Before I play this quote/requote game with you, I find it interesting that you have no problem ripping through one of my reviews while you folks sit back in your ivory tower and don't do the same for things you've written. Do you believe you're that much better than me that you can critique what I do when I haven't said more about what you're up to with this symposium other than, "I don't think anyone cares."?
FartOfWar said:
I agree that Frontlines is a good game marred by some standard army-vs.army FPS design problems as well as severe technical and interface problems. Some rapid-fire reaction:
"you can always pick your battlefield role separate from your weapon needs"
In life, loadouts reflect battlefield roles. Many shooters of this sort deliberately mirror that fact in order to create classes. Classes offer synergistic combinations; role-specific strengths allow players to feel that they're uniquely contributing to their team's progress; yadda yadda. Class-based design brings both benefits and drawbacks, as is obvious here:
My immediate response to this is, "This is not real life." It's a videogame. I'm not expecting them to make everything realistic and you're creating a strawman argument against me by inferring such, especially since each class in the game has "role-specific strengths" that "allow players to feel that they're uniquely contributing to their team's progress". Best of all, no one has to throw out little health packs or ammo packs... something that's really kind of boring. There's a good reason that Valve made the Team Fortress 2 Medic a guy with a "health gun".
" It opens up the tactical options to players immensely, making people potentially useful at all tasks instead of just a single, specialized one."
When players are potentially suited for every tactical situation there's no need for specialists, sure. Its benefits are class-based design's drawbacks and vice versa. You aren't exploring either at any depth. Nor are class-lite FPSes new. COD 4 came out in 2007. What would be cool is a comparison of Infinity Ward's game and Frontline that takes tactical variables into account. Frontline's maps, multiple vehicle types, and battlebots generate vast tactical variety which means a generalist in that game is a jack of more trades than a generalist in the other. This introduces issues worth considering (including what you could call "player "RAM").
Infinity Ward's game is not a Battlefield-style game, which is where the specific interest of this review lies. And breaking out of the mold of previous Battlefield-style games by making all players more useful as guys with guns is something Frontlines does. That's all the above line of mine says.
"It's inevitable that you will die, and when you do you can change your kit to suit the changing battlefield conditions."
This has been a Battlefield standard since the series began.
It's a review meant to inform people who have played and haven't played these games. This lets them know that they can expect to change kits and aren't locked into a choice at the beginning of a game. That's all. I think your pointing this out is kind of petty, don't you?
"In fact, there are no medics. That simple fact changes the entire dynamic of the game in the best way, because everyone on your team is a tool for killing. When you're redding out, you can only hide to survive as your vision restores. Gameplay emphasis shifts from running and gunning to cover and stealth."
Few, if any, class-based FPSes feature noncombat medics. Medics in Battlefield 2 are lethal with the L85A1. They're ferocious in team Fortress Classic and effective in Quake Wars. As for auto-regen... COD, Halo, Brothers in Arms, none of these ring bells?
You're inferring "noncombat medics", a strawman again. The reality is that even in Battlefield 2, if you're a medic that's spending time shooting people, you're pissing off your teammates who want to be healed and revived. You're not doing your job. By removing that entire dynamic from the game, Kaos Studios removed a huge point of conflict among players on the same team.
And the auto-regen... all those games are not Battlefield games. Kaos Studios are the first ones to incorporate the mechanic into the capture point style of play. It's a massive change, especially when you remove the medics from the game. And you're ignoring the last line, which is the huge change that comes about. People cannot be lemmings running in to every Capture Point willy nilly because you can't afford to take the bullet and have some dude pick you right back up. You must smartly use cover to advance and survive to take points. The game rewards players who are sneaky and/or intelligent about their positioning on the battlefield.
"It also means vehicles are of extra importance during assaults, because having a metal skin to protect you is crucial in hot fire zones -- and those vehicle assaults are where the game's aural punch plays a key role."
Again, how is this any different than Battlefield, let alone an underappreciated design breakthrough?
Vehicles become even more important because you can use them for cover. In fact, you need them for cover on the open battlefields. Only so many words available to say it (and you're pulling out one sentence... which is something I'll get to later...) This game makes vehicles and finding cover even more important than they are in previous Battlefield-type games.
"It's here that the game's title has significance, because the front lines move forward or backward with an ebb and flow that seems all at once believable in single-player and multiplayer gameplay. "
This is a nice take on TFC's Warpath map, and attempts to reduce or resolve the uneventful moments and uneven flow of Battlefield matches, but you're not laying it out here. In fact, this paragraph doesn't tell me where Frontline's pacing and flow diverge from Battlefield's.
You took that one sentence completely out of context... here's the whole paragraph...
Bringing everything together is the maps, which have a wonderful variety of locations, and that leads to a hugely varied amount of gameplay styles. Some feature house-to-house fighting where every corner is a potential deathtrap, while others are wide-open affairs on the oil fields. It's here that the game's title has significance, because the front lines move forward or backward with an ebb and flow that seems all at once believable in single-player and multiplayer gameplay. The only downside to the design is it's nearly impossible to reverse the crashing waves of invaders once you're backed into your last corner of the map.
It's in the context of the map design, which encourages the ebb and flow. I didn't say it as well as I should have, but I'm not sure why you decided to pull out that one sentence from an entire paragraph about map design to make it seem like I was making a comparison.
"It's definitely recommended that you tackle single-player before going online, because it points out the differences between this game and others like it. Once you achieve awareness of your body and its vulnerability in the game, you'll see the brilliance of Frontlines: Fuel of War and how it focuses everyone on the tactics of combat as they apply to pushing forward across a map with flowing precision. It makes you want to be at the forefront of victory."
You mean you're recommending it? How specifically does single-player point to these differences? Some of the alleged differences you attribute to the multiplayer mode aren't in Frontline's singleplayer. Being aware of our bodies' vulnerability somehow shows us that Frontlines focuses us on forward tactical movement? Knowing that I can hide when hit makes me "want to be at the forefront of victory?"
There's a big "BUY IT" on the top of the page, so yes, I'm recommending it. I'll leave it at that.
Now when are you doing this for Kieron F. Gillen, Tom, and the rest? Because I'd like to read those, too.
