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Decline popamole

sullynathan

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I was thinking about this, but this word comes form Gears of war. I'm wondering what the codex's opinion on Gears of war really is. I know that the codex dislikes cover shooting but I'm not seeing what's inherently wrong with it, especially in the manner than GOW did it.

Cover shooting aside, what is the problem with gears of war. It had a good amount of enemy variety, fairly powerful weapons and highly responsive combat with very well working mechanics. Would the codex like it more if it just had an overhaul of level design?
 

Carrion

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Cover shooting is something you stick into your game when you want to have some gameplay to go along with your interactive movie. It doesn't matter whether you're making an epic space RPG, an open-world sandbox where you cause havoc in the streets of a modern metropolis, a deeply personal story in a post-apocalyptic world, or a light-hearted adventure in the vein of Indiana Jones, because you can always turn your game into a Cover Shooter™ if you're short on ideas on how to fill up all that time between cutscenes. All of these games play the same, and if you're used to playing shooters with keyboard and mouse, there's nothing less interesting than a combat system that mostly has you sitting behind a box and using two keys to slowly pop braindead moles over and over and over again. If you die, chances are that it's not because you weren't good enough but because you simply lacked the patience to wait for your health to regenerate before proceeding to shoot some more stuff.

Gears of War, though, really seems like the most boring game ever. Not only is it brown and grey and apparently filled with dudebro soldier guys, it's also a game where the cover shooting seems to be the main draw. Sounds about as good an idea as a linear hack and slash game that uses Arcanum's combat system.
 

Durandal

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New Eden
My team has the sexiest and deadliest waifus you can recruit.
I've only played Gears of War 2, but it fucking dried up my eyes in the process of trying to discern anything from the gray and brown blob on the screen, it literally hurts for me to look at Gears of War 2
It's the only console game I've ever played where I had that issue. For example, Vanquish is bright and colorful as hell and my eyes were fine when playing that.

It's been a long time since I played it so I don't really remember much else about it
 

warpig

Incel Resistance Leader
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lmaoing @ your life
GoW is boring af. Imo cover based shooting on it's own doesn't have to be bad but combined with streamlined, linear level design, script spawned enemies, health regeneration and bland aesthetics you get a yawn inducing borefest. Even the story "movie" aspect sucked balls here.
 

Baron Dupek

Arcane
Joined
Jul 23, 2013
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1,870,765
Played GoW 1 and 2, beside one hard point in first one and 2 hard points in sequel it was p. fukin easy. And that was the time when I was learning how to aim on pads. I stopped these lessons when finally tried playing FPS on pad. Still got ptsd on mere though of these 2 minutes...

Does it mean it's good? Hell naw.
Oh and there GoW1 on PC but doesn't work anymore (that patch do shit).

Overall - it was grotesque testosterone fueled trash for burgerfeeders.
 

Cadmus

Arcane
Joined
Dec 28, 2013
Messages
4,264
The characters were kinda funny, the game is boring as fucking shit. There's nothing to do at all, corridor, wall, popamole, corridor, wall, popamole, funny movie.
It's all grey and hard to see.
 

Freddie

Savant
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Mansion
Tried GoW like 20 minutes and just couldn't go on. It was just too boring and ridiculous in wrong way.
 

Hoplopfheil

Literate
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Deimos
My grievance is more shallow than all that.

Characters in Unreal Engine 3 tend to have big chunky elephant feet. It looks fucking stupid.
 

KILLER BEAR

Educated
Joined
Sep 2, 2016
Messages
133
^Yeah, what's up with that? I wonder if it has something to do with the engine or it's just bad 3d modeling.
 

KILLER BEAR

Educated
Joined
Sep 2, 2016
Messages
133
^Indeed, but besides that don't you think that the characters' faces look a bit off? And that's also present in other UE3 games as well.
 

Ash

Arcane
Joined
Oct 16, 2015
Messages
6,232
I was thinking about this, but this word comes form Gears of war. I'm wondering what the codex's opinion on Gears of war really is. I know that the codex dislikes cover shooting but I'm not seeing what's inherently wrong with it, especially in the manner than GOW did it.

Cover shooting aside, what is the problem with gears of war. It had a good amount of enemy variety, fairly powerful weapons and highly responsive combat with very well working mechanics. Would the codex like it more if it just had an overhaul of level design?

A level design overhaul would indeed be a good start. Quality and complexity of level design and the events that occur within makes or breaks a game arguably most of all. But it's so much more than that. The game has little merit, not in gameplay, art direction, story, audio you name it. There's a little subjectivity involved, but if it is your opinion that the game is a worthwhile addition to a gamer's collection it's simply best to assume your standards are extremely low or you just don't have a point of reference (such as older, not so retarded games) to know things were once a lot better.

