Calling all 90's kids! What made 90's FPS's so good?

I think there's a place for more complex controls, especially in something like a fighting game. When mastered, it gives the player a very deep feeling of being in control of their character, and so identifies strongly with it, as if they are "in the game". But it needs to be handled very carefully, because when complex controls are not mastered, the player feels like they have no control over what their avatar does. This breaks immersion very badly and frustrates the player at the same time (except perhaps when button-mashing produces acceptable results, and the player is one who's OK with that).

Ideally, I think such a game should start you off with pretty restricted movement and very simple controls of the kind you describe. And then gradually, as you play, you unlock additional movement options, which employ additional controls, but at each step you're given plenty of time to learn (and then must demonstrate) the new skill.

I've been playing Super Metroid a bit lately, and you see this design principle even there: your initial movement options are pretty much walk, crouch, jump, and shoot. You can also run at the beginning, but you probably don't realize this, and it's not necessary for a while. Later, you reach a point that teaches you how to run, and some time after that, you reach areas that require you to run to succeed — but by then you've got it. A similar process happens with shooting at an angle; not necessary at first, then taught, and finally needed.

At the same time, powerups are slowly adding new abilities: curl into the spin-ball, drop bombs, switch weapons, etc. Each one is introduced in a way that's clear but gives you plenty of time to master it. By the end of the game, you're a badass with all sorts of acrobatic skills, but there was never a moment where you had to master a bunch of complex stuff at once.

And you see the same thing in well-designed modern games. One of my favorite hardly-noticed games was Tron Evolution. As a movie spin-off I rather expected it to suck, but tried it anyway (because, yes, I'm a huge fan of the story and would have bought pretty much any spin-off game, whether it sucked or not). It turned out to be an extremely well-balanced, well-designed, and thoroughly enjoyable 3rd-person run/jump/fight game. And again, new skills are introduced one at a time; by the end you can do all sorts of crazy (and cool) tricks, and the controls are quite complex, but you don't care because you've mastered them all by that point.

Then I went into multiplayer arena mode, and totally p0wned the newbies who clearly hadn't gone through story mode, but tried to just jump right into multiplayer, where all skills/controls are available. It must have been frustrating for them... which is just how I feel when I try games where complex controls are in your face on day 1.

 

I agree with you and I think this is an area many people overlook about the older games. It was a time when a lot of thought went into game design and control systems. The idea of building up complexity bit by bit over time by periodically introducing a new skill (control) was something they nailed long ago. And it worked very well. Many later games did use this approach but many also just skip it entirely and dump out the whole thing in a series of rapid tidbits presented within 30 seconds or perhaps the first 5 minutes of the game. It is a real turn off to me. It definitely is a matter of personal preference. I hate twin stick controls so anything with that I skip. Borderlands had that on the PS3 so I bought the PC version and the controls with mouse and keyboard were so much better. It just felt better with far more precision. However, a lot of people seem to think twin stick control systems are the best thing ever.

 

That might be a little backwards. Most of that design principle comes from Super Metroid. It helps that the game is designed with mechanics that are mostly independent of each other, so learning the mechanics was mostly about layering on single items of knowledge. Even then there are two explicit tutorials (textless, but still explicit) with wall jumping and the sprint charging ability, because they added additional mechanics to something that would otherwise seem one dimensional.

This is the basic reason that RPG elements are now in everything, yet the necessary mechanics of a shooter, which ends up being most of them, need to be there from the beginning. You have shooting, kinda important; reloading; looking down sights, which is there to facilitate precision aiming with a controller; a dedicated grenade throw, that reduces inventory management and makes grenades a regular/consistent aspect of play (since you don't have to swap to them); and melee/takedowns, which reduce having to aim at something at the worst possible range. Add an interact/pick up button and you've down six buttons. Throw in jump and crouch and you're out of buttons to do anything special with. So without wacky weapons and jetpacks, there isn't much mechanical exploration that can be done.

It's hard to backpedal on the genre when nearly everything that's been done was evolving to fix the genre's shortcomings.

 

For me, reloading is a superfluous action that adds absolutely nothing to the gameplay. Certainly, if people wanted this to be in the game "because it adds to realism" (which is the only reason I can see it being in there to begin with) the game could simply automatically do it. When you empty the chamber the game automatically shows a quick reload animation. That frees up one button.

