Today on ClashBang.com, I take a look at the popularity of first person shooter video games while defending the goodness of other genres.

A quick look at some of the most popular video games out there include Gears of War for the Xbox 360 and Resistance: Fall of Man for the PlayStation 3. Some other popular games in the genre of first person shooter (FPS) include:

• Halo series
• Half-Life series, including Counter-Strike and all the other mods out there
• Unreal Tournament series
• America’s Army
• Call of Duty series
• Battlefield series
• and many others
  

You’ll notice that I’ve omitted any examples of shooting games on the Wii. Nintendo has traditionally offered a different variety of games mocked by others as “kiddie” or family friendly. I own a Wii, and I personally disagree with it (I’ll go into more detail shortly below). I’ll just mention that there are shooting games for Nintendo systems as well. For the Wii, there is Red Steel. I don’t own this particular game, but it has a horrible reception due to bad graphics and inaccurate gameplay. I do own Starfox: Assault (for the GameCube) though, which has a FPS element to it, but I play it primarily for the spaceship stuff.

Now, I’m not a hater of FPS games. I enjoy playing them from time to time, just as I enjoy playing other genres of games from time to time, like sports titles, simulators, role playing games, adventure games, et cetera. I just don’t think that they’re as good as many would like us to believe.

Is there some sort of manliness gained from shooting at different things? I say this because those who are big fans of these sort of games are the same ones who are quick to bash other genres, labelling them as weak or inferior. This is mostly based in North America, as FPS games don’t find the same amount of success in foreign markets. The Japanese market, for example, is more favourable toward role playing games and games with more of a plot.

More specifically, here are some flaws with FPS games:

• The enemies are all the same. Shoot Nazi soldiers. Shoot aliens. Shoot communists. Shoot monsters or demons. Shoot zombies. Shoot boxes to get bigger guns to shoot enemies with.
• The gameplay: how many times must we do the same thing over and over? FPS games are based on reactions and manual dexterity, so there is a degree of skill involved. However, it gets boring really quickly. To counter this, game designers just give you bigger and better guns as you go along.
• Plot? It doesn’t belong here, nor does it need much explaination. Aliens/monsters/commies/Nazis have attacked, and you’re this superhuman shooting machine out to deliver massive damage. Remember how I mentioned that you get better and better guns as you go along? This is to deal with the game throwing more enemies at you as you progress through the “story.” Here’s a thought. If you’re such a big threat to the bad guys, why don’t they just come at you all at once with a massive attack? Why toy with you by sending a small number of anonymous lackeys at a time?

What I’m trying to say is this: don’t judge gamers of other genres as playing an inferior product. As we can see from the criticism of FPS games, no genre is without its faults. The real point of video games is to escape from reality and have some fun. The definition of fun is different for different people, and just because a game doesn’t involve the killing of others doesn’t mean it can’t be enjoyable, or that it is somehow less intense.

This ClashBang.com article was written by Chris Chu. Tired of privately venting his frustration in vain, Chris decided to share his discontent with the rest of the world.

This entry was posted on Friday, February 16th, 2007 at 4:59 pm and is filed under . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.