Op Ed

The Tech Report - Modern shooters and the atrophy of fun.
Since the days of Doom and Quake, we've seen shooters take quantum leaps in graphics, writing, voice acting, and just about everything else—except for gameplay. Somehow, gameplay hasn't evolved. It hasn't gotten more fun or more engaging or more interesting. Instead, it's atrophied into a bland rut, to the point where big-budget shooters feel just like old light-gun arcade games (Virtua Cop, House of the Dead, and so on). Players are still stuck on rails, still made to gun down easy target after easy target, pausing only to reload and to watch cut scenes. Today's visuals and stories might be Oscar-worthy, but the interactivity still feels like tasteless filler.

Shooters could be so much more. Instead of trivializing combat, they could make fights less frequent, longer, and more memorable. They could reward players for acting rationally when outnumbered—hide, flee, or die. Shooters could, when appropriate, encourage problem-solving and exploration over brute force. Hell, why couldn't they have players decide how the story plays out? But no, that's all too much to ask. Studios and publishers seem to have forgotten that games are supposed to be games, not CG films with playable action scenes.

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Re: Op Ed
Apr 5, 2013, 21:57
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Re: Op Ed Apr 5, 2013, 21:57
Apr 5, 2013, 21:57
 
But...they don't put in hide, flee, or die because while that might be more realistic it's not much fun as a game. So, because the game is being a game and not a CG film, that's exactly why you spend a lot of time fighting what often winds up being trivial combat....otherwise it'd just turn into cutscene after scene with a trivial amount of actual gameplay in between.

Players don't decide how the story plays out because every if/then variable entered into the mix requires development of a separate game path to house it. Even games that do offer choice offer a muted one, or are old enough that most of the effect on it was just a variation on a text box.

I can't help but feel he's talking about Bioshock Infinite here anyway, in which case it's sort of a moot argument. It's pretty well loved, very well received, and while the gunplay in it might be average the game as a whole isn't. I wish I'd had more effect on the story, too, but that's a gripe about gaming in general and not about shooters.
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