[TerranUp16]

They are often bedeviled as the signature herald of consolization. In fact, the origin of such health systems is often traced to Halo, itself the banner of the consolized FPS. Of course, in the context of Halo regenerative health was really more about regenerative armor. Still, armor vs. health is largely just contextual immersion- the decision to go with a regenerative form of player health was a design. The design itself essentially is to have a character's health regenerate over time whereas previously most games kept a character's health persistent and reliant on health packs, potions, etc... So, in essence, regenerative health simplifies the concept of a health system.

This simplification generally means that players are walking around with full health a majority of the time, with Call of Duty 4 being particularly notable for this style. In singleplayer games, it removes the need to search for health supplements and also keeps the player in top condition for each section of the level, thus in fact breaking the level down into sections that can be completed individually. Ultimately, that makes levels easier to complete because there is no need to alter tactics and decisions predicated on the character's current health and there is no need to manage what health is found and the experience on the whole is less persistent. Because simplification and consolization are often terms that are intertwined... As, in reality, regenerative health has nothing to do with consolization.

Regenerative and non-regenerative health has been used in both console-only and PC-only games. And, in fact, one of the better-known PC-exclusive games that utilizes a regenerative health system is none other than Crysis. Crysis is at its heart one of the most tactical, cerebral FPS games around. At its highest difficulties, it forces the player to assess situations and to develop workable plans to confront them with what is available to the player (the nanosuit and whatever weapons the player has- and the occasional explosive barrel). While Crysis does add layers of complexity to the basic idea of regenerative health by linking that regeneration with the nanosuit and what power the player has presently enabled and thus ultimately the player does do a fair bit of health management (particularly because health regeneration in Crysis is typically slow but the enemies relatively persistent).

But what of the other side of the equation, persistent health? It is typically personified by health packs placed strategically throughout levels by level designers, but persistent health has actually changed and grown since its early implementations. Half-Life's health dispensers were a marked change in that they were often placed in spots that the player would cross multiple times but generally could only offer 75HP of regeneration to the player and thus tapping into that bucket would be a strategic choice particularly given that HL also has health packs. For multiplayer games, persistent health ensures that players cannot just brutally soak-up damage without any consequences (as can often occur in multiplayer games with regenerative health where players will just use brute-force stamina to take-out an enemy and then will just regenerate the health and be ready to go once again with no ill after effects). Of course, regenerative health has the benefit of ensuring that rare are the times where a player will be able to take-out another with one shot of a weak weapon simply because someone else inflicted most of the damage before. Nevertheless, persistent health also often entails strategic placement of health packs or regenerative objects (ala Medic Droids in Star Wars Battlefront) and these become valuable spots to control or deny control of on the map. Notably, Team Fortress, Battlefield, etc... have taken the need for a way to replenish health to heart and have created entire classes based around this. Yet, in no game is this concept more visible and more important than Team Fortress 2. Medics can literally determine whether or not a team loses- partially because of their healing powers and partially because of their ubercharges. Still, ubercharge or not, Heavies are typically ineffective without a Medic for support.

Bioshock personifies another method of persistent health systems. In reality, it adapts the manner in which RPG's handle health into a more accessible FPS format. Players have a health bar, but their health is arguably measured more by how many aid kits they carry and this calls for players to make tough decisions on when to use those and when not to use them. Max Payne utilizes a similar system with its Painkillers but in a drastically different setting. In the first Max Payne, Painkillers are typically very rare and the decision to use them or not to use them can be quite crucial. And, in fact, even once the player chooses to use Painkillers they still require time to work and thus are typically ineffective in the middle of combat (thereby actually combining an element of regenerative health that forces players to take a step back from combat to heal either by finding some good cover or by just backing off but either way still potentially allowing enemies to regroup and reorient themselves). However, though this is sometimes barely perceptible, Max Payne also uses an additional but slight regenerative element- when the player takes a significant amount of damage, there is a threshold of sorts that if the damage goes above... it seems to be about 90%... then a regenerative element will kick in to bring the damage back down to the threshold. This introduces a bit of forgiveness into the system as it typically allows players to absorb ~2-3 light hits before death. But, whereas full regenerative systems grant the player full health, this keeps the player on the edge of death and in order to survive with such requires the player to execute nearly perfectly.

Thus, there do exist hybrid systems that draw elements from both regenerative and persistent health systems. Far Cry 2 is of recent interest as it utilizes a persistent health system like Bioshock where the player can carry syringes and can use those to health themself. However, interestingly, when the player takes damage in Far Cry 2, it depletes the player's health bar- but that bar is divided into ~5 segments. The initial damage will ignore these segments, but in a couple of seconds the game will round-up a player's health. This is of course similar to Max Payne's system, but it expands the usage of such regeneration. It largely negates the effects of light damage thereby rewarding the player for minimizing the amount of damage they have absorbed. Far Cry 2 also adds a nice second twist to the persistent part of its health system by combining syringes and water bottles. Syringes are relatively rare during missions but can heal the player entirely. Water bottles are typically a little easier to find but only heal ~2 bars of health. Where this becomes interesting is the impact that it has on how the player uses syringes- should a player use a syringe to top-off his or her health before entering battle or should the player leave a few bars unfilled in the hopes of finding a water bottle before the situation becomes dire (or figuring that a syringe can be used in combat if needed- but, of course, that takes some time that the player can't use to shoot back at enemies).

So, there are definitely benefits to both methodologies as while persistent health is more complex and deeper and this is often seen as better, it is also not quite as forgiving- and forgiveness should also imo be considered. While Call of Duty 4 provides nearly infinite forgiveness, it at least offsets this with relatively quick deaths (particularly noticeable in CoD 4 multiplayer on Hardcore mode). This ultimately creates a combination that can satisfy gamers looking for both realism and those looking for accessibility, as infantry combat in CoD 4 is actually much more intense than it is in Battlefield 2 and largely because of how weapon effectiveness works out thanks to the different implementations of health systems in both games. However, as noted, persistent health does add deeper and more... well, persistent... elements to games. As additional forms of health management such as Max Payne's Painkillers and Far Cry 2's syringes definitely add appreciable depth and improve the experiences those games offer. Team Fortress 2, as noted, uses persistent health extraordinarily well to emphasize the necessity of the Medic class (granted, StarCraft has a pretty good claim to this as well xD). Yet Crysis utilizes its form of regenerative health in a manner that works for it, by enforcing the concept that the player cannot expose him/herself to the iron sights of more than one enemy at a time and this reinforces the necessity of cover and of using the nanosuit tactically. Crysis maintains a slow enough regeneration rate to still maintain a degree of persistence throughout a battle but nevertheless offers requisite forgiveness to foment both the concept of a supersoldier and to arguably keep the game reasonable (plus, with the ability to regenerate if the player can find some shelter from his/her attackers, Crysis actually can become very intense when the player's health drops starkly and the player needs to extricate him/herself from a situation and this itself often forces the player to use some rather ingenious on-the-fly tactics). Thus, both systems can work when implemented well and it seems increasingly that good implementation actually trends toward a hybridization between both methodologies and ideologies.

So, this being a discussion of course, what are your thoughts on regenerative health? And what other games do you feel have noteworthy health systems that either work exceptionally well or horrifically poorly?