FPS's with static missions but dynamic enemies?

QueBert

Lifer
Jan 6, 2002
22,378
708
126
was playing COD4 SP, I enjoy it but hate how the levels always play out exactly the same. Knowing a RPG dude is going to be on the roof around the corner the 2nd time I play the level takes away from the immersion of the game. I love SWAT 4 because I can play the same level a million times and never have it go exactly the same. Even though the mission objectives will always be the same, finishing it is always an adventure because I never know what to expect.
it always keeps me on my toes, and that's why I can still play it, what 3 years after it was released? COD4 is great but there's no way in hell I'll replay it more than one time, let alone dozens like I have Swat4.

I haven't seen too many other FPS's besides SWAT3/4 that had this dynamic angle. SWAT isn't really story based, at least none of the missions tie in to others, so the "story" is pretty much restricted to that single level.

if COD4 had levels that play out dynamically I think it would make the replay value 100x, and given how short the game is it could use all the help it could get.

what other games play like Swat 4?

 

Zenoth

Diamond Member
Jan 29, 2005
5,189
184
106
You mean a randomized enemy placement in the levels while maintaining the same goals and such. That, my friend, is a rarity when it comes to first-person-shooters. Most of them are only scripted, with triggered events, and that's it. It's good one time, maybe a second... at the extreme perhaps a third time, but then it gets boring, I'd rather read a good book where at least I can imagine a room differently each time I read it (unless the writer gives the details to imagine it for us). A first-person-shooter that does exactly what you want, other than S.W.A.T 3 and 4, is S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl, but that one of course really doesn't fit in a SWAT context at all.

In STALKER the missions are "the same" (the goals, what you need to find, etc) but they can always be played differently, due to the A.I mechanism in the game (A-Life). The NPCs, enemies, friends and neutrals alike, move to different places before, some times during, and often after a mission. A number of them are indeed scripted, but what is scripted is limited only to the initial placement of the NPC in the level. As soon as the the script is triggered however that's where the A-Life system shines, for the NPCs concerned by that scripted scene will then move differently than the previous attempt, they will do different tactics (charging, or slowly walking towards the enemy, or will try to attack them from different angles, will crouch more often, will take cover at different places, and so on). And keep in mind that I am talking about the vanilla, out of the box, non-modified game here.

As soon as you throw in a modification like SIMBION, AFK or ABC Inferno then you'll be in heaven if what you want is unpredictability at its purest form. Those modifications show what a script can do in terms of randomization (simulated, of course). With such modifications the game has the potential to (and more often than not do become so) become a huge chaotic sandbox of randomized events left and right, much worse than anything "chaotic" you'd have seen before. I mean it'd put a game like GTA III to shame (and God knows how much random stuff can happen in that series). You'd encounter mutants anywhere possible, you'd see neutral and enemy Stalkers wandering and fighting everywhere, and no where is really safe, at least never permanently. A deserted, seemingly abandoned house could well be habited by a Bloodsucker in one hour or two days (in-game), you never know (but in the vanilla version something like that is extremely rare, usually where you see monsters is where they will stay, they rarely go outside of their "lair" randomly like in many other mods that just eliminate those vanilla restrictions to prevent breaking the missions).

Overall, right now, by heart, no other FPS'es come to my mind, all others are just so much scripted. I'd say that outside the SWAT series you could consider STALKER as the holy grail of randomization for the FPS genre (SWAT is also a FPS, but it is based on tactics and team work, contrary to STALKER where it's pretty much, if not always about you and your gun alone in a rotten radioactive Zone). There's the new Turok that seems to feature a decent amount of randomized encounters with the dinosaurs during the missions, but the PC version isn't due before the end of March if I am not mistaken.
 

QueBert

Lifer
Jan 6, 2002
22,378
708
126
STALKER is bad ass, I had a bunch of dudes after me so I had them chase me back to my camp thinking the stalkers there would help me kill them. Well, they all tried, but all died in the process. It didn't say "game over" or make me re-do the level. Pretty impressive.