[Nuke]

sometimes you just want to kill stuff without all the bull****. descent was the same way, you just want to load a level and blow **** up. its an aspect of gaming i actually miss. story based play kinda slows up the action considerably. so you end up with a stark contrast between action fps and fps as a storytelling medium. doom 3 had that slowed down by the plot feel, which is why i really liked the doom 3 classic mod. not that there isnt room for the story based fpses in my collection.

i do notice a trend with shooters though, is that the ones that revolve around the story only get played through once or twice and then get shelved, but i still load up quake every now and again and play a few levels. the reason for this is once you know the outcome of the story, then playing the game for the story isnt really worth it anymore. because the game was meant to tell the story, it easily gets trumped by the action oriented games when im looking for a short fps break.

[newman]

Comparing the original Doom, a game that came out in 1993, with any modern FPS is complete and utter nonsense no matter how you spin it. Whether or not it was a good game in the context of the time period it was released in is something potentially worth discussing; bringing in comparisons with anything modern is not. It's a bit like saying "lol I know you like the P-47D but the F-15E Strike Eagle is a much better plane". There's just too much of a technological leap between the two for any meaningful comparisons to be made.

[NGTM-1R]

The technological leap is kinda a meaningful comparison in itself y'know.

[newman]

Not for comparing stuff on the same footing. You need to take into account the context of the time period something was made in. You can say that Modern Warfare 3 is a better game than Doom 1, but the comparison is ridiculous. Of course it is - but did MW3 mean the same thing to the industry as Doom 1 did when it first came out? Arguing for the sake of arguing is kind of meaningless.

[Luis Dias]

Come on newman, you are eggregiously missing the point. It's not about "comparing" games, it's about pointing out where current games are going into. You have to compare the experiences like that to see if we are losing important traits in the games or not. I find the videos quite good in exposing current ridiculous tropes in fpshooters that frankly, kinda have made me go look elsewhere for entertainment.

[Aesaar]

newman: It is a silly comparison, I agree.  That works both ways.  One can't say MW3/Halo 4/whatever are better than Doom any more than one can say they're worse, which this video essentially does.  Doom was definitely a landmark game, and it was a good game at the time, but modern shooters, even ones like MW3, offer more complex gameplay than Doom does.  Which is natural, since they take advantage of technologies that didn't exist then.  I don't contest that Doom is a more important game, but it's certainly not better.  Our expectations have just gone up.

Interesting question: how far apart do two games need to be for a comparison to be meaningless?  Crysis 2 and Half-Life 2 are ~7 years apart, and I don't think anyone finds a comparison of those two silly (except for graphics).  Hell, Ep.2 (which doesn't change HL2's gameplay significantly) and Crysis 2 are only 4 years apart. 

Half-Life 1 and Doom are ~5 years apart.  Halo 1 and Doom are 8 years apart.  Are either of those silly comparisons?

Luis Dias: That isn't where modern games are going, it's where the modern combat FPS have already gone.  Most of the gameplay conventions that video makes fun of (apart from regenerating health) aren't present in Crysis, for instance.  Not many are in Halo 4 either.  The description says it's a comment on the games industry, but it isn't.  It's a comment on the ever popular CoD franchise.  That video isn't "if Doom was made today", it's "if Doom was made by Infinity Ward or Dice". 

Apart from the things that don't really age (like story), I'd say game are only getting better.  We just need a new console generation so big developers have new technology to take advantage of.

[Luis Dias]

Yeah well I'm a curmudgeon and you are wrong just because. And this is undeniable, so QED.

[Polpolion]

sometimes you just want to kill stuff without all the bull****. descent was the same way, you just want to load a level and blow **** up. its an aspect of gaming i actually miss. story based play kinda slows up the action considerably. so you end up with a stark contrast between action fps and fps as a storytelling medium. doom 3 had that slowed down by the plot feel, which is why i really liked the doom 3 classic mod. not that there isnt room for the story based fpses in my collection.

i do notice a trend with shooters though, is that the ones that revolve around the story only get played through once or twice and then get shelved, but i still load up quake every now and again and play a few levels. the reason for this is once you know the outcome of the story, then playing the game for the story isnt really worth it anymore. because the game was meant to tell the story, it easily gets trumped by the action oriented games when im looking for a short fps break.

