I?m not going to argue; I do like first person shooters. I like getting a gun, pointing at the bad guy, pulling the trigger and watching said baddie fall over in a spray of crimson fluids. It might not take the worlds brainiest genius to work out how to play the games. You basically avoid being hit by projectiles such as bullets, rockets and whatever else the enemy may be packing, and you try to hit them with yours. Like a violent game of dodgeball, FPS?s are good for releaving that little voice in your head that tells you to kill everything breathing? what? I?m alone here? Fine, I?ll just add you ?breathers? to the list then!
Only recently did I come to realize something; my top three favourite FPS?s, Bioshock, Half Life and FEAR, all had the ?good batter?. Think of a game like you?re making bread. Add in different ingredients and you could get some raisin toast or spicy cinnamon bread. You could just make white bread, samey, adding nothing new, or you could just crap in the dough and sell it as your special toast. People lap up the latter, complain about the brown chunks but continue eating paying for more and more. (Bad PurpleRain! Very bad metaphor) I think anyone who?s ever played a good selection of FPS?s know what those little brown bits are: driving, escort quests, superenemies.
Now lets sift through the dough and take a closer examination of those. No FPS has gotten driving right and none ever will. Why should we bother to drive in a shooting game anyway? I want to point my weapon at something moving and make it abruptly stop. If I want to race I would play a racing game. The concept is simple enough right? Only to ruin the mood, charging through an environment on a vehicle is that it could crash or explode which is a general occurrence remembering those baddies that are trying to shoot you. This will leave you out in the middle of Nowheresville, anywhere from civilization. Another reason why I can?t stand driving in a shooting game is that when driving, you are very likely to face a new batch of enemies; one?s strong enough that can only be taken down by your vehicle. I don?t want to dogfight in a tank thank you. I want to get to the end of the racetrack and jump out of the thing resuming the mission and the game.
Nah
Escort quests are another horrible idea. They could be good in theory, having to risk your life for the life of the others. But when they decide to run into a wall of bullets without a second thought, I think that their lives are barely worth the effort.
While there are a lot of other things I could rant about in bad FPS?s, like taking it through 3rd person perspective or giving the protagonist the ability to do everything ever (I?m looking at you Bad Company) one with I?d like to stress are the super enemies. At the start of the game you fight moderately skilled bad guys. After a while of fighting you become better at killing them off and give a reassuring chuckle as they hopelessly try to fight for their dear lives. They?re dead. They know it, you know it? have fun *cocks shotgun*. Then blasting through the doors comes the harder bad guys. They are more of a challenge to the rest and keep the action alive. This is great and all, now, when the lesser enemies become extinct and the game moves up in ranks so that you are always matched, the game never really becomes fun. The best level of Quake 2 was the secret room where you find the Super Shotgun. The game throws dozens of weak enemies at you just so you can take the simple pleasure of handing their arses to them of a silver plate.
This is actually just a normal bandit.
Okay, let?s cut the ranting. There?s nothing worse then listening to someone complain about every time he bumps his big toe.
As I said previously, Bioshock, Half Life and FEAR, all had the ?good batter?. The batter being ones where the developer decided not to spice it up with what he had for diner the night before.
I love FEAR. There is little difference range between the enemies and they do try so hard not to die. No zooming out, no complicated storyline, no driving, just full on tactical combat, the way shooters oughta be! At the very start, you become part of the FEAR team, a very clichéd titled squad of anti-supernatural soldiers. ?Sigh, does this mean a few corny one liners are going to be thrown around and squad based combat where they tell you what to do? Hang on? they all died. Sweet.? No big spoiler here as your entire squad cark it within the first 5minutes. You do meet and greet a few allies along the way but the never command you around or get you to protect them from the nasty men with guns. At one point you?re given an escort quest, but god be praised, the little (bad word) gets taken out of your hands by the nice clone soldiers straight away.
Along with FEAR neither Bioshock nor Half Life have any escort missions or driving. Sure, Half Life gets you to drive a train around, but you basically push a button to go and a button to stop. Bioshock does also have one protection missions, but if you mess that up, the game sends you more redshirts down a chute quite literally. You can also escort guards and scientists around the ruined science base of Black Mesa but I generally show them my ol? crowbar to the skull magic trick and leave them in a puddle of their own brains. ?I?m Gordon Freeman! I don?t need your help! I passed highschool, I know how to handle myself!?
I think over time we became to familiar to the crap that?s handed to us demanding to be respected in FPS?s. I mostly give up on games when they give me another driving quest (ahh? Half Life 2 is different. Um, ?I?m Gordon Freeman! I can do whatever I want!?) or hand out stupid objects, forcing you to do them against your own will. It?s more then demeaning, it?s boring. Games sole purpose is to be fun. Once they lose that ability, they?re no longer games? they?re like anti-games from the shadow world or something. Ah? here?s my review of Bad Company to throw you off:
Visuals: 7
Sound: 7
Gameplay: 2 (I'll give it a 2 because walls are so fun to destroy)
Overall: 4
My next mission is where?!

