Clipse
12-26-2007, 04:59 PM
10) Fully deformable environments
Physics isn’t new to multiplayer games, but it’s generally limited to certain obvious objects: boxes, exploding cars, bright red barrels that scream: “Shoot me and I’ll totally explode, bitch!” Impotent explosions and casually tumbling debris isn’t enough to satiate our urge for destruction - we want to smash the walls from their foundations.
We’re sure there are complex reasons why this kind of interactivity is difficult in a multiplayer setting, but we’re far too lazy to worry about “variable arrays” and all that - we simply want to absolutely destroy everything in a level, leaving only the smoldering bodies of our downed opponents behind at the end of each match. Some developers have come close, but we’re still not quite feeling it. Perhaps upcoming Fracture’s terrain deformation will give us our fix.
9) 180-degree turn
Incredibly physically fit super-soldiers apparently move about like elderly women carrying walkers (the kind with tennis balls jammed onto the ends). To turn around, they’ve got to make tiny baby steps around central pivots.
Even if we up the sensitivity on our mice or analog sticks so that the gentlest twitches send us into over-enthusiastic pirouettes, it doesn’t make sense. Lost Planet rectified this with a quick turn button - that’s all we’re asking for.
8) Peripheral vision
Perhaps our soldier alter-egos are all tripping on acid - for some reason we’re almost always suffering from serious tunnel vision. Even a hallucinatory purple elephant would escape our detection if it were standing more than sixty degrees to the left or right of us, and as a result we all act like spooked race horses with blinders on, jumping around and spinning in circles at the first sound of footsteps.
The third-person perspective takes care of the problem to some extent, but, of course, removes the visceral first-person POV that gives games like CoD 4 much of their intensity. Widescreen TVs help a bit, but still don’t quite capture an actual human’s field of vision and spatial awareness. One solution is to extend the viewing area with a fisheye effect.
7) Free running
It may not be very realistic to give every player the coordination of a Cirque du Soleil acrobat, but we’ve played Assassin’s Creed and we know what we want. Rather than casually climbing over objects like no one is firing bullets at our faces, we want to take running leaps... especially through glass windows, there’s nothing cooler than jumping through a glass window.
Let us scale walls and climb to places we’d normally find unreachable. We’ll just scour the game for glitches that allow us to access these forbidden hiding spots anyway, so why not make a feature out of it?
6) No invisible barriers
Why is it that we can’t crawl under certain cars and busses, or jump over little piles of rubble? Were our soldier counterparts scarfing down rations while we were in the game lobby? If we want to lie under debris and bite people’s ankles with our AK-47s, then let us. Someone will toss a grenade at us eventually.
5) Doors that work
Doors, we used to have so many doors, and now they’ve all been nailed shut or propped open and somehow rendered immobile. Several recent multiplayer shooters have done away with the concept of the hinge, and what for? Doors are immensely useful multiplayer tools. Shut one behind you and go to the window to pick off a few helmets, and at the slightest creak, spin around and whip out your pistol to bring down the intruder. With no doors, there is no privacy, and we like privacy when we’re lining up perfect headshots.
4) Modern urban settings
Most will agree that it’s about time for non-sci-fi shooters to move away from WWII and Vietnam. Unfortunately, it seems that the old standbys have been replaced with war-torn Middle Eastern cities and abandoned warehouses. Yippee.
Why can’t we throw down in the middle of San Francisco, New York, London or Paris? Make up a fake war (no terrorists, please, they’re getting tired faster than Nazis) and let us loose in our own neighborhoods. Worry about what Jack Thompson will say later.
What’s that you say - “Rainbow Six: Vegas?” Look, we’re just trying to make a point here. Shoo.
3) Portals
Look, Valve, we don’t care if it turns out to be the crappiest multiplayer game ever made, just put out a multiplayer version of Portal, and we will play it. Please?
2) Get abstract
Here’s an idea for a new shooter: Tibetan mantras reverberate through Escher-esque levels while Akira-style light trails spew out of nifty hover boards which players maneuver while firing sound waves at each other. Oh, and the level slowly rearranges itself according to the pitch and tone of the aforementioned chanting. And there are grappling hooks and monkeys, somehow.
Would it be fun?
Well, maybe, but it’s only vaguely a “shooter” and it’s risky, for sure. Our somewhat fasciculus example aside (we’re not saying that every developer should run out and start making multiplayer versions of Rez), we’d be open to a little more unobstructed, even rash creativity in shooters.
1) Civilians
We want our ideal urban, deformable, climbable, door-filled battlefields to be populated with semi-clueless civilians for some Bourne-style action.
A little Source engine game called The Ship (http://www.theshiponline.com/), which was originally a Half-Life 1 mod, has done something vaguely similar. The game is set on cruise ships (fancy that) and each player is given the name of another player who he must murder whilst avoiding detection by security as well as death by the hand of his own stalker. While it does throw some stealth and RPG elements into the online FPS mix, we envision a slightly different set up.
