The FPS wishlist

K.O.Kiki

With the new year coming soon-ish, I thought it'd be the time to list what should appear in next-gen FPS games to make them more fun. Here goes:

• Melee attacks with guns: Because I don't like switching from my shotgun to my crowbar for opening that bloody crate just to conserve ammo.
• Non-violent takedowns: For all the pacifists out there Besides, who are you to decide if this or that guy deserves death?
• Jumping: Jumping is such a fundamental part of games, it makes no sense to remove it from FPS. What am I, a Dalek??
• Tweak the floaty jumping: What am I, an astronaut??
• My own two feet when I look down: What am I, in a hoverchair? And how am I jumping?
• No need for €400+ videocards/CPU's: It's just too much. Focus on gameplay.
• More vehicles: Because running over enemies can be so much fun. And boarding them is even more so!
• Jack Thompson: Just so I can shoot him in the face/balls. Over and over and over again.:v:
• More games for Mac: I'm getting bored...

Any more?

Stephen

What the hell have you been playing that doesn't let you jump? I can't remember playing any FPS since doom that didn't allow jumping.

Also... Mac? Nice computer but a bit silly if you want to play games.

K.O.Kiki

Stephen wrote:

What the hell have you been playing that doesn't let you jump? I can't remember playing any FPS since doom that didn't allow jumping.

Also... Mac? Nice computer but a bit silly if you want to play games.

Killzone for one.

Also, Mac's are only silly for games because no-one's making games for them! I'm sure a dual-2Ghz PowerMac could keep pace with any PC of similar price.

DonkeyStyle \o/

:A cash system for buying ammo/weapons/upgrades. (ala Kingpin & DeusEx)

:More hitboxes and area damage (ala Soldier Of Fortune (2?))

:Being able to shoot guns out of enemy hands.

:More imaginative weapons. (Hitman had some nice ones, big needle and the choke-wire thing)

:More than one way to complete a task (again DeusEx)

:Being able to shoot out lights for a tactical advantage (or not) (eg. Thief)

:A more interesting plot than "monsters from hell/another dimension have taken over a generic industrial complex... go kill them using this predictable selection of weapons." :rolleyes:

:Bleeding and blood trails.

:Being able to switch between 1st person and 3rd person for some more challenging platforming (like that seen in Tomb Raider... now that was some fun climbing)

No need for €400+ videocards: It's just too much. Focus on gameplay.

Although I'm with you on the rest of your points, I think this one is key... I think it's up to us to stop buying their brain-dead eye-candy rubbish and support games that push the envelope in the areas that matter the most.
I'm still shocked to see how highly people rate Doom3 and Quake4... it's like the world has gone mad... and business being business, they'll keep catering for the more-of-the-same-please market.

Creamy Goodness

My own two feet when I look down: What am I, in a hoverchair? And how am I jumping?

i agree with this totally, but there was game i think i played - can't remember which one at the moment - that had the players feet there.

i agree with donkeystyle his views on doom3 and quake4.

DonkeyStyle \o/

Cremo wrote:

there was game i think i played - can't remember which one at the moment - that had the players feet there.

Think it was FEAR?
Can't remember really, I only played the demo... but I do remember thinking "Are those my feet?"

The Free Man

DonkeyStyle \o/ wrote:

Think it was FEAR?
Can't remember really, I only played the demo... but I do remember thinking "Are those my feet?"

or maybe tresspaser, but i think you only saw her boobs, and her tatooo showed your health!
that was a strange game

Creamy Goodness

DonkeyStyle \o/ wrote:

Think it was FEAR?
Can't remember really, I only played the demo... but I do remember thinking "Are those my feet?"

couldn't be FEAR as i've yet to purchase that as i don't fancy having some melted silicone in my case

orangerooster

As was mentioned the really awful Jurassic Park: Trespasser featured the whole human body, feet included-but that game was beyond bad so it doesnt count. That whoel arm control sytem was funny in a grotesque kind of way though.

BlitzKrieg

Fear does have feet though. The developers made a big deal (i have directors cut with documentary) about making sure the player felt he had a whole body.

hence you can do flying kicks and could see your feet and (most annoying of all) your shoulders knock stuff of shelves if you walk too close to them etc (scares the sh*t out of me when i accidently knock something over without noticing and all i hear is *thud* behind me, followed by me sprawing the entire wall with bullets)

K.O.Kiki

Does this happen all the time, or only when you play at night?

