First Person Shooters - Please... Go Away...

[Tubey]

Duke Nukem 3D, Quake, Golden Eye and Doom have a lot of explaining to do in my opinion.

Those four titles have pretty much condemned us to game after game of imitations for the past fifteen odd years. But it's got to the point on the PS3 and XBox360 where every second game is a FPS. And almost EVERY hyped game is a FPS.

The latest one is Brink, but you have COD, Halo, Gears of War etc... then you have the "hybrids" like Mass Effect, which is an RPG apparently, but a very FPS one.

I appreciate they are generally good games. But the market is absolutely swamped with them, and so many people buy them that very few quality games from other genres are being made.

Even Dragon Age 2 dumbed itself down considerably to make it accessable for the FPS crowd.

I'm starting to think this is all we'll ever see on a console again. So is there any hope that console gaming will revert to a more broad spectrum of games, or has home gaming become a lazy mans 80's arcade forever more?

 

[Nordecke]

FPS's are fast and addicting.. Primed for online competitive play..

I think what you're seeing is the first few steps into the Online genre of gaming.

p.s. I bought SOCOM4 which is a 3rd person shooter, and it's pretty good.

 

[RFUS]

CoD is 90% to blame at this point.

Recently someone from the Brink team came out saying it's unfair how 99% of the cash in gaming at the moment is spent on 1% of the titles, and how this is bad for innovation. Obviously. People try and make their games like the biggest cash cow, to attempt to leach profits, and it results in a lot less innovation in the industry.

People think that Call of Duty is the be all and end all of FPSs -- and often gaming as a medium -- and it drives me mad. Half the people in my class in college have played nothing but CoD and FIFA iterations, I kid you not. Meanwhile I have to see loads of games I love, fail to get sequels because of poor sales.

However, there is possibly a positive. Recently Activision (truly the corporate face of this anti-innovation evil) cancelled the Guitar Hero series -- famed for its ridiculous amount of iterations and a general lack of evolution. It seems that people did eventually get sick of it. I can only hope the same happens to CoD. However, what happens after that is another issue altogether. Are people likely to start supporting new, innovative titles? I doubt it. They'll probably just flock to the next big thing.

I do not take issue with the FPS genre, and the foundations of the genre (Doom, Wolfensten et al), as it's a valid one and an entertaining one. I take issue with the ridiculous amount of FPSs, and the tunnel vision of the average consumer. I myself play plenty of FPSs -- I absolutely adore the Halo franchise, too -- but most things I play are more original titles. I like a bit of innovation; something new. And there's a lot of that in the industry, it's just not supported very well.

 

[Nordecke]

I disagree RFUS in one respect..

Recently someone from the Brink team came out saying it's unfair how 99% of the cash in gaming at the moment is spent on 1% of the titles, and how this is bad for innovation.

Fact is if the companies make a good game, the gamers will know..

for example: DICE made Bad Company which in itself knocked COD off it's high horse a bit.. Bad Company 3 should do mass damage to the COD series.. COD better bring the thunder with MW3.

So I would say it ups the bar in a sense, make a good game and people will buy it.

 

[RFUS]

I disagree RFUS in one respect..



Fact is if the companies make a good game, the gamers will know..

for example: DICE made Bad Company which in itself knocked COD off it's high horse a bit.. Bad Company 3 should do mass damage to the COD series.. COD better bring the thunder with MW3.

So I would say it ups the bar in a sense, make a good game and people will buy it.

Unfortunately you're not quite right.

There are so, so many games that are good, great or downright exceptional, but they don't sell because they don't have mass market appeal.

Advertising and hype also have an unfortunately high affect on sales, too. Brink has sold quite well indeed, despite receiving very mixed reviews. There was a lot of hype for that and there has been plenty of advertising campaigns. Quality and sales are not nearly as proportional as they should be, and this applies to all mediums.

You are right to a point, in that if a game is really good, then gamers will indeed know and they will want to play it. But most games sales these days are of the casual, part-time gamer variety. Case in point, the kids I mentioned in my college class. Whilst quality will always guarantee so many sales, it can never guarantee enough.

A recent example is Enslaved; an absolutely quality action platformer, with some of the best voicework you'll ever hear, and a really touching story to boot. This game sold abysmally; selling way less on two platforms than the developer's previous game did as a single platform release (Heavenly Sword). The reviews for Enslaved were excellent, but the sales were anything but. And this is the case far too often.



P.S. Using Battlefield as an example of something knocking Cod of its perch, only goes to show how overly-dominant the FPS genre is.

 

[Nordecke]

The "First Person" perspective in video games is the future, whether it be shooters, RPG's, etc. People like that angle.

 

[RFUS]

The "First Person" perspective in video games is the future, whether it be shooters, RPG's, etc. People like that angle.

