E3 2005 First Person Shooters

John Callaham writes "Computer Games Magazine takes a quick look at the upcoming first person shooter games that are expected to be show at this May's Electronic Entertainment Expo." From the article: "Today we start to look at all the games that have been announced and are out in the open and are likely to be show at E3 this May. First up: first person shooters. 2004 was truly a banner year for this genre; how many years can we have that contain UT2004, Doom 3, Painkiller, and Half-Life 2? Will this year be any different?"

Comments

One?

[yotto]

...how many years can we have that contain UT2004, Doom 3, Painkiller, and Half-Life 2?

One?

Or, to be even more pedantic, all of them after 2004?

Re:One?

[Fr05t]

I was going to make the same post, but you beat me to it.

So to answer the question of the article poster - YES recycled games will continue to be released every year as long as people line up outside EB to buy them.

Re:One?

[Anonymous Coward]

I was going to make the same post, but you beat me to it.

I could be gravely mistaken, but I believe the grandparent was being sarcastic. He was basically saying that there is only one year where we can have those specific games released (which was last year). His follow-up comment was that technically you can have those games any year from 2004 onward. He wasn't making any comments about recycled games.

stalker..

[gl4ss]

..is the one i'm really waiting for, seems like the one of the bunch with potential to have some real depth in it. you know, the kind of depth that makes you immersed in the world, the kind of depth that gives you some OPTIONS in how to advance rather than something tha makes you just scale the walls looking for the hole to the next room(or in the case of dull ww2 shooters.. something else than a shooting alley with invisible insta-death walls - it's fucking boring to play the same part over and over again to find the 'right' way out of the pothole).

(fuck the dots- you'd have to be braindead to not make the connection between stalker and s.t.a.l.k.e.r)

Re:stalker..

[biglig2]

I agree. Look at the significant FPSs. For me:

Doom, because it was the first one that didn't suck.
Duke Nukem 3D, becuase it had humour.
Quake, because it was real 3D.
HL, because it had an immersive storyline.
Counterstrike because no AI in the world delivers like human opponents do

(I loved plenty more FPSes, currently playing a mixture of day of Defeat and Serious Sam for example, but these are the ones that took the genre to a new level)

Now, here I see three different threads.

In the iD corner, make the graphics incredible. OK, that will go on apace, as hardware increases. Moores law, etc. HL2, Doom 3, etc. We all know that Q4 will have a moronic storyline but will make us all wet ourselves with it's beauty.

In the mod corner, make the online play work. This will always have a strong candidate, often unexpected, because the art of this is almost luck - getting that thing called "balance" right.

The final thread, then, is plotting.

For this, I think the next inventive approach might be to try and copy that other sucess story in the 3D arena, GTA.

Could someone make a FPS that is genuinely freeform? Where you wander about, discovering interesting things. Maybe there are loose missions, that lead you to a goal.

Re:stalker..

[88NoSoup4U88]

I've seen/played some Alpha of Stalker ;
While an alpha is nowhere near a good representation of an endresult, it didn't look too special.
Also, I haven't really been following reviews of this game, so what specifically do you think is gonna rock (read : evolutionary) in this game ?

Re:stalker..

[gl4ss]

look? I wouldn't give two shits if it looked 3 years old.

gameplay - discovering a world that doesn't feel like a tube - adventure. that's what i'm looking for, an adventure FOR ME. not just a movie i click through(which hl2 and doom3 are).

basically.. i'm excepting it to be a first person elite with some fallout thrown in.

"The player travels over immense world of the Zone, its all locations joined into one global map. He can choose any route and will not be limited in his traversing the Zone. The player will be offered free exploration full of generated and scenario-imposed tasks, participation in the eerie events of a murky world.

The player will become a stalker, a guy who earns money from shoveling embers out of infernal oven of Chernobyl Zone. Returning from the radioactivity-blazing Zone, he will sell anomalous formations to underground dealers and scientists in research camps on the Zone border. "

Re:stalker..

[88NoSoup4U88]

I didn't mean 'look' only in how the game looks, but just the overall sense of it.
I don't give two rat's asses about graphics, as long as I have good gameplay.

The Stalker-alpha played alot like Far Cry (with vast landscapes), but from the sounds of your description (-and- if they can live up to it) it surely sounds promising.

