Realistic boss fights - can it be done?

[Bushido]

A while back when Max Payne was just released the forum flooded with praise and criticism of it. Most of the criticism was the inane babblings like "...omfg the game's short!" and, "LOLOLOL....he looks like he's taking a shit!!1"

But there was one complaint/criticism that stood out. One that actually got the attention of Remedy. It was the "boss" encounters. Many people loved the gritty Hong Kong action feel of Max Payne, but as soon as they made it to Boris Dime or that satanic dude (hey i can;t remember his name ok! it's been awhile) they were quickly pulled out from the realism and forced to accept that a man could take 2 full clips from a pair of ingrams.

Now, in my opinion, Remedy did everything to emulate a Hong Kong action movie:
-rarely any blood
-lots of bullets in the clips
-no shootdiving deaths
-no running out of bullets when shoodiving (automatic reload)
-gritty/melodramatic noir feel to the story

Some would say that the super human "bosses" were right in the same ballpark for a Hong Kong action flick. Some would disagree. And yet some would even say that the above should be taken out along with the super punks. What do you think? And as Skaven (i believe) asked before, What other methods could be used to create the feel of a "boss" fight without super humans? Because let's face it, a one hit kill on Boris Dime would've been oh so boring, but oh so realistic. And i do recall a LOT of people complaining that we couldn't cap that chick at the end ourselves and Skaven replying, "What, blowing her chopper up and making a slab of concrete fall on it and killing her wasn't enough?"

...maybe. But what's enough? And when does "enough" become "too much"?

[Mongorian]

I think boss fights could use some improvement in Modern action games. There are so many things that have advanced in action games, but the advancements have also found a balance.
We all know realism can be fun, but if a developer goes too far in the name of making a product realistic, it can interfere with the gameplay (Tresspasser comes to mind. sorry nyne images/icons/grin.gif ).

Same with storytelling. A strong narrative is great, but its an action game! Don't forget that killing is the focus here.

Anyway, there are quite a few small things in action games that have NOT advanced. Magical health potions that heal gunshot wounds to the head, being able to carry uber amounts of ammunition in your pocket, and boss fights, to name a few.

Some probably think that just taking these elements completely out of action games would be going too far. Again, a balance between realism and fun. So how can we make them better?

The average goon in a game can be killed quickly. You don't have to unload 2 clips into your average video game enemy just to see him fall. This makes it somewhat realistic, but also fun, because it doesn't pull you out of the game.
However, boss fights in action games seem to just be glorified goon fights, where the only difference is how many times you have to shoot them to make them die. It can pull you out of the game. In Max Payne's case, i know it did.
So, improving it requires to first realize that a boss fight needs to be more than a glorified goon fight. There have to be new gameplay mechanics in place to make it more interesting than a standard fight, and there has to be some balance between realism and fun.

Killing a boss needs to become a bigger scenario. How they stand right now seems to be like this:

A)find biggest gun
B)unload biggest gun into boss
C)kill him.

What if we made it more complex? Take away the big gun and replace it with elements in the environment. Give the boss an advantage besides a higher number of hitpoints. Make killing him fun!

With this in mind, imagine the following. (BTW, I also think how the map is layed out is very important in boss fights. It has to be something more interesting than the other levels in the game.)

You and a boss are facing off in a 3 story house. The boss is on the 3rd floor, and you are in the basement. Lets say you've lost all your weapons, so we can get a bit creative.
The boss is sleeping in a bed. Since you have no guns, you'll have to rely on the environment and your wits to keep him from waking AND finding a way to dispatch of him.
You run up the stairs, into the kitchen, and look for matches. Carefully you open a door into the garage, and find some gasoline which is usually used for a lawn mower.
You go back into the house, slowly tiptoeing around as to not wake the boss up.

You go to the foot of the staircase up to the 3rd floor and notice a smoke alarm. You take the battery out and stick it in your pocket. Then you pour the gasoline onto the foot of the stairs, and toss a match into it. With some luck, he won't wake up until its too late for him to go down the stairs and exit the house through the front door.

This isn't the best example, but it only took me about 10 minutes to come up with. I'm sure developers could pour more time into developing a boss fight than that.