I don't know how many kinds of games you play mate, and I don't want to sound like an elitist tit, but that's just a really narrow minded view.

Games are the most diverse medium out there, and the first person perspective, whilst great for shooters, is not suited to most kinds of games. People do indeed like that angle, but people also (should) like diversity. First person works great for shooters, and okay for WRPGS (I personally find the third person perspective to be more ideal), but that's about it.

 

[Tubey]

The "First Person" perspective in video games is the future, whether it be shooters, RPG's, etc. People like that angle.

I'm a person, and I don't. There's a lot of people in my boat too.

I really, really doubt FPS is the future, because it's so limited. Every FPS is pretty much the same by it's very nature - you're just looking through the eyes of an invisible character, shooting stuff that moves. The only things that change is the quality of storyline and the multiplayer aspect.

Sadly, it is undoubtedly the present of gaming, and thankfully it'll get milked to death before too long. To be honest, it has already been milked to death, but the current crop of 12 to 16 year olds need to get a bit older before developers think of other ideas to market.

 

[Nordecke]

I don't know how many kinds of games you play mate, and I don't want to sound like an elitist tit, but that's just a really narrow minded view.

Games are the most diverse medium out there, and the first person perspective, whilst great for shooters, is not suited to most kinds of games. People do indeed like that angle, but people also (should) like diversity. First person works great for shooters, and okay for WRPGS (I personally find the third person perspective to be more ideal), but that's about it.

I'm a person, and I don't. There's a lot of people in my boat too.

I really, really doubt FPS is the future, because it's so limited. Every FPS is pretty much the same by it's very nature - you're just looking through the eyes of an invisible character, shooting stuff that moves. The only things that change is the quality of storyline and the multiplayer aspect.

Sadly, it is undoubtedly the present of gaming, and thankfully it'll get milked to death before too long. To be honest, it has already been milked to death, but the current crop of 12 to 16 year olds need to get a bit older before developers think of other ideas to market.

Easy fella's.. I'm not that "Closed minded" I was simply stating what the numbers show.. And the numbers clearly show that (people like FPS's)

 

[Deleted member 28206]

Halo is terrible game. Gears Of war, not much better,

The only fps I enjoyed was cod modern warfare.

Very limited game experience.

 

[RFUS]

Easy fella's.. I'm not that "Closed minded" I was simply stating what the numbers show.. And the numbers clearly show that (people like FPS's)

You're completely right, and that's why me and Tubey are so annoyed! Every iteration of these damned FPS franchises heralds less and less innovation. The only innovative first person game to come out in the past few years that I can think of is Mirror's Edge, which still doesn't have a confirmed sequel.

I'd also argue that people don't really know what they like until they're experiencing it. Most of these CoD players play it because their friends do, so they tell them to get it to play with them and so on. Such a small percentage of the game-playing population is of the variety that would actively seek out original, innovative titles to experience, to broaden their horizons.

That's my real issue; not that people play CoD, or any of these FPSs -- they are indeed often good, even great, games -- it's that they don't play anything else. Until the next iteration comes out, that is. It's harming the diversity of the industry. And make no mistake -- I am no altruist -- this annoys me because I don't get to experience sequels to so many of the games I love.

 

[RFUS]

Halo is terrible game. Gears Of war, not much better,

The only fps I enjoyed was cod modern warfare.

Very limited game experience.

All subjective, mate.

Halo is definitely not terrible. That implies it's devoid of quality, or broken or something. It may not be your cup of tea, but it most definitely is mine. That said, I don't find the single player in any of the games to be that great. I just love playing the campaign with my mates, and playing online. It's a breath of fresh air, as unlike a lot of shooters, it doesn't always take itself too seriously. I've spent hours and hours, over the years, playing "Grifball" in Halo 3.

 

[Silas]

FPS's lack innovation but I wouldn't blame the genre in particular for ruining creativity but more the consumer for lapping up the same game over and over again rehashed.

Fifa
GTA
COD
Final Fantasy
Football Manager

All examples of games that are released year on year often without much variation and while consumers lap things like this up, truly original games get released to little fanfare and struggle to make an impact.

 

[RFUS]

FPS's lack innovation but I wouldn't blame the genre in particular for ruining creativity but more the consumer for lapping up the same game over and over again rehashed.

Fifa
GTA
COD
Final Fantasy
Football Manager

All examples of games that are released year on year often without much variation and while consumers lap things like this up, truly original games get released to little fanfare and struggle to make an impact.

That's exactly who I am blaming! It seems harsh to moan at Wolfenstein, Doom and all the original FPSs for something that's happened 10-15 years down the line!!

 

[Silas]

That's exactly who I am blaming! It seems harsh to moan at Wolfenstein, Doom and all the original FPSs for something that's happened 10-15 years down the line!!

Indeed and they were original, what has occurred since is largely not.