Mine is OOO for Out Of Office. I always misread it in my head like a ghost and it takes me a few seconds to process. It also doesnāt translate to speechāyou have to say the whole thing.
Interested to see if others have similar acronyms they beef with.
The second one not only has a campaign, itās one of, possibly the single best campaign to be included in a first person shooter, ever. Short, but extremely memorable.
I donāt remember it. BUT I do remember the feelings of being amazed by it.
Titanfall 2ās campaign is very goodā¦ Iām not sure if I would call it the āsingle best campaign to be included in a first person shooter everā and I feel like that might be overselling it a little bit, but maybe not? I think the main thing that gives me pause is that while itās great, it still feels a little weirdly like itās tacked onto a multiplayer game (I think itās the fact that thereās kind of a huge selection of weapons to the point that itās a little hard to keep track of and stuff), and I didnāt think the story was all that interesting.
That saidā¦ If Iām being perfectly honest, Iām not really sure what campaign I would consider to be better, and Titanfall 2 has at least one very high point! The story isnāt particularly amazing, but Iām not sure if any first person shooter has a particularly fantastic storyā¦ Hell, the more I think about it lately the less sure I am that any game has a particularly good story (though maybe āvideo game storyā is just kind of its own category and canāt really be compared to novels or anything else).
I think Half-Life 2 and its episodes are what I think of most immediately when I think of ābest single player FPS campaignā and I feel like the lore in Half-Life has a bit of a more interesting mysterious vibe to itā¦ But thereās sort of not much to the story either (kind of intentionally, I guess). Iād also be unsurprised if somebody thought Titanfall 2 was better than Half-Life 2.
In sumā¦ HMMMM. Food for thought! Saying Titanfall 2 has the best single player campaign in a FPS feels wrong to meā¦ but Iām actually not sure I disagree with that take. I think lately Iāve also been having a hard time enjoying first person shooters too. I like them, but I guess the violence is starting to seem kind of dull these days :/.
The one I had in mind as the exception to the rule when I posted that was maybe Doom Eternal. I really, really liked that game. But the more I think about itā¦ Doom isnāt really there for the story. John Romero, though no longer at id, is famously quoted as saying that video game stories are akin to the plot of a porno - itās expected to be there, but it isnāt expected to be good and it isnāt expected to get in the way of the game itself. New Doom takes itself seriously enough to have lore - pretty good lore, in fact, in my opinion! But I wouldnāt call itā¦ inspired. It is, truly, just the necessary set dressing required in order to orient oneself to the ripping and the tearing. They put a little more effort into it than old doom did but the overall result pretty much plays out exactly like you expect it to. Thereās no big twists or turns. There are bad guys, Doomguy arrives to delete the bad guys, and gets a lead on the next bad guys. Rinse repeat until out of funding. And itās fine, it works. Doom is a game more about the moment to moment gameplay anyway.
So, not Doom. What then? Dusk maybe? Dusk was a fucking good game. Doesnāt hold a candle to Effect & Cause or The Fold Weapon though, in my opinion. Dusk didnāt have characters I could get invested in.
Bioshock is a good contender, but Titanfall is a better game overall imo and therefore takes the W.
The last big ones that come to mind to me personally are Half-Life, like youāve said, which is an extremely strong contender for this title, and then Fallout New Vegas (yes I am one of those people but believe me when I say itās a really fucking good game and you should try it)
But even given those challengers TF|2 can sit very comfortably within the top 5 ranking of āobjectivelyā best single player FPS campaigns. It is an absolute banger of a game and Iām eternally disappointed that the series basically got absorbed into Apex Legends. Iād sell my left nut for a Titanfall 3. In the meantime Iām making do with Armored Core.
I think this is a Carmack quote? I wouldnāt be terribly surprised if Romero felt similarly at the time, but it seems a little less their style.
