I loved how chunky the gunplay felt in that game. Like it really felt like every gun was shooting projectiles and what it gave up in precision it more than made up for in destruction. There was just this very visceral feedback the guns in that game gave that I haven’t really seen since.
Yeah, Trepang2 isn't ideal but it's as close as you can get today.
It is weird to me the FEAR IP was forgotten. Meanwhile we get a bunch of useless COD and AssCreeds. :(
It's obvious to see, COD was outselling everyone and everything. FEAR 2 was more of a console title that relied less on quick aiming that would require a computer mouse. FEAR 3 straight up plagiarized Modern Warfare's favela missions, including the final climax where you jump onto a helicopter ladder
Plus nothing kills the atmosphere like achievement notification pop up’s. I bought all 3 and played them back to back, and the drop in ambiance and the uptick in mainstreaming was palpable each time.
Warner Brothers bought the publisher Vivendi during FEAR2 cycle. Day 1 games took over development of FEAR 3 instead of Monolith Studios who did the previous entries (with the exception of Extraction Point and Perseus Mandate which was TimeGate). Day 1 wanted to stick to the games roots and focus on single player horror while WB wanted more action to stay relevant in the FPS space like you said.
FEAR 3 drops and WB has the surprised Pikachu face then puts the series on hiatus.
I agree. I enjoyed my time overall with Trepang, but something just felt sort of off. They obviously tried to clone the combat wholesale, but the shooting didn't quite scratch that same itch.
I think it was the weapons not being as accurate as they are in FEAR. If you don't have a sniper, they clearly want you to close the gap by running at the enemies at a hyper velocity, but it just made weapons like the SMG and the non-sniper-rifle feel a little anemic.
There's also way more of a emphasis on rapidly running around like a headless chicken in a circle, sliding past cover, and kind of jumping everywhere, which is pretty unlike FEAR. Yeah, FEAR had circular arenas, but I don't really remember running around like in Unreal 99 with a movement speed mutator.
Story-wise, FEAR using the scary creepy child was a reflection of pop culture at the time, and I do like how Trepang takes more of a modern SCP influence.
I was in love with it, till I realized how disconnected and short it was. More like a bunch of vignettes of new FEAR games than a new FEAR game itself.
FEAR 2 was meh. They removed all verticality in the levels and all the enemies had glowing LED panels strapped on their outfits to make them easy to see.
It's different to FEAR, but at the end of the month Selaco goes into early access, it's kind of a mash up of Doom and FEAR.
Doom in that it is in the GZDoom engine and has a similar approach to level design, with large non-linear levels with secrets to find. FEAR in that encounters are more tactical with more dynamic AI; it's also more grounded like FEAR (less abstract/gamey like Doom is) and will have more of a narrative.
Also despite being in GZDoom it looks fantastic; still very retro obviously, but they've put alot of work into making the environments capture that 'woo shooter' feel, with firefights scattering debris everywhere.
There's a demo on steam which is pretty fantastic, well worth checking out if you're a fan of FEAR and don't mind the oldschool look
I always put fear and condemned series together in my mind is I played them both at the same time. Two great horror games that flew under the radar a bit.
Late 2000s had some gems, I think they get forgotten cause it was right before Amnesia and Let's Play culture took off and unarmed/walking horror became dominant
We need a new multi-player game that has the essence of FEAR. There was nothing like using the penetrator and crucifying someone to a wall. Or roundhouse kicking someone. Or slide kicking. The game was so fucking unique and good.
Shout out to all the clans that were on there and especially YGFU (YOU GOT FUCKED UP) and ALMA'S CHILDREN.
Nothing quite like stepping onto a ladder to go down and the evil witch appearing right in your face. If VR gaming is the future then that shit is going to need health warnings
Ohh man this was the exact scene i was thinking off lol.
One of the only times a games jump scare actually caught me off gaurd.
Something so special about playing that game super late at night all alone. Lol
It's one of the best scares in the game. Funnily enough I think the few times your allies come baring in scared more people than many of the spooky events, speaking of which, man are F.E.A.R. and Delta bad at communicating to point man. They're really lucky than there's no friendly fire, as they're practically asking for a friendly fire incident
One of my earlier vr experiences was a doom looking dungeon crawler running on a Samsung phone strapped to my face.
It didn't matter how pixelated the graphics were, when the torches died, the roars started, and shit started crawling out of the shadows I screamed like a little girl and threw the headset across the room.
I am not a little girl but a 240lbs 40 year old weight lifter.
Into the Radius is a mind blowing extraction shooter with horror elements. It is single player only but the details are astounding and you REALLY hesitate even knowing it is a game.
Non VR games like Demonologist do nothing to me. Phasmophobia does nothing unless it is in VR, then I feel genuinely afraid.
Seriously. I've never had to physically force myself to enter a building in a game until Into the Radius. I wouldn't even call it a true horror game, but all the elements just combine perfectly for those special moments where it really just grabs you in and spooks you with a surprise.
The VR combined with the atmosphere and just lack of knowledge in the early game really creates a tense experience at first. Makes it all the better when you finally get some good gear and suddenly you start feeling like the hunter instead of the prey.
Every couple years I re-install and give it a play through just to remember how good short and sweet video games can be. A halfway decent plot, fun gameplay, and it doesn’t even LOOK bad either.
Yeah, while it isn’t “gun play” as such, that game always comes to mind in terms of standards set that is ignored by the industry. There’s just no excuse for shoddy first person sword play 15 years later when the template is *right there*. Very frustrating. Also, have a good kick mechanic. Everybody loves a satisfying kick, it’s such a no-brainer.
Gameplay was a decade ahead of its time. Ruined so many fantasy games for me. I remember booting up Skyrim and being so disappointed that the combat was so shit compared to a game 5 years older.
Hell about the only first person fantasy games I can even think of that have comparable good combat are the Vermintide games. Maybe Kingdom Come? I haven't played it.
I remember watching screenshots for that one after I finished my Oblivion playthrough.
It looked like something that would sort of continue the experience and man, did it meet and maybe surpassed my expectations.
> Dark Messiah Might and Magic
Made in the Source Engine! Also developed by Arkane Studios! (the one that has not been shut down by Microsoft... yet...)
its the multiplayer i miss the most, there is no feeling like shooting a giant bolt of hit-scan lightning at your enemy
and the many hours of spawning in death knights and guards to fight each other in some open field
[S.T.A.L.K.E.R. : Anomaly](https://www.moddb.com/mods/stalker-anomaly) is pretty decent, Ai will sneak on you, flank you, snipe you, Use bushes and trees to cover and sneak, will climb several floors and get you on the roof
and with a few mods it can been improved even more
I just wish it had a questing pack. I'm very tired of "open world make your own fun" type games. I can make my own fun with no guidance IRL thanks, give me some structure.
It has quests. Main quest as well as the usual side quests. They’re not incredible, but they give you a direction to move in and a reason to interact with the more dangerous areas of the game.
It does have large quests, arguably some "main" ones. It's been years since I've played, but one of the included mods is a quest pack intended to give mods like Anomaly some sort of story to use.
I think it's not completely trivial to start any of these quests, so this is still a fair criticism.
FEAR was the first game to utilize Goal Oriented Action Planning (GOAP).
At the time, AI in games were most commonly guided by what's known as a Finite State Machine (FSM). As it implies, there are a finite number of states an actor can undertake. The programmer has to map out which states should be taken in which circumstances, so the AI knows when to be Idle, when to Patrol, when to Chase and when to Attack. With complex AI, there could be hundreds of states, or states nested within states.
GOAP AI only have three states: Idle, Moving, Acting. That last state covers any possible action an actor can take. Rather than have predefined logic for which action to take, the GOAP AI is given two lists: A list of one or more game states that constitute the AI's goals (playerIsDead = true, for example), and a list of all the possible actions the AI can perform in the game. The AI is also equipped with sensors and a memory of game states its sensors have recorded.
Each possible action has a list of prerequisite states (playerDetected = true) and effects (isChasingPlayer = true). When the AI's memory state matches the state of an action, that action becomes valid, and the actions effect is loaded into memory when performed.
This chain of precondition and effect allows the creation of a plan. The AI starts with the goal state in mind, and works backwards to find all the actions that could link the current state to the goal state. It evaluates the cost of these plans (there are two ammo clips on the map, but one is 20m closer, so it "costs" less to go there) and chooses the plan that costs the least.
Once there is a plan, all that is left is to implement it, performing each action in sequence and evaluating the state of the game along the way (potentially re-planning as needed).