Wow, this became a long post. Hope it was good images/icons/shocked.gif

[subtlesnake]

Fighting the traditional bosses used to involve far more than just sheer brute force, with specific strategies having to be employed. This is what made boss encounters so damn challenging.

The most recent game to use this to good effect was MDK2, with its monstrous bosses that required effective use of the environment to dispatch. For example, to kill the 'BFB' (basically a big floating brain) you had to climb a huge pile of boxes and then drop directly onto him. This would enable you to penetrate his shield and give him a good slapping!

It would be good if Remedy took a similar approach with Max Payne 2, but instead gave the bosses more realistic forms of 'invulnerability'. Maybe the boss could be leaning out of a fast moving vehicle, positioned behind a pile of debris or just protected by a very powerful weapon that forces the player to stay out of sight. You could even restrict the players attacking capabilities, as in the example Mongorian gives.

[ninja-Gaiden]

I have never played Max Payne, but this topic came to my interest.

Personally, I typically don't like boss fights because of 2 reasons. (1) they're way too unrealistic and (2) they're agrivating.

A huge chunk of what kept Metal Gear Solid from being my favorite game ever was the boss fights. I mean, the first fight with Revolver Ocelot was rediculous.... Who runs around in circles until someone has the balls to shoot, when you could just shoot right through that "circle", or in this case, torture chamber. Another problem with boss fights as shown in MGS, is that when you shoot a boss, he falls down, but for SOME REASON, you can't hurt him while he is "getting back up" or "recoperating" for a few seconds. When you shoot Ulga in MGS2, and she leans over, and your bullets don't hurt her until she can shoot you again ring a bell? I'm sorry, but your enemy doesn't wait for you to be on your feet again in a real war.

Now Splinter Cell on the other hand, produced the best boss fight I have ever seen. When you fight Grinko in that slaughter house (or whatever it was), that was extremely realistic. He had the same health stats as any other character, except he was well protected by his men, not to mention he had a good shot.

So if boss fights are done correctly, as shown in Splinter Cell, they're compelling fun, if not, they suck.

[xZero]

I think Boss fights could be left completely out from more realistic games. They are good in no-brainer shooters, like Serious Sam etc.
IMO it could be replaced by making more harder stages of those that need to be crucial climax-points.

For example making the player fight through excessive numbers of enemies, or solving some kind of puzzle. When the player has fought his/her way through the enemies/deathtraps/puzzles, it could be rewarded by ending sequence, or a cutscene.
An example of this could be that you fight through the goons in a house til you get to the baddies room. There the game can go to a scene that shows you (slowly) walking in the room and putting a bullet through the baddies head (having dramatic music playing in the background). I think that could give the player same amount of satisfaction, or more, than unloading a few clips to the same guy.

Mongorians example was also quite good, but would need the incusion of some otherwise insignificant game-mechanics and quite detailed interaction.

IMO MPs ending was executed quite nicely.
It had you fighting the goons, then solving the simple puzzle, which leads to rewarding ending sequence. You didn't need to, and you couldn't shoot the main baddie

I hope that MP2 has more sequences like this. Middle-boss fights in MP didn't really fit in the game. It was quite distracting that you had to shoot 2 clips in the head of the baddie before he falls, which leaded to a cut-scene in a completely diferent room from where you killed him.

Hope I made some sense with my blabbering.

[biXen]

Boss fights were easy way back, they just made the enemy bigger and meaner. When enemies was spaceships who was gonna care.

Now a big man won't take any more bullets, so that's a problem with a game like this. I like the thoughts of some of the guys here, letting him have advantages, or having some certain ways to kill him that is possible to think of, but not just straightforward shooting him.

What I think is a bit fun with Max Payne's ending is that it kind of, in a way, spoils you of finishing the lady off. Say you got a view of her on her back, your gun on her face, and had 10 seconds before the cops got there, how many of us in here wouldn't shoot the mag into her face? Not many, but is there really any difference? Nah.

[poo_al]

I agree with Mongorian.

Though the example he posted may have left more people feeling empty than just blasting the dude. Few people have the patience to play the spying game. I, for one, enjoy this game, as long as it's plenty interactive and can be replayed many times on different paths (that's why I can't wait for STALKER images/icons/wink.gif ).

I enjoyed the way Undying did it's boss fights. After you killed Lizbeth, the bosses had some sort of weakness you had to exploit.