Re:stalker..

[AvitarX]

Sounds like Elder Scrolls to me.

Even the first one.

not so much shooting though.

Battlefield 2

[Dutchmaan]

That's all i have to say...

Well.. maybe a nice preview of Call of Duty 2 too!

Re:I see unhappy fanboys

[Toddarooski]

They might understand why a magazine called [b]Computer Games[b] Magazine might not be mentioning Halo 2.

Any innovation left?

[KDR_11k]

I'm pretty tired of the standard FPS formula by now, those games don't seem to offer much in terms of new gameplay. The only one that even tries is Timeshift and even there you could argue that idea has been seen before and overdone.

Is there something about first person shooters that requires them all to play the same plus/minus squad tactics? Some break the mold by adding character development and multiple playstyles but those are few and rarely the ones that get all the hype. How many different takes on "run into room, kill everything that moves, repeat" do we need? Yes, economists would say a whole lot because that's profitable. Or even better, make the game stealthy so the player moves much slower and your content lasts longer. But hell, what if I don't want any more of that? Usually people tell you to go with indy games then but the singleplayer FPS is one of the hardest arenas for independant development and quite frankly I don't know of any indy FPSes.

Another point: What happened to the more freeform level designs of "back then"? Back when people played Doom or Descent levels weren't just one long path with obstacles strewn in, they were always areas with keys and switches, making you stay in a level much longer (and making them better for deathmatches) and sometimes run through familiar areas again. Especially with no clues about where to go these levels just felt much more non-linear than those found in HL2 or Doom 3. It worked back then with small dev houses and primitive graphics, why doesn't it work with today's huge dev houses and impressive graphics anymore?

Re:Any innovation left?

[yotto]

The sad thing is, there's not much left that can be done with an FPS other than increase the graphics, level size, number of players/monsters, and fiddle with controls and play styles. It's just the way it is. I mean, can you think of anything cool to make an FPS that isn't just a rehash of something already out there? If you can't, what makes you think someone else can?
It doesn't help that most of the boring, tired, formulatic FPSes are selling (because, really, what would you rather play tonight, Doom2 with a friend over a null modem or a 32 player game of UT2K4 over broadband?) I know that I buy them. If it wasn't for Grand Theft Auto, every video game purchase I've made in the past 3 years would be FPSes.

Re:Any innovation left?

[KDR_11k]

If you can't, what makes you think someone else can?

I would never have thought of doing e.g. Katamari Damacy.
There are some ideas I have, though:

1. We haven't seen something like Uprising/Battlezone "Remake" for quite some time now.
2. How about, instead of having enemies die when you pour enough lead into them, have them have weak points you have to hit in a certain order to destroy them (more suited for a slower, perhaps horror game)?
3. Alternative modes of attack. E.g. all enemies have cybernetic enhancements and you can use some special power to hack them and disable/control/hurt/whatever them as an integral part of gameplay.

I've got some more ideas but many of them are pretty much entire games and I don't feel like writing out design documents here :p.

Re:Any innovation left?

[gl4ss]

there doesn't _need_ to be innovation - just solid gameplay, solid story, a world full of choices - for the game to be good.

just bolting on a grabber tool is NOT innovation, though. look at resurrection of evil - fucking lame copy with the grabber tool, snowblind too, and in neither game would you have needed a grabber mega weapon(what's wrong with hands? oh yeah, it's harder to do 'realistically', more convinient to have a magic grabber).

remember - first person is just a camera angle, it doesn't have much more beyond that and suits for all kind of games and storytelling(chronicles of riddick from last year was quite good and refreshing, even if it offered pretty much zero new things).

Re:Any innovation left?

[Ford Prefect]

The sad thing is, there's not much left that can be done with an FPS other than increase the graphics, level size, number of players/monsters, and fiddle with controls and play styles.

Treat the 'FPS' thing merely as a user interface, and there are loads of possibilities. Wild examples: Deus Ex, System Shocks 1 and 2, Oni (okay, third person but used an FPS control scheme), Natural Selection (a semi-conventional FPS crossed with an RTS), Darwinia (absolutely not an FPS, but uses WASD and mouselook!) - and these are existing examples I've actually played.

I've got an idea for a single-player HL2 mini-mod with no combat whatsoever. First-Person... Something?

