I'm not going to argue; I do like first person shooters. I like getting a gun, pointing at the bad guy, pulling the trigger and watching said baddie fall over in a spray of crimson fluids. It might not take the worlds brainiest genius to work out how to play the games. You basically avoid being hit by projectiles such as bullets, rockets and whatever else the enemy may be packing, and you try to hit them with yours. Like a violent game of dodgeball, FPS's are good for releaving that little voice in your head that tells you to kill everything breathing... what? I'm alone here? Fine, I'll just add you 'breathers' to the list then!

Only recently did I come to realize something; my top three favourite FPS's, Bioshock, Half Life and FEAR, all had the 'good batter'. Think of a game like you're making bread. Add in different ingredients and you could get some raisin toast or spicy cinnamon bread. You could just make white bread, samey, adding nothing new, or you could just crap in the dough and sell it as your special toast. People lap up the latter, complain about the brown chunks but continue eating paying for more and more. (Bad PurpleRain! Very bad metaphor) I think anyone who's ever played a good selection of FPS's know what those little brown bits are: driving, escort quests, superenemies.

Now lets sift through the dough and take a closer examination of those. No FPS has gotten driving right and none ever will. Why should we bother to drive in a shooting game anyway? I want to point my weapon at something moving and make it abruptly stop. If I want to race I would play a racing game. The concept is simple enough right? Only to ruin the mood, charging through an environment on a vehicle is that it could crash or explode which is a general occurrence remembering those baddies that are trying to shoot you. This will leave you out in the middle of Nowheresville, anywhere from civilization. Another reason why I can't stand driving in a shooting game is that when driving, you are very likely to face a new batch of enemies; one's strong enough that can only be taken down by your vehicle. I don't want to dogfight in a tank thank you. I want to get to the end of the racetrack and jump out of the thing resuming the mission and the game.

Nah

Escort quests are another horrible idea. They could be good in theory, having to risk your life for the life of the others. But when they decide to run into a wall of bullets without a second thought, I think that their lives are barely worth the effort.

While there are a lot of other things I could rant about in bad FPS's, like taking it through 3rd person perspective or giving the protagonist the ability to do everything ever (I'm looking at you Bad Company) one with I'd like to stress are the super enemies. At the start of the game you fight moderately skilled bad guys. After a while of fighting you become better at killing them off and give a reassuring chuckle as they hopelessly try to fight for their dear lives. They're dead. They know it, you know it... have fun *cocks shotgun*. Then blasting through the doors comes the harder bad guys. They are more of a challenge to the rest and keep the action alive. This is great and all, now, when the lesser enemies become extinct and the game moves up in ranks so that you are always matched, the game never really becomes fun. The best level of Quake 2 was the secret room where you find the Super Shotgun. The game throws dozens of weak enemies at you just so you can take the simple pleasure of handing their arses to them of a silver plate.

This is actually just a normal bandit.

Okay, let's cut the ranting. There's nothing worse then listening to someone complain about every time he bumps his big toe.
As I said previously, Bioshock, Half Life and FEAR, all had the 'good batter'. The batter being ones where the developer decided not to spice it up with what he had for diner the night before.

I love FEAR. There is little difference range between the enemies and they do try so hard not to die. No zooming out, no complicated storyline, no driving, just full on tactical combat, the way shooters oughta be! At the very start, you become part of the FEAR team, a very clichéd titled squad of anti-supernatural soldiers. "Sigh, does this mean a few corny one liners are going to be thrown around and squad based combat where they tell you what to do? Hang on... they all died. Sweet." No big spoiler here as your entire squad cark it within the first 5minutes. You do meet and greet a few allies along the way but the never command you around or get you to protect them from the nasty men with guns. At one point you're given an escort quest, but god be praised, the little (bad word) gets taken out of your hands by the nice clone soldiers straight away.

Along with FEAR neither Bioshock nor Half Life have any escort missions or driving. Sure, Half Life gets you to drive a train around, but you basically push a button to go and a button to stop. Bioshock does also have one protection missions, but if you mess that up, the game sends you more redshirts down a chute quite literally. You can also escort guards and scientists around the ruined science base of Black Mesa but I generally show them my ol' crowbar to the skull magic trick and leave them in a puddle of their own brains. "I'm Gordon Freeman! I don't need your help! I passed highschool, I know how to handle myself!"