For the dude that got as big as the Hulk (I can't remember his name images/icons/frown.gif ), you had to wait until a mystical dog started attacking him, and shoot a stone out of his staff that was giving his magical powers. Then while he was slightly incapacitated, you had to decapitate him. That took me to a while to figure out (the decapitation).

Another example is when you were fighting Aaron. You'd step into his chamber and a large wooden door would lock behind you. "Now escape." was displayed on the screen, which really freaked me out, because Aaron had no skin, and was hanging in chains making that eirie "dingle" noise. Then you'd reunite him with his jaw, and the fight began. You'd have to dodge his chains, and you couldn't get close enough to chop his head off. I found out how to kill him my accident actually. As he was getting ready to throw his chain (with a grapple at the end), I strafed out of the way, and lo and behold his chain was stuck in that large wooden door. Then you run up to him from behind and just slice.

Those types of bosses make you feel rewarded when you finish them off.

In Max Payne 2, maybe the enemy and you could be involved in a sniping match (not really a match), but that leaves out bullet-time, and has a tendancy for a lot of reloads.

Perhaps something like subtlesnake mentioned, with the enemy leaning ouf a vehicle. I don't know.

Anyway, this topic can be discussed on end, and I'm sleepy. images/icons/wink.gif

[Akari]

It's all code based though. And besides, if they made the bosses like in real life, then it wouldn't be fun. eg, Revolv gets up after Snake shoots him. Snake aims for head. Bam. Dead. That's not fun. Bosses are meant to last cause there the bosses. And a little technically issue back ine the NES day's helped too were bosses REALLY had to last because the carts couldn't hold that much data.

[Hankman]

Bosses with a loth of healt are just fun. Then imagine a boss that hides behind a table 100m away from you with a sniper rifle and that's very difficult to kill... and when you kill him after loading the game 5 times, it's a few lucky bullets that hit and kill him. Wouldn't call that fun. Realism is not always fun, and I'd take fun over realism any day on my games.

[motionblur]

Why all the talk about too much health for boss-fights. Max Paye himself had health like a boss. So if the strong good guy can take a lot of bullets why shouldn't he big bad ones take so much?

I admit that the boss fights of MP also somehow pulled me out of the gameplay a little.
An explanation like that those drugs make him feel no pain anymore and so he can take more bullets until he collapses could be okay.
Another idea would be: Why not have him hide behind something (table, wall etc. - whatever) you cannot reach at the moment and him sending baddies towards you untill noone's left. The he rushes towards you with some really fast shooting guns but isn'T able to stand tooo much bullets. (or you have to shoot something hanging above him in order to hil him...)
... wait. These ideas are all similar to what was already done in MP, now was it?
Or like fortune in MGS2 where you cannot hit the character (only untill a certain point in this case). It shouldn't look too unrealistic, though. Just increrasing the battle length a bit.
I also like how ithe fights are done in Metroid Prime. They can be more unrealistic since it's sci-fi, though.
Ah, what the heck: After all it IS an action GAME. I like boss fights - and I hope the ones in MP2 will be good images/icons/smile.gif

[Champ32]

I think the bosses in MP were fine...
Oh, and wasn't Valkyr originally meant for the military? So, it would probably make them stronger, right? Maybe the bosses were shot up on V and that's why they were harder to kill. And if you consider what's-his-face in the bar at the beginning a boss, then he had the same health as a "goon" I believe. Correct me if I'm wrong.

[Mongorian]

You're wrong. images/icons/smile.gif

Boss fights need to advance like every other aspect of video games have. It used to be bosses were bosses because they had more hitpoints than the goons. But now, with the advancement of storytelling, bosses are bosses because they have more power than a goon. They get their own skin, their own dialogue, and they play a role in the game more significant than a goon.

They didn't become powerful figures because they cant be put down easily, they became powerful because they have dominance over others. They are more important.

I guess what i'm trying to say is that making a boss have more hitpoints than an average goon doesn't cut it anymore, or at least it shouldn't. They should be smarter, craftier, and thus, more difficult to kill. NOT because they have a million hit points, but because they have wits and more sense than a goon.

[ 06-30-2003, 03:00 AM: Message edited by: Mongorian ]

[0marTheZealot]

hmmm bosses...

