Gaming is a strange creature when it comes to franchises. Gamers will say that series X needs to die, or that Series Y is past it's prime and needs to just fade away.
A few series come to mind when I think about franchises that people think need to die.
Call of Duty and Final Fantasy.
A thought occurs to me concerning call of Duty. It seems that they're (Activision) are taking an annual sports game approach to it. It's just a tuning on the multiplayer, with a token single player campaign. in the same vein, playing the career mode in Madden can be seen as training to help you grasp the game before you take on your friends. If we look at Call of Duty from this perspective, why doesn't it deserve to be made each year in the same vein of a Madden or an MLB The Show? I think since it isn't seen as a sports title, it doesn't deserve that sort of reasoning for an annual release. The last two Madden releases (Madden 11, and Madden 12) both sold millions of copies. While nowhere near the explosive sales of the last two Call of Duty games, it's still showing that annual releases make money, despite being just a small visual upgrade, updated roster, and tweaks to gameplay. If you look at the maps as the "roster" of the Call of Duty games, the update seams a little more reasonable.
Now I'll stop going in circles to mention something that irks me about the series. A Call of Duty game that's a year old will still sell new for 50-60 dollars. Compare this to a new sports title that sells for around $20 after it's been out a year. This is what irks me. I can still see Modern Warfare II selling for $20 new... It's a unique situation where you have a game that's almost the same as a sports game (Hell, they should just start calling it "Call of Duty 2013"), but it's treating each game as if it's a separate series.
Now, do I think that Call of Duty should die? No, no I don't. It has a right to exist, and Activision would be stupid to stop making them. The games are consistently among the top selling games each year, so throwing that revenue away would just be dumb. Would I like to see a little more difference between the titles, yeah, sure. But why would you change what works? That's like telling an NHL game to to change some core values around all the time. The NHL series has been praised as one of the best sports franchises around because EA Canada has the core mechanics down to near-perfection. What they do is add more, subtle, realities to the game. Stick breaking on some shots, screening the goalie, checking over the boards... Little details, but help refine the game to feel authentic. I feel that Call of Duty is reaching that same platform. I hear people saying that Black Ops multiplayer was really balanced, so they could experiment or tweak the gameplay to make things more realistic or fun.
The biggest issue for this though, is that they have different developers for their games. Between Treyarch and Infinity Ward, they have two different teams working on different versions. This means that gamers can't get a consistency with their games because the formulas make subtle shifts each year.
To get away from the Call of Duty talk now, we're going to take a look at the Final Fantasy series. This series has been around since 1988 or so. There are 16 games in the main numbered series (1-14 + x-2 and 13-2). Add with that the side series like Tactics, Mystic Quest, and some remakes, you get a lot of games released for this series. Now, some would say that many games might be too many, but there are differences that differentiate each game from each other.
Because I've already documented the differences, I'm just going to leave these here...
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
The changes may be subtle, but they are large enough to be noticeable. Switch from I to II, you go from standard fight => levelup formula to Fight => skill-up based on what you use. From II to III you lose the skill-ups, but you gain a primary class system. From III to IV, you go back to standard Fight => Level-Up, but you gain a diverse cast of individuals with their own skills and special abilities.
Simple changes, but enough to notice differences.
Now, how does this play into "this franchise needs to die"?
Simple really, if a game can keep making simple to substantial modifications to the RPG formula they helped define, they aren't stagnating. They're changing things up. Final Fantasy XI, an MMO that predates World of Warcraft, XII, attempts to bring combat without the "whoosh effect" and being transported to a special battleground. It also allows you to customize how the AI behaves. XIII brings back a class system with a huge twist, being able to change during combat. You can bemoan that the stories aren't as good, or that they focus too much on graphics, but you can't really say they aren't doing anything with the series. The benefit of the series is that the games are all independent of one another, apart from the sequels.
Is this a series that I think should die? Nope. This is another series that has a wealth of ideas they could return to. If they wanted to make a game with a classic job system, they could. If they want to keep trying new things, yeah, they have that option. A big problem though, is people becoming jaded to the point where nothing can live up to the games they played first.
