What Makes A Good First Person Shooter: A Series

LoathsomePete · 07-02-2009, 10:21 PM

I think that instead of just talking about a game, I'll talk about what makes a first person shooter great, then use an example to further prove my point.

Fear

No not the game (I will get to that in a bit), but the use of fear in video games is detrimental to creating an enticing atmosphere. When the original Doom came out, their use to "Closet Monsters" appearing seemingly at random. I still recall the second level of the original Doom scaring me when I was forced to go into a darkened room in search of a key to open a door.

No game gives off the same level of fear as the Condemned series. Condemned: Criminal Origins was one of the launch titles and met to some critical acclaim, but also a lot of well deserved criticism. Before I get to the criticism, I just want to talk for a moment of all the things Condemned does right. For one, it is one of the few first person shooters that puts the emphasis on melee combat rather than guns. While guns are present in the game, they are actually quite ineffective as they all have extremely limited ammunition and the sporadic movements of the enemies make it hard to actually hit anything. Limited ammunition is something the Resident Evil series is known for (well that is until Resident Evil 4), putting you alone in a setting, surrounded by people all wanting to kill you and with very little in the way of defending yourself. Rather than using firearms to dispatch your foes, you can clobber them to death with blunt objects like 2x4s, conduits, lead pipes, and the occasional fire axes, sledgehammers, and wrecking bars. The use of melee weapons isn't exactly new to First Person Shooters, in Doom you had your fists, in Duke Nukem you had your boot, and in the Half-Life series you have your crowbar, but none of them actually feel like you're making an impact. In Condemned, you can almost feel the impact up your arm as you whack clouds of blood and teeth from a teenager runaway's face. It only gets better when the enemies drop to their knees and you can deliver fatal finishing blows, like snapping their necks or giving one final punch to the face. It only gets better in the second game Bloodshot, where there are environmental finishes, such as snapping their necks in a toilet bowl, throwing them face first into a TV, or putting their head in a vice and crushing it into a gooey mess.

There's far more to this series than just gratuities violence though, one, and quite possibly the most important is the setting. Each of the levels take place in poorly lit decrepit buildings that are inhabited by murderous junkies and people suffering from schizophrenia. The enemies are often lurking the shadows, muttering threats or random babbling. The levels range from abandoned buildings to unused subway stations and tracks, to an old abandoned department store, a school, and finally a farm. The limited lighting makes it hard to anticipate when an enemy is near, forcing you to rely on your ears more than your sight. When you do get to see an enemy in some kind of light, their appearance is anything but wholesome. Missing teeth, facial cuts and suffering from malnutrition the enemies put a whole new level of uneasiness, as they're not the legion of identical enemies most games give us. All these aspects help to create a truly eerie atmosphere that has you sitting on the edge of your seat, reveling in both fear and anticipation of what's going to happen next.

Earlier I stated as to why I didn't use the game F.E.A.R as my example, as it usually gets lumped into the horror genre. There really isn't much horror to the game, as misleading as title may be. The game plays as your standard military shooter in which you play some random soldier who was just assigned to the unit. You have a super power that lets you slow down time (Because bullet time hasn't already been done to death) which gives you an incredibly unfair advantage over the enemies. The enemies are nothing more than a clone army of super soldiers (Because that's never been done before). Occasionally the game remembers that it's trying to be a horror game and the screen will get dulled, some weird sounds will start to play, a blood splat will be thrown randomly on the ground and a few more surreal things happen, but then you're back to dreary old reality in which you get to clear out another room of enemies. Those surreal moments were really the only part of F.E.A.R. that I liked, but they were so few and far between it really makes it hard to call it a horror game. It's a competent first person shooter, but it brings nothing new to the table, and doesn't deliver the same feeling of well... horror that the Condemned series delivers.

mr dave · 07-03-2009, 04:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by LoathsomePete

I think that instead of just talking about a game, I'll talk about what makes a first person shooter great, then use an example to further prove my point.