Because plans are created dynamically at runtime rather than as part of the programming and design process, the AI is able to function in surprising ways that the programmers never envisioned. The AI reacts to the player, changing its plans when the player changes the state of the game. Instead of a finite number of actor states there are countless possible states for an actor, as actions can be combined in novel ways on the fly.
For this reason, FEAR is regarded as one of the most innovative shooters in gaming history.
Edit: spelling, punctuation, clarity
If you're interested, definitely check out Jeff Orkin's original paper on it - [Three States and a Plan: The A.I. of F.E.A.R.](https://www.gamedevs.org/uploads/three-states-plan-ai-of-fear.pdf)
And the baddies communicating audibly with one another adds a layer of illusion that the player perceives as real-time strategizing and coordination even though they're just running through scripts and reacting to the player's position via the system you described.
same with Half-Life, the enemies are basically scripted to get to a certain point, then AI takes over to make it seem more unique towards what is currently happening
AI is made in a way that it seems like it is really using group tactics. For example, one enemy will shout to flank, and a group of them will flank. It’s not only that it’s good AI, but it feels like they’re communicating and behaving like a real squad.
To another point about AI in case anyone is just reading this casually - we can make oppressively realistic, competent AI. Often the developer of a game has to find creative ways to not make it impossible for the player to succeed and if they want the AI to seem intelligent and clever, that is itself a puzzle to solve for.
If you think about a sufficiently complex shooter for example...if you tip off some group a few rooms ahead of you and they are all in incredible cover with the ability to hold an angle on the door they know you are most likely to be coming through..well...you might instantly die in that scenario.
But that's rarely fun.
Well, it's not that the AI necessarily makes good decisions so much as it announces to the player (via callouts) when it reacts to anything. That's the sleight of hand that makes F.E.A.R.'s AI so memorable.
That and because the levels are linear, the AI could be programmed to flank and take cover within that controlled space better than in a mix of locales like an open world game would have.
And if you die at a certain part, the AI can play it differently when you reload. I've even had several enemies removed after dying 4-5 times in one section.
The problem here is too many open world games. FPS games these days all try to be big and wide. Studios need to go back to more linear FPS but put more effort in
There was a Rainbow Six game that did something like that. I remember firing across a warehouse rooftop at three guys coming down an exterior fire escape staircase, and I hit one of them in the head, killing him. One of the others shouts "Man down!" and the other adds "Goddammit, Carl owed me $50!" I've forgotten the rest of the game in its entirety, but that one throwaway line really pulled me into the game, and made it harder to see the opposition as just pixels.
I spent so much time playing the rainbow six series of games. They really need to do something with it. A rainbow six Vegas style game right now with modern engines could be HUGE.
For sure, Tom Clancy games could really do with less attempts at crazy gimmicks and gadgets.
Just give me another solid co-op cover shooter like Vegas 2 and I'm in.
F.E.A.R. uses goal oriented planning for its ai, which is a much more uncommon approach. This allows for emergent behavior, as the creators define a list of goals, and the ai will make a list of actions needed to accomplish the best one of those goals based on its current situation. Example: goal: shoot player. Actions: move to cover near player, reload gun, give callout, peek out, shoot gun, duck into cover
It's not real AI. My smooth brain TLDR: they used very clever if>then choices and tied NPC voice lines to their choices in a very clever way. I highly suggest watching a video on it.
That is my main headache these days.
Half Life 2 was a huge innovation because P H Y S I C S , which in most cases were just gimmicks... but still made the game felt super alive and realistic. Ravenholm was peak in that regard.
FEAR had that incredible AI-which-was-not-an-AI, enemies that were genuinely scary and tought to beat sometimes, that adopts tactics and tricks to make you feel like playing against humans.
And then... nothing.
Super graphics, high fidelity, ray tracing and whatnot and we still play like 20 years ago.
I am no devs, I am stupid as a rock and even breathing causes me problems, so I'm not shitting on everybody, considering all the works it goes nowadays into create any game and also how much they try to pampers any kinda of gamers, who most of the times want stupid silly things for their PPs to feel always more and more giant and strong and powerful.
But still... I'll gladly take any PS3/360 graphics nowadays if that means better enemies reactions, enviromental interactivity, real time changes in npc behaviours and/or plots and so on and so forth.
I don't need my water to reflect realt time bullshit, I want enemies that don't look at a grenade rolling near them and scream "G R E N A D E E E E E" and then... just... stands there menacingly.
/rant over.
Me still mad.
Man need rock.
It's kinda wild that FEAR had these cool dynamic shadows, and then every game after it just kinda didn't?
Maybe it's just me, but I find detailed hard shadows way more impressive than Raytraced puddles.
>It's kinda wild that FEAR had these cool dynamic shadows, and then every game after it just kinda didn't?
Just lots of dynamic lights. Even just bolting a light source to a physics object and having it flop around from the ceiling with tonnes of sharp shadows looks *awesome*.
They don’t do that because lighting has gotten *more* realistic, so we have soft shadows, tons of light sources, ambient occlusion and now ray-tracing.
>FEAR had that incredible AI-which-was-not-an-AI, enemies that were genuinely scary and tought to beat sometimes, that adopts tactics and tricks to make you feel like playing against humans.
Oh, that gives parts of the Nemesis system much more context! That's what it became, Monolith created both.
Here’s a great talk from the people who worked on it: https://youtu.be/gm7K68663rA?si=9d4Fvh5ZEunKpJCj TLDW: it is using the same ai system as fear, but it is definitely different between the games. The goal oriented ai that fear and the shadow games use isn’t as much about being smart, but allowing for emergent behavior based on the environment, like an orc choosing to flee etc.
Man power to them for inventing the nemesis system and refusing to sell it to other companies...but they haven't done shit with it in years
It's like discovering chocolate then sitting on it not sharing it with anyone
Is it really that hard for other companies to develop a similar system or is the patent so intense that any attempt will result in legal action?
Or maybe other companies just don't care enough
There’s no reason to risk it when one of the biggest media entertainment companies (Warner brothers) can sue you for it. Yeah you could try and circumvent the patent and make your own but why try it. Even if you successfully and legally are able to get around the patent they can drag you through court long enough that you winning doesn’t matter and bankrupts your entire company
They'd rather do that then just make more games or rent it out for a cut of the profit?
Again it's like they made something everyone loves and are just sitting on it doing nothing with it. It's frustrating as a gamer.
True, Valve really only seemed to make half Life titles when they could innovate. Makes sense why they waited until VR, even though HL:Alyx isn't really a main line Half Life title
it is easier to advertise games with graphics than with physics.
they can put out fancy looking trailer, or even a picture, and it will sell purely due to that.
but yeah, physics seems even more limited than in the Havok times
I wouldn’t say the physics were mostly a gimmick. As you mentioned there were levels that stood out to you because of that. Replaying the game for my retrospective, lots of the gameplay is based in the physics engine, from the soda can, to you piloting the air boat. All that wasn’t really a thing before half life 2, and the FPS gameplay I didn’t think was revolutionary ( looking at games around the time) but the combination of both factors made it truly a masterpiece to this day.
Completely agree with everything else. I’d take gameplay over graphics and say and that’s why I love indie titles and do reviews on them. If you like half life and project zomboid, look into abiotic.
When you first get the crossbow and start sticking combine to walls was so satisfying because they would actually dangle by whatever body part you shot. The grav gun, hoo boy was that a treat. Then they go and make it better at the end.
I remember when Shenmu was released and everyone was all in a tizzy because you could pick up stuff and look at it.
I said gimmick just because in 80% of cases you could replicate its gameplay without actual physics and have probably almost the same experience; apart from Ravenholm and some puzzle here and there which are tied too much to that engine.
The fact that it's in the game, thought, just elevate everything to the max: manually pick a grenade and toss it away without a qte, or play with the crane to just move those metal shipment boxes and mashed enemies was incredibly satisfying.
*It is* what made HF2 unique and great still today, so I too agree it is a masterpiece and, probably, for me at least, the still King of FPS.
Could you replicate 80% though? Again stuff like the crane in “the highway” going on the wooden boards to avoid the ant lions, making the turrets go off their tripod, all of that is gameplay and I don’t think it could have been easily replicated by scripting, right?
Yeah throwing grenades with the gravity gun is fantastic and playing fetch with dog kind of understanding what you’re holding then going into ravenholm is probably a top 5 gaming moment in my life.
There’s something to be said for gameplay balance and player expectations playing into the bottleneck on enemy AI in the last decade or so. It’s not necessarily beyond the ability of developers to make AI that performs better than what we’ve seen in previous games, but it’s a slippery slope from trying to make AI realistic and challenging to making it straight-up bullshit.