I donāt think this attitude is wrong necessarily, but it really depends! I think itās fine to just have fun gameplay and no story, and itās also fine to focus on story too. I feel like lately, though, when Iāve been trying to think of āgames with good storiesā Iāve kind of had a hard time thinking of any, or maybe Iām just being too critical? Itās certainly true that stories should be different in different mediums, so maybe what it means to be a good story in a game is very differentā¦ Maybe theyāre shorter and less complex than novels and part of the story is in how the gameplay makes you feel in conjunction with the plot so maybe thinking of the plot in isolation isnāt very fair to it eitherā¦
To be honest Iām real turned around on this stuff lately. Iāve always really liked video games, but a combination of getting older and having more responsibilities and having my values change is making me think a bit more critically about them lately and Iām having more meta thoughts about why I like them (which is maybe a bad thing because it can kind of spoil a thing you love a bit, haha, but I think itās also good to think about these things on some level). Part of this is because my partner doesnāt really like video games, which is fairā¦ They also donāt really like the violence and stuff, which makes me question this a bit too. To be clear, theyāre actually super supportive and encourage me to play more games and stuffā¦ But it still makes me think a bit and it makes me think about what they would like and why I like the games that I like (or why I have enjoyed them in the past). Iāve never been particularly scared of video game violence or anything, but I will admit that upon reflectionā¦ I kind of donāt want to shoot a bunch of people? And it kind of makes sense that itās a popular genre because itās really well suited to the input methods we have and itās something that ends up being satisfyingā¦ But I donāt like war, and I donāt like violence, so itās kind of weird to have this be a thing that I do all of the time? Not sure how I feel yet.
Dusk is fucking great, but yeah, story wise itās kind of nothing, other than some kind of x-filesy weird mystery kind of stuff I guess. But yeah, it doesnāt need a great story.
Honestlyā¦ I donāt think Bioshock holds up very well these days. I like it and have enjoyed it, but I think itās mostly a cool setting and idea and falls really flat if you take that away. The story has some interesting stuff but itās pretty clunky and just feels a bit clumsy. I still like it, of course, but Iām not sure Iād show it to somebody in order to demonstrate how games have great stories, you know? Also Bioshock Infinite really doesnāt hold up in my opinion.
I thought about New Vegas too. Itās arguably more of an RPG and the open world stuff maybe puts it in a different category altogether. Itās a very interesting way to tell a story, though, especially with the links between the DLCs and stuff. I go back and forth between thinking itās really well done and kind of overrated, haha. I think the world and factions are interesting, but any individual peace of dialogue or quest isnāt amazing, itās more how everything fits together in aggregate that makes it interesting. It feels like itās a somewhat innovative way to tell a story, but not fully perfected and polished yet? And Fallout gameplay is certainly far from perfect, haha. I do keep coming back to it, thoughā¦ Literally started a new run a few days ago.
Anyway, I feel like Iām coming off too negatively :). These are all great games in their own ways! Iām just putting too much scrutiny on things to my own detriment, haha.
Yeah thatās a fair point and I think I feel similarly, re: getting older and shifting perspectives. Much of my own perspective comes from not having played a ton of shooters in the past few years. The ones I do play, I tend to enjoy shooting at monsters more than people these days, but a lot of the ones I enjoy donāt really have a compelling story or campaign to go alongside them. I have in the past reflected on the fact that the overwhelming majority of games I own, play and enjoy are games about violence. It makes you think. But I think that I grew up on a steady diet of fantasy novels of great knights slaying monsters and powerful wizards turning the tides of fate. That culture shaped my personality and as a mild mannered introvert in real life it lets me engage in that hero fantasy without harm to others or myself. I enjoy it and Iāve come to accept it for being that. If you stop to look at it a overwhelming amount of entertainment in general frequently features violence, and I think itās just baked into our universal human experience. Violence has been a mainstay in human history, and art reflects reality. I donāt know how Iām supposed to feel about that. In order to maintain my sanity I choose to accept it as a fact of the human condition and, though maybe not revel in it, I will engage that instinct in a safe manner. The safe manner of my choosing is frequently by firing a big fuck-off gun at some ungodly creature that is threatening to impose its place in the food chain upon me, in some video game.
