What single player FPS campaign are you playing?

[Melek-Ric]

I'm amazed at how new objectives and changed level starts make you have to reconsider how you went thru a level before. And enemies are a lot more plentiful and deadly.

Yeah, it's a shame that modern FPS design doesn't really allow for this anymore. Perhaps why people feel a bit deflated after completing a COD or BF.

LATE reply but here goes....

Honestly it was refreshing playing through PD.

I would like to see objective-based level progression where narrative and location can change based on objective status make a return to FPS. Similar to Perfect Dark with maybe 4 possible outcomes to most objectives: Incomplete, Complete, Failed, Failure.
Incomplete is the objective hasn't been done yet or was skipped for whatever reason. Complete is self-explanatory. Failed is you botched the objective, but the mission isn't FUBAR, continues. Failure is that an objective causes the mission to fail.
I don't see this happening however because time, money, and single player campaigns are an afterthought anymore.

[Sload Soap]

I found with Perfect Dark and Goldeneye, just having objectives increases in an level opens up the potential for different styles of play. It's gives you the tools for the mission and lets you attack it how you want. You can be stealthy, you can use the gadgets or you can blow everyone away and finish up the goals after. Either way it's up to the player. Modern shooters want to push you through it's spectacle, which is ok for a single run, but is ultimately shallow.

The other big plus those Rareware games (and also things like Doom) have is there is little discrepancy between the single and multi-player experience. The single player teaches you what you need for the multi-player.

Recent Battlefields have the opposite problem. There is nothing beyond pointing and shooting that you will do in multi-player. BF3 has an on-rails tank section, an on-rails plane section, zero open levels, no possibility of emergent gameplay. The multi-player is the exact opposite. I always imagined a single-player Battlefield game to most closely resemble Jungle Strike rather than COD.

I know the argument is that Battlefield and COD are bought for their respective online experiences but something like Halo manages to have both. Just something that's been bugging me for a while.

[isiolia]

I don't see this happening however because time, money, and single player campaigns are an afterthought anymore.

How so? That's Deus Ex: HR, or Dishonored, to name a couple.

Either way it's up to the player. Modern shooters want to push you through it's spectacle, which is ok for a single run, but is ultimately shallow.

The other big plus those Rareware games (and also things like Doom) have is there is little discrepancy between the single and multi-player experience. The single player teaches you what you need for the multi-player.

Again, I think you can't just point at CoD and Battlefield and call that the modern FPS game. Aside from first person perspective games getting lumped in as shooters half the time anyway, the FPS genre itself is fairly broad.

I don't disagree that, based on the one entry I played, CoD's campaign is made to basically be a ride (and a varied one). I do think it tries to prepare the player for multiplayer though, at least in some ways. The infinitely spawning points to rush are kind of like spawn points on multiplayer maps, for instance (though they turned me off from the series). Even if it's not as open, the campaign script might make sure that a player has tried a little of everything as well.

[Sload Soap]

I don't see this happening however because time, money, and single player campaigns are an afterthought anymore.

How so? That's Deus Ex: HR, or Dishonored, to name a couple.

Either way it's up to the player. Modern shooters want to push you through it's spectacle, which is ok for a single run, but is ultimately shallow.

The other big plus those Rareware games (and also things like Doom) have is there is little discrepancy between the single and multi-player experience. The single player teaches you what you need for the multi-player.

Again, I think you can't just point at CoD and Battlefield and call that the modern FPS game. Aside from first person perspective games getting lumped in as shooters half the time anyway, the FPS genre itself is fairly broad.

I don't disagree that, based on the one entry I played, CoD's campaign is made to basically be a ride (and a varied one). I do think it tries to prepare the player for multiplayer though, at least in some ways. The infinitely spawning points to rush are kind of like spawn points on multiplayer maps, for instance (though they turned me off from the series). Even if it's not as open, the campaign script might make sure that a player has tried a little of everything as well.