Man, FEAR. I love repeating this: I worked on its localisation! Of course, that also means I played it to death (as in, couldn't take another 5 minutes of it).

ShiverinEskimo

K.O.Kiki wrote:

With the new year coming soon-ish, I thought it'd be the time to list what should appear in next-gen FPS games to make them more fun. Here goes:

* Melee attacks with guns: Because I don't like switching from my shotgun to my crowbar for opening that bloody crate just to conserve ammo.
* Non-violent takedowns: For all the pacifists out there Besides, who are you to decide if this or that guy deserves death?
* Jumping: Jumping is such a fundamental part of games, it makes no sense to remove it from FPS. What am I, a Dalek??
* Tweak the floaty jumping: What am I, an astronaut??
* My own two feet when I look down: What am I, in a hoverchair? And how am I jumping?
* No need for €400+ videocards/CPU's: It's just too much. Focus on gameplay.
* More vehicles: Because running over enemies can be so much fun. And boarding them is even more so!
* Jack Thompson: Just so I can shoot him in the face/balls. Over and over and over again.
* More games for Mac: I'm getting bored...

Any more?

everything you said is in one game or two (bar jack thompson of course) but i guess no one game has them all.

And besides - just use the gravity gun in half life a weapon AND a crate opener in one.

madrab

The Free Man wrote:

or maybe tresspaser, but i think you only saw her boobs, and her tatooo showed your health!
that was a strange game

many a time i check my health over and over and over and.....

December Son

As much as people slag killzone it does have a few nice innovative touches which some games could learn a lesson from:

Looking at your weapon while reloading. Yes, in real life im sure people dont look straight ahead while fumbling for a magazine and slapping it into thier weapon
Sprinting actually looks like sprinting. Nice motion blur effect when youre legging it down the road actually makes it feel like youre moving a tad faster
I CAN FINALLY CLIMB A LADDER. Oh lawdy lawdy down on dat ol swanny rivah, but i can finally see my hands when im climbing a ladder. I sling my weapon, put my hands on the rails, and climb. I dont magically float up it while still carrying a bloody great big gun

Stephen

But why did they prevent you from jumping? Haven't played Killzone myself, but its mental that a modern fps game like that doesn't allow you to jump. Sounds like a cheap and lame way to make it tougher - much like in doom 1 you'd be able to get into lots of the secret areas etc with no effort if only you could jump over that 1 foot step.

Kiith

it was probably alot easier to stop players from jumping. they didnt have to think of players getting around obstacles that way. i actually liked killzone, at least until the swamp level. hated that.

fear has alot of the points from the top of the page, and the way you feel like a fully fleshed person (i.e. knocking stuff off shelves, the cool movement when you go up/down ladders etc...) was great.

December Son

Technically, you can jump. And by jump i mean if you stand in front of a small wall and press X you can vault over it. and again, nice touch, you look down, see your hand going to the wall and jump over. Would be nice to have a proper jump feature but what can you do. TBH i dont mind killzone, i got it for 20 quid in HMV while crimbo shopping, and once you realise that it never was going to be a halo beater, its a fun little game. The weapons are really nice, reload animations are gorgeous, its a nice little distraction from my ever growing love of dod:source

Retr0gamer

Halo 2 allowed you to see your own feet. I think the first game to do it was the criminally underrated Project Eden.

I like the way the reloading animations are done in FEAR when the camera follows the movements of the gun.

projectmayhem

Stephen wrote:

But why did they prevent you from jumping? Haven't played Killzone myself, but its mental that a modern fps game like that doesn't allow you to jump. Sounds like a cheap and lame way to make it tougher - much like in doom 1 you'd be able to get into lots of the secret areas etc with no effort if only you could jump over that 1 foot step.

the idea was to base everything on realism. soldiers don't jump around when someone's shooting them. you can vault over certain objects though

Retr0gamer

Nobody should be playing Killzone in the first place.