I have been playing PC and console shooters (and games in general) obsessively from the early 90s to date, and when Gears of War came onto the market it blew my mind. How did this game become popular (marketing primarily), I'd ask myself. It objectively has far less content on offer than your average shooter. It did absolutely nothing new mechanically, And what it did do was brainless, repetitive and uninteresting. Thus became the norm of popular games having little to no merit yet dominating the sales charts, all because of marketing. Make it overly simple, easy to develop (relatively) and play (objectively), and invest the rest of the budget into marketing and all that entails. It's not a coincidence that GoW coincided with the birth of the decline era and consistently successful popamole, an era of games perceived to have begun in the mid '00s. Everything associated with Microsoft and their Xbox 360 division was pure shit in that time especially. The original Xbox was not nearly as decline-festering, though it still was somewhat thanks to Halo.

Unreal Tournament wasn't exactly god's gift to gaming either don't get me wrong, but it had things going for it: combat considerably more complex (though still somewhat simple), a kickass soundtrack, actual level design, interesting game elements (e.g Low gravity levels). Overall I'm not a fan despite the fact, but I don't despise it as I do Gears and I'd call it a worthwhile game, even though I don't particularly like it. Even Halo is less of a shitshow and has more going for it. Heck, Arcade lightgun games typically have more going for them than GoW (i.e unique form of control). Those you'd spend your spare change on and shortly be bored and longing to go home and play a REAL game. I played at arcades on rare occasion in the late 90s and that was pretty much my experience. Those games, while fine in short bursts, had nothing on what personal computers and home consoles were delivering in the late 90s/early 2000s. That's what Gears of War is except it has absolutely nothing stand-out going for it and was sold at full fucking price, and was a huge hit.

TL;DR: Gears of War is an coin arcade lightgun game without the lightgun sold at full price, and showed devs/pubs that they no longer needed to try to make good games, just focus on marketing to rake in the $$$$ jackpot. Or rather it solidified that idea with concrete proof and made it the definitive standard, as extremely high stakes were now involved as the industry grew larger and more expensive than Hollywood/film.

Duck Hunt + lightgun was a novel thing at the time, and gameplay in the 1980s typically was rather simple on average barring cRPGs, so it gets a free pass...plus it actually came with a light gun.

 
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sullynathan

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Gears did not invent cover shooting but it did it better than the only other cover shooter that preceded it that I played which was psy ops.

What content was gears lacking? It had single player and multiplayer thar could both be played in split screen Co op and the sequels introduced a horde mode. I do think the competitive multiplayer was garbage but I barely played it.
I guess the only new mechanic gears had was active reload and a chainsaw gun.

Looking back, the main praise I read and saw about gears was the addicting and visceral combat and multiplayer.
 

Ash

Arcane
Joined
Oct 16, 2015
Messages
6,232
addicting and visceral combat.

:hmmm:

I guess the only new mechanic gears had was active reload and a chainsaw gun.

I'm sure I played a game with an active reload type concept before. Possibly tapping reload faster to load shotgun shells faster, although I can't remember any particular game so ignore.

What content was gears lacking?

Anything but on-rails shooting? Shooters used to be a blend of various styles and had a fair bit of depth often overlooked by the uninitiated. See Duke Nukem 3D: platforming, puzzles, exploration, ammo/health/inventory conservation, interaction with the environment, level design that offered some degree of freedom and in itself was a game to be beaten (environmental hazards, traps, crafty enemy placement, navigation/orienteering etc). That in addition to just as much shooting as Gears across the course of the campaign, and it was longer in game time. Hell you'd even find a jetpack on some levels and could fly around for a short period of time, making some obstacles easier if you used it wisely, or flying up to a vantage point to escape a horde of enemies or do some sniping.
Shooters being way more than just shooting was standard design once upon a time, on both PC and consoles, third person and first. Things changed around the early 2000s, but even plenty TPS and FPS of that era still had a lot to offer in comparison to the next era of bland brainless simplicity spearheaded by Gears and the like.
Even Half-Life, a game said by some to be early railroading and decline, still was about platforming, puzzles, navigation of the environment, strategic freedom (do I run behind cover? Jump to a vantage point? Pull out my rocket launcher and potentially waste its limited ammo? etc) and so on just as much as it was shooting shit.

I still enjoy linear tightly controlled simplistic games, such as racing games or 2D platformers, but GoW isn't even a good simple game. It's just rubbish.

