Sony and the FPS genre

Honest question here, why has Sony consistently failed to create a mainstream successful FPS game even going back to the PS2?

Resistance and Killzone both got 4-5 games in each of their series, so someone must have been buying them.

SOCOM games on PS2 were more popular than Halo in terms of online play, but I guess that is third person instead of first person.

Do you have a source for this? If this is true why has Sony not tried remastering them yet?

Because they're all shit aside from MAG which was released when Modern Warfare 2 was released and should have never been stuck to a fucking console when it was basicaly an MMO.

Because the last attempted SOCOM game was a fucking mess due to executive meddling, so they decided to close down Zipper Interactive. MAG was apparently meant to be an engine test for SOCOM and it apparently turned a tidy profit, though since Sony are idiots that wasn't enough for them.

I'd be using Studio Liverpool's closure (Sony's other biggest mistake) as an example but it that didn't stop them from remastering WipEout

So each game had its own issues.

Some idiot told free radical that gritty shooters was where the money is at. And the big nail in the coffin, they switched physics engines and/or game engines at the last second, resulted in a buggy fucked up game. But this was after an amazing demo was shown to everyone at e3, and before the "patch it later" ubisoft games became popular, so they got fucked.

First game was pretty cool, had kinda a dumb story though.
Second game focused on multiplayer first, and as such single player suffered and it did come out at the decline of shooters.
3rd was sad. The story was much better, multiplayer was your basic CoD stuff but the audience had already left so it died.

The problem here was 256 people playing a game just doesn't equate to fun. Nobody really knows what to do, and voice chat was awful because you could only hear your squad and generals.

It has had its ups and downs but most people just see it as a generic shooter. If you played as the iconic badguys maybe, but you never get to.

Ultimately though the reason all these failed is the same reason most Sony stuff fails, they don't advertise them well.

Also I feel like resistance 3 was buried by a bunch of other shooters

resistance 3 was fun as fuck in the SP the gun types were so crazy. it was a better half life 2 yes i said it.

You already know the answer. It's shit.

The problem here was 256 people playing a game just doesn't equate to fun
Very few modes and maps actually featured 256 players, and even if they did everyone was segregated by distance and bunkers so you'd never see them anyway
Unless you went stealthy and snuck around, assisting other squads by blowing up bunkers while they were distracted

I don't know about that. I only played MAG briefly and I will say that a 256 vanguard was pure fun even though it was chaotic. I honestly felt I was in a hot warzone. I'm not into FPS but that moment in MAG I will never forget. This concept could easily be turned into WW1 trenches.

Alwayd though MAG was a fun idea.

MAG was one of the reasons to get a PS3 (Sony dropped the ball on so many games with so much potential that I lost count), it wasn't an MMO clusterfuck like Planetside 2 and 256 was more than enough, not saying it was realistic but that shit was chaotic and war is chaotic, it's not clean cut as portrayed in media.

30fps also didn't work in MAG's favour. Sony seriously should port that game over to the PC.

I wish this were still a thing, I fucken loved that game. Organized Squads ans Platoons were always fun to play with, It was like an arcady ARMA.

Yea, MAG did some things really well, but the extensive equipment and skill options really only shined on the 356-player gamemode. Anyone focusing on a Commando playstyle lost 90% of their usefulness on the TDM and small objective matches, which were the only things left active in the last year or two of the game's lifespan.

Fuck, I really miss it. Fix up the graphics and FPS,nerf SVERand it'd still hold up as a wonderful game for current gen

I want my paratrooper and gasgrenades. That Tamsen was a bit too OP, and I was apart of SVER

SVER > Raven >>>>>>>>> Valor

As someone who played MAG during the closed beta up til the 2.0 patch, the biggest problem was SVER. You see during the closed beta it was just Valor vs Raven & it was pretty damn fun but as soon as SVER was introduced everyone and their mother went to SVER because they looked cooler. They were basically STALKERS with hockey masks, & "dem nines & aks yo". They were basically slavic rappers against Raiden circa Metal Gear Solid 2, & generic American army in terms of looks.

So whatever it wasn't a big deal during the beta but once the game released I remember a ton of matches where there just not enough guys if you were on Valor or Raven, as in there were parts of the map that just didn't have anyone defending or attacking, so you had these horrible five minute matches or 20 minute meat grinders constantly unless it was again Valor vs Raven then shit was fun again.
Valor had the best killstreak music

Resistance series was underrated as fuck, all of them were fun in their own way

i enjoyed killzone games and resistance, the newest killzone was really weak though and then guerilla decided to make horizon instead of another shooter

sony did have a really good shooter under their belt and decided to fuck it up completely, pic related

The horrific balance didn't help, either. SVER's maps were impossible to win as the attacking team because of the series of gun turrets with overlapping lines of fire. In the end, though, the game failed by its basic design. It was a game that required teamwork and coordination to win in a genre full to bursting with people who want to be Rambo. Nobody ever fucking repaired gates or bunkers, nobody knew where to drive the vehicles, nobody ever knocked out the enemy's anti-air support. It was a clusterfuck of idiots running straight into turret fire.

