What happened to the FPS genre?
#21
I think the main summation of the issue is that the devs are trying so hard to force even single player games to play like competitive multiplayer with stupid weapons, annoying AI bulletsponge enemies that forces you to jump and run around the map like a circus monkey in order not to die, simulating all the gimmicks and tricks of competitive games.

Then someone drew the similarity between this and old "boomer shooters" which had similar things, but not by intent, instead because the tech just sucked back then. So the new "boomer shooter" was created, a schizophrenic mess that isn't even fun to play, with some le ebin one liners tossed in as a heckin Duke Nukem reference. This is because trannies who play these hate fun and are spazzes.
#22
Ultrakill wasn't really a stripped down Doom clone though. It was basically Devil May Cry meets FPS and had tons of technical depth, different ways to approach a level. You're a pleb if you think the Doom style -> "aiming down the sights" tac shooter was some linear progression rather than a branching off into a new subgenre. I never said that most boomer shooters aren't trash, or that them being mostly the only quality FPS games being released today is good. But it's true. That's where the genre is today, it's pretty much dead and can only display quality or fun when overtly calling back to an older, purer time
#23
(01-12-2023, 08:46 AM)VitruvianIncel Wrote: Ultrakill wasn't really a stripped down Doom clone though. It was basically Devil May Cry meets FPS and had tons of technical depth, different ways to approach a level. You're a pleb if you think the Doom style -> "aiming down the sights" tac shooter was some linear progression rather than a branching off into a new subgenre. I never said that most boomer shooters aren't trash, or that them being mostly the only quality FPS games being released today is good. But it's true. That's where the genre is today, it's pretty much dead and can only display quality or fun when overtly calling back to an older, purer time

Itagaki was right about Devil May Cry. It's only cool because it looks weird and is made by weird people sincerely trying to make their idea of cool. Not "WOW WHOLESOME IRONIC NON-THREATENING NEW REDEFINED MASCULINITY" cool. Actually what they wanted without concession. It's an aesthetic exercise. I would see a lot of value in Devil May Cry with all of the "gameplay" ripped out, basically turning it into another Evergrace. I see no value in Devil May Cry with the aesthetics ripped, basically turning it into Ultrakill.

As I'm always saying lately, I generally dislike pure "games".
#24
Well, I agree there. Very few devs today have a finger on the pulse of what made the games of old good beyond the shallowest layers of novelty. But I still had a lot of fun throwing multiple coins in the air, quickly switching to laser gun, shooting coins and nuking the whole room. The blood healing mechanic was also cool. Very few games are able to pull off giving your character that much power, options and healing and building a genuinely challenging experience around that. The framework was there for something fresh, but I'm not sticking around to see now that the degenerate devs have outed themselves. And yes, the tryhard Le Edgy Gore and Iconoclasm bit is very cringe and played out

Doom did it well because it came at the height of Satanic Panic era and being an agitator to the prude hall monitor types was a good marketing strategy. And even that was just the bait to pull you towards the expertly crafted level design and such. When people try to do the Satanic ultraviolence stuff now it's just cringe memberberrying, not a genuine response to the cultural norms of the day
#25
Excellent topic and avatar. Most of my favorite threads from Amarna I were on gaming, so I'm happy to see this resume.

(06-27-2022, 08:57 PM)Brucean Wrote: Remember when FPS games used to be fun and imaginative? Early 2000s banged out Halo, FEAR, HL2, Rainbow Six Vegas, SWAT, early Battlefield games, which were amazing. Even games like Medal of Honour, which are less talked about now, managed to be really popular (some of the first pvp gaming I ever did was playing medal of honour on PS2). But now, looking at FPS games, they're all total garbage.



How far things have fallen.
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#26
(06-28-2022, 05:18 AM)anthony Wrote: A big part of the problem with 'fps' in particular is the label 'fps'. I've been thinking a lot lately how this industry takes language and labels way too seriously and so has its thinking constrained, first on a critical level in shaping how people receive these things, and eventually at a top level when the memes get to the people making the games.

(06-28-2022, 06:12 AM)Brucean Wrote: There is indeed still a thriving (if we count sales, I suppose) FPS genre, capturing the minds of millions still, so it is still existent. To rephrase, I think I should have said "why has the FPS genre, once known for a wealth of different experiences, become so tedious?" The general inter-genre trends for perhaps the last decade have been towards homogenization,

The short answer to this is "pipeline":

(08-18-2022, 05:47 PM)Chud Wrote: I said this before in the "Great Flattening" thread, but I'll restate it here in more detail:

The increase in graphical fidelity de facto reduces the fidelity of other aspects by increasing the absolute cost of production. Recall the square-cube law: a 2048x2048 texture has sixteen times the surface area of a 512x512 one (and such a drastic jump is not a thought experiment). Likewise with the poly-counts of 3D models. Linearly increasing the standard of visual fidelity quadratically increases the number of artist-man-hours needed to add anything visible to the game; thus, when graphics pass a certain threshold, the production of a new game becomes an economy of scale akin to the production of a new prescription drug. Risk-taking is discouraged. Artistry is a fast-track to making expensive mistakes.

