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| This is way too fucking long by Universal Plan B 06/13/2005, 11:05pm PDT | ||||
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Mischief Maker wrote:Games that had influence from SS2: Deux Ex, Jedi Knight 2 and Academy, Tron2, FPS/RPG hybrids like Vampire and Morrowind, Doom 3 Half-Life introduced cinematic atmosphere to FPSs.Half Life was and is a far far better game than SS2. I'm glad that it is the big influence that other games have followed. But it was really nothing more than a very very good FPS. Cinematic atmosphere? Are we talking about the train ride here? And what about the boring parts of half life? In particular the underground train puzzle sequence. There were several parts of half life that I was bored by... I think that's one place where HL2 was much better than the original, they trimmed it down to the essentials. Some people thought it was too short, but I think it just had no filler. Thief introduced the concept of sound design being more important than graphics for atmospheric effect. And in my opinion, the biggest fuckup this game made was not the skill system, but rather using the thief engine with the thief AI and making the enemies UNAVOIDABLE.Thief did sound, but SS2 took it to a different level. In Thief you used sound to navigate the game. In SS2 you did a bit of that, but the game also used sound against you as the main weapon to frighten you. A psy ops can learn invisibility without too much hassle. Then you can sneak past whatever you want, and not even have to find a shadow to hide in. I'm pretty sure there are people who beat the game without killing any of the standard monsters. There are special dudes you have to kill like the end boss and the ninjas with keycards... Other than that they're all avoidable. While, in theory, adding skills should give a FPS the "escalating power" feel of RPGs, in practice all those skills do is make you really bad at everything until you save a zillion experience points to finally make the game control like a regular FPS. A stumbling crawl towards competence. As I said in another forum, DX1 is actually more enjoyable if you use the cheat that raises all your skill levels to maximum. Besides SS2 and DX1, skill levels were only used in, what, Daikatana?So what about the standard method of escalating power, which is that you don't get the good guns until the next to last level. I recall seeing complaints about that concept here as well. As some other asshole pointed out in the nethack thread, do you just want to play with cheats? Should the game be a singe level 1 with a BFG? Degrading weapons is just irritating. I can't think of any game ever which would become funner/scarier if you caused the weapons to fall apart after 10 shots.I don't think it was about scaryness primarily. It was more about forcing the player to make decisions. That's what SS2 did more than any other FPS before or since, and the thing that has been copied the least. Everything from the obvious decision of what RPG stat to increase to the subtle decision of weapon choices. That's one of the reasons that it was a deep game, besides the stuff like story and level design. And yes, the game was a bit more tense when I was holding a pistol, knowing that I would have to retreat from anything big, because I needed to preserve my rifle. So what's left? Message logs? I guess that must be it! The secret to making your FPS go deeper is message logs!It was good enough for Doom3 to copy, wasn't it? So I take it you're a fan of the Derek Smart games?I said failing to reaching perfection. Derek Smart games fail to reach mediocrity. Some other games with lots of great ideas but also some flaws that cause some people to hate them: Far Cry, Morrowind, I-War 2, GalCiv, The entire RTS genre What games can you think of that are perfect? That you can say, "If you don't like this it must be because you just hate the genre." I can think of three: Half Life 2, Planescape Torment, and Starcraft. IMHO, that's the list. SS2 is not on it, but neither are a lot of other good games. For the record, Aliens Vs Predator controlled just like any regular FPS, made all your shots connect with whatever was in your crosshairs, started you out with an assault rifle (with underslung grenade launcher) and plenty of ammo, and was possibly the scariest FPS ever made.I don't disagree. SS2 was most frightening in the beginning when there were scripted events that startled you (the first time). Occasionally after that it had some moments of dread, especially in certain levels like hydroponics. (The garden? Very creepy. There were no monsters there, yet I still felt like I was about to get ambushed.) Also, in SS2 all the shots connected if you aimed them right, they varied in damage. I believe it was Erik who said this first, but video games can't overcome a crippling flaw like movies can. You can let your mind wander or hit fast forward while Neo and the Senator are having some long cryptic conversation about nothing. But in a video game YOU ARE Neo, standing there fighting your way through the senator's noodle-logic and you cannot progress to the ass-kicking parts until this conversation is concluded! Erik's point is a good one, but it has a massive weak point. Just like movies everyone's idea of a crippling flaw is different. Some people think Neo's long conversations are deep and enlightening. I mean, the Wachoskis wrote it so at least they must like it, right? And some parts may be a flaw to one person and a highlight to another. Women don't like the senseless violence in Fight Club, men don't like the pointless over-emoting in Bridges of Madison County. To take the movie analogy one step further: does it ever give you pause that is on many critic's lists of top games of all time? There are people that hate Citizen Kane because it ended up being about a stupid sled. Are they right, or are they just short sighted? |
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