Fear

to talk about fear in a FPS genre discussion and to not mention System Shock is like talking about hard rock and never mentioning Led Zeppelin.

07-02-2009, 10:21 PM	#1 (permalink)
LoathsomePete Cardboard Box Realtor Join Date: Feb 2009 Location: Hobb's End Posts: 7,648	I think that instead of just talking about a game, I'll talk about what makes a first person shooter great, then use an example to further prove my point. Fear No not the game (I will get to that in a bit), but the use of fear in video games is detrimental to creating an enticing atmosphere. When the original Doom came out, their use to "Closet Monsters" appearing seemingly at random. I still recall the second level of the original Doom scaring me when I was forced to go into a darkened room in search of a key to open a door. No game gives off the same level of fear as the Condemned series. Condemned: Criminal Origins was one of the launch titles and met to some critical acclaim, but also a lot of well deserved criticism. Before I get to the criticism, I just want to talk for a moment of all the things Condemned does right. For one, it is one of the few first person shooters that puts the emphasis on melee combat rather than guns. While guns are present in the game, they are actually quite ineffective as they all have extremely limited ammunition and the sporadic movements of the enemies make it hard to actually hit anything. Limited ammunition is something the Resident Evil series is known for (well that is until Resident Evil 4), putting you alone in a setting, surrounded by people all wanting to kill you and with very little in the way of defending yourself. Rather than using firearms to dispatch your foes, you can clobber them to death with blunt objects like 2x4s, conduits, lead pipes, and the occasional fire axes, sledgehammers, and wrecking bars. The use of melee weapons isn't exactly new to First Person Shooters, in Doom you had your fists, in Duke Nukem you had your boot, and in the Half-Life series you have your crowbar, but none of them actually feel like you're making an impact. In Condemned, you can almost feel the impact up your arm as you whack clouds of blood and teeth from a teenager runaway's face. It only gets better when the enemies drop to their knees and you can deliver fatal finishing blows, like snapping their necks or giving one final punch to the face. It only gets better in the second game Bloodshot, where there are environmental finishes, such as snapping their necks in a toilet bowl, throwing them face first into a TV, or putting their head in a vice and crushing it into a gooey mess. There's far more to this series than just gratuities violence though, one, and quite possibly the most important is the setting. Each of the levels take place in poorly lit decrepit buildings that are inhabited by murderous junkies and people suffering from schizophrenia. The enemies are often lurking the shadows, muttering threats or random babbling. The levels range from abandoned buildings to unused subway stations and tracks, to an old abandoned department store, a school, and finally a farm. The limited lighting makes it hard to anticipate when an enemy is near, forcing you to rely on your ears more than your sight. When you do get to see an enemy in some kind of light, their appearance is anything but wholesome. Missing teeth, facial cuts and suffering from malnutrition the enemies put a whole new level of uneasiness, as they're not the legion of identical enemies most games give us. All these aspects help to create a truly eerie atmosphere that has you sitting on the edge of your seat, reveling in both fear and anticipation of what's going to happen next. Earlier I stated as to why I didn't use the game F.E.A.R as my example, as it usually gets lumped into the horror genre. There really isn't much horror to the game, as misleading as title may be. The game plays as your standard military shooter in which you play some random soldier who was just assigned to the unit. You have a super power that lets you slow down time (Because bullet time hasn't already been done to death) which gives you an incredibly unfair advantage over the enemies. The enemies are nothing more than a clone army of super soldiers (Because that's never been done before). Occasionally the game remembers that it's trying to be a horror game and the screen will get dulled, some weird sounds will start to play, a blood splat will be thrown randomly on the ground and a few more surreal things happen, but then you're back to dreary old reality in which you get to clear out another room of enemies. Those surreal moments were really the only part of F.E.A.R. that I liked, but they were so few and far between it really makes it hard to call it a horror game. It's a competent first person shooter, but it brings nothing new to the table, and doesn't deliver the same feeling of well... horror that the Condemned series delivers. __________________ Last.FM 101 Albums That May Not Change Your Life, But I Really Like And You Might Too