h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: Computer Games - First-Person Shooters - A3539090
Author: Mr. Dreadful, B.El.L (Keeper of Flawed Logic, the English Civil War and Heavy Metal... Ask Mr. Dreadful: A3473435) - U651852

Well, this is ready in theory... Any comments?

(why am I asking? This is PR.. of course there'll be comments)

WHY didn't I notice this in WW!? All the descriptions of what happens in the games etc need to be in present tense. This is because I can still pick up a copy of the game and do those exact things now. So for example...

"The premise of Doom was simple yet compelling:"
The premise of Doom is simple yet compelling

"Aside from a few problems with the graphics and AI it was pretty realistic; guards sounded alarms when they saw you and only the occasional moron ended up running around in circles."
Aside from a few problems with the graphics and AI it is pretty realistic; guards sound alarms when they see you and only the occasional moron ends up running around in circles.

There aren't too many incidents of it but the tense thing definitely needs changing.

Kats

PS I'm SO tempted to spark the violence/violent games argument myself, but I'd have to argue and defend and it would get confusing.

You'll have to check your spellings. In particular check Wolfenstien vs Wolfenstein.

It's a long time since I played Quake, but the thing I remember about it is that it was based on fantasy, with knights in armour, and lots of swords instead of guns.

Of course, Quake II was back to the guns.

I think you'll to provide some details about the difference between sprites and polygon-based characters. You use the terms without explanation at the moment, and not everybody understands the details of computer graphics.

Okay, here goes...

'Quake was to be a departure from the usual FPS in that it was to be fantasy rather than sci-fi.'

According to 'Masters of Doom', it wasn't always even envisaged as a fantasy FPS. Romero's visions -- not necessarily terribly coherent ones -- were loosely based on a D&D campaign the is staff had played in their spare time (with John Carmack as DM). Quite what he envisaged I'm not sure, and I'm not sure anyine else was either; at any rate te project stalled until it turned into a sci-fi FPS. I'll check the book at some point and see exactly what it says.

Moreover, wasn't Heretic pre-Quake? I think Hexen as well.

'not only was Quake the first (succesful) 'true' 3D game, but it featured polygon-based characters rather than sprites'

Isn't this tautologous? Unless you mean 'true 3D' as in 'being able to look up and down' -- but Duke 3D's Build engine oould do that.

'Half-Life was the first true innovation in the genre since Quake came out.'

I know there's an entire Entry on it, but with a sentence like that stating how it was innovative would seem logical.

'it is often said that multiplayer can make or break a game'

It is? It can certainly make one, but there are still games (though not necessarily FPSs) that are single-player only and none the worse for it.

'Putting additional texturing onto flat surfaces.'

'Additional texturing' could in principle cover decals. The point about bump mapping is that it makes surfaces look bumpy, not smooth.

'(and possibly apocryphal)'

That's quite an accusation...

'Although nowhere near as advanced as had been promised'

Or rather, without all the promised features; no hydra, in particular. I don't recall any technical promises that weren't kept; though admittedly I wasn't keeping very thorough tabs on the development process.

Other points... Something more on Deathmatch: game styles like CTF, and the Q3vUT argument. Currently the Deathmatch-only FPSs are barely covered; they aren't even mentioned by name.

Sometimes the basic core of the FPS is combined with other game styles: stealth in Thief, RPG-esque exploration and stat-based character development in Deus Ex (A486209). The second paragraph could be given more specific detail in this respect.

One of Goldeneye's claims to fame is the sniper rifle. MDK was the first game to have one but Goldeneye was the first FPS to incorporate it.

For HL2, 'the physics were better' doesn't quite express how Havok was incorporated into the game: throwing furniture at headcrabs, working out that bouyant containers were needed to push that ramp up...

My final feeling is that the historical overview style is somewhat infected by review style; but this post is long enough... Such is PR, especially with Entries of such scope.

Gnomon -- Quake had a mixture of fantasy and sci-fi levels, but the weapons were all guns (and grenades) apart from the axe. It was Hexen II (Quake engine) that was heavily fantasy-based.

But I think the guys you were fighting against were armed with swords.

The Knight and Death Knight, but not the Grunt and Enforcer:

http://quakezone.dooley.ca/quake_a.htm

Actually, that's something else for the wish list: some choice external links. Plenty to choose from...