I think over time we became to familiar to the crap that's handed to us demanding to be respected in FPS's. I mostly give up on games when they give me another driving quest (ahh... Half Life 2 is different. Um, "I'm Gordon Freeman! I can do whatever I want!") or hand out stupid objects, forcing you to do them against your own will. It's more then demeaning, it's boring. Games sole purpose is to be fun. Once they lose that ability, they're no longer games... they're like anti-games from the shadow world or something. Ah... here's my review of Bad Company to throw you off:

Visuals: 7
Sound: 7
Gameplay: 2 (I'll give it a 2 because walls are so fun to destroy)
Overall: 4

My next mission is where?!

I like driving in FPS', I'm good at it. I don't understand why people don't like it but I suppose that's just me.

Also, you might want to proof read a bit more.

PurpleRain:
you try to hot them with yours

I laughed at this.

Fire Daemon:
I like driving in FPS', I'm good at it. I don't understand why people don't like it but I suppose that's just me.

Also, you might want to proof read a bit more.

PurpleRain:
you try to hot them with yours

I laughed at this.

Fixed. I'm not really a good proreader. I scan to quickly.

I don't know, driving to me kills the mood and breaks the combat. I must admit, Far Cry and Half Life 2 did a good job at it, not breaking out of the 1st person camera. But it's still annoying ramming into a pole or going off the path having to spend a few minutes getting back on track while people are shooting at you. I like the simplistic days. The driving in Quake 4 and Bad Company annoyed me somewhat. Quake 4 was looking decent before hoping into a car and BC... well it just sucked.

I agree with Fire Daemon here. I hate escort missions, but I actually like the occasional run-and-gun action that driving components provide. However, only a few games have got it right, you need to be wary.

And why did you dislike the destructible environment in Bad Company? I haven't played it myself, but I think you were being awfully harsh there.

I didn't play Quake up to the driving sequences and I wouldn't touch Bad Company with a 50 foot pole so I can't say anything about those but for every other FPS with driving I have had no problems. I suppose it depends on the player.Mind you, I do play driving games. I wonder if that changes things.

Anyway, good review/rant but I think a picture is missing.

Lord Krunk:
I agree with Fire Daemon here. I hate escort missions, but I actually like the occasional run-and-gun action that driving components provide. However, only a few games have got it right, you need to be wary.

And why did you dislike the destructible environment in Bad Company? I haven't played it myself, but I think you were being awfully harsh there.

I mean that's the only good thing. I gave it a two for being able to knock down walls and such. Other than that, it has terrible driving (weak vehicles vs tanks), enemies hide and are hard to find (I've lost count of how many times I was unfairly sniped, combat isn't as great as CoD, charcaters were unlikeable, missions boring. The music was good though. It gave me the feeling of some 'Nam Tv show or movie. I am probably a bit harsh here, but it really let me down. I say more explosions, less of everything else.

Fire Daemon:
I didn't play Quake up to the driving sequences and I wouldn't touch Bad Company with a 50 foot pole so I can't say anything about those but for every other FPS with driving I have had no problems. I suppose it depends on the player.Mind you, I do play driving games. I wonder if that changes things.

Anyway, good review/rant but I think a picture is missing.

Bah, where did it go?

Perhaps liking driving games more might help. I've only really like Burnout as driving game of choice. GTA's races annoy me as well. That's what I'm saying in a way, they try to mash genres together too much. I guess people that don't like RPG's might not like Dues Ex or Bioshock as much.

a nice little review, finishes rather abruptly and i'm not sure i 100% agree on driving sections, while they are often done badly they are occasionally very good, HL2 has already been mentioned and UT2K4 also instantly spings to mind for me for vehicles done right, especially the Air Buckaneers mod which I have a (not so secret now) love for.

Seems to me like your rant on super enemies is half baked, you lost your train of thoughts, didn't you ?

By the way, at the end when I saw your ratings for Bad Company my first reflex was "LOL WUT", that was not a bad idea at all to rant and in the end remember you were reviewing a game, but try maybe to keep more focus ?

Oh and if you hate driving in GTA, don't worry, Crackdown is easily as annoying since you need to level up as well, but the game let you (and the thugs) shoot cars in the wheels... Yay ! driving becomes impossible 5 mere seconds after trying to run a guy over, only to discover your cars' acceleration remind me of Sega GT on Dreamcast, where all cars seemed like a mixture of granite and lead... That said, Crackdown is a fun game I recommend.

Drong:
a nice little review, finishes rather abruptly and I'm not sure i 100% agree on driving sections, while they are often done badly they are occasionally very good, HL2 has already been mentioned and UT2K4 also instantly springs to mind for me for vehicles done right, especially the Air Buckaneers mod which I have a (not so secret now) love for.

