Shooters and their Sequels

JDR13

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That's the exact opposite of how I feel shooters have greatly improved better ai, stories and more open worlds. Crysis, farcry 2 and rear being good examples.

Please tell me you didn't just name Farcry 2 as an example of a "good" shooter.

=EDIT: This thread is a child of the 'Rate Bioware Games' thread over in General RPG, so if you think it starts rather abruptly - you're right ;). - Tadaa!
Jaz=


*Edit* Lol.. why do I always get the blame for birthing a new thread? I didn't even start this conversation. :D
 
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Yes I did. I enjoyed the environments and messing around with the fire physics.

Well I guess I'm glad someone out there actually enjoyed it. I thought it was one of the more disappointing shooter sequels I've played, but I was a big fan of the original Farcry.
 
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Well I guess I'm glad someone out there actually enjoyed it. I thought it was one of the more disappointing shooter sequels I've played, but I was a big fan of the original Farcry.

I never played the 1st one. Obviously you thought it was better. Why? What didn't you like about farcry 2? Maybe i'll have to pick up the first one after I take a spin through skyrim.
 
For me, the last really good FPS game was No One Lives Forever 2, and the last really good "pure" FPS game was Return to Castlewolfenstein. Since then they've come to rely on gimmicks rather than compelling gameplay and settings. Gameplay itself has gotten far sloppier (from controller driven development?), and being interrupted by cutscenes every 30 seconds doesn't help.

RPGs have a lot of the same problems, but I'm pretty sure we've covered how they're being merged into the generogenre at least once on this site. ;)
 
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I never played the 1st one. Obviously you thought it was better. Why? What didn't you like about farcry 2? Maybe i'll have to pick up the first one after I take a spin through skyrim.

You've never played Farcry? You missed out on a classic. That would be like skipping Crysis to play (the vastly inferior) Crysis 2.

As far as what I didn't like about FC2, that would be pretty much everything. From the way buildings and enemies magically respawned, to the ridiculous diamonds for guns system.

@Menigal - You didn't like the Half-Life 2 games? I think those were probably the last story-based FPSs I really enjoyed. I really liked Serious Sam as a "pure shooter" though.
 
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@Menigal - You didn't like the Half-Life 2 games? I think those were probably the last story-based FPSs I really enjoyed. I really liked Serious Sam as a "pure shooter" though.

Eh, I didn't really get all the HL2 love, but I did get around to playing it a bit late. Maybe I'd been over-hyped by all the "greetest game evar!"-ness. It was alright, but nothing really amazing, and I got annoyed by the way it constantly switched playstyles. I always find it vaguely insulting when developers do that, like they think you're too stupid to keep playing otherwise. I suppose some of the casual-mainstream gamers (that is, the people who consider a 3 year old game a "classic", can't comprehend why anyone would want to play anything older, and wouldn't know what an indie game was if you gave them one) might need that sort of thing to hold their attention, though.

I forgot about Serious Sam, and Painkiller for that matter. I think mentally they occupy "arcade game" space for me, like a first person Contra or Smash TV.
 
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Eh, I didn't really get all the HL2 love.
Same here. This happened a lot to sequels of my favorite shooters.

I loved Half-Life, but for me HL2 was a serious letdown: It had neither the atmosphere nor the sheer size of HL. And while all this water-biking (you know what I mean) might have looked nice, it only served to break my immersion. Unreal, for example, had levels that were nothing more than tech demos, levels where you didn't do anything, but they still fit in nicely with the rest. For some reason or other, it didn't work with HL2 - even though it had Barney. Hmmm ... thinking of it, I'd rather replay Blue Shift than HL2.

While I as a Wolf3D lover was very fond of RtCW for what it was, it was way too short for my taste.
Unreal 2: Well, they cut pretty much everything that would have made me love it. Besides, it was way too short.
Doom 3 was a neat game, but it was not Doom.
Heretic 2 was so different from the first Heretic that it was interesting to play, but still, it was rather short.
Blood 2 was too different and too difficult for my taste.

There were sequels of favorite shooters I really loved, however. Hexen 2, for example, managed to keep the difficulty level and playstyle of the first Hexen while the music added greatly to the atmosphere ... and then there was Quake 4.
While Q4 was (of course) a tad too short and too linear, Q2 was so recognizable in its art style, atmosphere and story that it hurt.

Serious Sam was mindless fun, but it didn't suck me in like some other games did ^^. Must have been the hilariousness. That also kept me from enjoying fan-favorite NLF too much.
 
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Ah, Hexen and Heretic! My probably all-time favourite FPS...
I liked RtCW, Crysis 1, Half Life 1 and I find them quite enjoying, but to me they lack the atmosphere that these two gems (and sequels) have.
My hype will raise to the stars if one day ID announces the sequel of one of those...
Give us back the Serpent Riders!!!
 
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Both Half-Life games rate pretty high for me, but I agree that HL1 was better for its time. I think HL2 has a great atmosphere though. It's different from HL1, but not in a bad way, imo. That reminds me…where the hell is Episode 3?

