Jumping Enemies in FPS

Pablo Sanchez · Post by **Pablo Sanchez** » 2005-07-24 05:39pm

The biggest cliche in FPS games is zombies. This was so prominent that during my play through HL2, the zombies caused me to miss the further development of a newer, even more annoying cliche:

Enemies that jump at you.

This is now a powerful phenomena. A lot of new FPS games feature enemies who lack ranged attacks, but make up for it by being to leap around the level like meth-addicted grasshoppers. I just bought Far Cry and I've been playing it all day. Fuck the trigens. I was having great fun shooting up mercenaries, figuring out the most efficient way to gun down entire teams, and so on.

Then these weird ape-monsters show up and every appearance of them has degraded my game experience. They're just annoying. They show up, the game goes "ZOMG teh trigens will killz you!" and then I gun them down while they jump around. Occasionally one will perform his prodigious 30-foot horizontal longjump from a standing start (are these genetically-engineered apes or fucking kangaroos?) and get close enough to kill me with two or three swipes of his meaty paws. Or maybe he doesn't get close enough to actually hit but the game's hit detection on the trigens is fucked up so that they're more dangerous, and his swipe will miss by 3-4 feet but still take off my entire health bar instantly. Whatever.

I think the source of the enemies that jump at you cliche is the good old headcrab from Half-Life 1. There were a few good moments in HL1 where the geniuses at Valve would stick a headcrab somewhere unexpected and it would surprise the shit out of you. Game designers saw this and thought "why don't our games have stuff like that?" So they threw leaping enemies into their games. Except, instead of using them to enhance suspense and lay surprising traps, they just throw them around randomly in the hopes of make the game cooler. Instead, it is just fucking annoying.

This goes for the Doom 3 Imps, the HL2 black headcrabs/leaper zombies/zombies that throw other headcrabs, and the Far Cry trigens. They piss me off.

Fuckers.

Hamel · Post by **Hamel** » 2005-07-24 06:18pm

Quake and Quake 2 had trigen-esque monsters that jumped at you.

edit: oh, your question wasn't serious.

nihahaha

Sharpshooter · Post by **Sharpshooter** » 2005-07-24 06:31pm

Actually, I think it really started with the originl Turok: Diosaur Hunter for the Nintendo 64, where they had an enemy (aptly named the Leper) do its attack by jumping at you, as well as some giant insect things that did the same.

2000AD · Post by **2000AD** » 2005-07-24 06:39pm

THe worst offender was Alien vs Predator. There's a scuttling noise you can barely hear and then suddenly you've got a facehugger attached to you, one hit instant death.

Brother-Captain Gaius · Post by **Brother-Captain Gaius** » 2005-07-24 06:58pm

2000AD wrote:THe worst offender was Alien vs Predator. There's a scuttling noise you can barely hear and then suddenly you've got a facehugger attached to you, one hit instant death.

Yeah, but that's cool.

Joe · Post by **Joe** » 2005-07-24 07:18pm

I think the Brutes from Halo 2 could sort of do that. Fucking annoying.

Arthur_Tuxedo · Post by **Arthur_Tuxedo** » 2005-07-24 07:33pm

Earliest jumper that I remember from an FPS was the Fiend in Quake, and it was annoying then, too

Praxis · Post by **Praxis** » 2005-07-24 07:43pm

JKA multiplayer. Dozens of Jedi players force-jumping all over the place.

On some games I actually quite enjoy jumping enemies, as its always pleasing to blast them out of the air. I'm a good sniper shot.

Post by **weemadando** » 2005-07-24 10:07pm

Nothing can compare to bunny-hoppers.

Post by **Dalton** » 2005-07-24 10:34pm

Games should feature an exhaustion meter that determines how much you can jump...

VF5SS · Post by **VF5SS** » 2005-07-24 11:13pm

Dalton wrote:Games should feature an exhaustion meter that determines how much you can jump...

"Day of Defeat," a Half-Life World War II mod features a stamina meter for sprinting and jumping. Its prevents all sorts of "Mein Leapen!"

Tasoth · Post by **Tasoth** » 2005-07-24 11:24pm

VF5SS wrote:
Dalton wrote:Games should feature an exhaustion meter that determines how much you can jump...
"Day of Defeat," a Half-Life World War II mod features a stamina meter for sprinting and jumping. Its prevents all sorts of "Mein Leapen!"

As does firearm, another good half life mod. Blame the bunny hop for that one. IIRC, it was a flaw in the coding that lets players ramp up to insane speeds by doing some elaborate jumping.

DPDarkPrimus · Post by **DPDarkPrimus** » 2005-07-25 12:29am

Man, those monkey Trigens were fucking pieces of shit. Take out the monkeys and the rocket-launcher arm wankers, and the other Trigens would be fine... but no, they had to add those wankish enemies that completely ruin the experience.

