Anime The mistake a lot of modern boomer shooters make

[Hell Swarm]

Is there a generic boomer shooter thread?

Other wise, this just came out and reminds me a lot of unreal in it's art design.

 

[Harthwain]

I like the helmet-like UI. It's a shame more modern first-person games don't use it.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

I'd point to things like System Shock

System Shock never attempted to be just an FPS, though. That's kind of like comparing Heretic and Ultima Underworld and saying they're both first person shooters.

The mistake a lot of boomer shooters make .... is being made.

I disagree. I'd much rather play a modern boomer shooter or the original Doom than the post-Counter Strike popularly era of shooters like Battlefield and Call of Duty. In fact, I pretty much quit playing first person shooters during that time. Dear lord, that was a dark period for gaming.

 

[Lemming42]

System Shock never attempted to be just an FPS, though.

But that's the point - 90s devs were seeing how the FPS formula could be expanded on, especially in the realm of storytelling (or "phenomenological possibilities", to quote Gabe Newell) while many throwback shooters seem to want to do the opposite and reduce it down to something even more basic than Doom. It took less than a year to go from Doom to System Shock.

Even if you don't class SS as an FPS - which I'd disagree with, it is an FPS, in the same way Deus Ex is - you can trace the lineage of games that clearly use Doom as a direct inspiration, and see a lot of experimentation and innovation going on, especially when it comes to storytelling or creating the experience of occupying a coherent virtual world. Marathon, Dark Forces, Descent, Hexen, CyberMage, Strife, PowerSlave, etc. Even fucking William Shatner's TekWar, the worst game ever and a total cash-in by the hacks at Capstone, was interested in experimenting with things such as a running subway system, non-lethal weapons, and a morality tracker (where FMV Shatner yells at you for shooting civilians).

Though I've somehow drifted into talking about mechanics when I'm meant to be talking about story/setting/art direction. Whatever, same thing, you can see how all the games I just listed were interested in those things too. Pretty much as soon as the FPS genre was born, LucasArts tried to make a Star Wars movie in it, Bungie tried to shove a weird cerebral sci-fi novel into it, and Raven tried to make a dark fantasy dungeon crawler.

 

[Lyric Suite]

As someone who was actually there when this stuff was new i can tell you there was very much an expectation the genre was going to evolve in terms of realism and interactivity from the get go. I remember some of my friends were actually greatly disappointed by Quake which was a step back from Duke3D in that reguard.

We had no conception of what today we would call a classic shooter back then, it's just something we all become aware of after the fact, once we started looking back and begun to recognize some of the elements that made those older shooters what they were.

And i agree with the above that we all saw those games, from Doom to Descent to System Shock as being all part of the same "genre", so to speak. It's not that we were blind to their differences we just assumed each of those games were all exploring various possibilities within the same form (some of us of course were ignorant of games like Ultima Underworld but that's par per course. Doom was the hot thing and it was through Doom that we saw everything else).

Even stuff like Hexen introducing various artifacts and interactive objects to replace the old colored key scheme of Doom. For us that was an "evolution" of the formula. The fact right now a modern boomer has to stick to red/blue/yellow keys because "that's the genre" is not really how we experienced those things back then. There was no such "genre". Many games initially imitated Doom because it was popular but that was about it.

 

[Lyric Suite]

I disagree. I'd much rather play a modern boomer shooter or the original Doom than the post-Counter Strike popularly era of shooters like Battlefield and Call of Duty. In fact, I pretty much quit playing first person shooters during that time. Dear lord, that was a dark period for gaming.

I remember the first time i tried to play one of those lmao. I think it was Battlefield 4 something like that. Even to this day i still can't wrap my head around how bad that shit was, in every sense. Even the visuals were shit. The post-processing effects were all over the place and during firefights you couldn't actually see shit EVERYTHING was just wrong.

That experience is probably what warmed up to try nu-Doom. No matter how shit you think Doom 2016 and Doom Eternal were, nothing compares to that.

 

[Hell Swarm]

And i agree with the above that we all saw those games, from Doom to Descent to System Shock as being all part of the same "genre", so to speak. It's not that we were blind to their differences we just assumed each of those games were all exploring various possibilities within the same form.