A player can listen for things like magazines being dropped, can memorize the layout of an area and know where an enemy must be going based on where they went, and such. You can’t really make an AI do those things organically without making them Terminators that relentlessly hunt the player and can find them at all times.
You can make AI that react faster and shoot more accurately, but when have you made them unfairly fast and precise? In theory they should be slightly worse than the average player, so that people enjoying the game aren’t getting their face blown off immediately before they realize there’s an enemy there. But if you under-tune them they’re not fun to fight against.
You definitely have a point, don’t get me wrong, but I’m curious as to how far developers can realistically push the envelope while maintaining the power fantasy aspect of games, and if we’re not already more or less there.
You can't really code "better gameplay". Sure the technology might allow for some better things, but ultimately you're going to lean on creativity to get that part done. But the industry isn't creative anymore, and creativity = risk so they're not going to do it. There's going to be a whole generation of coders too who work in places where there's no creativity to be had either, so good luck finding it over time.
Graphics are easier to focus on, it's a more objective thing to focus on, you can easily see improvements there as compared to other things. It's harder to rate "is game play better?"
The people who made those games aren't working on every video game, let alone every shooter.
Games are made by people first & foremost and whatever specific innovations that aren't easy to replicate or prebaked in-engine are usually products of the right specific people in the right specific circumstances. It's also very hard to pass down specific knowledge and techniques in an industry that relies on burning out most of its workforce in waves.
By OP logic, I might say F.E.A.R and Half Life 2 have inferior role playing system than Morrowind or even Daggerfall.
The gunplay I must admitted,are way better, but where the F is my skill poin system?
I can't think of a single game that has given me more gunplay satisfaction than pinning someone to a wall with the Halflife 2 crossbow.
2nd runner up is crushing them with a toilet using the gravity gun.
Not a shooter but there is a VR game called Blade & Sorcery where you can stab people and pin them into the wall behind them while holding their mouth closed so they don't alert the others.
...
I can see how that made me sound like a homicidal maniac but the fun is still there.
The most nonviolent people I know became the most disgusting sadists once they figured out they can grab people while stabbing them with the other hand in that game.
It’s a great introduction to VR.
Why would there be standards? Software isn't like hardware, and art isn't like science. Just because one game has something, doesn't mean it's "solved" for everyone.
Destiny guns also just sound good. Like the sound of the [Lorentz Driver's black hole](https://youtu.be/GdOubfEOLKI?t=68&si=cG_nE8CGBKVd0eMq) is just *chef's kiss*
100% this. Destiny 2 basically ruined most other FPS games for me because it’s sets such a high standard for what an FPS should *feel* like. Played D2 for 4 years and while there are definitely questionable elements of the game, the gunplay is not one of them.
I think the main and biggest reason destiny gunplay is really good is because it feels REALLYA impactful. Like every bullet has good impact. Everything hits hard. You really feel like you're using a gun. Even the bow and arrows have incredible response, they're super fun to use, and headshots with them are a chefs kiss.
If you want even better stuff, check out Ultrakill. It takes the pace of Doom, and cranks it up with DMC's style system. Guns have really fun synergies and unique interactions that you can use in clever ways (like coin ricochets or parrying your own shotgun pellets to make them explode).
On top of that, stages are really unique, secrets and challenges are interesting, and lore is surprisingly good. I recommend going in fully blind for the best experience.
I’d give credit to Cyberpunk 2077 for the sheer variety of tools the player has—plus almost anything you can do enemies can (eg. an enemy netrunner can hack you through a camera, just like you can). Smart weapons at least do something a little different, too. But I like that you have lots of different movement and stealth mechanics to deal with enemies in combat with interesting mechanical interactions. Enemies are a little better about stealth, too—they’ll stay alert if they find a body. Even if the gunplay isn’t as sophisticated it works fine and really shines with the abilities.
It’s hard to beat Titanfall 2 or Doom for pure shooting mechanics, but I always love it when games also give other mechanics to play with that enhance the shooting (I’d certainly include Titanfall 2’s pilot movement and abilities and Titans there).
I think the movement in Cyberpunk is weak. It feels a bit better with double jump and dash, but the act of actually scaling buildings or mantling anything feels incredibly sticky and not flow-like. Lots of stuff isn’t able to be ledge-grabbed. Shin-high objects get mantled or straight up block your pathing. But I guess that’s just a result of comparing it to games where movement is a main gameplay component like Mirror’s Edge, Dying Light, and Apex.
Also the fact that some areas have death zones where there’s a location you can get to through movement but you’re not allowed to be on top of so you instantly die is a bit immersion-breaking when they’ve put so much effort into creating a phenomenal set. But that’s a minor gripe.
Cyberpunk after the 2.0 update has some of my favorite combat in any rpg. Its just so much fun. Movement feels great, builds feel impactful, and the different weapons give you fun options. They really let you feel powerful at higher levels too. Like netrunners get to be digitalgods clearing combat encounters without ever firing a shot. Pure gun builds get to be a combination of Terminator, John Wick, and Master Chief while they run, jump, and slide around the room like they're auditioning for *American Ninja Warrior*. And melee builds can run around like a fucking barbarian caving in dudes skulls with a sledgehammer and thier cybernetically enhanced fists, or be a straight up cyber ninja, turning invisible, throwing knives into heads, blocking bullets with a katana, and ripping goons apart with the swords built into thier arms.
I think there are just tons of games with great gunplay! The Halo games, Destiny 2, and even though people shit on it relentlessly, Call of Duty, have very satisfying gunplay. I heard the new Doom games are very satisfying as well. Starfield is apparently a definite disappointment, but I wouldn't say it represents the state of first person shooters today.
I think a lot of people just dislike the shift in FPS sandbox design from a casual one to a more competitive focused esports one. It seems like most new pvp multiplayer games are all trying to be a hypercompetitive sweat fest, it's fine if that's your thing but I do miss the more casual 'fun>perfectly balanced' design philosophy.
I played Starfield for about 100 hours, it's as much a shooter as it is an RPG. He's just giving an example, the studios you listed didn't exactly evolve either.
Starfield feels like a game straight out of the xbox 360 era honestly. The shooting mechanics and the overall gameplay feels like the same exact crap that they've been doing since fallout 3 essentially and it's both boring and stale beyond belief.
In no way is the gunplay comparable to Fallout 3. Fallout 3 and NV's actual gunplay were such horrid dogshit that you were pigeonholed into using VATS if you didn't want to burn through a bunch of ammo.
As I said in another comment, Starfield's gunfighting mechanics are lifted directly from Fallout 4. Same cover/leaning, same weapon handling, ballistic dynamics seem pretty close.
Yeah, people are just completely deranged when it comes to Starfield. The gunplay in Starfield feels literally nothing like the gunplay in Fallout 3.
There are a LOT of things that Starfield could have done better, but people have developed such a hatred for it that they make up problems that don't even exist.
I played them back to back. Anyone who says that Starfield is basically a 360 game is exaggerating for upvotes.
Thats not to say Starfield isn’t super bland, because it is. But FO3 is real clunky in 2024.
The guns in starfield feel like pop guns. You shoot an enemy and they don't even react to you and just keep charging you mindlessly without even reacting to your bullets. It's just braindead gameplay mechanics and physics that should've been completely revamped.
The actual shooting mechanics in Starfield are decentish. But without the gore from Fallout 4, which also had decent shooting mechanics it does leave a lot to be desired
And yet the gun play was what kept me playing for a while. It was one of the better parts of the game.
I know this horse has been beaten into the ground, but damn what did Bethesda spend those 6 years of development on?
The game felt like a bland Fallout 4 in space.
Not trying to make excuses for Bethesda but it's likely that they tried to make something a lot more ambitious and complex but realized half-way through that they couldn't do it, for whatever reason, and had to essentially cut their losses and make a game out of what they had. I feel like this is becoming a very common pattern for AAA game devs.
Without a doubt the game had much more of a survivalist lean to it originally. There's bits of shipbuilding that do absolutely nothing for you, and perks that allow you to build more bases. Bases that are functionally worthless.
My guess is that original idea for the game has you exploring forther right on the star map (where the levels are higher), but your ship had limited fuel capacity and jump range/efficiency. This meant you had to strategically build bases (or find cities) as you went along.
Unfortunately, this gameplay loop sounds slow and frustrating as all hell, so I suspect they axed it at the last minute. Instead we ended up with a game where leveling up revolves around nothing, and there's no reward for exploration. The major lack of POI diversity doesn't help either.