I realised a while ago that I can't stand most conventional FPS games. Some I do like - for plot, adventure and setting. You can't really get much more immersive than an FPS, and the control system both is intuitive and can be extended in many different directions. I wouldn't dismiss the FPS so quickly... ;-)

Re:Any innovation left?

[hollismb]

Wait, you actually liked the whole, go here, find key, backtrack and unlock that door objectives in FPS games? Cuz I thought it sucked. It I want to wander around collecting useless crap I don't care about, I'll go play Pokemon. And this wasn't just a FPS level design thing. I refer you to pretty much any Rare platformer, and any 3D Mario game, the Resident Evil games, etc. If you wanna see some excellent level design, go check out Splinter Cell Chaos Theory.

Re:Any innovation left?

[HarvardAce]

Back when people played Doom or Descent ... levels [made] you ... sometimes run through familiar areas again.

You should try Halo. I hear it has that sort of level design. (For the record, I loved Halo, but I did get confused about where I had been or where I was going on more than one occasion due to the repetitive level design).

Re:Any innovation left?

[Anonymous Coward]

"there's not much left that can be done with an FPS other than increase the graphics, level size, number of players/monsters, and fiddle with controls and play styles."

Adding vehicles was a pretty major change, and it hasn't been done to death yet. You could add skateboards, for instance.
I've yet to see a decent zero-gravity FPS, where you move via weapons recoil and pushing against the walls.
Persistent corpses + good physics + hands/grabber gun could let you build a barricade out of defeated enemies - something that would rule in Serious Sam type games where you're attacked by waves of enemies. Imagine puzzles where you have to build a staircase of bodies to get to the next level...
I'm out of ideas now, but Unreal Championship 2 adds not only close combat, but the ability to reflect enemy shots. Timesplitters 3 has "meet yourself" gameplay (due to time travel). These were only just released, so other people's new ideas are still coming out. Both console-only though :(

Re:Any innovation left?

[yotto]

There's a lot that could be done with gravity, actually. Like gravity toward (or away from) a point source, or multiple point sources. Imagine having gravity point away from a point in the middle of a hollow sphere, at some intensity that rose as you got farther from the sphere? In the middle, you would be nearly weightless, and out the outside you'd be running around in a kind of space station type atmosphere. Hell, chop most of that sphere out and you'd have a space station.
Do the same thing with gravity the opposite way, and you could be fighting on a asteroid instead of a boring flat surface.

But I don't think these count as innovations in the same way that true 3d (quake and the like) counts as an innovation.

Re:Any innovation left?

[Anonymous Coward]

Descent was just vertigo-inducing stuff (until 3, which killed it). Doom was key, switch, door, key, door, door, key, switch, door ... blah. The level designs of Doom were all FLAT. This is hardly interesting.

Really, there's only so much you can do with a game where your primary interface to the world is through the muzzle of your weapon.

Re:Any innovation left?

[Peteroo]

Sad to say, but none of the so-called "straction" games of 1998-2001 (the first Battlezone, the two Uprisings, Urban Assault and Hostile Waters) sold worth a damn. :( Peter

Re:Any innovation left?

[KDR_11k]

Serious Sam has sector-specific gravity, there were hollow sphere rooms with gravity pointing outwards and stuff like that.

Re:Any innovation left?

[KDR_11k]

Really, there's only so much you can do with a game where your primary interface to the world is through the muzzle of your weapon.

Why? Trespasser allowed you to use your hands to manipulate the environment, HL2 has that in a pretty basic way as well. Why not let the player use his virtual hands as well?

Re:Any innovation left?

[Spankophile]

How about the Metroid Hunters game for the Nintendo DS... using a stylus to control an FPS? And it works AMAZING!
Who'd of thought that? Not me. But someone did.

Re:Any innovation left?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, and Serious Sam 2nd Encounter had a CTF? level on an asteroid, as well as the various cool MC Escher-type DM levels. I never managed to put myself into orbit though...

Re:Any innovation left?

[ricotest]

Your ideas suck.

2. is the method used for pretty much any boss battle in an action game.

3. can be seen in many games such as the Deus Ex series where you can hack robots or cameras and use them against the opposition.