But Nostalgia... that's a topic for another time.
Showing posts with label Call of Duty. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Call of Duty. Show all posts
Saturday, May 5, 2012
Friday, April 20, 2012
April 20th News Podcast
New news Podcast under the Podcast page.
Topics include
Call of Duty
EA
Madden
StarCraft II
And more!
Topics include
Call of Duty
EA
Madden
StarCraft II
And more!
Thursday, April 5, 2012
My Game Concept (An Appeal To The FPS Industry)
The FPS genre, as a whole, is crowded with shit, plain and simple. Even though I acknowledge that this has always been the case, far too many developers are dumbing down their once-great series or making pointless sequels that only serve to destroy the legacy of a genuinely great series, all for the sake of more sales. I know that sales are important, not only to provide funds for future developments but also for the sake of the studio staying afloat, but sales alone should NEVER be the whole reason for a product's existence. Take Call of Duty, for example. Every game in the series has been nothing more than a new coat of paint over an increasingly-tired formula, that is fancy-looking setpieces and mindless multiplayer for the proletarian masses, rereleased every single year with some new colours and shiny new additions that do absolutely nothing. Regardless of its lack of quality, each title in the series is the highest-selling game of all time, year after year. The absolutely preposterous amount of sales inspires every other major studio to attempt to get a piece of the action, so rather than make a product with some degree of actual quality, they churn out endless CoD-ripoffs which kill any sort of creativity in the genre, forcing it to rot away into eventual oblivion. This is not the way that FPSs should be. All of the big companies in the industry are whores, and the few games that are quality releases are pushed aside as niche titles while everyone makes way for Brown-And-Grey Corridor Target Practice 9.
That's the state of the industry right now, and here's how to fix it.
To me, the three most defining factors that all video games should be developed upon are Quality, Challenge, and Fun. Let me go into more depth on these tenets:
Quality: Make sure the game is well-developed and has loads of replayability and content. All game developers should strive for adding something new and innovative to their game, because owning twenty games and having all of them be, for all intents and purposes, the same is never fun.
Challenge: The game should be genuinely challenging. Yeah, you can add easier difficulties for accessibility and what-not, but the game as it's meant to be played should challenge the player, make him think outside of the box, and not merely in "THIS GUY TAKES MORE BULLETS TO KILL" logic.
Fun: Do I really need to explain this one? The whole point of a video game is for entertainment and fun. If your game stays true to the first two tenets but abandons this one, your product is a failure. This is the most important of the three tenets.
At this point, I'm just gonna talk about my idea for an FPS that, in my opinion, exemplifies everything that an FPS, and a video game in general should be.
My concept for a game: An FPS that gives you a whole range of superpower-equivalent abilities, like time control, temporary invisibility, flight, and all that good stuff, and then proceeds to challenge the player's skills with these abilities. Linearity would be thrown to the wolves in favor of pure, unadulterated choice. There would also be more additions to the gameplay that would not only be technically astounding but would also actually add to the gameplay, rather than being a simple gimmick. Some of these ideas include an extreme amount of customization in weapons, uniforms/costumes (Potential disguises), and the ability to control each gun's aim individually while dual-wielding. The storyline would have the same basic gist no matter what, but the events, and as a result, the levels and the gameplay would be entirely dynamic.