Chud's comment here well outlines what I'm defining as "pipeline", but I'd like to elaborate in some other directions:



"Structure" is not necessarily bad.. (hard to say that after posting this video) games (and especially newer games as Chud pointed out) can be as complicated, costly (this is one of the primary issues, overspending in stupid ways), and require manpower similar to major movie productions, so of course management and workflow cohesion is necessary to actually finish these ambitious projects, yes?

(08-16-2022, 10:10 PM)anthony Wrote: The spirit from which cool games emerge is dead. Men who like cool man stuff are basically barred from working in creative fields as anything but beasts of burden to handle technical stuff. The point is not to be an outpouring of truth (what is cool is true), these games are now constructed monuments to untruth. Games are made to force a fake image of reality as a bunch of weirdos want it, not to affirm, enhance and complete the world as it is.

Continuing Anthony's point— the problem is that in the past, there were key trends such as "3D" (or any "computer graphics" even 2D, though less) being seen inherently as surreal:

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(To stay on topic, I've only selected screenshots from western FPS games made before 2008: Doom 3, Doom 3: Resurrection of Evil, Painkiller Black, and Pathologic. Before anyone tries to point out that these are all horror FPS let me state that "genre" is the excuse you use to get paid to make something.)

..and so, there was an expectation that "games are weird" and games are for weird people. There was a direct benefit to even strict western games (like anything by Valve for example), as it created a better atmosphere for and in gaming culture. This also goes into the faux-nerd "masstroon" that happened in the late '00s, but I assume everyone's pretty familiar with that and all the havoc it's caused— one point I'll bring up is that cultural shift is a major reason why Japan lost its dominion on gaming (the other is that gaming, much like 4chan, is now a Mexican hobby instead of a white one).

(06-27-2022, 08:57 PM)Brucean Wrote: How many games can't even manage to get working mirrors, when FEAR could over a decade ago?

"The televisions found in the apartments in the Half-Life 2 chapter Point Insertion can be unplugged, after which they will immediately turn off."

The televisions in HL2 also use a (I believe) completely unique projection method— what you see on the screens is happening real time around you, but miles below the map where it cannot be reached. It's then projected onto the screens, rather than using a .gif or some kind of FMV. This is why HL2's TV's or other screens look so significantly better than any other games.
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#27
(09-30-2022, 04:24 PM)Corvid Wrote: I'm surprised that nobody in this thread has yet touched upon the influence of competitive players. After Halo 2, I believe a lot more emphasis was placed on the e-sports/competitive communities and they were given significant influence on balancing decisions,

Excellent point, but I think "e-sports" should be particularly emphasized. Not to say competitive players (spics, niggers and those like them) haven't caused their fair share of damage (most of it) to gaming, as Anthony outlines here:

(10-01-2022, 12:27 AM)anthony Wrote: I remember playing a bit of the campaign with a friend, who didn't really care for it. I remember he found my fascination with stuff like the behaviour of marines, and my desire to observe the game at work frustrating. He just wanted to smash through it like he was playing Goldeneye or something. To him it might as well have been. Everything about Halo that was essentially Halo and essentially Bungie was more or less lost on him. He was about moving forward and shooting. The thing I really remember is that at the point in the game where the frigate 'Forward Unto Dawn' pulls up and lands near you he called it 'The Mothership'. Nobody in the game calls it that, nothing really happens to suggest that it's anything but a military vessel in a fleet of many. But to him it was 'The Mothership'. This wasn't to say he had some elaborate worked out unique meaning of this ship was in his head. More that it meant so little he didn't even bother working it reasonably into the context of its surroundings. He just mentally smashed it down into a simple generic video game fiction form.

..but it's worth noting that multiplayer games and modes weren't always so restricted or limited in the way those people want.

I will come back to this later.

(10-13-2022, 12:18 AM)anthony Wrote: I see esports as basically made up of the worst parts of a banking job and sports without the benefits of either. Competitive games of fetch would bring out more in the human animal than competitive Halo team deathmatch. Arguments on metaknowledge and strategy are worthless. Even fetch would develop a meta. Anything which is competitive will. There are no positive arguments to be made for 'esports' beyond the natural attraction it has to a certain kind of person. A low unstimulating kind of 'fun' that mostly appeals to the stupid and broken.

