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Incline TotalBiscuit: Have FPS gone backwards? (answer is yes)

J_C

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The shittiest shooters of all time though is still Quake and Doom.
Yep. Unreal and UT 99 is where it's at.

The peak of the "pure" FPS genre was reached with HL2. After that it went all either a) full retard or b) race-mixing with other genres, partial success like Dishonored.

HL(2) started the decline bro.
Why? HL2 was still incline. It was the end of incline, but it didn't started the decline.
 

Jarpie

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First I wanna hear why HL2 is shit, then I'll come forward why Quake/Doom is shit.

Shit scripted fps with shit story, shitty characters, shit action, shit gimmicky weapons. If I want to play action game with even decent story and storytelling I play Max Payne 2.

I never liked Quake either, it has fucking boring enemies, fucking boring weapons, fucking boring levels and action is fucking boring compared to Doom...oh, and early 3D graphics are incredibly shit, always preferred 2D or sprites over the first 3D games, such as Duke 3D what was superior in every sense possible.
 

Cowboy Moment

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Quake 3 is the best multiplayer fps of all time, I don't care about anything else.

Actually, playing Planetside 2 the last few days has given me a perspective of why exactly we've moved on to faux-realistic popamole FPS with classes, weapon limits, objective-based multiplayer modes and shit like that. It's basically the same reason why DotA-likes are more popular than RTSes - less of an emphasis on personal skill, which allows terrible players to participate with the illusion that they're actually not terrible. If you wanted to 1v1 in Quake 3, you needed to invest a fair amount of time before you could even move around a map effectively, to speak nothing about being able to even get a single frag on a competent opponent. In PS2 or LoL, any idiot can just jump and do fine, because the mechanics serve to flatten everything and make exceptional personal skill as irrelevant as possible.
 

Wirdschowerdn

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HL2 (and Episodes) is in many ways the peak of (pure) first-person shooters because it gets all the little things right.

From the beauitiful, intriguing yet oppressive world the player is plunged into, to the remarkable visuals and sounds to the flawless pace and interplay between intense action and calm, atmospheric sections. From the subtle storytelling that never gets intrusive to the creative level design to the witty dialogs, everything has been put together with thought and heart.

Quake/Doom on the other hand is some brain-dead mess that you'd think some retarded kid would have come up with. Turns out id Soft is even retarded to this day and age, othertwise they wouldn't had to delay Doom4 another 5 fucking years.

id = brain dead rednecks.

Valve = Masters with skill, talent and sheer inventiveness.
 
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Be the peak of "pure" first person shooters. Stuff half your levels full of vehicles and the same retarded balance beam puzzles. Make your primary weapon not a gun. Be retardedly easy even on "hard" for anyone who has ever played a shooter. Have 90% of your enemies be the same humanoids with different color schemes to show that they have more health even though they are otherwise no different.

 

J_C

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shit story, shitty characters, shit action, shit gimmicky weapons.
Why? I'm just asking because it is easy to write off every part of the game as shit. Like Torment is a shit RPG, with shit locations and shit characters. See, it is easy! And dumb.
 

zerotol

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The peak of the "pure" FPS genre was reached with HL2. After that it went all either a) full retard or b) race-mixing with other genres, partial success like Dishonored.

:lol: HL2 is a piece of shit compared to HL1
 
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shit story, shitty characters, shit action, shit gimmicky weapons.
Why? I'm just asking because it is easy to write off every part of the game as shit. Like Torment is a shit RPG, with shit locations and shit characters. See, it is easy! And dumb.

Shit story and characters - They add absolutely nothing to the game and waste my time, which is the first cardinal sin of gaming. At least cutscenes I can skip, HL2 bullshit monologues are unskippable. Rather than there being any personal stake in the story like HL1 (you were part of a fuckup, you need to save your friends in the lab), HL2 is a generic you vs. evil guy who reminds you he's evil. The one good thing about HL2's story is the dystopian setting (when it's being subtle and not rammed down your throat during NPC monologuing), but it's effectively window dressing compared to HL1's science lab setting, where you actually interact with the science equipment to solve puzzles and shit.

Shit action - Half of the game is retarded gimmicks or non-FPS combat. Combat is ridiculously easy. 90% of you enemies are palette swapped generic humans with no voice or personality who are very slow and easy to defeat. The weapons they carry are effectively palette swaps too. There are no cool alien species, no diverse human enemies with different abilities. Far too linear, effectively a corridor game compared to HL1 levels.