Source: Games Radar (http://www.gamesradar.com/gb/xbox360/game/news/article.jsp?sectionId=1006&articleId=20071218152023774049&releaseId=20060321132945404017)
Physics isn’t new to multiplayer games, but it’s generally limited to certain obvious objects: boxes, exploding cars, bright red barrels that scream: “Shoot me and I’ll totally explode, bitch!” Impotent explosions and casually tumbling debris isn’t enough to satiate our urge for destruction - we want to smash the walls from their foundations.
We’re sure there are complex reasons why this kind of interactivity is difficult in a multiplayer setting, but we’re far too lazy to worry about “variable arrays” and all that - we simply want to absolutely destroy everything in a level, leaving only the smoldering bodies of our downed opponents behind at the end of each match. Some developers have come close, but we’re still not quite feeling it. Perhaps upcoming Fracture’s terrain deformation will give us our fix.
9) 180-degree turn
Incredibly physically fit super-soldiers apparently move about like elderly women carrying walkers (the kind with tennis balls jammed onto the ends). To turn around, they’ve got to make tiny baby steps around central pivots.
Even if we up the sensitivity on our mice or analog sticks so that the gentlest twitches send us into over-enthusiastic pirouettes, it doesn’t make sense. Lost Planet rectified this with a quick turn button - that’s all we’re asking for.
8) Peripheral vision
Perhaps our soldier alter-egos are all tripping on acid - for some reason we’re almost always suffering from serious tunnel vision. Even a hallucinatory purple elephant would escape our detection if it were standing more than sixty degrees to the left or right of us, and as a result we all act like spooked race horses with blinders on, jumping around and spinning in circles at the first sound of footsteps.
The third-person perspective takes care of the problem to some extent, but, of course, removes the visceral first-person POV that gives games like CoD 4 much of their intensity. Widescreen TVs help a bit, but still don’t quite capture an actual human’s field of vision and spatial awareness. One solution is to extend the viewing area with a fisheye effect.
7) Free running
It may not be very realistic to give every player the coordination of a Cirque du Soleil acrobat, but we’ve played Assassin’s Creed and we know what we want. Rather than casually climbing over objects like no one is firing bullets at our faces, we want to take running leaps... especially through glass windows, there’s nothing cooler than jumping through a glass window.
Let us scale walls and climb to places we’d normally find unreachable. We’ll just scour the game for glitches that allow us to access these forbidden hiding spots anyway, so why not make a feature out of it?
6) No invisible barriers
Why is it that we can’t crawl under certain cars and busses, or jump over little piles of rubble? Were our soldier counterparts scarfing down rations while we were in the game lobby? If we want to lie under debris and bite people’s ankles with our AK-47s, then let us. Someone will toss a grenade at us eventually.
5) Doors that work
Doors, we used to have so many doors, and now they’ve all been nailed shut or propped open and somehow rendered immobile. Several recent multiplayer shooters have done away with the concept of the hinge, and what for? Doors are immensely useful multiplayer tools. Shut one behind you and go to the window to pick off a few helmets, and at the slightest creak, spin around and whip out your pistol to bring down the intruder. With no doors, there is no privacy, and we like privacy when we’re lining up perfect headshots.
4) Modern urban settings
Most will agree that it’s about time for non-sci-fi shooters to move away from WWII and Vietnam. Unfortunately, it seems that the old standbys have been replaced with war-torn Middle Eastern cities and abandoned warehouses. Yippee.
Why can’t we throw down in the middle of San Francisco, New York, London or Paris? Make up a fake war (no terrorists, please, they’re getting tired faster than Nazis) and let us loose in our own neighborhoods. Worry about what Jack Thompson will say later.
What’s that you say - “Rainbow Six: Vegas?” Look, we’re just trying to make a point here. Shoo.
3) Portals
Look, Valve, we don’t care if it turns out to be the crappiest multiplayer game ever made, just put out a multiplayer version of Portal, and we will play it. Please?
2) Get abstract
Here’s an idea for a new shooter: Tibetan mantras reverberate through Escher-esque levels while Akira-style light trails spew out of nifty hover boards which players maneuver while firing sound waves at each other. Oh, and the level slowly rearranges itself according to the pitch and tone of the aforementioned chanting. And there are grappling hooks and monkeys, somehow.
Would it be fun?
Well, maybe, but it’s only vaguely a “shooter” and it’s risky, for sure. Our somewhat fasciculus example aside (we’re not saying that every developer should run out and start making multiplayer versions of Rez), we’d be open to a little more unobstructed, even rash creativity in shooters.
1) Civilians
We want our ideal urban, deformable, climbable, door-filled battlefields to be populated with semi-clueless civilians for some Bourne-style action.
A little Source engine game called The Ship (http://www.theshiponline.com/), which was originally a Half-Life 1 mod, has done something vaguely similar. The game is set on cruise ships (fancy that) and each player is given the name of another player who he must murder whilst avoiding detection by security as well as death by the hand of his own stalker. While it does throw some stealth and RPG elements into the online FPS mix, we envision a slightly different set up.
Source: Games Radar (http://www.gamesradar.com/gb/xbox360/game/news/article.jsp?sectionId=1006&articleId=20071218152023774049&releaseId=20060321132945404017)