Hyperx
09-16-06, 10:55 PM
Best of Tactical Gaming: Infiltration published
Followup to "Tactical Gaming Done Right"
A followup to this article, titled "Best of Tactical Gaming: Infiltration", was posted on August 19th. Once you've finished with this article, make sure to go check it out. If you were linked to this article from a forum, feel free to post about the new article to help spread the word. There will be a link to the new article on the third page of this one.
The main objectives of this article are to increase awareness of unique or exceptional elements that have been successfully integrated into past FPS games (with an emphasis on the tactical/realistic side of things), highlight and praise implementations of "standard" features that were done particularly well in others, and give me a platform from which I can provide commentary on the various features and options relevant to the future of the genre that I find myself so very interested in.
Some of the areas I will be talking about have very clear-cut winners, and they will be cited prominently. In other areas, things are not so clear, and so a discussion will be made between the various games and their implementations. Some things I've written have yet to be implemented, and while much of that is relegated to the second-to-last 'chapter', it does show up occasionaly prior to that.
I've tried to cover as much material as possible in this piece, but despite my best efforts, I was unable to include everything that I had originally set out to have. Still, there is a massive amount of content here, and I'm very much pleased with how it has come out. The bulk of this article deals with the most basic elements of combat - shooting, moving, and interacting with the environment. With that being said, I will likely revisit this topic in the future to address some of the things that were not possible here.
On the media side of things, I've used a combination of real-world and gaming photography, screenshots, and video to illustrate this piece. Some of the real-world stuff is mine; much of it isn't. However, all of the in-game content (be they screenshots or gameplay footage, but excluding the two VBS1 clips) is of my creation.
I would highly recommend that people use the links available to download the hires versions of the in-game footage and view those when possible instead of the embedded Google Video movies, as the quality in them is worlds better. There is a very good possibility that you'll eventually stop getting sound if you play enough of the embedded videos - if this happens, simply refresh the page and it'll be fixed. If you load the hires versions to begin with, you won't have to worry about that.
Before we get started, I'd like to spend a few moments to establish my general opinions on gaming, as far as they relate to this article.
Anyone who knows me knows that realism is where my gaming passion lies. Operation Flashpoint and Raven Shield are the epitomes of gaming for me, and while the Rainbow Six series is for all intents and purposes dead (thanks to Lockdown, and the decision to appeal to a console audience and abandon the things that made the series so great), Flashpoint is thriving and will be a staple of my gaming for as long as Bohemia Interactive (the developers) continue to exist.
Flashpoint's sequels, Armed Assault and the as-yet-unnamed "Game2", are the Holy Grails of tactical combined-arms wargaming in my eyes. Raven Shield is the king of close-quarters battle, on the other hand. They will be referred to frequently in this article, and it's for good reason - if the best elements of Flashpoint and Raven Shield could be combined, you'd have a game of such strength that it would be nigh impossible to compete with it on the field of realistic simulated combat.
With all of that being said, it's time to get started, and I can think of no better way to kick-off an article like this than with some real-world footage of CQB/MOUT training.
This video is from an Australian unit, and was taken in the early stage of their training, so there are quite a few mistakes made - many of which may not be visible to the average gamer - but all in all it serves as an excellent example of what real-world CQB looks like.
Sit back, relax, and enjoy the show. If we're lucky, this what we'll be steadily moving towards for the future of first-person tactical/wargaming.
continue (http://dslyecxi.com/bestoftactical.html)
Followup to "Tactical Gaming Done Right"
A followup to this article, titled "Best of Tactical Gaming: Infiltration", was posted on August 19th. Once you've finished with this article, make sure to go check it out. If you were linked to this article from a forum, feel free to post about the new article to help spread the word. There will be a link to the new article on the third page of this one.
The main objectives of this article are to increase awareness of unique or exceptional elements that have been successfully integrated into past FPS games (with an emphasis on the tactical/realistic side of things), highlight and praise implementations of "standard" features that were done particularly well in others, and give me a platform from which I can provide commentary on the various features and options relevant to the future of the genre that I find myself so very interested in.
Some of the areas I will be talking about have very clear-cut winners, and they will be cited prominently. In other areas, things are not so clear, and so a discussion will be made between the various games and their implementations. Some things I've written have yet to be implemented, and while much of that is relegated to the second-to-last 'chapter', it does show up occasionaly prior to that.
I've tried to cover as much material as possible in this piece, but despite my best efforts, I was unable to include everything that I had originally set out to have. Still, there is a massive amount of content here, and I'm very much pleased with how it has come out. The bulk of this article deals with the most basic elements of combat - shooting, moving, and interacting with the environment. With that being said, I will likely revisit this topic in the future to address some of the things that were not possible here.
On the media side of things, I've used a combination of real-world and gaming photography, screenshots, and video to illustrate this piece. Some of the real-world stuff is mine; much of it isn't. However, all of the in-game content (be they screenshots or gameplay footage, but excluding the two VBS1 clips) is of my creation.
I would highly recommend that people use the links available to download the hires versions of the in-game footage and view those when possible instead of the embedded Google Video movies, as the quality in them is worlds better. There is a very good possibility that you'll eventually stop getting sound if you play enough of the embedded videos - if this happens, simply refresh the page and it'll be fixed. If you load the hires versions to begin with, you won't have to worry about that.
Before we get started, I'd like to spend a few moments to establish my general opinions on gaming, as far as they relate to this article.
Anyone who knows me knows that realism is where my gaming passion lies. Operation Flashpoint and Raven Shield are the epitomes of gaming for me, and while the Rainbow Six series is for all intents and purposes dead (thanks to Lockdown, and the decision to appeal to a console audience and abandon the things that made the series so great), Flashpoint is thriving and will be a staple of my gaming for as long as Bohemia Interactive (the developers) continue to exist.
Flashpoint's sequels, Armed Assault and the as-yet-unnamed "Game2", are the Holy Grails of tactical combined-arms wargaming in my eyes. Raven Shield is the king of close-quarters battle, on the other hand. They will be referred to frequently in this article, and it's for good reason - if the best elements of Flashpoint and Raven Shield could be combined, you'd have a game of such strength that it would be nigh impossible to compete with it on the field of realistic simulated combat.
With all of that being said, it's time to get started, and I can think of no better way to kick-off an article like this than with some real-world footage of CQB/MOUT training.
This video is from an Australian unit, and was taken in the early stage of their training, so there are quite a few mistakes made - many of which may not be visible to the average gamer - but all in all it serves as an excellent example of what real-world CQB looks like.
Sit back, relax, and enjoy the show. If we're lucky, this what we'll be steadily moving towards for the future of first-person tactical/wargaming.
continue (http://dslyecxi.com/bestoftactical.html)