You should feel bad

[Flanged]

And that is why we have zombies. A subhuman monsters you could kill in scores and not feel a single bit of regret. A perfect videogame enemy. (from a emotive perspective, they usually have bad AI and are repetitive)

Before zombies we had Nazis, and they were allowed to have pretty decent AI sometimes, and you never really regretted killing them, even though they were usually just Wermacht soldiers and not necessarily fanatical about National Socialism for all we knew... and they all had mums and dads, maybe wives and kids, but no one cared at all. It was great shooting Nazis in the Return to Castle Wolfenstein and Hidden and Dangerous days, MoH, etc. because they could shoot back, move fast, and said things like "Nein!" and "Aaaaiiiieeee!"

Robots, zombies, and Nazis are all fair game as far as most folk are concerned, and you can kill them all day and night with nobody complaining. Robo-Hitler in the original Wolfenstein may have been the pinnacle of all video game enemies.

Nowadays, with the rise of the "realistic" "modern" shooter, we seem to be killing a lot of Arabs and Commies, which just aren't as much fun somehow.

 

[Flanged]

The fictional motivations of your play pretend hero are not your motivations. They are an excuse, a trope, a way to set the scene for the action you'd want regardless. Again, since you've probably forgotten, I say this with full knowledge that in this and most video games you play the Good Guy and you only attack the Bad Guys. That fact just doesn't mean fuck all.

That's an interesting point you make, but... is it true? If there was a large and realistic city simulation like in GTA 4, but there were no enemies and no rivals to kill in it, no cops who would attack you for committing crimes, and you didn't play as a violent criminal but merely a postman or something... would people run around killing everybody they saw?

Probably they would at first, and they'd definitely experiment with killing the peaceful citizens of this city in all sorts of ways, but after a while they would stop doing that and play the game according to it's own rules and it's own story.... in order to win, or for "Achievements", or whatever. Most of them would anyway. Because there's no fun in killing people if there's no reaction to it. If all they ever do is cower and plead for their lives, the graphic violence soon becomes pointless, and eventually sickening.

It's why parents let their kids play GTA games, where they might choose to kill a hundred of prostitutes, but would never let them sit and watch Flowers of Flesh and Blood. You've got to admit there's a difference between those two things.

 

[taxalot]

I was NEVER able to play the bad guy. I tried doing it in Fallout and KOTOR and strange, stupid guilt always crept in. I need to try that again and torture some sims.

 

[JarlFrank]

And that is why we have zombies. A subhuman monsters you could kill in scores and not feel a single bit of regret. A perfect videogame enemy. (from a emotive perspective, they usually have bad AI and are repetitive)

Before zombies we had Nazis, and they were allowed to have pretty decent AI sometimes, and you never really regretted killing them, even though they were usually just Wermacht soldiers and not necessarily fanatical about National Socialism for all we knew... and they all had mums and dads, maybe wives and kids, but no one cared at all. It was great shooting Nazis in the Return to Castle Wolfenstein and Hidden and Dangerous days, MoH, etc. because they could shoot back, move fast, and said things like "Nein!" and "Aaaaiiiieeee!"

Robots, zombies, and Nazis are all fair game as far as most folk are concerned, and you can kill them all day and night with nobody complaining. Robo-Hitler in the original Wolfenstein may have been the pinnacle of all video game enemies.

Nowadays, with the rise of the "realistic" "modern" shooter, we seem to be killing a lot of Arabs and Commies, which just aren't as much fun somehow.

Hey, nazis were the good guys!

But I still love playing games like Return to Castle Wolfenstein and I don't feel guilty killing Wehrmacht soldiers, one of which might be my grandpa, because it's just a game! You're shooting at pixels, not people. There's nothing to feel guilty about.
Also RtCW and many other older shooters have this campy action movie atmosphere. Most modern shooters try to be gritty and realistic, which just isn't as fun as the campy cliche-WW2-movie-nazis of RtCW.
In older games, you used to be an action hero. Action heroes shoot hordes of baddies and save the day in the end, and it's all just a cool story. It's like that in movies, too. But then there's the gritty war movie that tries to show everyone how bad war is in order to prevent glorification - pseudo-gritty modern shooters might have the same effect. It just doesn't feel as fun cause you're not the action hero, just a soldier in a war together with your squadmates. You're not the awesome larger-than-life hero anymore. And that's just not as much fun.

 

[Weierstraß]

Violence in and of itself is not entertaining, to me. I revel in challenging game mechanics that require me to strategize and alter tactics on-the-fly in order to succeed. That is why I absolutely adored TFC while loathed CS. CS is pretty mindless two dimensional shoot'em up while TFC had extremely varied experience based upon chosen classes. CS was the herald of decline for FPS games.

Having only played TF2 and not TFC I came to the exact opposite conclusion, CS being the only tactically interesting multilayer FPS I've come across.

 

[Gurkog]

Having only played TF2 and not TFC I came to the exact opposite conclusion, CS being the only tactically interesting multilayer FPS I've come across.

I have never Played TF2, but I hear it is not as good as the original.