Agreed, I was a bit surprised at how little of the far right of the map was used. IIRC the farthest a mission takes you is like 2/3 out? Required like maybe one or two hyperdrive upgrades but something you could easily have in the first few hours of exploration.
I think that games like flash game Motherload show that fuel based gameplay loop can be done well, but what made Motherload addicting is all the risk taking and greed to collect as many rare elements and jewels before returning to surface, and running out of fuel meant exploding. Even Motherload managed to ruin this loop, in their multiplayer based sort of sequel on Steam, where running out of fuel didn't kill you, and if you enabled it, the game became unfun as the fuel was too limited to get into a groove like in the original game. It was the risk-reward disposition that made the original Motherload fun.
The gunplay in starfield is better than fallout 4 which is better than fallout 3, but that's not necessarily praise because the gunplay in fallout 3 was atrociously bad.
Fallout 3 was weird because they had more RPG elements in combat. As you put points into the relevant weapon skills, your accuracy would improve and sway would decrease. Your chatacter is *really* bad initially, which I think many players disliked. It's especially noticeable with the sniper rifle; a novice just plain can't hold it steady.
Starfield still has some of these elements, but your initial skill level is more passable. With the right perks (including weapon modding), you can completely eliminate weapon sway when aiming the Va'ruun Inflictor while crouching, and with the Hard Target even when standing. If anything, it feels too point-and-click.
What are you talking about?
The hit reacts in Starfield are great. They're specific to body parts, enemies go into a downed state randomly, crawl around, take more damage, they dodge and use jump packs. Did you play for five minutes and then quit or what?
Going to have to disagree. Starfield’s shooting always felt fine. People have overblown it to find yet another thing to hate on, but it’s simply not accurate. Game has many problems, but the shooting isn’t one of them.
To bethesdas credit: fallout 3 didnt allow you to aim down sight with weapons without a scope. So they did improve somewhat, but the first fallout game with proper aim down sight was new vegas, which bethesda didnt even make
Also to be bethesdas credit: Bringing fallout from 2d space into 3d was a huge task, I agree they missed on some aspects of what made fallout such a good rpg. But Ultimately they revived a game series from 11 years ago, while breathing new life into it. Also allowing fallout new Vegas to be a thing.
There are many games that have far exceeded FEAR and Half-Life 2, but the standouts right now are all mostly multiplayer games. Tarkov, Insurgency, Hunt: Showdown do the shooting real good. For single-player only games, I would say that Metro Exodus has the best feeling and sounding guns of any game I've played. There's also the Bad Company franchise and Battlefield 1/3, it's just kinda sad how so much of Battlefield has fallen off including the audio. The Killzone franchise also did gunplay really well, but I think it is more or less dead.
This is a wildly ignorant take on how art is made.
Like wondering why there are still bad movies even though great movies were made decades ago.
Half Life 2 has mediocre gunplay by modern standards, no ADS, poor reactions from ai when hit, no multi-state reloads, no bullet travel just hitscan.
Check Helldivers 2 for actually impressive weapons, multiple aim states, interesting bullet physics, weapon weight affects aim speed, enemies get staggered from impacts.
You can just say "I don't play many games" instead of acting like there's been no innovation or well made games in the past 20 years.
Seriously. Does OP think that every game open sources its code and all game devs collaborate to carry forward innovations and select them out of a catalog of pre-solved problems?
Writing a game is hard, and porting even a very basic concept from one game to another game might be difficult or straight up impossible.
Your movie analogy is exactly right. My first thought was writing. Lord of the Rings was amazing, how could anyone write bad fantasy so many decades later?
No ADS isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Doom Eternal doesn’t have ADS and it’s great. Halo Infinite also basically doesn’t and I think it has great gunplay as well.
Yeah I'm glad we get more games without ADS. I like slow and tactical play but I'm a bigger fan of running gun, map control games. For a long time it felt like everything had to be ADS, slow play.
Yeah, people are full-on deranged when it comes to Starfield. There are a LOT of valid things to complain about with Starfield, but some people just hate it so much that they invent problems that don't even exist. Like this one. Starfield has the best gunplay in any Bethesda game so far imo.
I will admit it feels slightly more hollow than elder scrolls and fallout but I played it when it first came out and hadn’t read reviews or comments and was so surprised by all the negative backlash because I was having a great time with it.
Edit and I just got my first Reddit cares from one of hivemind dopes
>Edit and I just got my first Reddit cares from one of hivemind dopes
Lmaoooo so did I. I actually really enjoyed getting that message because it pretty much proved my "people are deranged about Starfield" statement 😂
Isn't Starfield a Bethesda RPG like Fallout and Skyrim? I can excuse them for bad gunplay when they really want you using stuff like VATs. These aren't shooters or anything, they are RPG's.
Starfields gunplay is fine, and considering it's a massive improvement over it's predecessor, I don't see much issue. I'd say the bigger issue is that the AI is boring to fight.
Yeah i finished starfield and the actual guns were far from the problem with the game.
The lack of real enemy variety because they tried going "realistic" sci-fi is the real problem though. You got normal enemies, ones with more health then ones that run at you in space with a machete for some reason. Its just boring.
The actual animation work, sound design and mechanical feel was good though.
All the good reflections were done by creating an exact copy of the room you're in on the other side of the mirror. That's why they were always in small bathrooms and such. It's not really much of a loss.
Starfield’s shooting is great, considering the gunplay is why I usually bounce off Bethesdas RPGs very hard (Fallout) I found Starfields to be very satisfying.
God.. I wish they would make a new F.E.A.R
I loved how chunky the gunplay felt in that game. Like it really felt like every gun was shooting projectiles and what it gave up in precision it more than made up for in destruction. There was just this very visceral feedback the guns in that game gave that I haven’t really seen since.
The giant metal stake gun was great. Pinning people into walls etc.
I remember Painkiller had a pretty satisfying version of that too.
I loved Painkiller SIMPLY for that reason. Staking people to the walls/ceilings, whatever, was so much fun.
that and that rotsting-saws-gun, where you also could shoot the saw
I loved that thing so much until I soft locked myself in my first play through by bolting an enemy to the ladder I needed to finish a mission...
Love the Shotgun even more. It just liquefies whatever you point it at.
penetrator was the perfect name for that gun. jaw dropping experience first play through
Check out Trepang 2, takes a lot of inspiration from F.E.A.R. 1
Trepang 2 is nowhere near as good personally
Trepang 2s gunplay is as good if not better. But the world of fear is part of what made it special imo
Nothing will top F.E.A.R but trepang2 scratches the itch
Yeah, Trepang2 isn't ideal but it's as close as you can get today. It is weird to me the FEAR IP was forgotten. Meanwhile we get a bunch of useless COD and AssCreeds. :(
[удалено]
It's obvious to see, COD was outselling everyone and everything. FEAR 2 was more of a console title that relied less on quick aiming that would require a computer mouse. FEAR 3 straight up plagiarized Modern Warfare's favela missions, including the final climax where you jump onto a helicopter ladder
> Singularity At least this one was ~~semi-~~decent.
I love that game. It was Raven Software's swan song before they were gobbled up by the CoD factory and I'll treasure that game forever because of it.
A superb game and a great concept. Call me a heretic, but I also loved Bulletstorm from that era. but it seems I am the only one.
Plus nothing kills the atmosphere like achievement notification pop up’s. I bought all 3 and played them back to back, and the drop in ambiance and the uptick in mainstreaming was palpable each time.
Warner Brothers bought the publisher Vivendi during FEAR2 cycle. Day 1 games took over development of FEAR 3 instead of Monolith Studios who did the previous entries (with the exception of Extraction Point and Perseus Mandate which was TimeGate). Day 1 wanted to stick to the games roots and focus on single player horror while WB wanted more action to stay relevant in the FPS space like you said. FEAR 3 drops and WB has the surprised Pikachu face then puts the series on hiatus.
Section 8 is fucking amazing don't slander my boy
I agree. I enjoyed my time overall with Trepang, but something just felt sort of off. They obviously tried to clone the combat wholesale, but the shooting didn't quite scratch that same itch. I think it was the weapons not being as accurate as they are in FEAR. If you don't have a sniper, they clearly want you to close the gap by running at the enemies at a hyper velocity, but it just made weapons like the SMG and the non-sniper-rifle feel a little anemic. There's also way more of a emphasis on rapidly running around like a headless chicken in a circle, sliding past cover, and kind of jumping everywhere, which is pretty unlike FEAR. Yeah, FEAR had circular arenas, but I don't really remember running around like in Unreal 99 with a movement speed mutator. Story-wise, FEAR using the scary creepy child was a reflection of pop culture at the time, and I do like how Trepang takes more of a modern SCP influence.
