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Re: What games are you playing right now?

Posted: Wed May 14, 2014 5:25 pm
by RightClickSaveAs
I may be off base here, but I want to say that around the time FEAR came out marked a dramatic shift in level design in shooters from abstract to realistic. Games like Doom and Duke Nukem 3D were only vaguely based in reality, and had impossible (or at least improbable) geometry, hidden rooms, and spaces that were designed purely around gameplay. As graphics and technology improved, there seemed to be a push for more and more realism in level design, and FEAR seemed to mark a big turning point in this style of development. There really are a lot of office buildings in the game, and that highlights one of the big problems with realism: reality can be pretty boring, and an office is one of the most boring buildings I can think of!

I still loved the game, although I haven't played it in a while.

edit: Oh and I'm still just playing Dark Souls pretty much. I started Book of Unwritten Tales, which is a really fun and charming adventure game, and I want to play the next section of Kentucky Route Zero and The Walking Dead, which just released chapter 3 on Tuesday.

Re: What games are you playing right now?

Posted: Wed May 14, 2014 7:31 pm
by matt
Yeah, I quite enjoyed F.E.A.R. back when it came out. I think I already did a video blog on it. I agree that they could have used more variety in locations, but as RightClickSaveAs pointed out, they were trying to be realistic.

Real life is so boring!

Recently, I started playing Fatal Frame 3, then I got distracted with Daylight, Octodad, Spec Ops: The Line, and I'm going to play Walking Dead S02E03 next. After that, I'll probably go back to Fatal Frame 3. Maybe it's just me, but it doesn't seem to quite have the magic of 1 and 2.

Re: What games are you playing right now?

Posted: Thu May 15, 2014 2:35 am
by Grabthehoopka
Actually, the first FPS I can think of with "realistic" level design was Goldeneye. Not only were the levels really well designed around the one-analogue stick movement with auto aim, but, like, there were rooms that were just full of boxes that served no purpose, and all of the maps, at least to me, felt like they were places that could actually exist. All the laboratories felt like laboratories, the ship felt like a ship, the caves felt like a military base that was really underground, etc etc etc...

Re: What games are you playing right now?

Posted: Thu May 15, 2014 2:53 pm
by matt
I think Goldeneye's level design worked really well for a console FPS before all the generous autoaim and movement paradigms were perfected because you were mostly shooting at people/things on the plane as you, so you only had to worry about aiming left and right for the most part - unless one of your friend was a jerk and played as Odd Job in multiplayer. hahaha