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Criticising PC Gamer's "We're in an FPS golden age" article

You've got enough HOT takes here to make someone's head spin, but you really think people play Siege just because it has cosmetics? How out of touch can you be?
 
I disagree with most of the OP.

I also find the nitpicking pointless. It's as if the writer just wanted to drive up the word count to turn this OP into such a long screed so could not be rebutted coherently.
 

SmokedMeat

Gamer™
I crave more premium single player FPS games. Where is my DOOM II for cryin in the damn blue night??

Did you check out Dusk?

http://store.steampowered.com/app/519860/DUSK/

Except it's multiplayer-only. Previous Rainbow Six games, like Raven and all the ones before it, were all well-received and also played competitively and casually - even to this day. Siege has taken the design of CS:GO to make it its own with loot boxes and overpriced microtransactions including, but not limited to, skins. If we add up the cost of the game and all its DLC the total sum is around £220. If we sum up all the Rainbow Six games from times before they all add up to less than £220. Is this what a golden age is, Evan? £220 sale price for a single, online-only, multiplayer-only game? Where's the single player campaign, where's the tactical, hardcore shooting mechanics and battle map? Siege also has millions of players yes, across all platforms, but how many of those people are playing it because it's multiplayer with customisation? If the game didn't have customisation such as skins the player base would dwindle, what does that say about the core gameplay?

You really think that skins are the reason people play Rainbow Six Siege? That's preposterous! I really wonder how much experience you've had with the games you're criticizing.
 

Lucumo

Member
That's just 2007. I'd say the golden age was 1999-2007, kind of went to shit after that.

Quake III Arena until Call of Duty 4? But yeah, that time frame is pretty much right.

But yeah, I mostly agree with OP. Especially point 3 by that article is awful.
 

ArjanN

Member
That's a lot of words to just say you want more single-player FPS.

That's just 2007. I'd say the golden age was 1999-2007, kind of went to shit after that.

This year is nice, but the only especially good singleplayer campaigns recently have been Doom 2016 and Titanfall 2. Some decent variety in multiplayer games, I guess, but the only one I've stuck with is Battlefield 1.

If you're going to include Bioshock in 2007, it seems a bit disingenuous to not consider the new Prey and Dishonored.2.
 

Javier23

Banned
That's a lot of words to just say you want more single-player FPS.



If you're going to include Bioshock in 2007, it seems a bit disingenuous to not consider the new Prey and Dishonored.2.
Or System Shock and Thief as the ones which actually introduced the genre.
 
I disagree with most of the OP.

I also find the nitpicking pointless. It's as if the writer just wanted to drive up the word count to turn this OP into such a long screed so could not be rebutted coherently.
This, pretty much. Hate the tactic on the whole, especially as it's always mixed with some hint of smugness despite being written poorly.
 
edit: ok, the article mentions multiplayer fps only. I was confused by the OP. Also, edited out the pictures because they didn't add much to the conversation.

the 90's and the early noughites were the golden age: Doom, Quake, Duke Nukem 3D, Blood, Hexen, Unreal, No One Lives Forever, Halo, GoldenEye, Half-Life, Return to Castle Wolfenstein...

And then SWAT, Rainbow Six, Medal Of Honor, Call of Duty, SiN etc.

I could go on forever. Everything that was released after Stalker is nothing more that an iteration, or at best a refinement, of what came before.
 
the 90's and the early noughites were the golden age

I could go on forever, but I fear I may have posted too many pictures already. Everything that was released after Stalker is nothing more that an iteration, or at best a refinement, of what came before.
I don't think anyone's disputing that golden age of FPS.
 
That's a lot of words to just say you want more single-player FPS.



If you're going to include Bioshock in 2007, it seems a bit disingenuous to not consider the new Prey and Dishonored.2.

BioShock is way, waaaaaaay more of a shooter than Prey or Dishonored. Not to say I like Bioshock more than either of those, mind.

But if we're including Prey and Dishonored, we'd have to include the (superior) System Shock 2, Thief 2, and Deux Ex. So my point about 1999-2007 being superior holds true.
 
Compared to just 8 years ago, on consoles at least, we are in a Dark Age of multiplayer shooters today. Battlefield 1 and Call Of Duty: World War II are both dominated by automatic weapons and present no real distinctions in gunplay or gameplay from their predecessors. Compare that to Battlefield 1943 (which has the best infantry combat in any Frostbite Battlefield game) and Call of Duty: World at War.

We also had games like Killzone 2. The only positive I can say about shooters today is that we have a really good reboot of the Star Wars Battlefront series.
 
