Was Gears of War the most innovative shooter this gen?

It had a 3rd person view and a well implemented cover system copied by numerous other shooters to follow.

I'm not a big fan of the game but I must admit that it actually took shooters to a new level.

Before GeoW, there were only Halo clones but GeoW made the cover system standard and prooved that a shooter doesn't need to be first-person.

All the other shooters this gen appeared to be only visually upgraded continuations of existing games (including Crysis).

Maybe the only other contender for the title would be Stalker, which I did not play.

no one wants to admit it but call of duty was

no one wants to admit it but call of duty was

Chris_Williams

How? It was the same thing as the old CoDs were, just put into modern setting.

not really, it took a lot of what Killswitch done last gen and popularised it.

[QUOTE="Chris_Williams"]

no one wants to admit it but call of duty was

nameless12345

How? It was the same thing as the old CoDs were, just put into modern setting.

not really, it took a lot of what Killswitch done last gen and popularised it.

razgriz_101

Noone really cared to Kill.switch. It might have pioneered the cover system but it was largly overlooked.

All the other shooters this gen appeared to be only visually upgraded continuations of existing games (including Crysis).

Maybe the only other contender for the title would be Stalker, which I did not play.

nameless12345

If you really think Crysis didn't have anything special but graphics, you didn't play Crysis. Also, yes, STALKER, absolutely. Far better games than the Gears series, and more innovative, too.

CoD

No, that's COD.

Gears did have an impact on several games though, but it didn't invent the idea. A PS2 game called Kill Switch did it long before Gears did, they borrowed it and refined it (nothing wrong with that). They also said they took inspiration from RE4 over the sholder type of aiming, which is probably one of the best games ever made IMO.

no one wants to admit it but call of duty was

Chris_Williams

Without a doubt. CoD4 popularized modern settings in shooters and introduced the XP system that now has a place in basically every multiplayer game.

:lol: yeah, and I'm royalty

The number of other games it inspires doesn't have anything to do with how innovative any individual game is. What you're asking is 'Was GeoW the most influential shooter this gen?'meetroid8

That was CoD.

For innovative do you mean gameplay or just idea of the setting? I think that question really changes the answer to your question

No, that's COD.

Gears did have an impact on several games though, but it didn't invent the idea. A PS2 game called Kill Switch did it long before Gears did, they borrowed it and refined it (nothing wrong with that). They also said they took inspiration from RE4 over the sholder type of aiming, which is probably one of the best games ever made IMO.

ShadowMoses900

There were 3D platformers before Mario 64 too but it was SM64 that redefined and established them, as a subgenre.

:lol: yeah, and I'm royalty

wis3boi

So which shooter was more innovative, according to you?

For innovative do you mean gameplay or just idea of the setting? I think that question really changes the answer to your question

SgtSutton

Gameplay, mechanics.

[QUOTE="ShadowMoses900"]

No, that's COD.

Gears did have an impact on several games though, but it didn't invent the idea. A PS2 game called Kill Switch did it long before Gears did, they borrowed it and refined it (nothing wrong with that). They also said they took inspiration from RE4 over the sholder type of aiming, which is probably one of the best games ever made IMO.

nameless12345

There were 3D platformers before Mario 64 too but it was SM64 that redefined and established them, as a subgenre.

Agreed, it set the standard, which is what Gears did. IMO Gears is the best 360 exclusive, I got tired of Halo after Halo 2.

Mario 64 and Spyro The Dragon are the two games that redifined the 3D platformer IMO. Both of those are amazing.

As others have said, no. What it did was done before so it doesn't get the innovative title. It however can get the popularizing title because both it itself is popular and most other titles look to it as the model rather than the originators.

Edit: I should add though that it isn't the most popularizing game this gen. That title sadly probably does have to go to CoD as everybody and his brother is copying it.

I dont think so. Id say COD 4 was because it set the stage for modern shooters. maybe gears for the abundance of chest high walls.

Id count Bioshock but its far more than just a shooter.

[QUOTE="wis3boi"]

:lol: yeah, and I'm royalty

nameless12345

So which shooter was more innovative, according to you?

Crysis. Bioshock. STALKER.

Those come to mind, immediately. Don't get me wrong. Gears was good. I loved the first one, and would've played the others, if they came to PC. But it wasn't the best. Or most innovative. Or most influential. Just a great game. Nothing more.

It had a 3rd person view and a well implemented cover system copied by numerous other shooters to follow.

I'm not a big fan of the game but I must admit that it actually took shooters to a new level.