So extremely true.

But I will come back to this as well.

(10-16-2022, 07:18 PM)calico Wrote: They're quite soulful and have a nice paranormal gloss.

Calico after your roastie-posting in the other thread I didn't think you'd ever say anything I'd agree with. I second third the reccomendation, Metro is cool:

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The main thing I liked about it, obviously, is the visual component— specifically this "railpunk" scrapyard aesthetic.

Metro is not a "great" game (and I haven't played Exodus, but I linked some bits of it which are examples of what I want to talk about) but what I enjoyed is it's like a Hollywood S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Tons and tons of "cool shit", great modeling and weird environments. Outside of that, there is a certain "weight" to things I enjoyed, these very detailed guns that have been burnt together out of husks of former guns and railyard parts.. I remember specifically how the glass on your gas mask gets damaged:

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I love this, any game that's willing to "damage the screen" is awesome. killer7 originally had a shattered glass HUD like this which was scrapped (it's one of the beta elements I wish they'd kept the most, looked really original):

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(01-12-2023, 02:13 AM)anthony Wrote: "FPS" games which go back to being "All about the shooting!" are all boring ugly garbage that look exactly the same. Pure gameplay driven fps is actually quite boring.

(01-12-2023, 02:57 AM)NuclearAbsolutist Wrote:
(01-12-2023, 01:07 AM)VitruvianIncel Wrote: Ultrakill was actually my all time favorite shooter before they added an official buttplug mod.

I was able to predict the developers were such degenerates with no more research than trailers screenshots and fan discussion on discord. I have trouble articulating why it is the case but there are traits that are red flags. Anthony pointed out the biggest one but when I saw the low poly style the ebin robots that fight over BLOOD concept with BIBLICAL references I saw flashes of savages scrapping bricks from a ruin before the sodmy festival. My last thought is I feel it's quite obviously bad how people see this boomer shooter regression as a ideal a fundamental misdiagnosis and one all to happy to be abliged by human carcinogens.

At this point I'm going to have to just remake "The Use And Abuse Of Old game Styles" thread, it was too valuable and there was so much I wanted to bitch and moan about.
I'll do it later.
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#28
One of the biggest problems with modern FPSes is twofold; the first is that games are now MP only or MP oriented (which as a result; means that the single player takes a backseat). This was fueled by the fact that Call of Duty single players were barely played or beaten by most gamers as opposed to the multiplayers as the franchise aged, along with the higher production costs. The problem is, gamers are very hesitant to pay $60 for a multiplayer game regardless of how good it is unless it has a playerbase tied to it.

The second issue is a natural result of this; and it's "live service games". On paper it sounds nice to have a game without having to pay for DLC packs that half the people online wouldn't own ever again. The problem is, every single game you play is beholden to whatever bullshit the developers pull including outright replacing your game with a different one entirely, or balance/gameplay changes that nobody likes, or shutting the game down as was done with Overwatch 1. As a bonus; if a game isn't shut down it's not uncommon to see developers abandon games and the older Call of Duty games having RCE exploits (or RAT exploits as they're called among players) to the point there are listings in the CVE database for the series has made it impossible to play the PC versions online without risking malware or worse. In fact, to play the PC Version of Black Ops 3 online a community patch is essentially needed to patch crashing and RCE exploits, and many games don't get fixes like this. Many closed down games also never get private servers or similar fixes that let you play online. That is of course if anyone is playing the game online; many old online games have low player counts and if the official servers are killed, well good luck even having a handful of people online.

Essentially, modern FPSes killed single players that were memorable and well written for disposable multiplayers. This is by design, they know it's a financial risk for suits and committees to make a fun single player game, but they know it's easy to churn out Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 (the second game with the same title) and your coworkers will run to eat it up. There's no more nerds making games for nerds, but there's another disposable FPS on the market.

(01-13-2023, 10:53 AM)PIGSAW Wrote: "The televisions found in the apartments in the Half-Life 2 chapter Point Insertion can be unplugged, after which they will immediately turn off."

The televisions in HL2 also use a (I believe) completely unique projection method— what you see on the screens is happening real time around you, but miles below the map where it cannot be reached. It's then projected onto the screens, rather than using a .gif or some kind of FMV. This is why HL2's TV's or other screens look so significantly better than any other games.

I've heard the reason why in modern games mirrors and shit like that doesn't work is since it's rendering it again, it's eating up GPU resources. Older games would render the room again and given how graphics scale, this means that a mirror would cause framerate issues in a badly optimized game given modern gamedevs feel that "optimization" is what Titanfall 1 on the PC did where it had to extract audio file.



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