Only recently did I come to realize something; my top three favourite FPS?s, Bioshock, Half Life and FEAR, all had the ?good batter?. Think of a game like you?re making bread. Add in different ingredients and you could get some raisin toast or spicy cinnamon bread. You could just make white bread, samey, adding nothing new, or you could just crap in the dough and sell it as your special toast. People lap up the latter, complain about the brown chunks but continue eating paying for more and more. (Bad PurpleRain! Very bad metaphor) I think anyone who?s ever played a good selection of FPS?s know what those little brown bits are: driving, escort quests, superenemies.
Now lets sift through the dough and take a closer examination of those. No FPS has gotten driving right and none ever will. Why should we bother to drive in a shooting game anyway? I want to point my weapon at something moving and make it abruptly stop. If I want to race I would play a racing game. The concept is simple enough right? Only to ruin the mood, charging through an environment on a vehicle is that it could crash or explode which is a general occurrence remembering those baddies that are trying to shoot you. This will leave you out in the middle of Nowheresville, anywhere from civilization. Another reason why I can?t stand driving in a shooting game is that when driving, you are very likely to face a new batch of enemies; one?s strong enough that can only be taken down by your vehicle. I don?t want to dogfight in a tank thank you. I want to get to the end of the racetrack and jump out of the thing resuming the mission and the game.

Nah
Escort quests are another horrible idea. They could be good in theory, having to risk your life for the life of the others. But when they decide to run into a wall of bullets without a second thought, I think that their lives are barely worth the effort.
While there are a lot of other things I could rant about in bad FPS?s, like taking it through 3rd person perspective or giving the protagonist the ability to do everything ever (I?m looking at you Bad Company) one with I?d like to stress are the super enemies. At the start of the game you fight moderately skilled bad guys. After a while of fighting you become better at killing them off and give a reassuring chuckle as they hopelessly try to fight for their dear lives. They?re dead. They know it, you know it? have fun *cocks shotgun*. Then blasting through the doors comes the harder bad guys. They are more of a challenge to the rest and keep the action alive. This is great and all, now, when the lesser enemies become extinct and the game moves up in ranks so that you are always matched, the game never really becomes fun. The best level of Quake 2 was the secret room where you find the Super Shotgun. The game throws dozens of weak enemies at you just so you can take the simple pleasure of handing their arses to them of a silver plate.

This is actually just a normal bandit.
Okay, let?s cut the ranting. There?s nothing worse then listening to someone complain about every time he bumps his big toe.
As I said previously, Bioshock, Half Life and FEAR, all had the ?good batter?. The batter being ones where the developer decided not to spice it up with what he had for diner the night before.
I love FEAR. There is little difference range between the enemies and they do try so hard not to die. No zooming out, no complicated storyline, no driving, just full on tactical combat, the way shooters oughta be! At the very start, you become part of the FEAR team, a very clichéd titled squad of anti-supernatural soldiers. ?Sigh, does this mean a few corny one liners are going to be thrown around and squad based combat where they tell you what to do? Hang on? they all died. Sweet.? No big spoiler here as your entire squad cark it within the first 5minutes. You do meet and greet a few allies along the way but the never command you around or get you to protect them from the nasty men with guns. At one point you?re given an escort quest, but god be praised, the little (bad word) gets taken out of your hands by the nice clone soldiers straight away.
Along with FEAR neither Bioshock nor Half Life have any escort missions or driving. Sure, Half Life gets you to drive a train around, but you basically push a button to go and a button to stop. Bioshock does also have one protection missions, but if you mess that up, the game sends you more redshirts down a chute quite literally. You can also escort guards and scientists around the ruined science base of Black Mesa but I generally show them my ol? crowbar to the skull magic trick and leave them in a puddle of their own brains. ?I?m Gordon Freeman! I don?t need your help! I passed highschool, I know how to handle myself!?
I think over time we became to familiar to the crap that?s handed to us demanding to be respected in FPS?s. I mostly give up on games when they give me another driving quest (ahh? Half Life 2 is different. Um, ?I?m Gordon Freeman! I can do whatever I want!?) or hand out stupid objects, forcing you to do them against your own will. It?s more then demeaning, it?s boring. Games sole purpose is to be fun. Once they lose that ability, they?re no longer games? they?re like anti-games from the shadow world or something. Ah? here?s my review of Bad Company to throw you off:
Visuals: 7
Sound: 7
Gameplay: 2 (I'll give it a 2 because walls are so fun to destroy)
Overall: 4

My next mission is where?!