More things to criticize about GoW: bland monotonous art style, cover shooting reducing depth and skill level involved in shooting, instantaneous regen health removing tension, strategy and difficulty (although regen health is somewhat suitable for multiplayer, imo), the game was generally easy...there's absolutely nothing I have to praise about its game design as an entry to the shooter genres. It beggars belief that the incredible accomplishments of EPIC's engine programmers was wasted on such shit receding game design.
Before cover shooters the player would walk up to cover and press "crouch", if the time called for it. This was only a very small component of the game experience, not the whole thing revolving entirely around it.
 
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Baron Dupek

Arcane
Joined
Jul 23, 2013
Messages
1,870,765
^What do you mean it doesn't work anymore? I have it installed right now.
I have Win 7 64bit, played dozen of games since jump from XP to 7 and can count on one hand games that had issues, one is RtCW :negative: and other is GoW. Maybe it was related to that new bug or whatever, but it just go black screen and turn off with no error. Not miss it because I already finished it long time ago.
And there is no chance for remasters because neither Epic or PCF or MS care...
Yet somehow we get Bulletstorm remaster...
 

Dickie

Arcane
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Jul 29, 2011
Messages
4,235
Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.


The video sucks, but I love Lester Speight as Augustus Cole.
 

Ash

Arcane
Joined
Oct 16, 2015
Messages
6,232
And before anyone says "there's nothing wrong with a focus on shooting alone", there is if it's combined with regen health/cover shooting/railroaded level design/general mediocrity as in gears. Additionally, blended genre elements of the old shooter relates to the shooting and each other in a multitude of ways, e.g a "monster closet" opening during a platforming segment, providing a new form of shooting challenge. A puzzle that opens a secret area with ammo. Exploration providing vantage points and so on. Deepens the experience as a whole.
 

sullynathan

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Dec 22, 2015
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Not Europe
Anything but on-rails shooting?
The overwhelming majority of gears was not on rails.

environmental hazards, traps, crafty enemy placement, navigation/orienteering etc
gears had this, more so in the later games. I remember the level in the first game where you have to navigate through the environment because the krill could instantly kill you while you fought the locust.
There's even vehicle sections and I think a Brumak section in the later games.

cover shooting reducing depth and skill level involved in shooting
Hmm, from the short time I played through the multiplayer, I'd say gears had a high skill ceiling and I'm on not to suck at multiplayer games. It is pure twitch, but sitting behind cover can easily get you killed.

instantaneous regen health removing tension, strategy and difficulty (although regen health is somewhat suitable for multiplayer, imo), the game was generally easy
Did you play the game above its easiest difficulty?
 

Ash

Arcane
Joined
Oct 16, 2015
Messages
6,232
The overwhelming majority of gears was not on rails.

Sometimes it was literally on rails, other times it was extremely simplistic level design without any verticality, branching paths, interconnection etc.

From your posts I gather you've at least played Max Payne, FEAR and some other early 2000s shooters. These are still examples of relatively linear and simplistic shooters, but they have some merit (MP especially).

I'd say gears had a high skill ceiling

You've got to be kidding, dude. It's low bar, not high. Slow movement speed including inability to shoot while sprinting, a considerable lack of variables at play including the very basics such as the inability to crouch and jump on demand. Cover-based etc.

Play moar games. Preferably old ones.
 

Freddie

Savant
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Mansion
[...]when Gears of War came onto the market it blew my mind. How did this game become popular (marketing primarily), I'd ask myself. It objectively has far less content on offer than your average shooter. It did absolutely nothing new mechanically, And what it did do was brainless, repetitive and uninteresting. Thus became the norm of popular games having little to no merit yet dominating the sales charts, all because of marketing. Make it overly simple, easy to develop (relatively) and play (objectively), and invest the rest of the budget into marketing and all that entails. It's not a coincidence that GoW coincided with the birth of the decline era and consistently successful popamole, an era of games perceived to have begun in the mid '00s. Everything associated with Microsoft and their Xbox 360 division was pure shit in that time especially. The original Xbox was not nearly as decline-festering, though it still was somewhat thanks to Halo.
I recall how GoW hype was huge back in the day. They really put huge effort in marketing and making journos write those previews. In retrospect it looks like they were really sure how it's going to be a high profile franchise from the beginning. And it was a success both Halo and GoW are big franchises what comes to sci-fi shooters on Xbox, but to be honest, one reason why I still today... I'm vary of what console gamers consider a good game comes from that era.
 

Dev_Anj

Learned
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Jan 14, 2015
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468
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Auldale, near the great river
What I'm curious to know is why is Gears of War blamed for introducing third person auto cover mechanics, when it was first featured in WinBack. But according to sources, WinBack took the concept from Metal Gear Solid anyway. So who's to blame now? :M
 

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