Another war game

Discuss whatever you'd like with the Infinitap Games community here!
Post Reply
User avatar
gagaplex
Posts: 245
Joined: Wed Oct 09, 2013 10:32 am

Another war game

Post by gagaplex »

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/vi ... -Civilians

A trailer and some scraps of information about a new war game are out! However, this game will take a different route and put you into the role of a group of civilians caught amidst the fighting. There's very little info on the actual gameplay concept or anything, although they did reveal it will be some sort of survival game. The trailer is already very graphically and atmospherically pleasing, but the concept alone managed to interest me.
Because of how little info there is right now, it's hard to say how this will actually fare and play, but I'll keep an eye on it as they reveal more of it. I can't quite believe this has not been done before in video games or, if it has, it's at least rare enough that I can't remember it being done.

What do you folks think?
User avatar
matt
Posts: 2316
Joined: Fri Oct 04, 2013 10:48 am

Re: Another war game

Post by matt »

It definitely sounds interesting. I've actually been thinking about designing a game somewhat along those lines. It seems like a challenge to really capture the terrible situation of a civilian in a war torn area, but I can't wait to see what they come up with!
-Matt Gilgenbach
Lead Frightener at Infinitap Games
Grabthehoopka
Posts: 316
Joined: Mon Oct 07, 2013 12:16 pm

Re: Another war game

Post by Grabthehoopka »

Also notable for having one of the coolest game trailers of all time :o

Yahtzee Croshaw said it best in his review of Medal of Honor: Warfighter; after Spec Ops: The Line, you basically can't make a traditional "modern military shooter" anymore. I'm glad to see that more devs are following suit, and from what I've seen based on this trailer, people seem to be overwhelmingly supportive of it.
User avatar
gagaplex
Posts: 245
Joined: Wed Oct 09, 2013 10:32 am

Re: Another war game

Post by gagaplex »

I actually remembered that these guys made the Anomaly games, reverse tower-defense games where you need to guide a line of vehicles through alien enemy positions. I only played the first one so far, but that was done very competently, quite a bit of fun and something rather odd. They seem to have a thing for unusual approaches to their games; reversing tower defense, now putting the player in the position of a helpless civilian trying to survive. I can certainly appreciate their unusual tastes. I hope they'll able to deliver! :-)
User avatar
matt
Posts: 2316
Joined: Fri Oct 04, 2013 10:48 am

Re: Another war game

Post by matt »

I'm interested to see what the actual gameplay will be like. I am always a little wary of game trailers that don't really imply what the gameplay will be like. Hopefully it won't end up like Dead Island where it has a great trailer, but one that doesn't really reflect the actual game.

While I am glad developers are trying to create more interesting games about war, I think given the success of Call of Duty: Ghosts, there are PLENTY of people interested in traditional modern military shooters.
-Matt Gilgenbach
Lead Frightener at Infinitap Games
Grabthehoopka
Posts: 316
Joined: Mon Oct 07, 2013 12:16 pm

Re: Another war game

Post by Grabthehoopka »

matt wrote:While I am glad developers are trying to create more interesting games about war, I think given the success of Call of Duty: Ghosts, there are PLENTY of people interested in traditional modern military shooters.
But at the same time, because of focus testing and committee-based design principles, several other companies have tried to ride on the coat tails of call of duty and they all have failed miserably. The closest that's come to succeeding is the battlefield series, which carved out a nice, unique niche on the console market with Bad Company, which was a success, and then they got that first sniff of profit and immediately set their eyes on the Call of Duty franchise, and set about trying to dethrone it. Bad Company 2 and battlefields 3 & 4 were technically successes, but EA wrote them off as failures because they use that flawed economic practice of chalking off the theoretical money that they could have made as a profit loss, as does every other AAA publisher in the game industry. They don't realize that not as many people are going to buy call of duty and your call of duty ripoff because they already have call of duty, and only people who are really dedicated to the genre will get both, so you can't make a game similar to Call of Duty with the same budget and expect to make as much money as Call of Duty, it's simple.

Jim Sterling had a really good analogy: AAA publishers are like 6 year old children who say something funny. They say something, and everyone laughs. They probably don't understand why it was funny, but the results are conclusive. So, they say the same thing again, and everyone laughs again. Then, they say it again, and again, and again, and they start to notice that people are laughing less and less each time, until eventually someone just tells them to stop. So, rather than critically think about what made the original thing they said so funny in the first place and use that to come up with something else, since they lack the mental facilities for it, they either go back to some other thing they said at some other point in the past and say it, hoping it's fresh again, or, they just wait until they accidentally stumble across something else that's funny.

