Should 90's Style FPS Games Be Exactly Like The 90's?

[IMPORTANT NOTE: PLEASE BE VERY POLITE ABOUT YOUR OPINIONS. I DO NOT WANT TO START A "KIDS THESE DAYS ARE RETARDED AND THE 90'S WERE BETTER" FLAMEWAR.]

So, after looking through this thread on another site, I started thinking: Should 90's throwbacks be exactly like actual 90's games, or should they be different in some ways, maybe improving on some things, and ditching shitty things? Or, god forbid, adding new twists and modern features?

Everyone's opinions?

We all need a bit of everything. Right now you have a ton of Wolf3D style games right down to 90 degree walls, you have low poly Quake-style games but have procedurally generated levels (Strafe), you have the similar thing but with hand made levels (Dusk), you have a new Build engine game being made with the modern source port eDuke32 (Ion Maiden/Bombshell prequel), there's a kinda Painkiller/Quake looking game that seems to be doing its own thing (this one here), you have another procedurally generated game using sprites (Gibhard), I'm working on a GZDoom project that focuses on combat and level design, and there's many many more 90s style shooters coming out.

They all do different things, some stay strictly like they would've been in the 90s while others are throwing modern features in, which is EXACTLY what it should be as it allows variety and something for everyone. There's an influx of these shooters coming up and the variety will help with the inevitable fatigue and over saturation.

I'm just waiting for the Marathon spiritual sequel. 

IMO 90s inspired FPS games should take the best parts and Improve on it, and try to avoid their problems (eg : Repetitiveness of level design, annoying or near useless weapons, enemies and so on .... ), Doom 2016 and Shadow Warrior are good examples, and it doesn't hurt to borrow from Modern games (as long as it's not Health Regeneration ? :P).

On 27. 8. 2017 at 8:31 PM, Flareblood V2 said:

Should 90's throwbacks be exactly like actual 90's games, or should they be different in some ways, maybe improving on some things, and ditching shitty things? Or, god forbid, adding new twists and modern features?

All kinds of games that someone might like should exist and continue being made.

FUCK NO.

Steal as many rad stylistic and aesthetic cues from the era and put it all together with the accrued design sense from then until now. Make the best package possible in a style heavily-evocative of the era without being too slavish to it.

1 hour ago, dmg_64 said:

...and try to avoid their problems (eg : Repetitiveness of level design...

...Doom 2016 and Shadow Warrior are good examples...

While I did enjoy them by themselves, I personally felt Doom 2016 and Shadow Warrior 2013 were far more repetitive with their level design than any actual 90's FPS.

I'm tired of the 90s thing being used as a crutch or excuse for sloppiness. I want a dev to make a game that feels fun and fast, like the best parts of OS shooters but still looking nice too. It doesn't have to be state of the art or whatever, just visually pleasant and stylized in some way - It would be cool to see such a game without the "90s shooter throwback just like the good ol days" label because I feel that actually restricts a game's potential playerbase. It doesn't do you any favors in the long run as a developer, this is a thing I've noticed consistently across the board for several years now

45 minutes ago, Mason. said:

While I did enjoy them by themselves, I personally felt Doom 2016 and Shadow Warrior 2013 were far more repetitive with their level design than any actual 90's FPS.

It still handled the rest of the points very well.

I'd much rather just play an actual 90s FPS rather than one that pays homage to 90s FPS games. With that said, Dusk and Ion Maiden both look really, really good. 

Yes and no. I see nothing tremendously wrong with staying as true as possible to the 90s FPS formula, nor mixing it with more modern elements. But I do think the latter is a more viable choice when it comes to the popularity of the game. Because, let's be real - how many FPS games that have claimed to be "true 90s shooters" have had player bases with 6-digit numbers in recent years? Not many.

