Realistic War FPS

Dauntless · 2003-05-27T21:45:06

After my Vietcong post and watching the trailer to Call of Duty, and looking at MOH:Rising Sun, and Men of Valor:Vietnam, it seems very obvious that war shooters finally seem to have come of age. Black Hawk Down is another realistic (as opposed to Quake/UT style FPS gaming) war based FPS that has come out recently. Also, Hidden and Dangerous 2, and probably a few other titles I''m forgetting are around the corner. Ghost Recon and Operation Flashpoint were of cource realistic war based FPS also, but they were both fictional scenarios. But what inspired me to write this post was seeing something very simple in the Call of Duty trailer....a soldier dragging a wounded man out of the line of fire. What a great idea. Not just in terms of gameplay but introducing yet another added level of realism and more importantly, a dose of humanity into gaming. After visiting the Vietcong forums fairly regularly, I''ve definitely noticed a very strong desire amongst the people there for more realistic war-based first person gaming. And not just the Vietnam era, but even eras like the Korean War, and even WWI. But a large number are crying out for more realism. Surprisingly, quite a few even don''t mind if guns are imbalanced as long as realistically the guns really were that way. For example, in Vietcong, some people complain that the VC weapons are useless except for the Degaterev and the AK47 (I found the SKS useful, and the PPS43 wasn''t bad)...and in a way they are right. For the most part American weapons were superior (except ironically for the M16...and Vietcong even models the M16 accurately in that it can only hold 18 instead of 20 rounds since the original springs in the clips could deform easily). But what I''d really like to see is a healthy dose of humanity along with realism injected into future war-based FPS games. The scene of the soldier dragging a wounded soldier is very powerful, and hearing cries of "medic" and having to get to them is very moving. While reading some comments about the Men of Valor game, the lead designer said that he just wanted to showcase that these were ordinary men, often drafted into service, who had to perform under extraordinary circumstances. These weren''t your best of the best cream of the crop guys....just guys like you and me who had to do what they had to do under extreme situations. The other thing I liked about Men of Valor that the designer was doing was that your teammates can die...but if you protect them, they live and gain experience. While there''s obviously the advantage of having more experienced people on your side, hopefully seeing a "friend" die, will be saddening. So, I say enough of the Horror, Sci-fi, and Spec Ops shooters that have previously flooded the market. It''s time to look at a new sub-genre, the realistic history based shooter. They that can give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety. - Benjamin Franklin

Game Design and Theory Game Design

Started by Dauntless May 22, 2003 10:07 PM

10 comments, last by Dauntless 21 years, 8 months ago

Dauntless

Author

314

May 27, 2003 09:33 PM

Yeah, I got that email Oluseyi, you didn''t get my reply? Hold on, I''ll email ya back

The world has achieved brilliance without wisdom, power without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war than we know about peace, more about killing than we know about living. We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the Sermon on the Mount." - General Omar Bradley

Dauntless

Author

314

May 27, 2003 09:45 PM

It''s possible to make a more realistic wargame that makes it a tad harder to kill the character, but still relatively easy if he does some stupid things. Think about it, most American wars had casualties rates of about 1 in 30 for dead if that high (about 1.5 million Americans served in Vietnam, and about 58,000 died, and that''s about par for the course).

Yes, wars are deadly, but I think a game can be made in such a way as to make a player fear how easy it is to die, but not kill him off quite so easily. Conversely, I think it''s way too easy for players to kill enemies. I think a good rule of thumb is it should take about 20 bullets to hit an enemy...if that few. Statistically speaking, that''s already very good hit ratios.

The world has achieved brilliance without wisdom, power without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war than we know about peace, more about killing than we know about living. We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the Sermon on the Mount." - General Omar Bradley

Realistic War FPS

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Realistic War FPS

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