And they do have cutscenes 

i don't remember that many corners though 

E1M6.

So much sad truth in that image. :( 

that is soooo goddamn true 

.

Simplifying things to that degree always makes it seemingly convincing. I could just as easily montage a 320x200 DOOM screen next to a 1920x1280 Brink/Rage/Singularity screen and say "See?"

That's too simple.

1993 FPS maps have an entry, an exit, and killing stuff in between just like 2010 ones. Lots of Doom and Quake maps aren't exactly complex. Plus, with Doom's sector based engine creating maps was a lot simpler and faster, but I doubt most people today would buy a sector/sprite based FPS if someone made it.

And I drunkenly played DOOM/2 to death in high school in 1993/4. I remember it. It was unnecessarily easy to get lost in and it often took half a keyboard-massaging hour to find where that last button was while the huge brown pixels started making swirling images behind my sleepy eyes. 320x240 pixels on a 640x480 screen. A lot of the areas look the same in DOOM/2 levels. I especially remember the chainsaw labyrinth, the crate labyrinth in e2 I think, and those horrible city levels in Doom 2.

Of course by now, you know where everything is. But back then, I wormed my way through samey-looking brown corridors in the search for identical looking switches with green and red lights on them, running from pixel pinkies that we called "the big ones" and endless hordes of imps and chaingunners while always looking for health but not finding any.

It was awesome, and it still is, but it wasn't all perfect either. New games also have something going for them.

Rose-coloured glasses. 

 

The 2010 pic would probably look more like this:

http://www.vasanth.in/content/binary/rome_google_earth.jpg 

Back then you were free to get lost. Nowadays you're forced to find the way. If that makes any sense... 

Back then you were free to get lost. Nowadays you're forced to find the way. If that makes any sense... 

I hardly played Doom2 at all, I got the impression that the level design was very inferior, but the design in Doom1 was awesome, and I don't remember getting lost at all except (lol) in the corridors through slime in the bottom righthand corner of e1m6, in that picture. Doom3 was ON RAILS, a huge step backward. The picture has that exactly right. I realize Doom3 itself isn't that modern anymore and there's newer games that give you lots of freedom (Far Cry), but I agree with that criticism of what's going on. Being free to get lost means the developers aren't spoon-feeding you. 

This is one fantastic tool for 3d data/model/mesh/cloud things: http://meshlab.sourceforge.net/ 

In terms of the general quality of scripted sequences, and the quality and detail of every type of artwork, I think that the Modern Battlefield of Duty games are just phenomenal achievements, you can see where every dollar and man hour went.

In terms of gameplay, choice, storytelling, I tend to align with Warren Spector. Incoming paraphrase copied from an article:

It's not just about game developers having a story to tell and letting the player sit through it; it's about having a subject matter to discuss with the player and making the story a dialogue between game and player.

and a quote:

"Other media can create feelings. Movies can evoke emotions. But what we do is we can offer the reality of choice."

The truth is though, that when you script a game start to finish, you get a great trailer, a great show for anyone watching over a player's shoulder, some bankable memorable moments every player will have (have you got to the bit when you hit Fidel Castro with that snowmobile?? That was siccckkk.)

In Black Ops it comes at a massive expense of freedom, an almost ludicrous lack of choice. Even running between points A and B can fail a mission if you are 20 metres ahead or behind an ally. It's hard to feel real achievement in having exploded that bunker with that rocket launcher, because it is fully obvious that you literally could not have done anything else if you wanted to continue the game. 

The problem is that linear is cheapest. Creating a world and a reasonable degree of freedom in that world is, in my view, the strongest experience of gameplay, but it's the most expensive. Some kind of "guided co-op" (including major commitments on the part of both players and developers) might in the future make a lot of money from a small amount of players.

In any case I'm not at all pleased with where the industry has gone, given the potential. But then, everything gets gayer over time. 

I think part of the problem is an adherance to a sense of "reality". Doom2 had monsters morphing in all the time. But as games "become more realistic" ... which has partly been just to show off new GPU's ... morphing enemy, and silly backtracking environments, are harder to reconcile, leading to a more linear experience. 

getting lost in doom2 was not fun. It was not good design that led you to being lost but the fact that things just looked the same. Your goal was still iinear (find the corridor with the right door for the button you just pushed).

But it worked to an extent. Why? Because the game had atmosphere so that you were involved in being lost because you wanted to get the hell out of an area before something else happened.

The same applied to something like Undying which had a fair bit of backtracking that was not always clear. Some of that lack of clarity was because of design choice, some of it because of things looking the same. But like Doom2, it worked to an extent.

In most new games, there is the rails factor but there is also the lack of atmosphere factor. It's a hard concept to pin down but it is not the same as realism. You are not more involved just because something looks more realistic. The best description I can come up with is that atmosphere makes you feel some emotion. 

I think Doom3 had atmosphere, which is why I can forgive its many flaws. 

The more abstract the game is, the more your own imagination and fantasy are able to (and have to) fill in the blanks. Thus making a deeper immersion possible. At least for me. 

Fully agreed ! 

I rarely start a new game... reassons! lack of time and after some games I get bored!

Quake never been bored, at least at the moment! 

I partially agree, but maybe it's more of a sweet spot in the middle of a spectrum between ultra-abstract and ultra-realistic.

I'm not a big fan of card games (regular playing cards, at least). They're better than no game at all, but cards are so abstract that there are no blanks to fill in; there's no starting point to create a story to get immersed in. Same with other super-abstract games (chess, minesweeper, etc.) 

Minecraft is a great example of that, and Quake also, the graphics are very basic so you fill in the missing pieces with your mind.

If minecraft had a mega-budget and "better" realistic graphics I think it would lose a lot of its personality and charm. Things you build would start looking incorrect if you used the wrong building blocks, etc. Where as now you really chose what block to use because you like the colour or texture of it, and your mind fills in the rest. 

I could just as easily montage a 320x200 DOOM screen next to a 1920x1280 Brink/Rage/Singularity screen and say "See?"

Having worked on Singularity, I can say with utmost confidence that most of the level design was exactly that second picture. 

but just showing a top down of a doom map and saying 'see how complex this is' is stupid. 

This seems to be bubbling nicely but think I'll give it a stir -

I think it was mexx8 that was completely lineal - no loops or backtracking at all for an entire episode but was so clear in its gameplay style I enjoyed it more than many other maps that do have exploration.

It all depends on what the designer wanted to achieve, and how closely they held themselves to their vision. 

http://hexenmod.com/