I've been playing a lot of FPS's lately on the N64 against a friend and learnt something (or gained a new opinion) about the general design of these games. Firstly i'd like to note that i'm talking about deathmatches. When i was playing a fps (turok 3 - it doesn't really matter) they allow you to alter a lot of various setup's in the game. This allowed me to experiement with various ways of playing a deathmatch. Like all fps deathmatches you have pickups for every thing almost including a plug for the kitchen sink. What i decided to do was to remove all pickups completely, that's right ZIPPO pickups including health. I decided to do this to see what extra excitment it may add to the game. Basically we started the game off with more ammo for the less powerful guns and less ammo for the more powerful guns and that's all you got for you 10 lives/frags. The consequence of this really boosted the excitment level of the game tremendously. If you fluked a head shot you almost jumped out of your chair laughing at your opponent. If you lined up someone on the scope for an easy kill an missed then you sure as hell wouldn't miss the next time you got another chance. So basically a stuff up didn't mean that you'd given up your position and now have to run away to get some more ammo to try again, instead it meant important ammo loss and the likelyhood of getting hit in return. After playing the game like this for many hours we just couldn't bring ourselves back to playing the game with tonnes of pick ups everywhere and frags that really meant "yeah, you walked around a corner and held down the Z button". The old style of playing just seemed completely pointless as if you were playing with cheat codes enabled. Does anyone else think that the skill level in games really isn't there much these days in fps's? I sure as hell do. One more time for the dumbies ar+gu+ment n. A discussion in which reasons are put forward in support of and against a proposition, proposal, or case; debate. Edited by - Paul Cunningham on 11/19/00 5:51:38 AM

Ya know Paul.. that brings about an interesting point. I think that playing without powerups can make the game a lot more fun, challenging, and intensely exciting. I love using different weapons in games like 007 Goldeneye and Perfect Dark. I''ll usually put like two pistols, and two mammoth guns.. usually rockets or grenades.. hehe. That way if you''re the kind who merely pops grenades all over, you might end up getting killed by yourself (been there.. done that) while the little guy with the pistol pops your head off.. hehe.
Although, i''ve yet to find a truely awesome control style which allows you to aim, move, and shoot all at the same time like you easily could in real life. Speaking of real life, try turning the crosshairs off in a game... hehehehe! makes it much more real, where headshots aren''t so easy to get, and body shots are much more practical. LOL.

J

Turning crosshairs off, sounds good. I guess i''ve been a bit to gutless to try it. Hmmm, i''m looking forward to my next game already.

I saw a good way of having a zoom in function in the game "Skynet". The gun had a little tv on top of it which showed a zoom/night vision view. But becuase the game wasn''t big it''ll probably just get forgotten as most brilliant game concepts do. I guess another way to do it is to create a window that open up that acts as a zoom. This way you''ve still got the rest of the screen to look around in normal mode.

One more time for the dumbies
ar+gu+ment n. A discussion in which reasons are put forward in support of and against a proposition, proposal, or case; debate.

Interesting.. never played that one I didn''t like their previous games.. a bit quirky That''s a cool idea though. Humm.. there''s a lot of different ways to take that, though. I mean, helicopter pilots have a single thing over one eye, which enhances vision and provides crosshairs, etc. The newest american ones even have a laser which points into the eye, and can tell where you''re looking. The gun turrent under the heli follows your eye movements! pretty wicked, eh? You look at a target to aim at it, and then pull the trigger. dead perfect accuracy, thanks to computer tech. That''s why i don''t understand some of these games. They don''t make much use of this kind of sci-fi type stuff. I mean, it''s hard to impliment in a good way, but why not have the character help you aim? It really plays a role in RPG style games mixed with FPS, and takes FPS to the next level, in my opinion. As you move the mouse, the character "helps" to aim. You have a certain margin around the mouse.. has 10 pixels at level one. If you put your mouse within 10 pixels of his head, the character will shoot at the head. You don''t have to factor in to-hits and whatnot, because a fps takes care of that for you by making YOU do the aiming and dodging. But a character you''s got good aiming skill won''t need the crosshairs centered on a target. Since it''s almost impossible for most people to do anyways. The RPG element would allow people who don''t have great manual dexterity play a game like Doom or Quake with some ammount of enjoyment
Now, you apply this to dodging. You have reaction skill.. and depending on your reactions, you can dodge bullets like neo in the matrix.. hehe. Anyways.. it''s a cool idea i''ve been playing with.. and if you''re interested, i could give you more details some other time

J