Are there any good arena shooters on the horizon?

[Craftyman.]

Whatever happened to the arena shooter genre? (quake, UT, etc)

Seems like everything is bloody screen regenerating health and "super realistic" vehicles and weapons. I know there's quake live but i get stomped in that game now :P Does anyone know of anything interesting coming out?

[SoulsCollective]

Brink may interest you.

[RejZoR]

Just stick with Quake 3 Arena and Team Arena along with UT, UT2004 and or UT3. UT3 is actually pretty fun once you stick few mutators on it.

[G.Foyle]

What happened? They got perfect. I think they died when people realised that there's not much you can improve. I'm content with UT3 (+ BTFA and UTComp mutators) and Quake 2, I don't need new Quake or Unreal Tournament. I think the same will happen to "world war 3" shooters that are popular these days.

OR: (a second reason)
They are too difficult. In MW2 or BF:BC2 even a total noob will kill a pro player at least once during a match. In UT or Quake a noob will have his ass kicked 0-25 every single time. He won't get an achievement for getting his ass kicked or "shot the least bullets in northwest direction when moon was rising" badge. He won't even get 162 XP points which put him 5,364% closer to next level or unlockable weapon. He'll just get badly pwned. Modern games reward you even for being a total idiot - old shooters don't.

[Craftyman.]

What happened? They got perfect. I think they died when people realised that there's not much you can improve. I'm content with UT3 (+ BTFA and UTComp mutators) and Quake 2, I don't need new Quake or Unreal Tournament. I think the same will happen to "world war 3" shooters that are popular these days.

OR: (a second reason)
They are too difficult. In MW2 or BF:BC2 even a total noob will kill a pro player at least once during a match. In UT or Quake a noob will have his ass kicked 0-25 every single time. He won't get an achievement for getting his ass kicked or "shot the least bullets in northwest direction when moon was rising" badge. He won't even get 162 XP points which put him 5,364% closer to next level or unlockable weapon. He'll just get badly pwned. Modern games reward you even for being a total idiot - old shooters don't.

That seems to be the problem with games these days, casualized (and hyped) to appeal to the masses. Not that i blame companies as that is how they make money.

[Craftyman.]

Brink may interest you.

It doesn't quite look like an arena shooter, but I only looked at the single player. I'll check more of it out tomorrow :up:.

[CedricFP]

What happened? They got perfect. I think they died when people realised that there's not much you can improve. I'm content with UT3 (+ BTFA and UTComp mutators) and Quake 2, I don't need new Quake or Unreal Tournament. I think the same will happen to "world war 3" shooters that are popular these days.

OR: (a second reason)
They are too difficult. In MW2 or BF:BC2 even a total noob will kill a pro player at least once during a match. In UT or Quake a noob will have his ass kicked 0-25 every single time. He won't get an achievement for getting his ass kicked or "shot the least bullets in northwest direction when moon was rising" badge. He won't even get 162 XP points which put him 5,364% closer to next level or unlockable weapon. He'll just get badly pwned. Modern games reward you even for being a total idiot - old shooters don't.

This.

It started going downhill iwth BF2, when simply playing long hours would earn you points towards "unlocks".

The only game I still play multi is Tribes 2, where the learning curve is steep and there is a huge gap between good players and bad ones. You are either good, skilled and understand the game, or you are bad. You may have talent or aim if you're bad, but you just don't get it and never contribute to winning.

That's what I like about older games. The strict good/bad divide, where it takes actual concentration and effort to learn how to be good. Aim alone gets you nowhere. In Quake, many may argue it's a twitch aim-only game, but knowing what weapon and when to use it, knowing the maps etc all contribute.

In Tribes, the same cut-throat nature is applied to flag awareness and teamwork. Screw up on 1 play and you may cost your team the game. It's make it or lost it gameplay - and totally unforgiving.

New players who tried it back in the T1 days would either make it or leave it. For most, the learning curve was simply too great. That carried on in classic T2. New players wouldn't get it, get stomped and leave. If they didn't leave and stuck around, those were the ones who might make it into something, getting beaten every night so that they might learn how not to be.

Newer games are unforgiving to the point where one doesn't need to invest effort into learning to be good. It's mostly twitch-based aim-only gameplay, with instakill weapons and only a token effort (read: shoehorn) at capturing true team play.

[El Mano]

Do you know Shattered Horizon?
http://www.shatteredhorizon.com/

[YukonTrooper]

I'm pretty sure Quake 3 is where you'll want to invest your time. I don't see any arena game stealing that crown any time soon.

[Blkout]

Team Fortress 2 is still going strong.

[krogen]

Team Fortress 2 is still going strong.

That's quite far from arena type of games. :cool:

[Loque]

I'm sorry, but for me ut99 > all ;)

[Blkout]

That's quite far from arena type of games. :cool:

No, its not actually. Not sure what you're using as a definition of arena games. TF2 supports just about all types of gameplay that Quake, UT3 or Quake Wars supports. Its certainly in the same family.

[CedricFP]

And maps are small enough for many games to degenerate into team FFA...

[krogen]

No, its not actually. Not sure what you're using as a definition of arena games. TF2 supports just about all types of gameplay that Quake, UT3 or Quake Wars supports. Its certainly in the same family.

Hehe, I don't know. I've played TF2 for a few hundred hours, I think all of it I put into capture the flag, and most of that into a single map, 2fort.

[G.Foyle]

2fort is a blight upon the history of level design, just like The Yard or dust2.

@ Shattered Horizon:
I don't know how it looks now, but when I played the beta, it was a very poor quality shooter and it's unique environment navigation wasn't enough to save it. There was too little content (maps, weapons, models, no story at all) to keep playing it.

[XKaan]

I think the last true PC arena shooter was Unreal 2k4. After that nothing new came out, except for UT3, which in my opinion aside from the graphical assets was a step back.

The same holds true for modern-day combat FPS. Although I love CoD, you certainly can't compare the skill-level of the average CoD4\MW2 player to the skill level of an average CS player. It's more about stacking killstreak rewards to "level-up" and rank, rather than master the game.

That's not to say I don't enjoy newer FPS games. Promod certainly makes Cod4 "feel" more like a skill-based PC FPS, however I do miss the "good ol days".

Brink does look VERY interesting though, and I have been following it closely. It will all boil down to how much effort they put into the PC version, and if it will be modable or not. One thing I do hate about modern FPS games are the enormous hit-boxes and the sever lack of recoil on any weapon.