I really don't like the concept of a hard and fast boss, where he has his own level (aka skyscraper, that valkyr dude). HL1 did a great of putting hard enemies among easy ones (helicopter anyone? it could be considered a boss). If the boss is intersparsed with regular enemies, it would make the game seem even mroe realistic. Honestly, what kind of squad goes w/o its commander. What type of infantry unit has its cavalry come AFTER the unit has been wiped out.

I really think the copter in MP1 should have been firing at you and you hadda either put a nice shot in the cockpit, bringing it down, or make it eat a propelled grenade. The game was already fairly easy images/icons/smile.gif But, like I said, hard and fast bosses aren't really realistic today. It would make sense for the game to flow seamlessly like HL1. There was no real discernable boss, except for Nihilanth and Gonarch. And even Gonarch could be a regular enemy you meet three times. images/icons/smile.gif Anyways, I have faith that Remedy will accomplish this ruff tuff task.

[KillJoy]

In my opinion, bosses should have signifigantly better AI. The better AI the less health points you need.

I dont think that we have good enough AI to put this idea into motion yet, but soon I hope.

[j]

No matter how good the AI is, if you kill the boss with just one shot, it isn't much of a boss-fight.

If a game was aiming for total realism, the "average hitpoints, but smarter" might be a good thing, but I think the way MP1 did boss-fights was good for the purpose of that game.

[Skitso]

What about fast, agile, running, hiding and shoot dodging bosses? One that are just simply hard to hit?

[Warmaster129]

What about a boss with dual miniguns and a pile of debris to hide behind and lesser enemies attacking you and you have to run from pile of debris to pile of debris, working your way towards a final showdown with the boss in an arena type place, whereupon the boss promptly abandons his (or her) miniguns and whips out dual Jackhammers and starts shootdodging?

Ok, ok, I got carried away...

[FullMetalJacket]

Originally posted by motionblur:
Max Payne himself had health like a boss. So if the strong good guy can take a lot of bullets why shouldn't he big bad ones take so much?<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">No he didn't.
Enemy Berettas didn't hurt Max much, but then, they shouldn't have. images/icons/grin.gif
Seriously though, you HAD to take advantage of the dodging and the bullet-time. At close range, one shotgun blast, Ingram burst, or headshot from any weapon often put Max down. Such was not the case with the bosses.

[Mizkreant]

Originally posted by Bushido:

Now, in my opinion, Remedy did everything to emulate a Hong Kong action movie:

-rarely any blood<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">

Rarely any blood? What Hong Kong movies have you been watching? Jackie Chan?

Some would say that the super human "bosses" were right in the same ballpark for a Hong Kong action flick. Some would disagree. And yet some would even say that the above should be taken out along with the super punks. What do you think? And as Skaven (i believe) asked before, What other methods could be used to create the feel of a "boss" fight without super humans? <font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Recently I rented Dead to Rights for my PS2. There's one boss fight in that game which is basically a rail shooter level, but for some reason I really enjoyed it. The boss is riding in an armored limo with two other cars trailing him. You're flying in a chopper tailing them, firing an M60 out the side. Before you face the boss, you have to dismantle the two other cars with gun fire, while avoiding goons who pop out of the sunroof. When you face the boss's car, he quickly pops out once and a while and fires an RPG at you. You have to shoot down the rockets before they hit you. It's hard to shoot the boss directly because he pops out of the sunroof for such a brief time, and its hard to control the crosshair with the analog stick.

This makes the boss seem less superhuman because he's hard to hit, and riding in a bullet reisistant limo. The way I've described it here makes it sound boring, but the way the cars were made, with destuctable tires, hoods, etc. made shooting them up a blast.

[pmikhail]

Lets go back to the great Hong Kong action movies. The boss fights don't involve shooting the last guy a hundred times. The bosses are either killed in an inventive way or are so skillful that hundreds of bullets are fired before he is finally hit.

I don't see what the problem with the MP boss fights were. It is an action GAME after all and realism should always be second place to fun.

[KillJoy]

Enemy AI should take advantage of the shootdodge system, so he is equally as hard to hit as you are. They should also not just run straight at you and repeatedly empty sawed offs into your chest. It works, but who in gods name would get a foot away from a man carrying dual ingrams, and fire a slow reloading weapon?
When designing a boss level, you must look out for what is fun. It is not fun to have to press the quickload key a billion times because there are too many enemies. The player needs to believe what is going on in the level.