On the flipside, though, a smaller playerbase isn't necessarily a bad thing either. I'm not one to look at how big a game's playerbase is to gauge my interest anyway - hell, I often like to scrounge around eBay for very obscure games! Anyway, as long as the game is actually playable and doesn't look like a total mess, it can be inspired by fucking Super 3D Noah's Ark for all I care.

I've yet to see one of these "90's fps alikes" seem to capture the fun and the same gameplay as Doom 2, Quake or Unreal. All of the indie games trying to replicate that deep fps gameplay and say they're throwbacks fall quite short. I've not tried Dusk yet though. Kinda like all of those "Nintendo" like games, pixely platformers and such, They look like they fit, but end up being really boring.

You can tip your hat toward some of the best names in nineties FPS, but I'm not sure you can embrace their most salient strengths in a way that is compatible with what's expected of a modern game, technologically. So much of what makes a game like Doom fun is grounded in its faults and limitations, and if we take the necessary steps to realize them in a world that has such tightly strung truths necessary for the suspension of one's disbelief... well, that world is going to start to break down pretty quickly (I imagine this is why so many of the indie games of today like Hard Reset opt for that arcade-like appearance and feel which, because it meets halfway with notions of the abstract, doesn't completely collapse the moment you decide to make the player move like lightning).

One of the two old chestnuts I like to wheel out when illustrating this argument is Doom's AI, which is terrible. Monsters bunch up against corners, fling fireballs at their targets without consideration for their buddies in the middle, fail utterly to adapt to the movements of a player stepping silently to the side... it's horrid! This is bad news if you want to have one-on-one fun in a series of 128 unit corridors, but excellent news if you're a level designer looking to use the variables of the environment to create entirely distinct combat scenarios. In Doom (2016), by comparison, any one monster is fun to fight in a box. They're the complete package whether or not you decide to create tiers of ledges and moving floors to complicate the situation, and in fact may be dependent on a more simple environment — the basic leveling of platforms and arenas that's common to the campaign — to have access to their full range of behaviors. What would we make of a game that sports a wholly convincing environment but which also contains monsters betraying such a deficiency of programming that they could only be seen as anachronisms?

Consider the halfway house that is Doom's art direction, also, where assets can at best be used to paint some of the picture or message conveyed, if there is one, such that your imagination is needed to complete it. Could a present-day engine still look and seem like one if it were also purposed deliberately toward powering this kind of "representationalism?" Could it still be convincing? What about the bugs that would be mercilessly crushed under the boot of an AAA officer? Surely the development team of 2017 would not allow that Pain Elementals be hugged, or that arch-viles deal only 20 damage with the player up against a chest-high wall?

These games are the roughshod products of the era they were made in, and any kind of hankering for the holy grail of Doomdom or Dukedome or whatever else is completely misguided. The question of "should" never enters into the discussion.

This video discusses Shovel Knight vs. 8-bit platformers rather than 90's shooters, but its message is apt and analogous:

While we're on the topic, Dusk nails it. It's really friggin' good and you should all go play it. :P

I dont think there could be a general rule or point of view on the subject, because, as long as the game is inspired and has it's own identity it's bound to be at least decent. For exemple, some games do copy the general looks of the old shooters like Devil Daggers and Dusk, but some others incorporate only a few elements the developers feel like would fit well with what they are trying to do. The new Wolfenstein series is, in my opinion, a excelent game on it's own despite not having a clear definition of whats modern and whats rooted in the 90's. But if someone makes a game using some old engine just for the sake of recycling stuff already done before it, nothing truly good can come out of it even if it's well made.

Just talking my mind though.

I think they definitely shouldn't be trying to emulate all limitations of the 90s games. The visual side should be the main throwback and even then it should be stylized.

I mean when I look at Doom skyboxes I see them trying their best to make it look like a realistic sky. I'd rather have a stylized sky, because that's more pure and deliberate. Minecraft does this well.

 As for gameplay....whatever new idea/thing you have that is fun - put it in the game. Let it take advantage of the modern computing power.

Animation quality low ? Put more frames in there.

