WTH do you mean by generic?

[IamSofaKingRaw]

What is a generic FPS (since most FPSs are called generic)? I see this phrase a lot here but I don't see the cookie cutter shooter that every 'generic' FPS is following to for them to deserve that title. EVERY shooter is different with only a few excepts. A game like the Gears clone (i forget the name) should be called generic. Modern Combat: Domination is generic (blatent COD rip off even devs of the game advertise the game by saying it). A game like KZ, Resistance, Halo (any of them), COD, Battlefield Bad Company (you know big stand alone series) can't be labelled generic if they are all different. ..

Yet I see it all the time here. WTF??

/rant

 

[L3m0n_L1m3]

Nothing unique about it.

Bland levels, guns and characters.

Forgettable.

Nothing special.

Already been done better by other games.

 

[Defense]

They share too many similar elements, that's what makes them generic. I don't really care as long as certain elements are original enough, as long as it's executed really well.

 

[Drakmeire]

really? all shooters are different?
http://i.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/article/2/7/5/25275.jpg?v=1

 

[Netrigan]

It's kind of like saying all country music sounds alike or all heavy metal. It does... and it doesn't.

Take this link to TV Tropes.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ASpaceMarineIsYou



A lot of the same basic tropes have been showing up in the same sci-fi military shooters since Doom, who stole most of them from ALIENS. And if you do happen to come up with something mildly new and your game is a big hit... said trope will likely show up in every subsequent game that comes out.

This is why lots of us PC old timers openly mock Halo fans who call the game innovative or original, because we see how 95% of the game is incredibly similar to what has come before. But a good game (and Halo is a good game, even if I don't like it) will have a certain something that separates it from the competition. It has a new game mechanic or it plays with the cliches in a slightly novel way. Something that fans of the genre can latch on to that makes it a unique playing experience... but something that non-fans will almost certainly miss, while catching the fact that you're yet another space marine battling yet another gang of alien bad guys who have yet again targeted Earth for destruction for yet again dubious reasons.

 

[Darkeagle6]

Of course, the thing is, to hardcore fans of any genre, differences between similar games are far more apparent. I'm sure big fans of shooters will appreciate the subtle differences in levels and weapons that, say, two Call of Duty games will offer, but to me, from what I've played, they all feel like the same game. That's because the fans aren't looking for a completely different experience, but rather variety within the solid model they've grown to love. How much variety really depends on what you're looking for in videogames.

EDIT: Well, I write too slowly, it seems.

 

[spartan231490]

What is a generic FPS (since most FPSs are called generic)? I see this phrase a lot here but I don't see the cookie cutter shooter that every 'generic' FPS is following to for them to deserve that title. EVERY shooter is different with only a few excepts. A game like the Gears clone (i forget the name) should be called generic. Modern Combat: Domination is generic (blatent COD rip off even devs of the game advertise the game by saying it). A game like KZ, Resistance, Halo (any of them), COD, Battlefield Bad Company (you know big stand alone series) can't be labelled generic if they are all different. ..

Yet I see it all the time here. WTF??

/rant

I agree, most shooters are more than unique enough. It's just people looking for something, anything, to complain about. Even if it doesn't make sense. One person said it about one game, so now everyone has to say it about every game.

 

[cthulhumythos]

It's kind of like saying all country music sounds alike or all heavy metal. It does... and it doesn't.

Take this link to TV Tropes.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ASpaceMarineIsYou



A lot of the same basic tropes have been showing up in the same sci-fi military shooters since Doom, who stole most of them from ALIENS. And if you do happen to come up with something mildly new and your game is a big hit... said trope will likely show up in every subsequent game that comes out.

This is why lots of us PC old timers openly mock Halo fans who call the game innovative or original, because we see how 95% of the game is incredibly similar to what has come before. But a good game (and Halo is a good game, even if I don't like it) will have a certain something that separates it from the competition. It has a new game mechanic or it plays with the cliches in a slightly novel way. Something that fans of the genre can latch on to that makes it a unique playing experience... but something that non-fans will almost certainly miss, while catching the fact that you're yet another space marine battling yet another gang of alien bad guys who have yet again targeted Earth for destruction for yet again dubious reasons.

AHHHHHHHHHHHG.

why would you put up a link to tvtropes? now i'm doomed to wake up tomorrow with my face on my keyboard , with 42 unread tabs on my browser!

tvtropes slowly eating my life away aside, generic shooters were created when some developers were all like "oooooooo, look at call of duty and halo, and their enormous sales and popularity, we should get into that!"

or you'know something along those lines.

anyways now people now mostly hate on halo (probably doesn't help that microsoft is trying to milk the dead cow, even after bungie left), whilst CoD still lives but with not AS many people supporting it as before.

