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Which game killed the shooter genre?

Joined
Mar 18, 2009
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7,307
Eternal is even less of a Doom game than Doom 2016 but it is a much better shooter.
 

Deflowerer

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Call of Duty is gay, but I think most subgenres of shooters are doing fine (even with revivals).

Meanwhile, SP tactical shooters.

:negative::negative::negative:
 

kites

samsung verizon hitachi
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Meanwhile, SP tactical shooters

the original r6 and ghost recon are dear to me, but they haven't aged so well.. it was always a niche genre; is there anything like them recently or worth looking forward to nowadays? maybe "zero hour" for mp, "ready or not" for sp? i know nothing about them
 

Lyric Suite

Converting to Islam
Joined
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Doom was more about gameplay than realism. Design was full of abstractions, many of which deriving from arcade games and dungeon crawlers since the devs were either inspired or were directly involved in creating many of those.

Then Half-Life came and the focus shifted to realism. Rather than mazelike enviorments with arcade style enemy placement, levels now felt like real locations, you had things like talking NPCs, cinematics ect.

Now this can be definitely seen like the beginning of a kind of decline (all though to be honest i think this development was bound to happen) but the fact is that despite the shift in style many good shooters (even a few exceptional ones, like No One Lives Forever and STALKER) were still made afterwards, all the way up to the early 2000s. Half-Life changed the genre, but it didn't lead to shit shooters per-se, just different ones.

Something else led to the decline and that can only be the introduction of console shooters, beginning with Halo and continuing with the CoD games. Now shooters had to be made with controllers in mind and that to me is probably one of the crucial factors that led to the genre becoming total shit.

Not only that, but i think the demographic that latched on to those particular series is also important. After all, great console shooters were made before, controller or not, but the dude bros latching on to shit like CoD probably weren't the type of people who appreciated the complex level design of a game like GoldenEye.

As for Doom 3, i think the only game it affected negatively in a direct way was Quake 4, but then from what i remember Prey wasn't that bad so maybe that was just a case of Raven fucking up.

I also think more than Half-Life, the real cause of decline was Half-Life 2 and i think games like Bioshock can be probably traced to that. Like with CoD and dude bros, it seems Half-Life 2 introduced a new demographic into the mix, that of the pretentious hipster. Half-Life 1 still had too much Quake blood in it for this kind of people.
 

samuraigaiden

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It's hard to blame HL1 considering the immediate attempts to follow up on it were all over the place.

Even the Halo gun slots thing isn't it, that stuff was in Rise of the Triad and there might be earlier occurrences.

Going by single game design elements as the one thing that brought on decline is like looking at an elephant stepping on your car and saying the problem is the trunk.

Painkiller has good gameplay but it feels like a level pack. They went with the QUAKE approach to coherence in level design, which is not having any. Also, boss fights introduce annoying and at times cryptic one time only gimmicks that are nowhere else in the game and that's just bad game design.
 

JarlFrank

I like Thief THIS much
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wrong, same buzzword "techdemo" can be used when talking about original quake or even doom

Quake and Doom have much better core gameplay than either Half-Life. Large levels, good weapons, good enemy variety.

Both Half-Life games start with overly long cutscenes-that-are-not-cutscenes, where you can walk around but still have to wait until the scene is over, with no option to skip it. Half-Life 2 has a TON of these. You go meet your allies, they talk about shit, meanwhile you crowbar Alyx's boobs and throw computer hardware at Dr. Kleiner's face who don't even react to your shenanigans. There's no way to skip these scenes on a second playthrough, other than straight-up quitting back to the main menu and restarting from the next chapter... or using a level skip cheat. Apparently having a silent protagonist increases the immersion because YOU are Doctor Freeman and the devs never put any words in your mouth... but when your game has you interact with NPCs this much, and instead of making those into cutscenes you allow the player to dick around like a retard, it just becomes absurd.

"Oh hey Dr Freeman it's so nice to finally meet you, I respect you so much, you're a great scientist!"
Proceeds to dick around like a turboautist on a mixture of meth, speed and cocaine, crouching down and savaging her cunt with a crowbar, then grabbing all the science equipment in the room and tossing it around like a monkey throwing poop.