A first person game is not necessarily an FPS though. Thief isn't one and System Shock isn't really one either.

System Shock absolutely is a shooter.

Let's not forget that System Shock 2 is not the only System Shock game.

We also had games like Killzone 2. The only positive I can say about shooters today is that we have a really good reboot of the Star Wars Battlefront series.

Killzone being dead is a good sign that we're out of the Dark Age.

Only good shooter in 2009 was Call of Pripyat.
 
I would say modern FPS's (multiplayer and to a lesser extent single player) are in a strong condition, maybe better than they've ever been. But because audiences are so familiar with the genre the games themselves fail to elicit the excitement and surprise that they once did.

The games are solidly built, highly polished, well supported. But because the genre is in a prolonged state of incremental refinement and occasional gimmickry, the magic of playing say Half-Life, or Quake 3, or Halo: CE for the fist time is mostly absent in modern times, with a few rare exceptions.
 
I miss the time when gamers weren't treated (so blatantly as today) as a money farm.
If anything this is a golden age for gaming companies but not so much from a consumer pov.
 

OmegaDL50

Member
In terms of the FPS genre I do not particularly care for the military based variety. So stuff like Call of Duty or Battlefield really doesn't do anything for me.

The only exception to the norm is maybe Wolfenstein, but then again it flies in the face of realism with its bipedal tank like robots, and fantastical setting of a reversed "What if" scenario.

Overwatch and similar games of their ilk seem appealing because of the different powers and not being a military style FPS game.

Shadow Warrior 1 and 2, DOOM 2016, Wolfenstein: The New Order have given me enjoyment comparable to my time in the late 90's early '00's with Unreal Tournament, Quake 3 Arena. I've played more FPS titles in the last 4 years than I have since the Quake 3 / Unreal Tournament days.

While I may not be qualified to say we are in a "Golden Age", I most definitely enjoying the FPS genre now since my time with it almost two decades ago.
 

Sotha_Sil

Member
We lost Monolith as one of the premier FPS developers, and single-player FPS hasn't been the same since. Those guys pumped out 2 NOLF games, 2 FEAR games, 2 Condemned games, Tron 2.0, and AvP within a decade. 8 well recieved SP-focused games from 5 IPs (three originals) in 10 years. God damn. Now they make generic LotR games. Bleh.

I'm just thankful we have MachineGames and Id doing the good work they have been with Bethesda.

The big, gaping hole in the industry right now is tactical, single player FPS games like Rainbow Six: Rogue Spear and SWAT 4. I would love to see a modern version of those games.
 

mrlion

Member
I don't agree with the article either. Sure, FPSs are starting to blossom again after 10 or so years of CoD and CoD clones but its not the golden age.

However I also agree that the stuff on the OP is kinda nitpicky lol
 
As a PC gamer, I feel the FPS genre is way, WAY better today than it was back in late 2000s when most titles were COD clones designed for gamepads.
 

kuYuri

Member
I would love to see what OPs list of favorite FPSs are so we can nitpick and take it apart too.

I wonder if OP will even return to this thread after being torn apart 😂
 

MUnited83

For you.
Your rant sounds like you didn't agree with the premise and tried to discredit every point in the article. It's pretty evident by the way you're reaching with things like calling LawBreakers an Overwatch clone.

Well, at least you tried.
Yeap. What a fucking mess of an OP
 

Pokemaniac

Member
I mean personally, I think it's hard to say that a genre that's become so infested with gambling could possibly be in a golden age, but that's just my opinion.
 
OP maybe you should consider showing your threads to someone and having them proofread it before posting. Most of your points are nonsensical.
 

Vidal

Member
Everything was going OK, until this:


LawBreakers is rather good.
It's another Overwatch clone trying to cash in on the fun

You lost me here. Did you even play the game?
 

nynt9

Member
Everything was going OK, until this:


LawBreakers is rather good.
It's another Overwatch clone trying to cash in on the fun

You lost me here. Did you even play the game?

It's pretty clear OP hasn't played many of the games and is regurgitating 4chan tier shitpost talking points.
 

Moongazer

Member
The article really should have put multiplayer in the title. You can't just ignore what used to be a large staple of fps games if your going to declare we're in a golden age. 2002-2009 had a ton of both SP and MP shooters. Half-Life was still around, FEAR, Crysis, Bioshock, STALKER, CoD still gave a shit about having a good campaign, etc.. You can't really claim there is more diversity now when your choices are mostly between mp shooters.
 