No jumping annoys me in FPS games. I like having the freedom and it makes boring treks more fun when you can try to bunny hop and if I die due to it it is always my own fault. No jumping annoys the hell out of me. You say it adds realism but it's less realistic when in Killzone snd it's ilk you can't proceed when there is a 2 foot tree trunk/wreckage/rubble blocking the nonplayable area. Even Goldeneye and Perfect Zero never did this lunacy. It's an excuse for lazy level design.

evad_lhorg

the cover technique in perfect dark zero is great. pity about the game. and there is another fps you cant jump in.

like in call of duty two you se your team mates hiding nicely at a corner but you cant do that you just have to stand there.

i dont mind the sliding up the ladder thing cause we dont need it to be absolutely realistic cause real life is boring.

RobertFoster

Can't you lean like in the original CoD?

Canis Lupus

Retr0gamer wrote:

Halo 2 allowed you to see your own feet. I think the first game to do it was the criminally underrated Project Eden.

Operation Flashpoint is the first game I can remember with the feet and that was cool cos you could switch to 3rd person, in effect you had the whole body and it was out slightly before Eden I think.

Speaking of which Project Eden was shyte

K.O.Kiki

You know a point I totally forgot?

• Jogging along: Woohoo!! Let's have a leisurely 10-minute jog until we get to some action!

ShiverinEskimo

This is a good point - they advertise "vast open landscapes" which normally results in a 10 mile hike to die.

Tails

A button dedicated to s, there a weapon you need very quickly. Usually you lose the moment by the time you have to switch to them.
Halo and opertaion flashpoint did it and it worked very well. very disappointed with modern games not making this the norm.

Ri_Nollaig

there are a good few games that let u c your feet
im waiting for one that will let u shoot yourself in the foot

Rabies

Canis Lupus wrote:

Operation Flashpoint is the first game I can remember with the feet and that was cool cos you could switch to 3rd person, in effect you had the whole body and it was out slightly before Eden I think

The original Duke Nukem FPS had feet

Balfa

You couldn't jump in Operation Flashpoint and I never once missed it. Fantastic game, and I wouldn't really call it an FPS in the traditional sense. More like an infantry simulator, because it was more similar in some ways to military vehichle simulators (there's a speed up time option, etc.). Jumping wouldn't have made any sense at all in that game.

Retr0gamer wrote:

it makes boring treks more fun when you can try to bunny hop .... It's an excuse for lazy level design.

Aren't boring treks a symptom of lazy level design anyway?

Retr0gamer

But every fps seems to have them anyway.

Zillah

Really cool matter physics!

What an odd thing to say. Allow me to explain. I want materials to work like they did in Redfaction.

Essentially, if you shot a rocket at a wall, a chunk of wall the size of the explosion got shattered. I only played the demo but it was SOOO cool.

Imagine a great big wall, like a cliff face. I shot a great big bloody circle of rocket craters into the wall. I repeated this so the circle was two or three craters deep all the way around. Then I started shooting away at the supporting rock behind. In the end I had a big free standing rock held on by a foot wide slab. Then I shot away the slab. The huge rock in the middle fell free, then dropped and cracked in half when it hit the ground.

I was more impressed than with any other feature I have ever seen. Why did every game that followed then ignore this wonderful innovation?

NOTE: On further research it was made by Violition (the people who made the wonderful Freespace) and the technology was called Geo-Mod. Maybe when Violition went bust no one could then buy the technology...?

http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/red-faction/

Retr0gamer

The problem with Geo Mod type technology is that is could end up breaking a game by making some parts impossible. It's also quite processor intensive. Volition are still making games now. I think the best compromise is to use shaders just like the ones used in F.E.A.R.

Zillah

What?! If volition aren't dead then why aren't we getting Freespace 3?

EDIT: And yes, Ill have FEAR soon enough. What do these shaders do?

Zillah

Balfa wrote:

You couldn't jump in Operation Flashpoint

I played the whole game and never noticed that there was no jump...