In conclusion: multi-billion dollar corporations display the same behavior patterns as six-year-old children who accidentally say a funny thing.
User avatar
RightClickSaveAs
Posts: 535
Joined: Mon Oct 07, 2013 4:22 pm

Re: Another war game

Post by RightClickSaveAs »

Grabthehoopka wrote: In conclusion: multi-billion dollar corporations display the same behavior patterns as six-year-old children who accidentally say a funny thing.
Haha, this explains so much about the AAA industry. Very wise analogy.

The last Battlefield I seriously played was 1942, which was great, and then I was done with that and ready to move on to something else. I also tried the demo for one of the Battlefield: Random Even Numbered Year in the Future sequels that had mechs in it, but that was the extent of my interest in shooting people in slightly different settings every 2 years or so. And I say that as a pretty big FPS fan, although there hasn't been much lately in the way of FPS games that's interested me, partly due to those reasons.

It's kind of a shame that the games are so massively successful, because it really stifles innovation for those companies. I have no idea how many Battlefields or Calls of Duty there are at this point, it's kind of ridiculous.

Thank god for indie development. From a consumer's perspective, this is a fantastic time for indie games. I've played so many more interesting and imaginative games in just the last 2 or 3 years than in all my years of playing AAA games combined.

Oh yeah and as for "This War of Mine", this is a great idea and could be what the industry needs right now. With the Battlefieldses and Calls of Duties, a good subversion of that kind of jingoistic violence (and again, I love a good shooter every now and then) could be amazing. Hopefully it all works out. I haven't played Spec Ops: The Line, but I keep hearing that I need to. I played the demo and was turned off by the cover shooter action gameplay showcased in that, so it's probably one of those cases where the demo hurts the actual game.
User avatar
matt
Posts: 2316
Joined: Fri Oct 04, 2013 10:48 am

Re: Another war game

Post by matt »

To be fair to DICE and Battlefield, the series actually predates Call of Duty. I have no idea why EA decided to position it as a rival to Call of Duty. At least on the PC side, Battlefield always had its own unique take on multiplayer.

However, Battlefield wasn't the first. The original military shooter along the lines of what is popular right now was Medal of Honor, which came out in 1999.

I think that subgenre of FPSes is here to stay like it or not. While it has stagnated, I think Titanfall is the next sort of evolution on the formula. While I wasn't super impressed with Titanfall, it does seem like they do a number of things that are an improvement to the standard military style FPS. It is pretty enjoyable although I'm not sure it is the greatest thing since sliced bread like everyone says. It still seems to be playing it pretty safe.

I agree that there is a general lack of innovation right now in the industry, but I think it's because budgets are so big, they don't want to take risks.

Indie game development is really where the innovation lies. However, it seems like some games can find their own voices given the constraints of a sequel/clone driven industry. Saint's Row started as a (terribly buggy) next gen GTA, but some people like it better now. Spec Ops the Line is another great example.
-Matt Gilgenbach
Lead Frightener at Infinitap Games
User avatar
gagaplex
Posts: 245
Joined: Wed Oct 09, 2013 10:32 am

Re: Another war game

Post by gagaplex »

Yeah, the trailer is great and very atmospheric, but it doesn't tell us anything. And the bit about it being a "survival-game" doesn't tell us much, either. That could mean any number of things. I doubt they're going for a Don't Starve kind of approach, though.

As for those shooters: The last one of those I played was CoD4, Modern Warfare. It was alright and the story actually managed to interest me, but it never made me want to replay it or play any of its sequels. These types of FPS seem to be largely a joke among many gamers nowadays, but especially on consoles (which they are primarily designed for if you consider regenerating health, field of view, cover and aiming mechanics) there don't seem to be that many other options for people to choose from. Plus, the name and the hype surrounding them ensures some people will buy them. But considering that both Warfighter and Ghosts were critical failures and - while selling a ton of units - apparently not profitable enough for their publishers, I'd expect the formula to change some in the future. You're right that modern military shooters and a lot of the tropes surrounding them will stick around, but I fully expect them to change it up somewhat, if only because if they are going to be released almost yearly and cost millions upon millions in development, they will have to become more profitable again, cynical as that may sound.
User avatar
matt
Posts: 2316
Joined: Fri Oct 04, 2013 10:48 am

Re: Another war game

Post by matt »

While I didn't like Ghosts at all, I don't think I'd call mid to high 70s a critical failure exactly. Warfighter definitely was. They are mixing up Call of Duty somewhat by switching to 3 year cycles and adding an extra team (Sledgehammer), so it should be interesting to see if that gives the franchise a shot in the arm.

Maybe they'll just copy Titanfall for one of them? hahah
-Matt Gilgenbach
Lead Frightener at Infinitap Games
Post Reply