Max Payne loses its believability in the temple with captain insano aka Jack Lupino. Having super spawned enemies spring out of the rafters when the one in front of it dies, really didn't thrill me at all. There are many ways to solve this problem however:

- The stage boss fights are very common and in each progressive round you come closer to killing him, usually by means of changing the enviornment and not by your own hands/guns.

-There are the overpowering boss fights where you have to avoid something that the boss is doing in order to stay alive. Then while the boss recovers from the attempted attack on you, you usually attack him. Repeat until dead.

Boss fights in nature are unnrealistic, but realism is not always fun as pmikhail points out. You just need it to be believable enough to make it seem plausible, but fabricatred enough to make it entertaining for the player.


Sorry for the long post, so heres the point/moral:

Quickload battles are not fun.

[Ajaxx]

Personally, my main fault with Max Payne was that none of the bosses did anything cool or slick as you (Max Payne) do. All they seem to do is just stand there with guns blazing or come at you in a straight line while you do all the dodging.

I never complained about it much while playing, because I figured they were saving the "big fight with an equally skilled opponent" for the final stage. You can imagine my disappointment with the actual, rather anti-climatic finale.

For the sequel, I think that bosses should be taken more in the direction of making them more competent and skilled fighters rather than just making them more bullet-proof. Also, There needs to be more variety in the way they come after you and the way you dispose of them.

[RudeBoyGunslingerUK]

Look at bosses of the real world... ie. Saddam Hussein and Bin Ladin, they have had hundred of bombs and assasination attempts, yet they kept escaping like pesky rats. So in that sense there is some realism! images/icons/smile.gif

I dont think the game would be as much fun if Bosses died immediately.

[Bow]

yeah, but they just escaped throughout incompetence of the forces that fought them images/icons/smile.gif

anyway, i think it was good the way it was... images/icons/smile.gif

like pmikhail said, after all it's an action game... if u kill a boss with one shot it would be boring, because it wouldn't be a boss...

[FullMetalJacket]

Originally posted by Bow:
yeah, but they just escaped throughout incompetence of the forces that fought them <font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Whoa, whoa, whoa. WHAT?!

Also, I guess no one noticed this, but in, like, every first person shooter since Half-Life, (for example, in Gunman Chronicles, SOF1, Hitman1 and 2, NOLF1 and 2....) you enemies have been able to do special things like roll, go prone, and do little dodge moves of your own, while all you can do is run up and shoot them.

Ironic that in Max Payne, when the player finally is able to do stunts, the enemies often don't. images/icons/tongue.gif

[Kevin's girl]

There really is no one to make a boss realistic. Most bosses in Max Payne were hard and it took way too many bullets to kill them. They should have had like more thugs or whatever standing around the boss protecting him. Which I think Max Payne did a good job of doing except I had to shoot Gognitti like 20 times to kill him when he was already shot in the stomach. Even then I still don't think he died. Did he? Because Max didn't kill him. Or did he? Help me.

[asker]

Max left Gognitti to bleed to death; that was my understanding, at least. You hear him reset the hammer without firing and see/hear him drop the pistol on the snow.

[Kevin's girl]

Originally posted by asker:
Max left Gognitti to bleed to death; that was my understanding, at least. You hear him reset the hammer without firing and see/hear him drop the pistol on the snow. <font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Okay thanks for answering my question! images/icons/smile.gif

[kemical]

while i enjoy the bosses that take tons of hits in specific areas (*cough* vertical shooters and old arcade gun games images/icons/grin.gif )
it would be cool to do bosses in mp2 in a different way, although its hard to make it convincing...
i guess the main thing i would say is just make it interesting, and make the enemy your fighting have a strong personality, involving different animation just for that character, speech, taunts etc...
i would also suggest and enjoy it if somehow do to story the weapons were matched evenly between u and the boss.. like dual pistols, or each having a rifle with some range between, maybe in an apartment complex where the center is open with stairs/balcony around the center on each floor.. ducking behind pillars and progressing up or down each floor maybe to a final standoff on the roof with only a pistol for each ;D
the bosses need to have good ai but still mixing that ai in with their personality.. you can make bosses dive and roll all you want, but sometimes it just doesnt work right and seems way too stupid/excessive, id say give the bosses bullet time of their own, where they may just be walking along carefree with pistols in each hand grinning and yelling taunts at you, shooting wildly at objects around them tryin to screw with the players head.. they should have really accurate aim, but it should be counterable with bullettime.. same with the boss though, they should be able to be walkin casually and blasting across the room as they literally duck and move behind things while the player is forced to do the same...
but its all complicated and hard to pull off right (obviously) images/icons/tongue.gif

