For the last few months, an unfinished essay about how I don't care for regenerating health has sat on my desktop. After Yahtzee bringing it up in a recent review and reading the thread about it here I decided to recompose my thoughts on this mechanic. I realized that I don't really have a problem with this mechanic, though. It severed great function in the old X-Wing games and was actually a bit refreshing in the first Halo game--it made sense in the general sci-fi setting--even though I don't care much for the game itself. No, my problem wasn't with the regenerating health system of modern games, it was with the problem that it hid. Enemies shoot you far too easily and far too frequently.
Having played a lot of the new Rainbow 6 lately, I find that enemies will far too often come around corners firing their guns with me already in their sights. They'll also get many long range kills with inaccurate weapons. When this happens I feel cheated--there's no way that these should be happening in a 'realistic' setting. These things probably shouldn't happen even in a fantasy setting. Cheap kills don't make games hard, they make games frustrating, and they make the poor programming that allows these kills obvious. This problem seems common among many FPS as well. Enemies seem to see through walls and target you accordingly. Even if they manage not to kill me, it's still bothersome getting shot unfairly--being shot should be a punishment for bad play, not a regular occurrence due to lousy programming.
Maybe I'm used to older games with set health. They seemed to acknowledge that getting shot wasn't supposed to happen to you if you knew what you were doing. Doom, Wolfenstien3D, RotT, Dark Forces--sure you had health limits, but enemies weren't getting cheap shots on you constantly. Hell, you can probably make it through all of GoldenEye without ever being shot. Maybe it was too easy to avoid getting shot in GoldenEye--enemies couldn't shoot through windows/railings/over gaps that couldn't be walked over, they took their time lining up most of their first shots allowing you to put a lethal bullet in them quickly, and if you stood close enough to an enemy with a rifle, he couldn't aim at you properly. But all of those "flaws" were consistent, it's designers have acknowledged that, and you could build a strategy around them. I'd even go as far as saying that some of those things made the game great.
I could be in the minority here but I still don't like getting shot; I certainly don't like when that leads to cheap kills. There has to be a better way to make AI enemies more more dangerous than just giving them superhuman aiming, vision, and reflexes. If not, I'll take enemies that should kill me but don't over those that kill me when they shouldn't have any day. Throwing a forgiving health mechanic and check point system at me doesn't change this fact. I remember feeling invincible playing those limited health FPS-- finishing a level and narrowly avoiding death when I was down to a sliver of health--or running through a room, chain gun blazing, and making it through without a scratch on me. I don't feel like the invincible super-soldier that I'm supposed to be when every schmuck in the galaxy puts a bullet in me--especially when there's nothing I can do to avoid it.
Having played a lot of the new Rainbow 6 lately, I find that enemies will far too often come around corners firing their guns with me already in their sights. They'll also get many long range kills with inaccurate weapons. When this happens I feel cheated--there's no way that these should be happening in a 'realistic' setting. These things probably shouldn't happen even in a fantasy setting. Cheap kills don't make games hard, they make games frustrating, and they make the poor programming that allows these kills obvious. This problem seems common among many FPS as well. Enemies seem to see through walls and target you accordingly. Even if they manage not to kill me, it's still bothersome getting shot unfairly--being shot should be a punishment for bad play, not a regular occurrence due to lousy programming.
Maybe I'm used to older games with set health. They seemed to acknowledge that getting shot wasn't supposed to happen to you if you knew what you were doing. Doom, Wolfenstien3D, RotT, Dark Forces--sure you had health limits, but enemies weren't getting cheap shots on you constantly. Hell, you can probably make it through all of GoldenEye without ever being shot. Maybe it was too easy to avoid getting shot in GoldenEye--enemies couldn't shoot through windows/railings/over gaps that couldn't be walked over, they took their time lining up most of their first shots allowing you to put a lethal bullet in them quickly, and if you stood close enough to an enemy with a rifle, he couldn't aim at you properly. But all of those "flaws" were consistent, it's designers have acknowledged that, and you could build a strategy around them. I'd even go as far as saying that some of those things made the game great.
I could be in the minority here but I still don't like getting shot; I certainly don't like when that leads to cheap kills. There has to be a better way to make AI enemies more more dangerous than just giving them superhuman aiming, vision, and reflexes. If not, I'll take enemies that should kill me but don't over those that kill me when they shouldn't have any day. Throwing a forgiving health mechanic and check point system at me doesn't change this fact. I remember feeling invincible playing those limited health FPS-- finishing a level and narrowly avoiding death when I was down to a sliver of health--or running through a room, chain gun blazing, and making it through without a scratch on me. I don't feel like the invincible super-soldier that I'm supposed to be when every schmuck in the galaxy puts a bullet in me--especially when there's nothing I can do to avoid it.