Author Topic: The Death of the Space shooter  (Read 28218 times)

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Re: The Death of the Space shooter
Q2 is Spring...

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"Take my love. Take my land. Take me where I cannot stand. I don't care, I'm still free. You can't take the sky from me. Take me out to the black, tell them I ain't comin' back. Burn the land boil the sea, you can't take the sky from me. There's no place I can be since I've found Serenity. But you can't take the sky from me." - Ballad of Serenity

 

Offline Inquisitor

Re: The Death of the Space shooter
April, May or June.
No signature.

 

Offline Suzaku

  • 20
Re: The Death of the Space shooter
This is one of those things that's really hard to put your finger on.  Marketing and publisher strength goes a long way these days in the video game industry; you just don't see the sort of "grassroots" sales efforts that you saw in the past.  It's all about pre-release buzz and the initial shipments.  Otherwise you fall flat.  This is why Freelancer was the last real flash in the pan for the genre; it had a lot of support from Microsoft and debuted at #4 on the PC sales chart and subsequently like a stone.  It got stomped by the last Command & Conquer game. 

I see two reasons why the genre has now essentially failed.  First, I don't think we're going to see a revitalization of the genre until a publisher puts a lot of money behind development and gives a project the chance for long-term support with multiple sequels.  Of course, the developers actually have to complete the project.  No more Freelancers.  Second, there hasn't been a good intellectual property in years.  I personally loved Freelancer's IP, but it doesn't help any when it's completely unsupported by a half-ass campaign.  So we're left with FreeSpace and Star Wars as our last good examples.  People won't buy a game based on the prequels, we've already had 20+ years of games based on the original trilogy, and FreeSpace is dead.

So what's the solution?  Either spend a lot of time investing in development of a good IP, or license something compelling like Star Wars and do something completely new with it, like Knights of the Old Republic.  Maybe there's a good book series that's made the rounds lately that I haven't heard of?  I think everyone can agree that something FreeSpace quality with 2006 graphics will shake up the industry.  Someone just has to find the hook that not only gets publishers' attention, but also the market's.

Personally, I think it's amazing that I haven't seen a good sandbox game since Privateer, especialy since that sort of game has been "in" lately.
« Last Edit: December 04, 2006, 03:11:33 am by Suzaku »

 
Re: The Death of the Space shooter
supposedly spore is going to be sandbox, but by the time it is a sandbox you're too powerful for anyone to stand against you, so that will have problems

 

Offline Roanoke

  • 210
Re: The Death of the Space shooter
sandbox is over-rated. Gimme level structure anytime of the day.

 

Offline bloated

  • 27
Re: The Death of the Space shooter
it's nice to be in a forum with so many gamers as opposed to the other one I visit, very refreshing.

 

Offline tifi

  • 25
  • GTF Apollo Fan Club
Re: The Death of the Space shooter
Hehe.... Why do I get the impression that I'm one of the few that does actually fly FS with a mouse?
Comes from too many years of ELITE (well, First Encounters) I think :lol:

I must admit though that FS2 is probably my favorite space shooter, followed by FFE then X2.
Tachyon was quite fun but way to easy (with far too many tricks to make it even easier), and Privateer 2 was awesome except for the stupid navigation rules (which is about 95% of the game).

Seriously though, I've never been able to get the hang of joystick flying.
Its great for fast sweeping turns but I could never aim for toffee, a mouse make aiming far simpler and I can still dodge well enough to not die (all the time, at least :P)

 
Re: The Death of the Space shooter
I really liked Tachyon. Not all games are meant to be super-difficult. Tachyon is a game that you play for storyline, fighting through the missions and getting them right on the first time (like it should be), but getting stuck on a few every once and a while.

 

Offline tifi

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  • GTF Apollo Fan Club
Re: The Death of the Space shooter
I will admit to finding Mr. Campbell's voice acting in Tachyon rather amusing :lol:
(Not to mention the whole presentation of it was rather well done.)
I found it dissapointing that you can't alter the difficulty though, I would have though that was pretty much part of the standard gaming package by now...
It still found its way into my collection though, despite the loopholes pretty much killing the replayabilty :p




 

Offline Singh

  • Hasn't Accomplished Anything Special Or Notable
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Re: The Death of the Space shooter
Agreed on most counts.

The space sim Genre is pretty much dead - look at Jupiter: the nexus incident. Fabulous graphics, good gameplay, pretty decent storyline...and yet it crashed. Badly. The new Nexus 2 engine was shown off recently, but the company's pretty much abandoned the series, since they weren't getting enough sales and such. :(

In any case, dont think people are gonna bother with this genre for a while - save for maybe EVE-online and such, but that's a somewhat different style, IMHO.

