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First FPS better than Doom?

Sjukob

Arcane
Joined
Jul 3, 2015
Messages
2,052
"proper FPS gameplay" is what exactly? besides a true scotsman...
The very heart of a proper FPS game is combat, when people complain about Half Life, they usually do so because of combat. When the combat is done well, it is good to the point where it is entertaining enough by itself, so you don't even have to introduce pretty views, scripted events and plot/story to keep the player interested. And it's where Half Life is seriously lacking, if you remove the "sightseeing" you will be left with a very shallow and repetitive combat. And it wouldn't be enough to remake the levels to fix it, you would have to completely remake weapons and enemies as well, because their design (i.e. core of the game) is just not good enough.

If you were to ask a bunch of random people to name the best beat'em'up ever made they would probably give you answers like: Streets of Rage, Godhand, Devil May Cry, Ninja Gaiden, but not Yakuza or Shenmue. It's because the core of the former games - "smashing up faces" is great and deep, and can entertain you for many hours by itself, while Yakuza and Shenmue sacrificed some of their core to implement something else. It's same with Half Life and other FPS that tried to copy it, hence why it's seen as a herald of decline among hardcore players.

I am not familiar with Half Life modding scene, but I got the impression that the majority of singleplayer mods for the game share the same concept as the original, that is because people usually understand why they liked the game they played, even if only subconsciously, so they would naturally want to replicate it, meanwhile Doom and Quake communities mostly create something about raw gameplay for the same reason.

just because people copied it doesn't mean it's bad, half-life still holds up today and it's not as "sightseeing" as people claim, you might be thinking of HL2, but HL1 is well paced.
It's wrong and I've just explained why.

You know, I wonder why don't people mention Unreal in discussions like these, it's basically the same as Half Life, only that is has much better gameplay. You can tell me about how you feel about Unreal if you want, would be interesting to read.
 
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Wunderbar

Arcane
Joined
Nov 15, 2015
Messages
8,809
You know, I wonder why don't people mention Unreal in discussions like these
because Unreal has neither good cinematic elements of HL, nor airtight combat formula of something like Doom or Quake. The game consist of 20 hours of walking around barren and overly huge and convoluted maps while listening to nice music.
 
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ValeVelKal

Arcane
Joined
Aug 24, 2011
Messages
1,604
When I saw the title of the thread, I wanted to jump in to also propose Dark Forces.

Very few FPS surpassed Doom. Beyond Dark Forces, the only contenders I see are Blood and Duke Nukem 3D. And of course, in a different genre, STALKER.

I find Heretic's enemies lackluster. Overall, I believe that the success of FPS is all about the enemies : how spongey they are (not too much, but not too little). The typical Doom, Duke Nukem or Blood enemy take 1 or 2 shotgun hits to be killed. In Dark Forces, most of what you meet is stormtroopers who take two blaster shoots as well. On the other hand, Quake 1 or Unreal rely too much on bullet sponges in their later levels, though some mid-game Quake 1 levels are as good or better as the best DOOM levels.

Hexen has good enemies and good encounter design, but poor weapon diversity, and sometimes you don't know what to do and run around in circle.
Painkiller has great enemies, but its "arena" design sucked.
I actually hated Hexen II.
Half-life did not age that well due to its focus on art and narration rather than on combat.

I also liked Witchhaven, Redneck Rampage and Outlaw, but none are at Doom level, probably because the level-design is too horizontal.
 
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JamesDixon

GM Extraordinaire
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Strap Yourselves In Codex Year of the Donut
Dark Forces and Duke 3D are better then Doom original. Both had aiming for targets above and below you with better level layouts. Plus, Duke and Kyle Katarn are miles above Doom Guy in personality. This personality comparison is only for the first Doom as Doom Guy is silent throughout the entire campaign.
 

