If Quake Was Made Today…

Posted by Rampant Coyote on November 2, 2011

As a bunch of “old-school” RPG fans hang out here, we’re accustomed to griping about how “dumbed down” RPGs have become over the years.

But it’s not just our favorite genre. As much as we complain about RPGs becoming first-person shooters, first-person shooters aren’t what they used to be, either.

To illustrate this point, this excellent video by kmooseman:

In some ways, we’re victims of our own success. Games are mainstream now, and to sell the big numbers you have to appeal to all audiences, not just the existing hardcore crowd. Does that mean a particular style / class of game is gone forever? I doubt it, but it sure means it’s been relegated to a niche that most mainstream publishers are loathe to explore.

But I’m not really opposed to making games – maybe not all, but certainly the vast majority – more accessible to inexperienced players. While there may be reasons to make a game more opaque and demanding of experience from the get-go like they were in the old days, I can’t think of any right now. Tutorials are inevitably boring as hell to me, but every game has new things to learn, and I would still rather learn-by-doing than reading a manual.

Filed Under: Biz, Design, Retro - Comments: 11 Comments to Read

xenovore said,

ROFL! Awesome! And sadly, so true.

Games cater to the lowest common dumbasses way too much these days. Which is great for publishers’ bottom lines, but completely sucks for those of us who equate fun with at least a moderate challenge…
Felix Pleșoianu said,

Making games more accessible to beginners is good. Aiming them exclusively at drooling morons, to the detriment of everyone else, is a losing proposition in the long term. Oh well, more market share for indies. 😉
Demiath said,

The video started out being a bit too grumpy and reactionary for my taste (…although as someone who recently played through the lackluster Battlefield 3 campaign I can’t exactly pretend he does not have a point). I loved the “rocket jumping uphill” bit, though, and the speed run-ish clips were awesome…
Rampant Coyote said,

Yeah, it’s pretty exaggerated, kinda like that comparison of FPS maps that made the rounds several months ago. But it did illustrate a point, and the “rocket-jumping uphill both ways” comment gave it the right amount of humor at the end. And yeah, the speed-run was amazing to watch. I was never close to that good. But I can appreciate watching people who are.
McNutcase said,

I recognised the speed run. Quake Done Quick With a Vengeance. It’s a collection of individual-level speedruns, and the total game time is roughly 12 minutes.

Personally, I’m fine with slowing the player speed a bit. I’m replaying Half-Life 2, and Gordon’s ability to keep up a steady clip of 25mph is rather stressful for my decayed reflexes. I do hate splash screens, loading hints, lack of customisation, and so on, though.
jwmeep said,

The one that gets me is the Options screen with only a single option. Rings too true. Sick of going to the Option screen to say, change the controls on the keyboard, only to discover that the only Options in the menus is volume control and dimming the screen.

As for the other points, yeah, there is nothing wrong with tutorials, but I wish they were optional. And if the whole game is designed like the tutorial, yeah, not much fun there.

Since we are on the subject of “If they were made today” this is pretty amusing too:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=QoFe8hRy42o
While the DLC commentary is heavy handed, I got a kick out of augmented vision making every interactive object glow.
Bad Sector said,

The video was very funny and true 🙂

Does that mean a particular style / class of game is gone forever? I doubt it, but it sure means it’s been relegated to a niche that most mainstream publishers are loathe to explore.

Well, i think that the Quake-style (or similar era) FPS is gone. I can’t say about it being gone forever, but it isn’t around anymore since not even indies seem to touch this (sub)genre.
sascha/hdrs said,

Hahaha love it! But they forgot the three hours tutorial that handholds you through the beginning of the game!
Brian said,

we refer to this as ‘no gamer left behind’
Calibrator said,

> But they forgot the three hours tutorial that handholds you through the beginning of the game!

The problem is: The whole single player campaign is often only 6 hrs. long…

And if you play the latest Splinter Cell game you’ll notice that (with default settings) the whole game is a tutorial! They literally paint your next goal on the wall next to you so can’t possibly not know what to do.
GhanBuriGhan said,

Lol. And wow, is that speedrun real? Amazing stuff, if it is!