I can't go into further details because your descriptions are too vague, but basically if you're the type who can't come up with 'Katamari Damarcy' your games are just going to be combinations of others in subtle ways. I'm tired of playing those games.

Re:Any innovation left?

[KDR_11k]

There's a major difference between adding an element into one level or a few times troughout the game and making it a major part of the game. Mostly because you can flesh out a common system much more because the player gets used to it. Compare, say, the vehicular combat in Gunman Chronicles and UT2004.

I meant 2 with no obvious weak points (i.e. no glowing things or something), you actually have to figure out where they are and in what order they need to be triggered (and, of course, one incorrect hit will make the sequence reset). Of course with feedback when you hit something and when you hit it in order but it's still different to unloading five rockets into the mouth, then shooting off the arms to open the mouth again, repeat.

And hell, I'm not a game designer and not trying to be, I don't get paid for game ideas. Some people do.

Re:Any innovation left?

[fafaforza]

Speaking of System Shock, anyone have any news on Bioshock? Suppose it could be considered an FPS. I haven't seen any updates on the web recently, was hoping this article (or blurb) would have mentioned it.

Re:Any innovation left?

[Dr. Manhattan]

There's a lot that could be done with gravity, actually.

Time dilation would be hard to handle, but a relativistic FPS could be fairly cool. Imagine combat in a situation like in the book "Redshift Rendezvous". You have to figure out where the other guy actually is instead of just where you can see him, and you have to aim your shots at where they are going to be.

Distorting perspective and shifting colors could make for some complex gameplay. Difficulty levels could adjust the max speed of light. With 'Easy', relativistic effects are merely annoying (like lag in an online game), by the time you get to 'Hard' speed of light is 10 m/s and your tactics are completely different.

Re:Any innovation left?

[rpillala]

It's been said before and better, but the larger the development house, the lower the risk tolerance?

Re:Any innovation left?

[qoa]

The tube room never failed me make me feel sick after about 5 minutes.

First Person sans Shooter

[Anonymous Coward]

I would love to see more games like Morrowind come down the pipe. The first person perspective is one of my favorite devices in modern gaming, but it is, so far, still severly limited in how it is actually applied.

We are still playing Doom over and over again, but with prettier images, better effects, and (sometimes) smarter badguys.

Apart from Morrowind and Vampires:The Masquerade and perhaps the underwhelming Myst sequels; where else is the First Person perspective being used in new and interesting ways?

Re:First Person sans Shooter

[Anonymous Coward]

The first person perspective is a tiny narrow view of the world. The average FPS gives you a 70 degree FOV. Your non-peripheral vision is at least 120 degrees, going out all the way to 170 degrees for peripheral.

It's literally like wearing blinders. This could account for the lack of immersiveness (I love Morrowind to death, but I find myself switching to third person ... though that's usually just to admire my fly outfit)

Re:First Person sans Shooter

[snuf23]

I played both Morrowind and Vampire Bloodlines mostly in third person because of the increased FOV. I got sick of not seeing some baddie come up behind me.
For a true FPS, third person doesn't work well because it hampers your aiming. I think Heretic 2 is one of the only computer third person shooters I felt had the control system and camera correct.

Re:First Person sans Shooter

[bigman2003]

I loved the way that Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath handled the point of view. It was an instantaneous switch between first and third person. And both of them were handled very well. You could only shoot in first person, and some fighting moves were third person only- but it worked real well.

Great game - and I loved the flexibility.

it can only get better

[tech-hawger]

I think that we'll see some beautiful looking games with the introduction of the Xbox 2 this year and it's only going to get better from there. With the advances in the havok and unreal engines(and the other engines that exist), the next-gen games will become more story oriented and just more fun to play. Especially if you can play Xbox2-ers games against PC-ers , that will just open a whole new experience.

Re:it can only get better

[theclam159]

I would love to be able to play against Xbox2 players. They can't move well or aim well. They can't even see well unless they have an HDTV. They would just be free kills to up my score.

Re:it can only get better

[UWC]

Console vs. PC games will result in either console players getting outmaneuvered by mouse-and-keyboard users or the PC players complaining about the cheapness of the auto-aim assistance the console players will need if they want to be competitive. That's, of course, if you're talking about FPS-type games.

I am definitely eager to see what the new round of consoles is capable of, though.

