Huxley video shows how gameplay works
Aside from a few screenshots I’ve seen here and there, I have never really seen Huxley in action. When a video was released recently, I just had to share it with you folks. You’ll understand why after watching.
I always thought Huxley was going to be good because it’s going to be “next-gen,” and it’s an MMOFPS. Never mind that Korea-based Webzen is making it. The developer seems to be taking its time making Huxley, so I guess it’s good, right?
I couldn’t be more wrong.
Based on what I’ve seen, Huxley is an MMO version of Unreal Tournament. Gameplay is mind-numbingly fast, and in this case, boring. We still don’t know how the MMO stuff would work since all we saw are shooting, but if we are going to engage in that activity for a large portion of the game and pay a monthly fee, then it should be engaging at the very least. All I saw was a lot of spastic twitching that hurt my eyes.
Add to the fact that everything looked uninspired and generic, and you’ve got yourself an MMO with hardly anybody playing.
Note to Webzen: just because you licensed Unreal Engine 3, doesn’t mean you should make a game that plays like Unreal, which frankly, is getting rather old. If Epic shared that mindset, there won’t be such a thing as Gears of War.
Presenting: Unreal tournament: the MMO
Actually, the gameplay in that video doesn’t seem all that fast. I think it’s great that Webzen isn’t going with the dull, lame, overdone and mind-numbingly boring slow-paced MMOFPS style of Planetside and World War 2 Online. That said, this video does kinda look like Tribes, but worse. It just lacks atmosphere. It’s definitely nothing like UT.
Also, Unreal never gets old – UT3 kinda proved that by being the most fun FPS released this year (right alongside The Orange Box). In that regard, it’s nice to see Webzen not going for some lame “CoD MMO”-ish game. We get enough mind-numbingly slow and generic FPS games every year, thank you very much.
Erm, not that fast? If that’s not fast enough for you, then what is?
Yes, it is like UT. A more generic-type UT clone with massively multiplayer elements.
Given your responses, I take it you’re a UT fan. I’m all for variety in terms of pacing, but I don’t think this twitch gameplay prevalent in UT is very enjoyable. In fact, I think it gets old really fast.
It gets old faster than the (borrowing your words) “mind-numbingly” fast gameplay.
As for the “mind-numbingly slow” FPS games, I think a more deliberate pace is a good thing because it shows that the genre is maturing. We need more thinking FPSes like the PC’s Advanced Warfighter (not the arcadey console version, mind you).
It’s hardly as fast as say Unreal Tournament 3 or Quake 3 Arena. Let alone the true kings of speed: Quakeworld and Painkiller. So yes, I don’t think it’s really all that ‘extremely’ fast at all (considering the fact that even Painkiller didn’t feel fast anymore once you got used to it).
As for it resembling UT. I don’t see it. The setting is entirely and quite obviously different, the weapons don’t even resemble a UT game, leveldesign is so far apart you couldn’t possibly compare the two and the gameplay looks to be entirely different. All in all it seems much more like a Tribes game.
As for the whole ‘deliberate pacing’ makes slow-paced shooters more of a ‘thinking-man’s game’. Nonsense. An intense, top-level, clanmatch of UT3 CTF or 1v1 is far more mentally and tactically challenging than any of the more ‘deliberately paced’ shooters (Battlefield, Call of Duty, Counter Strike, Quake Wars, what have you).
Heck, if Huxley counts as ‘mind-numbingly fast’ in your book, then I’m certain Return to Castle Wolfenstein (and Enemy Territory to a lesser extent; or the Tribes series for that matter) does so as well. Yet there’s no denying the fact that those are (some of) the most tactically, strategically and mentally challenging multiplayer shooters ever created.
To be perfectly honest, the slowed pace of shooters that has been rampant these past 7 years is not so much a sign of the genre maturing , but a sign of the genre becoming more newbie-friendly and mass-marketed. Whether that’s a good or a bad thing, I’ll leave that up for you to decide.
On the topic of maturity. It’s interesting to see how communities for games like Tribes, UT and Quake consist almost entirely of 20+ year olds, whereas your more ‘deliberately paced’ and ‘mature’ games tend to appeal more to the 12-16 year old demographic.
“An intense, top-level, clanmatch of UT3 CTF or 1v1 is far more mentally and tactically challenging than any of the more ‘deliberately paced’ shooters (Battlefield, Call of Duty, Counter Strike, Quake Wars, what have you).”
That’s your opinion, and there is no way anyone, other than your mother, who would take your word for it.
You say that the communities of gamers for Tribes, UT, et. al. “consist almost entirely of 20+ year olds.” I would like to see you put in more proof that this sweeping statement is true, because frankly, I get this a lot from you. I hope you don’t take it the wrong way. I’m just sayin’.
Look, if Birdman and I see UT, then we see UT. There’s no need to educate us on your perspective by saying that my viewpoint on certain subgenres are “nonsense,” mmkay?
True, that is my opinion. Strangely, I’ve yet to meet anyone who has competed on both sides of the coin (as I have) and disagrees with it. Furthermore, there is no denying the fact that games like Quake and UT feature a much wider skill-division between players. There’s much more of a difference in skill between a UT Pro and an above average UT player, than there is between a CS Pro and a CS newbie. That said I can understand if you don’t take my word for it, I wouldn’t have back when all I played was strategy games either.
As for the age bit. I have no statistics or research to support my claims. Just experience in all of the above shooter scenes & access to the internet. A quick look at clan rosters on sites like ClanBase, or a quick age-check in popular IRC channels, is all that’s required to confirm my claims.
E.g.: in the rosters of the top 3 UT3 CTF clans (Daze, Fear, X-Factor Project), I am the youngest player by far – and I’m 20 years old, average age between the three clans is roughly 24. Checking the top 3 clans in CoD4 Search & Destroy gives an average age of 17-18 with a low of 15.
As for saying Huxley is an UT MMO. That’s just as much an opinion as my saying it is not… it does indicate that you bunch anything remotely decently paced into the UT corner though. It’s exactly like if I were to bunch CoD 4, CS, GoW, GRAW and MoHA together and call them all CS. Or if I were to take Tabula Rasa, Vampire Bloodlines, Bioshock and Deus Ex… and call them all System Shock. Or perhaps grab Everquest, Dark Age of Camelot, Lineage, Ultima Online and Ragnarok Online… to then refer to them all as World of Warcraft.
So you might understand then, that calling Huxley an UT MMO, is kinda like calling an apple an orange. Sure they have roughly the same size and shape, and might not seem all that different from the outside if you don’t know them, but they’re far from the same fruit.
That said, I do agree with your post’s sentiment, albeit from a different perspective. Huxley doesn’t seem like it’ll be much fun from these videos.
Look kid, it’s your opinion. Leave it at that. There’s no need to justify why you view it that way.
As for these pseudo-stats that you spout, that’s all they are (i.e. pseudo). For all we know, these so-called clans don’t even exist.
If you’re going to present evidence that these clans exist, please don’t. Not only is it a moot point, but we would digress into more discussions and sweeping statements from your end, which I would again point out that you don’t have any concrete evidence of.
It’s a vicious cycle. You want to have the last word, and I want to have the last word.
Look, clans are largely composed of hardcore gamers, and I’m sure you know how small this demographic is compared to the bigger picture.
Therefore, your claims are just that: claims.
And Huxley would likely suck because it’s uninteresting and largely generic.
End of story.
What I saw in that video:
Frame-rate craptacularness.
A HUD that wasn’t a HUD so much as an all-encompassing information grid large enough to block out the sun.
Generic-looking game that I’m never going to look at again.
And last but not least, insane arcade-levels for health and armor.