What FPS to play this week

[Dswissmiss]

Hi guys,
I just finished up a tough spring semester, and now have two weeks off untill summer school starts. I've become a bit rusty with regards to researching any good games to play, so I'm looking for your recommendations.
I want to immerse myself in a good (single player) first person shooter during this time. The last few I've played were Half-Life 2, Far Cry, NOLF2, Call of Duty, XIII, and a few others (loved them all ).
I just looked at gamespot right now, and the two games that caught my eye were Brothers in Arms 30, and Medal of Honor Pacific Assault. Does anyone recommend either? The "games available now" button on gamespot seems to be broken for me, so I'm not quite sure what else is out there. I remember reading a while back about S.T.A.L.K.E.R., is that out yet?

Any recommendations or links to articles reviewing current FPS's would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you
Dswissmiss

[Stuey]

I recommend the Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay. There's a gamespot review if you're interested. While it's not the most visually pleasing fps on the market, it's somewhat fun. There's only 8 or so hours of gameplay, maybe more, but it's relatively cheap so you get your money's worth.

Star Wars Republic Commando is another decent fps. Here's the gamestop link for your convenience. I liked this game for several reasons. The squad members usually revive YOU instead of you outliving them. The AI is alright although your enemies are either somewhat stupid or overpoweringly unrelentless.

I don't know about the riddick demo, but the SW demo is a pretty good representation of how the rest of the game is.

Riddick isn't a new title, but it's often overlooked. Anyways, I hope this helps.

[arthur666]

I've been interested in Stalker as well. Sounds like it could be an awesome game, but the official release date has been pushed back to October. I vote for Brothers over MOH, but only based on what I've read. Haven't played either.

[Fibre Optix]

Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay
Doom 3

[Hi Ho]

Medal of Honor Pacific Assault is very buggy. I wouldn't recommend it based on what I've read and the demos that I played. The "patches" that they released really haven't helped much at all.

Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30 is an excellent game. I have played through the demo twice and I love it. I will probably be buying it.

I don't know anything about S.T.A.L.K.E.R.

[tomster2300]

Doom 3 is fun, but it gets kind of repetitive after a bit. It'll give you a fright though when you first play it or if you continue playing it under the right conditions (lights off, suround sound - speakers turned up loud or headphones, by yourself, etc.)

This is kind of an old thread, so I'm guessing you went ahead and bought one -- which one did you pick?

[Dswissmiss]

Thanx for the advice guys.
I got Brothers in Arms, but I can't decide if I like it or not. It's definately not your traditional first person shooter since you can't expect to kill an enemy even if you've unloaded your entire magazine on him. It also requires a lot more strategy, because you have three or more guys under your control as well, and you need to tell them where to stand and whom to shoot.
The main problem I have with it is how hard it is to actually aim. The mouse has this weird lag to it and is always a split second behind from what you want it to do.

Well, I also have a fever now, so maybe I'm just a bit slow

[bigandy]

Yeah, I found those same things were a bit interesting with BIA, but I still enjoy the game. It does take a bit of getting used to. But I do like that you have other guys with you who actually participate in the fighting and whom you can control, rather than them just running around aimlessly.

[Dswissmiss]

Yeah, the team thing is definately cool once you get used to it, although Freedom Fighters was a bit more fun in that respect (though not realistic). I still think the mouse lag is completely unnesessary cause it has nothing to do with realism. My head turns as fast in real life as it does in video games... maybe they should have done some lag after you move the mouse and not before if they wanted to go for realism, since your eyes take a split second to focus on something after you turn your head. I kinda got used to it though, its just that at first I felt as if the main character was constantly drunk or something.
I restarted the game again, this time under easy settings, and I'm back to having fun (fever is gone too)

Certainly worth the buy.

Edit: I also tried Doom3 a while back...too damn much for my nerves. I thought the shooting in the dark was dumb too, and people always comment on the fact that it's too linear...but mainly I don't play it cause I'm scared.

[ScurrilousPrune]

I work at a CyberCafe, I'll give you the rundown from my client experience:

Brothers In Arms is a very good game graphically and soundwise, however, it operates different from other WWII shooters. It takes more strategy, and sometimes can get annoying when you're trying to outflank a german machine gun nest. Basically, your enemies positions have a guage. It starts out red, meaning they are firing at you, you must send your squad to lay cover fire until the guage is grayed out, then use a "flanking" move and kill them from the side. Sometimes it's easy, but at other times it can be tough and annoying.

Republic Commando is pretty fun, but very repetitive, and has a LOT of bugs/aliens you have to fight constantly, but the squad AI aspect of it is great. It is also a relatively short game.

Star Wars Battlefront is a star wars based FPS I believe, which a lot of the clients like to play, there's also Jedi Academy if you like lightsaber duels.
If you haven't played Counterstrike, check out CS:Source (Fun teambased play, especially with certain custom maps, ie Mcdonalds or Glasstrap Final; and bots who follow your radio commands) or Condition Zero (Just old CS 1.5 single player with some new options).

Other than that everyone is playing an RTS game called Act Of War: Direct Action; which is like Command & Conquer, but with more options and slightly better graphics.

[Stuey]

I know it's off topic, but Act of War is a great game too. It may not be what you're looking for, but it's great if you like the pseudo-realism war strategy genre. After the single player missions are completed, the custom games with computer AI are either too easy on the easy setting or a constant life or death situation against medium or hard setting. Online play is... interesting, but I've started to see people starting to play cheaply. Many games result in nuke salvos while using regular troops and vehicles and strikes to topple the support infrastructure so the anti-nuke defenses fall. The playing cheaply comes out when someone builds like 100 helicopters and nothing else.

ANYWAYS... back on track... you may want to check out America's Army. It's a free download but it's a multiplayer only fps. It's relatively realistic where a grenade within 10-15 kills you or severely harms you. It seems to be an adjustment on the CS tangent (which I'm not too familair with so I may be wrong in my assumptions) whereas you are always playing as the good guys no matter which of the two teams you are on. Sometimes there's an assault force and a defending force but othertimes both teams have to race each other to complete the same objectives. Anyways, it's a free download and it's somewhat enjoyable. HOWEVER, it is free for a good reason: it seems as if the entire "training" part of the game is a recruitment pitch.

Anyways, hope you're having fun! Don't forget to download the Chronicles of Riddick demo to give it a try. The visuals could have used some improvement, but the gameplay was impressive.

[ScurrilousPrune]

Yeah, sometimes online play is cheap, and you get bombarded within the first 3 minutes because of some crazy rush, the same thing happens with Warcraft III. The medium armies in Act Of War are like hard armies, and hard armies are like godly armies. The AI is really clever.

[nocturnx]

If you like tactical shooters SWAT 4 is pretty sweet. I just picked it up last week and wow, its pretty realistic. The environments are very detailed. The AI is excellent also.