SPOOFE · Post by **SPOOFE** » 2005-07-25 12:55am

Frankly, I think we should be encouraging game developers to, y'know, try something new. Lord knows I've been shot at by guys with guns plenty of times in the past decade. I think that wanky habit started with Doom, and then EVERY game developer was saying, "Hey, how come OUR games don't have guys with guns? Guns... that shoot!" What a bunch of thoughtless hacks the game developers are.

Post by **Mr Bean** » 2005-07-25 01:12am

The monkey trigens sucked not only did they jump like crazyed kangeroo's but the simple fact that they somehow knew what gernades were(Bad AI programing there)
Sure they are insane mutanted super apes but that should not let them instictively know when I creep up on one and roll a gernade at its feet it should not start sprint for the hills. Its a shinny metal thing, it should go over and look at it and/or ignore it.

Companion Cube · Post by **Companion Cube** » 2005-07-25 05:07am

Those Trigens annoyed the hell out of me. Why can I take a bullet to the face and keep going, while a mutant monkey punching at my knees brings me down in a split second?

Half-Life 2 was a bit guilty of this as well, with regards to the Ant-Lions. In this case, however, the problem was that the standard Combine Soldiers are insta-killed if the Ant-Lion hits them, while other enemies can taking a much longer pounding. I realise that the Ant-Lions are meant to be a weapon, but watching troops with automatic weapons in prepared positions get defeated by giant spiders irritates me. TBH, I'd much rather use the tame Ant-Lions as a meat shield while I do the killing.

Dooey Jo · Post by **Dooey Jo** » 2005-07-25 07:45am

I think all annoying jumping enemies are descendants of the Jumping Humpers of Castlevania. The supreme Jumping Humper (goes by the name of Igor) cannot be killed by any other means than killing Frankestein's monster (makes perfect sense, don't bother question it). I bet a twisted minded game developer was working on a new design for an FPS once and was playing Castlevania. As he was killed by the five billion JHs on levels 3 and 4 for the 96th time, he got the brilliant idea:
"Hey! I know! Why not brings these evil fucking abominations into the third dimension? Then, they'll be even more impossible to hit or avoid and everyone will hate aspects of my game forever! Tres cool!!"

I tell ya, it's just a matter of time before you'll be seeing ravens swoop down on you from no-where in the FPSs, pushing you down into bottom-less pits!

SPOOFE · Post by **SPOOFE** » 2005-07-25 08:33am

I guess I'm the only person on the planet that had no problems with leaping trigens. Didn't ya notice that if you put, like, an obstacle between you and it, it couldn't get ya? Just a thought.

Post by **Vympel** » 2005-07-25 08:42am

Usually that obstacle also stops your bullets getting from your gun to its body.

Yeah, I'm not a fan teH leaping enemies.

Pcm979 · Post by **Pcm979** » 2005-07-25 08:47am

Republic Commando's Magnaguards pissed me off. Leapy leapy Leeeeapy... I think I'll twirl in the air for a while, and noone can hit me except for the split-second I touch ground! Leeeapy!

Nephtys · Post by **Nephtys** » 2005-07-25 11:50am

Pcm979 wrote:Republic Commando's Magnaguards pissed me off. Leapy leapy Leeeeapy... I think I'll twirl in the air for a while, and noone can hit me except for the split-second I touch ground! Leeeapy!

and they sucked miserably too. Ineffective as hell.

But well, I think the origins of the JUMPY enemy are either those floaty skulls in the original DOOM, or the Invisible Mutants in System Shock. I love my System Shock, but those gelly-bat guys were a PAIN. *falling out of vents, leaping into your head, etc*

Pcm979 · Post by **Pcm979** » 2005-07-25 12:22pm

I don't know, they're pretty effective as long as that bitch Tardfull stands in front of them.

Ubiquitous · Post by **Ubiquitous** » 2005-07-25 12:51pm

Urghh, Trigens. That brings back bad memories. Did anyone ever complete that game? I couldn't get past the last level with the masses of rocket launcher equiped trigens stopping you from getting to the lift.

YT300000 · Post by **YT300000** » 2005-07-25 12:57pm

Well, its okay with Doom 3 Imps, since they have to actually drop into a crouch and it actually looks physically possible, and they don't jump more than a few metres either. As mentioned before, Fiends were really the first incidence of it, but headcrabs probably kicked off the trend. Headcrabs of course being inspired by facehuggers, so it ends up with the Alien movies.

Just like the chaingun cliche started with Predator. Hell, even the first FPSs ever made had that brainbug (Wolfenstein and Doom, I'm looking right at you).

Arthur_Tuxedo · Post by **Arthur_Tuxedo** » 2005-07-25 04:57pm

ALI_G wrote:Urghh, Trigens. That brings back bad memories. Did anyone ever complete that game? I couldn't get past the last level with the masses of rocket launcher equiped trigens stopping you from getting to the lift.

You might want to take a few more cracks at it. It's the very last sequence in the game.