Re:it can only get better

[fafaforza]

I bought Thief 3 for the XBox because I didn't have a good enough PC to play it. I just couldn't take the interface, and the single speed with which to turn. So having bought it for the Xbox, I felt justified in downloading it for the PC. Nothing beats the mouse for a quick glance to your right to check for a guard, while staking out a doorway.

But I'm sure they'll make a keyboard and mouse for the Xbox (they probably have it now, but I don't care to check) so you might be in for a surprise :P

Sad but true

[El]

Business types are doomed to only release remakes of games that made money. Nobody will touch the first game in a new, unproven genre. And unfortunately, the time when somebody could design and implement a decent game in their basement is long gone. So I suppose we're stuck with remakes of Doom, Quake, Unreal and Halflife for the forseeable future. Unless some talented group of designers, graphic artists, and programmers is willing to work for free for about a year to come out with a really killer game that isn't a FPS.

What I would like to see is a multiplayer game that rewards cooperative play and good moral judgements, instead of rewarding a "shoot anything that moves" approach.

Re:Sad but true

[ZephyrXero]

People still make innovative games in their garage. With Open Source tools and engines growing up, you should start to see alot more too.

Re:Sad but true

[brkello]

Bleh. Why are new versions of games so profitable? In the movie industry, sequels tend to make less money. This is because (with exceptions of course) everything after the first movie sucks. It is different with games. In general, sequels to games are better (again, there are exceptions). They take everything they learned in the first game, improve the graphics, improve the game play, add new features, etc. So really, I am not sure why you have to bitch about "remakes"...in most cases, games get better. And there are so many other fps games out there that are not Doom, Quake, Unreal, and Halflife. I mean, how do you think they got to be so popular? From sucking? No, they made excellent games and continue to be solid. But what about other genres? How did games like Pikman or Katamari Damacy get out? Games are maturing and so major genres have been defined. There will always be a few games a year that don't fit the mold...but not as much as there used to be...this is freaking obvious...IT IS EASY TO INNOVATE IN A BRAND NEW FIELD.

They already have a game out there that rewards cooperative play and good moral judgements. It's called Couter Strike (just make sure you join the counter terrorists).

Even more shooters

[ZephyrXero]

"Will this year be any different?"

Probably not, we'll get numerous FPS that sell tons of copies, while the few innovative/original titles get overlooked :( More than one "hit" FPS a year is too many IMO.

Re:Even more shooters

[Ayaress]

More than one "hit" FPS a year is too many IMO

Yeah, overload for me. Most of the big names in FPSs hit last year. Doom, Halo, Half Life, and a few other really good games. Will Quake 4 be at E3? There are a few nice games on the way, but after last year, it'll be slow for the genre for a while.

Last year was so big for first person shooters that there's almost no way the genre can match it. It's like playing all of Beehtoven's 7th symphony and then following it with a violin solo. A solo violinist can do amazing things, but they'll still be overshadowed no matter how good they are.

And just think...

[hollismb]

By the end of the year, Fary Cry, Half Life 2, Doom 3, Pariah, and Halo 2 (some of which are already there, obviously) will all be on the Xbox. Pretty cool really. I only mention it to the Slashdot crwod because no stories about Half Life and Far Cry have been posted, and not to start some KB/M vs. controller war.

This is the year...

[mrbaggs]

I'm sure this time, this is the year Duke Nukem Forever is released! You'll all see...

Re:This is the year...

[qoa]

-1 Redundant Karma whore.

I hope so

[soniCron88]

"Will this year be any different?"

Well, god I hope so. A year in which every major hit was a sequel? Originality would be a nice change of pace.

Lack of Originality?

[Anonymous Coward]

Heck, have you played any of the Timesplitters series?

It just gets better with each version and heck 3 (Future Perfect) tries all sorts of new things to make it more interesting.

All those crazy modes for multiplayer are great.

The challenges and level builder take things to a new level as well...

They finally added vehicles which was nice. The only thing that keeps it from being a perfect FPS would probably be a jump button. :P

What about Far Cry?

[osmic234]

Surely it would have to be included in the top pc fps releases of last year. At least it gave the illusion of being sightly non-linear at times, unlike the big name games. And it was much easier on the eye, without needing such top-end machine. I'd much rather see an expansion pack for Far Cry than one for Doom 3 or Half-Life 2.

