Criticize modern military but not retro-styled indies?

I'm not trying to bash either side here, because most of these games are well-crafted and fun. But holy shit, the amount of venom I see spewed on the Internet towards games like Battlefield for their settings is ridiculous. I can count far, far more retro-styled indie games (like Fez, Gunpoint, Nidhogg, etc) than modern military shooters on Steam. Why hasn't there been as much of a backlash towards that kind of stuff?

The setting is not the reason people dislike modern military games. For one, they all play pretty much identical. For another, most of them are bad games. Even the previous king of the franchise is getting pretty bad these days (CoD). Retro style indies on the otherhand have actually had some really stellar games lately, and they also tend to play pretty differently. There are plenty of trashy ones, sure, but that's just because it's so easy to pump them out in about half a second.

As someone who probably prefers modern military shooters over just about anything else when done well I'd say it's warranted for modern military games. They are getting worse and worse. Less and less dynamic, with worse and worse AI and boring/clumsy plots and uninspired, well, everything.

There has.

There has, but you couldn't have picked three more different games to use as an example.

Most of the ire seems to be directed toward modern military shooter campaigns, not multiplayers. Not only are those campaigns bad, they're part of something so popular that they're starting to seep into other kinds of games. These days, elements of modern military shooters can be seen in pretty much any shooter. It's frustrating to see one of gaming's classic genres succumb to such crappy design that's all about flash and never about depth or fun on the player's part. And all of these modern military shooter campaigns are the same. If the graphics didn't have a little bit of a different focus then they would all start to blend together.

2D indie games, by the way, are usually at least identifiable. Sure, you might be tired of pixel art and gimmicks, but at least there's some creative interest there. Even if it doesn't last for very long, these 2D indie games often have a little something that most modern military shooters don't.

Well... there actually is. The difference is probably that while people complain about the 2D pixelated style, the games themselves are often very differentiable.

• Fez starts as a world turning cutesy platformer and changes into a worldwide puzzle game that'll have you deciphering another language and whatnot.
• Gunpoint is a noire puzzle action game with sharp writing and the illest music ever in a video game ever.
• Nidhogg is 1v1 tug-of-war by means of frantic swordfighting with very simplistic artwork.

So when it comes to the retro-style indie games, the complaint is mostly just a stylistic one. With the modern military shooters however, the problem is quite a bit more substantial, as most of them are generally doing the same thing to varying quality.

A lot of people -do- give them shit for that despite any merits of the games.

Though, many modern military FPS games get more crap because of core gameplay similarities over stylistic similarity. If someone is honestly looking at Nidhogg's visuals and suggesting it in any way relates to Gunpoint, Fez, or most other indie games, they're fooling themselves. It may have visual similarities in the core idea of simplicity and vibrancy, but gameplay wise, all of these games are ridiculously different. And Fez is a 3D game to boot, and any similarity to "retro-style" games is a purposeful commentary on those games.

There are definitely people who give indie games crap based just on their more "retro" aesthetics. Your possible displeasure with those critical of modern FPS settings doesn't mean you or anyone else should encourage people to make the dumb mistake of being critical of some smaller gamers for embracing more simple visuals. Whether a game is set in a modern military setting or in a retro-styled indie setting, what ultimately matters is the actual game and its relative quality.

hmmmmmm

I do feel often critical when indie games go "it's like NES," and then I'm like "WAIT, You can't have 4 colors on a sprite on a NES unless it's a combination of sprites to make one large punchout character." Depends, because the GBA really did turns the table by different aspect ratio and way bigger tech. But yeah, I do feel critical of the modern indie 2d pixel games on almost every level.

I'm fine with pixel graphics, but I think some games go kinda overboard on it, and make it super low resolution and blocky to the point that things are kind of indistinct.

For example, I really like the mood and atmosphere of Teleglitch, and think the bullet effects are totally rad, but the character and enemy models are kinda lame because there's just no detail on anything. I mean, I can tell the different enemies apart, I just think they look kind of bad. Nidhogg is sorta the same deal, though the game plays well enough it doesn't really matter. Similarly, I really like the mechanics of Super Time Force, but I just feel like the art is low quality for kind of no reason, when they could've gone more for the smoothness of a Metal Slug/Mercenary Kings sort of game (or maybe that would be prohibitively expensive? Not sure what their budget is like).

On the other hand, VVVVVV does simple Commodore 64 graphics, but does them so damn well that it's totally fine. I'm also fine with stuff like Gunpoint and Risk of Rain, in that yes, the characters are very small sprites in terms of number of pixels, but at least the game keeps them appropriately small and doesn't blow them up to enormous, blocky proportions.