GrumPy

Zillah wrote:

I played the whole game and never noticed that there was no jump...

you never ONCE hit space bar to try avoid/jump over stuff?! :eek:

Balfa

Irish GrumPy wrote:

you never ONCE hit space bar to try avoid/jump over stuff?! :eek:

It's all hills and buildings, large boulders and trucks. There's nothing to jump over, and if you're trying to avoid gunfire, you generally hit the deck rather than jump

But what a wickedly good game I can't wait for the sequel

Zillah

Exactly. The game was designed so that a jump was redundant. When bullets started flying you hit the ground and crawled.

Retr0gamer

Zillah wrote:

What?! If volition aren't dead then why aren't we getting Freespace 3?

EDIT: And yes, Ill have FEAR soon enough. What do these shaders do?

Makes it look as if a big lump of concrete has been taken out of the wal by your gunfire. They are very effective and look 3D but not perfect yet.

BopNiblets

My own two feet when I look down: What am I, in a hoverchair? And how am I jumping?

YES! I'm not the only one. You see your arms holding guns dammit, what are you, a neck shoulders and arms helicopter head?

Also, say for example in HL2, you get totally whomped by an Antlion Guard (d'big fellas), shouldn't you fall over instead of stumbling backwards quickly and remaining perfectly upright?!
The screen should go at 90 degrees or show only the sky (indicating you are lying on your side, or back, OWNZORED on the ground), and if you're not dead, you should see yourself slowly pick yourself up and maybe shake your head to get back into the game.
The A.I. might have to lay off you while you do this, otherwise you'd have the equivalent of 1 hitpoint, but I think it would be a nifty feature!

DonkeyStyle \o/ wrote:

:Bleeding and blood trails.

I think this was done in a slasher game called Severance: Blade of Darkness, I saw a screenshot in PCZ of decent looking blood drippping down steps of a stairs.
Found another one on the net: http://www.eurogamer.net/assets/converted/pics/previews/severance/ss_preview_02b.jpg

Ri_Nollaig

Retr0gamer wrote:

It's also quite processor intensive.

this is where the new PPU cards came in, if they ever get released

Zillah

Retr0gamer wrote:

Makes it look as if a big lump of concrete has been taken out of the wal by your gunfire. They are very effective and look 3D but not perfect yet.

But its just an illusion, yes? If I keep shooting they'll just overlap each other and not actually alter the shape?

I think this was done in a slasher game called Severance: Blade of Darkness, I saw a screenshot in PCZ of decent looking blood drippping down steps of a stairs.

Severance is getting old, and even still it has the best lighting I've ever seen in a game. It does blood splashes, and corspe blood pooling I think, but it doesn't do trails or bleeding. Great game. Moronic story, but fun gameplay.

senordingdong

The godamn Stargate game...that's all I want.

OptimusMime

Zillah wrote:

Really cool matter physics!

What an odd thing to say. Allow me to explain. I want materials to work like they did in Redfaction.

Essentially, if you shot a rocket at a wall, a chunk of wall the size of the explosion got shattered. I only played the demo but it was SOOO cool.

Imagine a great big wall, like a cliff face. I shot a great big bloody circle of rocket craters into the wall. I repeated this so the circle was two or three craters deep all the way around. Then I started shooting away at the supporting rock behind. In the end I had a big free standing rock held on by a foot wide slab. Then I shot away the slab. The huge rock in the middle fell free, then dropped and cracked in half when it hit the ground.

I was more impressed than with any other feature I have ever seen. Why did every game that followed then ignore this wonderful innovation?

NOTE: On further research it was made by Violition (the people who made the wonderful Freespace) and the technology was called Geo-Mod. Maybe when Violition went bust no one could then buy the technology...?

http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/red-faction/

You are almost describing what I have heard about the forthcoming EA game, BLACK, made by the Burnout guys.

Comments I've heard from people who played the dev demo's at trade shows range from 'Amazing' at worst to 'the best game ever made, it's just so much fun'

'tis a FPS with fully destructable eviro's, brilliant gun animations and other excellentness. Should be good.

projectmayhem

yeah black is the new red [faction]. (sorry, awful joke).

they made the gun the star of the show. apparently it's amazingly satisfying to shoot a wall, or some random enemy npc scum (who don't bleed btw - thanks to EA trying to get into as many markets as possible)

Zillah

No blood=lower rating?

So a game that shows that violence is fun and has no consequences is rating 12+ but a game that shows real and terrifying results of violence is 18+...