The History of Why I’m Tired of Your Modern Shooters (2011)(learntocounter.com)
learntocounter.com
The History of Why I’m Tired of Your Modern Shooters (2011)
http://www.learntocounter.com/the-history-of-why-im-tired-of-your-modern-shooters-part-one/
13 comments
I started playing shooters around the time Q2 came out. I played Q3, Unreal, UT, HL and many smaller games, but the one that had the biggest influence by far was CS. To this day, no game has even come close to CS, and I can't understand why. No game that took inspiration from it ever took any detail of importance to heart. Even Valve completely failed with CS:S and whatever the name of their newest CS endeavor is, to improve on the game at all. Very strange. I guess it's so difficult to copy because it's good the way it is and has been since the beta. I look at BF, CoD, MW etc and I can't help myself thinking that the kids playing them have no idea that there were much better games a decade ago. Anyone who tries to play CS today will unfortunately be completely destroyed by any of the pro players still playing online before they can get past being a beginner.
Could you elaborate on what is 'worse' in CS:S etc? I'm not a gamer, just curios.
It's a very interesting question, and if you ask most people it comes down to the "feel" of the game being very different. It's hard to quantify but I'll give it a try.
To put it bluntly, one of the main rules and joys of CS is to shoot people in the head. All else being equal in a firefight, if you are good enough to get a head shot and the other guy can't, you win every time. Part of this is strategy (money/weapon management), tactics (positioning, maneuvering, footstep sounds) and aiming/reaction speed/firefight maneuvering. The main difference in CS:S affects the last category. CS:S added more randomness, changed recoil, changed the spread of bullets and hit boxes. CS:S de-emphasized the head shot, presumably to make the game less challenging to beginners. They changed the physics of grenades, running, jumping making the whole thing feel more sluggish.
Then there is the presentation part of it. CS made it very clear when you hit a head shot versus a body shot. For example, a head shot when the other player had no helmet resulted in a big spray of blood. When having a helmet there was a big spark shooting off of the head identifiable from afar, and also a satisfying sound. There was also a very different death animation after a head shot versus a body shot. A head shot would result in the player violently falling backwards, while in CS:S the player would just slouch to the ground like he tripped on a stone.
CS:S also added a lot of visual clutter that is nothing but detrimental to gameplay. Adding clutter to a competitive game hides the true important "signals" in the game, head shots being one, and just adds noise. This is why pros tend to strip down a game to the bare essentials if they can (look at Q3 for examples of this).
Another factor that adds to the "feel" is the weapon models and sounds. This is subjective, but the sounds in CS feel more powerful to me. Compare the important weapons like the ak47, the colt, deagle and AWP.
These are the reasons that "pros" never switched to CS:S, or if they did (usually because of prize money), they promptly switched back. Every issue might seem small, but they add up to a worse experience.
Ever since Valve took over CS, they have been going in the direction of making the game easier (giving beginners a chance). They started down this path with CS 1.4-1.6, but much more so with CS:S and now CS:GO. The truth is that if a beginner starts playing CS 1.6 today, he will most likely rage quit way before reaching any level of competency at the game. This is not good for Valve because it discourages new players. But this is the way it has to be if pros will want to stick to the game. There HAS to be a huge difference between a beginner and a pro, otherwise there's just no point in having a competitive game. The other part is also that there is no money to be had in a great 14 year old game that doesn't need much improvement. What CS needs is a better match-making system so that beginners won't rage quit, not changes to the feel of the game or more useless weapons or better graphics.
To put it bluntly, one of the main rules and joys of CS is to shoot people in the head. All else being equal in a firefight, if you are good enough to get a head shot and the other guy can't, you win every time. Part of this is strategy (money/weapon management), tactics (positioning, maneuvering, footstep sounds) and aiming/reaction speed/firefight maneuvering. The main difference in CS:S affects the last category. CS:S added more randomness, changed recoil, changed the spread of bullets and hit boxes. CS:S de-emphasized the head shot, presumably to make the game less challenging to beginners. They changed the physics of grenades, running, jumping making the whole thing feel more sluggish.
