"I spent the whole of 2008 going round talking to publishers trying to sign up Timesplitters 4," said Ellis to Edge. "There just isn't the interest there in doing anything that tries to step away from the rules of the genre - no one wants to do something that's quirky and different, because it's too much of a risk. And a large part of that is the cost of doing it.
"Nobody really buys any FPSes unless they're called Call of Duty," he declares. "I guess Battlefield did okay, but aside from that pretty much every FPS loses money. I mean, [look at] Crysis 2: great game, but there's no way it came anywhere close to recouping its dev costs."
I think the market was oversaturated with FPS a few years back and now people are largely sick of them That is XIII's amazing analysis for the evening.
Assault was good, but it basically boiled down to 3rd person Halo with furries. Nothing I could really do for more than a few rounds before getting bored
Air Ride I did City mode once with 3 friends. It was like I was in heaven having a nightmare
When I really think about it, the only online multiplayer I really enjoyed this gen was Uncharted 2 and Red Dead Redemption. Played both of those for about a month straight before I got sick of them.
Me and a friend at work had a conversation about this the other night.
I'd love to see them start another story arc. I never played the first one but 2 and Future Perfect were terrific.
Put countless hours in on them both trying to finish the arcade leagues and challenges.
Some of the challenges were just nasty. Few of them that I never beat. My friend claims he had platinum medals on every one of them but I've never seen this with my own eyes. Just asked him if he was sure as im pretty positive he'd be one of the only people in the world to accomplish that. I do know at one point he was basically obsessed with those games.
Anyways, I think Timesplitters could make money. The series actually has a pretty solid following.
This is sad to hear. I mean we all already knew it, but there's a sense of resignation in them admitting it I guess. "This is the way things are. There's nothing we can do about it." Never fun to hear.
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Sounds more like an excuse than a reason, to be perfectly honest. Crysis 2 was apparently considered a success, even though it didn't really sell that much. You don't HAVE to compete with CoD. And you definitely don't have to match its budget.
-- SEP Nash, Smelling Like the Vault since 1996 Step FOUR! Get Paid! http://img.imgcake.com/stevenashgifpu.gif
So they dropped Timesplitters 4 because they were afraid they couldn't compete with Call of Duty so they also dropped Battlefront so they could focus all of their efforts on Homefront which is...well how about that it's another FPS.
Did some research, apparently homefront had a huge budget and needed to sell 2 million copies to break even. A quick look at VG charts has them at 2.26 million sold in a little over a year.
I haven't played the game myself. Was it any good? Sales seemed decent but can't imagine a sequel doing a whole lot better.
So they dropped Timesplitters 4 because they were afraid they couldn't compete with Call of Duty so they also dropped Battlefront so they could focus all of their efforts on Homefront which is...well how about that it's another FPS.
Read the full story on eurogamer, it's nothing like that.
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Brawl is like ZSS' breasts. Well rounded for casual players http://img.imgcake.com/YetAnotherShadow/Gameboyfeverjpegez.jpg
which reminds me that I need to figure out that thing where you can connect your PS2 to your computer and play TS3 over the internet with other people. TS3 needs to be the standard B8 online game.
YetAnothrShadow posted... So they dropped Timesplitters 4 because they were afraid they couldn't compete with Call of Duty so they also dropped Battlefront so they could focus all of their efforts on Homefront which is...well how about that it's another FPS.
Read the full story on eurogamer, it's nothing like that.
Thanks. I just read it and while extremely informative its also very depressing.
Timesplitters was a good game, I never completed single player, but played a decent amount of it and played a good amount of multiplayer, but really the series ended with the first one. A large part of it's popularity most likely has to do with that there were really no other shooter options for the PS 2 when it was first released. The Red Faction series was the first major blow to it, and there are countless other options that are more then likely better then it (especially if you count TPS). If you also count motion controls, you also have at least Golden Eye Wii, which I would go back and play some more before touching any other games from that series.
Timesplitters was a good game, I never completed single player, but played a decent amount of it and played a good amount of multiplayer, but really the series ended with the first one. A large part of it's popularity most likely has to do with that there were really no other shooter options for the PS 2 when it was first released. The Red Faction series was the first major blow to it, and there are countless other options that are more then likely better then it (especially if you count TPS). If you also count motion controls, you also have at least Golden Eye Wii, which I would go back and play some more before touching any other games from that series.
wait what is this post
the first Timesplitters isn't that great. It's not awful, but not spectacular. 2 and 3 are the best console FPS games of that gen, and maybe ever.
If I had to guess, I think he meant a more "niche" shooter like TimeSplitters. Obviously, any games that are inherently similar to Call of Duty such as Homefront and Battlefield will still do very well, but TimeSplitters is a very different FPS than those games. I think that's where the discrepancy is.
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I mean, [look at] Crysis 2: great game, but there's no way it came anywhere close to recouping its dev costs."
i find this hard to believe honestly.
also, Homefront did do well. it didn't meet the initial expectations, which is why it was percieved to do badly, but it sold a very good amount. they got nailed with bad reviews but it's sequel still is one of the few games THQ is still working on.
and BF3 was by every measure a big success, not "okay." EA's absolutely thrilled with the numbers that game has put up. suggesting that's just okay is... very, very wrong. Battlefield, Halo, and COD all sell incredibly well. suggesting any of those are just okay is just.... wrong.
the most basic reason why you can tell he's exaggerating is simple - sequels. you don't go HEY LET'S MAKE A SEQUEL on a loss.
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The King Wang. Listen up Urinal Cake. I already have something that tells me if I'm too drunk when I pee on it: My friends. - Colbert.
