/v/ - Video Games

>>15215651

>general lack of polish almost everywhere

Oh yeah, Shogo was broken as hell too. But still fun But unlike Blood 2 which had some botched mechanics and was unpolished, Shogo was both unpolished and had a bunch of shit just laying around the game files and source code from psuedo-stealth mechanics to textures for an elementary school level.

Monolith is a studio defined by their mediocrity. Even their best games, blood and fear aren't very special.

The two new Deus Ex games, not as good as the original of course but I still like them.

Witcher series, with 3 being my favourite, then 1 and then 2.

>>15215911

Then what FPS are

Its AI was fucking horrendous

>>15216526

Blood 2? Actually, about the AI….

"I think Blood 2's AI is very strong. Instead of trying to emulate a bot with our AI, we're trying to make them act like real creatures. Real creatures have a will to live, and will not always make the player their first priority. Human enemies have a variety of skills they can use. They carry multiple weapons, have limited ammo, and can pick up new weapons and health. They also have tons of animations they can use. You won't see the enemies run at you, stop, and then fire. They'll roll from side to side, forwards or backwards. They'll fire while running or walking at you, attack crouched and standing. Some of the creatures can attach to you to do damage, and you must hit your 'use' key repeatedly to get them off. Some enemies work together, some have mortal enemies other than the player. Some enemies use special abilities like teleporting, or jump over and around you to through off your aim. I think people will be very impressed with Blood 2's creatures and the code that drives them."

-James Wilson III

https://blood-wiki.org/index.php/Development_of_Blood_II

The AI is another victim of development woes. They were actually boasting about it.

>>15215651

It's impossible to play this stealthily. I got to the second mission in Berlin and I kept getting detected. I figured stealth is broken and it's just an FPS, I wanted to play stealthily, not shoot just blindly shoot niggers.

>>15216709

Ah, I'm watching the second mission on youtube and I remember what I didn't like. I didn't like how there was no non lethal ways to take out enemies it was just killing them. But I did keep getting detected, the AI has eyes on the back of their heads.

>>15215911

Monolith's games were highly creative and extremely memorable. I've gone back to them far more than most games from that same time period

>Even their best games, blood and fear aren't very special.

The game's AI was so robust that you could complete a gunfight so differently every time you reloaded.

>>15216686

I think James Wilson was exaggerating the AI here since for the most part all it does is automatically just shoot at the player once it sees you and mostly stands still. It wasn't til NOLF we saw a lot of complex maneuvers with the AI like taking cover and rolling from side to side but they really didn't perfect it until F.E.A.R.

>>15216726

Yes Stealth is broken in the game, there's a single level iirc in the first game where you MUST stealth and it's overly scripted. There's a mod that shuts off the alarm in the first game so you don't hear it blaring a lot.

I'm inclined to forgive NOLF for this as stealth games were a rarity at the time and there weren't really rules on how to design one. (Hitman Codename 47 has a ton of the same issues for example). Even with Metal Gear Solid I wouldn't say they nailed this formula until 2 and especially 3.

>>15216709

This was something also fixed in NOLF2 since by that point Metal Gear Solid 2 had come out. So they copied a lot of its design elements. A good example is it also has a tranquilizer gun.

>>15216832

>I think James Wilson was exaggerating the AI here since for the most part all it does is automatically just shoot at the player once it sees you and mostly stands still

While it is exaggerated as compared to the AI we got he still did mention things that were cut, like AI picking up items (which probably was cut for bad design) and fear behavior (which didn't work too well in-game).

I feel that FEAR is a completion of work done on Shogo's on-foot sections. Like FEAR Shogo was going to have verbose AI. AI voices would pertain to certain AI behavior. Originally the AI could change between standing to corners when viable (like with a shotgun) or charging head first to an enemy. They can retreat or go "psycho." But it wasn't implemented too well and you can barely notice it. It also didn't help either that it didn't have a system in place where whole teams of AI change behavior. Not only that the voices were often disabled from playback and its actually hardcoded into the levels. This is why Shogo's AI was pretty awful, it was heavily nerfed because of time constraints and more defensive behavior feel like enemies are just standing around. It also double makes no sense for mecha sections where you are encouraged to run and gun.

>>15216842

I had some kind of disney skateboarding game i got from a cereal box. I remember playing as max from the goofy movie. I have to find the full version.

>>15216525

quake and the ultimate doom are pretty much undeniable

>>15216832

>Monolith's games were highly creative

inspired I would argue, they weren't very original but this isn't a bad thing.