Oh, and tiffi, your not the only one who plays by mouse. I've never used a joystick, save for one or two occasions, and finished all of FS2 on mouse alone. :D
"Blessed be the FREDder that knows his sexps."
"Cursed be the FREDder that trusts FRED2_Open."
Dreamed of much, accomplished little. :(

 

Offline tifi

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Re: The Death of the Space shooter
If you think about it though, pretty much all game genres have been sliding into a fiery contentless abyss for the past few years.

Everything now revolves around looking the prettiest and sounding the nicest - granted, these things are quite important and help set up a decent atmosphere, but are nothing compared to the gameplay aspects.
After all, it doesn't matter if your game has the *best* (TM) graphics or whatever, if its dull to play you've created a chore with eyecandy not a game.

Sadly the entire gaming industry seems drawn to this method of producing games like a moth to a flame, all in the name of making a 'quick buck' resulting in hoardes of empty graphical shells posing as games, and a flock of mindless fan bois (TM) devoted to thier respective game (shell) because it has the *best* (TM) whatever. :(


I really miss the days when graphics and sounds were bobbins at best, and the games had to be immersing otherwise they'd flop....
That said, there have been a few pretty decent games made recently - you just have to find them ;)

 

Offline asyikarea51

  • 210
  • -__-||
Re: The Death of the Space shooter
I fly solely on mouse. :D
Inferno plz
The Power of Nightmares
TheHound: "Nice idea, but I have a thing against announcing campaigns before having them already finished."
G5K: "The flipside of that is that if you don't announce your campaign, yet take too long to finish it, other people may independently come up with some of the same ideas."

 

Offline Beanboy

  • 23
Re: The Death of the Space shooter
Such a shame the space shooter is nearly dead..   I buy every one these days, crap or not, just to keep the flag flying. :wtf:

When you see what today's technology can offer it makes me so sad that it's not being immediately worked on and offered to us.  Look at this showreel of the Nexus 2 engine...

http://www.gametrailers.com/umwatcher.php?id=16457

Awesome... and dead in the water....  :(

 

Offline Fineus

  • ...But you *have* heard of me.
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Re: The Death of the Space shooter
I think the important thing to remember with space shooters is that they have absolutely no basis in the real world. If you're playing a space-sim then you're playing science fiction or fantasty, unlike FPSs which (generally) give you some impression of your place in the world and the way that world works.

Space sims have their work cut out for them - as they have to explain why everything is the way it is... from the species and races to the ships, weapons and whatever else they introduce.

 

Offline asyikarea51

  • 210
  • -__-||
Re: The Death of the Space shooter
@ Beanboy

Now THAT... is what I'd like a space battle to be. Just have FS-style beam cannons, and whoop-dee-doo. :(

(edited out my own rant because I don't want to offend anybody.)
Inferno plz
The Power of Nightmares
TheHound: "Nice idea, but I have a thing against announcing campaigns before having them already finished."
G5K: "The flipside of that is that if you don't announce your campaign, yet take too long to finish it, other people may independently come up with some of the same ideas."

 

Offline tifi

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  • GTF Apollo Fan Club
Re: The Death of the Space shooter

Space sims have their work cut out for them - as they have to explain why everything is the way it is... from the species and races to the ships, weapons and whatever else they introduce.

Personally, I've never quite understood this particular reasoning.
If you're given a pretty much blank 'canvas' the only limit should be your imagination, yet people insist on binding themselves with the rules which govern our existance *now*....

Its like the difference between a book and the film of a book.
The film *looks* better but is constrained to the limits of what we are capable of displaying.
The book is theoretically limitless, imagination knows no bounds and has no limits.  :D


 

Offline aldo_14

  • Gunnery Control
  • 213
Re: The Death of the Space shooter

Space sims have their work cut out for them - as they have to explain why everything is the way it is... from the species and races to the ships, weapons and whatever else they introduce.

Personally, I've never quite understood this particular reasoning.
If you're given a pretty much blank 'canvas' the only limit should be your imagination, yet people insist on binding themselves with the rules which govern our existance *now*....

Its like the difference between a book and the film of a book.
The film *looks* better but is constrained to the limits of what we are capable of displaying.
The book is theoretically limitless, imagination knows no bounds and has no limits.  :D



I think books are pretty good examples of "the less you show, the less you need to explain"; as soon as you have something visual on a screen, that becomes the product of someone elses imagination rather than your own; and I think that makes your brain less willing to 'accept' it.

 

Offline Maxwell

  • 25
Re: The Death of the Space shooter
Story wise, space shooters are not any more of a leap in faith than something like, say, doom or unreal.
Halo's story would be ZOMGWTFBBQ~! compared to something as standard as freespace.

What makes this line unpopular is the fact we had  a pile of games dumped on the market that were, in effect, nothing but remakes of wing commander.
One can only scan so many crates before this gets old.

You might be able to sell freespace to a new generation with a graphics update, but if you want the genre to stick around then some serious innovation on the play style will be needed.