A context-based action button can handle basic melee (when an enemy is within a certain distance of you) and using a scope (when you press the same button and there is nobody around). Alternately, if an enemy is basically on top of you the game just uses melee when you press fire. The game could feature both approaches as options and the player can choose the method they prefer. Another button is now available.

 

I'm going to be "that guy." You know...that guy.

Frankly, I don't think much that's actually good in terms of game design has come out of FPS literature, regardless of when it was made.

• FPSes have contributed to obnoxiously linear level design, and this has leaked into other genres (Want to know why Final Fantasy XIII had such linear levels? It was inspired by COD. This is one thing of many that has caused gamers to be disillusioned with Final Fantasy; it's barely recognizable as a JRPG as a result.)
• FPS literature has been lending itself to "propaganda" games, both by Western groups, as well as anti-Western groups. After all, when you're already shooting dudes, why not teach people to more efficiently shoot the dudes you don't like? Good examples of such propaganda include America's Army - made by the U.S. Military as a recruitment tool - as well as Call of Juarez, an unrepentantly racist work that bastardizes the drug wars occurring in the southern reaches of the United States and Mexico. (Note: I don't take ExtraCreditz as gospel, as I've said elsewhere. That said, when they made these very conclusions on it, I'm just going to say: they nailed it.)
• Going even further, FPS literature has contributed to some of the worst observed behavior in the Gaming culture (not that it didn't exist in some forms before.)

Now, I don't think all FPS literature is bad FPS literature (just, most of it.) I think some FPSes like Portal have great game design value (want to screw physics itself? That's the game for you!) Halo 4 blatantly draws from COD, but breaks the narrative mold by beginning to deconstruct aspects of the Modern Military Shooter (like, the social ramifications of kidnapping a bunch of children who are raised exclusively in a military environment, then...

Spoiler

Master Chief's breakdown following the "death" of Cortana, who was already suffering from Rampancy, bring that "arc" to a really tragic head, as he's completely unequipped to deal with love or loss...

...as well as attacking the general MMS trope of a reliably reasonable commander; the captain of the Infinity is far from that.) Going further, there's always Spec Ops: The Line, a hard deconstruction of MMSes that directly goes for the player with some of its heaviest punches.

In short - and, FPS fans who want to make something, listen closely to this if nothing else - what I would like for the future of FPSes is neither a re-hash of old, hard, "edgy" games of the 90s, or the new, super-easy, "edgier" games of the '00s+.

What I want is a game that, in an engaging way, asks me to really think about where I'm putting a bullet/laser/whatever.

What I don't want is a game that's trying to convince me that it, and by extension me, are somehow "mature" because it can fit a better gore effect in.

If that's the limit of what you can express...well, frankly, it makes me sad for you. As it is, if you're going to develop a FPS, with me - and gamers like me - you're fighting an uphill battle to prove I should pick up your game in the first place, let alone recommend it to anyone. Of course, that could be just me; I am being "that guy", after all.

 

Very salient points. If you think the point of games is to enlighten the masses.

If you just want mindless violent entertainment, then they fill the niche well. Some times after a long day dealing with real problems at work I just want to come home and destroy something. Better to do that on a gaming console then in real life.

Sure it might be best to not have violent urges and tendencies altogether. But failing that letting off steam in an FPS is less damaging then many other ways to express these tendencies.

 

Oh, FPSes being a sink for violent tendencies aren't at all a bad thing. That's the one thing I think that provides their value in the first place. I'd much rather shoot the avatar of another player online with a nuclear laser that upon impact breaks apart into smaller nuclear lasers, than go off in a mindless rage, ever.

If you want me to go off on the overwhelming use of violence in games, that'll be a different thread for a different time; the TL;DR of my thoughts is it's an instance of lazy conception, or a degree of collective creative sterility, that even I suffer from. I'm trying to get around it a bit in my current project...but, it's an ongoing effort.

However, you do touch on a very important point. Everything we do is learning. Everything. Games provide structured experience, most often in pursuit of a clear and compelling goal. Naturally, when people do something for any amount of time, we learn to do something the most efficient way possible.

