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Has anyone else noticed the trend among FPS games to have single-path designs rather than open worlds?
The thought struck me lately while playing through Doom 3 and Timesplitters 3. Both of these games employ the fixed-path world type, where it is impossible to go the wrong way due to locked doors, fire, fallen trees or whatever. But their predecessors didn't.
Doom and Quake both offered up exploration in addition to shooting, and you could complete their levels without visiting every room, get lost, etc--everything you can do when you're allowed to go anywhere. The Timesplitters series is supposed to be the successor to Goldeneye, which offered open-world, objective-based gameplay. Those objectives sometimes required criss-crossing the level. Timesplitters has objectives, but you're not required to think much to accomplish them, simply because you'll do them
almost automatically as you're herded through the level.
Half-Life 2, Halo 2, Turok: Evolution, Medal of Honor, Call of Duty and other games are all guilty of this as well, even though in some cases their predecessors weren't. Even Resident Evil 4, offered up as more shooter-like, dropped the open world design of its franchise in favor of a fixed-path, although there was some exploration (buildings or small side rooms, picking up items) along the way.
Have we become so stupid, or so lazy, that we can't be bothered to look around or find our way? Do we just want to shoot and not think? Metroid Prime 2 took a lot of criticism for "backtracking"--but it has an open world design, not a corridor design like the rest of these games. Is it really "backtracking" when you're not on a fixed path? Should Prime 2 have been another game that forces you to go in a single direction? Is that what we want?
I hope not--and the best-selling games of this generation (GTA series) celebrate freedom. But in the shooter genre, the opposite is happening.
I think that this is the wrong direction to go for the FPS genre (no pun intended).
Does anyone else think that these games would have been better for the addition of a little free movement and exploration? That "herding" the player by giving him objectives and incentives is better than limiting his movement?
Didn't Doom 3 feel like a walk down a single hallway, whereas the original Doom felt like working your way from the front to the back of Hell? Is this the reason that Timesplitters has never lived up to its Goldeneye legacy?
The thought struck me lately while playing through Doom 3 and Timesplitters 3. Both of these games employ the fixed-path world type, where it is impossible to go the wrong way due to locked doors, fire, fallen trees or whatever. But their predecessors didn't.
Doom and Quake both offered up exploration in addition to shooting, and you could complete their levels without visiting every room, get lost, etc--everything you can do when you're allowed to go anywhere. The Timesplitters series is supposed to be the successor to Goldeneye, which offered open-world, objective-based gameplay. Those objectives sometimes required criss-crossing the level. Timesplitters has objectives, but you're not required to think much to accomplish them, simply because you'll do them
almost automatically as you're herded through the level.
Half-Life 2, Halo 2, Turok: Evolution, Medal of Honor, Call of Duty and other games are all guilty of this as well, even though in some cases their predecessors weren't. Even Resident Evil 4, offered up as more shooter-like, dropped the open world design of its franchise in favor of a fixed-path, although there was some exploration (buildings or small side rooms, picking up items) along the way.
Have we become so stupid, or so lazy, that we can't be bothered to look around or find our way? Do we just want to shoot and not think? Metroid Prime 2 took a lot of criticism for "backtracking"--but it has an open world design, not a corridor design like the rest of these games. Is it really "backtracking" when you're not on a fixed path? Should Prime 2 have been another game that forces you to go in a single direction? Is that what we want?
I hope not--and the best-selling games of this generation (GTA series) celebrate freedom. But in the shooter genre, the opposite is happening.
I think that this is the wrong direction to go for the FPS genre (no pun intended).
Does anyone else think that these games would have been better for the addition of a little free movement and exploration? That "herding" the player by giving him objectives and incentives is better than limiting his movement?
Didn't Doom 3 feel like a walk down a single hallway, whereas the original Doom felt like working your way from the front to the back of Hell? Is this the reason that Timesplitters has never lived up to its Goldeneye legacy?
