After going through a heap of single player FPS games, I noticed that with most of them, my interest to the game faded as further I came. Is this a common opinion or am I alone at this? Some of the games I´m referring to, Return to castle wolfenstein, far cry, mohaa, call of duty, etc. With a lot of these games, there is a *wow*, and a *gasp* in the beginning, but the further you go the more boring it gets. I suppose the reason that those games get boring is because the gameplay is not addictive enough. If I would compare the old wolfenstein with the new one, I would rather play the old one (at single player ofcourse), then the new one, just because the gameplay is more addictive with the orginal. My conclusion would be then that newer games have better graphics, and more features, but lacks in addictive gameplay. The question witch, in my opinion, co-excist´s with this conclusion would be: what it is the big difference witch makes an old game (wolfenstein, doom, etc.) more addictive then the "great" FPS games of these days? ps. sorry for my english

If you were to play Wolfenstein 3D now, would you still find the gameplay so addictive?

One reason Wolf3D and Doom were so addictive, if that''s the right word, is that they were one of it''s kind when they were released. Now we get new 3d FPS every couple of weeks at least, and nothing is "new" enough. All of these games are more or less repetetive, Wolf3D and Doom more so than most of the current FPSs. One way of making the games more interesting is a better story and things to break the repetetiveness.

Ps.: I''m talking about single player games here...

I think that most "modern" FPS lack a lot of luster now for a number of reasons:

1. As we play more games, our standards raise and our attention-span for "something interesting" is much more demanding.

2. We were younger when these "classics" were released. Wolfenstein no doubt had more effect on me when I was younger than it would have had if I was much older in the same period.

3. The more complex a game becomes, the more likely certain elements will become under/over-bearing. This means that a simple game is much easier for designers to balance - and easier to avoid certain gameplay pitfalls that may lead to repetitive decision-making on the part of the player. Repetitive decision-making is not the fault of the player, but the designer. The player may choose something consistently, but that is an effect caused by unbalanced rewarding.

Perhaps you are just a bit nostalgic (I am sometimes).

Not only that, but a trend that I see in many FPS games today is that the various rewards for gameplay are actually visual. Maybe more gameplay-centric reward system would provide the variety that gamers are looking for. I appreciate the particle-effect body-part explosion systems nowadays, but I don''t continue to play in order to feed my need for violence and gore.

Doom had a great athmosphere and gameplay. The game basicly sent you to hell right away. I don''t know...maybe modern fps games do not really give enough new elements to the genre. It''s a bit like tetris doesn''t really get that much better with graphical updates or 3d.

I''m not sure why old games would be more addictive though. Perhaps they are more "gamey" with their crude graphics and lack unnecessary hollywood-imitating drama?

Well, actually that was the reason I started this topic.
I played wolf3d again, and still found it addictive
edit: in response to frostburn


[edited by - Phoenix1_3 on April 14, 2004 3:53:27 PM]

Another thing that I think of when it comes to Wolfenstein and the ol'' FPS is that they have fairly simple choices. You don''t have to puzzle-solve, platform-jump, outsmart enemy AI, duck for cover, etc. - you just see a guy, stand in the middle of a hallway, and hold the mouse button until your gun stops firing. Dodging never really became much of a significant element in Wolfenstein. If you wanted to kill one of the main bosses, you got the biggest gun you could find, chased him down, and prayed that you gun shot faster.

It was arcadey-fun

True, those old games where arcade like fun.
But to take the topic to a other level, while playing counterstrike: CZ (the single player version), I noticed that game, roughly said, sucked like hell. But still I continued playing it (heard the same thing, from other people). Why ? The gameplay was addictive!

I just want to say that right now I''m playing through doom and doom II using the doomsday engine. Yeah, the doomsday engine slightly improves the graphics, supporting higher resolutions, better textures, and a particle system, but that''s not why I''m enjoying the games so much. The nostalgia factor is not the reason, either, I didn''t play much of doom when it came out (my computer wasn''t good enough). The reason is these games were designed well- they were designed to be fun. Addicting? Not totally. It''s nothing like diablo II or everquest. The games are just plain fun, and that''s why I keep coming back for more.

I would play wolfenstein 3d, too, but I can''t get past not using the mouse and WASD keys to move. (to think, that''s all I used for years and years!

Every time I read posts like this people spout out the same replies about nostalgia etc. etc. I just want everyone to realize that they should probably think about it more... what made these games so good in their prime?

To reply to the original post.. I definitely agree with you. Wolfenstein kinda sucked in my oppinion because of a few reasons- for one, the nazis didn''t speak German. I couldn''t get over this.. it just didn''t make any sense at all. It''s part of what made the original so cool! Also, I didn''t feel I was driven by the story. In the original, (at least for the first episode) I was trying to escape castle Wolfenstein. Get me out of here! In the modern remake, I escaped the castle with ease, then my officers were like, hey, you''ve been trhough a whole lot, so we''re sending you back to nazi germany to take them on all by yourself! Screw you, guys! It wasn''t believable, and I didn''t feel like continuing.

I think another reason why games today aren''t very lasting is that they''re all very similar. Who here is sick of the WWII-era games? In all the games-- ALL of them-- I always get the feeling of been there, done that, shortly after the initial wow-factor of the new graphics engine. The original Unreal was awesome... what a beautiful and original world they made! Half-life... you''re in a huge underground facility in the middle of a terrible crisis... that''s great! System Shock (1 and 2)... it doesn''t get much cooler than these games.

I think that games today have lost their originality and driving stories, and are more focused on suckling all that they can get from a tried and true formula.

~Mark

I dunno. I played Halo for months. I played all the difficulty levels (never beat Truth & Reconciliation on Legendary, though), hunted down easter eggs, amused myself by only using a pistol or a needler, experimented with glitches, and started fights I knew I couldn''t win, just to see how well I''d do. But mostly, I just played through levels like "Attack of the Control Room" or "The Silent Cartographer" or "Halo" because I really, really enjoyed the gameplay.

The reason many FPS games get boring is because the designers try to mix up the gameplay toward the end. Generally, I find that these "spice-ups" come in two flavors: "Gameplay Shift" and "Crazy Hard".

"Gameplay Shift" is when they introduce some new enemy, or crazy vehicle, or a really obnoxious puzzle element that just makes you basically play a different game for a while. They try to trump your skills, or mitigate the effectiveness of your weapons, or otherwise mess with your gameplay experience. It generally doesn''t work, especially when they replace the old style with the new one. In Halo, I like fighting Covenant and Flood concurrently, but when the Covenant just disappear and the Flood take over, that''s a quantum leap in gameplay, and I don''t like it.

"Crazy Hard" is when they just throw so damn many enemies at you that you can''t possibly beat them fairly. You either have to play and play and play until you find some little glitch in the AI that lets you systematically exterminate the enemies without actually fighting them, or you have to cheat. Postal did this. The later levels in that game were so incredibly difficult that it was all I could do to stay alive long enough to type in the "skip level" cheat. I never saw more than a screen''s worth of the last three levels, and some of them still took three or four tries. That''s crazy. I know Postal isn''t an FPS, but you get the idea.

I think what made the original 3d shooters fun was their uniquesness they where new and every add feature was an original improvement. Now a days fps come out so often that they have become overused generally they all also use one of 2 or 3 major engines. The other big diffrence is the growth of the multiplayer market, alot of fps focus entirly on this. There is also a tendy to rush devoplement to finish the game before the competition can release a similar product.

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