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First Person Perfection: Improving FPS games
Written by Scott Tuesday, 03 March 2009 18:53
It is safe to say the FPS genre has been revolutionised in the 2000s. First we had Halo: Combat Evolved bringing the regenerating health and the two-weapon system. Then we had Halo 2 bringing the console online system to uncharted-territory. The early problem with console FPS was the number of players you could have online but with games such as Resistance: Fall of Man and the subsequent Resistance 2 you say 40 then 60 player online battles. So you’d expect FPS to be reaching perfection? All the components for the perfect FPS are there but I have yet to see a developer put them all together.
- Leeching health
The regenerating health system is the core of any modern FPS but I ask the question: why can’t it be the opposite? Let me explain, if you will. Say if you were shot in the leg; instead of the health regenerating, what would happen in real life? You’d go into shock after a length of time. So, what I want to see is the return of the Health bar but when you are shot you lose health from the bullet impact but also from blood loss. So, you may lose 1/5th of your health by getting shot in the leg but you lose 1/10th per second after that due to blood loss, if you don’t seek a medic. Obviously if you get shot in the head blood loss is probably the least of your worries but it would work for all the extremities as well as the torso, if a bit faster. This method may only work in games that seek some element of realism, such as Rainbow 6 but I think it could work in Killzone 2’s online system. Medipacks can return if they so wish but they must be done in a more realistic manner; i.e. they can be used to reduce the rate at which you are bleeding or reduce shock but they shouldn't be able to replenish health.
- Auto-aim/aim assistance
This is a much-debated topic with console shooters. Just how much aim assistance should a game have? There are many levels of this; ranging from Halo 2’s strong “magnetic” attraction to Rainbow 6 and Killzone 2 which have next-to-none. What brings the best online experience? I would have to say, somewhere in the middle – call that a cop-out if you want but anyone who has played Call of Duty 4 online knows that it works. After playing a lot of Killzone 2 online this week I can say that the absence of aim-assist really does hurt the console FPS; particularly online. It just seems clumsy and it can remove a lot of the fun-factor from it. I’m not saying I can’t shoot anyone; I’m usually first or second in a game of Bodycount but it would be more enjoyable with just a bit more aim assist – it would help the flow of the game.
- Map size
This can make or break and online FPS. The best example of this is Call of Duty 4 versus Call of Duty 5: COD4 has much smaller maps and as a result the gameplay is more dynamic, using the vertical component of maps more to try and ambush players. In COD5 all you have to do is sit with a sniper down the longest line-of-sight on the map and pick people off at will. Compare a COD4 favourite, such as Crash to one of the better COD5 maps, Castle, and you’ll catch my drift.
Obviously if your FPS has vehicles the maps will be larger but it is not completely necessary as Halo 2 and 3 showed: medium maps can support vehicles just fine. Killzone 2, which is the epitome of modern online FPS has some very large maps as well as some medium-sized ones. I have to say the game would really work better if it had some small maps to complement the others.
- Gameplay Speed
Call of Duty 4 showed that a semi-tactical FPS can also be very fast-paced. This speed is largely defined by player movement rates (both turning and sprinting). Many games don’t get this right, however. Halo 3 is an example: they came off the back of Halo 2, which in my opinion was the perfect pace for an online arcade shooter. They tried to slow it down to please the Halo: Combat Evolved devotees but it just ended up being compromised; it was neither as good as Halo: CE nor Halo 2 - pity. Killzone 2 features a lot of mass and inertia in the player’s movement and I think it’s a great thing for the single-player game but online it does not work. Online you need to be able to turn very quickly as attacks come from all directions but it just isn’t possible. It feels like you’re wearing a medieval suit of armour and at the same time, very vulnerable. If developers were to speed up all player movement to around COD4 and Halo 2 levels they would be more enjoyable.
- Bullet damage
An FPS isn’t much fun without the guns or the bullets so they should be done correctly. With the modern FPS you have a multitude of different bullets-to-kill numbers. COD4 (normal game types) are typically 3-6 bullets to kill depending on the weapon. Killzone 2 is about the same, maybe a tad more and Halo 3 is the king, taking a whopping 12-20 rounds to take someone down using the Assault Rifle. So what’s the correct amount? Personally I would have it at a single bullet to the upper chest or head to kill and perhaps 2 or 3 to the abdomen or legs to kill (with use of the leeching method I explained earlier). Perhaps I’m a realism-whore but I think it makes the games feel much better, rather than dancing around each other in a hail of what appear to be BBs.
- Gun Selection
A Standard issue Assault Rifle, a Shotgun, a Rocket Launcher and a Sniper Rifle. Those are the usual guns you get to play with. This can’t really be changed all that much as just how many different ways are there to shoot something, at someone? A perfect example of this is Resistance: Fall of Man. It featured some very imaginative weapons, such as the Bullseye which allowed you to tag an enemy then fire homing-bullets to that tag. That is one of my favourite guns this generation. Another good one has been the Needler in Halo which did a similar job to the Bullseye…but it was purple and pink! What’s not to love? If you shot a player with around 5 needles they would then explode and kill the player in a pink cloud. Awesome.
Not normally you will have a Top 6…well, anything but these are things I’d like to see changed to create a Utopian FPS game. Who’s with me? As I said at the beginning, all the components needed to make the perfect game are out there, they just have to be arranged correctly. My perfect game would be:
- Halo 2 map selection
- Call of Duty 4 bullet damage
- Halo/Resistance weapons
- Call of Duty 4 gameplay speed
- A new health system (any developers reading this - get working on it!)
What's yours?
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