I think the bigger problem is games that are like, directly ripping off the art style of Sword & Sworcery. I can't remember which games I'm thinking of, but I know I've seen quite a few indie games since that pretty directly do the "super long, super thing legs, spaced stupidly far apart, and then a big blocky torso" look that S&S has going on. Also, Sword & Sworcery was bad, you guys.

Yep, and I thought it was pretty obvious. The phrase, "pixel art indie platformer" is enough to induce a groan from even the Giant Bomb duders themselves (which I feel is totally unwarranted for the reasons that people have argued above, but it's pretty much garunteed). And I see it happen WAY more than people shit talking millitary FPSs, but that's probably because there are just many more old school inspired indie platformers to get pointlessly upset about.

I guess in a weird way everyone that complained about modern military shooters got what they wanted. The only upcoming shooters I can think of are sci-fi, with their giant robots and alien loot.

@theht: Yep. But I think that may have been less an industry reaction to military FPS complaints and apathy, and more just those shady devs who made copy cat crappy shooters following the newer gold rush to make copy cat crappy F2P mobile games.

Modern military shooters have been around for so long they wore out their welcome. Before that is was WWII shooters and other games.

I think this retro indie junk is starting to wear out its welcome too now. Next the bottom will fall out from these broke-ass pre-alpha survival Mimecraft games (Rust, Starforge, and DayZ and its clones as well).

Dunno. I always disliked modern military shooters for romanticizing awful things that are still going on today, to various degrees. Not the same issue. It had nothing to do with gameplay, for me. That's part of why I liked Spec Ops so much despite its rather mediocre shooting.

There's plenty of fatigue on both ends. I just think negatively critiquing the shooter is because there's less room for creativity. At least with the indie thing you aren't guaranteed a similar experience every time.

I just want to point out to anyone saying that MMFPS complaints are centered around generic campaigns and similar gameplay mechanics should look at the reaction to Titanfall from detractors of that genre. A multiplayer-centered campaign and the introduction of entirely new core gameplay mechanics? "Looks like just another CoD, no thanks." I would say those complaints have just as much to do with graphics as those about pixel art do.

Actually, I'd say many people who don't like indies bring up the pixel art style as a generalisation of them all looking the same. Any thread with indie stuff in it, you'll see people start saying those ignorant viewpoints.

At least these retro-style indie games don't all play the same as much as military shooters and have differentiated into mechanics, story, etc.

Bad comparison.

"Modern military shooter" is a genre and set of conventions that get used all the time, whereas "indie game" is a much larger category.

You may as well have said "why do people complain about World War II movies but not low budget movies?"

I don't think its graphics at all, really.

This is the problem Titanfall faces: since CoD4 came out the "modern" part of modern shooters has become more and more futurey every year. All of our MMFPS are on the cusp of future. Especially when you think of killstreak rewards, etc. Titanfall, meanwhile, is on the other edge. It's sci-fi, but just barely sci-fi. Most of the guns that humans use, as far as we've seen, look like they may as well be in BF4 or the latest CoD. Even the Titan guns just seem to be standard rifles and assault rifles. Only the rocket launchers are "very different" I'd say.

Titanfall to me looks to be squarely between a MMFPS and a SCIFI FPS, so I think it's fair to compare it to either.

I bitch about pixel graphics sometimes.

It goes both ways. I think shooters might get more visible shit because it's not just the style, I think people are getting tired of how those games play. They feel kinda samey at this point. At least stuff like Nidhogg or Samurai Gunn from a gameplay standpoint feels novel.

One is a specific genre of shooters that generally adhere to a pretty rigid set of rules in design. The other is a graphical style that can be used in a variety of different kinds of games across multiple genres. That's not a good comparison, however there is fatigue in both cases. I feel like I've had my fill of indie games that go for the SNES or Atari vibe, but I've never had any interest whatsoever in military shooters.

I complain about indie games looking shitty all the time.

Dude, what? There has been plenty of criticism for both. You crazy

I don't enjoy pixel art, but I recognize it as a necessity. A lot of indie teams simply don't have the budget or resources for a dedicated art staff. Modern military on the other hand, is a choice. I still think it looks cheap and lazy.

@jimbag: The biggest games always get panned. It's whatever is on top at the moment. Has nothing to do with what gene or style of game it is. It doesn't help though that the Modern Military Shooter genre is the "dude bro" genre also.

I think your right though. People get upset when they here about another shooter but like how many side scrolling platformers do we need?