An ideal section of the game would be like this: There's a hostage that must be rescued before he's taken to a interrogation/torture facility. You're within a few miles of an airport, where the hostage is being taken to in the back of a heavily-armed-but-not-so-armored enemy vehicle. Potentially, you could shoot out the tires of the car, kill the guards and bring the hostage back to safety, but a more probably outcome would be that the impact causes the car to flip or crash, killing everyone, the hostage included. In this way, the player would be truly challenged, as he is forced to come up with genuinely out-of-the-box solutions. One solution would have the player placing some sort of barricade to stop the car momentarily, and then shooting out the tires, causing the guards to exit the vehicle, at which point the player could lure the guards to isolation and then knock them out or kill them, and another solution would be entirely-based on luck or nanosecond-perfect timing, as the player could rush the vehicle, flying on top of it, cutting a hole into the back, very quickly jumping in and grabbing the hostage, flying out and shooting the fuel tank of the vehicle while flying out. However, since the fuel tank is on the bottom of the vehicle, and there's no exact way to tell its location, much less while flying away from it at so-and-so miles-per-hour, so this approach would require either an acute knowledge of the vehicle or sheer luck, making it much less practical, but not impossible (Pretty much badass mode). If the player was to fail to rescue the hostage before the car gets to the airport, there would still be chances at the airport, or even on the plane itself. Let's say that the hostage was forced onto the plane, and the plane is preparing for takeoff. Potentially, you could stealth/fight/whatever your way to the control tower about a few thousand feet away and either force the traffic controller to convince the pilot of the plane that the conditions are unsafe and postpone the flight, or you could kill the traffic controller and get on the mic yourself, using either persuasion or bluffs to call off the flight, or if you really have a way with words, to relinquish the hostage. The success rate of the latter option is lower, but could potentially have stronger results if it does succeed. This is all a variable, however, as the entire thing depends on whether the player makes it to the control tower in time. The player could also do the dirty work himself, either hitching a ride on the plane using stealth, or fly with the plane, at which point the player could do whatever he wants to do. You could enter through one of the bottom shafts, use stealth to knock out/kill the guards and soldiers, and meet up with the hostage, all while never disturbing or alerting the pilot to your presence. At this point, you could wait with the hostage until the plane lands, at which point a whole other set of choices appears. You could knock out/kill the pilot, take control of the plane and fly it back to the previous airport to free the hostage. Potentially, you could do the exact same while the plane is in flight, but the risk factor is much higher, as you never know which buttons the pilot's body could lean on and press, or which way his body will tilt while holding on to the steering wheel. If the player feels he has the experience to counteract whichever consequence of his actions results from his elimination of the pilot, then he can go ahead and do whatever. Or conversely, the player could go loose-cannon, fly on the top of the plane as it takes off, sabotage it by disabling the propellers or jamming the ailerons, whichever way the player chooses to sabotage the plane, and then quickly force his way in, grab the hostage and a parachute and jump out, leaving an active grenade as a going-away present. But should the plane be destroyed or disabled while the player is parachuting out with the hostage or whatever, there's always the chance that the resulting debris falling from the sky could strike the player or the parachute, potentially wounding or killing one or both of the people. There's also the matter of if the player fails to rescue the hostage at all. In this concept of a game, decisions and outcomes play a major part of the story, as well as which direction the gameplay goes for the next mission. If the hostage is tortured, he will almost certainly let slip some very important details about the location of some very important buildings. If this happens, the next mission will take place at one of these buildings, as the player (and the rest of his army/group/whatever, depending on the location) must defend the building from a HOLYSHIT amount of enemies. If the player rescues the hostage using more stealthy and restrained methods, the next mission could be an infiltration mission, and if the player goes loose-cannon, the next mission could be a sabotage or destruction mission. No matter the type of mission, each mission would have the same level of choice as the scenario described above.
The point of the game as a whole would be to give the player some great new tools for him to experiment with and have fun using, and then to challenge the player to use them to the best of his ability, each time pushing the limits of what was thought possible in the game. It would have a shitton of replayability and quality content, it would be accessible to the new players on easier difficulties, but would be truly challenging in the best way that a game can be challenging on the hardest difficulty, and most importantly, it would be fun as hell. After all, isn't being fun what games are all about?
The Three Tenets of game design detailed above should be the most important things for all game developers, yet very few FPSs nowadays actually keep them in mind, while most forsake them for the sake of gaining the most amount of money with the least amount of work. Games should be games, not products. It's time something changed.
That's the state of the industry right now, and here's how to fix it.
To me, the three most defining factors that all video games should be developed upon are Quality, Challenge, and Fun. Let me go into more depth on these tenets:
Quality: Make sure the game is well-developed and has loads of replayability and content. All game developers should strive for adding something new and innovative to their game, because owning twenty games and having all of them be, for all intents and purposes, the same is never fun.