Shit gimmicky weapons - The Gravity Gun is a horribly gimmicky weapon that is fun to use for about 5 mins, but you are forced to use for about 5 hours. When you aren't forced to use the gravity gun, you are stuck with generic shotgun, generic assault rifle, or generic sci-fi assault rifle, until you run into a section where you fight an enemy vehicle and you suddenly have infinite rockets to spam. HL1 has gluon guns, hornet guns, snarks, holy fuck these things are so much more fun.

The only good level in HL2 is Ravenholm, where you suddenly have good enemies (lots of different types at once, can surprise you, can move fast, are half-deadly), atmosphere that works with the gameplay (dark, creepy, enemies pop out at you), and a bit of exploration instead of corridor maps.
 

Jarpie

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shit story, shitty characters, shit action, shit gimmicky weapons.
Why? I'm just asking because it is easy to write off every part of the game as shit. Like Torment is a shit RPG, with shit locations and shit characters. See, it is easy! And dumb.

Shit story and characters - They add absolutely nothing to the game and waste my time, which is the first cardinal sin of gaming. At least cutscenes I can skip, HL2 bullshit monologues are unskippable. Rather than there being any personal stake in the story like HL1 (you were part of a fuckup, you need to save your friends in the lab), HL2 is a generic you vs. evil guy who reminds you he's evil. The one good thing about HL2's story is the dystopian setting (when it's being subtle and not rammed down your throat during NPC monologuing), but it's effectively window dressing compared to HL1's science lab setting, where you actually interact with the science equipment to solve puzzles and shit.

Shit action - Half of the game is retarded gimmicks or non-FPS combat. Combat is ridiculously easy. 90% of you enemies are palette swapped generic humans with no voice or personality who are very slow and easy to defeat. The weapons they carry are effectively palette swaps too. There are no cool alien species, no diverse human enemies with different abilities. Far too linear, effectively a corridor game compared to HL1 levels.

Shit gimmicky weapons - The Gravity Gun is a horribly gimmicky weapon that is fun to use for about 5 mins, but you are forced to use for about 5 hours. When you aren't forced to use the gravity gun, you are stuck with generic shotgun, generic assault rifle, or generic sci-fi assault rifle, until you run into a section where you fight an enemy vehicle and you suddenly have infinite rockets to spam. HL1 has gluon guns, hornet guns, snarks, holy fuck these things are so much more fun.

The only good level in HL2 is Ravenholm, where you suddenly have good enemies (lots of different types at once, can surprise you, can move fast, are half-deadly), atmosphere that works with the gameplay (dark, creepy, enemies pop out at you), and a bit of exploration instead of corridor maps.

Couldn't put it any better myself. I'd also add that HL2 popularized the "Watch/listen passively the exposition dumb as silent hero who isn't pro-active". Max Payne 2 isn't FPS but at least it didn't try to pretend to be anything else than linear pastiche of film noir and John Woo films, and the graphic novel cutscenes worked helluva better than the shit what HL2 brought us and Remedy succeeded doing what it's suppose to.
 
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And now that I start thinking about HL2, let me talk about the ending, which I think takes everything wrong about HL2 and doubles down.

-All of your weapons are taken away and you are forced to use a new, super-powerful gravity gun. At this point we've stripped any pretense of balance, whereas before you had to look for some debris somewhere before killing something instantly, now you point in the general direction of your enemies and click and everything dies. You can't try to use your other weapons if you wanted to because they are taken away. Your enemies don't pull out any new weapons, any new tricks to up the odds. They don't even attack you in greater numbers. You fight the same 3 or 4 humanoids at a time who use the same banal shit boring assault rifles and now, after a dozen hours of experience fighting them, the game decides to make it 10x easier for the ending.

-The ending level is dominated by the same "puzzle" of using the gravity gun to fuck with those orbs. The final boss fight? THE SAME GOD DAMNED PUZZLE. There are explosions everywhere and shit but they don't matter because this is a modern AAA game. You solve the same puzzle that you already know how to solve another 3 times and you've suddenly defeated the greatest threat to humanity, blah blah blah you are so awesome alyx plz fellate me. Remember Nihilanth? I'm not going to pretend that it was some amazingly well designed boss fight, but you know what it was? An actual fucking boss fight.