Good talk, internet stranger. I just wanted more people to enjoy Titanfall, I didnāt expect an impromptu therapy session, but Iāve thoroughly enjoyed this.
Yeah, I think Iāve really fallen off of the whole āmodern warfareā thing. Iām sure I could enjoy a military shooter just fine still, but itās not something I seek out because it makes me think too much about scary things that happen in the real world, I guess. I donāt want to be a soldier, I guess.
Absolutely, and I donāt think thereās anything necessarily wrong with that. It can be harmless fun and all, but sometimes I wonder why I enjoy this particular kind of power fantasy, and if I really should. Itās a lot easier when itās all cartoonishly evil stuff, but things that go for more gritty, edgy, and ārealā vibesā¦ I dunno. I can still enjoy them, but sometimes I think too much about it and Iām like āI guess this is kind of fucked, huh?ā
Yeah, I think about this a lot actually. One thing thatās kind of interesting to me is that my partner is often okay with violence in films and TV shows, but is generally pretty opposed to it in video games. I guess video game violence is kind of different in some ways, in some sense youāre often committing the acts of violence yourselfā¦ And it probably doesnāt help if youāre not engaged with the story, and donāt particularly care for video games in the first place, haha. If youāre more familiar with film and TV youāre probably more okay with it there.
But yeah, so much media is centered around violenceā¦ And to be honest, I donāt really think itās because itās so central to our lives. I mean, obviously itās still very much present and is a big deal in many ways, and is maybe something weāre hard wired to find āinterestingā in some sense because it has been present throughout our evolutionary historyā¦ But in our every day lives I think a lot of us go about our days without seeing much real violence or gore or anythingā¦ BUT, violence and death is kind of an excellent motivator and catalyst, which I personally think is a huge reason why itās a central part of so much media. Itās a lot easier to justify why youāre doing something if itās life or death, and I think itās a huge part of why itās so prevalent in video games tooā¦ Itās an easy motivator and easy justification for shooting things yourself. Thereās definitely non-violent games, but I think itās much harder to design instant gratification machines that everybody intrinsically understands the goal of unless itās motivated by ādeathā in some sense. I think itās pretty difficult to design something that has the kind of cadence and feedback of a shooter without violence and without it seeming arbitrary to a lot of people. I think platformers get pretty close, but most arenāt purely about jumping. Maybe rhythm games and sports games too? And thereās been other valiant efforts like Pyre, which I think is super interesting. And of course thereās other kinds of games like city builders and sandboxes and puzzle games and whatnot, but I feel like they have a very different pace and feelā¦ Which is totally valid and valuable too, of courseā¦ But can you have something cathartic like a shooter that isnāt one? I mean Portal is kind of interesting in this respect too, because itās arguably an FPS but very different and (mostly) non-violent.
But yeah, Iām kind of just talking out of my assā¦ And I feel like Iām starting to sound like a bit of a nut whoās opposed to violence in video games and think it will turn people into murderers or something. I donāt feel that way at all, and I definitely do enjoy my fair share of violent video gamesā¦ I guess Iām just trying to think of the other facets of life that I value and enjoy, and Iām kind of wondering where the expression of that is in my video games? And I guess Iāve also been thinking of my partner and how I can better share this thing that I enjoy with themā¦ But itās kind of hard because so many games are centered around violenceā¦ And I guess in some sense Iāve also been thinking a bit about what I want to do in this world, and I think maybe I want to do something creative at some point (maybe one day Iāll try putting together a small game or something), and Iāve been thinking a bit about why I would even want to do that, if I want to āsayā anything with that piece of work, or if I just want to try to make something thatās ādumb funāā¦ But I guess in the back of my mind I also have these thoughts that Iād like for it to be something that my partner could also enjoy. Iunno.
And yeah, Iāve enjoyed this too :). Nice talking to ya!