The weapons in HL2 feel merely okay, and they all have pitifully low maximum ammo counts. In some scenes, you absolutely need to use one specific weapon (usually it's the rocket launcher) and the game gives you infinite ammo in a respawning ammo box. While the physics engine is great and it's fun to explode red barrels to send combine soldiers flying, the average moment-to-moment gunplay is merely mediocre compared to Doom and Quake. The game is too preoccupied with showing off its engine capabilities with some gimmick scenes, rather than focusing on delivering a solid shooting experience. There are a lot of vehicle sections, there's that antlion section where you toss a pheromone ball to command your antlion army, it all feels very gimmicky and designed to show off what the engine can do. "Hey guys, we have physics! We have a decent AI and the ability to command a squad! We have vehicles! Isn't that cool??"

Also, both Half-Life games are incredibly linear. Far, far more linear than your average shooter of the time. Doom, Quake, the Build Engine games, Unreal... sure, they all had some linear levels, but your average level there involved exploring a small hub, hunting down keycards, finding secret areas, etc etc. The levels often had expansive spaces that could be tackled in several ways. You can go to the left wing of the building first or the right wing of the building, you can cross that bridge by walking over it or jump down into the water and find another way up to the other side, etc. In the Half-Life games, there is usually only ONE way forward. Not two ways, not three ways, just one. They are among the most linear shooters of their time, and a huge step back in level design compared to what came before, especially the Build Engine games and Unreal 1.
 

Vlajdermen

Arcane
Joined
Nov 19, 2017
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2,039
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You can judge a shooter by its agreed-upon best moment.

Blood? A highly intricate hotel level with much to explore.
Serious Sam? A final level with huge relentless enemy waves.
Half-life? A shootout with tactially adept soldiers.
Half-life 2? A fun spoopy Evil Dead level where you massacre zombies with physics objects and listen to them scream.
Biocock? Walt Disney says a quote you can post to facebook.
 

janior

Arcane
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Nov 9, 2015
Messages
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wrong, same buzzword "techdemo" can be used when talking about original quake or even doom

Quake and Doom have much better core gameplay than either Half-Life. Large levels, good weapons, good enemy variety.

Both Half-Life games start with overly long cutscenes-that-are-not-cutscenes, where you can walk around but still have to wait until the scene is over, with no option to skip it. Half-Life 2 has a TON of these. You go meet your allies, they talk about shit, meanwhile you crowbar Alyx's boobs and throw computer hardware at Dr. Kleiner's face who don't even react to your shenanigans. There's no way to skip these scenes on a second playthrough, other than straight-up quitting back to the main menu and restarting from the next chapter... or using a level skip cheat. Apparently having a silent protagonist increases the immersion because YOU are Doctor Freeman and the devs never put any words in your mouth... but when your game has you interact with NPCs this much, and instead of making those into cutscenes you allow the player to dick around like a retard, it just becomes absurd.

"Oh hey Dr Freeman it's so nice to finally meet you, I respect you so much, you're a great scientist!"
Proceeds to dick around like a turboautist on a mixture of meth, speed and cocaine, crouching down and savaging her cunt with a crowbar, then grabbing all the science equipment in the room and tossing it around like a monkey throwing poop.

The weapons in HL2 feel merely okay, and they all have pitifully low maximum ammo counts. In some scenes, you absolutely need to use one specific weapon (usually it's the rocket launcher) and the game gives you infinite ammo in a respawning ammo box. While the physics engine is great and it's fun to explode red barrels to send combine soldiers flying, the average moment-to-moment gunplay is merely mediocre compared to Doom and Quake. The game is too preoccupied with showing off its engine capabilities with some gimmick scenes, rather than focusing on delivering a solid shooting experience. There are a lot of vehicle sections, there's that antlion section where you toss a pheromone ball to command your antlion army, it all feels very gimmicky and designed to show off what the engine can do. "Hey guys, we have physics! We have a decent AI and the ability to command a squad! We have vehicles! Isn't that cool??"

