"Nothing is ever left to chance. There's rarely any opportunity to explore, or approach via another route, and therefore absolutely no means to experiment with different strategies in the way that you routinely have to in multiplayer."
That describes nearly every single-player FPS ever made. And it's exactly why I have always preferred MP to SP. Everything he mentioned is wrong with single-player today has always been wrong -- boring, repetitive, tedious. Duke and Quake weren't any better, MP was way more fun than SP back then too. Multiplayer is like single-player, except the enemies are intelligent, it's different every time, and you can go any way you want (not just down the alley, up the correct ladder, through the air vents, to collect the good gun you need to beat the next guy who will always be waiting in the same spot). I play America's Army 3 now, it's MP only.
You should play System Shock 2 some time, or Deus Ex. It does have multiplayer and singleplayer, but the multiplayer just gives you the story to play through as a team.
You could argue, of course, that those two games aren't really pure FPS. Since they do have a story.
I knew someone would mention Deus Ex. I tried it, granted I probably didn't give it a fair shot, but what I did play of it I didn't like. Actually it was probably worse. I don't like RPGs, I find them even more contrived and tedious than SP FPSs.
I don't want to have to collect things to move on. I don't want to solve puzzles. I don't want skill points that make me better at shooting a rifle. What makes me better at shooting a rifle in a game is what makes me better in real life -- practice. When I started playing AA3 I sucked, I couldn't control my weapon, but with practice I got better. When I used to play SoF2 I would load a map locally and practice shooting walls for hours. Learning to shoot a perfect two shot burst at head level. People would think I was cheating because I could take their heads off before they even fired a shot. And it wasn't because of artificial skill points, it was because I practiced.
To me multiplayer FPSs are like competitive sports. They take practice, they are intense and thrilling, they require team tactics, there is competition against real people, and there is the thrill of victory from beating a real person. I don't want to out-smart code a developer wrote, or out-shoot an AI programmed to be less accurate than a computer should be. I want to out-smart a person who is trying to out-smart me. I want to out-shoot a person who is trying their best to out-shoot me.
I hope companies continue to make good SP FPS and RPG games, because I know people that really like them. They just don't do it for me.
Deus Ex is probably not as good as an example as System Shock 2. Deus Ex was way too long ever for me, and can indeed become tedious.
System Shock 2 also has something like a skill point system, but it feels different: In Deus Ex you can always do almost everything, just with more or less efficiency. System Shock 2 tends more toward unlocking e.g. the ability to use a specific gun. The game also has a knack for keeping you low on at least one supply (health or ammo or weapons or so).
Experience points are limited, you get them for progressing in the story. So you can't stay around and grind. (That's similar in Deus Ex.) So your level of abilities is just a convenient way for escalating the stories. Just like getting new weapons in Half Life or new kinds of tanks in a real-time strategy game.
On the other hand, you might like games like nethack or Spelunky. They have a notion of your character growing in abilities, but since each game is short, you start from zero each time, handling the progression well just becomes another skill. A bit like picking up weapons and ammo in Quake 3 in the most efficient manner possible. Or Master of Orion, where getting new technology is part of the game (and can be compared to getting new skills in an RPG).
> You should play System Shock 2 some time, or Deus Ex.
Indeed, it's not like these are getting any less fun. If anything, it's getting easier to rediscover the classics since the likelihood that they will work under Wine is increasing.
Comments
"Nothing is ever left to chance. There's rarely any opportunity to explore, or approach via another route, and therefore absolutely no means to experiment with different strategies in the way that you routinely have to in multiplayer."
That describes nearly every single-player FPS ever made. And it's exactly why I have always preferred MP to SP. Everything he mentioned is wrong with single-player today has always been wrong -- boring, repetitive, tedious. Duke and Quake weren't any better, MP was way more fun than SP back then too. Multiplayer is like single-player, except the enemies are intelligent, it's different every time, and you can go any way you want (not just down the alley, up the correct ladder, through the air vents, to collect the good gun you need to beat the next guy who will always be waiting in the same spot). I play America's Army 3 now, it's MP only.
You should play System Shock 2 some time, or Deus Ex. It does have multiplayer and singleplayer, but the multiplayer just gives you the story to play through as a team.
You could argue, of course, that those two games aren't really pure FPS. Since they do have a story.
I knew someone would mention Deus Ex. I tried it, granted I probably didn't give it a fair shot, but what I did play of it I didn't like. Actually it was probably worse. I don't like RPGs, I find them even more contrived and tedious than SP FPSs.
I don't want to have to collect things to move on. I don't want to solve puzzles. I don't want skill points that make me better at shooting a rifle. What makes me better at shooting a rifle in a game is what makes me better in real life -- practice. When I started playing AA3 I sucked, I couldn't control my weapon, but with practice I got better. When I used to play SoF2 I would load a map locally and practice shooting walls for hours. Learning to shoot a perfect two shot burst at head level. People would think I was cheating because I could take their heads off before they even fired a shot. And it wasn't because of artificial skill points, it was because I practiced.
To me multiplayer FPSs are like competitive sports. They take practice, they are intense and thrilling, they require team tactics, there is competition against real people, and there is the thrill of victory from beating a real person. I don't want to out-smart code a developer wrote, or out-shoot an AI programmed to be less accurate than a computer should be. I want to out-smart a person who is trying to out-smart me. I want to out-shoot a person who is trying their best to out-shoot me.
I hope companies continue to make good SP FPS and RPG games, because I know people that really like them. They just don't do it for me.
I see your point, and I even mostly agree.
Deus Ex is probably not as good as an example as System Shock 2. Deus Ex was way too long ever for me, and can indeed become tedious.
System Shock 2 also has something like a skill point system, but it feels different: In Deus Ex you can always do almost everything, just with more or less efficiency. System Shock 2 tends more toward unlocking e.g. the ability to use a specific gun. The game also has a knack for keeping you low on at least one supply (health or ammo or weapons or so).
Experience points are limited, you get them for progressing in the story. So you can't stay around and grind. (That's similar in Deus Ex.) So your level of abilities is just a convenient way for escalating the stories. Just like getting new weapons in Half Life or new kinds of tanks in a real-time strategy game.
On the other hand, you might like games like nethack or Spelunky. They have a notion of your character growing in abilities, but since each game is short, you start from zero each time, handling the progression well just becomes another skill. A bit like picking up weapons and ammo in Quake 3 in the most efficient manner possible. Or Master of Orion, where getting new technology is part of the game (and can be compared to getting new skills in an RPG).
> You should play System Shock 2 some time, or Deus Ex.
Indeed, it's not like these are getting any less fun. If anything, it's getting easier to rediscover the classics since the likelihood that they will work under Wine is increasing.
There was a Dues Ex sequel released a few months ago, and it was actually quite good.
"That describes nearly every single-player FPS ever made."
Thief, Rainbow Six (1, 2 and 3, not the crap that followed), Hitman.
As for Quake... try doing this - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpiNDxssUL0