Has Id Lost Its Way?
August 4th, 2007I was one of the minority who really liked Doom 3. The game was admittedly dark, but horror games are always dark - that’s sort of the point. And I’ll concede that I wish they had explored Doom’s themes in greater detail; the pacing and demonic environments of the original still represent highlights in my game-playing career. That said, Doom 3 wasn’t perfect and I’m not too impressed by the trailer for their newest FPS, Rage.
To a certain extent, I suspect id is the victim of its own success. Having essentially created the market for FPS titles, it’s been able to coast successfully since the early 90s. The industry more broadly has really only evolved in a handful of games, like Half-Life and Far Cry. But is it too much to ask that developers start giving us more than small improvements in basic game mechanics?
Most FPS games have really been “Doom plus.” Doom plus better graphics; Doom plus better control; Doom plus vehicles; Doom plus portals. Where are the genre-changing innovations that will let FPS makers feel as fresh as id used to?
I refuse to believe that everything has already been invented. But even the originators seem to be a little confused about where to go next.
Posted in Etc, Gear |
August 4th, 2007 at 11:40 am
First, I will guiltily admit that I actually liked Doom 3 as well. I have to say though, I worked HARD to like it. I turned the lights out in my office, closed the blinds and created a very ‘doom conducive” environment. I even sat intentionally close to my monitor to maximize any startling demon emergences.
But when I watched the trailer for Rage, I really felt like I had seen the game half a dozen times between quake/doom/motorstorm/etc. I was really unimpressed and thats even considering my affinity for id(Q3A still stands as the best MP FPS of all time).
Also, I will say, be careful with your wording. The original Doom didn’t see wide release until 93 and Doom 2 in 95. Q3A was released in 99 as a stellar product that lived a very full life. There was very little “coasting” by id during the 90s. They ruled computer FPS with an iron fist during the 90s. I think the coasting part started when they sat back and licensed the Q3 engine to everyone and then rereleased doom/doom2 on every platform knows to man and didn’t do much to push the genre forward for the last 6-8 years after Q3A.
August 4th, 2007 at 11:57 am
You wanna know why the FPS genre is so stagnant? How many times does anything that tries anything new succeed? The big money is in rehashing the same tired game over and over, because if you change anything, peopel complain about it bieng a gimmick.
In terms of gameplay…really what is so special about Crysis? Not much. But it looks so pretty that peopel pay far more attention to it.
August 4th, 2007 at 12:42 pm
MIyamoto could make the next FPS revolution, he just chooses not to.
August 4th, 2007 at 12:46 pm
btw, how is Shacknews as a great source of VG news? The attractive thing about it is that it doesn’t try to be funny, and thus come off as an arrogant smugface, it seems mostly information with a drop of humour here and there….thoughts?
“In terms of gameplay…really what is so special about Crysis? Not much. But it looks so pretty that peopel pay far more attention to it.”
I’m so happy that someone gets it. I’ve always yawned at the popular shooter titles of recent years like Gears, very few people willing to see the truth behind the candy coating.
Hey, what do you guys think about Bioshock?
August 4th, 2007 at 12:53 pm
I’m really looking forward to Bioshock. According to some early press I’ve seen, it could be the next great FPS. Maybe the “emergent gameplay” isn’t just a buzzword after all.
And Miyamoto sort of DID help create a new kind of FPS: Metroid Prime. Actually, he also apparently helped make the game Geist, which wasn’t very well-received at all.
August 4th, 2007 at 1:31 pm
As for Rage (now that I just watched the trailer), I’d say the trailer doesn’t really excite me, but that also doesn’t mean it couldn’t turn out well.
I personally feel like id’s strengths have always been just in engine-development, which is almost definitely where they make most of their money now. It seems that even id knows this now, as they named their new engine “id tech 5″ rather than the “Rage Engine” (and seemingly have started to rename their old engines “id tech 1″ through “id tech 4″.
Obviously, they made a revolutionary game in Doom (well, Wolf3d and then expanded upon in Doom), but I honestly thought Quake 1 and 2 kind of sucked and Quake 3 was pretty good since they just focused on multiplayer (I do own a copy of it after all), but in some ways overshadowed by Unreal Tournament. I liked the beginning of Doom 3, but then just completely lost interest.