Also, both Half-Life games are incredibly linear. Far, far more linear than your average shooter of the time. Doom, Quake, the Build Engine games, Unreal... sure, they all had some linear levels, but your average level there involved exploring a small hub, hunting down keycards, finding secret areas, etc etc. The levels often had expansive spaces that could be tackled in several ways. You can go to the left wing of the building first or the right wing of the building, you can cross that bridge by walking over it or jump down into the water and find another way up to the other side, etc. In the Half-Life games, there is usually only ONE way forward. Not two ways, not three ways, just one. They are among the most linear shooters of their time, and a huge step back in level design compared to what came before, especially the Build Engine games and Unreal 1.
nice pivot
 

Fedora Master

Arcane
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Edgy
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Halo made FPS games on consoles "viable", thus leading to regenerating health, weapon limits, "realistic" reloading, no-fun level design etc.
 

Lyric Suite

Converting to Islam
Joined
Mar 23, 2006
Messages
56,164
half-life 2 is a great game

It's a good game (or at least it has nice production values i guess) but is a shit sequel and it's main (possibly only) virtue is it's art direction, which paved the way for the hipster shooter (exemplified chiefly by Bioshock).

I would honestly argue that the issue is not Half-Life 2 as such, but the worship of a game that doesn't deserve to be deified. The love of this game is based entirely on the fluff and not the actual content of the game. This ushered this trend of thinking that nice art equals depth. Ask anybody why they think Half-Life 2 is a masterpiece and they'll tell you it is because of the "story" but Half-Life 2 just shat on everything that made Half-Life 1 great in that respect. Where the first one was subtle and subdued, Half-Life 2 felt like a made by commitee fan service inteded to cash on the success of the first game.

Hurr durr remember me? It's Barney (o rly? Which one?)! Hey, look what i got here Gordon, your crowbar, because i totally gave a shit or even knew you had one. Ho Gordon, you are so great, that was amazing Gordon, please disreguard i'm written to be a shameless nerd service waifu tee hee. And on and on with this shit.
 
Last edited:

Butter

Arcane
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Joined
Oct 1, 2018
Messages
7,523
One thing you notice playing Half-Life and Half-Life 2 back to back is that the sequel is much easier than the original. You almost never need to reload in HL2, which means you're constantly moving forward to the next setpiece. Rather than the game being a series of escalating challenges, it's an action movie that has to show you a cool new thing every 15 minutes. You don't spend as long on any individual segment, which keeps you from realizing that those individual segments are all worse than their counterparts in the original game.
 

Lyric Suite

Converting to Islam
Joined
Mar 23, 2006
Messages
56,164
Black Mesa in Half Life 1 had way more character and personality than all of the NPCs in Half Life 2.

I honestly think Half Life 2 would have been a better game if it had been it's own thing and not a sequel to Half Life 1.
 

Silverfish

Arbiter
Joined
Dec 4, 2019
Messages
3,068
Like with CoD and dude bros, it seems Half-Life 2 introduced a new demographic into the mix, that of the pretentious hipster.

The fact that both demographics violently rejected Duke Nukem Forever may be the real turning point for the genre.
 

jebsmoker

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Insert Title Here Strap Yourselves In I helped put crap in Monomyth
probably bf4. bf3 felt much more restrained and it didnt have stupid shit in it
 

Lyric Suite

Converting to Islam
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Mar 23, 2006
Messages
56,164
Battlefield 4 was fascinating not by how shit it was but that it looked like shit as well, despite all the AAA high fidelity shit. In fact part of the problem is that there was too much shit on screen. Too much post processing crap and all used inappropriately
 

Ezekiel

Arcane
Joined
May 3, 2017
Messages
5,373
Battlefield 4 was fascinating not by how shit it was but that it looked like shit as well, despite all the AAA high fidelity shit. In fact part of the problem is that there was too much shit on screen. Too much post processing crap and all used inappropriately

Yeah, too much on the screen.





Video game version has much more post-processing and crap going on than the REAL version. Video game version has the glass looking like a scratchy mess. Real glass is clean.

The obsession with photorealism in games is funny.

Reminds me of something I heard about Christopher Nolan's Dunkirk. The Dunkirk veterans who watched it complained about the volume and said that it wasn't that loud in real life.
 

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