I checked Masters of Doom, and frankly it's not at all clear what Romero expected Quake to look like:

'The idea came straight out of their old Dungeons and Dragons games; Quake was the character Carmack had invented [so it appears I was wrong about his being Romero's -- RFJS__ ] who possessed a powerful hammer, capable of destroying buildings, as well as a supernatural conjuring object, Hellgate Cube, floating above his head. id had first worked on a Quake game back in the early Commander Keen days but gave up because they felt the technology was not yet powerful enought to do their idea justice. Now, Carmack said, the time had come. The technology was ready to make the most convincingly immersive 3D experience yet, the first fast-action, first-person game to support groups of players competing together over the Internet. ...

'Romero exploded with ideas. "A full 3D engine!" he said. "Hell, we can have forests and stuff... The artifact we talked about in Keen -- the hammer of thunderbolts -- that's going to be your main weapon in Quake. And you're going to have this transdimensional artifact, the Hellgate Cube, a cube that orbits your head, and it will just do things! It'll have its own personality and its own programming to where you feel like it's a different entity; it'll attack people if you're good to it, if you're whacking on someone and taking damage off someone, then the cube feeds off pain basically in a certain distance around it. So the more pain you do the happier the cube is, so it will start doing things for you, it will heal you when you'er screwed up or it will teleport you somwehere else. And if you don't fight for a long time, it'll start damaging you or it wuold take off and maybe it'll come back one day."'

'When pushed at one point to create a design document for Quake, [Romero] responded with a two-page sketch.'

'With [John] Carmack still immersed in making his engine, the rest of the company felt like they had nothing tangible to pursue. The artists... were tired of churning out all the fantasy textures without a clear plan. ... Beyond the basic concept of a fantasy game and a big hammer weapon, there wasn't much to go on.'

'Everyone concurred that the game was taking forever. There was no cohesive plan. American McGee fainally made the inevitable suggestion to abandon Romero's ambitious idea of a hand-to hand combat game for something more simple. "I think it will be better," he said, "if we make a game with rocket launchers and stuff."'

So first-person, but not necessarily a first-person _shooter_. If anyone really knows.

In the Halo2 section you say about enemies: "Some are new, and some are familiar: the Flood is back, naturally, and is still compellingly gross and pervasive." But you never mention the Flood in the section about Halo, so the reader who doesn't know anything about Halo would be lost. Explaining the Flood in the Halo section would give away part of the plot. Perhaps it would be best to remove that line altogether.

Nice entry! I think it could benefit from a bit more research and writing, IMHO. My one realy complaint is the exclusion of some other innovative or important FPS games besides the ones you have (great as they are!).

I think some other older FPS games should get a mention too, especially Battlezone - I must have played that game 4 hours a day back in my early teens! Man - now I feel old.

How about mentioning Descent? It was released in 1995 I think, and was the first FPS that I recall where one could move in all 3 dimensions - it used to give me a headache and make me mildly nauseous at first, especially if I'd play it for too long and then try to stop and do homework or ride my bike to class while at college.

No mention of the large-scale FPS like Battlefield 1942 or its predecessor, PlanetSide, or their ancestor Starsiege? I admit to only having some limited experience with these large scale FPS games myself, but I have friends that used to play PlanetSide religiously and have now gone on to become utterly addicted to Battlefield 1942 - a game I enjoy but don't have time to become properly addicted. It seems this should at least get a little more attention.

How about a quick nod to games like Metroid Prime that blend the shooter aspect with a healthy dose of exploring? You mention Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, but I think Metroid Prime is an even better example of this sort of hybrid genre game. If you're going to mention games that are FPS spin-offs/hybrids, I think MP should be in there as well as a couple others.

I really think the 2004 game released by Crytek called Far Cry needs to be mentioned. It is among the first of the new generation of FPS games and belongs up there with Doom3, HL-2, and Halo-2. Its great innovation was the gigantic, free-roaming maps that allowed for a largely non-linear, multi-option approach to getting through levels, and an AI that was unmatched before hand - indeed, it's better in some respects than even the AI in HL-2. IIRC, its maps were based on a flight simulator. It had a small but loyal following in 2004-5, pre Doom3 and HL-2. It's actually my own personal favorite FPS outside of HL-2.

At least one source (Wikipedia, actually) says that Maze War and Spasim are games developed in the early-mid 1970s and can lay claim to "First FPS" honors. In fact, they reference Maze War's developer's slightly faulty memory as to exactly when he developed it!

See:
http://www.digibarn.com/history/04-VCF7-MazeWar/stories/colley.html

- JD

What I'd like to know is, does Lara Croft Tomb Raider qualify as a First Person Shooter, or is she something different just because your view has moved three feet back. You still control one character who shoots things and see what she sees.

The thing with the paragraphs for Halo and Halo 2 is that they weren't actually written by me (nor were they even written by the same person), which is why there are discrepencies.

Tomb Raider is a third-person adventure/shooter.