Look where modern military shooters are now. You have CoD Ghosts which is so stagnant and recycled that is suffocating and then you have Battlefield 4 which is ridiculously broken. There was a time when these games were great. Now they are just annual sports games with guns.

If you haven't played Black Ops/Black Ops II, you really should. Treyarch is amazing at making you feel bad about America's current and past foreign policy decisions. Operation 40/Bay of Pigs, Vietnam, Nixon's time as President, The Angolan Civil War, the Mujahideen, and the placement of Manuel Noriega resulting in the subsequent Panamanian Invasion all occur between those two games, and none of them end how they should (obviously), but they don't make a case for why they would have in the first place. It's pretty much just "yeah, that was an awful idea that we royally fucked up". Seriously, it's a pretty cool story set during the Cold War, which is very seldomly touched upon in military shooters, and I feel like they kind of walk the line between heroism and jingoism. They want you to feel like you accomplished something by the end of each campaign, but not feel like America ra-ra (though the original Black Ops ending is kind of over the top and USA!-ish).

Sorry for the block of text here, but long story short: You should play Black Ops, it's pretty decent.

So... you're basing it on the guns they use... which are skins that could look really futuristic, but they chose a more familiar aesthetic. So it's graphics. And in case you're saying to yourself, "Yeah, but it could be a laser assault rifle", very few scifi shooters go that way. Mass Effect used projectile-based assault rifles, so did Gears (Which I think also meets your barely-scifi criteria), so does Killzone, Binary Domain... I could go on, but I won't.

I think all the Minecraft / DayZ type games are more annoying to see than a 'nostalgic' 2D platformer.

Because GRRRRR big companies that make AAA games are bad and small indies are GREAT.

Mostly because "retro-styled-indie" doesn't necessarily imply anything about gameplay. Pixel graphics are good for small studios with small budgets. Now on the other hand there HAS been an utter deluge of oldschool indie platformers, open world survival games, horror games, and so on, and in those cases, I'm pretty much as dubious as I am with any AAA shooter.

Aesthetics isn't graphics, and guns aren't either. A weapon in a FPS is more than a skin. Mechs are old news, and so are multiplayer campaigns. Either way none of those things are what make Titanfall appear like CoD. But I don't think it's such a stretch to think that people who made one game for over a decade would make another game that was similar to it. Titanfall is like CoD. Do you hear anyone claiming Destiny is like CoD? Yeah, me neither.

Thank you!! I said this a few weeks ago!

http://www.giantbomb.com/forums/general-discussion-30/opinion-pixel-art-style-wearing-a-little-thin-1463861/

Now, that being said. Many have told me how this kind of style is cost effective. And games like Nidhogg is pretty cool despite how ugly I think it looks. At least these retro style games are doing different things in terms of gameplay as opposed to military shooters. (Titanfall is an exception. Super excited for that)

But still, the pixel look is boring and overused. It may be cheaper to do but it's still over done. Makes all the games that have it seems like a lot of us lump em all together.

@luciddreams117: The style is cost effective, and that's a big reason why people make that kind of games. But I generally agree. Widespread use,of Unity might make it easier to make a bigger variety of games, visually, going forward, so I'm excited about that.

@greggd: Black Ops is also good at taking those sorts of scenarios and twisting it into what comes down to a dumb action story. Sure, Oliver North and Vietnam are used as context, but when it comes down to it, it's about the good and the bad guys. Not that I'm complaining, it's what I look for in a Treyarch game.

True. I still appreciate the heavy dose of cynicism that Treyarch injects into their stories. It's fairly honest, especially in comparison to most military shooters.

I don't know about you, but I hold teams of 1000 people up to a hire standard than a dude living in low rent apartment practicing programming.

I would agree that I think indie developers are too obsessed with "retro" games that really aren't retro at all. Maybe its just easier to do that art style or something but at this point I am largely avoiding "retro" looking titles.

I also couldn't give two puppies if someone dislikes modern military shooters. I love Battlefield and play them for the multiplayer. I have been let down by more indie games in the last five years than I have any of the AAA games I've purchased for PC or consoles.

Pixel art is the easiest and cheapest to produce. It's not an obsession for many indie developers, it's a necessity.

People have been looking down at retro-style indie games for years now. Where have you been? Besides, it's a false-equivalence; the simplistic pixel style is often a function of neccesity, as it means the developer doesn't need to spend a lot of time and money developing an art style. The larger devs who produce modern military games have no limitation preventing them from going with a more interesting visual style, considering how gosh darn much it costs to make those games anyway.