Do modern FPS games suck?

[Brandon's Impotent Rage]

In another thread (this one, specifically (http://www.revleft.com/vb/whats-your-mind-t190418/index.html?t=190418)) I brought up the idea that most First Person Shooters of today just kind of suck compared to the older ones, like Doom or Unreal. I'll definitely admit that graphics and storytelling wise, modern FPS games have definitely improved on that score.

But gameplay wise? They've just gotten so damn dull. I'm not sure if its the now almost ubiquitous cover mechanics, the regenerating health, or the fact that so many of these games seem to play in a fashion that is as linear as a corridor.

Maybe its because games have forgotten that being a little over-the-top is just fine. Doom and Unreal were over-the-top unrealistic violence fests, but they were fun. I'm not even saying that stuff like rpg elements or adventure game mechanics can't be used: both Half Life and the criminally underlooked Cybermage: Darklight Awakening proved that you can have a fast-moving ultra-violent affair yet still have an engrossing and deep story. The recent Wolfenstein: The New Order is a perfect example of a game that combines the best of both old-school and modern FPS, yet every critic in the industry was ready to completely write it off as a relic of yesteryear (until they played it, that is).

Or you know, I might just be gettin' old......

[M-L-C-F]

The only FPS game that I'm really interested in is the new Unreal Tournament, that's being developed with UE4. It's become just lather, rinse, repeat, when it comes to the FPS genre. Not to mention the chauvinist and exceptionalist propaganda that exists in games like Call of Duty and Battlefield nowadays. Console FPS games are stale, and even on the PC, it's not like it once was.

[Futility Personified]

Half Life, Deus Ex, Half Life 2, the star wars Jedi Knight games, CoD4, MoH 2 (the one with Omaha), Quake 2, 4, hell even Quake 1, them was some good games son. Far Cry, Crysis,
etc, etc. I think now it's a case of saturation of a certain type of play style. As aforementioned with the wee drowning, i'm playing through Wolfenstein and whilst it is good, I am a fan of open world shooter types. FC3 was amazing, though FC4 seems more of the same. HL3 when and if it comes out will be seminal. I'm wary of going back to the corridor days; it doesn't take much skill to rpg the fuck out of things. I have over 200 hours on Battlefield 4, and I still enjoy it. If more people played the DLCs on PS3, i'd be happy.

There is a lot of watering down, a quality issue that has taken root and planted fascistic barbs, nevermind the fact that most of the games now are just so.... so what? I am not as much into gaming as I was 5 years ago, but then I wouldn't even play Vanilla WoW now, because i'm just older. At the moment, there is some real shite plopping along, but we'll see a title or two come out in the near distant future that may, just may, be noteworthy.

EDIT: I omitted Fallout 3. Call it a bastard child and not a true FPS, but if they get the mechanics right in the next game then that'll be something to see.

[Zoroaster]

Yeah, it's kind of depressing. Even bad games like Ride to Hell is keeping my attention span longer. The only games I'm currently looking forward to are "Bloodborne" and "Assassin's Creed: Unity".

[Slavic]

I've fairly enjoyed Counter Strike:GO I've played CS back during 1.6. Granted CS:GO is more of a polished and streamlined CS then a new game.

Ive enjoyed Payday 2 which isn't your typical FPS as well as Natural Selection 2 which combined fps with rts elements and strategy.

[BIXX]

A lot of FPS games suck
But there are a few cool ones

[Hrafn]

Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Bioshock Infinite, Dishonored, Metro: Last Light, etc. are all rather modern FPS games that I've really, really enjoyed.

[Red Commissar]

I think the problem here isn't so much the genre itself (though FPS has its issues), rather the way the game industry tends to produce video games. While there were always exceptions we could see generally that there were phases that FPS titles went through copying one another when it was what sold- Sci-Fi very early on, WWII, modernish, and now mostly semi-scifi/near future kind of vibe. Problem is that for the most part these really amounted more to cosmetic changes with familiar gameplay and that is intentional, as the developers and publishers are aiming for the same audience over and over again.

There's also the factor of "pro-gaming" that's really taken off nowadays that game developers and publishers are embracing much in the same way that athletic companies do for their associated sport leagues, and for much the same reason as it helps to retain a particular audience and increase its visibility among that crowd. This encourages creating games that are able to become second nature to the gamer, and smaller maps help with MP gamers forming tactics for each of the scenarios they may encounter. This is why CS in its various iterations has been a staple of those tournaments. So a lot of developers will often design a game with multiplayer in mind- single player is becoming increasingly an afterthought and arguably only a flashy tutorial mode so you're not completely lost when you jump online.

The problem is that we don't really have developers who want to take a risk and make some unique gameplay ontop of how they are presenting the game, and that's really tied back to how expensive some of these FPS games are beginning to become. Engine development and licensing costs have become pretty obscene and that puts a lot of pressure on developers who are running up those costs to make a game that'll actually sell at the level the publisher considers to be profitable. Lot of times the engines themselves restrict what kind of gameplay is possible.

You could still end up having a FPS game that's both critically successful and sold a respectable amount while managing to stand out from the crowd, but as far as the publisher is concerned did not make back enough to justify its development costs, and that can lead to the developer not receiving another contract or worse being forced to disband altogether if they end up in debt.

Another ugly side to this though is that sometimes as ambitious and unique a new gameplay style might be it doesn't preclude it from the possibility of being a bad game. There was a game way back when I remember called "Breed" back when in 2004. This one had a unique take on Battlefield-style maps and squad-based video games, with simultaneous space and ground battles occurring all on the same map. Transitioning from space to earth and back, was seamless with ways to attack the other in each of those areas on top of fighting with enemies in the same plane.

When the beta was released it looked promising to many players and got a fair bit of attention then, but once it was released it was seen to be a buggy, unoptimized mess with the engine being unable to actually handle the game. It even sacrificed the seamless transition between ground and space to a less immersive white screen with much of the space combat gutted. What was left was an uninspired and bland FPS on small islands with wonky AI if you didn't have other players to fill out the squad, and that's if you could get past the buggy mess the game turned out to be.

What probably didn't help either is that 2004 also saw the release of three significant and anticipated FPS titles- Unreal Tournament 2004, Doom III, and Half-Life 2. Halo 2 if you want to include consoles, I guess you could throw in the first Far Cry in there too, but more for after the fact since it gave crytek the foot in the door it needed to start pushing its engine.

I probably broke chit-chat post standards here oh well.

[motion denied]

Anything after the early Counter Strike is shit, and deep down you all know that.