Doom 3 wasn't really a doom game imho. I can't really think of any modern analogue for the actual doom trilogy, but if I had to guess it would be Serious Sam that comes the closest, and even that is years old already.

Also I'm just curious, what do you guys feel are the top 3 most important non-trivial features of an FPS that have been seen since Doom? Since Half-Life? Since CODMW? Since ever?

e:

[Luis Dias]

It's first perspective, it's personal and it is about shooting. Dat seems obvious... derp

[NGTM-1R]

Also I'm just curious, what do you guys feel are the top 3 most important non-trivial features of an FPS that have been seen since Doom? Since Half-Life? Since CODMW? Since ever?

Effective hitboxing, predictable gun behavior, and logical camera placement.

I mention the third because a surprising number of first-person games down the years have not actually placed the player's eyepoint in the head. Back in the Doom and Duke3D days it was actually pretty commonly somewhere in their chest, and that still crops up on occasion. I've also run across a few where they're actually third-person shooters because if you test it enough, you realize the camera is just a little over their head.

In this respect 3D rather than sprites and the resulting complexity of player-not-see-selfing has been something of a blessing.

[headdie]

Also I'm just curious, what do you guys feel are the top 3 most important non-trivial features of an FPS that have been seen since Doom? Since Half-Life? Since CODMW? Since ever?

1) mix of standard and interesting weapons
2) minimum of mid mission cutscenes/QTEs to tell the story
3) multiple approaches to each situation

and if I was to go on
4) good hit registration
5) varied multiplayer including a co-op of the main story
6) lots to shoot
7) atmospheric environment

edit
reworded point 2

[Flipside]

The core of FPS is multiplayer, the genre would never have survived as long as it has without strong multiplay support. The difference with games like 'Doom' over more modern games is that it was written first a single player game, with multiplay added later, whereas I always got the feeling that many modern FPS games place multiplay first and a campaign as a concession to single-player fans.

There are some exceptions to the rule, Crysis was more a single-player game in my experience, the Half-Life series is interesting as in it straddles the fence, the main game was really single-player oriented, but the engine spawned one of the most successful multiplayer games of all time.

I think it would be interesting to research what games people play multiplayer compared to single-player, I think the mistake that a number of companies make is assuming that these are the same types of games.

[Nuke]

Comparing the original Doom, a game that came out in 1993, with any modern FPS is complete and utter nonsense no matter how you spin it. Whether or not it was a good game in the context of the time period it was released in is something potentially worth discussing; bringing in comparisons with anything modern is not. It's a bit like saying "lol I know you like the P-47D but the F-15E Strike Eagle is a much better plane". There's just too much of a technological leap between the two for any meaningful comparisons to be made.

you completely missed the point. i was compairing story driven shooters with action shooters. not modern shooters with old skool shooters. thats why i brought up the doom 3 classic mod. its essentially the first episode of doom one done in the idtech4 engine. id say that non-multiplier action shooters are getting rarer than space sims (hince why the example was a mod and not an actual game).

[Aesaar]

Nuke: Crysis and Crysis Warhead reached an interesting balance there.  The story was decent, but the real meat of the game was in how you actually got to your objective.  Whenever I play through the first five or six levels of the original Crysis, I still find things I missed the previous times I played.

Crysis 2 was much more story driven, which obviously made the story quite a bit better, but it lost out on what made the gameplay of the original game really special, so it has a lot less replay value.

[Nuke]

sometimes you just want to kill stuff without all the bull****. descent was the same way, you just want to load a level and blow **** up. its an aspect of gaming i actually miss. story based play kinda slows up the action considerably. so you end up with a stark contrast between action fps and fps as a storytelling medium. doom 3 had that slowed down by the plot feel, which is why i really liked the doom 3 classic mod. not that there isnt room for the story based fpses in my collection.

i do notice a trend with shooters though, is that the ones that revolve around the story only get played through once or twice and then get shelved, but i still load up quake every now and again and play a few levels. the reason for this is once you know the outcome of the story, then playing the game for the story isnt really worth it anymore. because the game was meant to tell the story, it easily gets trumped by the action oriented games when im looking for a short fps break.

