You dudes forgot one thing: Creepy Music. Remember when you first played DOOM, you got into the first level, and at the VERY beginning you heard that spine chilling tune? Music is the thing that makes a game fun. Music is what gives you an adrenaline rush. I''ve played lots of games where I''ve had to turn my sound off because the music is either too boring or is creeping me half-to-death. If it''s creeping me half-to-death that means that the game designers goal has been completed: To scare the player out of his pants. Say you''re playing some multiplayer deathmatch game. You walk up to a closed door. You''re about to open it when suddenly the msuic changes and you hear a creepy minor chord. You open the door and some other player comes out with a huge assault cannon at max power in one hand and flame thrower at the ready and then suddenly blasts your head off. Does the music stay? No, it goes back to the ordinary music. Music is what surprises you my friends. It''s not the cyber-demon coming from behind the corner, it''s the cyber-demon''s THEME SONG! The song starts THEN he comes out. If the music had stayed the same it wouldn''t have happened and it wouldn''t have been as creepy.

And when I mean music I don''t just mean 1 melody, 1 harmony, and 1 drumb line. Good music should have atleast 3 of each, with over 5 instruments. I''ve heard songs with 2 instruments. Those, IMHO, aren''t good. But the ones with an Electric Guitar, Electric Bass, Citar, Pounding Drumbs, and also Bells are much better. It''s just my opinion though.

Top quality games don''t kick ass as well as these.

http://danavision.homestead.com

Prepare to be blown away!
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Magic Card

One word: Immersion. The player has feel as though they are part of the world, not just an observer. Graphics help this. So does surround sound, interactive music, and perhaps most importantly, story! The game must be interesting and the player must care about what happens to the characters, or else it just digresses into a blood bath. And there is too many of those today. Creating an appropriate ambience and atmoshpere is crucial.

<(o)>

Edited by - aDasTRa on 4/21/00 7:05:42 PM

Why does everyone think that fear is such an essential part? It can be a usefull tool for a designer, but fear alone does not make a great shooter.

Personally, I think that the game needs to make you feel like your in an action movie. It should be really fast paced, in close to real world environments. Plus, the player should feel very powerful (although, on the flip side, the game cannot be too easy).

--TheGoop

I think that they''re attractive because they can be incredibly fun. You can''t tell me tricking your best friend into getting his head blown off by walking into a mine isn''t funny, or effortlessly destroying monsters that would make you scream for your mother. Who sits down at their computer and thinks, "Hmmm... time to be scared out of my wits!" ? Most people are really looking for fun.

lntakitopi@aol.com
http://geocities.com/guanajam/

Well, I think you''re right, SHilbert!

What do you think:
Is Quake funny or scary?

I think it''s both.

Charlie McSow /Paradigm Game Design
www.rarebyte.de.st

... Funny, for me the DOOM was scary, even though I''m laffing for that game and graphics nowdays, but seven years ago there was nothing to laff...
Since then, the Half Life has been only game that caused me to freak out in 1st person shooters.

Hmm I like to see something different in my shooters. I''m still a big advocate of Hexen & Hexen 2, which added char classes, a super weapon that you had to put together from pieces, and rpg elements, like levels and skills.
Half-Life had a good story, won me over. Then again I love playing remakes of classic multiplayer mods like on Unreal Tournament.
They should really port the Siege mod to another game

Thinking about half-life, one thing I watch out for in FPSs are the system requirements. If the minimum is to high, I won''t get it. Even if my system can handle the minimum requirements, if they''re high, that means I''ll have to deal with graphic detail that makes Doom look good. Or the Frames-Per-Second will be way low.

E:cb woof!

For me, originality. Perhaps a very good story to with the game. You could make it very interesting. Also, original & useful weapons would be nice

Mariorox

the Cartoonist