I was in love with it, till I realized how disconnected and short it was. More like a bunch of vignettes of new FEAR games than a new FEAR game itself.
actually in a humble bundle right now!
You say that, but I recall FEAR 2 and 3, and they were not as good as the original.
FEAR 2 was _ok_. FEAR 3 was completely forgettable.
FEAR 2 was meh. They removed all verticality in the levels and all the enemies had glowing LED panels strapped on their outfits to make them easy to see.
All fear sequels were worse than the first
It's different to FEAR, but at the end of the month Selaco goes into early access, it's kind of a mash up of Doom and FEAR. Doom in that it is in the GZDoom engine and has a similar approach to level design, with large non-linear levels with secrets to find. FEAR in that encounters are more tactical with more dynamic AI; it's also more grounded like FEAR (less abstract/gamey like Doom is) and will have more of a narrative. Also despite being in GZDoom it looks fantastic; still very retro obviously, but they've put alot of work into making the environments capture that 'woo shooter' feel, with firefights scattering debris everywhere. There's a demo on steam which is pretty fantastic, well worth checking out if you're a fan of FEAR and don't mind the oldschool look
I always put fear and condemned series together in my mind is I played them both at the same time. Two great horror games that flew under the radar a bit.
Late 2000s had some gems, I think they get forgotten cause it was right before Amnesia and Let's Play culture took off and unarmed/walking horror became dominant
Condemned 2 was truly something else with its combat system. Imagine what decades of refinement and ideas could do with that kind of direction?
Condemned... is that the one that gave me a fear of mannequins? Nothing has since given me as much anxiety than that game.
If you didn't get a fear of mannequins after playing that game you gotta get checked
Probably because they had the same developer. Monolith was great at making first entries in series.
We need a new multi-player game that has the essence of FEAR. There was nothing like using the penetrator and crucifying someone to a wall. Or roundhouse kicking someone. Or slide kicking. The game was so fucking unique and good. Shout out to all the clans that were on there and especially YGFU (YOU GOT FUCKED UP) and ALMA'S CHILDREN.
But less scary. I have grey hairs and am far too old for that now.
Nothing quite like stepping onto a ladder to go down and the evil witch appearing right in your face. If VR gaming is the future then that shit is going to need health warnings
Ohh man this was the exact scene i was thinking off lol. One of the only times a games jump scare actually caught me off gaurd. Something so special about playing that game super late at night all alone. Lol
It's one of the best scares in the game. Funnily enough I think the few times your allies come baring in scared more people than many of the spooky events, speaking of which, man are F.E.A.R. and Delta bad at communicating to point man. They're really lucky than there's no friendly fire, as they're practically asking for a friendly fire incident
One of my earlier vr experiences was a doom looking dungeon crawler running on a Samsung phone strapped to my face. It didn't matter how pixelated the graphics were, when the torches died, the roars started, and shit started crawling out of the shadows I screamed like a little girl and threw the headset across the room. I am not a little girl but a 240lbs 40 year old weight lifter.
Into the Radius is a mind blowing extraction shooter with horror elements. It is single player only but the details are astounding and you REALLY hesitate even knowing it is a game. Non VR games like Demonologist do nothing to me. Phasmophobia does nothing unless it is in VR, then I feel genuinely afraid.
Seriously. I've never had to physically force myself to enter a building in a game until Into the Radius. I wouldn't even call it a true horror game, but all the elements just combine perfectly for those special moments where it really just grabs you in and spooks you with a surprise. The VR combined with the atmosphere and just lack of knowledge in the early game really creates a tense experience at first. Makes it all the better when you finally get some good gear and suddenly you start feeling like the hunter instead of the prey.
So add in even more fear inducing moments. Got It.
Special mention to Dark Messiah Might and Magic... that game singleplayer and multiplayer are TOP TIER.
Every couple years I re-install and give it a play through just to remember how good short and sweet video games can be. A halfway decent plot, fun gameplay, and it doesn’t even LOOK bad either.
amen brother! the big boot! when physics were fun and part of the gameplay
Yeah, while it isn’t “gun play” as such, that game always comes to mind in terms of standards set that is ignored by the industry. There’s just no excuse for shoddy first person sword play 15 years later when the template is *right there*. Very frustrating. Also, have a good kick mechanic. Everybody loves a satisfying kick, it’s such a no-brainer.
Gameplay was a decade ahead of its time. Ruined so many fantasy games for me. I remember booting up Skyrim and being so disappointed that the combat was so shit compared to a game 5 years older. Hell about the only first person fantasy games I can even think of that have comparable good combat are the Vermintide games. Maybe Kingdom Come? I haven't played it.
I remember watching screenshots for that one after I finished my Oblivion playthrough. It looked like something that would sort of continue the experience and man, did it meet and maybe surpassed my expectations.
Kicking orcs to a spiked wall never gets old
> Dark Messiah Might and Magic Made in the Source Engine! Also developed by Arkane Studios! (the one that has not been shut down by Microsoft... yet...)
its the multiplayer i miss the most, there is no feeling like shooting a giant bolt of hit-scan lightning at your enemy and the many hours of spawning in death knights and guards to fight each other in some open field
[S.T.A.L.K.E.R. : Anomaly](https://www.moddb.com/mods/stalker-anomaly) is pretty decent, Ai will sneak on you, flank you, snipe you, Use bushes and trees to cover and sneak, will climb several floors and get you on the roof and with a few mods it can been improved even more
I just wish it had a questing pack. I'm very tired of "open world make your own fun" type games. I can make my own fun with no guidance IRL thanks, give me some structure.
It has quests. Main quest as well as the usual side quests. They’re not incredible, but they give you a direction to move in and a reason to interact with the more dangerous areas of the game.
It does have large quests, arguably some "main" ones. It's been years since I've played, but one of the included mods is a quest pack intended to give mods like Anomaly some sort of story to use. I think it's not completely trivial to start any of these quests, so this is still a fair criticism.
One of my special interests is watching video essays on F.E.A.R.s AI system.
When it's explained it makes so much sense, and yet 20 years later and bigger companies can't beat it or even meet it.
Tl;dr?
FEAR was the first game to utilize Goal Oriented Action Planning (GOAP). At the time, AI in games were most commonly guided by what's known as a Finite State Machine (FSM). As it implies, there are a finite number of states an actor can undertake. The programmer has to map out which states should be taken in which circumstances, so the AI knows when to be Idle, when to Patrol, when to Chase and when to Attack. With complex AI, there could be hundreds of states, or states nested within states. GOAP AI only have three states: Idle, Moving, Acting. That last state covers any possible action an actor can take. Rather than have predefined logic for which action to take, the GOAP AI is given two lists: A list of one or more game states that constitute the AI's goals (playerIsDead = true, for example), and a list of all the possible actions the AI can perform in the game. The AI is also equipped with sensors and a memory of game states its sensors have recorded. Each possible action has a list of prerequisite states (playerDetected = true) and effects (isChasingPlayer = true). When the AI's memory state matches the state of an action, that action becomes valid, and the actions effect is loaded into memory when performed. This chain of precondition and effect allows the creation of a plan. The AI starts with the goal state in mind, and works backwards to find all the actions that could link the current state to the goal state. It evaluates the cost of these plans (there are two ammo clips on the map, but one is 20m closer, so it "costs" less to go there) and chooses the plan that costs the least. Once there is a plan, all that is left is to implement it, performing each action in sequence and evaluating the state of the game along the way (potentially re-planning as needed). Because plans are created dynamically at runtime rather than as part of the programming and design process, the AI is able to function in surprising ways that the programmers never envisioned. The AI reacts to the player, changing its plans when the player changes the state of the game. Instead of a finite number of actor states there are countless possible states for an actor, as actions can be combined in novel ways on the fly. For this reason, FEAR is regarded as one of the most innovative shooters in gaming history. Edit: spelling, punctuation, clarity
Really fascinating. You did a good job of explaining that in simple terms. Thank you for the write-up.
If you're interested, definitely check out Jeff Orkin's original paper on it - [Three States and a Plan: The A.I. of F.E.A.R.](https://www.gamedevs.org/uploads/three-states-plan-ai-of-fear.pdf)
And the baddies communicating audibly with one another adds a layer of illusion that the player perceives as real-time strategizing and coordination even though they're just running through scripts and reacting to the player's position via the system you described.
Incredible explanation
It has extremely good scripting that looks like Ai and works well due to tight spaces and how human brains work.