Doom 3 wasn't really a doom game imho. I can't really think of any modern analogue for the actual doom trilogy, but if I had to guess it would be Serious Sam that comes the closest, and even that is years old already.

Also I'm just curious, what do you guys feel are the top 3 most important non-trivial features of an FPS that have been seen since Doom? Since Half-Life? Since CODMW? Since ever?

e:

i did not say doom 3, i said doom 3 classic, which is a mod for doom 3. its completely different. meh i already explained it. it was a badass mod. i had a bloodgasm.

i cant really say any feature or even name any landmark games aside from the obvious, but i can tell you what i liked and dont like.

i dont really like tactical shooters, not at all. i cant name one i enjoyed playing. story driven shooters have very little replay value. i rather liked prey, for its gravity isnt always down paradigm, it actually in a way reminded me of descent in a way (and portals). really pushed the tech for shooters in a new and interesting direction. so i didnt really like it because it was story driven, but for its gameplay aspects.

also i quickly grew bored with multiplayer areana games, i mean its good to have one or two in your collection for when youre in the mood. i still play q3a from time to time, but i dont get excited when a new unreal comes out anymore. what i do like is sandbox fpses. i liked farcry 2 and crysis. farcry 2 got a lot of flak, but i enjoyed the game a lot. im not sure what the first in this genre is (i want to say far cry), but id probibly like it if i played it.

then there were the doom alikes, the first quake. the second quake started going into mission based play and away from action play, but it still counts to a degree. from their id mostly did arena games and story driven shooters. ocasionally you find a mod like doom 3 classic that reminds me how awesome some basic gameplay can be. its the same thing i like about 6dof action shooters. lot of easy to kill enemies, and its all about clearing the map, no bs.

[Nuke]

The core of FPS is multiplayer, the genre would never have survived as long as it has without strong multiplay support. The difference with games like 'Doom' over more modern games is that it was written first a single player game, with multiplay added later, whereas I always got the feeling that many modern FPS games place multiplay first and a campaign as a concession to single-player fans.

There are some exceptions to the rule, Crysis was more a single-player game in my experience, the Half-Life series is interesting as in it straddles the fence, the main game was really single-player oriented, but the engine spawned one of the most successful multiplayer games of all time.

I think it would be interesting to research what games people play multiplayer compared to single-player, I think the mistake that a number of companies make is assuming that these are the same types of games.

i kinda disagree about multiplayer. i mean there are still people out there who make and play doom maps. and sometimes im like, i feel like a game of doom, clear 3 maps and i put it away for another year.

before q3a came out fps games had everything. good multi, good sp. look at how badass quake2's game modes were. you could do sp, coop, dm, ctf, whatever. after q3a/ut came out games were either made for multiplayer or singleplayer exclusively. sp games went story driven (and eventually sandbox) and mp games went for multi arena and class based team play multi. so the fps genre has a been fractured into a ****ton of subgenres.

[Scotty]

2) minimum of mid mission cutscenes/QTEs to tell the story

Gonna have to jump in here and say that QTEs are not inherently bad things, there are just ways to do it that don't suck and ways to do it that suck.

Resident Evil 6 does it in such a way that it sucks.  The Force Unleashed did it in such a way that it sucked.  Halo 4 does it in such a way that it didn't suck.  Silent Threat: Reborn did it in such a way that it didn't suck.  Modern Warfare 2, for all its other faults, had good QTEs.

Granted, the latter three had significantly fewer QTEs present, but I tend to think that even if RE6 and TFU had less, they'd still be badly placed and annoying.  It's all about where they are and what they do, not necessarily that they're there.

[newman]

you completely missed the point. i was compairing story driven shooters with action shooters. not modern shooters with old skool shooters. thats why i brought up the doom 3 classic mod. its essentially the first episode of doom one done in the idtech4 engine. id say that non-multiplier action shooters are getting rarer than space sims (hince why the example was a mod and not an actual game).

I wasn't replying to your comment at all, so there's point missing across the board here

[Nuke]

and that is why there is a quote button

[newman]

and that is why there is a quote button

True. I deeply apologize for this unforgivable transgression.