COD is not the only modern shooter but it is the most copied and has thus shaped the genre for better or worse. It is much safer for a developer to make a game like COD rather than something with the scope of a Halo which is what I think Melek Rec was getting at. The influence is pretty large both in terms of design and production.

Medal Of Honor's reboot pretty much ripped COD off wholesale. Battlefield had the Bad Company series spin-off specifically to give a previously multi-player only series a COD like single player experience while still keeping the traditional BF multi-player. When that didn't shift enough units the main series was given a campaign so similar in story and play style to Modern Warfare to almost be satire. Then you have your more direct clones like Homefront, along with the tidal wave of mobile and indie copycats. Some have argued that the influence has reached into more recent entries in the Bioshock and Halo series which both became more linear and concerned with spectacle in their latest incarnations.

I don't dislike Call of Duty however and wasn't actually criticizing it in relation to its multiplayer. I do feel that kill streaks and perks are a huge part of that game which isn't represented in the campaign but it does mostly prepare the player for the competitive side of the game.

My main beef is that for Battlefield 3 and 4 EA tacked on a shallow and obvious campaign in the style of Call of Duty and didn't even seem to consider what a single player Battlefield experience might look like. Older games seemed to achieve the balance a bit better, in particular Rare's N64 shooters because they were, in my opinion, designed less cynically.

I would agree that the genre has more variety than it's ever had. I wouldn't call Dishonored or Deus Ex a FPS myself but that there is an argument for them proves the diversity. But I also wouldn't discount the massive influence Call of Duty has had on the industry never mind the its genre.

[dsheinem]

R1<R2<R3

All are good, though. None seemed especially hard...I liked that they weren't straight up cover/health regen games...

I don't know if they change the system in R2 and R3, but Fall of Man is a cover/health regen game, if that term means you are constantly getting hit, looking for cover while waiting for your health to regen.

I just got to London, for some reason I am not having much trouble with it this time around, not loving it, but it is playable.

Hmm, I may be confused/remembering incorrectly on R1. R2 and R3 def have other health systems. Doesn't R1 regen but only partially or something?

[isiolia]

I would agree that the genre has more variety than it's ever had. I wouldn't call Dishonored or Deus Ex a FPS myself but that there is an argument for them proves the diversity. But I also wouldn't discount the massive influence Call of Duty has had on the industry never mind the its genre.

Perhaps it's a matter of what you label a "core" FPS experience then. If the slight RPG elements of those games would pull them away from being FPS games, then perhaps what CoD is doing would similarly disqualify it. Admittedly, I've only played CoD4, and while I didn't dig what it was trying to do all that much either, I felt like it was almost leaning more towards being a rail shooter with more freedom than an FPS with less.

[prfsnl_gmr]

I am thinking of starting up Halo 2's campaign. Should I give it s shot?

[BoringSupreez]

I am thinking of starting up Halo 2's campaign. Should I give it s shot?

Yes. While it was cool to hate on the single player for years after release, it's actually really good... that's why people hated on it for being short. It feels like the first game for the most part, except the graphics are better and you can dual-wield.

Halo 2 was the first bro-game IMO. Kind of interesting to look back on it now that it's old, same with the first Gears of War. Where they once seemed cool and hardcore they're now silly, but in a fun way.

[isiolia]

I am thinking of starting up Halo 2's campaign. Should I give it s shot?

I enjoyed it when I played it a few weeks ago, though there are some minor emulation issues on 360 if you were planning to play it that way.

[ExedExes]

Completed Judge Dredd: Dredd vs. Death. Thanks to Ack for that suggestion. Not a bad time and there was just enough to recommend it. I liked the ability to shoot weapons out of enemy hands and then arresting them as opposed to just going around and killing everything. The ragdoll physics were a tad overused but made it funny to see bodies flying 20 feet in the air. It also looks like I've been unlocking extra arcade-style missions as each story mode mission was complete, and they have additional objectives that are completely new.