Where have all the health bars gone?

[gallaetha_matt]

My flat mate has been bugging me to play Kane and Lynch recently. He claims it has a dynamite story, solid controls and an atmosphere of tense realism - he piqued my interest at solid story and luckily for me I had a copy (the reason why I have a massive back catalogue of unplayed games deserves a thread of it's own itself) so I popped it in and had a go.

The sherlock holmes's amongst you will have figured out what this rant will be about by now, I'm sure.

I died multiple times on the first and second mission. I spent more time watching the painfully long death sequence than I did actually playing the game. Why? Because I couldn't see how much damage my whiney, boring protagonist was taking - there was no health bar.

Yeah the screen flashes red when you're on your last legs, but at that point you only need to take a couple more bullets before dying. Enemy bullets come at you so fast and from so many directions, and taking cover takes so long that once your screen goes red you're probably only a second or two away from another inaudible ramble about the main character's fucking daughter.

Plus the controls felt so sticky and unresponsive that you needed a bathroom break between your attempts to return fire.

It had the same problem Gears Of War had, except at least GoW was sort of playable. I managed to make it part way through the third level of GoW and have no ill feelings towards the game because I did enjoy my brief time with it.

A lot of first person shooters appear to have done away with health meters too, it seems to be a growing trend within modern games.

But why? The common answer is that health meters aren't realistic, but I beg to differ. Health bars let you know when you've been hit, which I think would be one of the first things you'd notice in a gun fight. When you have no way to tell when your character has taken a bullet or not, it's like you have no pain threshold, something that could be quite disastrous in real life. Your skin is still burning even if you can't feel your hand on the stove after all.

Can anyone think of a reason why this is? Because I'm honestly stumped. It seems to be detracting more from gaming than adding to it.

 

[Atmos Duality]

It's a game-flow issue.

Developers want you to pay more attention to the combat and the shiny bling going on.

Left 4 Dead uses health meters as both a practical and a psychological feature, because that game isn't supposed to be about rushing everywhere (though that's what it turns into now).

 

[Billska]

It's called realism. They removed the health bar because the dev's think that if you wait in a corner long enough you will regrow your legs and arms as well as heal all wounds to your body.

 

[Ldude893]

Developers of FPSs are trying more to remove HUDS from the screens during gameplay and represent certain things like Ammo, Health and Mana in more natural ways. For example, in Mirror's Edge and COD4, the screen goes all dark and/or bloodshot when your health gets too low.
It's just a way of being more realistic.

Ignore, ignore. Bad point.

 

[gallaetha_matt]

It's a game-flow issue.

Developers want you to pay more attention to the combat and the shiny bling going on.

Left 4 Dead uses health meters as both a practical and a psychological feature, because that game isn't supposed to be about rushing everywhere (though that's what it turns into now).

Left 4 Dead does look like a lot of fun. It's just a shame my laptop is barely qualified to run powerpoint, let alone a first person shooter.

I suppose it makes sense for the devs to want you watching the combat and the little red bar in the corner of the screen. They put a lot of work into how things look after all, so they're going to want you looking at them.

It's called realism. They removed the health bar because the dev's think that if you wait in a corner long enough you will regrow your legs and arms as well as heal all wounds to your body.

I suppose that's realism of a sort - if your name is Deadpool.

Speaking of which, they should make a Deadpool game if they aren't already working on it.

 

[rokkolpo]

not having health bars scares the fuck out of me.

I hate the insecurity.
especially if opponent monsters don't get to have them.

 

[Pielikey]

I thought Just Cause 2 worked it out pretty well.

There was only one type of health kit, and it healed you to maximum health. If you got hurt below about half, then your health would come back, but only halfway. (actually on the hardest difficulty it's really really small, which is very frustrating when you're trying for that steam achievement)

It's mostly for immersion and the flow of the game, having to hunt down health kits can be very immersion and flow-breaking.

 

[Woodsey]

The best system is the one they use in both the Chronicles of Riddick games and Assassin's Creed 2 (although AC2 gives you far too many health squares): lose part of a square and it regenerates, lose a whole square and it's gone.

 

[Buizel91]

Halo Reach has a health bar

Along with Just cause 2 and Falout 3... the 3 of them use the health bar extremely well, especially Fallout 3.

some games just like to be different

 

[phoenix352]

health bars are always associated with health kits. like in the old doom days you had to look around to refill your health bar. now that most games use regenerating health to give the games a more combat oriented feel then a fetch quest for health kits. some people like it some dont, i for one dont really care i like both systems with regenerating health being more preferred.

with regenerating health having a health bar seems like a waist of room on your hud since it doesn't add any valuable information to the player... and there an indicator when you get hit its the grunting of your character the flash of red when you get hit and the red arrows that appear on your screen suggesting the direction you got hit from.

