Be Excellent To Each Other

So. I like FPSs, especially WW2 FPSs and FPSs that are set in amongst bombed-out cities. Medal of Honour, Killzone, HalfLife 2, Battlefield 2, COD2, Black etc etc. All great. But they all suffer from a similar flaw. A really great big massive flaw.

So, what is it?

This flaw jumped out at me recently whilst wandering around Bristol. It struck me how many buildings and windows you can see in every single direction from every point in the city centre. Thousands of them. Can you imagine how terrifying it would be if you were a soldier tasked with attacking somewhere like that? No matter where you were, or what cover you were hiding behind, there would be a stack load of potential hiding places for enemy soldiers in every single direction. Whatever you're hiding behind, there will be a bunch of windows somewhere behind you with an eyeline to the back of your head. That block of flats half a kilometre away? Maybe there are guys behind every window - and they're all looking at you through their telescopic sights.

Every single window, door, rooftop, chimney, stairway and vehicle is potentially hiding a threat.* Think Blackhawk Down when they're tooling along in their HMMVW's getting cut to ribbons from all directions. Or when they're desperately running across open ground, breath rasping, to the next bit of cover.

The flaw is that this isn't reflected in FPSs. Not at all. The most you'll ever get is a handful of snipers in really obvious locations that you're forewarned about because shooting them is an objective (but you can't get up to them, oh no, because the building is a big solid block with no operable doors. Just like in real life. Oh...). Or the odd chap on a terrace. What you don't get is the sense that the street you've turned down may result in you getting turned into swiss cheese by 20 enemy soldiers hiding behind all of the windows you can see. Because, by god, that's where I'd be sticking my men were I defending an urban area. Short of the attackers rolling in with tanks, you're effectively defending from lots of little castles.

Perhaps part of the reason this isn't done is that in order for it to work properly you would have to be able to access the entire interiors of every single building on the map, not matter how big. But boy, wouldn't that be great?

So the FPSs are failing to represent a massive part of what it would feel like to be a soldier in an urban area. And to me this seems like an enormous shame. And a big flaw. I mentioned it was a flaw, right? Because it's missing out a fairly big component of what urban operations would consist of. It'd be like leaving out, I don't know, building interiors (oh, yeah...) or limited ammo, or rubble. Or enemies.

So - boo. Boo I say.



*This isn't the first time I've thought about this, mind (I often wander around places wondering how you would attack or defend it. This possibly started when I first went to church and spent the entire mass planning a daring raid on the pulpit), but it was the first time I put it together with FPSs. Yeah yeah. I'm odd.

You'd think that 'next-gen games' would deal with this in their 'next-genniness', wouldn't ya?

Wouldn't doing a building clearance for every building in a 25 square mile are be a bit of a dull way to play an FPS though? Which is why most of them have a bit of building clearance, mixed with taking fortified positions in the middle of the street, and stuff.

Day of Defeat Source is awesome, as is the original, but it's online, so you'll hate it.

It's quite fun in the Rainbow 6 Vegas games, although that is mainly clearing out huge buildings apart from the initial Mexican Town map in the first game. Alternatively there is always Sniper Elite and play one of the sneaky so and so's and sit on top of a building topping Nazis.

If done well it could be a lot of fun, however it could end up with being sniper-headshot-killed by someone you never see over and over again, much like playing multiplayer with people that are much, much better (as seems to happen to me, a lot).

No.

Next.



No. Because what you do is have you acting as part of an army. People don't assault towns on their own. They go in as part of a whole bunch of people - this is one thing that COD2 did pretty well (if with slightly ropey AI).

Ideally you'd have somehting like one section of your platoon clearing one house, another setting up covering fire from the neighbouring roof, and your section taking out the barricade further down the road, under fire from the building that section 1 hasn't cleared out yet. All whilst a couple more platoons are in action in the neighbouring streets, and possibly calling in your section for support.

Or something.

I appreciate this may not necessarily work as part of a level-based 1 player, but c'mon, if you're going to have an armed-forces based FPR and set it outside in a town they could at least work this in a bit. The solid buildings are just shit, and really do detract from any suspension of disbelief.

Tell me more. I enjoy online games.

it's WWII and it's a team FPS. You are either the alliis or axis and you run around and shoot guns. There can only be so many people per class (so you don't get a team full of snipers). There are a lot of maps and you can get it from STEAM (IIRC).

Maps are compact and urban with a lot of cover, the game seems to reinforce the "Move, cover fire, move' ness and team play is good.

Oh, and it's on the PC.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day_of_Defeat

Full spectrum warrior may be your friend here.

Do you need HL2 in order to play it?