What HAS to be the same is the core mechanic - if it's shooting, then don't go inventing the wheel. It's got to have the same satisfying effect like doom does.

The big issue is what does being like a 90s FPS game even mean?  

Is it the art style?

The complexity of the story?

The graphic fidelity?

Regenerating health vs. pickups?

Reloading weapons or not?

Ironsights?

Upgradable weapons?

Powerups?

Special movements (e.g. double jumps, slides, wall-running etc.)?

General movement speed?

Amount of cover?

Enemy AI?

Cutscenes?

Puzzles?

Difficulty?
Hitscan enemies?

Key hunts?

Auto-maps?

NPCs and AI squad-mates?

Bosses?

Vehicles?

Linear vs. nonlinear vs. open-world?

Checkpoints vs. manual saves?

Lives and Game-Over screens?

Secret areas?

Arena-style battles?

Singleplayer vs. multiplayer focussed?

Optional third person chase-came?

All of the above?  Some of the above?  None of the above?  A game should carefully think about each of the above in terms of what is right for that title alone, never what simply worked for a game that was popular two decades ago.  

On 8/27/2017 at 1:31 PM, Flareblood V2 said:

[IMPORTANT NOTE: PLEASE BE VERY POLITE ABOUT YOUR OPINIONS. I DO NOT WANT TO START A "KIDS THESE DAYS ARE RETARDED AND THE 90'S WERE BETTER" FLAMEWAR.]

 

 

Stop assuming we're too stupid to discuss things in a rational way.

32 minutes ago, geo said:

Stop assuming we're too stupid to discuss things in a rational way.

You're not wrong, but threads like this do have a tendency to decay pretty quick.

Hell no, all of these crappy "NAN THEES EFH PEEEY ESSHESS THROOBAWK NOSTTEELGAHJK GEYM ZOMG!!!!1111" things look like a giant piece of shit on my eyes, tough the Bombshell prequel and Wrath look like they might be good.

20 minutes ago, dethtoll said:

You're not wrong, but threads like this do have a tendency to decay pretty quick.

This. I just wanted to make double-extra sure that this didn't turn into a dumpster fire in 2.5 femptoseconds. Sorry if it came across as parenting or assuming the people here are dumb.

1 minute ago, elsaltaccount#9999 said:

Hell no, all of these crappy "NAN THEES EFH PEEEY ESSHESS THROOBAWK NOSTTEELGAHJK GEYM ZOMG!!!!1111" things look like a giant piece of shit on my eyes, tough the Bpmbshell prequel andWrath look like they might be good.

Well, Dusk, from what I've heard, is amazing. The relevant thing about it is that it's almost exactly like a 90's shooter, with not much in terms of modernization.

2 minutes ago, Flareblood V2 said:

Well, Dusk, from what I've heard, is amazing. The relevant thing about it is that it's almost exactly like a 90's shooter, with not much in terms of modernization.

Might be, i only wish the graphics were better, even Quake 1 was more detailed.

29 minutes ago, dethtoll said:

You're not wrong, but threads like this do have a tendency to decay pretty quick.

It was part of the joke. I do also point out a thread started by a person with flare in their name doesn't want a flame war :-)

3 hours ago, geo said:

I do also point out a thread started by a person with flare in their name doesn't want a flame war.

eyyyy

Also, I should mention, the reason many 90's throwbacks suck is because they add modern features, but don't add them in an actually good way, instead just barfing them into the game and going "eh good enough", without actually thinking about whether such features would mix with 90's shooters.

3 hours ago, elsaltaccount#9999 said:

Might be, i only wish the graphics were better, even Quake 1 was more detailed.

Well, it would be hard to figure out how to make it look just like the 90's, without figuring out the exact specs of a common 90's PC.

Whatever happened to the Bombshell prequel? It doesn't seem to even have a release yet.

Less games need to be from the 90s. More games need to be like Dai Katana.

As for Bombshell's prequel, I can't find much other than this: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1404138,