Pfft. Assuming you can make it to decent vehicle before some wipe in a manta mows you down.

I'm not sure I entirely agree with your review PurpleRain. If a game just keeps throwing you the same weak enemies when you have the best weapons, the pointless slaughter just becomes more tedious. Maybe I don't posses the proper sadist attitude when I play, but if I want pointless fighting in a game I'll just pop in a GTA. I do like have the game throw in tougher monsters (not Oblivion scaling you alluded,) it helps keep it challenging. Although this is assuming you actually do get weapons that range dramatically in power(Doom, Unreal, etc.) Sure there is some aggravation when the bosses later become just another enemy to kill.

I also find it sadly ironic that you are talking about FPS games as Single or Co-op. A lot of games nowadays don't seem to have the same draw anymore, it's all about multiplayer with a single player campaign tacked on as an extra. It's rather depressing.

I personally think that Halo did driving right, an Half Life did not, driving in Halo is easy if not as realistic, whereas in Half Life you can look somewhere else and drive which was tough for me.

If only the CPU could drive in Halo, I have given up manning the turret or using the passenger seat... =(

Amusing, my favorite FPS of ALL TIME is Timesplitters 2, it's fairly nice and simple. Badguys + Interesting Guns = Badguys killed in an interesting way.

First off, good review.

I, like a few others who have posted, think Halo did driving just fine. The driving sections were fun and broke up the monotony that occasionally turned up from killing wave after wave of enemies. And if you didn't like the vehicles you never really had to use them (a few exceptions probably, like the final level on Halo 3) and you could take the vehicles on on foot if you so pleased.

And Halo didn't have escort missions, to my memory. In fact most of the time in Halo 3 it felt like you were being escorted by the damn Arbiter.

Also, Oblivion isn't an FPS... so the picture might be considered irrelevant, but I guess you put it there as you mentioned weaker enemies becoming extinct and the fights always matched level-wise. The caption did make me chuckle though.

EDIT:

PedroSteckecilo:
Amusing, my favorite FPS of ALL TIME is Timesplitters 2, it's fairly nice and simple. Badguys + Interesting Guns = Badguys killed in an interesting way.

Agreed. Can't wait for the next one!

I guess I can see your point but really I would politely disagree. Yes I too love a good ol' fashioned run-around with a shotgun just beating up monsters upon monsters (or hordes of any sort) without all the driving/escort sub-missions/tasks.

However I like the change of pace in many modern shooters with the inclusion of driving areas/escort missions or any other sub-tasks. Obviously as long as it is done well and not just shoved in. Incidentally I feel that the vehicle sections of HL2 were by far the worst parts of the games. To fixed and linear to warrant such sections.

Games like Battlefield series, Halo series, UT2004 (for the most part) have shown imo, that vehicles can be implemented well into FPS gameplay. Not to say that all FPSs should have them btw.

I like this review, it tells people how not to do FPS games or in other words, not try to be like Halo. There can be good FPS games and bad ones. Half Life 2 is a good FPS because it makes you think because you can go in straight or you can take them out. But the explosive finale rocks (in HL2EP2). As for other FPS's, Portal (I don't think that can be classed as an FPS but oh well) was a great FPS focusing on you going from A to B. Thing is, that the fact that most FPS's want to be like Halo sucks. Maybe someone should make Fallout 3 in a first person perspective with tactical shooting or real time shooting... Hold on that's already being made... YAY!

I agree with the escort missions. I hate them, a lot. I would usually get so angry at the person I'm escorting I would murder him/her in the most violent way before anyone kills him regardless of if I lose or not.

Driving however, I can accept, as long as you do it right. Half Life 2 did it best with first person, actually making you feel like your driving it. Halo almost nailed it, although not using the first person camera (they should have). There are other games that don't get the driving right, and that really just ruins it and makes me look forward to getting out and rolling on foot. Sometimes the game prevents you from leaving the vehicle on certain parts, and if they aren't very fun vehicle sections, it takes away from the experience.

As part of the "good batter," shouldn't you also include "NOT putting jumping/platform sections in a game where you can't see your character's feet?"

Cyclomega:
Seems to me like your rant on super enemies is half baked, you lost your train of thoughts, didn't you ?

Kinda. I was trying to say is When a game evolves around the difficulty curve and the lesser enemies fail to exist anymore, you don't get that feeling that you're progressing. More as if your just trudging through more and more tougher enemies drawing closer to the end.