>I've gone back to them far more than most games from that same time period

I've played them a few times too, they aren't very good overall.

>The game's AI was so robust that you could complete a gunfight so differently every time you reloaded.

The AI isn't particularly robust, it's interesting in how it prioritizes survival and how this works out in the game play, but the enemy variety if the problem. 90% of the game you're fighting the same type of enemy who only sees differentiation based on what weapon they have, their behavior is generally the same. I'm not saying it's a waste of time to invest so heavily into one type of enemies AI but the result became that the best firefights happen with one kind of enemy and other types of enemies are a bit of a drag. Other games do orthogonal unit differentiation a lot better and it results in better combat.

>'m inclined to forgive NOLF for this as stealth games

I'm not. Thief showed you how it's done right. Even HL1 has functional stealth at times. NOLF 1 fails hard at this. NOLF 2 does it better but it's still pretty weak, it's only better in that it actually works. There's even stealth kills in the first one but they're so inconsistent.

Verdun isn't particularly good but there just aren't enough WWI games out there.

>>15217732

A lot of people complained about Cyrodiil getting retconned from romans in a jungle into temperate forest generic fantasy, but I think that was one of the reasons this game was popular.

Well that and the lack of open world first person rpgs in the market.

>>15217810

Oblivion IS generic as fuck, but it does it better than any other game I've ever seen. It didn't even really sink in until lately.

>>15217487

>I'm not. Thief showed you how it's done right

Thief wasn't a shooter it actively discouraged getting into fights. It also was built to be a stealth game and not an action game so it had a ton of complex features like its real time sound engine (Where sound propagates realistically throughout the level) and complex light systems. These are actually elements modern stealth games tend to lack and even modern attempts at remaking Thief lack. (Like the Dark mod only has really complex lighting but not sound which is why the AI is really spotty).

At the time there was a lot of debate over the value of stealth and developers tried numerous times and failed to really capture how to incorporate stealth. It wasn't til Thief stealth really worked (and even then when the game was in development they said about it the gameplay was utterly broken until a few weeks before it shipped). And it wasn't until much later when making a stealth action game was actually really viable.

>>15217980

Ah, the pre-sequel to the F.E.A.R. games!

>>15217487

Quake and doom are the definition of not very special. They're the standard, which in turn means they are not special. Blood and Fear, meanwhile, are unique takes on the genre.

>>15218236

>the source code is out there

It isn't. It's a common misconception. Monolith released the game source for all the game logic but not the engine code. None of the engine code was officially released as Monolith setup an entire licensing company just for their engine to charge people to use it.

Iirc Lithtech Jupiter's engine source was leaked but nothing has been done with it.

Underage Boypussy

>>15222553

good post

>>15215325

YOU'RE DEAD YOU HEAR ME?

DEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAD!

>>15217810

>A lot of people complained about Cyrodiil getting retconned from romans in a jungle into temperate forest generic fantasy, but I think that was one of the reasons this game was popular.

Are you sure? The appeal of the game is pretty blatantly in how it's cozy and fun to just explore its world and see what its world is like, and having the world be the one that had an actual geography and culture from before they retconned it would have made that so much better still.

Literally half the trashy games I play on Vita. Generally the ideas are at least neat, and they're the last bastion of games that know people like attractive girls doing lewd things. Mediocre to garbage execution and built to a budget though.

>>15216832

>The enemy pretending to be dead waiting for a good chance to strike.

Holy shit.

>>15215911

>blood and fear aren't very special

>blood

>not special

You son of a bitch. You take that back right now. Blood has some awesome level designand some terrible level design, great weapons, excellentstolen humor, a fantastic tone, and the best cultists ever put in a video game. It's way better than Duke3D and way better than Shadow Warrior. I'd argue it's better than Doom, but that's hallowed ground around here.

Q Studios originally developed Blood, which was bought out by Monolith, and Monolith had essentially nothing to do with the game.

Viscera cleanup detail and eurotruck simulator.

>>15223690

>Q Studios originally developed Blood, which was bought out by Monolith, and Monolith had essentially nothing to do with the game

That's true. Also Shogo arguably did more for the company, being that it was a developmental flop that inspired the approach to design that NOLF had, FEAR was originally a spiritual successor to Shogo and it was the first project for Monolith's most prolific designer Craig Hubbard.

>>15215651

>clunky stealth mechanics that should've been ironed out before release

Same issue as Deus Ex. Newfags here are too ignorant to be aware that MGS caused a stealth game fad, which caused most games to include some shitty section or implementation.