Then there is the presentation part of it. CS made it very clear when you hit a head shot versus a body shot. For example, a head shot when the other player had no helmet resulted in a big spray of blood. When having a helmet there was a big spark shooting off of the head identifiable from afar, and also a satisfying sound. There was also a very different death animation after a head shot versus a body shot. A head shot would result in the player violently falling backwards, while in CS:S the player would just slouch to the ground like he tripped on a stone.
CS:S also added a lot of visual clutter that is nothing but detrimental to gameplay. Adding clutter to a competitive game hides the true important "signals" in the game, head shots being one, and just adds noise. This is why pros tend to strip down a game to the bare essentials if they can (look at Q3 for examples of this).
Another factor that adds to the "feel" is the weapon models and sounds. This is subjective, but the sounds in CS feel more powerful to me. Compare the important weapons like the ak47, the colt, deagle and AWP.
These are the reasons that "pros" never switched to CS:S, or if they did (usually because of prize money), they promptly switched back. Every issue might seem small, but they add up to a worse experience.
Ever since Valve took over CS, they have been going in the direction of making the game easier (giving beginners a chance). They started down this path with CS 1.4-1.6, but much more so with CS:S and now CS:GO. The truth is that if a beginner starts playing CS 1.6 today, he will most likely rage quit way before reaching any level of competency at the game. This is not good for Valve because it discourages new players. But this is the way it has to be if pros will want to stick to the game. There HAS to be a huge difference between a beginner and a pro, otherwise there's just no point in having a competitive game. The other part is also that there is no money to be had in a great 14 year old game that doesn't need much improvement. What CS needs is a better match-making system so that beginners won't rage quit, not changes to the feel of the game or more useless weapons or better graphics.
Why does the author assume the reader's gender with terms like "gentlemen" and "brother"?
Why does the author's attitude to the reader vary from condescending to reverential to dismissive and back? So weird.
the article should mention that mw2 was the first cod without dedicated servers and officially killed cod as a competitive game. they could have put in the game worse things than dogs / choppers / nuclear strikes / martyrdom^3, a simple mod would have removed all that crap, but without a dedicated server you can't really have competitive gaming.
FEAR too might have deserved a mention.
FEAR too might have deserved a mention.
This article is absolute garbage. It is horrendously long, and doesn't come to any startling conclusion whatsoever. It is orth noting that it's also out of date (2011).
Yes, there is quite a few MW style games - but there's lots of others. Counter-Strike and UT haven't gone anywhere. As for the console vs. keyboard debate, PC gaming is still a viable and growing market. You are free to choose whatever interface you want.
Yes, there is quite a few MW style games - but there's lots of others. Counter-Strike and UT haven't gone anywhere. As for the console vs. keyboard debate, PC gaming is still a viable and growing market. You are free to choose whatever interface you want.
Counter-strike has definitely gone somewhere. Compare CS 1.3 to whatever CS:Crap is currently the latest version (and note that the game has been garbage since CS 1.6).
I tried UT3, but compared to UT99 or UT2003 even, it was horrible.
There's a point somewhere there. Maybe it's that the older games were a lot more fun to play and the newer ones focus on dumbing down gameplay and looking pretty. Someday someone will bring back first person shooters.
I tried UT3, but compared to UT99 or UT2003 even, it was horrible.
There's a point somewhere there. Maybe it's that the older games were a lot more fun to play and the newer ones focus on dumbing down gameplay and looking pretty. Someday someone will bring back first person shooters.
>And if you’re speaking to a gamer under the age of nineteen, you’re better off pretending that Bungie invented the first-person shooter.
>Yes, “first-person shooters” existed before Wolfenstein, but they didn’t offer the option of mowing down Adolf Hitler with a chaingun. As far as we’re concerned, they never happened.
Something about the author giving the exact same attitude that he just complained about makes me want to stop reading the article.
>Yes, “first-person shooters” existed before Wolfenstein, but they didn’t offer the option of mowing down Adolf Hitler with a chaingun. As far as we’re concerned, they never happened.
Something about the author giving the exact same attitude that he just complained about makes me want to stop reading the article.
What do you think about the Battlefield series? As for me, I like it most of all multiplayer shooters. Even the original BF 1942 is quite fun to play.
The genre peaked with Tribes. Anything less is embarrassing.