee should take on before chest high wall shooters, because they can be avoided by not buying/playing them. But two things I have grown to dislike in recent times. One thing is intro-videos/screens that are not skippable. Hitman Absolution is one of those wank games that insist on showing you a shitload of short animations before the actual game starts. I don't give a fuck whether they have used AMD-stuff to develop the game or whether they've optimized it for it. I also don't fucking care what your company's stupid logo looks like. It's even worse when you cannot skip in-game cut-scenes. Especially, when they're using a stupid checkpoint system to save the game...

And the other thing would be platforms like Steam, Uplay or Origin. All in all, I think they are a good thing, because you have easier access to a lot of games. And I can see that they need it as a means against piracy. Then again, they still piss me off from time to time. I just feel that they could be a lot more comfortable. For example with Steam, I don't get why the thing cannot go into offline-mode if it can't connect to the server. You just get that stupid pop-up window saying you can either try to reconnect or go to offline-mode. But of course, to start the offline-mode you have to restart Steam. Or when it says "Game xy is currently not available". What do they mean by that? I mean, I've played the thing (=I have all the files on my PC), so why can't I start it now? It just takes the piss at times.

[Bob Loblaw]

Spot on is Yahtzee, been feeling the exact same for a few years now. It's depressing to think of all the really talented games developers, wasted churning out the same generic shite year year after year.