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[Arne]

FPSs are better now in my opinion

I think I agree with this. There is interesting stuff being done with player-terrain interaction, social and community aspects, destructible terrain and physics, etc. I still love Quake 1, but it does all of those things kind of poorly, if at all. It did leave permanent corpses though (disappearing corpses are a major pet peeve of mine).

Then there's some exceptions, like Tribes 1 which was released for free in preparation for  Tribes 3. I found myself re-enjoying the original far more. It has some rather unique game mechanics, or combination thereof.


Jabberwock> Was multiplayer the main appeal of Goldeneye 64 or did you enjoy single player too?

[BoydTheMilkman]

There are good retro games and good modern games end of story

FOR EXAMPLE

Team Fortress 2 > The original Halo (okay it might not be retro but this statement is true)

but Super Mario 64 > Super Mario Galaxy imo

[Richard Kain]

The FPS genre has always been driven by technology. At the same time, the slight tangents that didn't focus on technology so much as they focused on content, are usually the experiments that we remember best.

Companies like ID and Epic have pushed game technology forward through their FPS titles. But a lot of their titles don't hold up very well to the ravages of time. But then take a look at Valve. Valve's R&D has always focused on features that most developers tend to marginalize. And Valve has always focused most strongly on the content within their games, and the experiences presented. Their FPS titles generally have much greater staying power.

Modern FPS titles benefit from the technology available to them, but that doesn't define their quality. Again, it is a matter of how the power is used.

[Gimym TILBERT]

That's funny because i find, in some way, valve is going "retro" in the way the build game. Short accessible with only few features. When they ship TF2 and L4D i could not believe these game had so little map and weapon (or just enemy) when the norm was to have one hundred of each (borderland anyone?), and still manage to squeeze fun design with great innovation.

[Dragonmaw]

That's funny because i find, in some way, valve is going "retro" in the way the build game. Short accessible with only few features. When they ship TF2 and L4D i could not believe these game had so little map and weapon (or just enemy) when the norm was to have one hundred of each (borderland anyone?), and still manage to squeeze fun design with great innovation.

If you count all the classes, TF2 had about as many weapons as any normal FPS, and roughly the same amount per class as TF and TFC. The game also shipped with about as many maps as any other FPS. Borderlands' random weapon generation system is not indicative of the trend in FPS games.

Left 4 Dead indeed had fewer weapons (pistols, 2 tier one, 3 tier 2) but each served a distinctive purpose. It's like how Quake 3 gathered together all the favorites from the Quake series and made them all useful for specific situations and playstyles. As far as maps goes, it had about the same. 20 maps, 10 of which had vs support, is nothing to sneeze at. The problem lay in the way the game was designed, since it made th content feel smaller.

[Arne]

This is what I think is going on. There's a certain overlap, new places to go, but a strong focus on certain areas.

[jakten]

I thought L4D was amazing and worth every penny. I think Valve is a shining example of good games right now. I often get into a fight like this with friends who complain when they play a game that is only 12 hours long. They expect their games to be over flowing with weapons and have 80 hours of game play. I would usually ask them why? Why does that matter? Would you not rather have a short game where everything you did had a meaning or some kind of relevance and is fun to play multiple times? Wouldn't you rather something that gets to the point of why it is there rather than pissing all of your time away doing something moronic. Why do you need 50 weapons that basically do the same thing only slightly different when you can have one weapon that can be used in multiple ways because they thought about the uses of it.

Why does more = good? This is why we get 200 hour JRPGs that suck a royal turd. I hated borderlands for this exact reason, it was a horrible waste of my time nothing had any depth to it.

[John Nesky]

Arne, that is an amazing picture. It takes a few seconds to wrap my mind around, but it's clear now. It's too bad people don't illustrate their ideas visually more often.

[Brother Android]

Jabberwock> Was multiplayer the main appeal of Goldeneye 64 or did you enjoy single player too?

I guess just the multiplayer. I think that makes me "not an FPS fan"?

[gunmaggot]

i never said HATE OLD GAMS you stupid piece of shit

Eva, if you're reading this, I never actually said you said that.  Weird-ass thing to get banned over.  Hope you aren't too pissed at me.

[Valter]

I thought L4D was amazing and worth every penny.

I think that L4D is designed awfully and is a terrible excuse for a game.

4 players is the ideal amount for multiplayer on one screen. By splitting the TV into quarters, you can get a number of people playing without even having to change the screen proportions (when only two people are playing, you generally get one on the top half and one of the bottom, resulting in a screen that is wider than usual). Plus I've found that 4 people is the usual for a standard buddy get-together.

Valve apparently decided that good design would be boring, and crippled a decent game by prohibiting four-player splitscreen and local play. 

The PS2 got all kinds of flak for only having 2 controller ports. Five years later and nobody seems to care about multiplayer being arbitrarily limited anymore. I don't want to play online, I want to play with my friends! Like, in the same room! It's more fun that way.

[jwk5]

In this day and age, with these monstrous TVs everyone's sporting, 4-player split screen makes more sense now than ever. I mean with the TV we got here 4-player split screen is almost like each player having their own TV.

[Hangedman]

Valve apparently decided that good design would be boring, and crippled a decent game by prohibiting four-player splitscreen and local play. 

Except that the game itself is amazingly designed and one particular flaw which really isn't one anymore is not indicative of overall quality.

Splitscreening in FPSs is dead. I'm sorry, but it is. Even with a massive Plasma or a projector, there are so many tiny details that you need to take in all at once that splitscreening cripples everyone. The only reason why it used to work is because game graphics were simple as dirt. Not a bad thing, but just a limitation that cannot be overcome.

[gunmaggot]

Resident Evil 5 had splitscreen!

[Hangedman]

Resident Evil 5 had splitscreen!

2-way splitscreen only works if the entire game is flat. Like RE5. And it has to be horizontal.