DeadlyYellow:
I'm not sure I entirely agree with your review PurpleRain. If a game just keeps throwing you the same weak enemies when you have the best weapons, the pointless slaughter just becomes more tedious.

FEAR and Half Life did a great job on this. The enmies at the start of the game, are still the same ones at the end. When you're in Xen you still fight the same headcrabs and bullsquids as you did in the start. In FEAR you're constantly battling against clones. But they're tough enough to have a good ol' fight with. There are stronger enemies in both, but the games don't delet the last 'normal' baddies and have you fighting 'only' the higher up levels. That's when a game turns to crap.

DeadlyYellow:
I also find it sadly ironic that you are talking about FPS games as Single or Co-op. A lot of games nowadays don't seem to have the same draw anymore, it's all about multiplayer with a single player campaign tacked on as an extra. It's rather depressing.

I hate that. What happened to Single player being the big daddy and the multiplayer an add on? I'm not a Live guy so I don't give two damns about Mulitplayer. You can't really have the same story/fighting/development in Multi as you do in Single.

DarkHyth:
Also, Oblivion isn't an FPS... so the picture might be considered irrelevant, but I guess you put it there as you mentioned weaker enemies becoming extinct and the fights always matched level-wise. The caption did make me chuckle though.

I first had a picture of a squad of Brutes from Halo 3 but it dissappeared. So I kinda like this one a bit more. Even though it's not technically an FPS, it's still First Person and you can still shoot stuff. Plus it gets my point across. Why would a bandit need to steal cash if he's wearing glass armour?! Couldn't he sell it and live like a king?

Mr. Steeve:
I agree with the escort missions. I hate them, a lot. I would usually get so angry at the person I'm escorting I would murder him/her in the most violent way before anyone kills him regardless of if I lose or not.

Save. *Fires into brain* Reloads. The worest escort missions that had driven me mad aren't actually form an FPS. Dead Rising and GTA4 have the worset imaginable. The sad thing is, it's core gameplay on both games.

Sylocat:
As part of the "good batter," shouldn't you also include "NOT putting jumping/platform sections in a game where you can't see your character's feet?"

When you can see your feet you get vertigo. I can except not having any legs and chuging around 2,000,000 guns and ammo. Though Hells Highway looks to change all that with the appropraitly named 'First Person Acting'. I'm on the edge of my seat.

Indigo_Dingo:
As for escort missions, if the person you're saving could actually do something, like help you fight, that would be decent - like the Squad in Half Life 2. But if they're just weighing you down, its only going to be a bad thing.

Like all things, it can be presented right or wrong. Alyx in Episode 1 felt like she was escorting me around. While is some others, the AI is to thick to realise the enemie=bad. Cover=good.

I generally like vehicle sections in shooters, it helps to bring variety to a game and make the player adapt more skills, especially in Halo. Hitting the handbrake and swinging the warthog into a bunch of covenant is fun.

Also, every time I look at your screen name I want to start singing the chorus of "Purple Rain"

shufflemonkey16:
Also, every time I look at your screen name I want to start singing the chorus of "Purple Rain"

You know, I've never even heard the song and don't yet wish to. I'm seeing how long I can hold out for.

Indigo_Dingo:

PurpleRain:

Indigo_Dingo:
As for escort missions, if the person you're saving could actually do something, like help you fight, that would be decent - like the Squad in Half Life 2. But if they're just weighing you down, its only going to be a bad thing.

Like all things, it can be presented right or wrong. Alyx in Episode 1 felt like she was escorting me around. While is some others, the AI is to thick to realise the enemie=bad. Cover=good.

Yeah, but as Alyx couldn't die, it wasn't exactly an escort mission.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I could've sworn Alyx can die.

Indigo_Dingo:

mjhhiv:
Maybe I'm wrong, but I could've sworn Alyx can die.

I don't remember that. And anyway, how would they justify a "Game over" if it was Alyx who died and not Gordon?

If I remember correctly, Alyx can die, but it's really hard to get her to die. Also, if she dies, you get the same Game Over screen as if you lost the buggy or something; the 'lost critical mission equipment' screen.

As for the review/rant, I found it very well-written. I too love my FPSs without driving and escort mission, but am unfortunately also looking for one where I have company... ergo my love of tactical shooters (yes, Hell's Highway looks awesome!).

Developers put vehicle sections into shooters generally to up the scale. If the protagonist is part of some huge conflict it is hard for a shooter to show the scale of aforementioned conflict without either putting you in a tank and pouring enemies at you, or putting you in a jeep and letting you zoom around exploding cities or battlefields or whatever. It is a quick way to make the game a whole lot larger.