ValeVelKal

Arcane
Joined
Aug 24, 2011
Messages
1,604
If you think it's the event scripting then I disagree, as it is never intrusive and rigid in Nukem 3D. When you enter the pipe in Half-Life and a dude tosses in a satchel charge, you can do absolutely nothing but back up into the water, can't even kill the marine as he tosses it in to prevent the event.
You can kill the Marine with the satchel if you have the powerful pistol and time it well.
 

samuraigaiden

Arcane
Joined
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Harare
RPG Wokedex
The thing about Doom that blurs up the discussion is that Doom has a monolithic quality to it that most games don't. Duke Nukem 3D surpassed Doom I'm every way, but it doesn't feel like a perfect diamond the way Doom does. It's messy and has tons of obvious room for improvement.
 

Morenatsu.

Liturgist
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The sheer amount of stupid opinions being expressed in this thread is quite something.

Overall System Shock was highly ambitious, but if you ask me it fucked up the fundamentals (combat, level design, among other things). Most enemies are just a slight variation of slow-moving turret and blur together in memory as one for example. And of course the lean exploit is retarded.
Disagree. The level design is actually really good for a point-and-click adventure game. :smug:

Also, reminder that Unreal is still an atmosphere simulator first and foremost. :smug:

RtCW sucks. :smug:

You're all cucks. :smug:
 

JarlFrank

I like Thief THIS much
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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
why do people on this website hate half-life? you people are zoomers

Half-Life was my first FPS since I got into the genre late, so I liked it back in the day cause it opened a whole new genre for me... but it's not that great, honestly.

Its level design is much more linear than Doom, Quake, Build Engine, Unreal etc. Sure, it's all one seamless geographic location which is cool, but it's way more linear than any shooter before it. There's always just one way forward, while in Doom, Quake, Build etc there are many hub-style levels with open areas and a choice which path to take first (left or right? go for the red or yellow keycard first? etc). Half Life has none of that, it's pretty much a straight line from start to finish.

Combat is decent enough but it's a bit too hitscan focused when it comes to the weapons. Vortigaunts are basically less tanky versions of Quake Shamblers: 100% accurate hitscan attack you need to dodge by getting behind an obstacle. Human soldiers use hitscan SMGs. Your own weapons are primarily hitscan too: pistol, SMG, shotgun. I'm not a fan of hitscans so combat feels a bit underwhelming compared to Doom, Quake, Unreal. Lots of popamoling rather than fast and furious run and gun and bunnyhop.

Higher focus on narrative and puzzles than straight up shooty fun. The combat sections are focused on impressive scripted set pieces rather than simple, straightforward combat encounters that combine several enemy types with an interesting environment that gives them the advantage. Half Life got nothing on the encounter design of Doom and Quake.

In level design, weapon design, enemy design, encounter design Half Life is a step back from most classic 90s FPS.
 

Casual Hero

Augur
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Mar 24, 2015
Messages
489
Location
USA
I really like Unreal. When you step out of the ship for the first time and look around at the alien planet...

I remember seeing my older brother playing the game when I was very young, and it made quite the impression on me.
 
Joined
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Chicago, IL, Kwa
I think it’s probably Quake (haven’t played Blood, it’s on my list). Dark Forces is good, but it has some levels that are total bullshit, its Arsenal is inferior to Doom’s, and its best level by far is the first one which gives it major momentum problems.


I’m going to play devil’s advocate and go out of the box to make an argument for NOLF. It’s the best of the narrative focused shooters that dominated the market from the time of Half-Life’s release til the dark days of the Xbox’s ascendance, it successfully introduced adventure and stealth elements to the formula, it has a massive arsenal, it has level design that (while not as mazelike as the build engine games) provides for more exploration than most of its contemporaries, the gunfeel is largely excellent, and to top it all off the game is just fun and funny. Truly an underappreciated gem from a talented studio working at peak potential to stave off the decline that was on the doorstep.
 

Lemming42

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The Satellite Of Love
Half-Life is only weak if you compare it to previous FPS games, which isn't really a sensible thing to do. It's aiming to be a totally new experience for the time, the linearity and "cinematic" stuff is the game's intent. It's like saying Fallout sucks by comparing it to Wizardry or something.