Challenge: The game should be genuinely challenging. Yeah, you can add easier difficulties for accessibility and what-not, but the game as it's meant to be played should challenge the player, make him think outside of the box, and not merely in "THIS GUY TAKES MORE BULLETS TO KILL" logic.
Fun: Do I really need to explain this one? The whole point of a video game is for entertainment and fun. If your game stays true to the first two tenets but abandons this one, your product is a failure. This is the most important of the three tenets.
At this point, I'm just gonna talk about my idea for an FPS that, in my opinion, exemplifies everything that an FPS, and a video game in general should be.
My concept for a game: An FPS that gives you a whole range of superpower-equivalent abilities, like time control, temporary invisibility, flight, and all that good stuff, and then proceeds to challenge the player's skills with these abilities. Linearity would be thrown to the wolves in favor of pure, unadulterated choice. There would also be more additions to the gameplay that would not only be technically astounding but would also actually add to the gameplay, rather than being a simple gimmick. Some of these ideas include an extreme amount of customization in weapons, uniforms/costumes (Potential disguises), and the ability to control each gun's aim individually while dual-wielding. The storyline would have the same basic gist no matter what, but the events, and as a result, the levels and the gameplay would be entirely dynamic.
An ideal section of the game would be like this: There's a hostage that must be rescued before he's taken to a interrogation/torture facility. You're within a few miles of an airport, where the hostage is being taken to in the back of a heavily-armed-but-not-so-armored enemy vehicle. Potentially, you could shoot out the tires of the car, kill the guards and bring the hostage back to safety, but a more probably outcome would be that the impact causes the car to flip or crash, killing everyone, the hostage included. In this way, the player would be truly challenged, as he is forced to come up with genuinely out-of-the-box solutions. One solution would have the player placing some sort of barricade to stop the car momentarily, and then shooting out the tires, causing the guards to exit the vehicle, at which point the player could lure the guards to isolation and then knock them out or kill them, and another solution would be entirely-based on luck or nanosecond-perfect timing, as the player could rush the vehicle, flying on top of it, cutting a hole into the back, very quickly jumping in and grabbing the hostage, flying out and shooting the fuel tank of the vehicle while flying out. However, since the fuel tank is on the bottom of the vehicle, and there's no exact way to tell its location, much less while flying away from it at so-and-so miles-per-hour, so this approach would require either an acute knowledge of the vehicle or sheer luck, making it much less practical, but not impossible (Pretty much badass mode). If the player was to fail to rescue the hostage before the car gets to the airport, there would still be chances at the airport, or even on the plane itself. Let's say that the hostage was forced onto the plane, and the plane is preparing for takeoff. Potentially, you could stealth/fight/whatever your way to the control tower about a few thousand feet away and either force the traffic controller to convince the pilot of the plane that the conditions are unsafe and postpone the flight, or you could kill the traffic controller and get on the mic yourself, using either persuasion or bluffs to call off the flight, or if you really have a way with words, to relinquish the hostage. The success rate of the latter option is lower, but could potentially have stronger results if it does succeed. This is all a variable, however, as the entire thing depends on whether the player makes it to the control tower in time. The player could also do the dirty work himself, either hitching a ride on the plane using stealth, or fly with the plane, at which point the player could do whatever he wants to do. You could enter through one of the bottom shafts, use stealth to knock out/kill the guards and soldiers, and meet up with the hostage, all while never disturbing or alerting the pilot to your presence. At this point, you could wait with the hostage until the plane lands, at which point a whole other set of choices appears. You could knock out/kill the pilot, take control of the plane and fly it back to the previous airport to free the hostage. Potentially, you could do the exact same while the plane is in flight, but the risk factor is much higher, as you never know which buttons the pilot's body could lean on and press, or which way his body will tilt while holding on to the steering wheel. If the player feels he has the experience to counteract whichever consequence of his actions results from his elimination of the pilot, then he can go ahead and do whatever. Or conversely, the player could go loose-cannon, fly on the top of the plane as it takes off, sabotage it by disabling the propellers or jamming the ailerons, whichever way the player chooses to sabotage the plane, and then quickly force his way in, grab the hostage and a parachute and jump out, leaving an active grenade as a going-away present. But should the plane be destroyed or disabled while the player is parachuting out with the hostage or whatever, there's always the chance that the resulting debris falling from the sky could strike the player or the parachute, potentially wounding or killing one or both of the people. There's also the matter of if the player fails to rescue the hostage at all. In this concept of a game, decisions and outcomes play a major part of the story, as well as which direction the gameplay goes for the next mission. If the hostage is tortured, he will almost certainly let slip some very important details about the location of some very important buildings. If this happens, the next mission will take place at one of these buildings, as the player (and the rest of his army/group/whatever, depending on the location) must defend the building from a HOLYSHIT amount of enemies. If the player rescues the hostage using more stealthy and restrained methods, the next mission could be an infiltration mission, and if the player goes loose-cannon, the next mission could be a sabotage or destruction mission. No matter the type of mission, each mission would have the same level of choice as the scenario described above.