i just remembered a movie i saw, fulltime killer, (hk action), the final fight between the 2 main characters took place in a fireworks factory (#1 interesting place) both characters had insane personality that stood out (#2) one was highly tactical and precise, the other was wild and carefree, the tactical one ended up exploiting a weakness of the other from the story (suffers from epileptic seizures) and the fireworks exploding caused him to have one, unable to control his aim and concentrate the other character easily killed him, although suffering some wounds..

maybe also (Without the player being aware) make it only possible to kill the boss from within a certain small radius.. just trying to shoot from far away does no good (Same with the boss though) until the player works their way up to the boss risking being shot easily and kills the boss... i dunno.. rambling images/icons/wink.gif

Remedy is probably aware of all this stuff though, most of it is pretty obvious, i just hope some things like what i mentioned may be in mp2, they were in mp1 in a sense, just id like to see it done better images/icons/wink.gif

*edit*
also for the final scene in fulltime killer, they both end up meeting in a bar/resturant to have dinner with this other character, they are both professional killers and have respect for each other, then when its time they ride off together in a car to where they will have their shodown, discussing videogames such as metal slug (woot!) and the one guy lets the other guy know that he hid weapons similar to some level in metal slug.... so, more interesting personality that stands out..

tryin to think of some other fights in movies,
i think it would also be cool to have boss fights where instead of wildly shooting it was just an intense scene where both people were at a serious win/lose situation, where it just comes down to the player having faster reflexes or pattern noticing skills in the breathing or subtle movement of the boss.. think of an old western draw/duel typa situation.. or the player and boss are back to back and having conversation in a very uncomfortable and risky situation ;D

[ 07-14-2003, 11:18 AM: Message edited by: kemical ]

[Kevin's girl]

Wow it sounds like you know exactly what you want from the new video game. images/icons/smile.gif Hey thats cool. Some of the things you wanted the bosses to do would make beating them harder for me. LOL Since I'm not that good at beating the bosses in the first game.
But some of your ideas would make the fight more realistic and more challenging for really good gamers.

I hope for your sake the new Max Payne game has what you want. images/icons/smile.gif Even if it makes the bosses more difficult for me to beat. LOL

[Sergei Molotov]

Boss battles bore the pants off me. I don't really see any place for them outside of scrolling shooters and platform games. Those 2 bosses in Half- Life represented some of the worst elements of boss fights.

In fact I preferred the drawn out roasting of the Tentacle Beast - that felt more like a "boss" encounter than Gonarch and William Hague...urrr... I mean Nihilanth.

[Fortune Hunter]

Well again nothing can be perfect and nothing can be 100% realistic or even past 60 or 70 because lets remember that you have to eat/sleep/crap/rest, you cant leap through the air seeing everything in slomo, And i want a show of hands who can "dive" through the air like MP and not hurt themselves, and finnaly this is less so in mp but to Action games in general who can get shot 12 time then after some pain killers run off to get shot some more.

Im not trying to criticize these games because i love them. But what I want to say is how do you make "special" fights? In the movies the bad guys always has some machine or an army which makes the final fight the big one, or they run and chase and fight when finally the hero says goodbye and drops the guy with one bullet. Or you have you movies that have action game style boss fights like MI2 which at the end the two guys beat each other sensless for 10 mins then finnaly one got shot.

I like enter the matrix with their agents. like the mission "agent on board", granted agents are special but he dodged all your bullets until you finally lept of the wall kicked him to the ground and then kick him out of the plane. Granted this is the matrix and things like that can happen but it wasnt me with a vulcan minigun with an ammo chat 3 yards long screaming "die" and shooting from behind a box, and finnally when all 150 shots hit him he just falls over with a little blood dripping from him.

