You know, I don't think I agree with Yahtzee enough. I've mentioned that I adore him, but the only post that directly involves him involves me completely picking his argument apart with the seasoned practice of a complete nerd who knows more about his chosen fandom than any sane person ever should. Well today I'm going to fix that by making a post that agrees almost entirely with one of Yahtzee's other points, regenerating health can go fuck itself.
Now, it's that time of the post again, where I explain to the ignorant, either because they don't play video games or could give a fuck about the shooter genre altogether, the deal with regenerating health. In the good old days of Quake, Doom, and Wolfenstein a person had two meters indicating how fucked they were. Their health and armour. Your armour was your damage resistance when you took a hit, your armour would go down some to reduce the damage to your health. Now, not all games had armour but a fair few did.
Now, these two "how fucked are you?" meters added an excellent level of depth, strategy, and tension to the game. For example, Doom 64 for the Nintendo 64. That game still manages to scare me, and it's all thanks to the you're fucked meter. When my you're fucked meter got really low the game suddenly became incredibly tense. I'd creep around corners and slam both barrels of my super shotgun into the air at the slightest sign of movement. It was very tense and very effective, you know why? I couldn't just huddle in a corner for a few seconds and then carry on like absolutely nothing had happened.
Let's take a look at the cover-based shooters, usually in the third person these ones seem like the obvious choice for defending the regenerating health right? You take cover and your health returns, gives players an incentive to take cover, right? Actually...no. The regenerating health just makes the cover a gimmick. For example, in Gears of War you have a chainsaw bayonet, and since the you're fucked meter replenishes itself why stay away? You can just rush up there and storm through the hail of shells, slam your chainsaw into their face and then take cover. Lo and behold your health comes back, punishing you not in the slightest for what would, in a game with a non-regenerating you're fucked meter, be a really stupid move.
Think about that, the regenerating health means you only need to take cover when you feel like it. After all, why bother worrying about it? I'll just pop into cover when my health meter goes low and then pop right back up again. Here's a situation where non-regen health meters would excel the most. With no guarantee of where the next health kit would be you'd have to take cover, and every time you popped up to take a few pops at the enemy you risked having a lasting, and serious, consequence to your you're fucked meter. A consequence that you might not be able to afford. It would make cover-based shooting all kinds of tense and exciting, exactly what it's not.
However, I don't think regenerating health has absolutely no place in the shooter genre. It's an excellent option for say, the pussy difficulty. Meaning the very easy's, the novice's, and the like. It's perfect for those players who just aren't skilled, brave, or tough enough to take on the real challenge, with a you're fucked meter that doesn't replenish itself. So, all in all, regenerating health ain't that bad, if you're a pussy.
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