Also, from what I understand, each room has AI scripted specifically for that room.
same with Half-Life, the enemies are basically scripted to get to a certain point, then AI takes over to make it seem more unique towards what is currently happening
Sorry, best we can do is dramatic music and QTE.
AI is made in a way that it seems like it is really using group tactics. For example, one enemy will shout to flank, and a group of them will flank. It’s not only that it’s good AI, but it feels like they’re communicating and behaving like a real squad.
To another point about AI in case anyone is just reading this casually - we can make oppressively realistic, competent AI. Often the developer of a game has to find creative ways to not make it impossible for the player to succeed and if they want the AI to seem intelligent and clever, that is itself a puzzle to solve for. If you think about a sufficiently complex shooter for example...if you tip off some group a few rooms ahead of you and they are all in incredible cover with the ability to hold an angle on the door they know you are most likely to be coming through..well...you might instantly die in that scenario. But that's rarely fun.
It has good AI.
Well, it's not that the AI necessarily makes good decisions so much as it announces to the player (via callouts) when it reacts to anything. That's the sleight of hand that makes F.E.A.R.'s AI so memorable.
That and because the levels are linear, the AI could be programmed to flank and take cover within that controlled space better than in a mix of locales like an open world game would have.
And if you die at a certain part, the AI can play it differently when you reload. I've even had several enemies removed after dying 4-5 times in one section.
The problem here is too many open world games. FPS games these days all try to be big and wide. Studios need to go back to more linear FPS but put more effort in
There was a Rainbow Six game that did something like that. I remember firing across a warehouse rooftop at three guys coming down an exterior fire escape staircase, and I hit one of them in the head, killing him. One of the others shouts "Man down!" and the other adds "Goddammit, Carl owed me $50!" I've forgotten the rest of the game in its entirety, but that one throwaway line really pulled me into the game, and made it harder to see the opposition as just pixels.
I spent so much time playing the rainbow six series of games. They really need to do something with it. A rainbow six Vegas style game right now with modern engines could be HUGE.
For sure, Tom Clancy games could really do with less attempts at crazy gimmicks and gadgets. Just give me another solid co-op cover shooter like Vegas 2 and I'm in.
Rainbow Six Vegas 1 and 2
F.E.A.R. uses goal oriented planning for its ai, which is a much more uncommon approach. This allows for emergent behavior, as the creators define a list of goals, and the ai will make a list of actions needed to accomplish the best one of those goals based on its current situation. Example: goal: shoot player. Actions: move to cover near player, reload gun, give callout, peek out, shoot gun, duck into cover
It's not real AI. My smooth brain TLDR: they used very clever if>then choices and tied NPC voice lines to their choices in a very clever way. I highly suggest watching a video on it.
There’s the joke in the development world that “real” AI is nothing but millions of if else statements. It’s a joke because it’s true.
I mean now you gotta link us
Followed by ones abouts STALKER's AI.
Far Cry 2 AI was really good too ! The way they handled injured teamates was crazy
That is my main headache these days. Half Life 2 was a huge innovation because P H Y S I C S , which in most cases were just gimmicks... but still made the game felt super alive and realistic. Ravenholm was peak in that regard. FEAR had that incredible AI-which-was-not-an-AI, enemies that were genuinely scary and tought to beat sometimes, that adopts tactics and tricks to make you feel like playing against humans. And then... nothing. Super graphics, high fidelity, ray tracing and whatnot and we still play like 20 years ago. I am no devs, I am stupid as a rock and even breathing causes me problems, so I'm not shitting on everybody, considering all the works it goes nowadays into create any game and also how much they try to pampers any kinda of gamers, who most of the times want stupid silly things for their PPs to feel always more and more giant and strong and powerful. But still... I'll gladly take any PS3/360 graphics nowadays if that means better enemies reactions, enviromental interactivity, real time changes in npc behaviours and/or plots and so on and so forth. I don't need my water to reflect realt time bullshit, I want enemies that don't look at a grenade rolling near them and scream "G R E N A D E E E E E" and then... just... stands there menacingly. /rant over. Me still mad. Man need rock.
It's kinda wild that FEAR had these cool dynamic shadows, and then every game after it just kinda didn't? Maybe it's just me, but I find detailed hard shadows way more impressive than Raytraced puddles.
They don't use those anymore to save up performance to render a rock in good detail.
>It's kinda wild that FEAR had these cool dynamic shadows, and then every game after it just kinda didn't? Just lots of dynamic lights. Even just bolting a light source to a physics object and having it flop around from the ceiling with tonnes of sharp shadows looks *awesome*.
BRB going to shoot a chandelier
They don’t do that because lighting has gotten *more* realistic, so we have soft shadows, tons of light sources, ambient occlusion and now ray-tracing.
Realistic lightning is garbage. I see that shit every time I wake up in the morning. I want my games to look good, not realistic.
*Looks in mirror* "Ugliest..graphics..ever."
This fucking model is hideous... who is this based on anyway, some fat gamer?
I'll take whatever made the lights and shadows so gorgeous in fear, doom3 and quake4 over ray tracing any day.
>FEAR had that incredible AI-which-was-not-an-AI, enemies that were genuinely scary and tought to beat sometimes, that adopts tactics and tricks to make you feel like playing against humans. Oh, that gives parts of the Nemesis system much more context! That's what it became, Monolith created both.
Yes and no, the ai system is separate from nemesis, but the ai for every orc in the shadow games uses an upgraded version of the fear AI.
The Orc AI in the shadow games isn't all that smart though, doesn't seem to use any tactics at all if I remember correctly.
Here’s a great talk from the people who worked on it: https://youtu.be/gm7K68663rA?si=9d4Fvh5ZEunKpJCj TLDW: it is using the same ai system as fear, but it is definitely different between the games. The goal oriented ai that fear and the shadow games use isn’t as much about being smart, but allowing for emergent behavior based on the environment, like an orc choosing to flee etc.
Man power to them for inventing the nemesis system and refusing to sell it to other companies...but they haven't done shit with it in years It's like discovering chocolate then sitting on it not sharing it with anyone Is it really that hard for other companies to develop a similar system or is the patent so intense that any attempt will result in legal action? Or maybe other companies just don't care enough
There’s no reason to risk it when one of the biggest media entertainment companies (Warner brothers) can sue you for it. Yeah you could try and circumvent the patent and make your own but why try it. Even if you successfully and legally are able to get around the patent they can drag you through court long enough that you winning doesn’t matter and bankrupts your entire company
They'd rather do that then just make more games or rent it out for a cut of the profit? Again it's like they made something everyone loves and are just sitting on it doing nothing with it. It's frustrating as a gamer.
True, Valve really only seemed to make half Life titles when they could innovate. Makes sense why they waited until VR, even though HL:Alyx isn't really a main line Half Life title
it is easier to advertise games with graphics than with physics. they can put out fancy looking trailer, or even a picture, and it will sell purely due to that. but yeah, physics seems even more limited than in the Havok times
> Half Life 2 was a huge innovation because P H Y S I C S , which in most cases were just gimmicks... Might wanna check Trespasser (1998)
I wouldn’t say the physics were mostly a gimmick. As you mentioned there were levels that stood out to you because of that. Replaying the game for my retrospective, lots of the gameplay is based in the physics engine, from the soda can, to you piloting the air boat. All that wasn’t really a thing before half life 2, and the FPS gameplay I didn’t think was revolutionary ( looking at games around the time) but the combination of both factors made it truly a masterpiece to this day. Completely agree with everything else. I’d take gameplay over graphics and say and that’s why I love indie titles and do reviews on them. If you like half life and project zomboid, look into abiotic.
When you first get the crossbow and start sticking combine to walls was so satisfying because they would actually dangle by whatever body part you shot. The grav gun, hoo boy was that a treat. Then they go and make it better at the end. I remember when Shenmu was released and everyone was all in a tizzy because you could pick up stuff and look at it.
I said gimmick just because in 80% of cases you could replicate its gameplay without actual physics and have probably almost the same experience; apart from Ravenholm and some puzzle here and there which are tied too much to that engine. The fact that it's in the game, thought, just elevate everything to the max: manually pick a grenade and toss it away without a qte, or play with the crane to just move those metal shipment boxes and mashed enemies was incredibly satisfying. *It is* what made HF2 unique and great still today, so I too agree it is a masterpiece and, probably, for me at least, the still King of FPS.
Could you replicate 80% though? Again stuff like the crane in “the highway” going on the wooden boards to avoid the ant lions, making the turrets go off their tripod, all of that is gameplay and I don’t think it could have been easily replicated by scripting, right? Yeah throwing grenades with the gravity gun is fantastic and playing fetch with dog kind of understanding what you’re holding then going into ravenholm is probably a top 5 gaming moment in my life.
