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Dude! Who killed my 1st Person Shooter?

By Matt Ployhar (Intel) (42 posts) on March 5, 2010 at 4:13 pm

[Disclaimer] So bear with me because this post is intentionally aimed at being both whimsical and controversial at the same time. Not to mention point out some huge biases I have around gaming. Some… might even think I’m a purist or worse… a snob! Phooey.

Approximately twelve years ago, when some of today’s gamers were still in diapers, I was struggling with a game addiction. Perhaps I still do but I’m a fan of eating my own dog food. At any rate the game in question happened to be Quake II from Id/Activision. I loved this game! It was super fast, had awesome weapons which were arguably unbalanced in some cases. Best of all it had a robust modding and level design community. One could download all sorts of ‘skins’, ‘levels’, and so on that added more dimensions and flavor to the game.

This leads to my next key point. When I say this game was fast.. I mean it was fast! As fast as one could react to the game. To make it even faster I found myself overclocking, scrambling for more cooling, running a couple 3dfx Voodoo 2 cards in SLI mode, cranking everything I possibly could up. If memory serves I was able to get my frames per second (fps) up to ~70-80fps on my 21” CRT monitor. The game with that configuration was butter smooth. It enabled me to be more competitive and I was soon mastering things like the grappling hook, and rocket jumping.

So what happened? What is the state of my beloved 1st Person shooter genre game today? I’ve played Crysis, Quake 4, and even tried some of these games on an Xbox 360 such as Halo 1-3, Gears of War etc. However; they still just don’t hold that ‘magic’ for me like they used too.

Then it dawned on me. Most of these 1st Person shooter games, even though they can achieve much higher frame rates, have sort of blown it (IMHO) on two major fronts. First: this genre suffers from being slowed wayyyy down to accommodate the Console & Gamepad paradigms. Which might be ok for some game design but not all. Seriously when I play this genre now on a Console or PC I feel like I’m in a bad dream wading through a sea of molasses. In a few words that’s just plain lame. Second: Game balance. I think it’s ok to have a few weapons & tweaks in the game being a bit imbalanced. This is what getting your hands on the “BFG” was all about!!! The only other weapon I’ve seen to date that surpasses the BFG was to be found in the game Shogo: Mobile Armor Division from Monolith. It was the mini-nuke!!! Now THAT was what I call imbalanced! But it was sooo fun to use.

So how do we fix this predicament? Well Game Consumers we have to ask for it! First start by contacting the game publishers, then the developers and let them know what we want and desire. GDC 2010 is just next week and we can start there! Start demanding more! Let’s try to restore this genre to its rightful place! Personally I’d love to see more competitive game play come back to this genre. I’d love to also see a more robust level-modding type community than what we have today. (e.g. I’d like to see more companies like Valve get started!) Let’s toss those crutch-based-algorithm-aiming-enhanced-gamepads out the window and see the real skill of the players start to shine through again!

So there you have it. That is my personal opinion on one of my top 3 favorite game genres. I’d definitely love to hear everyone’s feedback.

Categories: Game Development, Graphics & Media

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Comments (5)

March 7, 2010 6:49 AM PST ricky143 Total Points: 60 Registered User

Great saying man love ur work here I to agree

March 10, 2010 10:38 AM PST John

As you have said Mr Ployhar, the problem is that there's a market for fast-paced first person shooters, but due to multiplatform development or focus on consoles in the USA the genre has suffered. A lot. The other branch of the genre - sim-like games like Rainbow Six or Operation Flashpoint have suffered a lot, as well. Luckily, recent release of ArmAII brings some hope not all is lost. I don't think asking for certain games to be made will help. People are begging for SimCity 5, true Rainbow Six sequels, a sequel to X-Com, Homeworld 3, PC-only shooters like Unreal, Quake, Blood to be back... More often than not however, those pleas fall on deaf ears. I've always wondered why Intel doesn't open its own PC game development studios (or buy some, especially in Middle/Eastern Europe)... The philosophy "games make hardware sell" seems to work well for Sony (people are buying PS3 solely for Heavy Rain or Uncharted 2, take notice!), Intel doesn't sell hardware at a loss, so why not create PC exclusives to promote new lines of your products?... It would help PC gaming grow in popularity tremendously. It needs a marketing push.

March 15, 2010 8:24 AM PDT trueplay Total Points: 5 Registered User

This is soo true! that is why I am working on one that will hopefully combat these problems. Of course that is a long way in coming!!

March 31, 2010 11:46 AM PDT Matt Ployhar (Intel) Total Points: 3,617 Brown Belt

Want to thank everyone for their comments. I would have responded earlier but been a little under the gun with some huge deliverables these past four weeks. (I can see some light at the end of the tunnel!) Yeah.. I really am pining for a 1st person shooter game that taxes my reflexes and the hardware! A 1st person shooter game that will make those algorithm aiming crutch gamepad users cry! I say bring it! Besides... aren't 'aiming bot's' considered cheating anyway? As for Intel getting into the 1st Party Publishing/Development end of the business. I really don't forsee that happening. There are a ton of reasons for this ranging from fully burdened headcount costs to you name it. However; the biggest reason that I can see simply comes down to us not wanting to become an actual competitor with anyone in the Games Ecosystem that we're trying to support. In speaking for my role (Strategic Graphics/Gaming Planning - some Biz-Dev) personally; I'd rather focus on enabling the experts do what their best at & seeing what we can do to magnify & make that PC gaming experience just that much better.

April 2, 2010 9:24 PM PDT Tongodeon

Have you played Team Fortress 2? Robust modding and level design community, awesome classes/weapons, and super-fast gameplay. On the PC it uses the same mouselook + "wasd" keyboard movement that Quake did. Sounds like you'd make a great Scout.

Trackbacks (2)

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