Talk:Tactical shooter

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ok who put down battlefield and counterstrike as tactical shooters?

Tactical does not necessarily mean realistic. 66.133.244.171 08:13, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

24.60.104.71 00:49, 31 May 2006 (UTC)okay then what is tactical supposed to mean? I have never heard anyone call Battlefield or counterstrike a tactical shooter.

I'd say it means the game emphasizes strategy and tactics (hence the name) rather than twitch reflexes. Hence, counterstrike is disqualified. They're frequently turn based, which completely eliminates the importance of reflexes. Specific games I'm thinking of here are fallout tactics, silent storm, and UFO: Aftershock. In my opinion, delta force, america's army, and maybe even brothers in arms don't really belong in this category either- of what I've played of them, they're primarily action-oriented FPS. They certainly have nowhere near the tactical depth of your average turn-based shooter.
Counter-Strike and Battlefield are generally put into the tactical shooter genre. Competitive play emphasizes on both reflexes and strategy - the two elements of a _tactical_ _shooter_. therefor, both these games do qualify. Games like UFO are turn-based strategy. DJiTH 16:20, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
For what its worth, I'd definitely consider Counter-strike, and to a lesser extent Battlefield, to be tactical shooters, and have heard both described as such. I can probably even find a reference somewhere. What makes them tactical? 1) An attempt to provide more accurate / realistic weapons and equipment than other shooters (I'm not argusing either game is anywhere close to true realism, but they aren't outright fantastical in the way that say Doom was); 2) An emphasis on strategic objectives (bombsites, hostages, strategic points) as a means to victory, rather than simply kills; 3) The need for co-ordinated, co-operative team play, with some degree of specialisation (even if its just snipers vs close combat) and tactical planning required. The fact that there are still some action-elements to both games, and less emphasis on tactics than the likes of Rainbox Six etc., does not by any means exclude them from the genre. Of course ultimatley debates on genre tend to be quite subjective....

Contents

[edit] Hmmm

You guys might as well call this Realistic Tactical Shooters.....Other games require teamwork but arn't considered tactical shooters by you. Uber555 06:46, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Dude! It doesn't matter what any of us think! Our opinions don't matter. The term "Tactical Shooter" is a genre of video game, it's used to describe video games known as shooters, that make a serious attempt at a realistic portrayal of combat. Just because the term 'tactical' appears in the compound word doesn't mean any shooter that requires tactics is a tactical shooter. If that were so then (in a sense) every shooter game is a tactical shooter, because they all require some type of tactic to play. But that's not the case. The term was basically invented by the Rainbow Six games, and because all of those games are realistic, any game similar to that same structure is called a Tactical Shooter (Ghost Recon, SWAT, Operation Flashpoint etc.). That's just what the term means whether you like it or not. Games that require team-work are referred to as Squad-based Shooters, if a squad-based shooter attempts to be realistic then it's referred to as a Squad-based Tactical Shooter. Deal with it. ManofRenown87 02:23, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Ok,Ok keep your pants on. I was just trying to say I thought tactical shooter was based on teamwork, not also always realism. Uber555 02:57, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] General Consensus Fans vs. Critics

What this article really needs is a definitive description of a Tactical Shooter, not just an imalgimation of different people's opinions. So we all know its harder to define a Tactical Shooter than it is a first-person shooter, but its an ENCYCLOPEDIA people, not a dictionary. In an encyclopedia (I hope) the articles are based on the knowledge of the greater intellectual scholars of the subject, not the general public; problem is we're talking about a type of video game. So who are the higher intellectual scholars when it comes to video games? Two words (well technically 3): Reviewers and developers. What the article needs is a section that contains the category of Tactical Shooters as they are categorized by the paid and respected individuals who develop and review games (which should intelligently be considered the definitive version of Tactical Shooters). Then further down the article we need a section that describes the ongiong and disputed fan debate as to what defines a Tactical Shooter. These two outlooks should be divided not thrown together in a chaotic mix-up. One is objective, the other is biased. ManofRenown87 00:05, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Top-down view

Should the genre be extended to include shooters of the top-down variety, as opposed to just first-person/third-person games? For instance: Bolo (computer game). SharkD 21:24, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Tank Mania is another example. SharkD (talk) 01:36, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Merge proposal

I suggest that Soldier sim be merged with this article. SharkD (talk) 18:08, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

  • Support they're basically saying the same thing, but the term tactical shooter focuses on the gameplay style rather than the identity of the player-character.Someone another (talk) 14:54, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Support Yep, same thing.Kevinbi2004 (talk) 11:10, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Support Yeah, redundant. Could use a few sources on what the most common name is, though, or if there's more than one common name. Randomran (talk) 04:23, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Support same thing. i'll get on the references thing now Bridies (talk) 22:52, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
seems that 'tactical shooter' is used more, but i haven't looked that thoroughly. IGN uses both terms a lot, whereas gamespy seems to only use 'tactical shooter'. Bridies (talk) 23:22, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Tactical realism community section

This section is very disjointed and comes across more as a list of gripes about other games than a real description of tactical shooters. For example, a long paragraph about suicide runs, without any detail about how a tactical shooter prevents that. It's not even clear to me how they might prevent that, since although driving a vehicle into a bunch of troops in (say) ArmA might get me killed fairly quickly by the victims' buddies, there's still nothing preventing me from doing it in the first place. Only a one-life-per-mission system (a la many games' co-op missions) or long respawn delays would seem to stop suicide runs — but those aren't unique to tactical shooters, either.

The entire premise of the list as it stands is suspect, since it lists things that tactical shooters aren't, or that they don't let you do. That wouldn't be so bad if it actually listed the changes used to prevent things like run-and-gun (reduced accuracy while moving) or weapon spam (reduced weapon carrying capacity), but it doesn't, so it just becomes a list of undesirable elements, not any kind of real description of tactical shooters.

I'll go through it if I get a chance. I'll try to keep all the core points raised by the list, but it will still involve excising a lot of the current descriptions and replacing them with actual "here's how they deal with that" descriptions. — Wisq (talk) 18:58, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, the section is original research and biased fan-ism. I meant to go through it but only got as far as sourcing the lead section. Bridies (talk) 07:23, 17 April 2008 (UTC)