But with all of these games they licensed their engine to tons of people who actually did make a few good ones (Half Life, for one). You can get lists of some of the better games if you Wiki the different engines (”Quake engine”, “Quake 2 Engine”, etc).
August 4th, 2007 at 6:27 pm
I wouldn’t count crysis as just another eye-popping candy coated shooter just yet. Far Cry was great, not just for how great it looked but the AI was superb. I remember the first time I played it and some guys I saw in front of me snuck around behind me and ambushed me. I about shit my pants. When they sent one guy down the middle and 2 flanking either side, I fell in love. Even now, everyone talks about “next gen” AI and I have yet to see anything that plays better than farcry AI (FEAR is pretty good too). Those guys at crytek know what they are doing.
August 4th, 2007 at 6:51 pm
cisco,
But does that alleviate the concern raised by
“Most FPS games have really been “Doom plus.” Doom plus better graphics; Doom plus better control; Doom plus vehicles; Doom plus portals. Where are the genre-changing innovations that will let FPS makers feel as fresh as id used to? “
August 4th, 2007 at 7:34 pm
To a certain extent, my “Doom plus” remark is a little unreasonable, because by definition an FPS would be within the existing genre rather something brand new.
So given that, I’d consider Far Cry a reasonable step forward, considering its move towards 1) much improved AI and 2) its focus on large-scale outdoor environments. The combination of those elements led to a very different experience from typical FPS games, which even when they’re located outside have tended to be more or less on-rails. I’m more suspicious of Crysis, which I’m guessing is going to really just be Far Cry 2 (albeit a very fun Far Cry 2).
August 4th, 2007 at 9:05 pm
“But does that alleviate the concern…….”
Well possibly.
For me, the reason I give the benefit of the doubt to crysis is not because crytek can make a great looking game (they can) or innovate a genre (they did), but because they think about the genre on a deeper level than most developers. Even if there is nothing revolutionary about crysis, I HOPE they bring the same thoughtful level design and strategic interaction with your environment that characterized farcry. I liked that farcry made me actually “get in the game” more than most fps games that just challenge you to move quickly and fire accurately. You really had to concern yourself with how you approached certain areas, there was a strategic element, even without rainbow six style “tactics”. I just hope crysis takes that and pushes it to the next level. Who knows, maybe it will suck ass. We’ll see.
August 5th, 2007 at 9:32 am
I’ve been looking forward to Bioshock for several months, and have had it preordered for two. I think it’s gonna be great.
I don’t think it’s fair to call the FPS genre “Doom Plus.” There have been a lot of important advances in the genre. Some of them are “under the hood,” so to speak, but they’re there. Some examples:
- The Doom engine did not allow for multiple levels — that is, one could not design a level with two rooms that occupied the same two-dimensional space but were at different heights. Later engines like the Build engine changed that.
- Half-Life made “real” stories important. Even if its own wasn’t particularly impressive, it was worlds better than Doom’s inane alien hell nonsense, which is barely even worth noticing.
- Doom’s multiplayer component was identical to its single-player component except that instead of shooting monsters you shot other players. Later FPS games changed all that. They implemented separate maps for multiplayer games, new gametypes besides “kill everything.” Capture The Flag in particular is now a huge mainstay of the genre, and several games have implemented goal-oriented modes like Unreal Tournament’s “Assault” mode. There are even multiplayer-focused entire games (Counterstrike, Tribes and Shadowrun to name a few).
- More recent games like Gears of War implemented long-overdue mechanics changes, like a cover system, that are rapidly becoming standard fare.
Those are just a few of the advances. All modern FPS games have in common with Doom is that you’re shooting things. It may not be the most innovative genre around, but it’s far from stagnant.
August 5th, 2007 at 12:05 pm
Just a quick thing:
Has everyone already forgotten that Gears of War was a 3rd-person shooter (perhaps a “3PS”?) and not a FPS? I realize that it works similarly in a lot of ways, but there are some important differences.
August 5th, 2007 at 2:11 pm
Jeff,
It’s still a gray-monochrome shooter to most people.
August 5th, 2007 at 3:03 pm
I’m with jeff, Gears, is not an FPS and should not be compared to them. It’s closer to an adventure game in almost every way. As for Robs comments, most of what your describing was done in Quake which was essentially the next phase of doom. I agree that FPS are not just doom-plus though.
