Dec 26, 2007

Multiplayer shooters have advanced stupendously since the likes of Doom and Quake. Contextual actions, unlockable weapons, team and objective based combat, physics, sprawling maps, class systems and a slew of other complexities have been crammed into modern frag-fests.

Nevertheless, there are still a few features and concepts we’d like to see perfected before the inevitable next step involving wires poking out of our brain stems. Potentialities like Call of Duty 5, Halo 4, Rainbow Six: Vegas 2 and Half-Life 3 will undoubtedly offer things we’ve never even thought of, but here are a few humble suggestions that we have considered. Easier said than done, right? Probably.

10) Fully deformable environments

Physics isn’t new to multiplayer games, but it’s generally limited to certain obvious objects: boxes, exploding cars, bright red barrels that scream: “Shoot me and I’ll totally explode, bitch!” Impotent explosions and casually tumbling debris isn’t enough to satiate our urge for destruction - we want to smash the walls from their foundations.

We’re sure there are complex reasons why this kind of interactivity is difficult in a multiplayer setting, but we’re far too lazy to worry about “variable arrays” and all that - we simply want to absolutely destroy everything in a level, leaving only the smoldering bodies of our downed opponents behind at the end of each match. Some developers have come close, but we’re still not quite feeling it. Perhaps upcoming Fracture’s terrain deformation will give us our fix.

Above: Half-Life 2’s gravity gun is great, but we’d rather be ripping load-bearing walls out of buildings than tossing caution signs around

9) 180-degree turn

Incredibly physically fit super-soldiers apparently move about like elderly women carrying walkers (the kind with tennis balls jammed onto the ends). To turn around, they’ve got to make tiny baby steps around central pivots.

Even if we up the sensitivity on our mice or analog sticks so that the gentlest twitches send us into over-enthusiastic pirouettes, it doesn’t make sense. Lost Planet rectified this with a quick turn button - that’s all we’re asking for.