Could we adapt Planetside2 and make a better MAG?

This problem fell under how popular CoD was on consoles and people's first console being in the 7th gen which was when vidya when full mainstream as a legitimate pillar in entertainment.

I'd prefer to keep Planetside 2 itself and Daybreak as far away as possible from MAG. Speaking of PS, what were differences between the first and the second.

Playing repairman on defense in those 256 maps was top-tier EXP gain. Just sitting on the edge of the bunker roof, fixing up the turret as it gets slammed with missiles, hopping down to shoot the fucker who just placed C4 on the bunker, disarming it, and going back up. So long as the other bunker teams next to you could keep this up, you could hold the line for a looong time. Alternatively when attacking, it was fun to go sneaking past the front lines and going deep into defender territory, just planting mines on gates and tank traps.

I recall one instance where we had a active mic OIC, platoon, and squad leads, and my squad (along with a squad from each of the other three platoons) was ordered to sneak in and position ourselves next to all the major assets (AA, artillery, radar, etc.). it was like two guys to a team, and at that point at least one of 'em had a sensor jammer, so everyone remained mostly undetected. OIC ordered all platoon and squad leads to hold off on calling in their air assets until everything was off cooldown. Then, we were given the order to plant all the charges simultaneously.

All of a sudden, there were a BUNCH of flashing icons on the map, and almost half of the defenders started sprinting into their base to defuse everything. That meant nobody was repairing the bunkers or the gates. OIC ordered everyone to attack all at once, and across the map all of the bunkers and exterior gates started flashing.

Most of the infiltration squads got killed trying to keep guys from defusing for as long as possible, but the plan succeeded. All of the defender's forward respawn points were destroyed, and we were able to just rush in and steamroll the rest of assets.

It was an incredible match with some amazing teamwork and coordination. I've never gotten that kind of fun situation in games like Planetside 2. though playing with wwew is a fun of its own

Not a fact, I had a lot of fun playing that game and the best part of it all was that a killstreak or a large multikill would get you a sweeeeeeetass metal tune playing in the background by apocalyptica. I wish all other shooters had that.

MAG was probably the strongest FPS experience you could have on the console when matches were balanced, but as a Valor player, SVER were essentially unbeatable. You'd get steamrolled by sheer numbers.

Always enjoyed the variety of specialisms & how they developed over time. You could develop some pretty niche builds, from what I remember.

Talk about niche builds, I remember setting up a machinegunner build that was designed to take out soldiers paradropping from airplanes.

Japs are bad at making FPS games.

Sounds like easy xp. I remember having a lot of success with a LMG / tripwire build. I'd rambo my way into a room, then booby-trap the fuck out of it. Inevitably the Raven mooks would try to reclaim their territory & get blasted back to camp. Good times.

Does Jumping Flash count?

So in the ps2 days fps where more a PC-thing and the good stuff on consoles where more 3rd person or some few fps's. Its hard to name some good ones of the top of my head so I'm not even going to bother. After all it was more of an experimentation era in the fps genre, so into the ps3 the thing with resistance it still had the experimentation era of how to shoot and somewhat open level design, some where good some where bad. But the gun selection screen was the good thing about it, Insomniac did not have a good formula kinda like Killzone1 did not have a formula akin to Bungies Halo 1 and 2. What was kinda cool with the experimentation era of console fps's where the whole Halo-killer aspect they actually tried to be different.

Fast forward COD 4 modern warfare comes into play, it was revolutionary in terms of having a formula that worked and it sorta killed the experimentation phase of fps's. While Killzone 2 was in development they could not have so much fancy graphics at a stable 60 locked fps so they rather made the weapons feel heavy but in a cod formula.

Resistance 2 came along and more or less had a less open level-design, the MP where it was at. It was actually fun with 60 people and trying to do things. It was not a super failure, there where some community even in their 4-player co-op that was different that their SP, insomniac did not find a formula for the fps, but they where good with general guns.

Mag comes along, its more or less a clusterfuck, it was experimental but the die-hard fans of Sony would rather play uncharted2 when it came to mp.

Killzone3 comes along it has more colors and its more focused on mp than they want to be the COD on ps3, it was OK and had somewhat of a playerbase but the MP could not compare to Battlefield bad company 2, which allot of people started to play. It was either that or COD. The same goes with resistance 3 instead of going after the MP-bucks as usual they rather went with "ITS A MATURE STORY HUUUR".

So onto the last Killzone, they got a formula the game was a decent fps and it had an easy mp that people could get into.

Why did Sony fail, if you see the commonality with these faiths of fps's they tried to be cod. Kinda like the meme the magazines and the old game journalists in the day used to say in ps2 era, "is it a halo-killer" but mid ps3 time to current it was internal instead of external to be the codkiller or the next great thing better than sliced bread also you had very little marketing and shilling on Sony fps's.

I hope this helps a little, to understand Sony a little more. Now of-course they are shilling harder and are consistently the gamer-machine or player as they call it now. They don't want to make any fps's since its where they can't compete but they can compete in the 3rd person"want to be screenwriter" games.