You gotta love Serious Sam for what it was though. Tiny European developer (Croteam had six employees when they made the original game!), almost no advertising whatsoever, and a $20 price at release. Yet it was better than a lot of AAA shooters.


Blood 2 was too different and too difficult for my taste.

Blood 2 was a huge letdown compared to Blood. I tried playing it again earlier this year after getting a copy from GOG, but I only got about 1/3 finished before I lost interest. It just doesn't have the atmosphere and level design that made Blood so great.

Damn… we should start a separate thread. :)
 
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Personally I liked Far Cry 2, and I sincerely hate the first one, especially the Xbox version; probably my total disgust for auto saving in modern FPS starts from there...
At least in FC 2 there are checkpoints where you can save, a fair compromise by me;
also, I liked the setting and the much 'realistic' way it looks, plus the free roaming map.
Another game that I haven't liked at all is Crysis 2: it's pretty much inferior to its sequel imho, and I'm NOT counting the idiot auto saving function...
I feel too now a bit overrated HL 2, especially compared to the prequel, but indeed there is some atmosphere (the abandoned city level for example).
About Blood 2, JDR you've remembered me a game with the same engine, SHOGO: do you know it? It wasn't so bad at the time... Just my two cents.
 
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Oh, I do remember Shogo (if that counts). Part beat'em up, part mecha game. Not quite my cup of tea, but an interesting mix nevertheless. Hubby loved it.
 
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Personally I liked Far Cry 2

Me too, it gets repetitive fast but it's the sort of game I like to dip into every now and then for an hour of mindless fun. But it was no Farcry1, and I wanted more of that.

What frustrates me with shooter sequels is the focus on cranking out a mega amazing new engine, as apposed to refining the previously successful gameplay. F.E.A.R comes to mind - the game play in the original is fantastic and everything a shooter should be - a tight mechanic with good level design. I wanted more of the same in the sequel but it was like playing a different game.

What's wrong with just adding a double barrel shotgun and a few new monsters then spending a couple of years on new levels? Go back to the future you developer jerks!
 
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Far Cry 2.... arg. Very pretty and kinda fun to drive through but the way things respawned as soon as you looked away was just plain dumb. That combined with the massive compression on voices killed the game for me. I quit after the first disk.

Half Life was great and Half Life 2 was pretty good, too. I decided to wait for the episodes to get finished and buy them all as one big package so I haven't played episode 1 or 2 yet.

The No One Lives Forever series was quite excellent (aside from one real long episode in Siberia). If it had been the first shooter I ever played, I'm sure I would consider it the best of all time. But it wasn't, so Doom is the best of all time. ;)

Unfortunately, I haven't seen a real good FPS in a terribly long time. They all concentrate on the multiplayer thing now. Though the very first Call of Duty game had some moments. Particularly when you got tossed onto a beach with five bullets and no gun to put them in.
 
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You've never played Farcry? You missed out on a classic. That would be like skipping Crysis to play (the vastly inferior) Crysis 2.

As far as what I didn't like about FC2, that would be pretty much everything. From the way buildings and enemies magically respawned, to the ridiculous diamonds for guns system.

@Menigal - You didn't like the Half-Life 2 games? I think those were probably the last story-based FPSs I really enjoyed. I really liked Serious Sam as a "pure shooter" though.

I guess I'll have to pick up the first then. I was mostly and still am I guess an rpg guy back then. I am finding myself getting more shooters now though. (more shooters than I used to anyway.) I will agree on the respawning had to stop driving because the patrols always respawned on the roads.

My first shooter was the original caste wolfenstein (not a fps though of course) I believe that was in the 80's. I enjoyed going around and holding up the ss. Then you blew up hitler at the end with a bomb. Oh crap sorry for the spoiler.:biggrin:
 
Oh, that Wolfenstein. If we're going back to non-first person plus voice samples, my first shooter would have been Berzerk. But as I played that at the arcades and not at home, it doesn't count.

Wolf3D made me buy my first computer, though I'd not consider it my favorite. Actually, I can't pick a favorite shooter as I enjoyed so many.

CoD felt way too scripted for my taste, and levels too linear.
 
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About Blood 2, JDR you've remembered me a game with the same engine, SHOGO: do you know it? It wasn't so bad at the time… Just my two cents.

I remember hearing good things about Shogo, but I've never played it myself. Maybe I'll grab it from GOG one of these days.


CoD felt way too scripted for my taste, and levels too linear.

I loved the original CoD and its expansion, but it's been all downhill since then.
 
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CoD felt way too scripted for my taste, and levels too linear.

The only CoD I've truly enjoyed was the First MW, because I've never played any of it (I don't like WWII setting, apart of Wolfenstein): but it was just the sense of something "new" which faded very quickly.
How about the First Nukem guys? Not Duke Nukem 3d of course...
 
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I liked CoD for what they were, short and scripted, interactive movies. I liked STALKER as well for what they were. Different experiences.
 
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