-G-man was alright in HL1. He was a generic suit who clearly had some power behind him but otherwise could be entirely human with human limits. In HL2 he is literally a wizard. Rocks fall and everyone would die, but the wizard teleports in, casts time stop, speaks mystical bullshit, then teleports everyone out. This is supposed to be one of the mysterious and interesting characters in gaming according to the press. DOING RANDOM UNEXPLAINABLE BULLSHIT OUT OF NOWHERE ISN'T MYSTERIOUS IT'S BAD WRITING GET IT IN YOUR HEAD YOU FUCKS.
 

dunno lah

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Argh! My memories of HL2 going down the shitter. NOOOOO!!!:cry:

I enjoyed HL2 but in no way would I consider it one of the best FPSes. HL1? Probably.(Thanks to it's bestiary, weapon diversity and mainly the Quake 1-like gunplay)
 
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Argh! My memories of HL2 going down the shitter. NOOOOO!!!:cry:

I enjoyed HL2 but in no way would I consider it one of the best FPSes. HL1? Probably.(Thanks to it's bestiary, weapon diversity and mainly the Quake 1-like gunplay)

I enjoyed HL2 as well, but won't consider ever replaying it because a second time through would be so much worse once the novelty has worn off. Most of the game is a turd, but it's a well-polished turd that is bearable when it's bad and very interesting in the few parts where it's good. Consider my posts to be a reaction to the popular notion that HL1 is just a worse version of HL2 and that not liking HL2 makes you the gaming equivalent of a holocaust denier and a pedophile combined.
 

felipepepe

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Half-Life 1 and System SHock 2 are the best FPS games ever made. Everything after is just decline. And to be fair, Valve going from HL1 -> HL2 was WAY more decline than Ken Levine going SS2 -> Bioshock.
 

toro

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HL2 (and Episodes) is in many ways the peak of (pure) first-person shooters because it gets all the little things right.

From the beauitiful, intriguing yet oppressive world the player is plunged into, to the remarkable visuals and sounds to the flawless pace and interplay between intense action and calm, atmospheric sections. From the subtle storytelling that never gets intrusive to the creative level design to the witty dialogs, everything has been put together with thought and heart.

Quake/Doom on the other hand is some brain-dead mess that you'd think some retarded kid would have come up with. Turns out id Soft is even retarded to this day and age, othertwise they wouldn't had to delay Doom4 another 5 fucking years.

id = brain dead rednecks.

Valve = Masters with skill, talent and sheer inventiveness.

Half Life 2 is the role-model of rail-road shooters. Why?

1. AI - the enemies are dumb as they get. No more coordination between the enemies: they don't surround you and they don't throw grenades at you. The AI seems to be some kind of random shit.
2. Level design - it's abysmal. Corridor after canal after corridor after canal ... Fuck it. That's the reason why everyone is raving about the open coast sections.
3. Combat - it's light for a shooter. The weapons have no personality hence there is no great pleasure in using them. You cannot bring down an empire using a water pistol. It's unrealistic.
3. Story - it's retarded and it's getting in the way of the action. But by this point it doesn't matter.

HL2 is the hipster's shooter. It's all about gimmicks and shit: Alyx, Dog, Gravity Gun and ... whatever. Bottom line is that the game is soulless. It's a product that sells well and that's it. Valve is releasing products, Valve cannot into LOVE.

And you compare Quake/Doom with this? You must be out of your fucking mind.

Quake is a work of art. Fucking game art if there is one. They don't throw gimmicky shit in your way, they leave you free to roam those levels. It's fucking freedom to kill everything and everybody.
It's freedom to not give a shit about a non-sensical story. It's real fun and it's also about skills. Is the beginning and the end of the multiplayer experience. It's seminal and brutal. As all shooters should be.

But I will stop here. You are clearly retarded and don't know what the fuck you are talking about. Again.
 

dunno lah

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Argh! My memories of HL2 going down the shitter. NOOOOO!!!:cry:

I enjoyed HL2 but in no way would I consider it one of the best FPSes. HL1? Probably.(Thanks to it's bestiary, weapon diversity and mainly the Quake 1-like gunplay)

I enjoyed HL2 as well, but won't consider ever replaying it because a second time through would be so much worse once the novelty has worn off. Most of the game is a turd, but it's a well-polished turd that is bearable when it's bad and very interesting in the few parts where it's good. Consider my posts to be a reaction to the popular notion that HL1 is just a worse version of HL2 and that not liking HL2 makes you the gaming equivalent of a holocaust denier and a pedophile combined.