The point of the game as a whole would be to give the player some great new tools for him to experiment with and have fun using, and then to challenge the player to use them to the best of his ability, each time pushing the limits of what was thought possible in the game. It would have a shitton of replayability and quality content, it would be accessible to the new players on easier difficulties, but would be truly challenging in the best way that a game can be challenging on the hardest difficulty, and most importantly, it would be fun as hell. After all, isn't being fun what games are all about?
The Three Tenets of game design detailed above should be the most important things for all game developers, yet very few FPSs nowadays actually keep them in mind, while most forsake them for the sake of gaining the most amount of money with the least amount of work. Games should be games, not products. It's time something changed.
Thursday, June 16, 2011
First Person Shooters, my thoughts
Let me begin by saying that I don't HATE FPS games. I'm just on the best of terms with them. But this sums up one thing that bugs me.
I will compare this to games that I enjoy...
Doom
Team Fortress 2
Deus Ex
The biggest similarity between them? Fast paced shooting, with the only sight aiming coming from snipers.
Even Doom and Deus Ex suffer from this next one. The color scheme of most shooters is pretty horrible. I mean... it's bad. There's a huge focus on browns and grays in these games anymore. It's kind of... annoying. There's not much that distinguishes the games from each other. There's not much I can detect from Call of Duty and Battlefield (From playing/screenshots). I'm talking strictly based off graphics here.
I don't know... maybe I'm being too rough on the genre, but I can't find anything to really to latch onto to like the genre. The genre seems to have stagnated ever since Destructable Enviornments were introduced. Nothing really fascinating has come since. It's almost formulaic as how the games are made. Cover based shooting is kind of irksome to me. I prefer faster paced games when it comes to shooters. Shoot fast, run fast, react fast, be careful of what little life you have. That used to be part of the challenge. Do I rush in? Do I have enough life to survive a rush? Or do I take it carefully, moving slowly? Or do I try to find health before rushing? These types of questions make you assess your skill and the situation at hand. Personally, I liked that, but eh.
I will compare this to games that I enjoy...
The biggest similarity between them? Fast paced shooting, with the only sight aiming coming from snipers.
Even Doom and Deus Ex suffer from this next one. The color scheme of most shooters is pretty horrible. I mean... it's bad. There's a huge focus on browns and grays in these games anymore. It's kind of... annoying. There's not much that distinguishes the games from each other. There's not much I can detect from Call of Duty and Battlefield (From playing/screenshots). I'm talking strictly based off graphics here.
I don't know... maybe I'm being too rough on the genre, but I can't find anything to really to latch onto to like the genre. The genre seems to have stagnated ever since Destructable Enviornments were introduced. Nothing really fascinating has come since. It's almost formulaic as how the games are made. Cover based shooting is kind of irksome to me. I prefer faster paced games when it comes to shooters. Shoot fast, run fast, react fast, be careful of what little life you have. That used to be part of the challenge. Do I rush in? Do I have enough life to survive a rush? Or do I take it carefully, moving slowly? Or do I try to find health before rushing? These types of questions make you assess your skill and the situation at hand. Personally, I liked that, but eh.
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