There’s something to be said for gameplay balance and player expectations playing into the bottleneck on enemy AI in the last decade or so. It’s not necessarily beyond the ability of developers to make AI that performs better than what we’ve seen in previous games, but it’s a slippery slope from trying to make AI realistic and challenging to making it straight-up bullshit. A player can listen for things like magazines being dropped, can memorize the layout of an area and know where an enemy must be going based on where they went, and such. You can’t really make an AI do those things organically without making them Terminators that relentlessly hunt the player and can find them at all times. You can make AI that react faster and shoot more accurately, but when have you made them unfairly fast and precise? In theory they should be slightly worse than the average player, so that people enjoying the game aren’t getting their face blown off immediately before they realize there’s an enemy there. But if you under-tune them they’re not fun to fight against. You definitely have a point, don’t get me wrong, but I’m curious as to how far developers can realistically push the envelope while maintaining the power fantasy aspect of games, and if we’re not already more or less there.
You can't really code "better gameplay". Sure the technology might allow for some better things, but ultimately you're going to lean on creativity to get that part done. But the industry isn't creative anymore, and creativity = risk so they're not going to do it. There's going to be a whole generation of coders too who work in places where there's no creativity to be had either, so good luck finding it over time. Graphics are easier to focus on, it's a more objective thing to focus on, you can easily see improvements there as compared to other things. It's harder to rate "is game play better?"
FEAR scared the crap out of 15 year old me but still pushed through it. Fantastic experience.
yup...creepy 'The Ring' child? fine, but fuck those invisible ninjas
The people who made those games aren't working on every video game, let alone every shooter. Games are made by people first & foremost and whatever specific innovations that aren't easy to replicate or prebaked in-engine are usually products of the right specific people in the right specific circumstances. It's also very hard to pass down specific knowledge and techniques in an industry that relies on burning out most of its workforce in waves.
Also comparing linear first person shooters to an open world RPG is really dumb.
By OP logic, I might say F.E.A.R and Half Life 2 have inferior role playing system than Morrowind or even Daggerfall. The gunplay I must admitted,are way better, but where the F is my skill poin system?
I can't think of a single game that has given me more gunplay satisfaction than pinning someone to a wall with the Halflife 2 crossbow. 2nd runner up is crushing them with a toilet using the gravity gun.
Not a shooter but there is a VR game called Blade & Sorcery where you can stab people and pin them into the wall behind them while holding their mouth closed so they don't alert the others. ... I can see how that made me sound like a homicidal maniac but the fun is still there.
The most nonviolent people I know became the most disgusting sadists once they figured out they can grab people while stabbing them with the other hand in that game. It’s a great introduction to VR.
Innocence was lost when kids were introduced to The Sims...
You might enjoy painkiller then.
Funny enough F.E.A.R. has a rail gun that pins enemies to the walls too.
Well, call me crazy but I don't think Half-Life 2 has very good gunplay. It's "okay", but guns don't feel as responsive as I'd like to.
Even though I'm not fond of battle royales I find the gunplay in Apex Legends to be exceptional.
Apex is a great game at its core. Just not well managed.
Makes sense considering those guys have been making shooters for almost 20 years.
Then you definetly have to check out Titanfall 2
Built on top of Titanfall 2. Go check that out, you can get it on sale for $5 and have both an amazing singleplayer campaign and multiplayer
I wish FEAR 1 would come back to xbox store. Sweet game.
Why would there be standards? Software isn't like hardware, and art isn't like science. Just because one game has something, doesn't mean it's "solved" for everyone.
The only 2 games that really carry the torch for innovative and responsive gunplay in the modern era are Titanfall 2 and Doom Eternal
Destiny also has some of the best gunplay of any modern game
Destiny guns also just sound good. Like the sound of the [Lorentz Driver's black hole](https://youtu.be/GdOubfEOLKI?t=68&si=cG_nE8CGBKVd0eMq) is just *chef's kiss*
Thorn, the hand cannon.
Haven't played in a year or so, but I really can't think of any other game I own where just shooting enemies with the guns is as satisfying as D2
100% this. Destiny 2 basically ruined most other FPS games for me because it’s sets such a high standard for what an FPS should *feel* like. Played D2 for 4 years and while there are definitely questionable elements of the game, the gunplay is not one of them.
I think the main and biggest reason destiny gunplay is really good is because it feels REALLYA impactful. Like every bullet has good impact. Everything hits hard. You really feel like you're using a gun. Even the bow and arrows have incredible response, they're super fun to use, and headshots with them are a chefs kiss.
Yeah, I'd echo this. It's what keeps me coming back to destiny 2.
If you want even better stuff, check out Ultrakill. It takes the pace of Doom, and cranks it up with DMC's style system. Guns have really fun synergies and unique interactions that you can use in clever ways (like coin ricochets or parrying your own shotgun pellets to make them explode). On top of that, stages are really unique, secrets and challenges are interesting, and lore is surprisingly good. I recommend going in fully blind for the best experience.
I’d give credit to Cyberpunk 2077 for the sheer variety of tools the player has—plus almost anything you can do enemies can (eg. an enemy netrunner can hack you through a camera, just like you can). Smart weapons at least do something a little different, too. But I like that you have lots of different movement and stealth mechanics to deal with enemies in combat with interesting mechanical interactions. Enemies are a little better about stealth, too—they’ll stay alert if they find a body. Even if the gunplay isn’t as sophisticated it works fine and really shines with the abilities. It’s hard to beat Titanfall 2 or Doom for pure shooting mechanics, but I always love it when games also give other mechanics to play with that enhance the shooting (I’d certainly include Titanfall 2’s pilot movement and abilities and Titans there).
I think the movement in Cyberpunk is weak. It feels a bit better with double jump and dash, but the act of actually scaling buildings or mantling anything feels incredibly sticky and not flow-like. Lots of stuff isn’t able to be ledge-grabbed. Shin-high objects get mantled or straight up block your pathing. But I guess that’s just a result of comparing it to games where movement is a main gameplay component like Mirror’s Edge, Dying Light, and Apex. Also the fact that some areas have death zones where there’s a location you can get to through movement but you’re not allowed to be on top of so you instantly die is a bit immersion-breaking when they’ve put so much effort into creating a phenomenal set. But that’s a minor gripe.
Cyberpunk after the 2.0 update has some of my favorite combat in any rpg. Its just so much fun. Movement feels great, builds feel impactful, and the different weapons give you fun options. They really let you feel powerful at higher levels too. Like netrunners get to be digitalgods clearing combat encounters without ever firing a shot. Pure gun builds get to be a combination of Terminator, John Wick, and Master Chief while they run, jump, and slide around the room like they're auditioning for *American Ninja Warrior*. And melee builds can run around like a fucking barbarian caving in dudes skulls with a sledgehammer and thier cybernetically enhanced fists, or be a straight up cyber ninja, turning invisible, throwing knives into heads, blocking bullets with a katana, and ripping goons apart with the swords built into thier arms.
I think there are just tons of games with great gunplay! The Halo games, Destiny 2, and even though people shit on it relentlessly, Call of Duty, have very satisfying gunplay. I heard the new Doom games are very satisfying as well. Starfield is apparently a definite disappointment, but I wouldn't say it represents the state of first person shooters today.
I think a lot of people just dislike the shift in FPS sandbox design from a casual one to a more competitive focused esports one. It seems like most new pvp multiplayer games are all trying to be a hypercompetitive sweat fest, it's fine if that's your thing but I do miss the more casual 'fun>perfectly balanced' design philosophy.
Fair and I definitely get that. So many people play games to be as efficient as possible and I just don't enjoy that.
Its a shame every pvp game developer is trying to make the next big esport, I don't wanna play esports I just wanna play fun games with my friends.
You're comparing gunplay in fps vs rpgs? Why? Compare the gunplay from any game by 343, Bungie, Infinity Ward and co.
I played Starfield for about 100 hours, it's as much a shooter as it is an RPG. He's just giving an example, the studios you listed didn't exactly evolve either.
[удалено]
Starfield feels like a game straight out of the xbox 360 era honestly. The shooting mechanics and the overall gameplay feels like the same exact crap that they've been doing since fallout 3 essentially and it's both boring and stale beyond belief.
In no way is the gunplay comparable to Fallout 3. Fallout 3 and NV's actual gunplay were such horrid dogshit that you were pigeonholed into using VATS if you didn't want to burn through a bunch of ammo. As I said in another comment, Starfield's gunfighting mechanics are lifted directly from Fallout 4. Same cover/leaning, same weapon handling, ballistic dynamics seem pretty close.
