For example, I didn’t fall in love with Titanfall 2’s environmental art design—it felt a bit generic to me, like it was meant to be the backdrop for a shooter, as opposed to the Sevastopol in A:I or the station in SOMA that felt like existing locations.
Ditto BioShock: Infinite. The world felt like it was built around the premise of being an arena shooter, not the other way around.
BioShock 1 & 2 are exactly what I’m talking about though.
Even Borderlands 2 has great world-building: the corporate history that can be inferred from the level design, the weapons & the NPCs makes it one of the richer games I’ve played.
Would love to hear others’ thoughts on your favorite FPS environments!
S.T.A.L.K.E.R.
All three base games. So many mods.
The zone feels vast, lived in, dangerous.
The ai is dynamic, moving through an area once you mind find a group of friendlies engaged in a firefight with a powerful psychic mutant, and other time find an eerily peaceful vista.
It’s not a power fantasy. On harder difficulties you’re always on edge when you’re exploring even with end game gear. A single bullet from a sniper or a random pack of wild dogs can easily end your run.
Highly recommended of you’ve never experienced it before.
I actually have SoC & CoP in my backlog. I tried SoC once, but admittedly didn’t give it the time it deserved.
Gameplay-wise, would you recommend playing CoP before SoC, since Pripyat is newer, or is it best to play SoC first for the story?
SoC is best played first. You could skip the second game if you wanted since its largely a re-tread with some new mechanics, then move onto CoP.
Pripyat is the more polished game mechanically. SoC has the best story. They’re more or less equal in atmosphere.
I bounced off SoC the first time I played it, but after I finished Pripyat the first time I gave SoC another go and I got totally immersed.
It’s hard to recommend one over the other. They’re both great.