The sole reason for the cancer that is vidya today, is the formula as they call it. Why take a risk when you can copy paste the formula of a game. Kinda why games have felt stale this gen.

Checklists is what killed MMOs and then all of AAA vidya.

You guys really make me wish I got to play more of MAG. I truly missed out on a great shooter. I sucked at it even though I picked it up very late into its life but I still enjoyed it even with how horrible I was at it. By the time I got to the game it was far too late though. It was pretty much on its last legs.

I really like Killzone 2 a lot. It is better than 3 and SF.

You could have condensed this into

WoW and COD killed or converted everything within their own genres and strangled everything outside of their respective genres due to their fiscal success.

Sony's FPS development houses were shackled by their console limitations, terrible playstation network infrastructure/integration, and their general ineptitude in terms of game development.

You need look no further than SOE post EQ1 and every lackluster, clunky FPS released since late PS2. Now you'll see people posting in this thread about older Sony properties in a positive light. I'm in the opinion most were mediocre at best. Killzone 2 transitioning into KZ3 had some real potential to carve out a niche for itself as its own FPS, at least in multiplayer, but even that franchise lost its identity by becoming more CoD-like. Not to mention playing the game online with friends was a chore compared to XBL or PC experience. If this was improved in sequels, I wouldn't know. I gave up on KZ after 3.

It's FPP.

Didn't resistance sell loads?
Killzone sold a lot too

No playable space Nazis.
Case closed.

Made 5 games total. But since people on Holla Forums don't like it means it didn't sell well.Totally not a hivemind :^)

Of course Holla Forums isn't, this guy wouldn't be asking questions if it was :^)

Damn, this thread is making me miss MAG. I remember so many little moments I had in its multiplayer. It became frantic as fuck when everyone was huddled up in a bunker in the 256 player mode and someone planted C4.

To be honest, all of the games in the OP had multiplayer that was decent at the very least. Even Haze, I remember multiplayer being the best part of that game by a huge margin. Resistance 2 was overall the weakest of the mainline games in that series, but even its multiplayer was great, especially the 8 player co-op and the goofy 60 player mode. Killzone 3's multiplayer wasn't as good as 2's but I remember the jet packs being a lot of fun to use and the melee system feeling really satisfying. Those little intro/outro cutscenes were cool too.


This, KZ and Resistance are both quite successful. iirc MAG sold relatively well, too.

Could you go into more detail with what made Resistance and Killzone so special.

Shit, I just remembered the time I won a 40 player TDM match in the first Resistance by randomly blindfiring with the sniper rifle across a bridge and getting a headshot. That was 10 years ago.

yeah, the "formula" killed it its just checklists and you don't get a risky tittle like before.

its true, the games later did not have an identity after cloning cod.
Also its a reason why I say that FPS in the ps2 days was a PC-thing and a huge one at that, greater quality and so on.

OK, so on basics it was the weapon design that was its core identity in resistance. Nr1 had the feel of a ps2 experimental game, where they tried to get an identity while cloning Halo, the problem is obviously that it was more gritty and the basic plot was shit, the MP was fine for a console launch.
While Nr2 change allot of the problems with the first and got its identity with MP(not joking) the 64 and an open map was so damn good and the weapons felt special for the type you where playing. The Co-op was its own side-story almost it was just a leveldesign to shoot and get something done. The SP was more of tutorial for the MP in a sense, it was really a quality shooter at the time. And it was an active community there for a really god damn long time, until people moved over to some other FPS's.
Nr3 took back the good stuff of nr2 the MP and focused more on the story, it was nothing special it was just "hey like em cool guns, we do too" plus hur gritty plot for a lore that is really unmemorable.

Killzone 2 and 3 is special in the sense of it was a pretty solid fps, sure it was cod and the weapons felt heavy, not floating. Which is kinda cool, it had some cover mechanic that was pretty good. But the plot was really dumb, one could see it was heavily inspired by cod but they did not really have a good writer on the team and still don't to this day. The MP was more or less fine, some got really into it.I did not, I was just a sucker that bought the games and played the SP and went into some matches in MP and have forgotten it. But one can see that allot of things changed. The common argument at the time from fanboys it was grittier than Halo so its better and so on.

The fourth and final game was more of a techdemo but like resistance it was a fine launch game for the SP the MP was more or less COD and allot easier not a high curve to get into it. So a friendly game more or less, I still think that the SP is worth it, if you can find a cheap copy.
The original mistake of Killzone was the gritty feel from nr1 since it was going to be a halokiller their vietnam or shellshock game was better imo but that was a 3rd party game so no one cared and it was rather niche 3rd person and somewhat experimental.

I hope this explains some questions, this is from memory.
So if you ask me, what was the make or break deal of the Sony FPS's it was not much marketing and the identity changed so much that you really can't say, yes that is a resistance game and killzone kinda changed but that was with the fourth game. So identity is what it lacked. Kinda like if I say god of war, you probably know what's its identity is and what its supposed to be(when we are not talking about the new game)