>>15224241

How is this an unpopular opinion thread if we're all acknowledging that the games we're enjoying are objectively trash?

>>15216832

>Monolith's games were highly creative and extremely memorable

Except fear that's a dull corridor shooter with scripted cutscenes ripped off The Ring.

>>15218241

>They're the standard

I fucking wish

>>15229913

I just played Modern Warfare 2, and It's actually Pretty good outside of the heavily scripted single player campaign, the Special Ops challenges are pretty hard and fun, I would recommend torrenting the Nosteam version.

Call of Duty is are my popcorn flicks, good thing I only torrent the games when I'm bored.

This is my guiltiest pleasure, but…I enjoy playing Mass Effect 3

The story and writing are awful, most if not all of the cutscenes are horribly animated but one thing they got right was the gunplay. The guns and powers all feel very satisfying and there's decent enemy variety.

>>15229913

I don't think 50 hours a year ago is enough to call it something you enjoy.

>>15230089

Fear is pretty dull. Very easy too. Fighting the same enemy for 90% of the game was poor design, but Monolith making poor decisions is basically the M.O. for their entire history.

>>15230101

>Fighting the same enemy for 90% of the game was poor design

The sequel F.E.A.R 2 went the Call of Duty route with having "heavy" enemies and other different types and the first thing you notice is how badly dumbed down the AI was in that game. You just mow down dudes and they barely react to your actions at all. It's why nobody ever looks on that game fondly.

F.E.A.R 1 had highly adaptive AI that actually reacted to what you were doing which is why it remains an endlessly replayable game.

>>15230107

>The sequel F.E.A.R 2 went the Call of Duty route with having "heavy" enemies

The first Fear (don't do the stylized capitalization that's autistic) did this too. The enemies were very dull because they pumped all their resources into making the generic grunts interesting to fight, but the rest are basically just damage sponges except those ninja guys they used like once in the entire game.

>F.E.A.R 1 had highly adaptive AI

not really. Here's some resources:

http://alumni.media.mit.edu/~jorkin/goap.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rf2T_j-FlDE

In short, it's a series of illusions made more impressive by having the AI react to what you're doing vocally so you know (or think) it's doing something. The illusion worked (on you.)

>why it remains an endlessly replayable game.

replaying it just makes it more predictable. Replaying games is a bad idea, especially frequently.

>>15230168

yeah, instead of engaging with challenging thoughts watch this mediocre game play. why would the guy melee the air at 11 seconds? This guy is trash at the game, sitting in the same spot taking pot shots from around corners, absolutely pathetic playing.

>>15218241

what games were like doom on release

what games were like quake on release

fuck you, just because they inspired games after them doesn't mean they were generic. blood is just a duke clone anyways

>>15230199

blood is a duke clone with humor that doesn't stick the landing as well, more convoluted and less well designed levels, and more bullet sponge enemies.

blood is still a little fun, at least.

>>15230126

>(don't do the stylized capitalization that's autistic)

>Don't use the game's title that was on the box that's autistic

>The enemies were very dull

>Enemies swear and yell expletives at you like "DIE MOTHERFUCKER" and do things like play dead

>very dull

>the generic grunts interesting to fight

>This is somehow a problem

>In short, it's a series of illusions made more impressive by having the AI react to what you're doing vocally so you know (or think) it's doing something. The illusion worked (on you.)

The AI flanks the player and does things like uses adaptive cover and tips things like vending machines and tables over at you. It'll also dive through windows to either engage the player or to run away so it can find cover. A lot of this tied into the game's level design.

I'm not referring to the vocalizations I knew those were bogus but the fact that the AI did this and this wasn't prescripted was what I was referring to. This is far more dynamic than the vast majority of games today and especially for its time.

What's more annoying is how despite this game coming out 13 years ago this AI wasn't expanded upon at all. In fact AI was dumbed down after the game and nowadays if you play a game today the AI is absolutely braindead and is just there for you to mow down like cannon fodder.

>replaying it just makes it more predictable

It really isn't the case with this game. I've gone back to F.E.A.R far more than any other game from that time period. Half-Life 2 for example has more enemy types but they're all more boring to fight.

Another thing that has caused F.E.A.R to age extremely well is how unabridged most of the game is. While there are horror segments they're mostly concentrated at the start and towards the end of the game and amount to less than an hour of total gameplay. The game doesn't have really obnoxious scripted walking segments like Half-Life 2 and doesn't bog you down with maze-like levels or puzzles.