 

[gallaetha_matt]

health bars are always associated with health kits. like in the old doom days you had to look around to refill your health bar. now that most games use regenerating health to give the games a more combat oriented feel then a fetch quest for health kits. some people like it some dont, i for one dont really care i like both systems with regenerating health being more preferred.

with regenerating health having a health bar seems like a waist of room on your hud since it doesn't add any valuable information to the player... and there an indicator when you get hit its the grunting of your character the flash of red when you get hit and the red arrows that appear on your screen suggesting the direction you got hit from.

I think Gears Of War had a similar system to what you've described, I think (it's been a while since I played it). You knew you'd been hit, but without the health bar you didn't know how hard - but at least you could take cover and figure out which direction the shots had come from.

In Kane and Lynch, Kane didn't even seem to grunt when he took bullets, if he did I didn't hear it - and the screen only changed when you were on your last legs. By then it was usually too late.

I can see how the no health bar system can work in theory, but in practice it doesn't seem to suit me. I've always thought of health bar's as representing how many flesh wounds you can take - you get hit once and it's a bullet grazing your flesh, it smarts but you can keep fighting, take a few more and you're starting to bleed out. You know you're hurting (as evidenced by the little red bar in the bottom corner of the screen getting to half way or something) but you can keep going. Once the health bar runs down all the way, you're bleeding from too many wounds to continue and will likely die on the battlefield.

I'm all for giving games a more combat oriented feel - but I just think there are better ways of going about it instead of just swiping our health bar. Without that I always end up ploughing through hails of bullets thinking that I can take it.

The best system is the one they use in both the Chronicles of Riddick games and Assassin's Creed 2 (although AC2 gives you far too many health squares): lose part of a square and it regenerates, lose a whole square and it's gone.

I like the sound of this actually. Seems like a good compromise between the two systems.

Developers of FPSs are trying more to remove HUDS from the screens during gameplay and represent certain things like Ammo, Health and Mana in more natural ways. For example, in Mirror's Edge and COD4, the screen goes all dark and/or bloodshot when your health gets too low.
It's just a way of being more realistic.

Ignore, ignore. Bad point.

Either way, I love your avatar.

 

[Blueruler182]

They've gone over to Halo Reach.

 

[Iron Mal]

I think that devs have the idea that by slowly removing bits of your HUD over time that their games will become more immersive (and provide a better and more engaging experience for the player).

Sometimes it actually works (Dead Space was a great example of how a game could make the health bar into a part of the game world rather than just an abstract glowy thing), and sometimes it doesn't (we are all familiar with the 'screen gets darker as you get shot' model).

 

[darthzew]

People have already said Halo Reach, but it's a good example. It's probably the best health system in a game in a very long time. It may be the best ever...

 

[DustyDrB]

I really want to see games employ (at least an optional mode) where the health you have when you start a level is all you're going to get. No regeneration, no health packs, no cutting the grass for hearts.

 

[Mr.SunShine]

The health bar got drunk at a party with all the other HUD functions and made a fool of itself being forever outcast from the group.

Seriously! Halo! the first one! in 2001 ! had your health and shields! with an explanation as to why they were there. while in halo 2 they said they upgraded your suit but they REMOVED the HEALTH part of it! what the Flock!I mean! even half life 1-2 had a health number and THEY didn't even have a helmet with your suit!
I miss the health bars, i really do.

 

[jackknife402]

Yeah, cuz it's so realistic to stand behind a chest high wall, restore blood loss and tissue damage, and not even have those wounds affect you at all. Probably the best health system I know of was the old RE games, a heart beat monitor, and as you got more damaged, your character showed it.

At least with a health bar you have to find medical supplies to fix yourself up instead of sitting aside and waiting for your body to do that. That's more realistic.

 

[PureChaos]

as people have said, it's probably something to do with games trying to be more realistic but isn't the point of a game to escape from reality?

 

[AceAngel]

Mass Effect 2 had Health Meters + Bloodshot PPE ingame.

Not only it helped me plot my attack patterns by seeing how much health I had, but if I forgot to look at it, the Bloodshot effect was gradient enough that it didn't appear at the last inch or two, which helped me realized something was up before I died.

All in all, I think your mate TC might have been talking about ME2, and not K&L.