:lol:Didn't you know? The masses(now more than ever) want a movie instead of a game.
HL1 I feel got the scripted sequences done really well as it furthered the plot moments without adding in superfluous crap. those things were short and sweet and 90% of the time they were interruptible or skippable.
 

Cowboy Moment

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Wow toro, you're the first person ever to be ignored by Morgoth-chan. You must've really hit a nerve with your HL2 bashing.
 

Drakron

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Wow toro, you're the first person ever to be ignored by Morgoth-chan. You must've really hit a nerve with your HL2 bashing.

Well he did say Quake was a work of art.

Also he is dead wrong, HL2 is a sequel to HL1 and both follow the exact same level design ... "open" maps are rare in FPS were the "path" is the common, take the older Duke Nuken 3D were you follow a defined path and this is standard, map design like DeusEx or Thief that had multiple paths to the objective are rarer, in fact I am going to likely piss off a lot of people but Halo even had that in a few maps, it was gone on the following games but still a few Halo maps did give multiple paths to the same objective.

Corridor shooters are not new, they are as old as FPS themselves and always been the norm outside a few games were open maps were created for multiplayer, Half Life influence was minimum since the great success of that time was not Half Life, it was Unreal and Quake that lead the prevalence of "multiplayer FPS", it was Halo that was their successor because they had declined in popularity, not Half Life 2 that also had negligible impact as the tradition on FPS after Half Life 2 was the Halo model.
 

Carrion

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Shit story and characters - They add absolutely nothing to the game and waste my time, which is the first cardinal sin of gaming. At least cutscenes I can skip, HL2 bullshit monologues are unskippable. Rather than there being any personal stake in the story like HL1 (you were part of a fuckup, you need to save your friends in the lab), HL2 is a generic you vs. evil guy who reminds you he's evil. The one good thing about HL2's story is the dystopian setting (when it's being subtle and not rammed down your throat during NPC monologuing), but it's effectively window dressing compared to HL1's science lab setting, where you actually interact with the science equipment to solve puzzles and shit.
But it doesn't even have an actual story. It doesn't even try, which is actually pretty odd for a 2004 shooter. All it has is its setting (which you said was good) and a bunch of excuses to make you travel somewhere and shoot stuff, which is fine by me. I agree that it does have notably more forced exposition than HL1, a lot of which could've been avoided.

Technically Breen is more of a cowardly politician than an outright evil guy, but it's not like that shit matters anyway.

Shit gimmicky weapons - The Gravity Gun is a horribly gimmicky weapon that is fun to use for about 5 mins, but you are forced to use for about 5 hours.
Where exactly are you forced to use it aside from the very last half-an-hour of the game and a handful of puzzles? Just curious whether we played the same game.

The only good level in HL2 is Ravenholm, where you suddenly have good enemies (lots of different types at once, can surprise you, can move fast, are half-deadly), atmosphere that works with the gameplay (dark, creepy, enemies pop out at you), and a bit of exploration instead of corridor maps.
Funny that you think the only good level is the most gimmicky one that's basically just a playground for the Gravity Gun with all those gas bottles and saw blades lying around. Gameplay-wise it's among the highlights of the game, no doubt about it.

HL1 I feel got the scripted sequences done really well as it furthered the plot moments without adding in superfluous crap. those things were short and sweet and 90% of the time they were interruptible or skippable.
HL1 was definitely better in this regard. It did start with a five-minute train ride, though, which basically served the same purpose as the sequence in Kleiner's lab in HL2. Still, it was a lot more effective (seeing the train go deeper and deeper into the seemingly endless complex really adds to that feeling of isolation and hopelessness), and in general the game made much better use of the silent protagonist than HL2 did. HL2 forced a lot of unneeded exposition down your throat, which really didn't work nearly as well as the more subtle style of HL1. Maybe they just wanted to show off their facial animation tech or something. I don't get the "interruptible or skippable" part, though, unless you think that shooting a guard or a scientist mid-sentence counts.

Half Life 2 is the role-model of rail-road shooters.
Half-Life 1 is. It's the game we can thank for railroad shooters, even though most games that try or tried to emulate HL1 did a terrible job with it. The stuff you listed has fuck all to do with railroad shooters, just bad shooters in general.
 

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