I don't think all games should be trying to communicate deep understanding of a subject, no matter how "edgy" (in fact, I think going out of your way to be edgy more often than not degrades the quality; FFXIII: Lightning Returns is a great example of this in regards to approaching religion.)

What I will assert, is as designers, we should be aware that players are always learning. We aren't by any means obligated to do anything a certain way, even The Right Way™. We should however have enough respect for our subject material and our audience, to be mindful of the conclusions we want our audience to draw, and how those affect those in our audience.

The designers of Final Fantasy XIII didn't respect their audience enough to realize that people wanted a JRPG; Abe's interview with Kotaku generally boils down to, "I put X in the game because I like it. End of story." ExtraCreditz points out that Call of Juarez's developers didn't really seem to care enough to do proper research on their chosen setting in the first place. Even though these offenses aren't equal, I find them both egregious, because they're both disrespectful to the audience. Call of Juarez is just more egregious, because they're managing to disrepect the dead, living, virtual , and actual all in one go. Final Fantasy XIII just settled with disrespecting it's audiences expectations, and the staffer who hired their writer. Protip: Fire him, Squeenix. (the result being The Nerd Rage of the Decade.*)

I find disrespect of the audience to be jarringly common in the FPS genre, for some reason, and it leaks into how players treat each other. This is why I rail against FPSes, and would only create one A) when I'm more skilled in general, and B) only if I have a very clear vision of what I want to make, and what the consequences of that creation are. Aggression is a potent force that can be channeled positively, as you point out...or very, very negatively. Still, no one can dictate The Right Way™ for anything. What you choose to make is up to you, and if you can sleep at night knowing that you're making that vision real.

*: I know that one pertains to Lightning Returns: FFXIII, but still, the sentiment is the same. And, he talks about some of the weaknesses in FFXIII, so it's at least still salient to the topic of disrespecting your audience's expectations.

 

Pro Tip: Don't let the mag run dry in the middle of a firefight. Pro Tip 2: Don't waste ammo to empty the mag, just hit the reload button. To be fair this has actually been done, and people hated it.

For one, don't ever use realism as an excuse. That's a cop-out answer preventing you from thinking deeper about what the actual reasons are. The real reason for reloading is because it adds a dilemma. It forces players to think and pay attention to what they are doing. Players usually become much more cognizant about their ammo consumption when they are also looking for the right time to take cover while they reload.

 

It also adds an extra dimension of choice for the player. Is this a situation where I want a weapon with a large clip and slow reload, or do I go for a smaller clip and a shorter reload time?

 

If you've only got two weapons, it's not much of a choice.

 

In the context of dilemma as @RockoDyne discussed, having this done by the context gives the player less dilemma. Do I take a chance with a powerful but slow melee attack versus trying to aim at short range.

This is another dilemma. You can't carry every weapon, so you have I choose the best to carry. Do I hold on to a long range sniper with low ammo, or swap it out for a short ranges pistol with a ton of ammo around?

 

This is my rifle. This is my gun.
This is for fighting. This is for fun.

It's enough of a choice for marines.

 

To me, the dilemma is worse - what if Weapon A and Weapon B are both unsuitable to the situation at hand, and I have no access to any of the three weapons that would be actually helpful (Halo 4 multiplayer has this problem; wanna take on a Banshee pilot with a pistol and an assault rifle (only effective at midrange)? What do you mean that sounds like the worst idea ever?)

 

LOL. Wow. You guys get into this stuff deep. Fair enough though. You're looking at "dilemma" and I am thinking just give me a gun, some things to mow down and let me at em. Auto-reload would work fine for me or preferrably just no reload. As long as I have ammo I can shoot. This definitely shows the difference in gameplay preferences. In real life obviously I need to reload. In a game at least the games I enjoy I wouldn't need to reload. The dilemma is being down to 4 bullets and knowing I need 6 to put down both enemies in front of me.

 

This is the result of a earlier poor choice. Why are you carrying a pistol an an assault rifle on a map with banshees? (I haven't actually played 4, but the same challenge with vehicles existed in 1 and 2).

In game design dilemma doesn't refer to a difficult situation. If you are out played and about to die, that no dilemma. Dilemma refers to a difficult choice, when a player has several good options an must choose one, giving up the others. Or when a player has several bad options and must choose the one that does the least damage. This can be compounded by the player not having all the relevant information, and putting the player under time pressure.