Not saying that you cannot make a game feel epic without vehicle sections, but only the good ones can do it. It's hard.

Escort missions are a cop-out way to add variety. Sure, they are pretty much the devil incarnate, but at least it shakes things up a bit.

I would argue that the best driving sections in any FPS game I've played were in Operation Flashpoint. The portrayal of tank action in that game was not anywhere near as realistic as the infantry action, and the flying sections were like an arcade sim compared to the action down on the ground, but they were definitely necessary for one thing (you don't want to walk the five or so kilometres that some missions expect you to do on foot), and the tank driving sections gave me the biggest impression of what it would actually be like to be inside a tank ever - well, except for that time when I sat in the driver's seat of a decommissioned armoured vehicle in a museum in France.

It's not a perfect portrayal, by any means, but it is ambitious, and it is a lot more realistic than any other game I've played. The immersion is not taken away because you actually stay in first-person mode unless you expressly want to be taken out into third-person, and you get an accurate view of what it's like inside the said vehicle.

The hostages in counter strike are also a joke. I'd be all the way at the rescue zone only to find that they all stopped in the building, just because the asain one kept running into a wall.

That isn't about gender. Gordon gets that message every time he loses something vital to his mission. It's assumed that it's a message from the GMAN or the company he works and is supposed to show that they think of human beings as simply 'assets' to achieve a certain goal.

PurpleRain:

Now lets sift through the dough and take a closer examination of those. No FPS has gotten driving right and none ever will. Why should we bother to drive in a shooting game anyway? I want to point my weapon at something moving and make it abruptly stop. If I want to race I would play a racing game.

I'm not really sure why people say things like this.. "If I wanted to do X, I'd go play Y". Why can't we combine X and Y into a fulfilling game?

Half-life 2 is a perfect example of a game that did the driving sections well.

I also thoroughly enjoyed Battlefield 2 and Operation Flashpoint's driving sections.

Could you imagine if there was absolutely no innovation in video games? If it were always the same stale "run n' gun" shooter, copied and pasted into a new engine every 2 years? That would be horrible. Bring on multi-genre games! Sure there'll be a few stinkers.. but that's still progress.

Actually, if you ask me.. I don't think there's enough games that combine genre's.

runtheplacered:

PurpleRain:

Now lets sift through the dough and take a closer examination of those. No FPS has gotten driving right and none ever will. Why should we bother to drive in a shooting game anyway? I want to point my weapon at something moving and make it abruptly stop. If I want to race I would play a racing game.

I'm not really sure why people say things like this.. "If I wanted to do X, I'd go play Y". Why can't we combine X and Y into a fulfilling game?

Half-life 2 is a perfect example of a game that did the driving sections well.

I also thoroughly enjoyed Battlefield 2 and Operation Flashpoint's driving sections.

Could you imagine if there was absolutely no innovation in video games? If it were always the same stale "run n' gun" shooter, copied and pasted into a new engine every 2 years? That would be horrible. Bring on multi-genre games! Sure there'll be a few stinkers.. but that's still progress.

Actually, if you ask me.. I don't think there's enough games that combine genre's.

Again all very good points. Just a lot of driving in FPS's can and do get it wrong without so much as a backward glance. Hell, everyone's played them. Your car bounces off walls, there are too much terran to get stuck behind, the driving or combat it is too cluncky or alien to how the rest of the game felt. Just tings like that annoy me. As with other vehical sections it just fills like all you're achieving is to get to the end of the course. That's it. While in Half Life 2, it actually made you feel like you're travelling, on a mission or journey. Some just feel like they could be cut out and replaced with a single corridor between you and your destinaion.

I think if FEAR had any driving sections, it would be a whole other game.

Indigo_Dingo:

Decoy Doctorpus:
That isn't about gender. Gordon gets that message every time he loses something vital to his mission. It's assumed that it's a message from the GMAN or the company he works and is supposed to show that they think of human beings as simply 'assets' to achieve a certain goal.

I didn't mention gender. I was saying that calling a human life as "mission equipment" is appalling. And anyway, the G-Man was out of the picture at the start of episode one, the Vortigaunts forced him away.

And even if this does't count, why did he get it then, and not when Alyx got killed by a spike being rammed through her stomach?

Fate? No vortigaunts or AntQueen's in the city (oh wait). Lack of time to do it in. But in a way, arn't we all just mission equipment deep deep down inside.