Yeah, one of those incredibly boring Tom Clancy games with the shite controls. They'd probably suck all the joy out of a game about killing people.

Crikey, err, dunno. Think it comes as part of the STEAM package or something. it's top fun though,

EDIT: Especially when you get a heavy machine gunner covering a whole street from a seemingly impregnable window, and then he dies as someone snuck in under cover of a smoke grenade and hit him on the head with a shovel.

Isn't that more of an RTS but with a squad of soldiers?

I meant to mention Soldiers: Heroes of WW2, which is briliant, although an RTS rather than an FPS. The use of buildings is brilliant. You try to cross a street and you get shot by a sniper. Where did that come from? Easiest solution? Bring up your tank and stove in every first and second floor around you, because they'll be swarming with Nazis anyway. The fully deformable landscape is just a joy, and provides a brilliant sense of how chuffing terrifying armour is to infantry, but also how vulnerable a massive Tiger tank can be to a bloke with rocket launcher in a window.

FEAR is quite good, I say.

Didn't just rolling in to a city with tanks in WWII normally result in all your tanks getting blown up though? Your tank loses all its advantages when it has to crunch through streets where infantry can loose off anti-tank weapons from behind cover at a range of 10 feet.

In Stalingrad I think the Germans just about gave up going through the streets in places. They would blow holes in internal walls when moving through blocks of buildings, rather than wander outside and risk getting shot.

I'm not sure a "realistic" FPS WWII game would be any fun at all - your guy would be outflanking a machine gun post when a 125mm gun positioned 5 miles away would shoot at random and turn you to mulch.

The Iraq levels of CoD4 then.

On the Xbox 360, mit Bezzie Mates action.

Yes indeed. But it doesn't do anything like what Mr. Chris described in his first post (unless I'm mis-remembering badly).

Do please buy me a 360 then.



absolutely - this is where the German combined arms tactics came in. Tanks are fine and all, but if they don't have infantry support they're dead. And in enclosed spaces the infantry support is a lot less effective. Tanks and towns weren't a great combination.



Ha! Well, there's taking things to extremes. But can't this already happen in stuff like BF2? You can be asaulting an enemy postion and suddenly they abandon it and drop an artillery fire mission on you. It's part and parcel of what you're trying to recreate.

This is also the benefit of having a whole bunch of soldiers operating with you - you're one of a number then, and you're less likely to get shot as there are so many other targets. Yes, you may get some arty dropped on you, but you restart and hope next time you don't.

And it's the most annoying thing about the BF games. Realism < Fun.

The old quote about war being 99% and boredom 1% sheer terror springs to mind.

I was about to edit in to my previous post that there is of course a trade off between realism and fun, to some extent, if all you're after is a quick blast. So it depends what you're after.

However, wonderful flightsims like Il2, for instance, can result in you getting split in two by a lucky flack shot after spending 30 minutes fighting your way to the target area. Ho hum.

But with regard to the OP, what really and fundamentally pisses me off about FPSs is that you can basically ignore all of the buildings unless they have a window which is see through - that one will have a sniper behind it - OH NOES. Surely we can agree that that is a lack of realism that also results in a lack of fun? The buildings are pointless wallpaper, and completely signpost the bits where they're not.

It's certainly a tradeoff, yes.

Only video of DoD:S I could find in a quick search showing gameplay.

Cheers Mali - I'll take a look when I get home. And then, maybe, see how much the Evil STEAM wants for it.

I noticed that myself, but it wasn't going to stop me. Besides, he said FPS, and it is indeed one of those.

Mr. Chris, you don't need HL2. It's it's own game, not a mod (The original DoD was an HL1 Mod).

I own it, got it for free as part of preordering HL2 on Steam. Never really played it though.

I fear the amount of memory required for what Mr Chris is talking about to be quite large, even with instanced buildings.

I'd like a good tank-em-up for 360. I used to like Sherman M4 for the Amiga.

Sorry for hijack, well, not that sorry.

Then I spit upon the "next gen" pretentions of the current crop of consoles.

Not just the consoles.

I quite enjoyed 'Pacific Islands' on the Amiga.

Instancing in MMO is rubbish.

Frontlines has two good urban multiplayer maps set in bombed-out Moscow where there are lots of hidden alcoves, windows and ledges you can set up a nice sniper nest in (the closest Call of Duty 4 comes to this is the Chinatown map, but the best tactic remains to get near your enemy so when he kills you, he gets blown up by your fucking 'martyrdom' grenade).

A few levels in the singleplayer campaign also involve attacking the city, where you face both desperate conscripts and lots of nasty guys with rocketlaunchers lurking in the ruins waiting for your shiny tank to roll past so they can blow you to bits.