The boss should be unique. Not have an army because then you have just spread his super health out to more people. Have a creative fight. Like him in the back of a swat van hinding behind vests and you driving a car while shooting a berreta out the window. You pop his tires first then you kill the driver, all the while he is shooting at you until is slows. *Cutscene* you spin the he rolls out from being bashed around. BAM! Or you bang the car he is in until he falls out.

Maybe take the chasing guy, vinnie or whatever. You chase him he throws barrels or lights stuff on fire then you shoot him once or twice while running and finnaly he falls behind something and shoots at you for a while you have to not get killed and when runs out cutscene and bam.

Bosses need an upper hand to the other goons and uber-health cant be it. He has to be special like a special gun or obstacles or a robot something.

thats all.

[FullMetalJacket]

Well said, Fortune Hunter.

[j]

Originally posted by Fortune Hunter:
He has to be special like a special gun or obstacles or a robot something.<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">How about a robot and.. spacestations! That would really make the boss something special! Wow!

[Fortune Hunter]

well okay. But like said before he has to be unique. not a super goon. Look at all our Foreign bosses like sadaam. He has missles and an army and stuff, but if we shot him once he would die, we cant cuz we have to worry about the missles and the army.

Thanks FMJ

[Bushido]

Fortune Hunter makes a good point. "unique" boss fights are MUCH better than uber health bosses. We touched on this last time. Having Max Payne fight a rather boring character in an un-boring environment would be awesome. THe SWAT van idea is defintely cool. But there still has to be the payoff of ACTUALLY killing the guy you're after. But yeah, having a unique environment where you can't just kill the bad guy right away would kick ass....Hope Remedy's way ahead of us on this images/icons/smile.gif

[biXen]

But this would mostly be done in the same way Remedy closed off areas you couldn't go to... with lame barriers. Of course everyone sees why it's needed, but it's just annoying. It would be more annoying in a boss fight, typical console shit is that you lose some weapons, and have to take him with some shite and so on. Hate that crap. Satisfying kill is just to get them on their knees with a gun to their head... maybe a bit violent, but it worked for the end of Casino images/icons/wink.gif

[Fortune Hunter]

Well what about Lethal Weapon 4 way in the begining they were up against a guy with big bulletproof metal plating, a flamethrower and a sub machine gun. They had to use a distraction then shoot the valve on the napalm tank to kill him.

Take that character and put him in max payne. He cant be killed by bullets because he is in big heavey armour. So you soot him until the impacts cause him to loose balance and fall over. Then thats where the unique death come in weather you shoot his tank and blow him up or take off his helmet and shoot him

Im just throwing an idea

[FullMetalJacket]

I love your ideas, Fortune Hunter, although that guy at the start of Lethal Weapon 4 was actually using a QA93, which is the pistol form of the M16. Not a submachine gun. images/icons/smile.gif

[Mountain Man]

A few thoughts:

1) Arbitrarily restricting the player is stupid and frustrating. If you've been kicking ass the whole game, then suddenly have a boss encounter where all your weapons are taken away, or he's in an area that makes movement difficult (such as in a garage with oil on the floor) that's just poor game design. Even worse are those bosses who are suspiciously immune to your weapons.

2) Bosses should be more than just regular goons with beefed up hitpoints. Half-Life did a good job with this, always giving you an inventive way to kill the boss monsters, incorporating the encounter into an interesting gameplay sequence.

3) Let the player be creative! Simply pounding away on an insanely strong enemy until he falls over is boring. Give the player an interesting environment to work in!

An example would be, the boss is holed up in a warehouse. You first have to gain access to the warehouse, either by sneaking in the backdoor or gunning down his henchman guarding the front door. Once inside, you have locate his office. You can either run through, guns a blazing or you can disconnect the power, cloaking the building in darkness and stealthly make your way to his office. When you get to his office, he bolts out the window and jumps in a forklift. You grab your own and chase him through the warehouse, ramming him, shooting his vehicle and knocking stacks of crates in his way to try and make him crash. The payoff would be, once you finally disable his vehicle and send it crashing to the ground, you see the boss try and crawl away only be dispatched as his forklift goes up in a blaze of glory.

In this example, the boss is technically no more powerful than you, you're just given a more interesting way to kill him.

