Nikpalj
06-17-2006, 09:15
Just had a thought last night after playing a FPS after almost ten years of FPS-related celibacy.
In the demo level I've played you have to clear out a hotel of a bunch of thugs and meet a guy on the other side, in the lobby. You go through a buncha hallways and rooms, every few rooms/halls you have a fight of varying intensity, collect weapons/ammo off of steaming bodies, collect bodyarmor that somebody somehow dropped or left behind all over the hotel, collect a bunch of "top secret files" that a bunch of spyes also apparently left behind al over the place in unbelievable spots...
After clicking my way through all of this and having a pretty good time because the beautiful level design and surprisingly smart enemies (remembering the Quake-era armed potatoes) I had a thought - wasn't this EXACTLY like a dungeon hack, just without the quasi-medieval close combat, goblins and isometric perspective?
And, hell, isn't all this "find another badguy to squash" motivation really, really primitive? After waking up from the wonderful, dopamine-induced experience I felt unsatisfied, cheated and quite dumb for wasting an hour of my life's time on this...
I mean it's 2006 now, 2006, after ten years I try out a shooter and it has the feel of a really smug & smart version of a 1995 one... What happened to all the creativity?
I think it's about time to start thinking up entirely new game mechanichs, motivations for players, hell - entirely new types of games. It's all just such a trashheap, I don't remember when was the last time I played a game that didn't, basically, entice me to play it by tickling my greed in one way or another... In TW you "collect" new and improved buildings and untis instead of the usual loot/weapons/ammo off of dead bodies, so it's also deeply greed-based...
It's 2006. and PC games are STILL in the "are supposed to be FUN" category (that being the ultimate argument when someone points out how generally dumb the comp games are)? We have hardware that can spew out unbelievable graphics and games are still not considered being an artform? How many more years before some (not ess ee ex related ) serious games for grownups, 10, 20, 30? Make no mistake, I'm not considering TW being "serious" or grownup at all here...
I'm 27 now, have recently returned to comp games after a 5 year pause (got my P-133 in 1997, but read comp magazines from early childhood) just to chek out how things are today and I find that they're exactly like they were when I've left them...
It's just so freaking sad...
I see these 10yrolds in comp arcades playing these modern shooters in my small town in a small country in Europe and my heart breakes from this - their wide, wild, glazed eyes glued to the monitors, them all shouting at each other, the noise, the music pumping... THAT's supposed to be "sport of the future"?
I mean, these small guys are growing up knowing NOTHING but instant gratification, no manners, no empathy, nothing... and these human zombies are supposed to have kids themselves in a few decades???
I better dig up a hole in the ground somwhere and fill it with a bunch of bean cans, because I have a feeling that by 2050 we'll have screwing, heroin doing, gun totting 10 year olds that'll shoot you on sight if they don't like your face and chew up police patrols for breakfast not just in Kongo or wherever but in, like, London...
And what will the 30 year old versions of these tiny thugs be like in that same time I'm affraid to imagine...
Sorry for this post you guys out there, but I'm just so bitter after playing this FPS demo last night that I had to complain to somebody (none of my friends are comp game playing anymore), and this looks like a forum where there might be someone who'll get what I'm trying to say, someone from my generation?
Please?
In the demo level I've played you have to clear out a hotel of a bunch of thugs and meet a guy on the other side, in the lobby. You go through a buncha hallways and rooms, every few rooms/halls you have a fight of varying intensity, collect weapons/ammo off of steaming bodies, collect bodyarmor that somebody somehow dropped or left behind all over the hotel, collect a bunch of "top secret files" that a bunch of spyes also apparently left behind al over the place in unbelievable spots...
After clicking my way through all of this and having a pretty good time because the beautiful level design and surprisingly smart enemies (remembering the Quake-era armed potatoes) I had a thought - wasn't this EXACTLY like a dungeon hack, just without the quasi-medieval close combat, goblins and isometric perspective?
And, hell, isn't all this "find another badguy to squash" motivation really, really primitive? After waking up from the wonderful, dopamine-induced experience I felt unsatisfied, cheated and quite dumb for wasting an hour of my life's time on this...
I mean it's 2006 now, 2006, after ten years I try out a shooter and it has the feel of a really smug & smart version of a 1995 one... What happened to all the creativity?
I think it's about time to start thinking up entirely new game mechanichs, motivations for players, hell - entirely new types of games. It's all just such a trashheap, I don't remember when was the last time I played a game that didn't, basically, entice me to play it by tickling my greed in one way or another... In TW you "collect" new and improved buildings and untis instead of the usual loot/weapons/ammo off of dead bodies, so it's also deeply greed-based...
It's 2006. and PC games are STILL in the "are supposed to be FUN" category (that being the ultimate argument when someone points out how generally dumb the comp games are)? We have hardware that can spew out unbelievable graphics and games are still not considered being an artform? How many more years before some (not ess ee ex related ) serious games for grownups, 10, 20, 30? Make no mistake, I'm not considering TW being "serious" or grownup at all here...
I'm 27 now, have recently returned to comp games after a 5 year pause (got my P-133 in 1997, but read comp magazines from early childhood) just to chek out how things are today and I find that they're exactly like they were when I've left them...
It's just so freaking sad...
I see these 10yrolds in comp arcades playing these modern shooters in my small town in a small country in Europe and my heart breakes from this - their wide, wild, glazed eyes glued to the monitors, them all shouting at each other, the noise, the music pumping... THAT's supposed to be "sport of the future"?
I mean, these small guys are growing up knowing NOTHING but instant gratification, no manners, no empathy, nothing... and these human zombies are supposed to have kids themselves in a few decades???
I better dig up a hole in the ground somwhere and fill it with a bunch of bean cans, because I have a feeling that by 2050 we'll have screwing, heroin doing, gun totting 10 year olds that'll shoot you on sight if they don't like your face and chew up police patrols for breakfast not just in Kongo or wherever but in, like, London...
And what will the 30 year old versions of these tiny thugs be like in that same time I'm affraid to imagine...
Sorry for this post you guys out there, but I'm just so bitter after playing this FPS demo last night that I had to complain to somebody (none of my friends are comp game playing anymore), and this looks like a forum where there might be someone who'll get what I'm trying to say, someone from my generation?
Please?