Before GeoW, there were only Halo clones but GeoW made the cover system standard and prooved that a shooter doesn't need to be first-person.

All the other shooters this gen appeared to be only visually upgraded continuations of existing games (including Crysis).

Maybe the only other contender for the title would be Stalker, which I did not play.

nameless12345

[QUOTE="nameless12345"]

It had a 3rd person view and a well implemented cover system copied by numerous other shooters to follow.

I'm not a big fan of the game but I must admit that it actually took shooters to a new level.

Before GeoW, there were only Halo clones but GeoW made the cover system standard and prooved that a shooter doesn't need to be first-person.

All the other shooters this gen appeared to be only visually upgraded continuations of existing games (including Crysis).

Maybe the only other contender for the title would be Stalker, which I did not play.

tormentos

Yup. I remember the days, when people still tried to say Halo "revolutionized the FPS". I would say, seriously? Maybe if you never played a PC game before.

Excuse me? Geow? It is an important shooter no doubt. but within theis gen more games have done more.

CoD altho not really loved in here (and slightly coldly recived by me) did more then Geow did, with the instant gratification and leveling systems, it did not create any new exciting things, it just put them together well. And since both cover AND 3rd person has existed for a whole lot of years before Geow, it must count the same way.

In the techincal areas Crysis and Stalker stands out:

Crysis stood out mostly for Graphics around here, but thier pathing ai and response to a destructive world, was and still is a landmark in ai coding, nomatter how much people are unaware, simply put Crysis have done ALOT for shooters, but most of it was under the hood, and what a shiney hood that was :P (Gameplay I didd'nt like tho, prefered Far Cry (not 2))

The Other wouls be STALKER: which pushed AI in none destructible envioments, sleep, hunger, and exploration cycles were some of the best Ive ever seen, incredibly belivable, basicly in terms of pure ai Ive never seen better then in the STALKER games, when allowed to freeroam and not in scripted envioments) and in combat that ai seemed second only to FEAR 1.

In Visuals, Stalker also landed a landmark due to a few reasons. It is the first game I remember that integrated light and shadow in the way it did, sure Doom 3 did it before, but the scale was mindnumbing, aswell as th STALKER games always were on the forefront of usage of the DX engines (altho I would debate that this point is rather sad, since it mattered little).

Flawed but important-

RAGE: Look I know that rage is not the most well liked game, but it is likely the oly game where bullet impacts create a new set of ai behavior, and i mean EACH hit. it was incredible to see, aswell as the pure technical attempts that were in that game, Ultimately I think RAGE failed in what it set out to do, but autoscaling res, and graphics setting ingame running, and fairly sucessful, megatextures, aswell as the phenominal lifelige opponants due to damage, and behavior, stands as atleast deserving a mention.

GeoW is however as I mentioned one of the most important titles, while we had seen coverbased shooters before, they cracked the puzzle on how to implement it. 3rd person shooters however I do not give it, since Ive playied 3rd person shooters since 2001 (and that worked just fine, in some aspects even better). Geow did like Cod and took alot of componants and placed them together in a way that really worked, and for that it DOES need alot of credit, it gave birth to the whole "cover shooter" line as we know them (altho there existed cover shooters before). So cred is due.

[QUOTE="nameless12345"]

[QUOTE="wis3boi"]

:lol: yeah, and I'm royalty

the_bi99man

So which shooter was more innovative, according to you?

Crysis. Bioshock. STALKER.

Those come to mind, immediately. Don't get me wrong. Gears was good. I loved the first one, and would've played the others, if they came to PC. But it wasn't the best. Or most innovative. Or most influential. Just a great game. Nothing more.

Crysis was a more open Far Cry with better graphics, BioShock was like a more action-oriented System Shock 2 (there's a reason why BS Infinite will have a "1999 mode") taking place underwater and Stalker, well, I can't really comment that one since I haven't played it but from the looks of it it looks like a more open-ended FPS/RPG hybrid which may not be all that new either.

[QUOTE="tormentos"][QUOTE="nameless12345"]

It had a 3rd person view and a well implemented cover system copied by numerous other shooters to follow.

I'm not a big fan of the game but I must admit that it actually took shooters to a new level.

Before GeoW, there were only Halo clones but GeoW made the cover system standard and prooved that a shooter doesn't need to be first-person.

All the other shooters this gen appeared to be only visually upgraded continuations of existing games (including Crysis).

Maybe the only other contender for the title would be Stalker, which I did not play.

the_bi99man

Yup. I remember the days, when people still tried to say Halo "revolutionized the FPS". I would say, seriously? Maybe if you never played a PC game before.

