- Kickimanjaro
- |
- Intrepid Mythic Member
“Oh, it’s a little bit of everything, it’s the mountains, it’s the fog, it’s the news at six o’clock, it’s the death of my first dog, it’s the angels up above me, it’s the song that they don’t sing, It’s a little bit of everything.”
- Dawes, A little bit of everything
I find there are intrinsically good and bad aspects to both viewpoints in shooters, yet do not believe I can provide much more input to this discussion on the mechanics (from the perspective of a gamer) of the two systems. We see how there are differences in the cover, vehicle, and general movement of the two.
However, if we are to talk about game immersion with the two systems, I think I can share some thoughts. When Hylebos first posted this in a private group, I read through and ran with the discussion of groundbreaking titles.
Posted by: Kickimanjaro
I was reading your points about how games that have both views available still play based around a single one. For some reason, Mirror's Edge immediately popped into my mind. See, I had always thought of platform video games were 3rd Person and that they would not work in 1st Person. That game took that "rule" and kicked it in the balls. I don't know what is coming, but I share the belief that we will see much more interaction with Bungie.next.
We have heard hinted in the most recent Mail Sack that the difference between what we have now and what will be is striking. What that means, we can't be certain. But change is the key. Bungie perfected the party system and friends list in Halo 2. A goram feature from their game was then brought back in the next iteration of Xbox LIVE as an integral part--the friends list. They pioneered stat tracking, making it intuitive and easy as well as full of interesting data presented in a meaningful way.
What is next? I have no idea. I thought at first to reply saying that, Maybe Destiny is in a new # Person! but I then realized that the wording of that was...stupid. Although, think about this, we use the term groundbreaking or genre defining now and then. Halo was a genre defining FPS while World of Warcraft defined MMOs. The company that brought us Halo, has partnered with the company that has "leading market positions across all categories" (Activision) and most notably owns the company that brought us World of Warcraft.
Continuing with the groundbreaking theme, or change, we come to Shadowrun. When you break the Shadowrun universe down to the fundamentals, it is a near-futuristic Sci-Fantasy RPG that combines the genres of cyberpunk, urban fantasy, and crime. The Shadowrun universe has inspired a couple games, but the one I will be talking about here is the game from 2007 (it's tricky because there are apparently a couple games about Shadowrun titled Shadowrun). In 2007, there was a game created for the Xbox 360 and Windows Vista. Then there is some history that I only just discovered while looking up quick facts about the game on Wikipedia (perhaps not the best source). Initial work on Shadowrun was apparently done using the Halo CE engine until the studio (FASA Interactive) created their own engine. Shortly after the game was released, facing criticism, the studio closed down. Later, in 2009, the game was released to the Games for Windows Live platform by Microsoft. So, I sidetracked myself slightly, but the point is this: Shadowrun eventually allowed for cross-platform play between Xbox LIVE and Games for Windows LIVE.
Now let's put together the jig-saw puzzles pieces that we've just cut out of paper (so they'll obviously fit together, right?). Destiny is futuristic Sci-Fantacy FPS with MMO characteristics, that's what we've learned from all the legal -blam!-. Shadowrun was a game released in '07, used Halo CE's engine during early development (unsure if that is important at all, but it is one hell of a coincidence), incorporated cross-platform play, but do you know where this gets even more interesting?
Derek Carroll. Yeah, the guy from the Mail Sacks. Well, he was one of the lead designers of Shadowrun.
To conclude, I just unmasked Destiny.
In all seriousness, I think there are some interesting connections that could be looked into, I do not know what to conclude. I do not want to be the one who says that because 1 + 1 = 2, the Universe is Square. We called all these games genre defining or groundbreaking in some way, so what happens if you combine all the games that defined a genre, that broke new ground, that took people new places and told new stories...what if you combined them? Well, quite simply my friends, that would be our Destiny, to play and to hold.
What if the phones rang?
Sometimes, we focus so much on one part of a whole, that we fail to see what is right in front of us. This thread helped me step back slightly, put down the magnifying glass, look up and wonder...all to rush back and think all the more. To put more succinctly what I've ranted about above, what if elements from all the games considered genre-defining or groundbreaking were rolled into one package?
I look forward to new web-interaction and information gathering that will be translated into something meaningful to us, and perhaps even new ways to play a genre that we had not before imagined.