1st Person Games suck ass unless they're shooters

[Mr Bean]

FEAR does a good job of showing how first person scaryness can be done. Just flip the world on its head when you open that door, or take the camera away for half a second. It does have shades of surpise in there.


But ir more along the lines of walk walk walk, open the door SUPRISE! your in the sixth layer of hell..

Good luck!

Ooh but wait it was just in your head.

Nothing says you can't take the camera control out of the FPS for half a second. GIANT Noise, look at it and wham! Its the ghost of Xmas! And he's here to put a cap in your ass.

[Eleas]

Hate to say it, but SS2 *IS* a shooter. I'd call Thief a shooter too, since it uses all the FPS conventions, but I'm not sure what Supes is complaining about since I've not played SH4.

SS2 is a shooter in the same way GTA is a racing sim. You can drive around and it may occasionally feel similar, but it's pretty much all superficial. As for Thief, even less so.

Why don't more games use Hitman 3rd person? Morrowind et al has the whole character visible(making archery impossible), but Hitman had the camera locked higher than the characters head, so you don't get typical 3rd person 'aim by putting your head on the target' problems. And you can't see his pants.

It's because Codename 47 is bald, which explains everything. No, I'm not going to tell you, it's Zen thing, you have to figure it out for yourself.

[Stark]

FEAR is supposed to be scary? It's DOOM3-level teen-horror stuff, it's not SCARY. Thief and SS2 were *tense*, and I think that's about as good as you can get in a game. Cowering in a corner hoping the ratman/zombie doesn't see you is good: lights going out is just lame.

Eleas, we clearly use different critera for sorting genres. SS2 and Thief are slight variations on standard shooters, involving puzzles and stats or sneaking. They're clearly not RPGs given the lack of meaningful interaction (although T:DP needed a 'snide comment' button).

[DPDarkPrimus]

FEAR is supposed to be scary? It's DOOM3-level teen-horror stuff, it's not SCARY.

How dare you compare FEAR to DOOM 3. DOOM 3 was literally all about monsters spawning behind you in the dark or appearing from the most imporbable locations right after you picked up an item. FEAR actually relies on pauses in action to build tension, and the scares aren't about monsters, but hallucinations and the ambiant environment.

[Arthur_Tuxedo]

FEAR seems like a definite step up from DOOM 3 in freak-out factor and also in gameplay, but the demo didn't really scare me much. Thief caused me to actually quit the game to settle my nerves on multiple occasions.

What made Thief so special, I think, was how mortal you were, and how quickly you could get torn to shreds if you were spotted. DOOM 3 was tense for about 30 minutes, until I figured out that it took a lot of hits to bring me down. Eventually it got so predictable that I would instictually turn and fire at an empty wall, and while the rocket was in flight, the monster would spawn and get blown up. They Hunger was extremely scary until I figured out that the zombies were just reskinned headcrap zombies, which were really just downsized Quake shamblers without the lightning attack, and pretty soon I was killing everything in sight with my umbrella while yawning. But there's no getting used to the baddies in Thief. The giant spiders that jump and land behind you, and make that horrible hissing noise, and the dreaded haunt. Even the human guards can freak you out if you think they're about to discover where you are.