Pariah - the map maker.

[Anonymous Coward]

The level editor in pariah looks very impressive.

The rest of the game looked pretty standard.. Looks a bit like UT2004... has a stripped down version of onslaught.. (only 4 vehicles). It does have upgradeable weapons though.

But the key thing that impressed me was the level editor. It allowed terrain editing similar to the Sim City game:
* Raise Terrain
* Lower Terrain
* Add Turret
* Add Building
* Add weapon spawn

it was only building DM and TDM levels, but still VERY impressive.

And the levels were (i was told) a very small file size - easily able to be downloaded over a network before a game.

Prey?

[Gamelore]

I'm surprised they didn't mention Prey.

After 25+ pages, it has all but been officially announced over at the 3DRealms forums.

MMOFPS

[Lord_Dweomer]

My friend and I always thought that the next big break through would be with a solid MMOFPS. Better than Planetside ever was.

We need true transitions between space and ground. We need space to planet surface bombardments and vice versa. I'd personally love to see a Battletech MMOFPS, or an exosquad one.

Re:MMOFPS

[Chyeld]

"We need space to planet surface bombardments and vice versa."

Ok, is it realy inovative to introduce a new method of spawn camping into the mix?

I can just see it now:

• Whole team spawns
• Run for cover/guns/vechicles
• Last five seconds as the next thousand megaton nuke hits your camp
• Whole team spawns....

Would we even need to aim?

Re:MMOFPS

[Lord_Dweomer]

You know, there's ways around that. You just need to think like a real military would if they were facing orbital bombardment. Put your base underground, shielding, shoot them before they shoot you, defense systems, etc.

Re:I see unhappy fanboys

[j.bellone]

Halo 2 wouldn't have been on my top 5 FPS games of the year, and I don't think it's going to be on theirs either. Being a PC gamer, I tend not to think about playing Halo 2 unless my friends at college (who don't own gaming rigs) are bored.

Re:I see unhappy fanboys

[Pulse_Instance]

My friends and I all own gaming rigs, Halo 2 is just an easy way for us to get the experience of LAN games without having to haul gaming rigs around. Couple that with the fact that it is easier to play while drunk and you can still play online with a bunch of people its a great game.

Surprise me!

[Zangief]

I predict that there will be one or maybe more FPSs located in WWII.

I also see...multiplayer...and rocket launchers. Snipers rifles are also coming. And grenades.

Oh my god, I'm a psychic!

How many years can we say we got a new UT?

[Anonymous Coward]

Looks as if its going to be an annual occurrence.

What about co-op?

[gekkotron]

Will any of these shooters have cooperative PvE multiplayer? Or do I need to wait for SvenCoop for HL2?

Learning Curves

[Wakka15]

I think that one of the main reasons the mainstream, multiplayer FPS games haven't changed too much, business aspects aside, is the learning curve involved. Granted, there are some differences in your movement, aiming, and of course weapon-effects from game to game (e.g. compare Counterstrike to Unreal Tournament 2004 or Quake 3), but once you've played one, it is relatively easy to pick up others.

This shallow learning curve is also what prevents some of the more innovative FPS-style games from becoming more popular. Natural Selection (a free Half-Life mod, for those not in the know) is mentioned elsewhere in this thread, and makes an excellent example - the two sides (aliens and marines) play significantly differently, and there's a steeper learning curve just to familiarize yourself with the game on the whole. The more innovative games, such as Natural Selection, Splinter Cell, and the like, are generally a lot less accessible to the average 'mainstream' gamer, and many don't have the patience to get their asses kicked at a new game while they learn the ropes. This also goes a long way towards explaining the wild success and popularity of Halo 2, which is an otherwise mediocre FPS, IMO, though not without its charm.

When you've been playing games since the Doom 2 era, then of course Halo 2 is going to seem like nothing special. We seem to keep forgetting that we are no longer the mainstream, and, at the risk of sounding a bit elitist, I'll say that it will probably take a while for said mainstream to tire of the current state of FPS games as most of the posters here have. Fear not - once the mainstream catches on to the genre-mixing that seems to be going on with the more innovative FPS games, the business types will adapt and churn out loads of them, I'm sure.