Thinking about Health Systems in FPS games.

I was musing recently about the Halo style of health in FPS games, and whether or not it was time that some games returned to the old method of medic boxes and armour pickups.

Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy the fact that I can poke my head out take a bullet and then use my Wolverine inherited abilities of health regeneration to fix myself up while crouched behind a car but sometimes it just feels wrong.

Sure, Master Chief is a super human who is wearing an advanced space suit that probably has the ability to heal plasma burns and cuts built into it. However your man in CoD 4 is a fairly lightly armoured American or British trooper and he is a bullet sponge. But don’t worry because a few seconds behind a wooden fence will sort out that bleeding pelvis!

One of my friends described CoD’s system as a ‘you’re going to get shot in a minute’ warning of some sort, which I could accept if it wasn’t for the sound of bullets penetrating flesh and my character’s heavy breathing. Don’t get me wrong, as I already said I like the system but I do think that the old school health system could still have a place in modern shooters.

For example, the new Turok follows the same style while your character is being pushed, sliced and bitten by dinosaurs and shot to ribbons by humans all the while wearing nothing more than a khaki vest and trousers. How about making Turok carry around bandages that I have to use? Or have a team medic supply him with the necessary sprays to restore a health meter? There’s just something about healing a Veloceraptor scratch with the power of gritting your teeth that doesn’t seem right.

Not only that, but it makes encounters with some enemies too easy because you don’t mind being hurt, which should not be the case. I was recently playing Doom in which I was constantly ducking away from enemy attacks, but had it been a modern FPS I’m sure I would have willingly taken the shots to the face and just shrugged it off after cocking my shotgun a few times, ready to face more hell spawn. It would not be the same.

Of course, there is still one shining example of the health/armour system that stands proud and that is Half-Life 2 and its spin offs (both single and multiplayer). These games prove that the system still has a place in modern FPS games.

However in my opinion the best health system an FPS has ever presented is one that many people would not think of, and that is the system employed by the flawed Perfect Dark Zero. In the game you have a health meter but upon taking damage you take permanent and temporary damage, with temporary damage recharging Halo style if you avoid damage for long enough. This merges the best of both worlds and creates a comfortable middle ground that means the player does have to watch their health, but by playing sneakily and keeping to cover you can still recover from light attacks. It’s just a shame the rest of the game wasn’t quite up to scratch…

But yes, I think it’s high time the health system in FPS games saw a revision because while the regenerative system is very good, and works for a lot of games, there are some in which it is just not right.

Omega Five (XBLA)

It’s not often I buy a live arcade after already deleting it, but I downloaded the trial for this game once and thought it was distinctly ‘meh’.

Then, through the week I noticed more and more people on my friends list dipping into it so I decided to try it again, and I don’t know if I got a better weapon, or I did something special but I suddenly decided that it wasn’t so bad, and grabbed the full game.

Now, I like these types of games, hard, full of enemies, risk reward filled and with bosses big enough to give BFG a heart attack. The David and Goliath feel of beating these games down is amazing. And this one doesn’t look too shabby either.

I guess the real problem I had with my first attempt is that I actually concerned myself with the story mumbo jumbo, which by now I should know is totally nonsensical in this type of game, and I also launched in without reading either the controls or the gimmicks.

However today when I tried it I started to appreciate the way I have to collect the little gems to build up my massive attack, and I realised how awesome the Geometry Wars approved dual stick control is for a scrolling shooter, and after buying it I was able to appreciate the brilliant later levels.

Also, the weapon selection isn’t bad, the massive attacks are impressive and it contains local multiplayer, which I can’t wait to give a blast.

If you like old school scrolling shooters, I think Omega Five is well worth a look, you’ll also be supporting a game that was developed by a mere five people, and that’s awesome in its self.

Turok Demo Impressions.

I like dinosaurs; I think it’s safe to say that every small child had a fascination with the lumbering lizards at some stage in time. As such, one of the most painful things in gaming to watch was the decline of the Turok franchise, with ‘Evolution’ being a final punch in the face when after being promised intelligent dinosaur pack activities I received about two levels of enjoyable dinosaur hunting followed by some of the most mundane shooting against humanoids developed for the Gamecube.

And so here we are with Turok’s attempt at penetrating the mire of FPS games and with PR jargon such as ‘eliminate your enemies with stealth kills or blast them with massive weaponry!’ and ‘kill savage beasts or use them to eliminate foes!’ I was expecting a terrible game but much to my relief, I was wrong.

You start the demo in a cave, and eventually you come across some raptors. Initially I was plugging them full of lead, not getting anywhere very fast with enemies taking a lot of lead before accepting the cold grip of death, and so I switched to my knife (like any sane person being roared at by a ten tonne lizard would do, obviously) and discovered the first instance of the game being a smidge on the broken side. When wielding a knife the dinosaurs drop like flies due to a simple prompt of pulling the right trigger, Turok gets all stabby on his opponent and severs a few vital organs before dropping them to the floor like a rag doll. Suddenly a group of three velociraptors was less threatening than a Jigglypuff covered in bubble wrap.

However, escape from the grey cave and you will come to a lush jungle, which discards most feelings of graphical disappointment that no doubt settled while in the grey cave. Tiny dinosaurs scurry around while foliage is displaced as you pass through it. It’s no looker compared to most games, but the dinosaur animations and effects that scatter the landscape do impress. However, the demo does suffer a few clipping issues with the smaller dinosaurs.

And so onto the inevitable human opponents, the worst thing about these guys is that they are all completely faceless, much like the Hellgaust in Killzone, but much less Nazi. The best thing to come out of these enemies was when I shot one in the face with the bow, it’s satisfying, and that when there is a dinosaur about they will actually shoot at it if it is focused on them instead of specifically going for you because you’re the player, and because one of my guilty gaming pleasures is watching two AI opponents scrap I was happy to wait and watch, then mop up the survivors. And there the demo ends.

It’s really a shame that I had to endure individual dinosaurs, then individual humans before encountering a conflict involving all parties, which was easily the most interesting part. If the full game manages to keep Turok out of buildings and labs and the like (basically, anywhere that will only offer humans opponents) and keep the dinosaurs coming then it could be an enjoyable if mindless FPS.

As an after thought, I would have loved it if the little carnivores nibbled on the corpses I left behind. Oh and also, I want a scene involving tall grass and dinosaurs moving through it so all I see to notify me to their presence is the way the grass is being displaced.

I wouldn’t mind trying the multiplayer, with its added dinosaurs…

Oh and the cerebral bore best make its return, else it’s not Turok.