TS2 is praised quite highly because it's both difficult and fun. it's quirky, interesting, and just the kind of game to chill and have a good time with. TS3 isn't as fun and takes a more serious tone, which... doesn't fit as well as 2 as a result.
TS4 being shopped around in 2008 doesn't surprise me as a problem - Crysis 1 was MUCH more ambitious than Crysis 2. the specs on some games you see in 2008 FPS are ridiculous for PC as well, look at Vegas 1 or Crysis 1 (same specs as Vegas 2, higher specs than Crysis 2). optimization happened in the following years and prices should've dropped notably as well. still not CHEAP, but certainly managable. if you want something extremely ambitious you will have problems, but games like Demon's Soul were financially successful, let alone the sequel, and it looks good enough. if they tried to shop it around now they probably would have much less issues and they'd have a notably bigger base with the sharp increase in PC gaming as well.
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The King Wang. Listen up Urinal Cake. I already have something that tells me if I'm too drunk when I pee on it: My friends. - Colbert.
OmarsComin posted... Timesplitters was a good game, I never completed single player, but played a decent amount of it and played a good amount of multiplayer, but really the series ended with the first one. A large part of it's popularity most likely has to do with that there were really no other shooter options for the PS 2 when it was first released. The Red Faction series was the first major blow to it, and there are countless other options that are more then likely better then it (especially if you count TPS). If you also count motion controls, you also have at least Golden Eye Wii, which I would go back and play some more before touching any other games from that series.
wait what is this post
the first Timesplitters isn't that great. It's not awful, but not spectacular. 2 and 3 are the best console FPS games of that gen, and maybe ever.
I doubt that, Red Faction 1 and 2 take it over TS 2 and 3 for that generation unless they contributed something major to the FPS genre and fixed the major problems of TS 1. I'm not exactly sure what I'd call the best console FPS of all time or best FPS of all time.
TS 1 had the problem that if you suicided, unless you were playing + kill -Death mode which takes forever to win, you wouldn't get negative to your score, so you could exploit and jump off a cliff to get full health if you were about to die (granted, this could be looked at as strategy in itself, but it should probably have been removed). Next, the first game was riddled with glitches where you could basically fall out of the world and exist on your own plane but you would still kind of be in the normal world just with everything different and being able to see but not interact with the other player unless they did the same thing or you glitched back in(which wasn't always possible), there was one level where if you did it a certain way it was kind of kool and somewhat added to the game play, but for the most part it was annoying. Finally, in story mode, the AI was pretty unimpressive, and there were too many points where you could get stuck in an area and pretty much guarantee they would hit you when you tried to get out because most of them had lock on aim, since my skill has increased overall with gaming I could probably better deal with that now, but it's still not really a good practice.
As far as contributions to the FPS genre, Red Faction, especially the first one if I remember right, added almost completely destructible environments to the game and allowed you to create your own paths basically in some levels. The also had a decent set of new weapons and items, and the way some of them were used (including how you used the controller), was kind of interesting.
As far as console FPS games go, Red Faction 1 and 2 pretty much ate up the rest of my console FPS time in that gen, that's why I never bought the new TS games. Also, even some time after that gen, I went back and played TS, RF, and RF 2, combined with other FPS games I was interested in caused me to not buy the new TS games (TPS games played a role in me not getting them too, but since they're still somewhat (to very depending) different, if I didn't have a few FPS games in there that I liked I may have bought them).
The praise I'm seeing the series getting has peaked my interest though, so please answer my questions about the problems that need fixing above and tell me the new good points 2 and 3, I can always go back and buy them.
I played both red faction games. I could be misremembering as its been a while but i only remember the environments being about 10% destructible and the story mode being bairly linear.
TS 1 had the problem that if you suicided, unless you were playing + kill -Death mode which takes forever to win, you wouldn't get negative to your score, so you could exploit and jump off a cliff to get full health if you were about to die (granted, this could be looked at as strategy in itself, but it should probably have been removed). Next, the first game was riddled with glitches where you could basically fall out of the world and exist on your own plane but you would still kind of be in the normal world just with everything different and being able to see but not interact with the other player unless they did the same thing or you glitched back in(which wasn't always possible), there was one level where if you did it a certain way it was kind of kool and somewhat added to the game play, but for the most part it was annoying. Finally, in story mode, the AI was pretty unimpressive, and there were too many points where you could get stuck in an area and pretty much guarantee they would hit you when you tried to get out because most of them had lock on aim, since my skill has increased overall with gaming I could probably better deal with that now, but it's still not really a good practice.
I never played Red Faction, so I can't compare the two but none of the problems you mention here returned in TS2&3. I've never encountered but the occasional glitches (non-recurrent) and the suicide exploit is definitely not there. Besides in Flame Tag & Virus (in 2), but that might have been deliberate and made for some fun frantic dashes (Chasm!) when you were chased. Story A.I. is decent, nothing extraordinary but also nothing to scoff about. It does it's job, has certain (scripted) routines and isn't annoying.
I haven't really played much of the first game, especially since I got it after the other two and it just doesn't compare. From what I've played, Story mode is vastly different from the other games, simply being a grab the key/bag/item and get back whereas in 2&3 you have actual (multiple) objectives which make (somewhat) sense in the setting and scripted events, boss fights and cut scenes. So, an actual story mode, while keeping the variety intact by the time jumping mechanic.
I could probably go on and on but let's just say that I recommend to pick it up if you manage to find one or the other. I suggest starting with 2 since there are some things Future Perfect introduces which are nice and could make it somewhat harder to get (back) into 2.
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