A bit? It completely changes the game. I like it in Gears.. looks okay in BIA.. but I prefer my FPS games without it for the most part. I know I'd stop playing Halo if they added a R6 style cover system.

You can have a game without cover or run and gun gameplay.. you can have slow deliberate games without cover too and I think that's more appealing. It doesn't break the immersion of the first person view, it doesn't give people peaks around corners without line of sight, etc. Screw cover!

I did enjoy it in Gears.. but I think it's different in a third person game where you already have that camera and the advantages it brings.

Yeah, what were they thinking adding tactical oriented gameplay to a tactical FPS like Rainbow Six! Oh, wait... :P

Eh, the first R6 games were plenty tactical without any form of cover. Same goes for a game like SWAT4. You don't need to have an unrealistic sight advantage (not that the confines of a normal FPS view are totally realistic) to have tactical and methodical gameplay.

Vegas seems like a great game.. but it's so far removed from the original Rainbow Six that it just seems like a different franchise all together these days. That's not horrible, but it can stay out of the majority of established franchises (and new ones!) as far as I'm concerned.

I disagree in general based on 2 points.

1. A cover system need not have an overly unrealistic line of sight. It need not even be 3rd person (think of a racing game versus the PGR3 cockpit view, now imagine the FPS perspective with a more natural contextual camera).

2. Almost all traditional FPS have unrealistic line of sight. It is a pretty standard tactic to walk up to a wall corner and because of the programmed field of view and a 2D display you some advantages/disadvantages over real life. In real life you are dealing with 2 eyes with a high degree of focused daylight rods (light receptors basically) in the focus zone (20-40 degrees) which become more sparse objects leave the focal zone of your field of view. Basically you have blurring and lack of focus and warping on the perephrial areas of your vision which results in more motion sensativity on the perephrial regions of your vision. Games pretty much also lack realistic DOF (focusing) as well as motion compensation (blur).

I think "traditional" FPS perspectives are quite inaccurate, which can be shown pretty easily, but because they are "traditional" it is assumed to be "correct".

I see a lot of flaws in regards to line of sight and accurately representing vision with a traditional FPS perspective. Which naturally impacts gameplay and what feedback we can, and cannot, get. So FPS get general orientation right, they give and take in regards to proper feedback. They, too, allow too much corner peaking and provide far too much feedback in terms of depth as well as perephrial information. And because it is a 2D plane centered on the eyes the field of view either is too contrained, or too often, too forgiving.

Traditional FPS perspectives also have some huge hurdles with mechanics. Basically your are a floating head with X/Y plane movement with Freelook. Which is a good approximation of gross/coarse human movement. But this is completely unacceptible for fine motor adjustments -- which are by far more relevant to making minor adjustments in peaking around a corner, adjusting your aim, etc. Intuitively looking around a corner, peaking over a fence -- and more importantly using your hands, contextually interacting with your environment, and gesturing naturally to other objects/people in a virtual environment -- are almost completely castrated in traditional FPS perspectives.

The real issues are implimentation. Obviously what Epic has introduced in the UT series is standard run-and-gun and would be absoltely abysmal for a tactical game. The mechanics they imploy are utterly useless for a game in 2007 for a tactical game as they a) don't address the issues of the genre or evolve the gameplay or mechanics or b) don't address the disconnect between the real world, and how we perceive and interact with it, and resolve this disparity through a series of compromises and innovations to draw out meaningful parallels to give feedback that is beneficial to the expanding horizones of the genre. e.g. A Rainbow Six game now isn't as confined, or technically restricted, as we saw back in the mid 90s when the franchise was hitting hard.

I think this is where a game like Halo demonstrates how thinking outside the box in little ways shows how broken the FPS is: A revamped damage system, limited number of guns, instant grenade access, instant melee, and some vehicle interaction -- none necessarily new or revolutionary to the genre, but brought all together and balanced well -- and the end result showed how just basic changes made significant evolutionary steps in the genre. I point this out because these changes hardly TOUCHED the major issues touching the genre!!

I wouldn't argue any "cover" system (PDZ, GOW, GRAW, R6:Vegas) has perfected cover, line of sight, world interactivity, etc -- there is a lot of work to do.

But on the other hand what they are offering, in terms of interactivity with the world, a more robust model of using world assets for cover and concealment, changing the gameplay mechanics from the "tried and true" (or "broken and beaten to death") straifing techniques core to most FPS models to ones that focus gameplay in more "intuitive" (if done right!) ways that broaden the players interaction in the world.