 

I'm with you, bro. And, just for fun (because we're having a darned fun game design discussion here already), I'll throw out this for discussion/debate/hurling of vegetables well past their "best by" date:

Splatoon is the most original, interesting, and fun FPS to come along in decades.

I'll go even further and draw a parallel with fighting games and Super Smash Bros... Fighting games had gotten stuck into a rut where vocal, hardcore fans demanded more and more complexity, which the industry delivered with each new title, reducing the size of their audience with each one. It seemed that nothing could be done; nobody would want a fighting game that wasn't as crazy complex and "deep" as these players demanded. Then along came Super Smash Bros, which sold more than all the other games in the genre combined. The fighting game genre was refreshed, a whole new audience was brought into it, and the game was wildly successful, despite (nay, because) it was easy to pick up and play.

I claim that Splatoon is doing the same thing. It's not realistic; it's not complex (at least, in terms of controls); and it's not graphically violent. What it is is good clean fun, with some really unique gameplay. I happened to see a trailer for it at a movie last weekend, and I found myself saying, "hey, I want to play that!" for the first time for any shooter game in years.

So there. Any thoughts?

 

Splatoon does look fun.

Going back to weapons, I don't know why there has to be any specific kid of design choice in a given game. Why can't some weapons have reload times and others not? Why can't some weapons give bonuses for head shots, while others are indiscriminant.

 

They could but like @JoeStrout mentioned it is probably the vocal minority trying to push the games in a certain direction. Basically the same thing we have seen in this thread. I think what many of us want is just a fun simple game. Others seem to want games to become like plays or movies. The brief discussion of dilemma is a good example. We can get enough dilemma when more enemies are approaching than we have ammo. Need to choose which enemy we put down. That would be enough for most people I think.

 

I mean its very easy to say 'back in my day things were better', even if they werent. I certainly dont think theres an issue as you imply with modern FPS's, they fill a gap, but a return to the more classic style would be interesting to see

 

That's probably a big part of it. Just having the option. I wouldn't want the modern FPS to change to be like the classic versions. A lot of people enjoy them. It'd just be cool if for every 2 or 3 modern style FPS they made one for those of us who prefer the classic format.

 

One thing I wish would come back into vogue are periodic pickups (like Quake had). It was a great mechanic to encourage learning the map, and in its own way forms a sort of waypoint system to learn maps.

I was playing some Halo 4 last night, and the only reason I knew the maps was because I tend to get killed from certain spots, usually in B.S. ways; I've found that those spots are sort of the optimum point to pwn from. That made me think of this thread, actually.

 

That is a big one on my list as well and for the same reasons!

 

One thing I miss about having weapons pick-ups in multiplayer was that there wasn't a need to balance them.

I like having the edge from time to time and I like taking on someone better equipped than me to get their loot.

 

Well, one thing about reloads is that it's a useful way to count your ammo. It's easier to count the solid increments of time you aren't shooting, than the entire time you've held the trigger down. Reloading four times versus firing for sixteen seconds, which one do you think you can keep track of in the heat of the moment? Once we got to Modern Warfare and it's hardcore mode, they threw the hud out since it wasn't needed. Keeping track of ammo became something the player had to do.

Yes and no. As far as what the pickup does, that could totally be brought back (and in more arcade-y games it's still done). As far as what they do to player movements, I would say you get the same kind of effect out of king of the hill style modes (which I tend to prefer).

 

I find I can't go back to old games. It was the times they were in that made them special, not their quality. Even when modern games try to recreate that feeling I believe it falls flat. IE: I just picked up TOXXIK, which is a clear and stated attempt to recapture the 90s feel of Quake/Unreal Tournament... and it does. And I hate it. Not that it is a bad game, it does what it set out to do extremely well. I had hoped for that feeling of nostalgia but I was really left thinking "Why did we love bunny hopping rocket launchers so much?"

Sad but true... take out the nostalgia and most (all?) 90s shooters are just worse than their modern counterparts. At least in my opinion.

 

Your opinion is wrong, sorry. But really, I played the original Shadow Warrior for the first time a couple years ago, and found it more fun overall than most modern shooters. So it can't be nostalgia. Many of the early games somehow nailed the fun factor pretty hard, and since then they've been systematically "improving" the fun out of them.