Well, Halo did bring the health regenerating system and melee combat to the FPS world. It was also one of the first FPS to feature vehicles so yes, it was more than just a "good console FPS".

Flawed but important-

RAGE: Look I know that rage is not the most well liked game, but it is likely the oly game where bullet impacts create a new set of ai behavior, and i mean EACH hit. it was incredible to see, aswell as the pure technical attempts that were in that game, Ultimately I think RAGE failed in what it set out to do, but autoscaling res, and graphics setting ingame running, and fairly sucessful, megatextures, aswell as the phenominal lifelige opponants due to damage, and behavior, stands as atleast deserving a mention.

Maddie_Larkin

I agree that Rage doesn't get the appreciation it deserves. It was a very well thought out FPS with some great gameplay mechanics, racing (how many other FPSes have such decent racing parts?) and a big, tecnically proficient world. Too bad the PC release was plagued with technical issues which resulted in some people writing it off too soon. And it could have had a better ending and a DM mode.

[QUOTE="the_bi99man"]

[QUOTE="nameless12345"]

So which shooter was more innovative, according to you?

nameless12345

Crysis. Bioshock. STALKER.

Those come to mind, immediately. Don't get me wrong. Gears was good. I loved the first one, and would've played the others, if they came to PC. But it wasn't the best. Or most innovative. Or most influential. Just a great game. Nothing more.

Crysis was a more open Far Cry with better graphics, BioShock was like a more action-oriented System Shock 2 (there's a reason why BS Infinite will have a "1999 mode") taking place underwater and Stalker, well, I can't really comment that one since I haven't played it but from the looks of it it looks like a more open-ended FPS/RPG hybrid which may not be all that new either.

Eh, having played every game in question here, I think Crysis innovated more compared to Far Cry than Gears did compared to others before it. Same with Bioshock and System Shock 2. And as for STALKER, you really should play it. It's easily the most innovative and original game mentioned in this whole thread. Just don't even bother without the Complete Mod. And yes, all the great innovative things about it are there without Complete, the Mod just seriously improves the graphics, and fixes a lot of bugs and localization issues.

[QUOTE="the_bi99man"]

[QUOTE="tormentos"] 3rd person UT with Killswitch mechanics.. Gear of war did not make cover standard that is the same crap say about Halo,oh but halo make FPS popular on consoles,please it was a game hyped by its graphics.nameless12345

Yup. I remember the days, when people still tried to say Halo "revolutionized the FPS". I would say, seriously? Maybe if you never played a PC game before.

Well, Halo did bring the health regenerating system and melee combat to the FPS world. It was also one of the first FPS to feature vehicles so yes, it was more than just a "good console FPS".

Regenerating health is lame, and no, it was not the first to introduce melee combat or vehicles.

[QUOTE="nameless12345"]

[QUOTE="the_bi99man"]

Yup. I remember the days, when people still tried to say Halo "revolutionized the FPS". I would say, seriously? Maybe if you never played a PC game before.

the_bi99man

Well, Halo did bring the health regenerating system and melee combat to the FPS world. It was also one of the first FPS to feature vehicles so yes, it was more than just a "good console FPS".

Regenerating health is lame, and no, it was not the first to introduce melee combat or vehicles.

It's lame when it's forced in games that don't need it. In Halo, it makes sense since we play a cyborg with superhuman strenghts.

I don't know about many FPSes with melee combat that predate Halo. Same with vehicles.

[QUOTE="the_bi99man"]

[QUOTE="nameless12345"]

Well, Halo did bring the health regenerating system and melee combat to the FPS world. It was also one of the first FPS to feature vehicles so yes, it was more than just a "good console FPS".

nameless12345

Regenerating health is lame, and no, it was not the first to introduce melee combat or vehicles.

It's lame when it's forced in games that don't need it. In Halo, it makes sense since we play a cyborg with superhuman strenghts.

I don't know about many FPSes with melee combat that predate Halo. Same with vehicles.

First off, Halo didn't even actually have regenerating health. Just the regenerating energy shield. Also, Goldeneye had Melee. So did Half Life. And there were vehicles in Tribes, in 1998.

What Halo did was take a lot of good concepts, and put them together in a cohesive package. And while it may have been (argueably) the best use of these concepts at that time, it didn't actually do anything completely new.

Regenerating health is lame, and no, it was not the first to introduce melee combat or vehicles.the_bi99man

[QUOTE="nameless12345"]

[QUOTE="the_bi99man"]

Regenerating health is lame, and no, it was not the first to introduce melee combat or vehicles.

the_bi99man

It's lame when it's forced in games that don't need it. In Halo, it makes sense since we play a cyborg with superhuman strenghts.

