I remember the EDGE review of Doom 2, where they wondered if the game might have been improved with the ability to talk to the 'creatures'.

Perhaps not, but I do agree that games could certainly offer more variety in enemy responses.

The different approaches angle certainly has to work within the context of the game, for sure. Something like Doom or Quake would be silly with a pacification option, for example.

Bollockoff wrote:

SWAT 3 was the slightly futuristic one wasn't it? I remember they had funky looking biker helmets anyway. Played SWAT 4 loads when I got it but my loadouts never seemed to be anything other than pepper ball guns making entire rooms cloudy while I spam the ON YOUR KNEES key. I remember the mission where you go into some psycho's basement. That was good. Props to any game that allows you to use doorstops to ruin someones day.

That was the second level on SWAT 4, I actually played through it (and the Stetchkov Syndicate add-on, or whatever it was called) again last year.  SWAT 4 was just SWAT 3 with slightly better graphics and AI that worked, though.  It was extremely satisfying, especially when you managed to do something decent while remotely controlling half your squad.  

It just got too tricky though; too many very big levels with heavily armed bad guys.  The ones with a handful of people that you could actually arrest were best.  Great game.

I like shooting people in the face.

Vela wrote:

Sasukekun wrote:

Isn't it possible to finish all the Metal Gear Solid games without killing anyone?

Except where the story calls for it, yes.

This is what made me get a PS3, I played the first level of MGS4 and loved the stealth element.

Oddworld stranger is another one. You can capture bounties dead or alive (dead is much easier, alive can be a brutally difficult challenge).

Then it becomes an incredibly violent exercise later in the game. But a good one.

I had the same feelings with Tomb Raider and the recent Bioshock.  Both games that I enjoyed on the whole with quite good combat in and of itself, but too much of it, but it mostly just detracted from what I was really into ie: exploring the beautiful and well realised settings.  In tomb raider specificially i thought it was doing a good enough job of slowly transforming her from a terrified victim into the badass we all know and love without making her kill dozens of henchmen every 5 minutes. 

shooting people i guess is just one of the tropes that needs to be in a big time console games (walking slowly and talking into a walkie talkie with an ally about the next level, running out out a building what is exploding and on fire, frantic violin music that accompanies a big reveal etc etc) with all the money in play.  has to look like the other proven sellers. 

TR would have been a better game were their no shootouts at all, be its own game, everyone ive spoken to about it was surprised at the lack of actual tomb raiding.

Eels is music aimed at younger people and will alienate most music listeners with its non-music features. Fucking record companies. Wavy wavy music.

Mark of the ninja can be beaten without violence. Best stealth game out there

I do like a game where killing isn't always required, Hitman: Blood Money is a good example.

I remember getting really irritated in GTA4 when you're forced to kill Vladimir Glebov (the first bad guy that you have to execute down by the docks somewhere), I actually just drove off and left him with Roman. Couldn't do any other missions obviously and when I got back he was still there pacing back and forwards.

When you've wiped out the majority of the enemies in a particular area in Rage, the remaining ones fall back and regroup a bit further away from you.

I like shooting them in the back of the head as they leg it.

Yossarian wrote:

When you've wiped out the majority of the enemies in a particular area in Rage, the remaining ones fall back and regroup a bit further away from you. I like shooting them in the back of the head as they leg it.

I've got that, barring a 15 minute co-op session with Franticle it's gone unplayed. I thing I need to rectify that situation.

By which you mean penis?

Diluted Dante wrote:

By which you mean penis?

I need more than one hand for that.

Paul the sparky wrote:

Good posts up there Goober. Funny that devs spend plenty of time on the enemy AI, ensuring they attack you in varied and inventive ways, reacting on the fly to your actions, but they never turn tail when you get the upper hand. Closest I've seen was the grunt arse droppage when you take out an elite in Halo.

In Metal Gear Solid 3, each area often has an armoury or a food store. If you destroy them with TNT or C4, enemies in the area will have decreased morale, stamina and/or reduced ammo. Further, you can shoot their radios and stop them calling for backup support, or hold them hostage if you catch them unawares and point a gun at them.

Or, you can just sneak through the area and not encounter any of them.

Like Halo, it has some pretty spiffy AI routines, and I would argue, far more ways to play around with them.