--Eric

 

Nostalgia is something that is often thrown around as an easy way to explain why some people find old games more fun to play than modern games. I can see this being the explanation in some cases but overall I think people are just missing the bigger picture here. The classic style games are simply more fun to some of us. Not every game in every case but enough of them to keep people playing old games and indeed even a retro industry growing more and more to serve the market.

I think Eric nailed it in that the classic games focused on fun. Basically the graphics may look very poor compared to modern games, the controls and overall mechanics may be simpler but they focused on the right thing: just making a fun game. Granted the games can feel a little empty or simplistic to players wanting flash and constant chatter and such. But for the people who can get past that stuff (or simply dislike that stuff as I do) there is a good amount of fun waiting.

 

All this talk of art styles reminds me of an article about a developer who renounced pixel art.

Pretty much, this developer noticed a trend in pixel-art titles where everything about them brings up the graphical style, in what the developer interpreted as a negative sense (reading the same reviews, I read it as the reviewer telling the user to expect a pixelated visual style.) His interpretation - or cherry-picking - of these reviews led him to abandon pixel art altogether in favor of only going for pure, modern 3D HD visuals.

In his article, though, he gives an interesting bit of analysis, despite what I consider to be some weak justification for his decision (the developer doesn't need to justify a thing; "we feel that going with 3D is better than 2D pixel" is more than sufficient, and causes the same amount of wangst.) He calls the effort needed by the user to parse pixel art "The Pixel Tax" that must be paid by the user to appreciate the work. 90s FPSes - due to the technological limitations of the time - are heavily pixelated.

An interesting idea that I'm surprised hasn't come up in this thread much - if visuals are such a concern, and the 90s FPSes are so fun, why not pwn two birds with one stone - simply combine the mechanics of the 90s FPS with modern visuals?

 

Well, seems like the camps come down to "just wanting fun" and "wanting to actually think." I do have to ask, if all you want is fun, then why does it matter that it's a game? Why not just put on Rambo and save your hands for beer and popcorn?

 

The graphics are not an issue for me. However, I have seen that mentioned many times now on these forums and others. So for some people it certainly seems to be one of the main concerns. I'm all for your idea though. If they can make games as fun as the old games yet dress them in modern presentation I would definitely check them out.

I bought a new game from GOG this weekend. Well, new to me. It came out in 1997. Blood: Cradle to Grave. It is a ton of fun and has an excellent atmosphere. For this video he apparently jacked up the Gamma so everything is very bright. I guess just to make sure the viewers can see it all. For me it is quite dark for night obviously.

 

I don't want to hijack this thread, but this point here is worthy of its own thread. Feel free to start it if you agree. If you do, I will argue that hand-drawn pixel artwork can often be easier to parse than modern, smooth, 3D artwork. And I'll try to dig up some images to support this.

 

With very great pleasure.

 

3D made FPS's cool.

 

That's like asking, if you feel like eating dinner, why not go on a balloon ride instead? Two completely different things, and it doesn't even make sense to ask the question.

I did mention that Doom 4 (now apparently just called "Doom") will have most of the old gameplay style. Presumably it will have a modern presentation. Also, check out the Serious Sam games.

--Eric

 

Yep I saw your post and went searching for info and videos on it. Not much available yet but next month is supposed to be the worldwide reveal. Interested in seeing some gameplay videos.

 

If all you want is a fun experience, why does it matter that it's interactive? These are games that barely require the player's input. The biggest choice in Doom is whether you're going to chainsaw a pinkie or not, and once in a blue moon there are some optional set pieces to trigger. Hell, skill mostly comes down to how well you point in a general direction (depending on mouse look) and how well you avoid enemy projectiles. This isn't exactly the height of interactivity.

 

It's a total non-sequitur of an argument, plus it applies equally to all games. If you're going to say "go watch a movie" in response to someone saying "I want to play a game", here are some equally valid responses:

• Go outside and play.
• Learn to skydive.
• Go square dancing.
• Go trainspotting.
• Jump up and down 100 times.

Sorry, but that's just completely nonsensical and doesn't even rate as an argument.