Maybe it's my age back then but I would say genre is even a strong word for it. Games were just games. We didn't break it down by specific type like we do together. "Action" would have been the closest to genre you would see discussed and "Arcade" "sports" "racing" and "puzzle" were more broad strokes. Doom would have been labeled a shoot 'em up right next to Sunset riders and Operation wolf.

 

[Lyric Suite]

I think the only common aspect we saw in all those games was the first person view. That was what tied all of them into one group. Other then that, there was nothing specific.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Even if you don't class SS as an FPS - which I'd disagree with, it is an FPS, in the same way Deus Ex is

Deus Ex is also not a first person shooter, just like Ultima Underworld isn't. Strife isn't one either. Nor is Arena or Daggerfall. Just because it's in first person and you can fire a projectile, doesn't make it a first person shooter.

especially when it comes to storytelling or creating the experience of occupying a coherent virtual world. Descent

Descent is right up there with Doom. It most certainly didn't have a coherent virtual world or even a meaningful story beyond explaining what you're doing in the level, and that's explained exactly once in Descent and Descent 2. Descent 3 is a lot different, but we're talking about something made after Half-Life and Unreal which pushed making the story more important. Also, fuck the subway level in Descent 3.

It took less than a year to go from Doom to System Shock.

A more accurate assessment is that it took two years to go from Ultima Underworld to System Shock. Both titles even shared developers.

That experience is probably what warmed up to try nu-Doom. No matter how shit you think Doom 2016 and Doom Eternal were, nothing compares to that.

Doom 2016 and Doom Eternal entered my "shit list" when they didn't have co-op, which is what me and my friends all loved about the original Doom games back in the early 1990s. For me, a good "boomer shooter" needs co-op if it has multiplayer.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Never actually played in co-op for my entire life lmao never particularly cared for that. I like to play games on my own pace.

 

[Lemming42]

Just because it's in first person and you can fire a projectile, doesn't make it a first person shooter.

I'm not sure what criteria you could come up with that includes Doom, Unreal and Half-Life, but manages to exclude System Shock, Strife and Deus Ex. That's before we even get into the 2000s when things like dialogue options, non-linear maps, and character skill upgrades started to become more commonplace in FPS games.

 

[Gerrard]

The mistake a lot of boomer shooters make .... is being made.

Just like your posts.

 

[Hell Swarm]

Just because it's in first person and you can fire a projectile, doesn't make it a first person shooter.

That's literally all the genre means. Minecraft is a FPS game too.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

That's literally all the genre means. Minecraft is a FPS game too.

No, it's not. A first person shooter means that's the focus of the game, not that the game has that as an aspect. By your definition, a flight sim is a first person shooter. This is on par with saying Super Mario Brothers is an RPG because you're playing the role of Mario.

 

[Lemming42]

First person shooting is the focus of System Shock and Strife, though. I've never seen people argue Strife isn't an FPS before.

There's a ton of FPS games in which the player will probably spend more time sneaking, exploring or interacting with NPCs than shooting - Metro, Postal 2, most Far Cry games, STALKER. Wikipedia even considers the likes of Dishonored, Deus Ex, Mirror's Edge, and Fallout 3/NV to be FPS games too, all of which arguably don't make shooting the focus (as all can be completed without firing a shot, bar one BB round in Fo3).

 

[Hell Swarm]

y your definition, a flight sim is a first person shooter.

Not all planes have guns so no, not really.

FPS is so easy to understand. It's a first person camera with a projectile weapon. It's not the only aspect of those games but it is an aspect none the less. If you want to play Minecraft as an FPS there is literally nothing stopping you. Make a bow and go shoot things.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

The mistake a lot of boomer shooters make .... is being made.

I disagree. I'd much rather play a modern boomer shooter or the original Doom than the post-Counter Strike popularly era of shooters like Battlefield and Call of Duty. In fact, I pretty much quit playing first person shooters during that time. Dear lord, that was a dark period for gaming.

I am not a fan of competitive multiplayer shooters or on-rails cinematic shooters either, but after the original boomer shooters, FPS games introduced a lot of good features, like iron sights, realistic damage models, crouching/going prone, using stealth and cover, having interesting stories on par with RPGs, etc. Those are GOOD things. And they led to excellent later era shooters like Operation Flashpoint, Half Life 1/2, Far Cry 1, Stalker games, Metro Exodus. To me, those are a lot more fun than Doom-type stuff.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

It's a first person camera with a projectile weapon.

