TITLE: Silver City, or why I've been amiss for ages AUTHOR: Jim9137 DATE: 8/10/2005 08:18:00 ip. ----- BODY:

Hello kids. I know this blog hasn't been updated in what, two or three months? Well, it's probably mainly my fault. I apologize. Please, don't send any bloodhounds in my direction. I can not be held responsible for what happens to them. Anyway, the clock is 20:29 at the moment and it's long-due for your regular dose of "SCRE YE" in the form of lovely words by Jim9137. Oh, before I forget. We have a new nember, Brother Dysk. I have no idea what he is going to write about, if he's going to write about anything, or anything, it's one of those doing random things at 3AM things, you see. So, give him warm hugs or pommac and click read more for my rantly thing. --- That title over there? I have no idea what it means so don't ask me. I am however, going to talk about game and their inventions. Particularly focusing in FPS games, because those are the most readibly available material and everyone knows them. Left mousebutton masturbation would get pretty darn close. And that's my major gripe with FPS games. I can't name but only few games that could be truly said to deviate from the mass, because when you say "FPS", you automatically mean you're going to have a game where you start with a pistol or in some rare cases, knife or wrench, and you have a crosshair and you're going to kill lots of meanies in it. The point of this all? Rarely anything sensible, you're lone marine off to save the world seems to be pretty much the stock standard, with few variations there of. For those who might not realize where I'm going with this, I've been paving way for my finger to arise and point towards the great big beast, the unoriginality. I'm not saying it's not happening everywhere, because it is, and that it's something radically different from old good times, because it isn't, but it still bugs me. The last mildly interesting "revolution" of FPS games came in the form of Half-Life 2 and with it's physics engine. Well, I'm pretty darn sure we'll see it to become a standard, crate puzzles in FPS games that is. Doom 3's expansion pack featured a variant of the gravity gun already, although it didn't use it as much as Half-Life 2 did from what I heard. But the signs are here, it's becoming another standard. Just like real multilevelled levels did with the first Doom, the truly revolutionary game. Wolfenstein might've been the first, but Doom made the genre what it was today. The one of the most popular, most easily accesibles, most famous and especially most controversial genre there is. But every day, every game I play, I just keep thinking to myself, haven't I seen this before? And in fact, I most likely have. That is my problem, that is why I'm so cynical, as people have told me when I went on my quest against Battlefield 2 and it's squad handling system, although I haven't even seen a bloody screenshot of the game, only a promo video of it in the Xbox360 garble, and it was prerendered anyhow. They tell me it works, I told them no way jose, and we get in an argument. No, this didn't really relate to this article, but the same happened with Half-Life 2 as well. People tell me it was something huge, something that we will warmly remember in our older days (as gamer's, that is), or that it was the best game to come out in a while. I beg to differ. It's a good product, it's got a decent story (although I felt that it's story-telling was bit of lacking in my opinion, but that's another argument that doesn't relate to this article), the graphics were pretty, combat was fun at times and it got neat little innovations and tricks with the stunning physics. Except I yawned my way through the game. There was nothing radically different there, just the same stock FPS with prettier glitter than the other similar games had, nothing new. Nothing new. Why, what new there could be? How could you think of anything new to a genre that seems to be a dead horse and everyone's just raping it, just because it's famous? Bad argument jose, you just haven't met a man crazy enough with crazy ideas and guts to pull them. Killer 7, from the little I've read, showed a little what could be done, but it'll never be a revolutionary game. No one will follow it's lead. I'm not even truly sure whether it's a FPS at all, but hey. Things are weird. I'm not saying that you should have weird things to please my appetite, I'm just saying that FPS genre has been stagnant for ages. Seriously, who didn't see the physics engine making its way to the games, should go quickly grab a copy of Duke Nukem 3D and play a game of pool with the pool table in the, third or second? level of L.A Meltdown. The signs have been there all along, we just lacked the technique, the power to do it properly. But honestly, it's just candy covering on crap, excuse the harsh wording. A true revolution would be to combine FPS, a highly intensive and grabbing game experience as it can sometimes be, to strong story-telling, exploring the ways it could be done (System Shocks). Exploring your personal alter-ego in the game, what could be done to it (Operation Flashpoint). Even exploring the combat itself, how to make those corridor battles a truly shocking and gritty affair as it is (That PS2 FPS which flopped), instead of being a clean and hygienic like in bloody Rainbow Six's. A game with a mood, exploring the ways how it could intensify the feel that you, not some marine on stimpacks, YOU are there. As a marine on stimpacks or a scared little girl. (Doom 3). Heck, even exploring the ways to interact with the envinronment instead of looking at it through some window or bubble, that'd be pretty darn neat. But alas, the FPS genre is going into a completely different direction. Maybe it will overlap with my preffered direction, maybe they won't, we'll see. But well, this is why I don't really like FPS games. Maybe you disagree with me, maybe I'm just old gamer rambling about things he has no idea of, but this is how I feel. And it makes an article so I'm happy.

----- COMMENT: AUTHOR:  Anonyymi EMAIL: URL: DATE: 19:36 Blogin hallinnoija on poistanut tämän kommentin. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR:  Jim9137 EMAIL: URL: DATE: 22:34 Blaa blaa blaa face the delete dear spammy tree. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR:  Jim9137 EMAIL: URL: DATE: 00:16 I would, but I'm pretty sure it won't work on this computer.

Anyway, it just seems to me that games are focusing on something completely different than what could make the game immersive. I'm not saying it has to be totally original, but if all the games are pretty much same with few variations between characters, story, few gameplay tricks, then why the heck should I bother buying them?

Half-Life 2 as far as I see, was a sequel. It had a gimmick. It was entertaining game, with a decent story. It just isn't DA THING for me. That's my problem with it, pretty much.

F.E.A.R, well, um, I'd really like to play it, but I'm again restricted by the computer of mine. But it's good to know that miracles might happen. Maybe it and Alan Wake, will show a direction I can happily smile with. ----- COMMENT: AUTHOR:  Jim9137 EMAIL: URL: DATE: 21:53 No, not all games need to. But well, it seems the developers think that no single game needs to be immersive. Well, sure, they have the graphics and all that, but it's just glitter.

Doom 3 is a good example what you can do when you pay a bit more attention to the surroundings and such. It's got the atmosphere and I was horrified while playing it, which last happened while I played Doom 1 and 2 as a toddler. Halo on the other hand, was just boring, it felt so linear and you were just gliding through it shooting random monsters. Not my idea of fun.

But in general, the extra leeway might cause problems for casual players. Doom 3 was easy enough, but how do you get in the feel when playing Soldier of Fortune? Get pigblood and guts and cover yourself with it?

And if Psychonauts will work on 450mhz, it'll be mine. ----- --------