 

[sser]

Interesting topic. I have noticed that open world games usually fail to make connections between player and character. GTA4 was a good example, but an even crazier one is a game called Prototype. In that game you play as a mopy, sad victim of government engineering who fights to find the bad guys and exact vengeance. The only problem is that you murder whole swathes of the civilian population just so you can find the supposed bad guys. And it isn't smartly done. There is no "ironic" I Am Legend-type twist to it. It's just a very badly designed story, a game that brings in polar opposites and forces them to play together.

In GTAIII, who cares if you run over 20-people on your way to a mission? The missions weren't serious anyway. All the elements made sense. Consistency is kind of a big deal, and probably the biggest hurdle modern game designers have trouble getting over (now that we have well understood, somewhat universal game 'mechanics' in place). That's why the Saints Row people are so clever. Saints Row actually has a decent story, but it doesn't get in the way of gameplay. Plot drives you into crazy missions, plot doesn't drag crazy missions down into boring drivel like GTA4 does. A sort of corollary to Saints Row, the first Mafia was also very sharp with how it handled its open world. Car crashes could kill you. Shotguns to the chest could kill you. You could be a maniac, but you had to really try to do it, otherwise the gameworld was just there to facilitate the story; to help blend the gameplay with the setting.

People can say, well, ignore that shit and just play the game. But that's kind of the hangup. In GTA4, for example, the story is a big part of the game. But if outside the story you're a maniac who murders hundreds of people, all the story elements fall to pieces. You can't go from mass murderer to sob story immigrant within the span of two frames. One element sours the other. When I go from one to the other I ask, what's the damn point? It's like watching a porno with too much story.

 

[Sranchammer]

Pac-Man turned me into a womanizing cannibal.

 

[Horus]

Violence in and of itself is not entertaining, to me. I revel in challenging game mechanics that require me to strategize and alter tactics on-the-fly in order to succeed. That is why I absolutely adored TFC while loathed CS. CS is pretty mindless two dimensional shoot'em up while TFC had extremely varied experience based upon chosen classes. CS was the herald of decline for FPS games.

Having serious consuquences for dying made it more fun and tactical in CS,TF 2 is a popamole game where you die constantly and rewarded for stupidity(blow yourself up,rush to enemies).
Still CS only scratched the surface of what fps can do,if only they could make more interesting weapons with tactical variety it would be perfect.

 

[chestburster]

Interesting topic. I have noticed that open world games usually fail to make connections between player and character. GTA4 was a good example, but an even crazier one is a game called Prototype. In that game you play as a mopy, sad victim of government engineering who fights to find the bad guys and exact vengeance. The only problem is that you murder whole swathes of the civilian population just so you can find the supposed bad guys. And it isn't smartly done. There is no "ironic" I Am Legend-type twist to it. It's just a very badly designed story, a game that brings in polar opposites and forces them to play together.

Except that the player character is NOT a mopy sad victim of government engineering. He was a selfish mad scientist working for an evil corporation, who released the virus by accident after a failed blackmailing attempt. And after releasing the virus, he was consumed by the virus immediately. What you are controlling in the game is simply a virus replicate creature. It may look like a man, but it sure ain't a man anymore.

And that's the brilliance of Prototype, allowing the player to play as a chaotic evil character fighting some lawful evil corporation, with civilian NPCs acting like nothing more than HP/MP kits. It's a brilliant game design choice that makes perfect harmony between gameplay and story elements. Sadly most players didn't pay attention to the fine plot details and the studio changed the protagonist into a generic angry dude/good family man in the sequel.

 

[Commissar Draco]

Evil is the one who attack my PC on sight. I feel no regret dispatching them nor executing NPCs who betrays me or my faction but I am no morally vacuous Librul who cannot into distinguishing good from evil. GTs were always games about social filth shame for industry for promoting them among yoouths and you can play CK2 in moral way... in fact games rewards you for having PC with cardinal virtues like Kindness, Just, Brave etc... by making the vassal revolts much less likely.

 

[Gurkog]

You must never have played clan matches in TFC, or at least on a good server. Just throwing bodies and spam at the enemy almost always results in spectacular failure. CS has no variety because there is only 1 class and virtually any gun will do as long as you aim for the head. EVERY tactic used in CS can be done in TFC, but CS can't do half of the stuff available in TFC. Go pop your moles in CS and pretend that it is challenging.

 

[Horus]

You must never have played clan matches in TFC, or at least on a good server. Just throwing bodies and spam at the enemy almost always results in spectacular failure. CS has no variety because there is only 1 class and virtually any gun will do as long as you aim for the head. EVERY tactic used in CS can be done in TFC, but CS can't do half of the stuff available in TFC. Go pop your moles in CS and pretend that it is challenging.

You're replying to the wrong post
But let me answer your question anway
I agree with you that cs is boring targeting game in the end because of lack of classes and distinction among players(best players are always the fastest headshotters) and it becomes boring head shot race most of the time but even though it's like that i still prefer it to the ultra boring die,reborn,die non stop action of the modern game(TF 1 was better) and i don't get that sense of thrill when dying has no serious consequences other than walking 20 seconds back to the combat zones.
I didn't play too much clan matches but i remember watching it from my friends and youtube i remember it as a cluster fuck of deathwith fast combat that rewards twitch reflexes and kamikaze attacks(especially if you aren't heavy with medic support or sniper).