So, Wizardry is a first person shooter?

Not all planes have guns so no, not really.

The ones in the games made by everyone except MicroSoft do.

If you want to play Minecraft as an FPS there is literally nothing stopping you. Make a bow and go shoot things.

So, if you play Doom II, grab the chainsaw at the beginning and only use that, it's no longer a first person shooter?

 

[NecroLord]

So, if you play Doom II, grab the chainsaw at the beginning and only use that

Berserk Pack.

 

[Morpheus Kitami]

I feel like arguing that FPS didn't try to have stories back then is ignoring that a lot of the games did, and it's only because the games without important stories were easier to make source ports for and mod that we think the opposite. You have to put in effort to make a story, rather than a bunch of disconnected maps. I've played a lot of old FPS, and half the time they're definitely trying to make more of a story than just an end of episode text scroll.

That said, I'm curious about how some of you are getting to these definitions of FPS. The genre gets dicey when you think about it, after all, why should Descent count as a FPS when say, Red Baron doesn't? By that logic, shouldn't, say, Operation Flashpoint and Delta Force not count? Or does it only apply to planes? Is something similar true of a game where you play as a tank or a mech? Or Strife, which is basically just Doom with a strong story and a very thin veneer of RPG added on top, not really sure why that one wouldn't be a FPS.

 

[Lemming42]

With Descent I think the ambiguity literally does just come down to the fact that you're supposed to be piloting a vehicle, which makes people's minds go to flight-sims. If it looked and played exactly the same, but the game told you that you were some person with a jetpack rather than a ship pilot and the HUD graphics were changed, its FPS status wouldn't be in question. Though I guess the same is true of Red Baron.

I'm still straining to think of any definition of FPS that manages to leave Strife, System Shock, and Deus Ex out (not to mention other deviations from the broadly-defined norm, like Rainbow Six and Wheel of Time), while not simultaneously excluding Metro or the later Far Cry games. There's been a few throwback shooters with NPCs and dialogue too - Beyond Sunset, Fortune's Run, the upcoming Core Decay - so the criteria would have to exclude them too even though they're very clearly FPS games and style themselves as such.

 

[Ash]

You have to put in effort to make a story, rather than a bunch of disconnected maps.

No you do not. You just need a baseline premise to establish motive, theme and tone, that's it. Just like Doom and most of the classics. Almost every single FPS with a story notably more involved than that is utter shit.

Unreal, Half-Life, Stalker, Ashes Afterglow, maybe RTCW are notable games that tried, and even then these games are rather reserved on story content - gameplay (and everything else) remains the focus. Otherwise it's all shit once FPS started vying for story.

With Descent I think the ambiguity literally does just come down to the fact that you're supposed to be piloting a vehicle, which makes people's minds go to flight-sims. If it looked and played exactly the same, but the game told you that you were some person with a jetpack rather than a ship pilot and the HUD graphics were changed, its FPS status wouldn't be in question. Though I guess the same is true of Red Baron.

It's pretty sad 6dof as well as mech shooters (that are sometimes straight FPS) are left out from the hive mind consensus. Fact of the matter is though a lot of people have not played them, and they're also not made anymore outside of indie. In particular they are very hardcore navigationally and this for sure filters a lot of people. That's why big studios dont make them.
Yes, in a lot of cases they definitely fall under the FPS umbrella, even if they play a bit differently as in Descent-like's case.

 

[Hell Swarm]

So, if you play Doom II, grab the chainsaw at the beginning and only use that, it's no longer a first person shooter?

Choosing not to use a weapon doesn't remove it from the game. So yes it's still a first person shooter. You're choosing to ignore the shooting elements but it still passes both requirements.

Does it have a first person camera for gameplay? Yes.
Does it have projectile weapons? Yes

First person shooter confirmed.

 

[Ash]

It's not even possible to play the game using the chainsaw only, I'm quite sure. The icon of sin in particular needs a ranged weapon. Maybe if you put it on easy and abuse glitches.

 

[Lagole Gon]

Good OP.

Funny how just a little bit of story context can change the experience.
Rayman Origins barely has any story to it, but it's just enough to make you feel like you're on adventure with a goal. And it works.
Rayman Legends has disjointed arcade style and it really made the overall experience much worse. It's weird how much it bothered me.