There's definitely a ton of criticisms to be made of Half-Life - the combat mechanics do suck and their shittiness often shows through even despite the heavily scripted encounters designed specifically to hide how bad the combat is, for example - but the game ought to be judged by how well it meets the goals it sets for itself IMO, rather than judged for not being Doom. It's also fair to just not be interested in Half-Life's design philosophy to start with, of course, but personally I do like what they tried to do and I think they executed it better than most subsequent imitators.

Also, as long as everyone's talking about Unreal, I really like it despite the inescapable fact that it's not very good. I think the vastness of the maps makes the game less and less palatable over time, since the "fucking hell! a huge waterfall! this engine is amazing!" factor no longer exists when playing it nowadays, so it just looks like a bunch of pointlessly huge empty maps, like a first-person Baldur's Gate. It's still got such a great mood and striking visuals though - The Trench is a terrible, terrible level from a gameplay perspective, but is visually and conceptually fantastic. I wonder why nobody's ever tried to remake the game in subsequent Unreal engines. Areas like the Sunspire would look incredible.
 

Ash

Arcane
Joined
Oct 16, 2015
Messages
6,226
You know, I wonder why don't people mention Unreal in discussions like these
because Unreal has neither good cinematic elements of HL, nor airtight combat formula of something like Doom or Quake. The game is 20 hours of walking around barren and overly huge and convoluted maps while listen to nice music.

Barren levels? Only a few instances (outdoor maps). Quite a few maps are up there with the best of the genre.

Overly huge and complicated? Lamest opinion. Sad that Unreal level design exceeds the limit of level design complexity and size for you. I don't think you're necessarily dumb either, more an average joe, so it puts a dampener on my desire for more complexity and size/future innovation.
Perhaps what you mean is it lacks signposting at times, reasonable guidance on where to go next, which is true in 2 cases or so.

Like Nukem 3D, it has better cinematic elements & scripting than HL if you ask me, as it is all non-intrusive.

But yes, combat is not as solid as id software classics, however no other FPS really is.

Half-Life is only weak if you compare it to previous FPS games, which isn't really a sensible thing to do. It's aiming to be a totally new experience for the time, the linearity and "cinematic" stuff is the game's intent. It's like saying Fallout sucks by comparing it to Wizardry or something.

There's definitely a ton of criticisms to be made of Half-Life - the combat mechanics do suck and their shittiness often shows through even despite the heavily scripted encounters designed specifically to hide how bad the combat is, for example - but the game ought to be judged by how well it meets the goals it sets for itself IMO, rather than judged for not being Doom. It's also fair to just not be interested in Half-Life's design philosophy to start with, of course, but personally I do like what they tried to do and I think they executed it better than most subsequent imitators.
.

Half is indeed the only good cinematic FPS ever made, but its very nature is just too limiting.
You can compare it. It just isn't as fun, engaging nor replayable by comparison.

I loved it first couple playthroughs, as an interactive experience/adventure it is peak stuff, but as a game it is more than acceptable yet simply cannot compete with something like Doom. My last playthrough of Half Life felt like going through a breakup or something. It just wasn't very fun.
 
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Morenatsu.

Liturgist
Joined
May 6, 2016
Messages
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The Centre of the World
Also, the Sunspire is fine as it is. Real chads don't need no virgin cuck signposting. Biggest lamest retardedest worst modder kid evar. Go home and cry, you grew up playing decline and will always be declined, kys fgt:smug::smug::smug::smug::smug::smug::smug:
 

anvi

Prophet
Village Idiot
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Oct 12, 2016
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Kelethin
You can pick holes in any of those 80s 90s games but they are all respectable efforts. And they all did a great job of pushing something forward, the engines themselves, or the gameplay, adding better locations, atmosphere, ai, characters, story, making it more cinematic etc. It was so great, like a worldwide race to make better FPSs. I just wish it didn't seem to end in the early 2000s and then devolve into the boring rehashing circlejerk we have now.
 

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