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Has anyone else noticed the trend among FPS games to have single-path
designs rather than open worlds?
The thought struck me lately while playing through Doom 3 and Timesplitters
3. Both of these games employ the fixed-path world type, where it is
impossible to go the wrong way due to locked doors, fire, fallen trees or
whatever. But their predecessors didn't.
Doom and Quake both offered up exploration in addition to shooting, and you
could complete their levels without visiting every room, get lost,
etc--everything you can do when you're allowed to go anywhere. The
Timesplitters series is supposed to be the successor to Goldeneye, which
offered open-world, objective-based gameplay. Those objectives sometimes
required criss-crossing the level. Timesplitters has objectives, but you're
not required to think much to accomplish them, simply because you'll do them
almost automatically as you're herded through the level.
Half-Life 2, Halo 2, Turok: Evolution and other games are all guilty of this
as well, even though in some cases their predecessors weren't. Even
Resident Evil 4, offered up as more shooter-like, dropped the open world
design of its franchise in favor of a fixed-path, although there was some
exploration (buildings or small side rooms, picking up items) along the way.
Have we become so stupid, or so lazy, that we can't be bothered to look
around or find our way? Do we just want to shoot and not think? Metroid
Prime 2 took a lot of criticism for "backtracking"--but it has an open world
design, not a corridor design like the rest of these games. Should it have
been another game that forces you to go in a single direction? Is that what
we want?
I hope not--and the best-selling games of this generation (GTA series)
celebrate freedom. But in the shooter genre, the opposite is happening.
And even some Adventure games, a genre based on exploration, have had
fixed-path entries lately, like Sphinx, Zelda 4 Swords, and Prince of
Persia.
I think that this is the wrong direction to go for the FPS genre (no pun
intended).
Does anyone else think that these games would have been better for the
addition of a little free movement and exploration? That "herding" the
player by giving him objectives and incentives is better than limiting his
movement?
Didn't Doom 3 feel like a walk down a single hallway, whereas the original
Doom felt like working your way from the front to the back of Hell?
Is this the reason that Timesplitters has never lived up to its Goldeneye
legacy?
I'd like to hear some opinions. It'd be a fresh change from PSP flame
threads (PS2 group), Xbox 360 launch announcements (Xbox group), and
crickets chirping (GC group).
Has anyone else noticed the trend among FPS games to have single-path
designs rather than open worlds?
The thought struck me lately while playing through Doom 3 and Timesplitters
3. Both of these games employ the fixed-path world type, where it is
impossible to go the wrong way due to locked doors, fire, fallen trees or
whatever. But their predecessors didn't.
Doom and Quake both offered up exploration in addition to shooting, and you
could complete their levels without visiting every room, get lost,
etc--everything you can do when you're allowed to go anywhere. The
Timesplitters series is supposed to be the successor to Goldeneye, which
offered open-world, objective-based gameplay. Those objectives sometimes
required criss-crossing the level. Timesplitters has objectives, but you're
not required to think much to accomplish them, simply because you'll do them
almost automatically as you're herded through the level.
Half-Life 2, Halo 2, Turok: Evolution and other games are all guilty of this
as well, even though in some cases their predecessors weren't. Even
Resident Evil 4, offered up as more shooter-like, dropped the open world
design of its franchise in favor of a fixed-path, although there was some
exploration (buildings or small side rooms, picking up items) along the way.
Have we become so stupid, or so lazy, that we can't be bothered to look
around or find our way? Do we just want to shoot and not think? Metroid
Prime 2 took a lot of criticism for "backtracking"--but it has an open world
design, not a corridor design like the rest of these games. Should it have
been another game that forces you to go in a single direction? Is that what
we want?
I hope not--and the best-selling games of this generation (GTA series)
celebrate freedom. But in the shooter genre, the opposite is happening.
And even some Adventure games, a genre based on exploration, have had
fixed-path entries lately, like Sphinx, Zelda 4 Swords, and Prince of
Persia.
I think that this is the wrong direction to go for the FPS genre (no pun
intended).
Does anyone else think that these games would have been better for the
addition of a little free movement and exploration? That "herding" the
player by giving him objectives and incentives is better than limiting his
movement?
Didn't Doom 3 feel like a walk down a single hallway, whereas the original
Doom felt like working your way from the front to the back of Hell?
Is this the reason that Timesplitters has never lived up to its Goldeneye
legacy?
I'd like to hear some opinions. It'd be a fresh change from PSP flame
threads (PS2 group), Xbox 360 launch announcements (Xbox group), and
crickets chirping (GC group).
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