1996, I think? Anyway, the nice thing about Deus Ex was that even though it was punctuated by level changes and had RPG elements, the levels were very mazelike, and there was a huge variety of options on how to beat the game. If you can do a pacifist run, it breaks the Halo mold.
In terms of FPS games, I do really enjoy throwing down in some Halo, but Deus Ex is still, bar none, the best FPS I've played in my life.
I actually don't like Deus Ex. It pales next to the far superior System Shock 2, which is still the best FPS/RPG combo. I bought Deux Ex when it was super cheap on steam, and it's just kind of unplayable. I can't even get through the first level. I've tried doing it the stealth way, the pacifist way, and the rambo way. None of them really work. It's so difficult to sneak around when the whole thing is these wide open fields and such. They just don't give you a lot to work with.
The game bothers me the way Metal Gear bothers me. They want you to play all stealthy, but then there isn't actually any way to be stealthy. All stealth games need to learn a thing or hundred from Thief, the only game that gets stealth right.
If there are mazes later in the game, I would love to get to them. I could see how playing it all stealthy in a map of corridors could rock pretty hard, but that first level is just awful. Maybe there's something I'm missing? It didn't exactly come with an instruction manual.
It's a pretty easy game, man. Last time I played it I had the Shifter mod installed, though. Maybe that makes it a bit easier. I know you won't like it either way, though, since it has stats governing accuracy.
It's a pretty easy game, man. Last time I played it I had the Shifter mod installed, though. Maybe that makes it a bit easier. I know you won't like it either way, though, since it has stats governing accuracy.
It's more than just that. For example, why are there good guys on the docks and good guys in a base, but bad guys right around the fucking corner, and they don't do anything? It makes no sense. Also, they want you to be stealthy, but you have to cross areas with lots of lights, and no way across without being seen by everybody. At least Metal Gear, which is terrible at stealth compared to Thief, you can at least imagine a way to get past each area without being seen.
I actually don't like Deus Ex. It pales next to the far superior System Shock 2, which is still the best FPS/RPG combo. I bought Deux Ex when it was super cheap on steam, and it's just kind of unplayable. I can't even get through the first level. I've tried doing it the stealth way, the pacifist way, and the rambo way. None of them really work. It's so difficult to sneak around when the whole thing is these wide open fields and such. They just don't give you a lot to work with.
It's been a very long time, and I have yet to play SS2 to completion.
The problem is that Nintendo and/or Valve will always win the least janky award. Nintendo has only faded on it recently because motion controls are jank by default. In the olden days they were kings of no jank, look at fucking Super Mario Bros. 3. Jankless. As for Valve, they pulled off Portal with no jank, beat that.
It's a pretty easy game, man. Last time I played it I had the Shifter mod installed, though. Maybe that makes it a bit easier. I know you won't like it either way, though, since it has stats governing accuracy.
It's more than just that. For example, why are there good guys on the docks and good guys in a base, but bad guys right around the fucking corner, and they don't do anything? It makes no sense. Also, they want you to be stealthy, but you have to cross areas with lots of lights, and no way across without being seen by everybody. At least Metal Gear, which is terrible at stealth compared to Thief, you can at least imagine a way to get past each area without being seen.
Yeah, the stealth element of Deus Ex is a definite weakness; I think that much is clear just from the tutorial. I still enjoyed the game quite a lot taking the other approaches to achieving things, though.
The actual shooting is also weak, but the level design of Deus Ex is quite good; you get a lot of choice as to which way to go and how, highlighting what Scott said in his initial post.
Also, I think keeping a lot of story in computers and communications you may or may not choose to hack was quite a good design choice. It allows the game to offer a lot of depth to the characters and universe without egregiously throwing it all in your face the way some games tend to.
I am about to make a completely sacrilegious statement about the FPS genre. Let me preface this by saying that regardless of the reason, I was not playing awesome PC FPS games during my middle school years. Instead, I was playing GoldenEye on the N64. I contend that the art of the screen peek is part of the game.
I hate adding bullshit rules onto games just to make them work. Friends would whine like little sissies and say "no screen peeking!" Some even went as far as to make strange cardboard contraptions to restrict peoples view (this did not work very well, but I give points for creativity). I say let the best player win, and let all players use the available information to their best advantage. If you sucked at positioning yourself based off of what you see on all four screens, you sucked at GoldenEye!
Having played Max Payne 2, I can definitively say that new style FPS level design is far superior as it means I'm not stuck running around in circles. L4D probably has the best level design going, having been made by Valve.
I actually find the above video really interesting from a game mechanic perspective. I.e. Having a game where the player's interaction is pivotal, yet -at the same time- entirely optional.
Let's go on a tangent: Pacifism is kind of an interesting concept in modern games. You can apparently complete Fallout 3 with no voluntary kills but it involves lots of running away from things as fast as possible. What I'd like to see is enemies that have more more reactions than shoot, move towards you, and cover. Being able to scare enemies away, either by hitting them with huge force, killing their leader, having a reputation, or somehow showing them you have the upper hand would be super interesting.
as it means I'm not stuck running around in circles.