I don't know about many FPSes with melee combat that predate Halo. Same with vehicles.

First off, Halo didn't even actually have regenerating health. Just the regenerating energy shield. Also, Goldeneye had Melee. So did Half Life. And there were vehicles in Tribes, in 1998.

What Halo did was take a lot of good concepts, and put them together in a cohesive package. And while it may have been (argueably) the best use of these concepts at that time, it didn't actually do anything completely new.

Melee in GE and H-L was quite useless tbh. And Tribes was multi-player only. I don't think the vehicles were as enjoyable as in Halo either.

Yes, Halo was influenced by many other shooters but it also felt like a totally new experience.

[QUOTE="the_bi99man"]Regenerating health is lame, and no, it was not the first to introduce melee combat or vehicles.tormentos

I disagree, there was strategy involved in the combat due to the regenerating shiled system. The enemies were quite intelligent too (for a FPS game).

I'd put Vanquish ahead of Gears of War any day.

Actually, Battlefield 2 was the real influence of all modern shooters today. CoD 4 borrowed almost every element of it's "innovations" from Battlefield 2. It just made some slight changes to a lot of the core formulas there.

As for the most innovative shooters this gen I think Gears of War had a lot of great ideas that were shared quite a bit, Call of Duty 4 really did refined the multiplayer game to be much more than just match based combat (even if BF2 did that before), Halo Reach really innovated on the content creation side of things in FPSs, Crysis showed how a linear sandbox could work, STALKER showed us that a FPS with an RPG like world and mission design could rock...

I could go on. There were a lot of innovations to shooting this gen. Some more worthwhile than others.

Innovations aren't always a good thing. I think that cover systems have been way overdone and abused, the focus of multiplayer games has gone from completing objectives and winning to having arbitrary ranks that reward play time, not skill (this too started with BF2), and CoD's blockbuster style gameplay has negatively influenced a lot of single player games that could have been great.

First off, Halo didn't even actually have regenerating health. Just the regenerating energy shield. Also, Goldeneye had Melee. So did Half Life. And there were vehicles in Tribes, in 1998.

What Halo did was take a lot of good concepts, and put them together in a cohesive package. And while it may have been (argueably) the best use of these concepts at that time, it didn't actually do anything completely new.the_bi99man

Probably. It didnt invent anything, but perfected alot of mechanics.

[QUOTE="the_bi99man"]

[QUOTE="nameless12345"]

It's lame when it's forced in games that don't need it. In Halo, it makes sense since we play a cyborg with superhuman strenghts.

I don't know about many FPSes with melee combat that predate Halo. Same with vehicles.

nameless12345

First off, Halo didn't even actually have regenerating health. Just the regenerating energy shield. Also, Goldeneye had Melee. So did Half Life. And there were vehicles in Tribes, in 1998.

What Halo did was take a lot of good concepts, and put them together in a cohesive package. And while it may have been (argueably) the best use of these concepts at that time, it didn't actually do anything completely new.

Melee in GE and H-L was quite useless tbh. And Tribes was multi-player only. I don't think the vehicles were as enjoyable as in Halo either.

Yes, Halo was influenced by many other shooters but it also felt like a totally new experience.

I used the hell out of melee in GE and Half Life. Besides, your opinion on how well they worked or how useful they were is irrelevent. The simple fact is: Halo was not the first shooter to have melee combat. Halo was not the first to have vehicles. Halo wasn't the first to do anything. It just made a tight, cohesive package out of concepts that were already there. And that's respectable. That's why Halo has the legacy it has. It is a great game. But it didn't really introduce anything new. Just like Gears. Great game, but no new concepts. And that's not an insult. Like Blizzard said, speaking about Diablo 3, sometimes execution is more important than innovation. And that's where those games excelled. Halo and Gears were polished, and very well executed. And I agree, vehicles in Halo: CE were funner than in Tribes. And melee was much more useful than it had been in previous shooters. But, doing it better =/= doing it first.

I disagree, there was strategy involved in the combat due to the regenerating shiled system. The enemies were quite intelligent too (for a FPS game).nameless12345

Probably. It didnt invent anything, but perfected alot of mechanics.

PAL360

Vanquish and Max Payne 3 curbstomp any shooter this gen.

no one wants to admit it but call of duty was

Chris_Williams

It was fun, but the most innovative thing in Gears of War was the active reload. :/