 

[Chibz]

Is it bad that I demand a LITTLE innovation from shooters? Also, bring back health bars, gosh dang it to heck!

 

[Netrigan]

It's kind of like saying all country music sounds alike or all heavy metal. It does... and it doesn't.

Take this link to TV Tropes.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ASpaceMarineIsYou



A lot of the same basic tropes have been showing up in the same sci-fi military shooters since Doom, who stole most of them from ALIENS. And if you do happen to come up with something mildly new and your game is a big hit... said trope will likely show up in every subsequent game that comes out.

This is why lots of us PC old timers openly mock Halo fans who call the game innovative or original, because we see how 95% of the game is incredibly similar to what has come before. But a good game (and Halo is a good game, even if I don't like it) will have a certain something that separates it from the competition. It has a new game mechanic or it plays with the cliches in a slightly novel way. Something that fans of the genre can latch on to that makes it a unique playing experience... but something that non-fans will almost certainly miss, while catching the fact that you're yet another space marine battling yet another gang of alien bad guys who have yet again targeted Earth for destruction for yet again dubious reasons.

AHHHHHHHHHHHG.

why would you put up a link to tvtropes? now i'm doomed to wake up tomorrow with my face on my keyboard , with 42 unread tabs on my browser!

tvtropes slowly eating my life away aside, generic shooters were created when some developers were all like "oooooooo, look at call of duty and halo, and their enormous sales and popularity, we should get into that!"

or you'know something along those lines.

anyways now people now mostly hate on halo (probably doesn't help that microsoft is trying to milk the dead cow, even after bungie left), whilst CoD still lives but with not AS many people supporting it as before.

My evil plan is complete.

Generic shooters were created about 20 seconds after Doom was released and everyone went "hey, let's make one of those."

Which is exactly what happens 20 seconds after any game becomes a huge hit.

Most of them are going to be crap. A good number of them are going to be good, if somewhat derivative. And a precious few will be ten kinds of awesome.

 

[Shanked_Salt]

There are some truly generic shooters out there but the better quality ones which do have some small degree of creativity or evolution I prefer to call "derevitive" and beleive me all FPS is derevitive. It takes its core or derives from all the games before it.

This is why it often feels like we are just doing the same ol shit, just with something tweaked here and there like a character name, weapon or gimmicky concept.

Not saying FPS hasn't remained fun and playable- just not many suprises these days it seems.

Sometimes I think I would rather play a bad poorly developed FPS than a bland generic one that is technically ok but lacks soul.

Not sure if it's as much a lack of creativity from developers as not wanting to mess too much with a winning and popular formula.

 

[Netrigan]

Is it bad that I demand a LITTLE innovation from shooters? Also, bring back health bars, gosh dang it to heck!

Non-technical innovation shooters is a rare, rare thing. The game play was probably nailed down by the time Quake came out. Half-Life supplied a few narrative innovations. Vehicles were probably the last major game play mechanic to be introduced... and GTA III is probably responsible for that.

These days, it's mostly mixing and matching various game mechanics in a way that hasn't been done a million times.

 

[IamSofaKingRaw]

really? all shooters are different?
http://i.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/article/2/7/5/25275.jpg?v=1

See this is what I'm talking about. Most FPS's adapted the regenerating health system because its the most practical and convenient for gamer just like how Health bars were present in almost every game in the past. Great, ONE feature is shared so EVERY game is generic.

What game looks or plays like

Spoiler: KZ3?

[img src=http://pfcdn.net/site/t/content_image/image/52/36/523615__killzone-3-retro-map-pack-screen.jpeg?0e43021f38][/spoiler]

or Battlefield Bad

[spoiler=Company?][img src=http://ps3media.ign.com/ps3/image/article/104/1042201/battlefield-bad-company-2-20091104021013453_640w.jpg][/spoiler]

Or Halo or the COD series? Can I say all JRPGS are generic because most of them use a magic system consisting of fire, air, earth etcc being the main elements?

 

[Gralian]

Sub sole nihil novi est.

There is nothing new under the sun. All ideas are taken from somewhere, but the fundamental difference is that the idea is expanded upon and altered. A lot of soaps can be attributed to early Elizabethan plays (think of Shakespeare and Marlowe), and arguably those plays can be attributed to Socrates.