Kill3r7

Member
The article really should have put multiplayer in the title. You can't just ignore what used to be a large staple of fps games if your going to declare we're in a golden age. 2002-2009 had a ton of both SP and MP shooters. Half-Life was still around, FEAR, Crysis, Bioshock, STALKER, CoD still gave a shit about having a good campaign, etc.. You can't really claim there is more diversity now when your choices are mostly between mp shooters.

We have been blessed with some amazing SP campaigns this gen. Last year we had Doom and TF2. Heck CODIW was pretty good as well. Wolfenstein TNO before that was amazing as well. SP has been doing well this gen.
 
Ever since CoD4 the FPS genre been going downhill with all the attention on MP and not SP, with only a few exceptions.

Wolfenstein TNO gets so much praise but that would've been called average 15 years ago.
 
Your OP is a mess. Have you even played some of the shooters you're criticizing? Cause good lord, it certainly doesn't sound like it.
 

nkarafo

Member
Golden age?

Funny because the only FPS i enjoyed the last 2 years was PREY and Doom. And RE7 if it counts.

Then again FPS for me is simply "first person shooters". If they mean golden age for "multiplayer twitch shooters" then sure, i don't mind. I only care about single player games though.
 

Fishook

Member
If you are single player gamer like myself, there nothing it that list I am remotely interested in. But if you enjoy multiplayer stuff it's a bloody good time to be a gamer.

I just miss not be able to have a multiplayer game every few weeks and not feel left behind as I haven't got the time to grind for gear or weapons, or have bloody loot boxes. Gone are the days I can commit myself to games.
 

killroy87

Member
Compared to just 8 years ago, on consoles at least, we are in a Dark Age of multiplayer shooters today. Battlefield 1 and Call Of Duty: World War II are both dominated by automatic weapons and present no real distinctions in gunplay or gameplay from their predecessors. Compare that to Battlefield 1943 (which has the best infantry combat in any Frostbite Battlefield game) and Call of Duty: World at War.

We also had games like Killzone 2. The only positive I can say about shooters today is that we have a really good reboot of the Star Wars Battlefront series.

It sounds like you're only basing your opinion on BF1 and CoD? I don't know how you can say all FPS' are dominated by automatic weapons with games like Overwatch, Paladins, and R6 Siege. There is a whole world of games out there that aren't labeled Call of Duty or Battlefield.

The big, gaping hole in the industry right now is tactical, single player FPS games like Rainbow Six: Rogue Spear and SWAT 4. I would love to see a modern version of those games.

This is probably the only main opinion I can get behind. I also miss games like this, and while R6 Siege is phenomenal, it's definitely not this.

Other than that though, we are absolutely in a fantastic age of FPS (and every genre, really). Between triple-A games and indies, almost any style of game you want to play is well represented. Hell, there was just a fantastic new DOOM game, and there are currently Quake and Unreal Tournament games out there too. Your choices are almost endless.

People need to keep their nostalgia in check. It used to be that the FPS went in waves of trends favouring certain styles. Now, you can get great games of pretty much any FPS you want to play.
 
The best time not sure, but it's been certainly a great time for multiplayer shooters as a whole. The OP is extremely nitpicky though, since his points don't really invalidate the existence of each game as being good for variety in the genre, some of them being outright ridiculous to bring up.
 

Neith

Banned
Nah, BF1 is definitely the best infantry combat in the series. It's amazing. TDM has some great maps, and likewise Conquest also has some amazing maps. Both modes offer great infantry combat. I mean, you are going all the way back to 2 to try and make a point. That game is pretty old and I think personally people look at it with nostalgia.

I can agree on a lot of your other points. CSGO interests me ZERO. The game looks like shit, is janky as fuck, and I hate using a mouse for FPS games yeah you heard it. I do great in BF1 with a controller on PC or PS4. Still, CSGO has a lot of players and people still like it despite how dated and old it looks.

Some of the other ones IDK. We are definitely in a great age of FPS games. I don't know that I would call it golden, but with the upcoming releases it is only going to get better.
 

Shifty1897

Member
We're in a golden age of gaming, period. There are a ton of great FPS games out there, if you can't see that when most everyone else can... I feel kinda bad for you. Maybe there's some other genre you can enjoy?
 
I really love seeing people get upset over cosmetic lootboxes when they're so, so easy to ignore and encourage so much more developer support. Well unless you're CSGO, but you can blame Valve for that.

Anyway OP sorry but I can't say I agree when I've sunken more of my time this year into multiplayer shooters like Siege, PUBG and Overwatch.
 
OP how many hours have you played of each of these games you're bitching about?

Also, you're going to say patched for games are bad? Like wtf
 
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