[Fortune Hunter]

I thought It looks like a mini M16.
Thanks for the Info on that I always wondered what it was.

To Mountain Man:
Thats exactly what I mean and a very good example. good points as well.

[j]

Originally posted by Mountain Man:
Blahblahblah...You first have to gain access to the warehouse, either by sneaking in the backdoor or gunning down his henchman guarding the front door. Once inside, you have locate his office. You can either run through, guns a blazing or you can disconnect the power, cloaking the building in darkness and stealthly make your way to his office...Blahblahblah<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Only drop all that sneaking, cloaking, stealth and whatnot, this is Max Payne we're talking about, not Hitman.

[Fortune Hunter]

Thinking it ALL over.

I go back to the title.
"Realistic boss fights - can it be done?"

My final answer: no.
The warehouses and stuff are just like the normal levels with a BOSS to FIGHT at the end and even though part of the toughness is getting there but thats no diff then the normal levels.

Take the LAST level. You do the radio pole onto the helicopter. She falls out slightly wounded and shaken. You run up and she pulls out an uzi. Small fight. Pow she is dead after taking a human amount of hits.

but my warehouse and general answer still stands.

thats my final two cents.
Peace

[FullMetalJacket]

Actually the M4 is not that much smaller. It's generally a better weapon, as it's more easily modified and its internal mechanics are better.

[eggyolk]

Sorry I'm a little late on the discussion. You all seem to raise some good points as to how a boss battle should be incorporated. Instead of pounding away at him/her, you need to use the environment to your advantage. I used this a lot in MP1. Remember the gas tanks?

[sir_plague]

All I'll say is involve the environment in the boss fights and let the bosses either flee or wear kevlar and take a few bullets.

More explosions and car wrecks, MP still kicks major ass to this day.

[FullMetalJacket]

If the bosses are wearing Kevlar, there's no way Max could kill them with torso shots from his Beretta. It's not like the bosses would stand still long enough and let Max shoot them enough times for them to die of internal bleeding and bruising. images/icons/rolleyes.gif
All I know is that giving the bosses super-health is way too cliche'd and doesn't work anymore. images/icons/smile.gif

[0marTheZealot]

a "mini" m16 is an m4

[eggyolk]

Personally, I didn't find it too akward when fighting the bosses. Maybe Lupino was a bit unreal, but take in mind, he was souped up on V. Bosses are fine in MP, but maybe you guys at 3DR can improve them a tad more. Incorporating the environments would be nicer. I'll admit, the B.B. fight was nice, having to chase him down the car parking lot.

[Mars]

There should be a boss fight in say, a warehouse full of chemicals and gasoline or something, so you have to be exceedingly careful to not blow everthing including yourself up. Or, perhaps, you should chase a boss through a building that is falling down or on fire. Anything that would allow a more mortal boss to live longer.

[j]

Originally posted by eggyolk:
Bosses are fine in MP, but maybe you guys at 3DR can improve them a tad more.<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">I don't think they'll be able to do that. The nice people at Remedy, however, might be able to do something akin to improvement of the bosses mentioned.

[Commodore]

I think that the boss fights could stand a little change. Like not making them so hard to kill for one thing. Although the original boss fights were alright, they could use a change.

[eggyolk]

Originally posted by j:
</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Originally posted by eggyolk:
Bosses are fine in MP, but maybe you guys at 3DR can improve them a tad more.<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">I don't think they'll be able to do that. The nice people at Remedy, however, might be able to do something akin to improvement of the bosses mentioned. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Aye. So what does 3DR do? images/icons/confused.gif

Level design, correct?

[KillJoy]

Remedy makes the game, top to bottom.

I didn't know what 3DR did, so I looked at their website. Here is a brief thingie on Max Payne 1:

"In 1997 3D Realms teamed up with Finnish developer-on-the-rise Remedy Entertainment to develop an ambitious 3rd-person shooter with a strong character, progressive story and realistic present day setting: Max Payne. This game is a partnership effort, with Remedy handling the game's development, and 3D Realms providing funding, design direction and a marketing plan to create a long-term franchise property much like Duke Nukem has become."

[biXen]

3DR is simply helping with advice and experience, not actual development, in the gamemaking department, additional things are as listed by KillJoy.