However, not every love story is a Romeo and Juliet, and not every tale of human fallacy is a Doctor Faustus. Aspects of the narrative change. The circumstances are different. Minor tweaks that distinguish something from its predecessor and its contemporaries alike. While you can easily put two stories - or two games from the same genre - side by side and point out the similarities, it's the difference you need to look for, both big and small, that give something its own personality. For Killzone, it's the dark oppressive world and semi-futuristic vibe. For Call of Duty, it's the ridiculously over the top Glenn Beck plot. For Medal of Honour, it's the connection to real world scenarios that are being fought right now in the middle east. For Halo, it's the aliens and regenrating shields. You get the idea. They all draw from the same concept, the first person shooter, but they each have certain things that set them apart and draw upon them a sense of individuality.

 

[Neverhoodian]

Basically, any FPS that has all of the following is often described as "generic,"

-Regenerating shields/health
-Limited to only two weapons
-Weapons tend to be balanced
-Hot button for grenades
-Protagonist largely silent (with the possible exception during cutscenes)
-Takes place during World War II, modern times, or in space

While it's true there are many uninspired titles that have these traits, I don't think every game that has these are generic. I think it's mostly just a knee-jerk reaction from old-school FPS fans who miss the days of Doom and Quake. Because there weren't tons of Doom and Quake clones back then, right? Right?

Oh, wait...

 

[Drakmeire]

snip

snip

the regenerating health wasn't what I meant.
look at the screen shots. same gun, same looking environment, same blood effect, and the same red half-circle that tells you where the shots came from. if all FPS games had a regenerating health bar, that's fine, but they have the same guns and graphics. I guarantee that if I showed you a screenshot of an fps, you wouldn't be able to tell me which game it's from.
http://ui02.gamespot.com/1825/cod418_2.jpg
tell me

 

[AnonymousTipster]

"Generic" is one of the most overused (and quite honestly misused) terms on internet forums, especially those that pertain to videogames, and it is most commonly thrown around by fanboys who desire to dismiss out of hand an entire game (or several games, for that matter) because they share a number of genre conventions (for FPS games, this would include regenerating health, hot button for grenade, aiming down the sight, etc.).

If you apply the term sensibly, you could label virtually all games "generic." Which is why sensible people tend not to throw that term around.

 

[TerranReaper]

snip

snip

the regenerating health wasn't what I meant.
look at the screen shots. same gun, same looking environment, same blood effect, and the same red half-circle that tells you where the shots came from. if all FPS games had a regenerating health bar, that's fine, but they have the same guns and graphics. I guarantee that if I showed you a screenshot of an fps, you wouldn't be able to tell me which game it's from.
http://ui02.gamespot.com/1825/cod418_2.jpg
tell me

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. You can blatantly tell by the looks of the M4 and how the colour in CoD4 is the standard black while MW2 used a desert-like skin over it. Also, I think the waypoints at the bottom of the screen is slightly different than the one in MW2, since MW2 opted to go for a compass on the bottom right of your HUD and the waypoints on your screen. Graphics in MW2 were also a bit more vibrant in my opinion.

To put in a nice way, a lot of people here aren't big fans of FPS games. Obviously, if I were to show you two different games from a genre you don't play, you're not going to know the difference. Likewise to your image with the three FPS games, they look similar in graphics, but they control and play very differently. This applies every genre, if you're not a big fan of it and don't play a lot of it, every game can feel very samey on the surface.

 

[Drakmeire]

snip

snip

the regenerating health wasn't what I meant.
look at the screen shots. same gun, same looking environment, same blood effect, and the same red half-circle that tells you where the shots came from. if all FPS games had a regenerating health bar, that's fine, but they have the same guns and graphics. I guarantee that if I showed you a screenshot of an fps, you wouldn't be able to tell me which game it's from.
http://ui02.gamespot.com/1825/cod418_2.jpg
tell me

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. You can blatantly tell by the looks of the M4 and how the colour in CoD4 is the standard black while MW2 used a desert-like skin over it. Also, I think the waypoints at the bottom of the screen is slightly different than the one in MW2, since MW2 opted to go for a compass on the bottom right of your HUD and the waypoints on your screen. Graphics in MW2 were also a bit more vibrant in my opinion.

To put in a nice way, a lot of people here aren't big fans of FPS games. Obviously, if I were to show you two different games from a genre you don't play, you're not going to know the difference. Likewise to your image with the three FPS games, they look similar in graphics, but they control and play very differently. This applies every genre, if you're not a big fan of it and don't play a lot of it, every game can feel very samey on the surface.

that... is just creepy. I have never payed close attention to any gun that much ever. unless it looks really cool.

 

[Vault101]

really? all shooters are different?
http://i.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/article/2/7/5/25275.jpg?v=1

What annoyed me about that article was that he was judging the whole industry on three shooters, there are types of games other than shooters

but I dont trust anything David Wong has to say about videogames