IMO, past tactical games were very limited by the limitations of the FPS format. They have similar -- but different -- line of sight issues, and totally castrate any concern for movement and interaction outside the X/Y+Freelook realms (with a slight nod for crouch, jump, and prone which are all meager in FPS in terms of dynamics). Being able to peak around corners, peak above cover, lean over balconies, contextually interact with complex environments, make meaninful use of movements outside of "walk/run" -- like rolling cover, or heaven forbid using your hands for something meaningful -- are all interactive aspects FPS have pretty much failed to *intuitively* bring to the table without over complicating or mechanically degrading the gameplay experience.

In the end argueing traditional FPS are more realistic due to perspective or interactivity falls flat for me. I think cover systems need more work, especially if they want to be realistic -- something few FPS are to begin with. Which brings us back to the gameplay / design issues. And I would argue, to this point, what games like GRAW and GOW have added to the shooter genre in terms of *increased* interactivity without overly increased complexity as well as building on the mechanics, design, and experience are noteworthy. Much more so, than say, the Halo 3 beta which from a design and mechanical perspective and addressing the underlining issues of the genre does nothing at all. Of course sometimes refining a familiar system is better than taking a risk on a new concept -- especially if you cannot mate it well to your design. Halo 3 with a plodding cover system would not do the game justice. But that doesn't mean cover needs to be plodding, or even have unrealistic line of sight. Not that Halo strives for realism.

So I agree UT3 would suck with a GOW cover system, that does NOT mean that it cannot -- should not! -- evolve in terms of mechanics. And it also doesn't mean the UT system of interactivity/mechanics are true, realistic, or the best. They are what they are--a refinement of a concept introduced effectively with Duke 3D/Quake that has a HOST of gameplay design layers that build on the core concept. It isn't perfect, but NO user-system input it. But it is refined and nearly perfect in the result it attempts. Adding cover arbitrarily would undermind DOZENS of assumptions that the core UT desing is built upon.

And hence we reach the crossroads of sequalitis (ignore the limitations and build on the base) or possibly blowing up a franchise with poor assumptions(e.g. keeping core gameplay concepts that execute poorly with the new design), poor tradeoffs (the Wii remote has some of these), and alienating a base who enjoyed the previous approach. History is littered with examples of both. Few games walk the tight rope well. I dare say UT is one of the few that has been able to define a genre and game style, improved its value while keeping true to its roots. And Epic wisely chose a new IP to engage a new design model to address the core questions and fundamentals such a deviation cause.

So I am not advocating a wholesale jump to a new way of thinking, but the trend is present and necessary in general. There will always be room for the cream of the crop "traditional" FPS. But there needs to be fewer knock offs that do average implimentation and add nothing to the genre and with the added power of the systems we need to see better approach, more intuitive approaches, to user input and interactivity. Unfortunatley user input is device contrainted to a degree, and interactive design requires funding and risk. Hopefully we will see a more sim-oriented FPS that converges the FPS perspective with some of the benefits of a cover system, or a pseudo-FPS view (FPS eyes, 3rd person view) that address some of the visual issues by using masking and camera position techniques to more realistically convey what can and cannot be seen. Of course few games are intended to be completely realistic and instead convey a sense of immersion (even if touching aspects of reality) that filter down to a good core gameplay experience.

Personally I think cover has helped games like GRAW and Rainbow Six. The core gameplay ideas are benefited by the additions. Halo and UT not so much -- which begs the question, "What will they be adding to evolve the core mechanics and general design?"

That is a good question. More of the same UT? Probably, which is a good thing in many people's opinions.

Nice! Awesome post Acert! :D

I'm frankly a bit dumbstruck so I'll just nod, agreeingly.

I'll make mine a bit shorter and to the point. Cover is for wimps.

:P

A little bit.. when it comes to FPS games and the fighting game genre (2D/3D) I'm pretty picky.. but I don't mind change so much. I like positive change.. over the years we've seen subtle changes to a lot of core gameplay systems in shooters.

Punishing accuracy for movement, stance, sprinting, etc. Tribes brought on a new era in FPS games by adding vehicles into the mix into a large scale team combat setting, and UT borrowed a lot of those ideas. I don't mind ideas spilling over across the genre when they have a positive impact on existing franchises.. but cover in UT would be shitty.

I'm just not a big fan of third person cover, or unlockables. I love Gears though.. and I'm sure RSV is a fine game.. it's just probably not for me. Otherwise I'm pretty open to new ideas. Good ideas.. like Tribes with it's massive vehicle heavy battles, or BF2 with it's addition of a chain of command.

And when it comes to UT, it doesn't hurt to follow tradition a little. It's not like the game won't be plenty different when compared to UT2k4..