I am working on a first person game that involves guns. I am at a crossroads with making my mind up on how I want to make the gameplay. So it’s up to you and your opinion to inspire me! What style of FPS game do you prefer? Vote and post any comments!
Poll options are about the style of FPS referring to number of guns you can carry, skills available lack of or abundance of powerups, regenerating health etc. Also involves plot style and telling to the player. If you think I mismatched examples, let me know and I will further explain the options. I tried to group games together as to how they are generalized by critics and players.
If you would like, it would be greatly appreciated for you to comment on what features you like in FPS games, such as max number of weapons to carry, favorite weapon, gameplay mode, power up, map etc. What do you think the keys are for making a fun FPS?
EDIT:
Modern is referring to the content style of the game, Halo 3 uses regenerating health, limited weapon slots, limited grenades similar to the MW franchise and most other games produced in the past 3-4 years.
Basic: pick up to 10 weapons 1-0(0-9) keys on the keyboard correspond to the weapon slots. Usually fast running speeds. Very limited movement with run jump and strife. Linear levels. Low level of story involvement to gameplay.
Adventure: Exploration, finding and recovering items are primary goals.
Tactical: Well you know realism to the finest degree of games. ‘Real’ weapons, ‘realistic’ body damage, realistic run speed. (can be futuristic so long as the game emphasizes tactics, not run and gun)
I agree and disagree with your statement. Sure modern is where most people want to be to make games, but I feel that there is still innovation to be had within the FPS category of games. I am personally tired of the cookie cutter design that is used by most modern games. But that is just my taste in FPS games.
I am a fan of TimeSplitters 2, James Bond: Agent Under Fire, Team Fortress 2, Goldeneye 007, QuakeLive, Halo: Combat Evolved and Half Life 2.
I am not looking to make a hit and sell it to millions, I just want to make a fun game that is something new and exciting. Also, I can’t really make modern top notch graphics as a one man art team and am going a more stylized route. I am willing to pour my time into anything that’s fun and new, so base it off of what you would like to play or what style of play you prefer, not what would make money!
Then personally, what i would do is do some research into the smaller sections of the FPS genre, and find out what is going well in them smaller sub-genre’s. Then try and take out some of the better attributes/ attributes you can include into your games concept.
Then just hope for the best.
My favourite game game of the FPS genre has to be Turok: Evolution .
I have already done a ton of research on popular titles and their standout features. What I am looking for is just opinions from game makers/players. To be honest I have been working on my FPS project since 2004 and have been doing research on game design and concepts and gameplay ever since. It’s my favorite hobby. Back when I played a lot of games it was easy for me to pinpoint exactly what I wanted. Today though, being now almost done with college, I have little time for gaming much anymore and my once clear cut ideas are now seemingly less clear cut as I have matured and my tastes have changed along with the fact I don’t play games much. I hate to admit it but I probably only play about 2-4 hours of games per week on a good week.
I would just like to hear what others like to play and why.
I am leaning towards a more adventure style FPS as I loved Metroid Prime(played through 3.5 times) but still having a lot of action. But I also want it to have a feel of something like Goldeneye and the solid fast paced fun of say Quake/Unreal. These things are very hard to mesh together coherently. Pure multiplayer would be easy, but I want to make a good single player first. I am thinking I will make levels mix in aspects of all the different play styles and whichever is the publics most fun, I might agree and work more on that.
I find I “don’t” enjoy FPS games, in general, but there have been a few exceptions:
Goldeneye (as mentioned), this is probably the first FPS, and one of few, I played from start to finish and still played afterward.
Halo 1. I found it interesting you put Halo 3 up, and called it “modern”, isn’t that more scifi? Anyway, the combination of AI, control system, and driving in the first Halo made it the second FPS I played all the way through, and beyond.
The most recent is Borderlands. I was very surprised how much I enjoy(ed) this game, I still play a bit. It may be the non realistic rendering style and over the top characters, but it’s also the variation in playable characters and the weaponry options that pushes it over the top. I really feel that most FPS are too shallow in those areas.
As far as COD, MW, Quake, DOOM…meh…I’ve played em all and mostly they were “ok”. Cool moments, good graphics in their time, but not my cup of tea.
I guess I’d give honorable mention to Half-Life/HL2, etc, what I played was good, I like the story, but I got to a point where I had missed something and felt the need to “go back”, and thus stopped playing altogether. I also like the graphical style and class system of Team Fortress 2, but it was nothing but frustration to play online in “pickup groups”, and thus I got quickly bored/frustrated with it.
Yep, Metroid Prime 3.5 times once normal, once on Hard, then once again in normal in the Fusion Suit after linking to a friends Zero Mission GBA game to unlock it. Then got halfway through zero suit on hard mode. I loved that game!
That link to the Metroid web demos is fantastic! I love it! My graphics wont be that stylized though :P. They will be less neon and more sketchy.
Still waiting the results of this poll for at least a week to help me decide, but right now I think a more adventure style gameplay with guns is a good idea.
I’m not too fond of Halo multiplayer, although co-op Campaign in Halo 3 is good. Any other kind of multiplayer game involves playing lots of suicidal strangers, who will rush at you not caring whether they die in the process. Which they usually don’t.
I have played the single player campaigns a lot though, including completing Legendary for Halo 1 2 and 3. I’m not going to bother with ODST on harder settings, the whole game is too dark to be that much fun. I’m curious whether Reach will have something for us solo players.
I agree, I can’t say there have been many FPS games that I have felt are worth $50-$60 in the past 5 years. Last FPS I got was the Orange Box with HL2 EP1/EP2/Portal/TF2. Oh I also got counterstrike source/day of defeat source, but both of those got on my nerves. There are too many players who exploit the game which kills the fun. I never understood why my 5 ‘deagle’ shots to their head/chest didn’t kill them and 1 of their pistol(non deagle) shots in my chest has an insta kill effect. :evil: . I have since given up playing both games after trying for a year and a half to play better.
I think part of the reason modern may be in the lead is because that’s all that people are used to anymore. I think I am gonna make it a first person experience, more like Goldeneye 007. Guns were important, but so were gadgets and interacting with other objects such as buttons and switches, not just shooting everything that moves.
I will have a few hours free today, I think I am going to draft up my games new feature set. I think this is the 9th time I have started over on the features. :lol: Well I know version 8.5 had so much feature creep there was no way I could finish it anytime soon. I am trying to design once and finalize it as being part of the game so I can keep moving forward. Not being able to make concrete decisions in almost a one man team(my friends help occasionally) can really make it hard for anything to get done. You gotta stay extremely focused and commit to your best ideas once and once only if the game is to ever see the light of day.
One thing to keep in mind is that games don’t necessarily have to follow the Halo3/Modern Warfare mold to be successful. Bioshock for example is a game that sold well, over a million copies. For larger developers taking a risk on a new IP may be a risk but in some cases it may yield larger sales than if one were to stay with the tried and true tested formula. At some point both Halo and Modern Warfare were new games which brought forth new concepts into the industry. As for starting out with a new game however it would probably be best to master the concepts of what is popular now before trying to do something radically innovative.
