StarDestroyer.Net BBS

I am speaking of primarily first and third person shooter games. Minimap, motion tracker, radar whatever you want to call it have magical properties in games. Not only do you get instantaneous 360 degree coverage but you can see through any thickness of walls, rocks etc. It seems to kill the surprise element a lot.

Is anyone tired of being fed too much information ?

Thats why we have things like hardcore mode in the CoD series. Don't know if other franchises have similar game modes though.

You have all these silly crutches like radar and regenerating health in today's shooters, and then we wonder why they feel so fucking dumbed down.

^^

In many cases the unfair advantages player gets is the reason the AI seems so dumb. Stopping a guy with Wolverine like health and X-ray vision that can see through cover is too much.

Are you sure 'all seeing radar' is ubiquitous, and you're not just playing bad games? None of the shooters, sp or mp, that I have played for months have an 'all seeing' radar. Even Homefront relied on team LOS, and it's probably the worst shooter of the year. Can you cite some examples of this trend I seem to have missed? You haven't mentioned even a single title, and the only one I can think of off the top of my head is Halo.

Maybe you could explain how trekking around looking for medkits makes a game more sophisticated, too.

I actually prefer radar in most multi-player FPS games. It's kind of nice knowing that an enemy is coming up, and not having to constantly worry that you're going to walk around a corner and run into two guys.

Iunno, I think part of the point of FPS games is that you don't know if you'll run into someone when you turn a corner, and conversely, your enemies won't know you're there until they turn the corner.
Matter of taste, I suppose.

I do like CoD's radar that only shows enemy contacts under certain circumstances. It adds another dimension of tactics to the game, even when I'll grant it's not realistic at all. You only show up on it when you shoot, so you have to make your shots count. Either that or the enemy uses some reward they have to earn (UAVs or whatever), which you can nullify using rewards that you can earn (UAV jammer or something).
Just another layer of gameplay.


I agree that Stark has a point, picking up first aid kits isn't any more realistic than regenerating health (with no visible health counter/bar). The method of health recovery a game uses is simply really a matter of the type of setting, and the "feel" of the game's atmosphere.
I do notice that nobody makes ridiculously hardcore shit like the old original Rainbow Six games, where one or two hits can kill or incapacitate an operative, and even if they survive they might be out of action for weeks while recovering.

Many shooters have a specific hardcore mode (as mentioned) where lethality is absurd, there's no hud, no map, etc. It's not generally very popular. It's a good way to get started in BC2, though, because its easier to get kills.

In any case,

FEAR has no radar
DOOM3 had no radar
Metro had no radar
Far Cry 2 has no radar
Bad company 2 has a map that requires team spotting
Homefront has a map that requires team LOS
Thief had no radar
Gears had no radar
Borderlands had no radar (although it had a marked compass so ....)
The Darkness had no radar
Kane and Lynch had no radar
Army of Two had no radar

@Cyk

I was not talking about realism but purely gameplay. Being surprised or surprising the enemy is part of the fun.

Sorry, Sarevok.. my earlier statement was intended as a response to Guardsman Bass:

Guardsman Bass wrote:I actually prefer radar in most multi-player FPS games. It's kind of nice knowing that an enemy is coming up, and not having to constantly worry that you're going to walk around a corner and run into two guys.

I was agreeing with you (Sarevok) that surprising people (and being surprised in turn) is part of the fun of FPS games.
I continued to explain that at the very most, I'd accept CoD's radar that imposes logical rules on when you can see enemies on the minimap, and you/enemies being hidden/visible on the minimap forms a sort of metagame in itself.


In general, Sarevok, can you give some examples of games you were referring to in the OP, that have omniscient minimaps that ruin the game?

Stark wrote:Are you sure 'all seeing radar' is ubiquitous, and you're not just playing bad games? None of the shooters, sp or mp, that I have played for months have an 'all seeing' radar. Even Homefront relied on team LOS, and it's probably the worst shooter of the year. Can you cite some examples of this trend I seem to have missed? You haven't mentioned even a single title, and the only one I can think of off the top of my head is Halo.

Even Halo's radar isn't "all seeing", it only shows enemies who are moving above a certain speed or shooting.

atg wrote:Thats why we have things like hardcore mode in the CoD series. Don't know if other franchises have similar game modes though.

America's army did have that too. I don't know if it still does that way. Even your allies would not show on the map unless they report their positions every few seconds I believe (been years).

The only recent games I've played with radar are Halo and CoD: both have game modes to disable it. Hell, Goldeneye 64 has one and on the newer front, so does Counter-Strike: Source.

One game I really enjoyed that had no map or persistent coms (you died, no talking) and didn't update the score-board with who was dead/alive was The Hidden: Source. The only way to tell who was still around to help you fight the Hidden was doing a voice check. And at the end of a game when you say "Report in" and it's just silence, it gets crazy.

Too bad the community went to shit.

Stark wrote:Many shooters have a specific hardcore mode (as mentioned) where lethality is absurd, there's no hud, no map, etc. It's not generally very popular. It's a good way to get started in BC2, though, because its easier to get kills.

It's also just a terrible game mode because it thinks challenge = making the game unintuitive.

I barely ever noticed the radar in Halo. When it was solid yellow I kinda already knew I was being swarmed by flood. Maybe I'm just a terrible gamer, though.

Phantasee wrote:I barely ever noticed the radar in Halo. When it was solid yellow I kinda already knew I was being swarmed by flood. Maybe I'm just a terrible gamer, though.

It's borderline irrelevant in singleplayer anyway. Multiplayer is where it actually matters.