I'll continue working on this Entry, then.

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Just basing what I said on what was hyped about it at the time.

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To be honest, I can’t remember, I’ll look into it.

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Errr… Okay, that sentence didn’t really make sense did it. I meant ‘true 3D’ as in there were bridges, and rooms above rooms and you could see what was in the room below you. Build’s 3D was sprite based and technicallt ROTT got there first on both that and looking up and down… but neither game was perticularly ground-breaking so they don’t get a paragraph.

<<'it is often said that multiplayer can make or break a game'
It is? It can certainly make one, but there are still games (though not necessarily FPSs) that are single-player only and none the worse for it.>>
I know. But people make such a fuss when a game comes out that has rubbish (or no) multi-player that I feel it’s a valid point.

<<'(and possibly apocryphal)'
That's quite an accusation...>>
Hey, I ain’t the first person to say it. What they gonna do, sue me?

<<'Although nowhere near as advanced as had been promised'
Or rather, without all the promised features; no hydra, in particular. I don't recall any technical promises that weren't kept; though admittedly I wasn't keeping very thorough tabs on the development process.>>
That’s what I meant… I’ll change that.

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Will do, although I’m really trying to concentrate on ‘vanilla’ FPSs.

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Never actually played GoldenEye myself.

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Unfortunately some of the paragraphs weren’t written by me as I’d ran out of steam with this Entry and needed help. I've done my best to keep everything cohesive but it's difficult not to 'review' something you're writing about.

Hi there, MrD
So much for the theory that we'd finished

This is kind of appropriate though, innit? If I were you, I'd just stand my ground and shoot everything in sight

That's not the best way to get through Peer Review. There'd be no scouts left to pick it.

Oh well Pin and I would still be here! Although I doubt we can pick something we wrote

You haven't done the things that needed chaaaannnggggiinnnngggg Mr D!

Give me a chance, Kat... I'm a busy boy today.

*Pumps shotgun*

I'd agree about dropping the flood reference to Halo 2, the appearance of the Flood is a surprise in the plotline and it is a major spoiler to anyone unfamiliar with the series if you mention it.

One game that I would add to the list mentions is Serious Sam. SS was made by croteam in Croatia, and it is a highly entertaining and beautiful engine. The game was first released as a proof-of-concept, but the people who found it fell in love with it and then a full game was release with beautiful Egyptian themed locations. The ability to interact (to a degree) with your surroundings was a departure for me: blowing apart trees and statues.

This game was never going to be a major competitor to the Dooms and Halos on the market, but did find a nich in budget gaming when it was released in the US at $20 as compared to the $60 tag associated with the big boys.

A sequel was created and is little more than extra levels for the engine.

Serious Sam has some genuinely funny moments in the game. The character that you control has some one liners at various points in the game and in the second episode there is a neat easter egg where you find a payphone booth and call your agent in Vegas.

Considering the number of people who found a good game for a small price, I think that a mention of the game might be in order.

I can see if I can find a link to a review I wrote about the game on it's release.

I heartily second this about Serious Sam. I can't believe I'd forgotten it, to be honest! I sure loved playing it. So many beautiful looking, wide open environments - only to be spoiled by, it seems, billions of alien enemies and monsters bent on killing you. Mow 'em all down, is your only mission. A real "mindless shooter" but so much fun, SS is the only game in existence whereby you can fire a cannon that (somehow) shoots depleted uranium cannonballs that must weigh in excess of 1000 times the players' mass. It's got to be seen and played to appreciate fully! I loved playing that game, though how one can actually complete it on anything by "tourist" mode without help from friends in the cooperative mode is beyond me. The gameplay was much like Doom2 in the number of monsters/enemies that came at you, but the graphics and speed of play were on par with the latest generation of FPS games.

Oh yeah, there are quite a few moments, as Marv says, of genuine amusement to be had from the character's verbal jibes/comments.

- JD

The site that I used to write game reviews for is no longer around, so I can't dig up the old review I did for it. SS is all the humour of Duke Nukem coupled with the huge assault of baddies like Doom. Tons and tons od baddies are what you have to look forward to in this game. Two friends and I played the entire game through on a medium diffuiculty over the course of about 12 hours straight. I have never completed it in the hardest settings.

Multi play in SS was fun as well with the insane jump pads that would vault you clear across some enormous maps. The skill of the kill in that game was hitting someone on those jumps or while you were mid air after hitting one of those jumps.

Though given that it is by your own admission a 'niche' game, possibly what historical importance it has would be more to do with the survival of the mindless shooter, or something.

Of course, if Mr. Dreadful doesn't decide to include it, you could always try writing a specific Entry on it.