But if you're actually claiming that older games like Doom are somehow less interactive than modern "let's watch a bunch of cutscenes and maybe have some quicktime events" games, I can only laugh heartily. That's even more nonsensical. "Barely require the player's input" is beyond absurd. If you're trolling, congratulations. If not...um, well.

--Eric

 

This trolling sucks, instead of making me angry/passionate/idiotic, it just makes me want to pick my nose with a 1/25-scale replica of a MineCraft Diamond Pickaxe. Why don't you just re-enact Dumb and Dumber** with a friend in front of a live audience instead? Gosh.*

*: By echoing the same argument made against FPSes - which have problems as I took a whack at earlier - it should be clear why the post it's making fun of is an ineffective logical argument: "This A sucks, why don't you do tangentially-related non-interactive thing B instead?' By seeing bad patterns, it becomes easier to recognize them. If you meant to say, "FPSes are awful in my opinion because they're not interactive enough," OK - that's a fair, understandable statement that among colleagues can be taken as what it is - a subjective statement, not a bad attempt at using logic as a pretzel.

**: Dumb and Dumber is how Hollywood trolled most of the world in the mid-90s, thus why my example is salient. Napoleon Dynamite continued that work in the mid '00s. Honey Boo-Boo is doing it in the '10s.

 

It's all just opinions on both sides although I agree some of them have been a bit ridiculous. I still think in the end it just comes down to preferences. I don't doubt that for some people the modern games really are these amazing gaming experiences in the same way that for others the older games provide those experiences. It just depends on what is important to a person. Sometimes I wonder if many people just like the "big budget" movie-like approach so much they don't even notice how light the game is on actual gameplay. I do admit though the Hollywood like budget is put to great use in hiding this and making the games seem like they are so much more than they are. At the other extreme there are people who value the solid gameplay enough that even if (and possibly even because) the game is presented without a massive budget they have a lot of fun. Basically trading loads of voice acting and other fanciness for more interaction, simple controls and solid gameplay. That game Blood I recently bought is filled with a good balance of fighting and interacting with the environment and being rewarded for doing so. That is why I like it.

Here is an article I found this weekend that fits well into this discussion.

 

The point I was trying to get at is that just about anything labeled a shooter is closer to an action movie than a respectable piece of "interactive media." What they aim to do is overwhelm the player/audience with stimulation, to the point of and in the right manner to generate this "fun" that people speak of. There is little room, nor need, for thinking.

There are few dilemmas that are faced, few approaches to those dilemmas, and their effects are rarely lasting. Every action the player makes could be easily forgotten if there isn't a mound of corpses piling up. So whatever the player does is insignificant anywhere but in the moment.

 

Except that's objectively false.

--Eric

 

Ugh, I never got why everyone is so caught up on stories in video games. If I want a story, I'll read a book or watch something.

 

Agreed. The simple cinematic effects in early games where a few small letterboxes appearing in succession stepping through the important bits of the story was fine. It was a very effective way of delivering the relevant parts you may need or want to know. Even then I think most people skipped it.

When they went to videos it was a pain in the ass. I don't know anyone who actually watches that stuff. Same for the video cut scenes. As soon as they pop up I think most players are mashing buttons or keys trying to skip it. Then when they tried to make the whole game that way with continual narrative and such it was just stupid. I don't see how anyone can look at older and newer games and not clearly see it is the latter that are striving to deliver non-interactive movie-like experiences.

 

The thing is, games tell stories even if there isn't a single word of text. Talk about what happened during your last play session and you are telling the story. They usually amount to S***ty stories though as they are rarely anything but non sequiturs. One event just follows another event, and then another, and then another, and then another, and then another, and then, and then, and then, and then... NO AND THEN. It's a series of unrelated events without anything connecting them sequentially and they could actually be swapped around without any significant change.

To make a hypothetical example (using mechanics that aren't uncommon) of a good example. There are two groups of enemies in your way, with the second being a decent distance away. Before the second group arrives, you get behind cover and take on the first group. But before you take out a good portion of the group, your gun jams because you haven't been taking care of it. You turtle behind cover while you fix the jam, but while behind cover, you can't see that a guy is coming around your cover. You then end up in a struggle with the guy, which eats up a bunch of time. In this time, the second group has already joined in the fray, and since they were at a distance where you couldn't see their equipment, you are blissfully unaware of their two rocket launchers. So once you are ready, you pop out of cover to be greeted with two rockets to the face. Say "cheese!'

