also even the whole tenor of doom suited that kind of random gratuitous ultra-violence. It was colourful and arcadey and over the top.
A realistic WWI aesthetic for that is just bizarre choice.

I play a diverse set of genres, andhave played since I was 5 or 6, everything generally has something to offer me. I also played a huge amount of MP games back in the day, (these days just with friends on Friday nights).

But I have to agree, modern MP shooters seem to be cluster fucks and broken in a number of ways. I'm not sure if it's a result of consoles going on-line and shifting the demographics. Like, Quake 3 Arena is DM, and that makes sense. It's a free for all, and even team DM doesn't require explicit co-operation. The design of the game itself facilitates the chaos in a constructive way. But things like COD/BF straddle this weird line that just doesn't work, it wants to be a team based game but with none of the infrastructure and reasons to actually play it as such.

I used to play a lot of Unreal and Quake deathmatches. I'd liken it to a skill based slot machine. The tension and enjoyment comes in little bitesize chunks as you win and lose these little conflicts. I'd say I grew out of it.

I submit to you that these people are normies and casuals. The game is calibrated to provide the player with a modicum of success, and distract his attention with dazzling graphics.

You are an old breed of video-game player.

You are the Buster Keaton of FPS.

YOU ARE OBSOLETE!

But seriously, whatever you were/are into is catered to by niche indies, this is just candy crush for teenage boys right here.

I realize I'm not the target any more. I don't pine for the old days either; like Raggamuffin, I grew out of those games. I tried Quake Champions, no longer jived like it once did.

It's a bit of a pity though, Tribes 2 was fantastic and nothing has quite filled that gap.

My go-to was Soldier of Fortune because the damage was somewhat realistic. If you shot somebody in the face it meant an instakill. So a good shot could just run around the map zapping fools. Or if you wanted to add some Quentin Tarantino violence crouching around corners and using the knife (which was pretty deadly!) to do bad, bad things to the enemy.

This balanced the game because it meant no matter how good you thought you were getting dropped could happen at any moment.

The thing is, even this game (battlefield 1) can have cohesion of tactics and strategy, it entirely depends on the players.

Since matchmaking is a thing, and even servers don't always guarantee a crowd of "regulars", it's difficult to players to form bonds with enough other people (outside of real-life friends) to really engage in a big-picture team effort.

It can happen in these random matchmaking type scenarios, but its rare. And goddamn it can be beautiful.

One of the better games Is actually the US Army shooter made as a recruiting tool. It is super punishing in terms of taking damage and there are no health kits or ammo boxes. You can die instantly from headshots, there’s a bleed-out mechanic and getting low on health causes your character to slow down and limp around. Because of this most matches are slow and tactical because running in Rambo style just gets you killed quickly.

There's a game called Insurgency which is a hyper-realistic (damage-wise) game with no HUD and no hit/kill indicators. It's kind of the accessible arcade-style version of a super tactical sim. Same concept - you run out there, you're fucking toast. Gotta be an operator. I recommend it to people who want a VERY slick-feeling shooter but still like realism/milsim stuff (i dont like milsim crap this game just happens to be good) and lots of tension.

The gametypes are mostly setup for coop against AI bots, but the competitive scene in that game is actually really damned good.