Rules of Combat According to FPS Games
I'm still enjoying , but as I mentioned before - it follows very typical conventions (dare I call them cliches?) of the First-Person Shooter genre. It's well-executed, but painfully predictable in spots. I have found myself saying, "Didn't I play this game when it was called Return to Castle Wolfenstein, or Half-Life, or No One Lives Forever, or Aliens vs. Predator II, or Quake II?"

Which is why I don't play a ton of FPS games. But even when they are following the formula to a T, they are still fun to play. But inspired by certain predictable elements, and the old John Kovalic series entitled "Murphy's Rules", I thought I'd throw together my list of Rules of Combat according to FPS games. Some are due to actual technical limitations, but many others are just lazy design because these elements have come to be accepted (even expected) in the genre:

#1 - A Three-foot-high wall made of a quarter-inch thick plywood is impervious to harm, and incapable of being vaulted or climbed over by a highly-trained supersoldier who can jump down dozens of feet with little or no injury.

#2 - If you find yourself in a room full of goodies (armor, healthpacks, and ammunition), do NOT be grateful. You are about to get the crap kicked out of you.

#3 - If there's a straight path to your goal, it will be obstructed by crates and debris that are as immovable and indestructible as Mount Everest. Even a little fifty-pound open-frame tool shelf that the AI can knock over to provide cover will effectively block any and all efforts for you to move it, go around it, crawl through it, or otherwise pass it. You must instead follow a twisted alternate route through air ducts, maintenance tunnels, and flooded waterways to make fifty feet of progress.

#4 - If there's a straight path to your goal that is NOT heavily guarded or obstructed, go VERY carefully and slowly. You are about to experience an earthquake or explosion that will go off and destroy the path, possibly knocking you into the resulting hole in the floor. This event will inevitably take place right underneath you or when you are scant inches from ground zero.

#5 - A properly trained soldier is capable of carrying two pistols, a submachinegun, an assault rifle, a sniper rifle, a heavy machinegun, a rocket launcher, and two more advanced and/or alien weapons, plus a couple hundred rounds of ammunition for each AND a few grenades. They will be able to run at full speed and jump over short distances (but no three-foot-tall barriers) while carrying this load.

#6 - There is NO SAFETY IN NUMBERS when you assault an enemy stronghold. A squad of highly-trained, elite special forces operatives are DEAD MEAT six feet past the doorway. The rookie who was for whatever reason left out of the initial assault (got separated, or was left out because he wasn't tough enough) is going to be partly ignored by the bad guys and allowed to storm the fortress (or deserted warehouse) challenged only by pockets of resistance, until this individual destroys the enemy mastermind. Apparently the good guys know this, and think nothing of sending the same lone-wolf soldier against hordes of enemy soldiers again and again. Like it's nothing more than an INCONVENIENCE - sorry they couldn't send someone else to keep you company while you are slaughtering endless hordes of heavily armed bad guys.

#7 - Any industrial-looking place is going to have hundreds of crates and boxes scattered randomly throughout the complex, sprinkled with barrels of highly volatile and explosive contents that will cause lethal destruction when bumped. Apparently evil masterminds don't fear OSHA any more than they fear police and the special forces.

#8 - If you find any badly wounded friendly, they won't live long enough for the emergency crews to arrive - just long enough to give you a cryptic clue. So don't worry about stopping your mission of destruction to save them.

#9 - Enemy Soldiers cannot see or hear a firefight with explosions taking place a hundred yards from them out in the open in broad daylight. But they can spot you INSTANTLY at thirty yards slinking around a corner in the darkness even when they have their backs turned to you. Unless you've just been instructed to sneak up on them by the tutorial, in which case you could probably have a rock concert behind them before they'd notice.

#10 - There are few things as satisfying as hearing a hidden enemy yell, "Oh ****" right before he gets blown up by your well-placed grenade.

Labels: Mainstream Games

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 10:20 AM (Permalink)