August 5th, 2007 at 3:49 pm
I’m aware that Gears is a third-person shooter, but I think some comparisons at least are warranted, as first- and third-person shooters are subcategories of the same genre.
used cisco:
- CTF was popularized by Quake, but according to Wikipedia, Rise of the Triad was the first to feature a CTF mode. ROTT had a number of game modes outside straight deathmatch, in fact. Quake was the first big CTF vehicle primarily as a function of its release time — it was around the time of Quake’s release that network gaming became mainstream-feasible.
- Duke Nukem 3D, featuring the Build engine, was released six months prior to Quake, and permitted multilevel rooms.
- Please tell me you don’t seriously consider Quake’s story engrossing in any way.
- I can’t think of any new game mechanics introduced in Quake. At least, vanilla Quake — there was a very active modding community.
Quake popularized a lot of elements but created very few.
August 5th, 2007 at 5:35 pm
Yeah, you’re right. Duke Nuke’m was famous for it’s story. What was I thinking?
August 5th, 2007 at 6:16 pm
I didn’t cite Duke3D’s story. I cited Half-Life’s, among others, and Duke3D’s engine. What are you on about?
August 5th, 2007 at 7:50 pm
What I’m on about?
“- CTF was popularized by Quake, but according to Wikipedia, Rise of the Triad was the first to feature a CTF mode.”
Rise of the what? Now you’re quoting Wikipedia on me?
I don’t get what you’re trying to prove. You’ve cited so many games, the entire meaning is lost. It just sounds like you’re out to bash on doom/quake, somehow saying they didn’t bring anything to the table (and apparently apogee is god), which is fine, but whats the point in all this wikipedia-ing you’re doing? Gears still isn’t an FPS.
In fact, according to your logic, one should discount Gears “long overdue” cover system you credit them with implementing since killswitch had a nearly identical mechanic THREE years before gears. How is a mechanic thats been around for 3 years “long overdue”? Hell, James Bond everything or nothing had a very similar mechanic nearly 3 years prior to gears as well. Surely you found that on wikipedia somewhere.
August 5th, 2007 at 9:39 pm
I could try to dig out my ROTT CD if you like, but I remember the Capture The Triad mode, so I don’t think that’s necessary.
Are you saying that you’ve never heard of Rise of the Triad? That’s a pretty common name if you’re familiar with FPS history. It was a 1995 shooter made by 3D Realms. Their page on it is here:
http://www.3drealms.com/rott/
Sorry you’re unfamiliar with it, but it’s not a niche name and you don’t get to discount it.
I love Doom. I’ve played tons of versions over the years, starting with the first one on 3.5″ diskettes. I’m not trying to bash it at all. I’m just trying to demonstrate that the genre hasn’t stagnated since then by pointing out innovations in later games.
I didn’t claim that Gears invented the cover system, although the earliest I was aware of was the original Ghost Recon: Advance Warfighter, since I didn’t play killswitch. I said that “recent games like Gears” have implemented them. But my point is that that is another advancement in the genre since Doom. I don’t really care what game did it first if it wasn’t that one. It could be Super Balloon Inflater 4 for all I care as long as it was made after ‘93.
My answer to your post above was to combat your assertion that Quake was the game that made all these innovations, and that Quake was essentially Doom 1.5 (well, 2.5). Your claim suggests a lack of progress in the genre since 1993 and I disagreed. That’s all.
August 5th, 2007 at 10:54 pm
“But my point is that that is another advancement in the genre since Doom. ”
No, the cover system is gears is not an FPS advancement. Gears is not an FPS. Please stop.
August 6th, 2007 at 6:01 am
I acknowledged this in my first post in this thread and asserted that some comparisons were justified because they were related–
You know what? Forget it.
August 6th, 2007 at 6:03 am
Actually, now that I think about it, Rainbow Six: Vegas would like a word with you, at the very least.
kill.switch is apparently a third-person shooter as well, and if you’re going to claim that point, I’m certainly going to claim the Gears one.
What about the remainder of my points? Do you just ignore them when you don’t have a valid response?
August 6th, 2007 at 10:32 am
OK… I think this thread has gone about as far as we can take it.
August 6th, 2007 at 11:28 am
*laughing uncontrollably*