That's your fault that you suck at maze navigation.
Although, there are mazes that suck. It's gotta be a good maze. Doom has it right. There's no worry about not knowing where to go next. You'll be dead way before that happens.
In my less-than-humble opinion, new maps aren't worse, they're just different. Modern FPS single player maps are linear because FPS's have gotten a lot more story-driven in recent years, focusing on large set-pieces and scripted events that require the player to go through them in a certain order to get the full experience. This is part of a much larger trend in the gaming industry, FPS's in particular, that is moving a lot more towards working like the movie industry. Doom may have had a great sense of exploring an alien place and discovering new things, but there wasn't really much of a story there. The STALKER series is a recent example of a non-linear FPS that has wide-open maps ripe for exploration, but in order to achieve this they had to forgo having a grand, epic story to tell. When you look at the single player campaign of almost any modern FPS, just imagine that it's an interactive movie, because I can guarantee you that this is exactly what the developer was going for.
The problem with this trend is that it makes the single-player campaign far less interesting on a second playthrough. Just like most movies, it's just not as good the second time around. That's the trade-off. You can have a grand, nonlinear map that lets you go where you want, when you want, or you can have a coherent and detailed story that lends meaning to your actions in the game.
If you want a story, then watch a movie. I just played through Alan Wake. It was basically a TV miniseries they couldn't actually get on television, so they adding some really shitty shooting and made it a game. I also just beat Metroid: Mother M. Another similar travesty. They tried to have a lot of story, so the game is loaded with cutscenes.
They should all take a lesson from Super Metroid. The only cutscene in the game is the opener, which is a small amount of text. All the rest of the story in the game actually takes place during the actual gameplay. The game itself is semi-linear, but it definitely has a maze-like map. There's no dialog and no cut-scenes. You can't really watch Super Metroid on YouTube. Yeah, you can watch the parts where plot happens, but you won't have the same emotional state that you get from actually playing the game and exploring on your own.
I'm all for games having a story, but it can't just be a movie with a game tacked off the side like a tail on a donkey. The story and game need to be one and the same. It's the one thing that Dwarf Fortress gets right.
Comments
In terms of FPS games, I do really enjoy throwing down in some Halo, but Deus Ex is still, bar none, the best FPS I've played in my life.
The game bothers me the way Metal Gear bothers me. They want you to play all stealthy, but then there isn't actually any way to be stealthy. All stealth games need to learn a thing or hundred from Thief, the only game that gets stealth right.
If there are mazes later in the game, I would love to get to them. I could see how playing it all stealthy in a map of corridors could rock pretty hard, but that first level is just awful. Maybe there's something I'm missing? It didn't exactly come with an instruction manual.
I'm going to see if I can find a YouTube vid of a playthrough of level one to see if I can learn something.
The actual shooting is also weak, but the level design of Deus Ex is quite good; you get a lot of choice as to which way to go and how, highlighting what Scott said in his initial post.
Also, I think keeping a lot of story in computers and communications you may or may not choose to hack was quite a good design choice. It allows the game to offer a lot of depth to the characters and universe without egregiously throwing it all in your face the way some games tend to.
I hate adding bullshit rules onto games just to make them work. Friends would whine like little sissies and say "no screen peeking!" Some even went as far as to make strange cardboard contraptions to restrict peoples view (this did not work very well, but I give points for creativity). I say let the best player win, and let all players use the available information to their best advantage. If you sucked at positioning yourself based off of what you see on all four screens, you sucked at GoldenEye!
Let's play a mission in the newest CoD game without firing a single shot. On the second highest difficulty.
I actually find the above video really interesting from a game mechanic perspective. I.e. Having a game where the player's interaction is pivotal, yet -at the same time- entirely optional.
Let's go on a tangent:
Pacifism is kind of an interesting concept in modern games. You can apparently complete Fallout 3 with no voluntary kills but it involves lots of running away from things as fast as possible. What I'd like to see is enemies that have more more reactions than shoot, move towards you, and cover. Being able to scare enemies away, either by hitting them with huge force, killing their leader, having a reputation, or somehow showing them you have the upper hand would be super interesting.
Although, there are mazes that suck. It's gotta be a good maze. Doom has it right. There's no worry about not knowing where to go next. You'll be dead way before that happens.
The problem with this trend is that it makes the single-player campaign far less interesting on a second playthrough. Just like most movies, it's just not as good the second time around. That's the trade-off. You can have a grand, nonlinear map that lets you go where you want, when you want, or you can have a coherent and detailed story that lends meaning to your actions in the game.
They should all take a lesson from Super Metroid. The only cutscene in the game is the opener, which is a small amount of text. All the rest of the story in the game actually takes place during the actual gameplay. The game itself is semi-linear, but it definitely has a maze-like map. There's no dialog and no cut-scenes. You can't really watch Super Metroid on YouTube. Yeah, you can watch the parts where plot happens, but you won't have the same emotional state that you get from actually playing the game and exploring on your own.
I'm all for games having a story, but it can't just be a movie with a game tacked off the side like a tail on a donkey. The story and game need to be one and the same. It's the one thing that Dwarf Fortress gets right.