There's drama here. Previous events tie into the next ones, and some events were actually brought about because of the player (even better since it's from hubris). Hell, there's even backstory. Try to write these stories about Doom. I'm willing to bet that you could cut it up into pieces and scramble them around, to get something that has all the same plot points.

 

I guess my point was that I find I can't enjoy the mechanics of most 90s shooters anymore, making their experience nowhere near as good as I remember them. You're as welcome to your opinion as I am, and I did say "most..." But frankly compared to my memory of Doom 1, going back and playing Doom 1 is just not as good. It doesn't live up to my memory. Same went for Unreal Tournament style play. Bunny hopping rocketlaunchers was a great gimmick in 2003, and I LOVED it. Today I can't stand it. The question to ask is: Do I feel this way because I am older & changed / already experienced that and there's a new generation just waiting to bunny jump rocket smash someone in the face or has the majority of the market changed, making this commercially less viable.

All I know is I would not risk my own money making a 90s style shooter because I don't believe it is just me who changed, but rather the market as a whole. I can easily see (and clearly Toxxik's developer's believed) that a different conclusion can be reached here.

 

Yeah, but what you (@RockoDyne) have just described is a narrative that was created by the player as real events unfold. That's different from narrative which is written by the game designer, acted out by voice actors and animators, and displayed on screen while the player watches, goes for a snack, or mashes buttons trying to figure out how to make it stop.

It's like the difference between movies and real life. Real life is a serious of events that you're involved in, which you can describe as a narrative, although (as you said) it's often not a very interesting narrative. Movies are a series of events made up by a scriptwriter, which you're not involved in, except as an observer.

Both are fine for what they are. But, what I hear some here saying is that they prefer the series of events they're actually involved in, to a scripted narrative they merely observe. (And yeah, there are certainly elements of both in most games, and gray areas in between, but that doesn't mean the distinction has no value.)

 

The map on the left looks very much like a map from one of the Marathon games. The Marathon games where among the few 90's FPS I liked. Mainly because of the story (weird sci-fi with many layers) and co-op. My favourite 90's FPS was Pathways into Darkness, which very First Person RPG-ish (in many ways more similar to say Bards Tale or Dungeon Master than Doom) followed by either Marathon Infinity (weirdest story of the Marathon games) or Perfect Dark (because of co-op, co-op is fun!).
So I never really liked most 90's FPS... Hmm, wait a second I never really liked most 00's FPS either. Perhaps I am posting in the wrong thread XP

 

Yes, it's very different from an event scripted by a game designer, with sound effects and voice over punctuating action, and with mechanics carefully chosen to create drama. Wait... they aren't.
Replace narrative with experience and see if you still consider your argument valid. A movie and a book are still experienced, whether fictional or otherwise, along with everything in life. The two words mean almost the exact same thing, just that narrative is experience given an artistic form.

Story and gameplay are not two separate entities. Chances are if a game is considered a masterpiece, you're going to find that the two aspects are bleeding into one another. Deus Ex and any infinity engine game don't have their gameplay stop just because a dialogue box pops up, and not because of some QTE.

 

The difference is the one story the player is "writing" while playing the game. I see it the same way. Completely agree with you on that. However, the other is a story the designers are trying to tell and I care very little about that.

They can craft all the cut scenes, voice overs and even play mechanics to try to develop their own story and force it on the player but the player may choose to do something completely different. It's what I meant about being guided along. For me personally when I am reading a book or watching a movie I am in a very different frame of mind than I am when playing a game. Maybe that is not the case for all people.

I read books or watch movies because I want to observe THEIR story. Sure sometimes a book can pull me in and I kind of live it in my mind but still it is a much more abstract thing. Playing a video game (or football or whatever) is a different kind of activity at least for me. I am writing the story within the confines of the gameworld. The difference is in my involvement. The game world defines a framework and lets me loose in it. What I think some of us are saying is we don't want to be directed along and instead just left alone to explore the game. Of course in the older games the designers also may have tried to shuttle us toward some thing they had in their minds. Perhaps they just did it in a less intrusive and more subtle way than modern games do and that is the appeal.

 

Power ups in fps games used to be fun...