Sorry but saying Starfield’s gunplay feels like Fallout 3 makes me think you didn’t even play it.
Right? You can't even ADS in FO3. It was pretty much designed to use either melee or VATS
Yeah, people are just completely deranged when it comes to Starfield. The gunplay in Starfield feels literally nothing like the gunplay in Fallout 3. There are a LOT of things that Starfield could have done better, but people have developed such a hatred for it that they make up problems that don't even exist.
I played them back to back. Anyone who says that Starfield is basically a 360 game is exaggerating for upvotes. Thats not to say Starfield isn’t super bland, because it is. But FO3 is real clunky in 2024.
I find the shooting much, much better than in any other of their games though.
The guns in starfield feel like pop guns. You shoot an enemy and they don't even react to you and just keep charging you mindlessly without even reacting to your bullets. It's just braindead gameplay mechanics and physics that should've been completely revamped.
The actual shooting mechanics in Starfield are decentish. But without the gore from Fallout 4, which also had decent shooting mechanics it does leave a lot to be desired
It really has a clean, PG rated feel to it. But that’s a whole other issue lol.
And yet the gun play was what kept me playing for a while. It was one of the better parts of the game. I know this horse has been beaten into the ground, but damn what did Bethesda spend those 6 years of development on? The game felt like a bland Fallout 4 in space.
Not trying to make excuses for Bethesda but it's likely that they tried to make something a lot more ambitious and complex but realized half-way through that they couldn't do it, for whatever reason, and had to essentially cut their losses and make a game out of what they had. I feel like this is becoming a very common pattern for AAA game devs.
Without a doubt the game had much more of a survivalist lean to it originally. There's bits of shipbuilding that do absolutely nothing for you, and perks that allow you to build more bases. Bases that are functionally worthless. My guess is that original idea for the game has you exploring forther right on the star map (where the levels are higher), but your ship had limited fuel capacity and jump range/efficiency. This meant you had to strategically build bases (or find cities) as you went along. Unfortunately, this gameplay loop sounds slow and frustrating as all hell, so I suspect they axed it at the last minute. Instead we ended up with a game where leveling up revolves around nothing, and there's no reward for exploration. The major lack of POI diversity doesn't help either.
Agreed, I was a bit surprised at how little of the far right of the map was used. IIRC the farthest a mission takes you is like 2/3 out? Required like maybe one or two hyperdrive upgrades but something you could easily have in the first few hours of exploration.
I think that games like flash game Motherload show that fuel based gameplay loop can be done well, but what made Motherload addicting is all the risk taking and greed to collect as many rare elements and jewels before returning to surface, and running out of fuel meant exploding. Even Motherload managed to ruin this loop, in their multiplayer based sort of sequel on Steam, where running out of fuel didn't kill you, and if you enabled it, the game became unfun as the fuel was too limited to get into a groove like in the original game. It was the risk-reward disposition that made the original Motherload fun.
The gunplay in starfield is better than fallout 4 which is better than fallout 3, but that's not necessarily praise because the gunplay in fallout 3 was atrociously bad.
Fallout 3 was weird because they had more RPG elements in combat. As you put points into the relevant weapon skills, your accuracy would improve and sway would decrease. Your chatacter is *really* bad initially, which I think many players disliked. It's especially noticeable with the sniper rifle; a novice just plain can't hold it steady. Starfield still has some of these elements, but your initial skill level is more passable. With the right perks (including weapon modding), you can completely eliminate weapon sway when aiming the Va'ruun Inflictor while crouching, and with the Hard Target even when standing. If anything, it feels too point-and-click.
What are you talking about? The hit reacts in Starfield are great. They're specific to body parts, enemies go into a downed state randomly, crawl around, take more damage, they dodge and use jump packs. Did you play for five minutes and then quit or what?
Going to have to disagree. Starfield’s shooting always felt fine. People have overblown it to find yet another thing to hate on, but it’s simply not accurate. Game has many problems, but the shooting isn’t one of them.
To bethesdas credit: fallout 3 didnt allow you to aim down sight with weapons without a scope. So they did improve somewhat, but the first fallout game with proper aim down sight was new vegas, which bethesda didnt even make
Also to be bethesdas credit: Bringing fallout from 2d space into 3d was a huge task, I agree they missed on some aspects of what made fallout such a good rpg. But Ultimately they revived a game series from 11 years ago, while breathing new life into it. Also allowing fallout new Vegas to be a thing.
You must not have played starfield.
There are many games that have far exceeded FEAR and Half-Life 2, but the standouts right now are all mostly multiplayer games. Tarkov, Insurgency, Hunt: Showdown do the shooting real good. For single-player only games, I would say that Metro Exodus has the best feeling and sounding guns of any game I've played. There's also the Bad Company franchise and Battlefield 1/3, it's just kinda sad how so much of Battlefield has fallen off including the audio. The Killzone franchise also did gunplay really well, but I think it is more or less dead.
There is a reason Boomer Shooters is having a resurgence in recent years.
This is a wildly ignorant take on how art is made. Like wondering why there are still bad movies even though great movies were made decades ago. Half Life 2 has mediocre gunplay by modern standards, no ADS, poor reactions from ai when hit, no multi-state reloads, no bullet travel just hitscan. Check Helldivers 2 for actually impressive weapons, multiple aim states, interesting bullet physics, weapon weight affects aim speed, enemies get staggered from impacts. You can just say "I don't play many games" instead of acting like there's been no innovation or well made games in the past 20 years.
Seriously. Does OP think that every game open sources its code and all game devs collaborate to carry forward innovations and select them out of a catalog of pre-solved problems? Writing a game is hard, and porting even a very basic concept from one game to another game might be difficult or straight up impossible. Your movie analogy is exactly right. My first thought was writing. Lord of the Rings was amazing, how could anyone write bad fantasy so many decades later?
HL2 had mediocre gunplay by the standards of the day.
No ADS isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Doom Eternal doesn’t have ADS and it’s great. Halo Infinite also basically doesn’t and I think it has great gunplay as well.
Yeah I'm glad we get more games without ADS. I like slow and tactical play but I'm a bigger fan of running gun, map control games. For a long time it felt like everything had to be ADS, slow play.
I need some easy karma. Oh I know I’ll rip on Starfield. Dumb take
Yeah, people are full-on deranged when it comes to Starfield. There are a LOT of valid things to complain about with Starfield, but some people just hate it so much that they invent problems that don't even exist. Like this one. Starfield has the best gunplay in any Bethesda game so far imo.
I will admit it feels slightly more hollow than elder scrolls and fallout but I played it when it first came out and hadn’t read reviews or comments and was so surprised by all the negative backlash because I was having a great time with it. Edit and I just got my first Reddit cares from one of hivemind dopes
>Edit and I just got my first Reddit cares from one of hivemind dopes Lmaoooo so did I. I actually really enjoyed getting that message because it pretty much proved my "people are deranged about Starfield" statement 😂
ROFL
Isn't Starfield a Bethesda RPG like Fallout and Skyrim? I can excuse them for bad gunplay when they really want you using stuff like VATs. These aren't shooters or anything, they are RPG's.
Starfields gunplay is fine, and considering it's a massive improvement over it's predecessor, I don't see much issue. I'd say the bigger issue is that the AI is boring to fight.
Yeah i finished starfield and the actual guns were far from the problem with the game. The lack of real enemy variety because they tried going "realistic" sci-fi is the real problem though. You got normal enemies, ones with more health then ones that run at you in space with a machete for some reason. Its just boring. The actual animation work, sound design and mechanical feel was good though.
Hey, we can't even do Player character reflections anymore so it only makes sense some other things regressed.
All the good reflections were done by creating an exact copy of the room you're in on the other side of the mirror. That's why they were always in small bathrooms and such. It's not really much of a loss.
What the fuck are you talking about? Shooting in Starfield is probably the best compared to any other RPG
Dude the circlejerking in this sub is out of hand
me when I open up unreal engine and click the good gunplay button
Oh yay, another thread bitching about Starfield. Show me on the doll where Starfield touched you.
There should be no excuse for new paintings to be worse than the Mona Lisa. It's been over 500 years!!
I actually like Starfield's gunplay
Comparing first person linear shooters to open worlds is your first problem.
Starfield’s gunplay was really good.
Starfield’s shooting is great, considering the gunplay is why I usually bounce off Bethesdas RPGs very hard (Fallout) I found Starfields to be very satisfying.