Just playing through the typical game I can see how every weapon fits nice and neatly into one of these six categories. This is why I hate playing shooters set in the real world.
True. But you can look at it in a positive way, as well. That is, I love real-world shooters precisely because, as the weapons are going to be these archetypes anyhow, at least in a real-world setting they can be true to the archetype, and even made more interesting (to me at least) by being faithful reproductions of “the real thing.” I get a kick out of finding a M4, an AK-74, an AWG, or a Remington 870, whatever, far more than in finding a sci-fi-ified ShotZgun that is just a 870 with a glowing ring around the muzzle or something.
The trick is to balance the weapons and their availability so that you have a progression of firepower and a logical reason to use each stage of firepower–or even better, a setting where weapon utility rather than raw power is crucial.
Well, you see, I got the information as to the redone pistol from Bungie, so… I meant that they made the pistol alone less powerful, which is true, because you can’t compare the dual new pistols with a singular old pistol, it is unfair. I remember blasting through herds of people with only a pistol in Halo, and now in Halo 2 I can do a good amount of damage to one with the dual.
Well, you see, I got the information as to the redone pistol from Bungie, so… I meant that they made the pistol alone less powerful, which is true, because you can’t compare the dual new pistols with a singular old pistol, it is unfair. I remember blasting through herds of people with only a pistol in Halo, and now in Halo 2 I can do a good amount of damage to one with the dual.[/quote]
Oh, you’re definetly right about the new pistol being nerfed. But don’t discount it just cause it’s not a one handed, automatic sniper cannon.
I’ll disagree. The environment design of Doom III is definitely of a “near-future” science-fiction setting. If you walk around you’ll notice that PCs are still pretty common, as are simple PDAs. Regular 2d televisions haven’t been replaced with 3d holograms and you can still get a can of soda from a vending machine or play a game on a regular videogame cabinet. Within that environment, the weapons work well.
If anything, the mundane near-future setting full of mundane items plays nicely against the weirdness of hell. A ultra-tech far-flung future would dampen the ability of Hell’s weirdness to stand out.
As for the common use of variations on modern weapons, I think you’ll find it works mostly because those weapon architypes work really well in the modern world. We’ve gone from muzzle-loading to breech-loading to revolvers and now magazine-loaded weaponry, but the basic pistol has existed through all of them because it fills a need very well. The same is true with the other weapon types.
Going off and trying to come up with completely different weapon architypes just to be different seems like to much effort spent trying to re-invent the wheel.
Many games do have counterexamples, which is good for those games. A lot of shooters I’ve played don’t. Far Cry was an especially bad disappointment in that regard. The only fun toy in the entire game, IIRC, was the infrared-vision goggles.[/quote]
I wasn’t disagreeing with your premise, but those examples also point out that it takes a fair amount of creative thinking to come up with something that doesn’t fit those categories.
I’ll disagree. The environment design of Doom III is definitely of a “near-future” science-fiction setting. If you walk around you’ll notice that PCs are still pretty common, as are simple PDAs. Regular 2d televisions haven’t been replaced with 3d holograms and you can still get a can of soda from a vending machine or play a game on a regular videogame cabinet. Within that environment, the weapons work well.[/quote]
I think it was that plasma rifle or pulse rifle or whatever that made me think otherwise. You’re right though.
Even the plasma rifle thingie fits in that environment, being that it’s an “experimental weapon” within the game’s story.
I’m just surprised no one has complained about Pixar being bereft of ideas because they obviously stole Valve’s gravity gun idea for Syndrome’s power gauntlets in The Incredibles. Those bastards.
HAHAHAHHAAH! WOW! I am sorry but that was utterly hilarious. And of course, the best part is that he had a point! Although, my guess is that he was making a jest at our conversation. Kudos. I say again: Kudos.
No, I just ignored it. Usually melee is relatively unimportant, and some games even make the design decision to leave it out.[/quote]
As an interesting note, BF1942 implemented melee weapons as guns that do extremely high damage at extremely short range. I imagine other games do this as well.
I have to disagree with that. With lame AI that just charges you, or level design that depends on spawning in enemies just around corners, melee has been important all the way back to Doom and the Chainsaw. It’s necessary in MP too, as shown by the heavy use of knives/bayonets/spades/buttstocks in CS, DoD, and Call of Duty.
Also, Riddick was a FPS that was excellent AND it had a heavy emphasis on melee combat. As does Halo2, which seems to indicate to me that the games that leave it out might be less well designed…
Actually, this usually applies only to online journalism (and goes for all mediums). It is sad that commonly the only decent articles online are those that are printed in a periodical, because they actually have to go through some level of due diligence research and have an editor. Wired comes to mind as a case in point for this, but there are exceptions to the rule of course. But mainly most online “journalists” hail from the copy and paste school of writing, where they just reprint whatever the press release said. I guess you can blame Blue’s News (Aftershock) and Shacknews (sCary’s Shuga Shack) for cultivating this kind of behavior.
