Genre Study: FPS

[Seth]

ahhaha i agree. Just started 2009's Castle Wolfenstein and the default was C
Two summers ago my buddy n I finally visited NOLF 2 and it was awesome. Still haven't played the original because I expected a step down from the sequal. You tell as if it's a bit better? wicked.

Personally, BF1942 that opened up the maps a bit, while staying to a historical setting...it was epic. I never did Tribes so i can't give it the open map praise that it probably deserves.

health regeneration sucks. What sucks more is the lack of a health meter. I don't even need a static gauge, just something that will give me a %.

I expect story now.
Bad Company 2 has been fun. But its limited in the way that counter strike is. It's merit is in the community, almost strictly. As of late, I've revisited BF2, which reminded me just how much of a console step down BC2 is.

I'm an Epic fan. UT 99 is probably my pinnacle of nostalgia for the genre.
I look for controls that aren't "american army". Castle Wolfenstein (Raven studio) imo has a great weapon control feel. Good speed, pacing.
In the future i expect melee and 'dodge' controls to become more standard, and well implemented. The trailer for BF3 hints at this but that's only based on trailers.

I'm gonna return to this with a few thoughts on dev and what I think should be added. A lot of it is contextually based on the type of shooter.

Overall, the best fps experience has to be tied between UT-RTCW-BF1942

[KillerGremlin]

Originally Posted by Seth

Two summers ago my buddy n I finally visited NOLF 2 and it was awesome. Still haven't played the original because I expected a step down from the sequal. You tell as if it's a bit better? wicked.

Here's my disclaimer/breakdown of NOLF vs. NOLF 2:

NOLF has the better story, better dialog, and better variety of levels. NOLF has some really exotic and fun levels and those levels tie elegantly into the story. Also, NOLF has better weapons (IMO).

NOLF 2 has a more refined game design, better flow through the levels, and much better integration of all the gadgets into the spy world.

NOLF also has some annoying camera/alarm levels, especially fairly early into the game, and these can be a point of frustration.

But NOLF also features sharks, a hilarious and awesome airplane level, a trip up the mountains, a snowmobile, a motorcycle, a train level, scuba diving....and a kickback to Moonraker. And I haven't even mentioned the fun jungle level, or the skyscraper, and then the more vanilla missions in between. It's just an epic game, and it actually has replay potential since you can customize the Weapons and Gadgets you bring on missions, and it ranks you in each mission.

For me....NOLF 2 was fun in different ways, it had swords, a great built-in stealth feature, and much much better integration of the gadgets with the spy world. Both games feature a rich amount of in-game text (like the artifacts in METROID PRIME for all you non-NOLF fans out there).

So that's my disclaimer.

TL;DR - NOLF has a better story and level design but has some frustrating spots; NOLF 2 is more polished but is not quite as quirky or varied